Premium Ranks

[quote=aeronautic]All suggestions are welcome, as rank is virtually impossible to streamline. The older military nations tend to prefix the General ranks and the newer military nations tend to tier the General ranks. Also there's an equivalent of all ranks between the different branches, Airforce, Navy & Army with no line of equality, even in one branch of the forces, there can be different / extra ranks depending on your trade / regiment. This leads to squabbles over the command in mixed branch operations. This is why I think we found a good rank system that tends to cover most Military Branches and Nations. Field Marshal tends to be a rank from the older nations and so it would normally be old fashioned symbols such as, swords or lions & laurel wreaths, so I quite like the suggestion of crossed swords. I'm unsure about the Dominator rank as it's been discussed and revisited before... if we were to move this to a Gold Bar, this would leave the 3 Stars open for an extra rank, perhaps General in Chief or Staff General or General of the Army (too long)??? This could even be the Field Marshal insignia???? One main question that needs to be answered. Do we want the Dominator rank to look like it supersedes all other ranks, or to just look like a different "honourary" rank? With regard to more colours for Premium players, I'm not against it, but we deliberated long and hard over the current colours, as even a slight difference in each colour looked tacky and false. Dark colours seem to work best among those with colour as opposed to white & black.[/quote] I take it you're in charge with the visual aesthetics, as you also are with new maps? If you feel like you're not getting enough feedback, is it an option for the programmers to send out a message/poll to all players and just pose the question there? Upon everyone's next login, they see the question and responses will quickly follow? How about the number? 6000 rating seems good? If so, I suppose that part can already be coded and later on see the official picture - as decided upon - by poll/staff/whoever? As said above somewhere; I'd like to see the Dominator insignia to be rather different (e.g. golden bar) and the rank after general (field marshall - or supreme general? I dunno) with the 3 stars?

Dominator = solid gold bar Field Marshall = 3 stars (or TBD = 3 Stars) 6000+ for ranking. General of the Army is 2 characters less than Chief Warrant Officer

[quote=AlexCheckMate]I take it you're in charge with the visual aesthetics, as you also are with new maps?[/quote] No. I helped to reorganise the ranks with other staff members and helpers as part of a group effort and I carried out the graphics. This in no way makes me in charge, I want to be sure that I know what's sanctioned and required if / when there has to be any changes. No matter what we discuss here, unless the senior staff sanction it, then it's all futile, so let's all try to work together to be sure that there is a need for the changes and that they are suitable and welcomed changes. With regard to name, we suggested many names earlier in this thread and all ended up liking "Field Marshall", I think it was because it seems more renowned & relatable. For "General of the Army", I should have added that we tend to use ranks that are cross-branch and anything that has the branch name such as "Army" suggests that Risk "troops" are solely Land Based. Even the words "Troops" or "Units" are commonly used here, as they suggest only "military manpower". I also think that suggestions like "supreme general" sound like they are from Sci-Fi Forces. We are discussing too many changes at once, which can be difficult to get quality feedback from everyone. [quote=aeronautic]One main question that needs to be answered. Do we want the Dominator rank to look like it supersedes all other ranks, or to just to look like a different "honourary" rank?[/quote] Once this question has had a fair bit of feedback, it will help to reorganise and restructure the upper ranks. AlexCheckMate has answered and says "different".

I edited my post above after posting so refresh, just in case I changed what you read.

I am partial to Field Marshall myself.

[quote=aeronautic]One main question that needs to be answered. Do we want the Dominator rank to look like it supersedes all other ranks, or to just look like a different "honourary" rank?[/quote] I would say a different "honorary" rank because it is not strictly based on rating (and purchase) like the other ranks, but it is a title assigned in a special game/mini-tournament.

The Dominator rank should be honorary and unique to D12. This is where you can get a bit creative. A gold bar would therefore be a wasted opportunity I think. (Never was a fan of the gold medal for game winners either, by the way.) As for the new Field Marshall rank, I am inclined to prefer two crossed batons over two crossed swords. The crossed batons are more common than the crossed swords, and the latter, although very intimidating, is also associated with pirates.

