Newsletter Newsletter February / March

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EdgeGamers Organization Newsletter
February March 2011 Edition

After a brief hiatus the Newsletter returns with a two month edition. This month we have articles from some new additions to our staff. Look for their bylines and let them know what you think.


PSC
The Personnel Service Center (PSC) is thrilled to congratulate Barmy Army 2008 on his Advisor promotion, where he will be joining us behind the scenes of the PSC.

The article continues: http://tinyurl.com/4ruedz2

CoD
We have some Good news from the Call of Duty (COD) Division, We have a Admin system called B3 working on the Black Ops servers. Its been tested and tweaked to where we are comfortable with allowing members to use it, however there is a 3-5 second delay in the command recognition. With the Admin system up and running the Admin Training team from COD will be hosting classes on a regular schedule to get all eG and eGO admins access.

The article continues: http://tinyurl.com/4oyhjwb

CS
The Counter-Strike: Source division has a lot planned for the month of March, but we would like to start off with great news: Congratulations to Ill Legend on his promotion to Council! As a longtime Division Leader, he directly shaped the growth of the CS:S division, and now moves on to greater involvement in this community as a Council member.

The article continues: http://tinyurl.com/45wqqpm

DoD
At the beginning of February, the Day of Defeat: Source division said goodbye to a very important and influential leader. As a Division Leader, Angreifen will be sorely missed, but his role in eGO is not over as he has joined the Strategy Division and maintained his Division Leader position. All of us in the DOD:S division wish Angreifen the best in this and all future endeavors.

The article continues: http://tinyurl.com/458cp7f

FPSX
Meades interviews Jedihitman about the First Person Shooter eXperimental division.

Meades: Let's start with the name change. How is the new division name working out?

Jedihitman: I think pretty well; I haven't heard any real problems from our members and it's sparking some interest in members from other divisions.

The article continues: http://tinyurl.com/47gtxrp

STR
The Strategy division has been extremely busy over the past two months, and we would like to update everyone on our recent activities. In particularly, the past month has seen many ground breaking changes to the Minecraft server. The first official Minecraft event was held on February 27th, hosted by Matt With a Cat. Stay tuned, as more events are in the works, and prizes are being planned for the winners.

The article continues: http://tinyurl.com/4mj5ugc

TF2
A couple of weeks ago, Valve released a Team Fortress 2 update including 3 new maps. These include a PL map, a PLR map and a Koth map. The new PL maps are in the PL Maps server rotation, and the Koth map is on the Valve Maps server. If you haven't done so yet, please join the servers and try them out. The nominate feature is working once again on the Valve Maps server, so you can nominate your favorite map to be played next.

The article continues: http://tinyurl.com/4gopxqd

WoW
This month, we'll take a look into the newest World or Warcraft expansion: Cataclysm.


We asked Snipeye, one of WoW's Division Leaders, to explain to us the concept behind Cataclysm and where the idea came from.

Snipeye:
Cataclysm is an expansion, the third expansion pack by Blizzard. Following Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King, the events takes place after the Alliance and Horde defeated the Lich King in Northrend.

The article continues: http://tinyurl.com/4nbhh22

 

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Personnel Service Center

The Personnel Service Center (PSC) is thrilled to congratulate Barmy Army 2008 on his Advisor promotion, where he will be joining us behind the scenes of the PSC!

On a sad note, ShEpArRdOfGoD has made the decision to step down from his Advisor position due to a lack of time and other real life issues. We hate to see him relinquish his rank, and he has our gratitude for all of his hard work as a member of PSC Leadership.

At the end of February we wrapped up yet another successful PSC-sponsored cash prize tournament. The Call of Duty division hosted the Top Gun event on their Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare servers. The PSC would like to thank everyone involved in preparing and coordinating the tournament with us, and would also like to congratulate the first place winner: Uzi.

Please keep an eye out on the forums for upcoming E-orientations, Meet and Greets, and Recruiting Seminars. Dates will be posted as soon as the events are announced.

