Talk:Medals/archive

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General comment: The medals should be listed in order of importance, less to most on the website.

New Comment: I tried to incorporate the proposal 2 scheme, but ran into the issue that proposal two didn't have a scheme per se. I do realize it is a rough draft.

New new Comment: I will create a new proposal and work on proposal 1 and proposal 3 at the same time. Proposal 3 will be the same medals, but stackable instead of gradient.

New new new Comment: I've filled in the gaps on Proposal 1 to have a comprehensive and flexible system of medals. I've reorder the categories more inline with the general importance/difficulty of the category. I've also move the Combat Medals rules to the end of the proposal. ALSO, brackets [] indicate non-final placeholder names or reference information applicable to the previous comment or title.

New new nwe new Comment: The scheme here has pretty much written itself. A natural bias to participation has come out of the process of writting this proposal. This is actually ideal. It means that the RS-Wides can reward participation, but the fleet level medals can specifically reward top skilled performers, such as the a medal that is for an ITOD's overall top scorer, or the person with the most kills within a MP event. This allows the RS-wide medals from getting too much into the details of individual games, while rewarding the level of participation within the individual games. I've also spent some time on spell checking and narrowing naming conventions a little bit.


Propose 1 and 2 aren't that far off from each other. I'll make propose 3 that will incorporate what it appears we need for MP and ITOD'ing. I don't think MP medals can match ITOD medals, but that almost everyting except MP can fall under ITOD'ing, except maybe something like ICTE which can and should be covered under fleet medals.

The terminology also needs to be unified to aid this discussion. For example, under proposal 2, many of the Service medals would fall under combat in proposal 1 (and the current RS system).

--Super 1:50pm PDT 7/20/06

Actually, there is some difficulty in using the scheme from proposal 2 because propose 2 doesn't have a scheme. I've looked at it and can find any patterns to work with. I realize it is a rough draft. Instead of creating a new proposal, I'm going to add to proposal 1 to include service. I'm not sure we should be adding squadron awards to the RS-Wide menu, but I think we could move up some individual contributions awards from the fleet level to the RS-Wide level. For the next week or so, Proposal 1 will be fluid. Please feel free to make comments about it as i progress.

--Super 1:50pm PDT 7/20/06

I think it would be cool if all the medals showed up on the uniform page.... Most medals have thumbnail pics that (I think, Im not technical with the site and stuff) would probly go easily on the uniform.... I dont like giving out a graduation medal and having the new recruit ask, "Why arent my medals showing up?" Just seems a little half-baked to me, no offence to anyone. ":P

--Graff Starkiller 12:36 CST 7/21/06

Although it might be cool, the graphics part of the DB can only handle a certain number of medals and some uniforms would be unduly cluttered.

--Spokes

Super is correct that the purposals aren't that different from each other, I just made a second one to have on of play arround with. I think the most immedate differece inbetween the purposals in the difference in terminology used in creating them. This is something that should likely be addressed via a seperate discussion so we can firmly agree on terms thus making it easier to communicate ideas between each other.

Currently, the draft doesn't have a scheme, I was just making stuff up the top of my head, the extral link to the 2004 purposal is much more of what I had in mind (and the direction Super's going in as well). I'm still re-researching real life military medals since they gave me quite a bit of inspirations on how things are/can be done. I'm hoping to make some headway this weekend but they're a lot to do with it.

As for the medals on the uniform page, yes they should. In general all the medals we keep/update/create need graphic tun-ups as well. But for simplicity sake, I'd be up for having ribbion on the uniforms as medals are awarded.

Anyway, I got a lot on the mind in reguards to inter-fleet (RS Medals), Fleet medals, and Academy/graduation medals (though, i imagine this will inevitable depend on how that system is organized administratively) and the like. There are clear cut examples of medals which don't need to be awarded by every fleet and likewise there are lots of medals where are just different fleet's variations of each other.

Anyway, back to work.

--Rekio 12:56, 22 July 2006 (EDT)

Graduation Medals
This category should include awards from the Fleet training institutions. Better yet, convert the fleet training medals converted to pin which would be "displayed" on the BP Ribbon. Not sure how that looks ascetically, but in terms of realism, I can see it on a uniform. Maybe we should call these "training" or "academy" medals?

"Service" Medals
I'm not sure if I'd rather to refer to these as "veteran" medals or not. And again, I's rather see one medals with some sort of extension. e.g. a medallion that gets bronze addition for every additional year, silver for every 5, etc.

Combat Medals
ITOD medals might be best served as a series of fleet medals, since only 2-3 fleets would currently use them. Though, I'd like to seem them stick with a general format as purpose here with uniform criteria, but all the fleets to come up with their own name variations.

