Enthusiasm

TTY31208.01.30 

These changes are very interesting. It seems like the power generation of my Bio armor is vastly improved although from the sounds being made by counter part, he doesn’t seem very happy with the changes done to his Hazmat gear. I was given the opportunity to try some new skills out with this latest mainframe update and so far I’m impressed. The versatility of the Immunity ability is amazing. I think it’s very powerful, almost too powerful, but all the same it seems very situational. I’m pretty pleased with the changes especially some of the changes that have impacted our economy. I will write more later this week as I get more experience with these changes.

TTY31208.01.28

Hot news on the wire, apprently mainframe update 1.4 is being applied to the AFS central network tomorrow. I’m pretty anxious for this update because there are a lot of changes being made to existing systems which are… problematic. I will be issuing a full report later this week. For now I’m going to get some paperwork done early this week so that later this week I can file a full report on my opinion of these ground breaking changes.

TTY31208.01.25

I got a little bored of all the lava and fiery death that exists within the Crucible so I decided to take a little trip up north. If there’s one thing my counterpart and I agree upon, it’s that knowledge IS power. I love power, so I’m taking the time to collect every piece of logos knowledge I can find. I had collected everything I had up until Crucible and I thought I’d explore Thunderhead and the Ashen Desert to see if I could acquire any more logos. I was sadly mistaken. While I wasn’t quite ready for Thunderhead I was able to reach Ashen Desert and interestingly enough I was given some assignments to complete. These missions where difficult, but the rewards were well worth the effort. I was amazed at how different the landscape here was. I’ve never seen a Desert before and it was quite… barren. The stench of death was everywhere in the air so I felt quite at home. One interesting thing I found when I was exploring was the existence of Xanx. This is the first time I had seen Xanx on this Planet if memory serves me correctly. It’s interesting how there are some species that exist on both planets. I’d have to assume this is either by Eloh or Neph interfierance.

 TTY31208.01.23

Tonight was the first night I was able to spend a full night with Roland as a Guardian. We focused on completing all the assignments given to us in the Mires. Overall it seems like Roland is excited about his new Guardianship. He was particularly excited to be showing off his staff skills, bashing thax’s faces in, charging them with a rushing blow, just to beat their faces in more. Up until this point I had been leading Roland around doing the majority of the killing with my injection gun because he hadn’t been training abilities that were not guardian focused. Now that he is finally a guardian he’s destroying the Thrax and now I can sit back, relax, and keep him alive. It’s a job I do well and quite thoroughly enjoy.

 TTY31208.01.21 

After finishing my assignments in Marshes I headed back to Plateau for a wormhole ride to the Crucible. I’m not quite sure why they call it that. Maybe the Foreans are a little more practicle in how they name areas of land. When I arrived I met up with an old favorite creature I had learned to have a love hate relationship with since I left Foreas and came to this planet, Flaregnashers. Once again these beatiful but deadly puppies have filled my day with entertainment, although their large pack numbers in this area of the planet are… less than desireable.

One interesting thing stood out in the rest of the events of the evening while I’m a seasoned Exobilogist, I found a Biotechnician here just on the cusp of recieving his Medic training. Somehow he was actually making slight headway killing Thrax near the main base. After spending some time with this courageous cowboy, I asked him to join our clan. He graciously accepted. He’s going to be a good clanmate, I can feel it.

Volunteer organizations exist in all shapes and sizes. Team based sports are a type of volunteer organization that most people are familiar with, but a specific kind of team based sport most are not familiar with is a guild in an online game. Guilds can be defined simply as a group of players, ranging in numbers of a few dozen to several hundred, who play an online game together regularly under the leadership of a single or multiple other players. A guild leader faces the same organizational challenges that a coach faces when organizing a purely volunteer baseball team. Through proper planning, anyone with the aptitude for leadership can create and maintain a richly rewarding guild that will hold up to the test of time.

Individuals contribute time, effort, and in some cases money to participate in organizations they want to be a part of or believe in. Unfortunately, the definition of participation is different for everyone. Some people believe that simply being associated with the organization is enough; while others will give their all to make sure the goals of the organization is achieved. Deciding on what level of participate that is wanted from people in a guild can be difficult. Online organizations also face unique challenges which include geographical differences, ever changing personal schedules, and the barriers of online communication. All of these issues play a role in not only acquiring the right people, but keeping those individuals who will define your organization over time.

When creating a guild, the first step should be to take the time to define it. This process should include not only defining policy and procedures of how the guild should operate, but also clearly state the feeling of the guild. Some guild leaders create a militaristic style guild with hyper focused goals while others might choose a laid back structure which promotes a family style atmosphere. Regardless of how one defines the feeling of a guild, clearly defining it ensures that the people who are recruited into the guild feel the same as the person who formed it. There also needs to be clearly written policies including a code of conduct, disciplinary steps, and some kind of recruitment or evaluation process. All these policies should give structure and support the written vision of the guild. These steps are no different than those a corporation takes to define a mission statement and write an employee handbook. Every document written in these early days of a clan, builds a solid foundation for the creation that is being built.