As always, the PSC is looking for new members to bring fresh blood to our team. If you are interested in joining, and you are of eG or eGO rank, please feel free to contact any PSC Advisor for more information. Our advisors are always more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

by IceStyle

Return to newsletter: http://tinyurl.com/4mkedjg

 

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Call of Duty

We have some Good news from the Call of Duty (COD) Division, We have a Admin system called B3 working on the Black Ops servers. Its been tested and tweaked to where we are comfortable with allowing members to use it, however there is a 3-5 second delay in the command recognition. With the Admin system up and running the Admin Training team from COD will be hosting classes on a regular schedule to get all eG and eGO admins access.

The Black Ops server HC DEM has been changed to HC CTF, the server has been doing very well thanks to the members who have taken the time and countless deaths to seed and make the transition into a success. Also, instead of an Search and Destroy server we have a 24/7 Nuketown/Firing Range DOM server, very good for ranking up.

Several new Black Ops events have been in the works, Our old "Night of the Living Dead" zombie survival event is in talks. Hopefully the zombies won't crash the meeting until we get it setup. So sharpen your knives, reload those shotguns, because you will need every bit to survive this!

Last but no least we'd like to say thank you for everyone who was VERY professional during the PSC sponsored event.

by Unexpected

Return to newsletter: http://tinyurl.com/4mkedjg

 

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Counter-Strike

The Counter-Strike: Source division has a lot planned for the month of March, but we would like to start off with great news: Congratulations to Ill Legend on his promotion to Council! As a longtime Division Leader, he directly shaped the growth of the CS:S division, and now moves on to greater involvement in this community as a Council member.

In January, the events program was completely revamped from top to bottom with key additions of Hide & Seek, Gun Game and Climb Nights. This month will feature the return of Road Trips to the Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 divisions. These events allow our members to visit servers outside of the division that they might not otherwise experience.

March also will feature a shuffled event lineup in order to give players a chance to play different events that they might otherwise miss due to busy schedules. Hide & Seek and GunGame have moved to Thursdays, with Road Trips sliding into the Wednesday slots. Dog Tag Scrims are now featured on Saturday nights. This popular event features e vs eG, eG vs eGO, and e vs eGO ranked matchups every other Saturday.

Thank you for reading, and we look forward to seeing you in the servers!

By iamevilbear / Caleh

Return to newsletter: http://tinyurl.com/4mkedjg

 

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Day of Defeat

Day of Defeat: Source

At the beginning of February, the Day of Defeat: Source division said goodbye to a very important and influential leader. As a DL, Angreifen will be sorely missed, but his role in eGO is not over as he has joined the Strategy Division and maintained his DL position. All of us in the DOD:S division wish Angreifen the best in this and all future endeavors.

Many of you are aware that the Day of Defeat servers have seen very serious lag issues over the past two months. These issues however should no longer be a problem, and we have the hard work of Spray to thank for this. C-Whit addressed the issue in a short conversation and said that ?if anything comes about in the future, we'll deal with the issues accordingly.? With the server lag issues resolved, players can enjoy DoD:S without worrying about connections or server wide disconnects, and C-Whit?s reassuring words instill confidence that any future situations will be addressed as they arise.

Due to the brevity of this newsletter, all those presented with awards from the DoD:S division in February cannot be given due recognition here, but we would like to take note of a few exemplary commendations:

The "Titan of DoD" medal is considered by the DoD:S Leadership to be its "Divisional Medal of Honor." Rarely awarded, recipients are outstanding members of the division who contribute in a multitude of ways to make the community what it is today. We would like to congratulate Stormy on this honor for his incredible work with the Realism event and subsequent campaigns. Congratulations!

Tomi87 and I SURVIVED LONDON BLITZ were awarded the Leadership medal, and their contributions have not gone unnoticed. C-Whit had high praise for LONDON describing him as a staple of eGO for being the oldest member (age-wise) and bringing a high level of maturity to the community. ?He?s a pleasure to have and we thank him for his dedication to the game and eGO.?

The work of Blue Stealth in recruiting and Ronpaul for his Competitive Team leadership earned both the prestigious Division Leader Commendation. Both also were given high praise for their significant contributions and their tremendous help with the continuation of the Realism Campaign in progress.

by Superglue

Return to newsletter: http://tinyurl.com/4mkedjg

 

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First Person Shooter eXperimental

Meades interviews Jedihitman about the First Person Shooter eXperimental division.

Meades: Let's start with the name change. How is the new division name working out?

