(Wow....I haven't written one of these in a LONG time) Okay, there seems to be a lot of hype about this lately: particularly around competition time or when we have a major campaign going. I decided it was time to toss out a post instead of re-explaining myself over-and-over again in multiple PM's on IRC.
We have a good number of people who have multiple accounts (in other words characters in the StormtrooperCorps/Imperial Navy/Dark Jedi Order) and by all means that is fine. It gives them a taste of each part of the Vast Empire; and by all means if they can keep up with their activty: all the power to them. In the meantime, those members because they are in different divisions try and bring a little of that division back to the Stormtrooper Corps (and vice-versa may be occuring, but I'm only in the 'corps so...). Now, normally it is not a problem that this is happening, but it's getting to a point now that people are expecting us to mimic what the other divisions are doing. This is not to discourage the forming of new ideas (or to insult the other divisions), but to remind you all that we all do things different for a reason. Just as two people don't do things the same way, two divisions don't operate the same way! In particular this is being brought up in two main areas: writing storynet posts and creating competitions.
Writing Storynet Posts: While we encourage you to write posts to the best of your ability, they don't always need to be overly long and overly descriptive. If you can do a long and descriptive post, that's fine. If you can't: you won't be penalized for it. The purpose of anything we do here is to have fun, and the way things are being run lately: I can't see how this can be anything but fun. Yes, some order needs to be maintained; but that only goes so far. Storynet posts need to make sense, move the story along, have everything spelled right, AND be in properly-composed 3rd-person perspective sentences (except when someone is talking). Other than that, any and all posts are acceptable. There is going to be NONE of this 400-word minimum or 600-word minimum or ANYTHING along those lines. This is not school....you are NOT turning this in to your English teacher. Obviously in the DJO they have certain....standards they'd like you to live up to: but we are not IN the DJO. Just post
NOTE: As some of us old-veterans have pointed out, back in the day some posts were a paragraph long but still moved the story along. (You were lucky back then if you had time to get our 3 paragraphs before someone beat you to posting.)
Creating Competitions: Competitions are made to encourage activity, NOT arguing. Too much work goes into them to have what goes on for the past year or so. The Navy might do otherwise, but here we DO NOT count web games as official activity. There will only be platform games allowed and NO there will not be any scaling down because some people dont have any. Those that can...will play. Those that can't....will participate in what they can. No one complains about those that can't do graphics or anything....the only thing they complain about is gaming. Sorry to sound eliteist, but that's how it's going to be. In most cases, the old formats will still hold true for modern competitions rules and all. Some variations will be made, but that will be determined by the times we're in and NOT beacuse some people can't participate (or won't) in a particular category. (There are other examples than gaming I could give, but I think you guys get the idea)
NOTE: On a side note, give the people running the competition enough credit to decide wether or not something's being done right. Accusations don't need to be flung at other members/squads cause someone feels they're cheating. If something isn't right it'll either be fixed or not counted: it's as simple as that. (Sometimes, us higher-ups know more than you give us credit for). There are some instances in which it is appropriate to have things brought to an official's attention: but that should be reserved for real serious situations.
I'd like to apologize to anyone that DOES take offense to this post. Please remember that it is NOT meant to offend you, but rather inform those in the Corps that we all have our own way of running things and usually we run things the way we do cause we know they'll work. I'll be happy to debate/answer questions on anything you might have: but please keep it to a PM or if need be, we'll arrange a group meeting in my office.