I'm torn on what to do with the MP Medals. As an alternative, I'd rather see the effort put into the merits system instead, and then associating an award or honor or induction into some order based on merit rank. Otherwise, considering the lack of MP in the RS, I think these medals seem somewhat unlikely to be awarded. Awards for unbelievable, unexpected, and whatever have you types of activity should be award in for the form of merit/general awards.

Likewise, with "special combat" medals, their criteria seem a bit extraneous consider more available alternatives. Also, the "New Republic Medal of Honor" should be the highest award in the RS and award for some pseudo-god like service and dedication to the RS, thus is completely inappropriate in this category.

Special Tour of Duty should remain as a historical (you can only earn it during the competition) Combat Citation for participation in larger competition, such as ORWs, Celestial Fury, ect. I would also really like the idea of naming them "___ Combat Citation" and filling in the blanks with the fictional representation of what was going on. e.g. Minos Combat Citation for the Minos War in the Minos Cluster in 1998, etc.

Honorary
Honorary membership is what it says, honorary, reserved for special guests (SW actors, authors, etc.) and should only be awarded to individuals outside of the RS membership - sort of a "civilian" award.

Commendation
Merit awards, general awards, commendation or whatever you call them, should be the biggest category of medals (10 or so) and should have general (even ambiguous if you will) awarding criteria so that they may apply to all members of RS and equally used in each of the fleets. The highest award in this category should be the New Republic Medal of Honor. We need to add more medals here each with a different level of precedence.

I like Super's use of levels, it creates a clear order of precedence across categories of medals which I neglected to think about in my initial proposal in 2004. I also like how he's taken to renaming some of the more awkward medals which as has always been a pet peeve of mine and enjoy the use of in-universe names to apply achievements.

An additional category to add should be "Unit Awards" which would have General RS equivalent of medals like squadron citations, and Top Squadron medals and the like, but perhaps have individual fleet criteria.

Anyway those are my comments for now. Later this weekend I'm going to create examples of what I have in mine since these will serve as notes for then.

--Rekio 14:29, 22 July 2006 (EDT)

Thought I would throw in my two cents here :P From what I see I am liking Proposal 1. I did have a problem with the "Required 1 hour or two hours to earn said medel" But now that I have seen the way it seems it will work I am more willing to back it. I also like Rekio's idea about the "Blank Combat Cluster" for combat in a certain system or ITOD or what not. Anyways that is my thoughts right now. Hopefully they will be better next time.

Eric Skrevski - July 23rd, 00:49 AM

As you can see, I started to explore the use of (or at least getting inspiration from) the canon Allianceand New Republic awards. I did my best to rank them in order of precedence, but this is just a start. There are also a few other canon awards from the Old Republic and Clone Wars eras with a nice ring to it, but the more comtemperory Alliance medals would be more likly from an in universe stance. More to come.

--Rekio 13:49, 23 July 2006 (EDT)

(From Rahj): I briefly discussed this with Licah recently, but can I ask at large, what is wrong with the current medal system where it warrants an entire revamp? I'm not asking this question because I believe it's not required, it very well may need it, but before trying to tackle any problem with an entire host of new ideas, I think it would be sensible to describe what the problem is, because any new proposal should be working towards fixing that problem. From reading this top to bottom, I don't see what the problem is? (and if I'm supposed to put comments like this elsewhere, let me know - I'm new to the wiki thingy) --Moved by Super to Discussion page

Rahj, Ok, basically, the current system is nearly completely useless to MP, and is a bit outdated on the other stuff too. The problem has come up because there's no way for me to award my crew for their participation on a metered, consistant, and repeatable basis. This is for several reasons. Such as, many of the medals just simply don't apply to anything directly. They are nebulus in definition, and even more unpredictable in useage. Traditions have been set up for how the medals are issued (and many of these traditions are themselves outdated), but nothing formal, and nothing to look forward to when making goals for persons who are pursuing a career for their RS persona. This leads into the fact that there is no hiarchy scheme that makes it clear what medals are of higher importance. Also, there's a jumbled mess as to what is covered at the Rs-wide level and what is covered at the Fleet level. These proposals are attempts to bring order to the system by establishing criteria, hiarchy and filling in the BIG HUGE BEYOND BELIEF gaps within the current system. My goal is to create a proposal that uses as much of the current system as possible, expand it in the appropriate directions, bring about structure that is inherient to the system but not yet fully realized, while continueing in the process to create an experience which is unique to the RS and our values. Please let me know if you feel there is something beyond these comments that needs to be addressed.

--Super 3:00pm PDT 7/23/06

A general comment about stacked awards or career awards. I'm against is setting up medals that focus on career rewarding as opposed to actual specific participation. The reward for building one's career is the promotions one gets. The medals that show how long someone has been an active member is Service Medals. I know that some persons may want the opportunity at every award, and I just don't see how that's fair to the super members who really achieve something way beyond everyone else. For example, does everyone in the U.S. Military Service ever have a chance at the Congressional Medal of Honor? And if they did, what value would it have? Just some thoughts.