Jedihitman: I think pretty well; I haven't heard any real problems from our members and it's sparking some interest in members from other divisions.

Meades: Was it hard to adjust at first?

Jedihitman: Not at all. The transition has been extremely smooth. I sometimes forget it's even happened.

Meades: Haha, well that's good. What' are the most notable changes with the new title?

Jedihitman: Well, the main thing is the new game and different people becoming interested in FPS:X. We haven't had a whole lot of attention from members across divisions like we have now.

Meades: Tell me about this new game.

Jedihitman: Crysis 2 plays a bit like a cross between CoD and Halo. It's a first person shooter, hence why it's in our division, and focuses on playing as a near-future super soldier.

Meades: Are there any other shooters that FPS:X is interested in?

Jedihitman: Yes, in particular we're interested in Red Orchestra 2.

Meades: The Red Orchestra sequel, mind telling me a bit about that too?

Jedihitman: Well, it's the sequel to Red Orchestra and it's expansions that was first released in 2002, I think, and has all been on the old Unreal engine. The new one will be based on the Unreal 3 engine and will continue the Red Orchestra focus on realism and large scale combat, with high bullet damage with realistic collision simulation from both infantry and vehicles.

Meades: Where do you see Red Orchestra 2 and Crysis 2 going within the division?

Jedihitman: I think that Red Orchestra will eventually spin off into it's own division. Crysis 2 will either do really well, or really bad.

Meades: What are some upcoming events happening in the FPS:X division?

Jedihitman: MNM will be doing Duck Hunt and Foxes and Hounds on Mondays. We'll be having a Frag Your Leadership on our Event server the 11th. We've also started hosting a Red Orchestra Boot-camp run by RtDriver and JonPaso on Saturdays.

Meades: Sounds interesting, is there anything else going on in the division that we should know about?

Jedihitman: Crysis 2 launches March 22. We will be getting servers for it.

Meades: How many server are planned?

Jedihitman: At least 2. Maybe more.

Meades: Awesome, I still have to download the demo and try it out. One last question; Is there any talk about experimenting outside FPS games?

Jedihitman: For the clan, yeah, there's been some talk, but nothing substantial. FPS:X though doesn't have any plans at this time to run non-FPS games.

Meades: Alrighty, thanks again Jedi, take it easy!

by Meades

Return to newsletter: http://tinyurl.com/4mkedjg

 

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Strategy

The Strategy division has been extremely busy over the past two months, and we would like to update everyone on our recent activities. In particularly, the past month has seen many ground breaking changes to the Minecraft server. The first official Minecraft event was held on February 27th, hosted by Matt With a Cat. Stay tuned, as more events are in the works, and prizes are being planned for the winners.

The first Minecraft admin training classes were held on February 27th. If you were unable to attend, please keep an eye on the forums, as more classes will be posted soon.

The Minecraft server will soon go public with a plugin that allows administrators to have full access to their toolbox of powers. Thanks to Duality's hard work, we also have a number of new achievements to award.

In other news, recruitment is up overall for the Strat division with many friendly players flooding in. Runescape has done well recently in clan wars, winning and losing their fair share. There will also be more events in the future, which will be planned once the provider releases them. The entire Strat division is flourishing, regardless of whether the name of the game is Minecraft, League of Legends, or Runescape.

by muffinz2323

Return to newsletter: http://tinyurl.com/4mkedjg

 

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Team Fortress 2

A couple of weeks ago, Valve released a Team Fortress 2 update including 3 new maps. These include a PL map, a PLR map and a Koth map. The new PL maps are in the PL Maps server rotation, and the Koth map is on the Valve Maps server. If you haven't done so yet, please join the servers and try them out! The nominate feature is working once again on the Valve Maps server, so you can nominate your favorite map to be played next.

iGreen recently decided to step down from his position as Advisor for the TF2 division as he felt that he did not have the time to dedicate to the position anymore. We would like to sincerely thank iGreen for all of his help in keeping the TF2 Division running smoothly, and we all wish him the best of luck in the future.

We would also like to congratulate all of our members who received promotions in the past couple of months, as well as all of those who received awards.

