[Citizen] I WUB PUGS (Patron: General Brewster)

[General Brewster]

Patrons paragraph

Goodnight gentleman,

It has been a while since I carried someone forward here generally when I'm tortured to patronize someone cause we all know I totally don't want to patronize people.

Now,
I WUB PUGS nice gentleman saw him a few times in the forums never thought(Correct english? ) much about him with that silly dog in his avatar But one day came he invited me for a social group and I learned more about him that he was a marine etc we had some interaction and from their own the story of us was born.



Then came the gloious day I bought Arma II combined ops and posted in the TWC Arma II general discussion and learned more about him.
he shamelessly added me on steam or it was the other way around probably that he spammed for hours and hours and made me join HFTP which I actually never joined just got dragged into He needed to lecture me 3 days on how to install the mods and not make it crash then came the day before yesterday which was gloriously when we all played together and I was alone in making a proper column and guard the rear. then I was protecting PUGS when I got head shotted and that was that.(By a farmer!) I re spawned as an invisible man saving PUGs his live 2 which he didn't know.

In all seriousness he really does a lot of work and this might be new things to consider for making someone a citizen I truly hope you can recognize his effort for the betterment of the gaming TWC community.

Now give him a badge and be over with it !

Applicant paragraph

Greetings Councilors,

I send this request in the belief that I will earn another badge and so Brewster will leave me alone. No, in all seriousness I didn't think I warranted citizenship until I dug a bit and realized you don't have to win modding awards for TW games to become one. Citizenship for me would be a recognition of my devotion to this site and I think its nice that TWC allows the deserving to be burdened with a title that says; yes, I am here for the site, its members and I contribute for the benefit of all. Basically its nice to be noticed for your efforts.

Tomorrow (the 26th of February) will be my 4 year anniversary on TWC but I've been coming here for years before then. I've been playing TW games since Shogun was released so its only natural that I've frequented this site for so long. However I was fairly inactive until I discovered ArmA II and a group of people on this website that are dedicated to that game. And that is where my application for citizenship should truly begin.

I do not mod TW games. I do not spend hours making the perfect post in D&D, even though I do frequent D&D but probably 70% of my posts in there are in the hope that I'll make someone laugh (plenty of rep in making people laugh). I don't really frequent any other part of the site for reasons other than news or mod dev-blogs. Most of my time is spent in the Other Games forum and since the creation of the Gaming Staff, you'll mostly find me there.

I signed up in June to become TWC's first Clan Overseer and that was for the now withered corpse of a clan named the TWC Chairborne Rangers for PlanetSide2. Certificate of Death. I don't view that failure as any of my doing. Overseers are not supposed to be Clan Leaders, even though for a time I did take on that role. Myself and the leadership did try very hard to get the clan going but ultimately a lack of content and repetitive play drove our numbers down. Still, this is a bit of a sore spot for me. This is the only official position or charge I have been given by TWC.

The majority of content I have generated on this site is solely for the use (well now that that forum is private) of the TWC Happy Fun Time Platoon for ArmA II/III. I have spent in all probability, and it kills me to say this, maybe 500 or more hours building missions for us to play. I do not hold a degree in computer science, so it has been a process to say the least but I feel my work has gotten better with time and after some pains we get it right and people enjoy themselves. My most ambitious projects were/are the following:

[Language Warning for all videos]

Redemption NATO Campaign
This was an attempt to satisfy various demands for certain missions and to get people playing different nationalities. Mission one through eight have all been played extensively but the ninth one became impossible to finish because I lacked the know-how at the time. Here are some videos:
Redemption 1 (from Icewolf):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q9lIpVP0sc

Redemption 2 (from Tischdecke):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU374rsnKEM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adodrl5Dau8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoEeUKDqMN8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7MbVW8WrWo

Savanna Burning COOP Mission
This was my first attempt at making a really pro and lengthy mission. It even has custom sounds and I have bots doing animations. It was still a learning process but the people that played it seemed to enjoy it.

