Many of you have already noted the addition of the Top 10 lists on the homepage, and others have also noted the addition of a counter underneath your names when you post on the message boards. This is the external manifestation of a complex system designed to track guild participation and contribution.

Contributions often go unnoticed, and largely unappreciated, and participation is something that is difficult to quantify. There are those among us who BUST THEIR ASSES for this clan and get little recognition, and I’m not talking about the leadership or even T-Bird, I’m talking about you. Some of you guys go balls to the wall working to make this a better gaming clan and have a huge impact on all levels, but it’s easy to miss, because the most honest and selfless deeds are done without asking for recognition, and performed regardless of whether or not anyone is looking. Every small bit helps, and now it counts..

Well, we have noticed, as you guys have seen from time to time, and done our best to reward your hard work, but that which is unseen, or perhaps not obvious, is no small part of our collective success. To this end, T-Bird devised a system with which these things can be easily tracked, a way for our outstanding members to really, well, stand out. Not the guys who go out and organize successful raids, who level like maniacs, who rake in Realm Points like it’s food, but mostly the out of game contributions, farming information, bringing in news, showing people the ropes and generally just helping each other out, keeping up to date on things and participating in our web community here - you’d really be surprised at how deep the system goes, and it’s able to do that because it functions hand in hand with our database, which has been monitoring all of these activities forever but never doing anything with that information up til now. That handy little ID number we’ve all got is now being put to a much more powerful use.

Now there are some of you out there to which this system probably won’t matter at all, in fact probably most of you, and that’s perfectly fine, we will not be going through the tallies and punishing those whose points are lower than others, there are no penalties for those who don’t strive to bust their asses and boost their numbers, but the rewards for those who do speak for themselves. This new system will allow us to keep better track of where contributions are being made, from the grandiose to the mundane, even just keeping your shit straight is rewarded under this system.

The point system in its current incarnation will do much more than just watch who is doing what and when. It enables us to keep a closer eye on those who are headed straight for the top of BK, it’s the eye in the sky that scores those things that we look for in officers, though it will never be the only factor in promotions and advancement. As I’m sure you are aware, there are other things that cannot be scored, such as personality, leadership skills, a willingness to go the whole nine yards, and other things such as in-game activities. With that in mind, officers will also be able to award points manually for things done outside of the realm of our web community, offering even further rewards for those who not only do their homework, but know how to play when school is in session...

Now as I said before, there are no penalties for low points, but penalties may be assessed against your points from time to time. Those of you who can’t keep your shit straight will be docked points. Don’t be afraid to ask questions or raise issues or anything like that, but those among us who can’t pull our weight will find ourselves losing points. The idea here is not to punish you, but to more accurately reflect the things you do for the clan, and a large part of that is simply not causing unnecessary work for the rest of us. It will give us a clearer picture of who does the most by participating, contributing, and taking care of themselves and others, and will help show us who can capitalize the most on the opportunities this clan has to offer.

Beyond rewards such as rank, and point "titles" which are currently in development, similar to the postcount titles you might see on other message board sites, those who reach the highest levels of point totals will be eligible to receive actual tangible real life rewards, in the form of our way cool BK swag. BK Mousepads, Shotglasses, T-Shirts, Beer steins, even gift certificates to places like the Electronics Boutique and other electronics retail outfits are up for grabs for those who reach certain threshholds.

For now and possibly forever, the point values and the actions to which they are attached will have to remain secret, as the system is still in development and new actions are deemed worthy of reward every day, and in an effort to discourage point farming by any of the various unknown loopholes in the system that might exist. Now, should you ever find one of these loopholes, you might want to just tell us about it instead of abusing it, as the rewards for such honesty will likely be far greater than abusing the bug itself, as we do take this system very seriously, and those who use the bug will be rather easy to spot."