Be sure to keep an eye out for sign ups for March Madness, and the TF2 Scrim Team coming soon.

by CrazyWolf

Return to newsletter: http://tinyurl.com/4mkedjg

 

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World or Warcraft

This month, we'll take a look into the newest World or Warcraft expansion: Cataclysm.


We asked Snipeye, one of WoW's Division Leaders, to explain to us the concept behind Cataclysm and where the idea came from.

Snipeye:
Cataclysm is an expansion, the third expansion pack by Blizzard. Following Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King, the events takes place after the Alliance and Horde defeated the Lich King in Northrend. A new terror has risen named Deathwing, an evil dragon that has been healing himself deep within the bowels of Azeroth. With his return, he has changed the entire landscape. Deserts have become blooming jungle forests, wide prairie land become a patchwork of volcanoes and mountains, and much more.

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Now that we have that in mind, we want to know more, right? What about the User Interface? What about the level cap? We heard the guild interface went under some changes, is it true?

Snipeye:
The game has reset the level cap from 80 to 85, as well as making several changes to the User Interface, especially for guilds. For example, the guild interface is much improved, allowing guild masters and officers to view a lot more information than there was before. For an organizational standpoint, it's a lot easier to keep track of guild members than the previous UI. Plus, Blizzard introduced guild perks that help guild members, such as collecting more gold from their kills and quest completions, or access to in-game pets that you can only get via your guild.

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Well, he explained the technical details of the newest expansion to us, we want to get a bit more personal. We asked him to explain his thoughts about the newest expansion, and how it delivered.

Snipeye:
I find the game and the changes welcome, as it breathed new life into a game that was slowly becoming obsolete. The game play, dungeons, and raids are a lot harder than they were in WotLK, which may upset some players, but is more in line with the difficulty that was in the game for the original WoW and Burning Crusade. There are no new classes, however, there are two new races: Goblins who have been driven from their home, and created a new refuge for themselves, allying with the Horde. The Worgren are your werewolves, who were involved in a siege with the Banshee Queen and her Forsaken. To fight her off, they allied themselves with the Alliance.

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How do you get involved? Where do you meet people? How do you participate in eGO's WoW raids? Are there any upcoming events? Ventrilo's empty, does that mean no one is on WoW? How does the ranking system work? Is WoW hard to start on for a first-timer? Don't worry, we asked him that too.

Snipeye:
The first Friday of every month the division will be having a meeting to discuss the monthly news, any changes to the guilds, Q&A session, as well as promotion announcements, whether within eGO or within the game. We were forced to adopt an unconventional ranking system, that could mesh with both eGO's and what we expected within game. For example, being an officer in the guild does not mean you are an eGO. You could be an eG. If we had members disrupting the guild, or breaking rules, we couldn't just warn/kick/ban like in our game servers. For that, we actually had to make a Probation rank, and whenever a member finds themselves in trouble, their punishment is to be demoted to that rank for a set amount of time, depending on the situation.

We encourage our members to hang out in ventrilo, but just because our channels may be empty does not mean the guild is not. We've attracted a lot of players and eGO members who play the game to relax, and just need to play solo for a while, before jumping back into fray. A lot of divisional information is actually posted within our WoW private area, as its information that concerns the guild members directly. In addition, we are testing out new ways of recruiting members, and having our stuff posted there is one such manner we're trying. The game has been simplified to such a degree that any "newbie" can begin playing and start to understand how the game works. However, to excel in the game, to participate in raids (large dungeons with several hard bosses, requiring teams of 10 or 25 players to defeat), you will need to do your homework, and delve into the nuances of WoW. For those who do not like math, it means that you'll be hurting your head as you calculate the numbers and effects that affect you in game.

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As some closing thoughts, we asked him about any new RPG games coming out that has his attention.

Snipeye:
I'm keeping my eyes open for Homefront, and the new Star Wars MMORPG, as the former would quench my thirst for FPS gaming, whereas the latter is something that can affect our division significantly. I expect that it will actually become a successful MMORPG that can compete against Blizzard due to the large SW community that exists, even today.

That's all we have for you right now, please send a PM to any of the WoW Leadership members with any questions, concerns, or comments related to eGO's WoW division and be sure to check us out on the server: Laughing Skull!

by Ric

Return to newsletter: http://tinyurl.com/4mkedjg