Sangin Push COOP Mission (sandbox)
The idea behind this mission was to create a realistic sandbox style mission using the Sangin map. There were 10 missions in the scenario and the commander had numerous supports and complete freedom to utilize the terrain and tools to accomplish any objective he wanted. We played this one for a long time and it was constantly evolving after every play through. Various groups of players got dozens of hours of time in this mission. However, it was still not so perfect. It was fairly hard and some people didn't pay attention to the tutorials that I made available.
Lewis put together a cool video that had quite a bit of footage from this mission. (any shot where British troops are featured is from the mission)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post10849465

Oil and Blood TWC Campaign
Easily the most ambitious project I've ever undertaken in gaming. Also the most frustrating. I had envisioned a campaign where the patrons of TWC would read or view weekly reports from myself who was playing the bad guy and Aanker who would be an embedded journalist and then express their views on the situation in Takistan like say, they would in the mudpit. Well we never got the TWC input, but that didn't stop us from making the AAR. The AAR went on for 6 weeks or so and ultimately the campaign ground down because it just got too big/intense and we lost people. The first week we had nearly 30 participants which was and still is a record for the HFTP. The first mission was however quite daunting and disorienting so many new players did not return for the second mission. However we did retain more than enough enthusiastic players to keep it going.
Here is the player/development thread.
And the super-secret strategy thread that I snuck into because well, I couldn't help myself.

I am presently working on a more optimized mini-campaign for the Sangin map. Katsumoto made a great video that features the first 3 missions.

I've played in a couple EU3 MP games, but I've not taken an active role in organizing there. Really the only other content I've helped generate for or by TWC was the War to End All Wars AAR for Poach's HOI3 WW1 Mod. I took the Russian Empire slot. Granted we only made it 6 sessions but the AAR was good enough to win us AAR of the month!
Link to the mod thread here. Poach did most of the heavy lifting but we all tried to help as much as possible.

That's pretty much all that I feel is good enough to warrant being included in this application. Q asks in his guidelines: What differences I'd like to make to the site?

I'd like to see TWC branch out and really embrace gaming as a whole. Sure stick to the wargaming for the most part, but why can't this site become a hub for multiple titles? Why can't we have dedicated servers and hosted modifications for numerous games? I don't know if we'll ever get there, but I'll surely be here to support and drive whatever I can in that direction.

In closing I'll have you know I don't believe I've ever warranted an infraction point. I have all of 3 moderator interactions. One for saying someone was ignorant. One for bypassing a sensor. And one for off-topic posting (its been removed). I hope you all have enjoyed reading my application and even if you turn me down I hope at least one of you had a laugh.

I'm sorry Aikanár, I know you offered to be my Patron, but Brewster has asked me multiple times and has gone so far as to join the HFTP and this weekend he followed me around for two and half hours as we walked around and got shot at.

[M D]

From when I have had the chance to speak to him on ARMA II Teamspeak, he has seemed a good egg

[Pontifex Maximus]

I've been trying to piece together exactly how much work goes into what he is describing and I've been sitting the fence as a result. Then I read this:

"I'd like to see TWC branch out and really embrace gaming as a whole. Sure stick to the wargaming for the most part, but why can't this site become a hub for multiple titles? Why can't we have dedicated servers and hosted modifications for numerous games? I don't know if we'll ever get there, but I'll surely be here to support and drive whatever I can in that direction."

He's absolutely right, and I think people with this vision that also make a huge effort to bring it about should be thanked for keeping TWC viable by weathering the bad TW title releases. Branching out of the TW game series is a pretty big undertaking of the gaming staff, and this is the first application I've considered for gaming staff contributions. This application helps me set the standard. I'm convinced that the amount of work done warrants citizenship and that the vision he has for how TWC should advance is consistent with my own opinions.

[Ybbon]

Well this will be a first, I've probably only made fleeting visits to the gaming sites so hard hat on, and shovel at the ready.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to dig deep I go,
With a shovel and spade, and a hand-greande,
hi ho, hi ho, hi ho

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Same as Ybbon, I haven't really visited that side of the forum so bear with me.

[grouchy13]

Interesting application, I can totally get with the Gaming Staff vibe as I've more than once dipped my toe in the waters of Hotseats and MPC's across TW titles. I'll be honest though I'm not into lets make TWC a broader gaming site as I think the core of our traffic and members are here for TW first and foremost but these are conversations for another place at another time.

Looking through his contributions I'm going to air on the side of Caution and it's looking on the face of it like a no from me, I must be honest and say that the other representatives of Gaming Staff we have had before us have had longer and have made what I feel are more pertinent contributions to the site.

Is administrating a gaming area and participation in these games alone worthy of citizenship? In the past it has not been and I point in case to the application of ♔Incontinenta Buttox♔ many moons ago, as with that application I think this needs fleshing out some more.

Going to dig a little deeper and muse some on it

[Diamat]

I'm not really familiar with this sort of work. But if 500 hours is correct, then it sounds quite time-consuming.

