Today we put out a request for the focus testing in 1.20.0.13 to be on what is below. It is highly recommended that you read through the below and check your squad in 1.20 or in player services to be sure you only have 1 (ONE) Commanding Officer Listed.

If you have any comments on the below, please go HERE and post it so we can address any problems.

New Squad Structure

The new squad system currently has 5 levels of squad membership:

1- Recruit -- Merely indicates a recent addition to the squad,
2- Member -- Indicates an established squad member(*1)
3- Recruiter -- Change the MOTD, promote recruits/members, recruit new members, remove people from the squad
4- Executive Officer (XO) -- Recruiter + ability to edit all squad fields and promote to the position of XO.
5- Commanding Officer (CO) -- XO + ability to disband the squad and enable/disable squad elections (/voting).

Only the 5th rank, Commanding Officer, is single occupancy. There are no limits on how many recruits, members, recruiters or XOs a squad may have or the ratios between them.

Inactive Subscriptions

Players with inactive subscriptions at the time of migration will be given the rank of Recruit regardless of their squad permissions/role.

Squads with no active members will be disbanded.

Active Subscriptions

Players with active subscriptions will be given a minimum rank of Member.

Intelligence and Communications permission

Players who have either of these permissions in the older squad system will be given the rank of Recruiter.

Multiple or No Commanding Officers

In cases of squads which do not have one, active, commanding officer, the oldest squad member from the next highest available rank will be automatically promoted to the rank of Commanding Officer. After release squads will be able to resolve these scenarios by electing an alternative CO with the /voteco command. However - it is possible for the CO to disable voting, so it is strongly recommended that squads review the results of the Open Beta test migration so that they can alert us to any serious errors.

Squad Discontinuation

Squads that currently have no active subscribers will be discontinued and will not be imported to the new squad database.

Dispute Resolution

During the first few weeks of 1.20 release squads will have the opportunity to resolve any disputes over ownership (CO) of squads through CRS Community Manager arbitration. However, once the system is well established and the new in-game tools are well bedded down, then the COs will have autonomy except in the case of disputes with CRS (e.g. inapropriate naming).

Squad CO Elections

Squads have the ability to allow their members to vote for a commanding officer. The ability to vote is controlled by the CO and the "/voting" command. By default voting is enabled. Members vote with the "/voteco" command. If an election is in progress members will see the current state of the vote when they log in, or if they type "/voteco". The commanding officer can cancel an election-in-progress by disabling voting, or he can restart it by disabling and then re-enabling voting.

Voting is initiated by any Member or above issuing a /voteco. Recruits may vote but cannot start an election.

If a member leaves the squad any vote they have submitted is immediately withdrawn.

An election is immediately concluded when a member receives votes from more than 50% of the squad.

Otherwise voting remains open until 3 days(*2) elapse. A winner is elected only if they have at least 5 votes and a lead of at least 1 vote.

Elections are automatically cancelled if the CO disables voting or the leading candidate leaves the squad,

Once the election closes a new election cannot be opened for a period of time:
- If the election reaches its 3 day(*2) limit, voting cannot be re-opened for 24 hours,
- If the election is cancelled by the leading candidate leaving, voting cannot be re-opened for one hour,
- If the election is cancelled by the withdrawl of a vote, voting can be re-opened immediately.
- If the election is won voting cannot be re-opened for 13 days(*2)

Any voting delay can be flushed by the CO disabling and enabling voting with the /voting command.


*1 We plan to let squads configure an automatic Recruit->Member promotion in a future release.
*2 Server-side configurable, these durations may change in the future.
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WWII Online Assistant Community Manager
Playnet/Cornered Rat Software
bable@playnet.com