It has been my unofficial plan to post blog entries on a monthly basis by default, unless special events occur within Vradical’s doorstep. It seems however, so much has occurred towards the close of of March and start of April this year. ‘Change’ seems to be the theme for Vradical during the past weeks before this very post is made.

Faction Power Shift

Vradical officially bids a sad farewell to the following members who had been an integral part of the faction: Deseus, DeadRoses, Gackto, Vandread, Barredolicious and Cookie. We’ll sorely miss them in the days to come.

Some of the above names held deputy leadership. As such, their exodus created empty seats which have been filled by the following members who now take the deputy spotlight for the faction: Tarotaro and Fetuccini

As a heads up, faction leadership will soon change hands after the first week of April ends. Yes, we will soon have a new faction leader…

‘Raid Points’ System

Hrin mentioned in one of her old blog article (7th January 08) as a member of our old ally WoG, that many major factions in SGE adopted a ‘point’ system to manage raid activities. I believe it’s time to shed some light into this phenomena in GE.

Many MMOGs tend to have a common downside: raids require massive player coordination. Certain games exhibit this problem to a smaller degree. Sadly for GE, this is major problem faced by nearly all player factions. GE content is restricted based on achieving goals of faction-reputations, quality of gear, attunements, etc.. It is safe to say that the higher tier content can only be accessible to players who make the effort to acquire high-end game equipment from conducting boss raids. There is no secret formula to staying strong in SGE Cervantes; attend Raids

Raid participation requires almost military-like adherence to schedules that just aren’t realistic for many people. This is a common MMOG problem which is not limited to only GE. Hence factions like Vradical came up with a ‘raid point’ system that essentially:

Step 1. Reward members who attend faction activities with individual ‘raid points’ at varying value

Step 2. Allow members to spend accumulated ‘raid points’, to bid for acquisition of items looted from raids

This 2-step system was a fair and tested ruling that served Vradical well. The only catch to enable such a system to run: A need for selfless members willing to manage raid attendance and point rewarding.

Vradical has recently started semi-automating ‘raid point’ system via using a custom software program (designed by me) to manage Step 1 above. ‘Raid points’ compiling from activity attendance is now supported by automated calculation and database update. Without revealing too much of this program to non-faction members, here’s a sample of what is currently being used:

From the above picture, any listed raid activities and point value can be custom created along with registered any faction member names. The automated attendance compiling reduces or removes human errors from previously manual handling of the ‘raid point’ compiling. Currently there are plans to launch a server based version of this program (already waiting for use) which allows real time sharing of information between leaders tasked with Step 1.

As you can see, the changes that occurred or about to occur are doubtlessly significant for Vradical. Regardless of the outcome, one thing remains certain: we can view them as problems or opportunities – it’s all a matter of perspective. Will God’s blessing, may our new leaders and the new tool provided help this faction in months to come.