[M D]

Can you post this in the Cdec council chamber thingy so the Cdec can see it, I'd just like to chime in on a current application [I WUB PUGS] so that I can indicate to the councillors what work has actually gone into the applications contributions, as a few seem to maybe not know. Cheers.

Councillors, I'm writing this because I feel that the application of Mr Pugs is perhaps not as clearly as it should highlighting just what Pug's has done and still continues to do.

I'm a good friend of Pugs, so call me biased if you will, infact I probably am, but his contributions speak for themselves anyway.


As is obvious Pug's main contribution is his mission making for the Arma community, but what exactly does this entail you ask?

Just as with modding, a mission can take 5 minutes to make, or 5 weeks. It's a skill and a talent that not everyone can do, and even fewer do as well as Pugs.

Everyone who has played with the Arma 2 community on TWC will most likely be playing in one of Pug's missions, these daily or weekly events are organised, created and eventually hosted by Pugs 99% of the time, without him the community we have would not be as vibrant, that is for sure.

But I digress, let me explain a bit more about what one of Pug's missions takes to complete.

A mission is composed of a scenario created within the editor, this includes the placement of 100s of units, 100s of waypoints, 100s of triggers, many painstakingly placed key objects, and on top of all of that, you need to do this process multiple times over to get a mission working how you intend it. Pugs includes in all of his missions many many scripts, the scripting language for Arma is very wide ranging, imagine MTW2's scripting language, but twice as complex and with five times the scope. The scripting included in one large Arma mission would surpass even the most substantial Total War mods scripting.

Collectively the work put in to every mission Pugs has made would be a good Total War mods worth of work, easily. Admittedly the Arma community consists of maybe 50 on/off members, and at most 20 hardcore members, are you going to call it a lesser contribution, diminish the quality and quantity of the work because less people download it? We don't judge how good a mod is by how many downloads it has and that shouldn't be the case here either.

I hope I have perhaps alleviated any doubt in your mind that the contributions made by this member are indeed substantial, it would be a shame to see this application fail just because the game he makes content for isn't the one this site is perhaps famous for.

If you have any further questions, or want me to go into more detail about what the mission making entails, just PM me.

Cheerio,
Mitch

[Diamat]

Ok, I'm convinced. I also think that TWC should expand its base, and by promoting the sort of activities this applicant has engaged in, we would be doing TWC a favor and ensuring its longevity. Obviously it's a lot of work, much similar to modding. Woof!

[Robin de Bodemloze]

Not something I'm terribly familiar with. Will investigate.

[Ybbon]

I've had a look though a few of the youtube videos and if made these scenarios then there appears to be a great deal of work. Oh, no moderator actions.

I also like to see TWC being inclusive rather than exclusive and agree with the feathered one that this looks like a good application.

[Aikanár]

Poll is up, sorry for being 12 hours late. Somehow my diary messed (AM -> PM) that one up

[Pontifex Maximus]

A resounding yes!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[grouchy13]

It does indeed look like a huge amount of work involved in this endeavors and Mitch's recommendation on its validity goes a long way for me despite my initial Misgivings,

Casts his shard into the Pot, Voted yes

[Diamat]

I voted yes as well. Great job, Mr. Applicant.

[Robin de Bodemloze]

Voted yes. Good work all round. Some of the gaming stuff was new to me but it does seem like it takes quite a bit of time to do, and he's done it over a sustained period.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Okay so I've had a mosy around and I too will be voting yes.

This is a new field (mostly) for Citizenship applications and one I'm sure will continue to grow. I appreciate what Mitch said in the PM above as I really didn't have a clue into the work that went on behind the scenes for organising things like that, so that and his other contributions is enough.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Location: Monterey California

Monterey, Carmel, and Cannery row. I used to live on Lighthouse Avenue in Pacific Grove. Monarch Butterflys anyone? ... It was the total bomb when you got to walk to school everyday through the morning's shrouded mists...."Good times, Good Times....."

OT: Well he does more than just the gamming stuff. His D&D endeavers aint too shabby. He's got a couple thread start in the TD. The Devians will like that me thinks. His gamming focus is impressive, though the field is not my cup a tea. So I could'nt get into it but do appreaciate his emursion there. Many thanks to .Mitch. for the breakdown, that laid things out nicely.


Survey Says:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Aye...He's a Cali' Boy so ya gotta say....."Yes"

This poll will close on March 05, 2013 at 06:57 AM

[M D]

Yes

[Aikanár]

Passed.

PM sent.