WIJ Newsletter Edition #14

Join Date: 2010-09-14
Post Count: 11729

#199396487Saturday, October 01, 2016 1:58 AM GMT

WIJ Newsletter Edition 14 [0.0] Contents [0.1] Summary/Announcements [0.2] Information on field promotions [0.3] Information and a brief history on wACE [0.4] Possible effects of wACE [0.5] Argumentative: effectiveness of field promotions [0.1] Summary/Announcements Check out this edition for some information on the current situation in WIJ! There are some details on wACE and its history, along with a rough guide for the field promotions. If you haven't heard, we have a Discord channel now. Ask for a link on the WIJ wall. [0.2] Information on field promotions After Mainframe 4 bit the dust, it was decided that we'd revert back to field promotions - partially because we don't have a mainframe right now. While we don’t have a current official ruleset for the field promotions, we mainly use our old system from when Mainframe 3 went down. This information is all based off of the instructions given to the officer council, though there are potentially new or altered details that may emerge later. > What are field promotions? This is a pretty simple system where people can be promoted immediately in the field, assuming they're eligible. Eligibility is based on how long the WIJ member has been at their current rank and how many recommendations they has. > Promotion to Specialist Being promoted to Specialist is extremely easy. Just impress a Lieutenant+ at a training, defense, or raid, and they'll either promote you or, if it's a Lieutenant, recommend your promotion. Promotions to Specialist can be given with no recommendations, although at least one is preferred. > Promotion to Corporal Promotions to Corporal are also pretty easy - after a few recommendations, typically at least 3-5, you'll be eligible for promotion. Promotions to Corporal are slightly staggered; if you're promoted to Specialist on Tuesday, you won't be promoted to Corporal on Wednesday. That being said, the stagger period for Corporal is pretty short. We generally like to keep it around a week minimum, though in some circumstances it can be longer or shorter. > Promotion to Sergeant ranks Going for a promotion to Sergeant takes a bit more time. You'll need significantly more recommendations - usually at least 10 - and it's also heavily staggered. Sergeants are the lowest rank with power, albeit not much, but we still regulate this rank to protect against potential incidents. Eligibility for a promotion to Sergeant is generally three to four weeks after your promotion to Corporal, assuming you're a model WIJ member that everybody loves. It can definitely take longer than three weeks, so don't be surprised by that. [ written by Z007 ] [0.3] Information and a brief history on wACE wACE was released about a week ago. In this article, you’ll find a little bit of history and information on the new system. > Brief History wACE has been a work in progress for a while. Originally, it was announced as wARC Title Update 2 by SilentSwords. However, that project was abandoned because Silent was busy working on his money-making games. After a while, the project was taken up by Voile. He and a couple others worked on the project, renamed wACE, and Cerulean II, which is now scrapped due to balancing issues. Thus, wACE is currently acting as an integration into Indigo II. They also freshened up the design in Indigo II with the wACE retrofit. Check out the base on WIJGames’s profile! > What about INDG levels? We realized that it'd be absolutely insane to make everyone work for those INDG levels again, so we actually got rid of that. Now, we're going back to a system similar to the original Indigo - points. Unlike Indigo I, however, which provided guns from just kills, the points system rewards you for not only kills but also assists, multi-kills, etc. > Vehicles? If you’ve been to Indigo II a lot, you’ve probably seen a Rusher here and there. These aren’t actually implemented into the game itself, but are simply part of the wACE suite - therefore, they can be spawned by admins. The presence of the rushers in the wACE suite indicates that one of our future bases may feature vehicle compatibility. Stay tuned for more information on that in our next newsletter! General improvements to Indigo II include a space juice upgrade, new visual effects, interactive items, and more. [ written by Z007 ] [0.4] Possible effects of wACE The release of wACE adds another question: what happens now? We don't have any wars or additional raid races currently planned, so I'll leave that to your imagination. As you have probably noticed, we did get a pretty decent activity surge with this new tech. Although the entire group isn’t entirely active, we are active enough that it’s pretty common to find a server with several WIJ members defending. This does open the door for some promotions to the Sergeant ranks, which paves the way for a promotion to Lieutenant! Keep in mind that, since we're using field promotions now, you'll be able to get some promotions pretty easily at Indigo II. Defend raids, and have fun with the new tech! [ written by Z007 ] [0.5] Argumentative: effectiveness of field promotions With this current (and likely temporary) system of promotions, it does raise an important question: is it effective? Generally, the argument against this system is fast, disorderly promotions. That's the very reason that WIJ tossed our original field promotion system and decided to go for a mainframe. After the third mainframe failed, however, we needed a new system pretty fast. Of course, we resorted to field promotions. In that ordeal, we managed to iron the main kinks in the system, giving us a pretty reliable promotion system. Now, with a year or two more under our belts, we're back at field promotions. This time, we have the experience of the first two field promotion systems to give us some insight this time around. Thus, in theory, this should be a very effective means of promotion. That being said, we won't really see the true efficacy of this system until WIJ's activity is back in full spring - which will hopefully be in the next couple of weeks. [ written by Z007 ]

Z007

Join Date: 2010-09-14
Post Count: 11729

#199396536Saturday, October 01, 2016 1:59 AM GMT

an additional article, which for some reason was blocking me from posting the newsletter: [0.6] Should we continue hosting trainings or just resort to raids and defenses for promotions? Since the start of the clan world, high ranks have relied heavily on trainings for member advancement and promotions. However, there has always been the discussion that training is not what happens in actual combat, and that many of the things done in trainings are not anything related to combat, like obstacle courses. For many people trainings seem pointless; therefore, they would rather skip trainings and go to events like raids and defenses. Although I see both sides in this, I personally feel that trainings are important because they give us, as high ranks, the ability to get to know members a little better than just during combat. Trainings are slower paced in the sense that they aren’t constant combat, so there is more time for talking, directions and suggestions for individual trainees. Trainings are also good because they teach teamwork skills, and can really show trainees the importance of communication with your teammates during combat. Also, some training places use a variety of clan weapons which allows for raid training if you have access to another clan’s tech. That being said, there are some aspects of trainings that are pointless; the obstacle courses, knowledge quizzes, or ‘lap running’. If trainings are going to be used to judge an individual's performance, they should be judged strictly on combat and communication; things that are important and relevant to the battlefield. With the release of new WIJ tech, training bases will need to be overhauled before they can be used effectively which will take time. For the near future there is a much greater importance for raids and defenses because WIJ members are using current tech and are able to be accurately evaluated on performance. Eventually I am sure there will be adequate training facilities and these will then need to be utilized as well to keep everyone on their toes so that raids and defenses can happen successfully. [ written by Logman79 ]