Kaiann Speaks Out!

With the Great Jedi War now in full swing and lets be honest, Dark Jedi dropping like flies we see the shadowy figure of Kaiann watching the fires burn and people die, does he like what he sees? Perhaps he has his own hidden agenda or quite possibly it's a tough job and someone has to do it.

Kaiann has been heading up this Great Jedi War, possibly one of the most draining competitions to organise and it has come in for its fair share of critism, over scoring, judging, release dates, content. You name it, we've had it. But what all sides will conceede this has to be one of the most unique wars ever encountered and as we draw to an end and with scores this tight it's still everything to play for.

1. The GJW is an incredibly ambitious and notoriously difficult competition to run and organise. How did you become involved and why?

I have been in the Council for a long time now and I’ve seen two GJWs from the outside and one from the inside during my time in the DB. All three had major shortcomings and I wanted to do something that overcame these problems. When Jac opened applications for running the 6th GJW, I prepared and submitted a concept to address these concerns as did a few other Council members at that time. Mine was chosen for further development and eventual realization.

2. One the problems with earlier GJW was the prolonged wait between event completion and the event results. How the devil did you manage such fast turn arounds?

The key here is really the staggered dates more than anything else. If you want to run a GJW, you have to ensure you can run it alone, because it is not “your assistants MAY disappear along the way”, it is “they WILL disappear”. That’s what all organizers ran into and ultimately stumbled over, overwhelmed by sets of up to 12 events to be graded at the same time, with marginal or no help. By breaking the strict phasing structure, I have given myself time to interleave preparation, grading and other work and thus accumulate much less of a backlog at any time. And the rest is pure putting in of hours. Lots of them.

3. You have had your critics, there was the issue with the Consuls and one or two others. If you could start over again would do anything differently? For that matter would you do the GJW again?

To part one – yes. I’d rely even less on others to do work and I’d get more in to just give opinions. Early this year, I had assigned a number of tasks to various volunteers in the DB. The ratio of those who actually completed the tasks was low – and the ratio of those who did with more than a week to the start date was zero. Many of the early problems were caused by severely having to improvise and not getting enough feedback. Whether I’d do it again – if I were able to go back, not exhausted from the weeks past and wiser – sure. Whether I’m available to do any major competition after this is over – better place your bets on “no”. That’s something where once is enough and besides – others want their chance too.

A sneaky hint at whats to come, question is can you figure it out?

4. The story in this GJW is radically different and unique from previous, what gave you the inspiration?

This came from two major issues with past wars: Part one was that the reason to fight never provided any justification for the Clans to fight each other, a joint effort would always have been much more effective. And part two is that many events, especially the multiplayer ones, just were, but did not fit the story. My aim was to have a story arc that provides the Clans with a reason to be at each other’s throats and that makes all the event types fit. From there, it was about finding something that would do this while also giving a classic RotJish Star Wars arc from relatively peaceful times over skirmishes to the great battle and the climactic duel.

5. What are your hopes and plans for your future career in the DB? Perhaps you'd fancy loftier positions such as DGM or even GM? ;)

Of course it would be a great thing to crown a DB career with the position and rank of Grand Master. But then, I am also beginning to feel tired of certain things. I’ve now seen 3 years of DC time, more than half of my membership time overall and I feel more and more of a longing to be back in a Clan. And yet before I can realize that, I’ll have another project to complete in the form of the RPG character sheets which I intend to code myself once this war is done – just so you’ll not wait another several years. But ultimately, that decision may not so much be mine but that of the DJB as a whole. If the Brotherhood at large feels I’d be a good GM and able to provide what the club needs, they might very well convince me. DGM on the other hand I doubt. It’s a stepping stone towards GM if you really want to actively pursue it and those times, I fear, are over.

6. Baring in mind that issue 2 is released 1st August, is there any hints, tips or sneak previews as to what to expect in the remainder of this GJW?

[Well… you should release a few days earlier. Otherwise you’ll only have a day’s lead on the first of these items]

Let me give two hints.

One: Remember I talked about a climactic duel ? Well, what if I said that the dear reader of these lines will have the opportunity to be on one side of that duel and realistically kill off a Jac ? ANY member, regardless of how long they are with us ? (And yes, I am omitting a crucial detail here, but what I wrote is 100% truth.)

Two: The very last event of this GJW will use a platform that was never used in the DB before. And I mean never. I just hope to have a (near) final version by then and not just the beta… J