--Super 4:50pm PDT 7/23/06

I'm not a 100% sold on the idea of using overall hours of participation. Some events may be 3 days, and some may be 30. So, I was thinking of using a daily average of participation as the criteria for events of 3 days (a weekend) or longer. Matches would still be worth an established amount of time towards the total in the way already described.

--Super 5:31pm PDT 7/23/06

Graduation Medals - I still like the idea of including game "pins" from the other training instutions.


Service Medals - I actually like the system as it was, which was very driect and simple. The new one, though more intresting, is much more complex and its hard to tell with a simple glance how long someone has been in the club which is pretty much the purpose of the medal since its a 'give me' medal.


Combat Medals (TOD) -

  • General Tour of Duty Pin - its another 'give me' type medal which is fine for the begginer and academy types, but won't hold much value to older members.
  • Distinguished Alliance Citation - what's an example of "tremendous overall skill and tenacity not only within each mission, but also in support of the overall event?"
  • Yavin Victory Citation - Same with the Distinguished Alliance Citation, but also what constitutes as "self-sacrificially supported fellow members and/or the event organizer in some unusual or difficult way?" Does a recepient of this medal need to meet all of the criteria or just the majority of it?


Combat Medals (MP) -

  • General Theater of Operations Pin - How will this function? Will you receive one everytime you participate in a event? What about events like the ICTE that are every week, or the WoW which are every few months; will you receive one pin for each or for every time you participate.
  • Valiance Combat, Gallantry Key, Distinguished Heroism & Endor Victory Citations - I think the cirteria on these should vary depending on the game. There's no way to make it completely equal across all platforms, but we should try our best to set it up relative to the situation for each game. For example older games (XvT, XWA, JK, etc.) are still played but it is a lot harder to find competition.


Combat Medals (Special) -

  • Violet Cluster - I've always thought this was a lame medal, because it translated to "you tried, but sucked bad" in real terms. I think it would be a lot better to just award a general Commendation medal for the good effort in combination with like on the the MP Combat medals.
  • Alliance Dagger, Golden Eyes, New Republic Medal of Honor - same as with the Violet Cluster, these make more sense as a combintaion of Commendations and MP Combat medals. I never did get wtf extreme foresight in the heat of battle is, and thus never liked Golden Eyes anyway (plus is sounds silly). I will forever fold in my personal oppinion that the New Republic Medal of Honor is grossly misplaced as a Combat medal.
  • I would personally perfer to just wipe the Special Combat medals and place the Binaural & Cadrel Citations in this categorey as well as future citations.


Honarary Medals - Again, I'd like to see this used exclusively for non-RS members such as guests and the like.


Unit Commendation Medals -

  • Organizational Recognition Medal - I really didn't like this at first, but after thinking about it, I actually think it is a good idea. The name is a little funky though.
  • Unit Commendation (Levels 2-6) - In my 2004 purposal, I had included the Meritorious, Valorous, and Fleet Commander's Unit Commendations because that made sense at the time. But looking back on it now, I don't see a real need to have them for general use. I haven't personally see a lot of use from this line of award, so maybe that's why I no longer see a logic in a sequential series of awards. Maybe if we could think up some examples to put in in perspective, but otherwise I'd like to stick with just the Organizational Recognition, Unit Commendation, and Elite Unit Commendation (which I had intended to replace the FC's Unit Commendation).


Commendation Medals-

  • Master Duty Commendation - I really don't like this name, its doesn't seem to fit in with the others.
  • Kessel Cup - If we had to choose one of these names to keep, I'd rather stick with Distinguished Service Cross.
  • Excellency of Service - I think this is an awkward name for such a prestegious award. It should probably be name either Medal of Honor or Coruscant Star of Valor.
  • I'm not really excited about any of these names, but I could live with them if we have to (which I probably will). I'd still like to see more Commendation medals (at least 2-3 more) and would like to work in Corellian Cross, Nebula Award, and Burdine Cluster as some possible names or ideas for names.
  • We should also work on some examples of what these would be awarded for; again, to help put the differences between them in perspective.

--Rekio 11:31, 24 July 2006 (EDT)

Rekio, Though your comments are appreciated, many of them might be competitive commentary (not a bad thang, just a different way of thinking about thangs). You've made some good points on several issues that I will be addressing soon within the proposal.

