I need to be careful here and not confuse people. In a week, CL45 will be released. We'll be finished and start printing by Monday or so.

As in every issue, there is an awards list. This includes people who worked on each project, and also includes a tiny number of people who are getting some special award for some special reason.

If you know of someone who needs a special award for some reason, email me. Do not post it here.

And while it's tacky to ask for an award, the #1 person responsible for you getting your awards is YOU, not me, so if you think you're getting an award for something, or think you're due an award for something, you can email me and make sure you at least get in front of the review board.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, August 18, 2012 - 05:24 pm: Edit

As I update the medal pages, I get emails asking questions, and I see things that make me wonder if somebody is going to wonder about something I'm doing. Here are a few comments.

1. I don't update pages in any certain order. Sometimes I do whatever name is at the top of the page, sometimes I do all of a certain award, sometimes I look for easy ones, and rarely somebody asks me if I would do his next. Doing yours earlier or later doesn't mean I love you more or less.

2. Turns out there are two versions of the SFM:A ribbons, and I just got through changing all of the old design to the new one with the oak leafs. However, I'm not going to do the hoop jumping it takes to update your page just for that, so you may have to wait six months for the oak leaves. If you think correcting the horror of that is important, send a customer request wednesday email.

3. Speaking of customer request wednesday emails, you can (some do) ask that these be done to correct minor spelling errors or even to change the order of the ribbons to put your favorite game first.

4. Sometimes staffers who work really hard for a really long time get a bonus Meritorious Service Medal in addition to their regular medal. We do this every other year and in 2012, two staffers will get these. Staffers get only one of these per lifetime. They sometimes mean you just barely missed the next higher award, sometimes it means we just wanted to give you an extra slap on the back.

5. Jean reminded me that the term paper points had to be updated so I had to re-do several pages already done, but everybody with an individual page now has (on my hard disk) the correct number of term papers and sooner or later your page will show that.

6. When I get down to doing the multi-people pages, we sometimes notice that somebody has a BUNCH of campaign ribbons (10 or more) but no medals. It gets awkward having multi-person boxes that big, so, if enough of the ribbons have diamonds and/or you have some honor bars (especially combat action) and/or ace pins, and you haven't done anything evil this year (like trash the company on a forum somewhere, and yes, Santa knows when you've been bad), you just might get a "general commendation" and a jump to your own page. If you have 12 blank ribbons, you probably won't get your own page. It takes more than a few snappy comments to get a medal. Try doing some actual playtesting, or write some scenarios.

7. Klingon orders and Distinguished Service Crosses are lifetime achievement awards for the hardest workers. These are very rare awards. I cannot really think of anyone without a 20 year medal who is likely to be considered, other than maybe Jean (who might get her DSC if she ever moves to Amarillo). At least, now you know what these are.

8. Distinguished Service medals are awarded for creating new product lines. Rarely, they're given for other equivalent things. Jean got one for "creating" the concept of products 99% free of typos. Shawn Hantke got one for "creating" so many old products (scans of the being done on e23 thanks to his efforts).

9. The only conventions that get honor bars are conventions ADB went to. (One exception was made for Matthew's ACTASF launch party.) Honor bars go to people who WORKED at those conventions.

10. If you have term papers, and/or have 1-4 ace pins, but no other awards, those aren't on the wall. You need to get some campaign ribbons and such to get a box, and we'll add your pins to the box.

By William Stec (Billstec2) on Friday, November 23, 2012 - 08:35 pm: Edit

Steve,

Are combat action honor bars being awarded for ACTA:SF demos? I ran a 2-part event recently at a local HMGS convention, and wasn't sure if it qualified or not.

I plan to run several demos/games in March at another convention, as well.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, November 24, 2012 - 10:55 am: Edit

yes, and I just need the standard report email.