[quote=vikingo1337]The Dominator rank should be honorary and unique to D12. This is where you can get a bit creative. A gold bar would therefore be a wasted opportunity I think. (Never was a fan of the gold medal for game winners either, by the way.) As for the new Field Marshall rank, I am inclined to prefer two crossed batons over two crossed swords. The crossed batons are more common than the crossed swords, and the latter, although very intimidating, is also associated with pirates.[/quote] I believe I am in (full/partial) agreement with this post. Personally, I do not mind too much about the graphics. So I'd be fine with a gold bar for the Dominator, but I'd be also completely fine with something different. Could remain 3 stars, but I guess this wouldn't make a lot of sense to me, as it then doesn't stand out as a honorary rank. I would like a 3 stars rank to remain though, so that could be the possible Field Marshall - however, I'm also very much into the two batons (as opposed to two crossed swords - due to pirates). Possibly, even get another rank in? Then 1 of the new ones gets the 3 stars, the next gets the 2 battons and the honorary Dominator can be whatever (gold bar or anything else). Anyhow - I guess we could possibly split this dicussion up in two parts? 1) whether to get another/several rank/s (and at what rating, for how many tokens) 2) how they'd be named and what symbol they get - this is something I'd be happy to give input for, but I'd also be very happy to just accept whatever gets chosen. it feels as if 1) is welcomed by the community at large, so that could perhaps already lead to the creation of this new rank (or 2?). Just the coding. Then when the permanent name/pictogram is chosen, it can be changed for it? I understand @@aeronautic isn't in charge of graphics, is someone else in charge? or does the staff like this to be decided by a community vote or something?

I am not really good with graphics, but what if it is a solid bar with 3 of the D12 icons? Or a clear bar with 3 of them? That would be for the Dominator. Then, use 3 stars for General of the Army (6,000), and 2 Batons for Field Marshall (6,500).

A single D12 icon should do the trick for the Dominator rank. Less is more. Whether gold or not. And a bigger rating gap between General of the Army and Field Marshall methinks. If those two ranks are indeed what we want. They seem mutually exclusive historically, but having them both would solve the three-star dilemma, while also introducing a completely new rank as the icing on the cake. With two crossed batons as its icon, mind you. 6,000 and 7,000 rating, respectively, could work. Let them earn it.

Or, we turn the current General rank‘s icon into a three-star icon, introduce the new Field Marshall rank with two crossed batons as described above, and then change the Dominator rank’s icon into a golden D12 icon. This way, the General rank becomes a bit more flashy, and rightly so one might add, plus we don’t have two new ranks that essentially mean the same.

I do believe that the Field Marshall rank should be very hard to obtain. Similar to being unable to attain the honorary 6 star general rank appointed to George Washington that doesn't really exist practically because the belief that it should be a theoretically unobtainable rank, the Field Marshall rank should be a lot harder to obtain than our current highest rank because it is supposed to be far and above beyond the highest attainable rank.. I actually believe that if that rank is obtained by anyone, only one person should be able to hold it at any given time. It might be a bit of a programming nightmare but maybe we could just manually bestow the rank on the player who has both achieved the points totals determined to be sufficient as well as being the player with the highest said point total required at the time?

6.5k (even higher) vs 7.5k works for me. Incorporating the D12 icon somehow for Dominator makes sense (1 is fine, not really creative). 3 stars for general, 2 batons for Field Marshall. I also like only one Field Marshall at a time...so you cannot purchase it. Maybe it is bestowed on the 1st of the month to the highest rating holder above 7.5k. The nice thing is that I don't believe anyone is close so maybe that would give time before that logic needs to be programmed. Ultimately for me having a dedicated Dominator rank is my end goal, adding 2 more levels is the icing on the cake as Viking says.

We’re in agreement on this one, DB. As for Ely’s suggestion, I see one issue with it: The rank may never change hands. Or it may change hands, but only between the same two players, who have a head start on everyone else and know how to maintain it. On that note, what if the rank was part of a monthly game between all players by the rank of general? The winner would then be crowned field marshal the same way a dominator would be. Only he would have to play generals alone (including the lesser general ranks). Depending on how many generals there would be at any given time, it could be a 2, 3, 4 or even a five-player game. The winner would then get he batons for a month. Just like the dominator. Other than that, it makes sense to only have one field marshal. Most armies only have one top dog, and I believe it was not unusual for generals to be in competition with each other for the right to hold ultimate command over a country’s armed forces.

Alternative solution: The field marshal is the former dominator from the previous month. So when he loses his dominator rank, he gains the field marshal rank instead. And if he manages to keep his dominator rank for another month, the field marshal remains unchanged. Kind of like a king and a crown prince.