Generally first: Names, of course, can be adjusted to new medals. But changes to names of current medals, and their intended purposes should be made sparingly, not open for wholesale revamping. There is history here in the RS around these medals and messing too much with that devalues them and why they were issued. Simply not issuing older medals in favor of newer ones is not any different than cancelling the older ones, even if you leave them on the uniform. I will do my best to mitigate this in my changes to proposal 1. As far as the other comments:

On Graduation Medals: We just implemented this system and it seems to be working well. It would not be appropriate to mess with it by replacing brand new medals with brand-newer medals that do the same thang. The purpose of these medals is represent completed tasks within the RS itself and have nothing really to do with games or SW fiction.

On Service Medals: One medal per year for 16 years? Now that is silly. Need I not remind anyone that the RS is actually 11 years old already, and yes, we do have members who have been active nearly that whole time. I would suggested the commentary about the proposed system being overly complex is over stating one's case. Stacked medals are pretty common practice for online clubs, and this represents a *very* basic use of stacking.

On Combat Medals ITOD: 1. Nothing wrong with give-me medals. The U.S. Armed forces have them for this same purpose, except the difference is they make brand new ones for every operation, and this proposal simply creates a standard one for all but the most special operations.

2. The commentary asking for examples is kinda ironic, given that proposal 2 is nothing but the reward of undefined success. It is necessary to give some leeway to the nominating officers for these medals, especially for ITOD'ing. The descriptions provide guidance for that purpose.

On Combat Medals MP: As stated within the proposal itself, criteria is established separately for each game and standardized in a way that makes the medals relevent across gaming platforms.

On Special Combat Medals: Maybe they can be combined with Commendation. I'm looking into that now.

On Special TOD: Those two medals are one-time only. Should we create any further such TOD medals, this category should be segrated from other types of medals in some way. The category is for special event medals created for one time use.

On Honorary Well, I think the current usage of this category speaks for itself.

On Unit Commendation Medals Yeah, I was thinking the same thang, and the only difference is in the names. It seems we both intended to make a comprehensive system orginally.

On Commendation Medals 1. On the name to replace the Excellancy of Duty...yeah, we need to come up with sumfin. Any ideas?

2. Well, even though the name Kessel Cup is not so original, none of the others are either, and this medal has the most history between them, so it's my preference to stick with tradition on this one. Besides that, my critism of using the cross symbology for anything SW is ironic at best. lol

That's all for now. :)

--Super Morning of 7/24/06

Rekio's comments addressed with changes to the Proposal 1. Also, no modification will be made to MP medals concerning criteria. Simply, longer events will allow for more opportunity to get the higher medals. However, additions may be made to the MP to account for realistic XvT and XWA activity levels.

--Super 5:31pm PDT 7/23/06

I turned Proposal 2 into a notepad, just because it helps me to have things written out as I think about them. I think I came up with a reasonable alternative to the hours and hours of game play which would be nigh impossible in XvT and XWA - this was based on previous WoW data. Also did some renaming of combat medals, and organized the TOD medals into more of a graduated system (in my ind at least). I the enjoyed the inclusion of Alvace Star and I don't know why but I like Duty Commendation a lot better than "master duty." I'm not really feeling Distinguished Lance - maybe replace this with one of the other canon names? If we're keeping the Medal of Honor, the best possible replacement for Excellency of Service is the Coruscant Star of Valor, which is the highest existing New Republic award (which is very appropriate since we're part of the NR fictionally).

--Rekio 11:31, 25 July 2006 (EDT)

1) As much as I do dislike the name "Excellency of Service", this is such a prestigious medal that I find it hard to justify changing its name just cuz I don't like it.

2) On the Alternative hours to matches conversions, we can adjust the standard criteria a bit to be more inclusive with the number of matches added to the notepad for XvT/XWA. The idea in using hours is to give a standard criteria that each fleet can then use to define for themselves (hopefully acting responsibly in how it comes up with the definitions :) ).

3) On the disguished lance name...yeah, I know. It's a place holder. I'd like to avoid the use of "cross" (or even "crescent") anything cuz there's no such symbology in SW per se, and its use is actually ironic given the inspiration for idea of the Force. However, as a matter of military tradition here on earth :), I like the idea of using the word Disguished in the title of the third highest medal. Maybe Distinguished Corellian [Saber].

--Super 12:45pm PDT 7/25/06

Hmm, alternative names ...

  • Distinguished Service Medal (very plain)
  • Distinguished Service Cluster (a little more SW-ish)
  • Star of Distinguished Service (liking this the best)

--Rekio 07:38, 26 July 2006 (EDT)

next try

Since we already have a distinguished medal and it's sitting right there, might as well use it. Again, can't justify renaming it unless there's a really good reason. Maybe the fact that we don't want the word "service" to show up on a commendation medal name?

BTW, I like the notepad version of the mp and tod medals, and the tod medal criteria.

