First of all I'd like to apologize for a few things. First, I'm sorry for not being able to figure out and decide on a good rank system. I know it's frustrating and many of you probably don't understand why. I can't promise to get it right this time either, and since so few people contribute to these kinds of things, I am only left with what I think is best, which some people may not agree with. But I can't know if you guys don't agree unless you speak up. That's why I always post a discussion topic about it before any decisions are made. Yet I only get 3-4 people actually respond, who generally are not the ones that have an issue with it. Make your voice heard. If you have an idea or criticism, let me know. I think I've shown I'm flexible with how this clan is run. The current rank system is a product of that.
Second, I apologize for the lack of activity and leadership in general for the past few months. Obviously the clan is nowhere close to what it was when we first launched, and most of that is due to me getting two jobs that take up a lot of my time. Back when the clan launched, if some of you recall, I was living in Chicago with no job, so 80% of my time was spent building this clan up. Now I spend far far less time on it, and it's frustrating on my part. I'm sure it's even more frustrating to you. Especially in the case of trials and ranks, because they involve taking a lot of time to go through, many of your trials have been sidelined over and over. I have always had a huge to-do list for this clan and sometimes trials get put on the backburner, which makes you guys feel like you are forgotten or not worth my time or what have you. That's not true. I try hard not to play favorites in this clan either, which I know a lot of people always worry about. If someone gets promoted before you do it's probably because they were eligible before you were in some cases, or they applied for a role before you did. It's not because I'm promoting people I like more before those that I don't like. Obviously if I didn't like you, you wouldn't even be in this clan.
What's changing
My aim this time around is to restore my vision for the clan to focus on a casual experience. A couple years ago we morphed the ranks into focusing more on individual skills as the basis for the ranks. Eventually we changed those skill-based ranks to be roles as subranks of the core ranks. This made the ranks a bit more interesting in theory, but added a lot of bloat that wasn't being taken advantage of. So now, I'm trimming the fat from the system and make it much more simple and hopefully easier for everyone to both understand and rank up in some cases.
Roles are gone. Before, roles were specialized jobs that gave people certain abilities and only those people could do them. It also restricted people from entering the Master rank before getting all 4 roles. For a very large clan, this would have worked out. But in reality, we aren't large, we will probably never be large, so we don't need that. So what's happening to those jobs that roles had? I shall tell you.
Sentinels are now just the clan's competitive team. This is similar to what Sentinels were before. You apply to be a Sentinel and have to be aware of what you are signing up for: a competitive team that will be taking clan matches seriously and train for. If you sign up and maybe just want to learn and practice to be good enough to compete, that's also fine; however you would need to accept and prepare to be benched on match days if the team leaders feel you aren't ready. Team leaders can also choose to have applicants try out for the team before they are accepted.
Any rank can join the Sentinels
Only Jedi Knights can be team leaders
Team leaders are chosen from within the sentinels
If you want to sign up for the Sentinels, do so at shadoworder.com/sentinels.
Consulars are also similar to what they were before. They are event hosts. You apply for the Consular position same as before, but there is no full trial involved with becoming a Consular, other than maybe some quick questions regarding your plans for events if you are accepted. The council still has to approve your application, so for example if you have been an issue at a previous event in the past, that would greatly play a factor in you becoming someone that hosts events.
Events still must be requested and approved by the council via a draft write-up
A council member may need to be required to attend events in some cases, like if you need a special server mod or settings changed via rcon
the Council will be the "team leaders" of the Consulars, essentially, if you were to compare to Sentinels
You can sign up for Consulars at shadoworder.com/consulars
Assassins and Shadows are dismantled completely.
You could still consider these as "roles" but they no longer play a factor in anything rank related, and are completely separate entities.
You can be a Sentinel and Consular if you wish.
Master rank no longer has prerequisites. Before, Master required you to have all 4 roles. Now, it's just another rank to attain after Jedi Knight. Once you reach Master, that's the highest rank you can attain without being chosen for Council. This means you have shown great loyalty, given lots of your time and effort, and proven to be a great asset to the clan in all ways. You'd gain more freedom in this rank if you were to host events and such because you would know how things work around here by the time you reach this rank.
Trials are a bit shorter and easier. Trial maps are super fun, but they definitely had a skill requirement, which went against my vision for them. They should be a fun way to celebrate your promotion, but not stifle your ability to get promoted in a clan that focuses on being a casual player. So now trial maps will be slightly easier to get through, so someone that can't dedicate many hours a day to get better at circle jumping will be able to get promoted. I will say, that those of you that did struggle before but ended up passing are super impressive by doing so, and I still encourage you to practice at things like that to get better!
Overall this should streamline the whole process of trialing, promotions, event planning, and clan match participation. This clan needs activity to be successful, and to have as many ways to be easily active as possible, and I think this will vastly improve that.
What happens to people currently in roles
Anyone who is currently in a role will stay in that role unless otherwise specified. If you are a Sentinel or Assassin, then you are a Sentinel. If you joined Sentinel for reasons other than participating in clan matches, don't hesitate to resign. I may check with you guys to make sure, but definitely let me know now if you'd like to be removed. The Sentinels should be competitive-minded players that want to do their best against other clans. If you are currently a Consular, you are still a consular and can host events just like before.
Master/Apprentice system
This system is basically the same, but I actually didn't announce the change to this from before. Masters can be Jedi Knight or above. Before, it was limited to Master ranks but since we had a demand for it before anyone was a Master rank, I lowered it to Jedi Knight (which lines up with canon for those that were wondering). Teaching is not limited to this system; it's just a chance for people to dedicate a more 1-1 approach in learning and teaching, following a Master's curriculum. This is generally for learning saber combat and movement, but it can also involve other things.
So in closing, I just want to reiterate my apology from the top of this post. Hopefully you guys don't want to kill me for all this. I had help in deciding this from the Council, so shout-out to them for bearing with me and making sense of all this. And just like before, please talk to me if you hate anything that is in place currently or you have a grievance towards me or something about the clan. I want to cater to as many people as possible. And if you're scared of me, hopefully you feel safe talking to one of the council members instead.
Thanks for sticking around. I know there are other clans you could choose. Some are much more active. Hopefully you stay because you enjoy what we've got going on, and I hope to keep that spirit alive but also improve it in any way possible.
I'm not adding a TL;DR even though I know half of you hate reading long posts, but definitely take a few minutes to read it all.
