. This will a two-part post. This first part will give a recap of where we stand now, of the particulars of our current chains, and a reminder about the background for the 12 million chain. The actual details about the new section of the chain will be in a separate post that I will write up after finishing this one. So here goes, and it's all good .--------------------------------------------------
RECAP OF WHERE WE STAND NOW
--------------------------------------------------
The chain page seems to be finished, except for some appearances tweaking Ranger is doing. If you haven't checked it in the last couple of days, go look at the chain page listing, and then click on your name to view your character statistics. He is doing a great job with this. The chain is stable. The removals that were needed are done. It looks like there are still a couple of people failing quota, but I was told quota is okay; we just need to get the stats posted now.
As of the time I am writing this, there are no pending insertions. It looks like a good time to add in this latest chain offering.--------------------------------------------------
PARTICULARS OF OUR CURRENT CHAINS
--------------------------------------------------
Currently, Last Dynasty has two chains. More accurately, we have two sections of the larger, overall Last Dynasty XP chain. The two sections are, of course, the Casual Chain and the Food Chain, with each having different requirements. I said the two chains are really more like two sections within one larger chain because the Casual Chain merges in with the Food Chain at the bottom of the level 126s (the Casual Chain can't swear any lower in the Food Chain because of level restrictions).
The Casual Chain has no quota requirement per se, so it is the place to go if you want to benefit from the XP that can be produced by a chain but are a more casual player. It does have a clan activity requirement (questing, pincers for the 50+ characters), see http://www.lastdynasty.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=298 for details. Additionally, the Casual Chain does have a leadership/loyalty requirement such that you need to pass up the maximum automatic XP passthrough of 93.75%. This means a buffed loyalty value of 200 and an effective leadership value of 163. Characters of level 1 - 126+ are eligible to join.
The Food Chain has a 100% XP passup rate, with a maximum XP cap of 6 million XP added per week. The 6 million per week is based on the assumption that leadership and loyalty are high enough so the maximum automatic XP passthrough 93.75% is achieved. If the leadership/loyalty combination aren't high enough to achieve an automatic passthrough rate of 93.75%, the player may have to hunt for more than 6 million XP added per week in order to meet quota. Details about the requirments for the Food Chain can be found here http://www.lastdynasty.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=8. Characters of level 75 - 126+ are eligible to join. Characters lower than level 75 who would like to join an XP chain are encouraged to join the Casual Chain. Upon reaching level 75, they can choose to stay in the Casual Chain, or to join the Food Chain.
-------------------------------------------------------
REMINDER ABOUT THE BACKGROUND FOR THE 12 MILLION CHAIN
-------------------------------------------------------
There was quite a bit of discussion over the last few months by different people about the possibility about raising the quota on the Food Chain. Some of the reasons given by different people were "I would like to see the chain produce more XP", "it's too easy to make the 6 million a week now, we should raise it", "having a chain with higher XP requirements would attract more people from the server", "we've lost good people from our chain because they left for a hard core chain somewhere else, we should offer something like that", etc. As a result of the questions about starting a new chain section, Heatmiser posted a quasi-poll looking for votes (it was a poll, but without the vote buttons, so there was "some" discussion with the voting). At about a four to one ratio, clan members voted yes to implementing a 12 million XP per week chain. Then came the monster redistribution, and the monster XP adjustment... Because of impending changes to the game, we decided to hold off for a while on starting the 12 million section. Now, the monster redistribution is mostly done, the XP rebalancing is mostly finished, and overall XP earnings seem to have gotten better (after people adjusted how/where they hunt:)) So it seems to be an opportune time to add this newest chain offering. Details about the 12 million XP section will be in the second post, so look for details there. I didn't want to clutter this post and make it so long people would get bored reading it and quit before they got to the end. If you read this far, you've done well.
Also, keep in mind that the 12 million section isn't a replacement for the Food Chain, or a change to the chain's quota system; it's simply a new section so that Last Dynasty's XP chain offers something for every style of player. But more of that in the next post. I wanted to let you know it is coming. I will post the second section either tonight or tomorrow, it depends on how hunting goes I guess. I have to go make quota now.
Culticon level 203 Grief BM 