Also (REVISED) The division I see between game specific combat medals and general rs-wide combat medals is that the rs-wide medals reward participation. This participation is applicable to all gamings or even other genre such as writing and simming. The combat medals for specific acheivements such as top ace, most kills, most wins, etc should be established at the fleet level, per the notepad example or similar set up.

--Super morning of 7/26/06

Licah's comments

I'm going to comment first, then read others' comments later, so, sorry if I duplicate anyone...

  • Service Medals: Stacking is nice, but I think we should keep the current system, because it's very clear. The titles of the current medals might be renamed: 1-year Veteran Service Medal.. or perhaps 1-year Service Medal... Veteran Medal, grade 1.. But I prefer the current system.
  • ITOD Combat: Ah, I really like the idea of rewarding number of narratives. However, the only reward is for 100%. Perhaps we can also make/incorporate one for 50%, etc.?
  • Multiplayer Combat: How about "Combat Pin" for Level 1? Also, it's a little odd to break the 2^x... 1, 2, 4, 7, 14; consider 8 and 16 for the last two? I think the clearly defined hierarchy here, and specific objectives, is excellent.
  • Honorary Medals: It doesn't really pertain to our discussion here, but I'm considering making multiple levels of Honorary Membership, with different medals depending on the type. But that will be a separate discussion.
  • Unit Commendation Medals: Ah! I really like this. However, perhaps that Level 1 medal is a higher level? It just seems odd to place it below Unit Commendation. Also, we need more difference in wording than just "exemplary" and "remarkable", because those can refer to the same thing.
  • Commendation Medals: Mm. A lot to discuss here. My main problem with this is the use of previously existing medals - I think I will actually make some edits on this one to make sure the previous medals retain their appropriate worth.
  • General Comments: Not sure I agree with the categories being ranked too - Honorary is below a bunch of stuff - do we really need to rank categories? I don't see how such a ranking would conflict.
  • Retired Medals: There shouldn't be too many of these, although I will grant that there will be some. I might make a list of retired medals and why they are being deactivated.
  • That's all for now... -Licah Fox 16:20, 31 July 2006 (EDT)
Okay, I've made my way through the discussion page now. Rekio, I understand why you want the NRMoH to be the highest commendation, but you basically want the EoS to be renamed to NRMoH, and the current NRMoH to be renamed to something entirely new. I'm not sure that the club as a whole will be cool with that. I've put MoH back under Combat, because that's what it's always been known as in the RS.
Several comments have been made on things like: what to do about ITOD not applying to more than 2-3 fleets, what to do about different games of medals, how different MP competitions compare to each other -- I think that kind of thing can be ironed out in the specifics. We can hammer those out now if you want to.
Going to make an attempt at bringing together common fleet medals now. -Licah Fox 18:18, 31 July 2006 (EDT)

replies

"what to do about ITOD not applying to more than 2-3 fleets, what to do about different games of medals, how different MP competitions compare to each other"

1)As mentioned before, the ITOD medals can be aplied to all but the vanguard with very little stretching. We can change them to be TOD instead of ITOD to make it clear they can been applied across the board.

2)The Proposal adresses all MP games thru a common term "Hours" which can be defined and applied by rules established by each fleet for the games and match-types they support. Also, longer competitions allow for more opportunity at the higher medals.

I really dislike how we've broken up the parallels between the SP and MP combat medals. If you're going to insist that the Medal of Honor stay a combat medal, it should be the highest level (7?) in both SP and MP and more or less given for some extreme amount of performance. What about switching the Alliance Dagger to Level 6 and creating a SP equal to that, and then replacing the Greoop Defense with Endor Victory again? This would allow us to continue using the AD and MOH, but still have the parallels between the SP and Mp medals.

I am going by historical use, because I want to make sure we don't drastically change the usage of any of the medals. NRMoH has never been awarded for SP. Also, AD should technically be "Extraordinary Performance", lvl 5, but that one isn't as important. Anyways, if you don't like rewarding for skill in combat, then we need to simply retire NRMoH and AD, something I don't think people are going to be too happy with. -Licah Fox 09:19, 1 August 2006 (EDT)

Commendation and Unit Commendation should be removed from the fleet level, period. With a good structure like we’ve set up for the RS wide medals, fleet Commendations and Unit Commendations would be redundant. The idea is to get people to pull from a common set of medals so that they can draw parallels between their accomplishments regardless of what fleet they're in. If that makes sense …

Okay . . . that sounds possible, if quite tricky to get into from the current system. I think it would work, though. -Licah Fox 09:19, 1 August 2006 (EDT)

I think Super and I were both leaning toward the idea that fleet medals would most be awards specific to their individual activates and competitions, where RS wide medals didn't cover them. Since most of the RS Wide combat medals concentrate on rewarding participation, the fleet medals would logically tend toward concentrating on performance, i.e. Top Gun, Top Squad, Best Writer, etc. It would be nice to move a general pool of these to RS Wide medals, but since not all fleets operate universally, it'd be hard consolidate them past standardizing the sp/mp participation and (unit) commendation as we have done.