No organization of significant size can be lead by a single person. Choosing the correct people as officers of a guild can be one of the single actions that can result in the failure of even the best planned guild. Thankfully if the guild is clearly defined, attracting the correct people to help lead an organization will come with time. While previous leadership or managerial experience is helpful, having motivation for leadership and having a high belief mission of the guild result in stronger officers. Strong officers will help lower the stress and responsibilities of a guild leader, allowing the leader to focus on maintaining direction and guiding the guild, not running it.

Creating and leading a guild can be a daunting process, but if a guild leader follows the appropriate steps during creation it highly increases the success rate of a guild. Many guilds don’t plan correctly in the beginning, inevitably resulting in the failure of the guild after only a few months. The investment of a few days of planning can increase the longevity of a guild from a few months to several years.

TTY31208.01.18

Once a week as a clan we try to get together to participate in war games to keep our skills sharp. This week our head of recruitment decided to do something extra ordinary. We all got in our “Friday Best”, headed out to the exact point we all started as recruits, and that’s when the fun began. Several people chipped in for the prize. A prize to be won by the first person to run to the staging point in Palisades. 

Many took different routes because we weren’t wearing our normal armor. We had to run by Thrax which if given the opportunity could kill us in a few shots. Many used “drafting” techniques to allow runners in front of them to get hit and then run by safely. I myself used it in Divide as we passed a bane hunting patrol party on the road near Foxtrot. When we finally reached Palisades many took different routes. My route was simple, I pushed toward the southern edge, then back up to fithik trench. Once at the trench, this was the hardest leg of the run. Many of us were neck and neck, I made it out in front with a little adrenaline left to push into the lead. I had the cave in my sights when all of a sudden out of nowhere Consequence jumps off the mountain and heads directly into the cave. Over radio channels people were screaming. People could hear me saying “HOW?!? Where did he come from?”. I lost the race by mere seconds, about 8 second to be exact. It was a fun event and built up the spirits of our troops. I’m looking forward to what our officers come up with next week.

TTY31208.01.16

Today Roland received his Guardian certification promotion. He is fully trained in staves and starting his training in Vortex. I’m pretty excited about this news because that means we’re going to be completing missions together again. He is finally caught up to me and now we’re receiving assignments that we can complete as a team.

The officers of the Browncoats had a big meeting this evening which went late into the night concerning the future of the clan. Right now while we have plenty of folks in the clan, we’re concerned about the some of the levels of participate in our ranks. While we have plenty that are highly involved in forming squads and working with others, we have some folks who seem to lurk in the shadows. We’re going to be busy writing policy documents in the coming weeks and improving the quality of our membership over the mass quantity it is right now.

Many experts say that those who have a life plan and write it down, 85% are happy with their lives. I’d probaby say that of those 15% those that aren’t happy at least the majory are happy with the direction their life is going. Why? Because they plan.

I’m a planner. I always have been. That’s why I love DeVry so much because the way it’s setup it allows me to plan and track my progress easily. So why haven’t I been planning my road to wieght loss? Because I just hadn’t yet. So now I have. If you look on my links on the navigation bar of my blog, there should be a link to my weight loss spreadsheet.

There it is, black and white (well there’s some color on the graph ). But the point is now I am fully planning for the future. I think my plan is realistic too. I’m planning (and counting on) losing quickly then after that I plan on losing at a slower rate. I’ll update this daily and start keeping myself accountable to working out and watching my weight. As I get close to my target I *might* re-evaluate my target weight.

TTY31208.01.14

No, I haven’t been on vacation this entire time. When I did get back from my “vacation” I had some much paperwork and other things to catch up on I haven’t had time to write in my medical log. Here’s some updates on what’s been happening since I got back. Soriathus has been doing great and is now mastering the arts of Exobilogy. He’s mastered the ability to sustain a temporary clone of himself on the battlefield which fights along side him. The closest person I can call a brother in this crazy world, Brison Roland, has been working on his commando training and tomorrow completes his certification for promotion as a full Guardian. He’s even been doing some “advanced placement” training and should have his full guardian staff certification on day-zero.

The clan has been doing really well and though we’re over 100 members, it seems like quite a few are AWOL. We’re currently tracking them all down and if they don’t shape up we’ll have to replace them. Missions, war games, and squad training has been commencing regularly every week and Kall, our Scheduling Officer has been starting to kick things into high gear. Mandros, our Recruitment Officer has been doing a fine job doing direct recruitment with individuals through various channels. The future is bright and we’re all looking forward to the new year. Hopefully every year from here out will be better than the last.