I believe the fleet medals you've mentioned can all be standardized, but we may need to keep a few certain fleet medals due to uniqueness: AF "Gimpy", perhaps?. However: Top Gun can be applied across the board as "top performer for that month at the game", which works for ABG, AF, and VF, too; Top Squad, same; Best Writer can be turned into "most skilled and best portrayal of the SW universe", or whatever, which again works for any unit. -Licah Fox 09:19, 1 August 2006 (EDT)

--Rekio 07:13, 1 August 2006 (EDT)

The MoH has been awarded for SP a few times under the criteria negotiated by Rahj, Ben Jenzer (MO) and Spokes. It is a VERY high standard:

1. The Pilot (there was no Commando SP at the time) must fly every mission in the ITOD on time, (no narratives and no "0" fillers can be substituted for flying), 2. The Pilot must have the most Kills during the ITOD, and 3. The Pilot must have the highest total Score.

Also, just FYI, the MoH can NOT be awarded again for the same accomplishment. e.g., Spokes was awarded the MoH for PBF ITOD 3 and is no longer eligible for the MoH for PBF ITODs. I use Spokes as an example because he repeated the accomplishment in PBF ITODs 4,5 & 6. Spokes met the above criteria for RgF ITOD 3, but was not nominated or awarded a MoH probably because the criteria is not written down anywhere in the Medals DB and this shows that the criteria for every Medal needs to be clear and easily accessible.

Also, just an aside, the MoH has ALWAYS been the highest COMBAT Medal in the RS, very similar to the United States' Congressional MoH. Other Medals are used to acknowledge non-combat contributions to the RS.

Spokes, 16 August 2006

comment 1

I agree with rekio. It is appropiate to retire any fleet level commendation medals, in favor of using the rs-wide commendations.

UPDATE: ok, maybe not retire them all, but the point is to standard to the rs-wide medals. Are "Beyond belief" medals really needed? But perhaps "Pilot of the Week" medals will still have a place

comment 2

Fleet level combat and unit-combat medals should be expanded appropriately to suit the games, gameplay and competitions supported by each individual fleet. We can use a template (cross between licah's and rekio's) in which all fleet medals should follow, and have them max at lvl 7.

Matches to hours values

With the MP combat medals being based on standardize time of play, the Medal Officer should have the authority to make guidelines and have final approve for the number of minutes which a match equals. This should be based on the game in question, and the type of gameplay on that game. Fleet CO's will use the MO's guidelines to create a proposal for each game and gameplay type. The Medal Officer will eithegr approve the propsoal, or request more information or adjustments.

Reguarding Fleet Medals

I really think that the RS Commendation Medals can more than cover anything in this group. This also encourages the use of the commendation medals instead of the fleet making their own. I think the general consensus Super and I reached was that RS Medals would reward participation and effort whereas the fleet medals could be reserved to award performance (e.g. top gun, top squad) etc. Otherwise, I think the general outline provided is a good one. If the intention is to have the fleet conform using this structure, we might just as well consider making them RS Wide as well just to keep them standardized. I don't know if that's the right direction or not, I suppose it depends on whether or not the Fleets themselves support such a move. I thought that it might be nice to have a "non-combat duty" medal section to reward things like mission building, recruiting, etc. but alternatively this would be sufficient reason to award commendations to these people. I suppose the question is do we want to consolidate and organize the medals into just a multi-purpose selection of RS wide medals or are we willing to have also willing to have some fleet specific medals that share a common structure?

--Rekio 09:26, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

MoH as SP and MP

Ok, in response to Spoke’s SP comments regarding the MoH, I have an idea. We can apply the MoH to both SP and MP. It will be listed under MP sub-category, but it will have SP criteria in its description. But we will limit it to only be awarded by the FC directly, and may only nominated by the the individual’s Commander or higher individual within the CoC, or the Medal Officer.

After a long discussion with Super, we came up with criteria for the Alliance Dagger and the MoH. The MoH incorporates both MP and SP criteria and is consistent with the hish standard required for SP in the past. I'll spell out the old SP criteria later.

~Spokes

I'm playing around

I'm playing around with this template for Fleet medals atCommando Division Medals. So far, the template doesn't match CD activities in Fiction, and I'm not sure the listed medal purposes are going to work across the board. I'll continue working on a CD version of this template just to see how I would do it for CD and how that would vary from the Fleet template. Any areas not covered by the fleet template will likely be filled in by the CD's own Fleet medals if we implement the Fleet template as is.

--Super

I don't think there's any way to standardize down to a single medal for performance level because there's just no fair way to equate MP with ITOD. Perhaps we should modfiy the template to separate MP performance from ITOD, like with RS-Wide medals. These medals just aren't going to mean the same thang between the fleets, but some will get them for very little work at the same time, some will get them for tons of work. I'm more in favor of each fleet following this template, but maintaining their own medals. I'm going to cointue working on the CD medals page, but focus on CD needs partiuclarly.

--Super


For the record, text representations are gheybuttsecks. I understand the RS is against ID lines and listing medals in such a fashion, but text representations are both really, really old school and unbelievably lame looking.

--Rekio 05:31, 5 September 2006 (EDT)

On Uniforms

Yes!!!!!!! :)

They only exception to ribbons of medals change that we may consider is the medals that go around the neck might still be best shown as such in the uniform, as in the MoH and EoS.

--Super

Specificity

I know there's prolly a desire by some to make the Club Commendation medals be for specific type of acts, but the idea behind this system is to remove much of the specificity in order to allow these Commendation medals to have broad ranging applications. By being specific, we are grading what each type of task is worth in comparison to other different and often unrealted tasks, instead of giving the exectuive staff the ability to determine the level of commendation that is warrented for the activity. The level is not to be based on on the type of task, but instead the scale of the results of that task.

Notes from Dave

I've just finished editing some of the wording of the Club commendation medals to be a little more descriptive. I believe I have remained true to the intent you guys have for the categories. That being said, I do have some suggestions about the medals themselves:

  • The Violet Cluster. The plan calls for the Violet Cluster to be phased out. In trying to form a coherent and logical system of medals, I don't think we should lose track of fun. The Violet Cluster is a fun medal. People enjoy both giving and getting the medal, because it rewards them precisely because they didn't excel. It's humorous to receive a medal for getting your ship blown up in a mission. I think that the VC should be added back in somewhere here. Maybe in the combat medals, maybe as a miscellaneous commendation medal. It should just be available somewhere. We don't want to sacrifice fun just because it's hard to fit in to an arbitary systematization.
  • Alvace Star and Burdine Cluster. I don't want to offend anyone, but I'm not overly taken with these names. It's not that I'm crotchety about new names in general, because I'm okay with Iridium Spire. But these two in particular are not really inspiring. Since the Golden Eyes are being phased out, why not attach that name to one of these two? Or perhaps we could reuse the name Eye of the Jedi? If it's possible to use an older name, I think it's a good idea. If adamantly opposed, we could do something at least more connected with RS fiction. Instead of Alvace Star, for example, it could be Greeop Star. Instead of Burdine Cluster, it could be Kalidor Cluster (recalling both the X-Wing medal and our old Kalidor Wing).

--Dave 22:27, 11 September 2006 (EDT)

Dave, For the most part, I appreciate your changes. I did remove the redundant statement in Alvace Star. The first two sentences said the same thang twice, and the comparison with another medal is unnecessary. On the names Alvace Star and Burdine Cluster, I agree that Burdine Cluster is a bit bland, but I (and others) do like Alvace Star. We originally decided to go with Burdine Cluster cuz there was a gap in the system (see discussions regarding Alliance Dagger), and Burdine Cluster plugs right in straight over from "canon". The name is more favorable than other "canon" names for medals of similar rank. Oh, on the VC, we can move it to Fleet Medals, depending on how Fleet Medals are handled. --Super morning of Sept 12, 2006

Rekio pointed me to this proposal today and looking over it at first glance I am quite impressed by the setup of the medals here, along with the more descriptive uses for the medals, as well as tiering the system. I have a few comments though on some of the medal guidlines and a query on another medal I would like to make though.


MP Combat medal guidelines. The discussion on hours of gameplay with relation to how many matches would be the hour equivalent. If a person were to take the time length of an XvT match (which is 10 mins) a person should be able to play 6 matches in that time frame. However, in reality, or at least my experience, a person cannot get six matches into one hour because of the time it takes to find people, set up the match, and any other sort of necessary things to do during the competition (screenshots for ex, or small chat with the opponents). In my experience I think the most games I have ever played in an hour is 4, possibly 5, simply because of the time in between matches to reset the game parameters and get ss's or whatever. So personally, I think this should be changed to say, 5 matches as an equivalent to an hour's worth of play for XvT, and however the other games would be organized I am not sure as I do not own them.


Another point of interest that came to me when reading over for the second time was that I noticed there were no longer any medals for recruitment. This might be due to the fact that this activity was going to be included under the Commendation section. I feel though that a separate medal may be useful for those people who are not in squads geared for recruitment/cadet assistance who say have the urge during a month or so to go out and do some recruiting, so that they get awarded for something that they are not normally signed up for.

I suppose, now that I think of it, the Eye of the Jedi medal hasn't been awarded much at all in the past while (that I've seen) so it might not be a necessary medal. So now that I've contradicted myself, that'll be the end of my few Canadian cents.

13:07:00 CST - 12 Sept, 2006 -- BGN David "Tenacious 'D'"

Dave,

Thank you. Both Rekio and myself have put a crap load of effort into this.

On hours: The hours are standardized. That means that each match is worth a particular length of time, which is previously established. The Medal Office will come up with criteria that determines the time value for a match, based on the game and type of gameplay. So, it is well understood that a XvT match is 10 minutes long, so 6 matches equals 1 hour. That doesn't mean the pilot has to fit in 6 matches into an hour. That means only that if the pilot plays 6 matches total, they are credited with one hour of play. This system is used to standardize participation across all games and gameplay types since the average length of matches can vary widely between different games and gameplay types. It is also understood that for many games/gametypes we are talking about establishing an average legnth of time for matches, not counting the length that each individual match actually takes.

On specialize medals: We've tried to keep the Commendation Medals as broadly defined as possible to allow them to be used in a wide range of areas. The trick is to find a balance between a flexiable/complete system with RS tradition. I think that Rekio and I have wrenched out a good system, even as we wrenched each others necks in the effort. hehe

On Recruiting medals, yes, the idea is to use a Commendation Medal which is at an appropriate level. If the person recruits two members in a month, we can issue a Dagger of Courage. If they recruit 150 over 5 years, we can issue a Tantooine Suns. ;) Maybe we can scale back the nomination requirements for some of the Commendation medals below level 6, so as not to be limited to CoC?

--Super

Detail on MP medals

I'm impressed; it's quite some work done here. For the medals in general I don't have anything to remark worth mentioning, but I'd like to focus on a minor detail. It's about MP medals. As things look now, all focus for MP is on a club vs club basis. I know this is the main thing, and it should be so, but there is a system in place for internal competitions as well. This is the Leagues of Internal Competition (LIC) as we have them in XWA (and XvT). This sysem was originally developed by Vender, later adjusted by Reabel and myself, and reworked with regard to coding by Licah. I tried in my time as IBG CO to make this a common system for all our pilots (regardless of fleet), but with no luck.

I still think it' a good system, though. As has been pointed out in this dscussion already, it's not always easy to find competition for the older games. I'm not the most experienced when it comes to this, but those times I've tried to take part in such activity, it's been most waiting, and little flying. So as the MP system is suggested now, it will be of little real interest for most of the pilots as I see it; getting 14 hours of flying to get the best medals will probably not be possible at all. That is, unless you have nothing else to do than spend an entire week in front of your comp, and I don't think we have pilots that can do that.

Thus I mention LIC. Add this to the mix, and the pilots will be able to participate. As it is now, MP is a ground force activity if you're after medals. LIC could even be made available for ground fighters, and give valuable training options for them as well.

Himm

Himm,

I don't see why we couldn't include internal events into the MP system. I tried to leave the wording as general as possible to allow for such events.

This system will work for any game and gameplay type for which there are online competitions of 3 days or longer (perhaps limited to 30 day). The more popular the game, the more chance there is at the higher medals. This is simply reality. What I've said before, not everyone in the US Armed forces has the opportunity to get a Congressional Medal of Honor. They are pretty much impossible to get in peacetime. :) It should be noted that even if a game is popular, it doesn't mean people will be magically fulfilling these requirements. I mean, playing 14 hours and maintaining a win ratio is very hard work, but it is being done by some right now. Myself played 13 hours worth of game time in the recent Conquest Week on ER, though I didn't have the necessary victory ratio. We can only go so far to balance the rewarding participation on newer games vs. older games. Maybe we can use Fleet medals to cover any preceived gaps.

The current limitation on these medals is whether or not the event is "ongoing". Ladders and weekly regular events would still hafta be covered by Fleet Medals only since these are ongoing in some fashion. Is the LIC an ongoing event, or does it consist of discreet events?

Super

updates

Hey,

  • Can someone archive most of this talk page? I'm not sure it all needs to be here; move the inactive discussions to an old page, such as "Talk:Medals/archive", a la Wikipedia.
  • We'll probably be enacting this medals stuff next week, perhaps even before the SotRS, which will be released Tuesday. We can continue to tweak the system after we're done.
  • I don't really like "Level 0", can we just bump everything else up one level, with the new max being 10? It just seems like level 0 wouldn't actually be a medal.

-Licah Fox 21:52, 16 September 2006 (EDT)

Talk:Medals archived Talk:Medals/archive --Rekio 03:41, 24 September 2006 (EDT)

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