A VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

[Paul]

I think dropping them an email once a week would be a good idea. We don't won't to annoy them but we also need to make sure they are moving along

[Phatso]

Excellent email once again Jarrod

Seeing as though it seems to be an slight requirement, we should get accustomed to http://www.mydigitallife.co.za/ ("MYDL").
It is a very cool site actually, and I need to start scouring through its pages... But so far, the site is really schweeet.
There is a blog section on the site, which I would imagine would be our "blog-hub" so to speak.

The timeline is really good see, once again another sign that they are putting a quite a bit of thought to this.
Things are going to be happening and happening very soon too! /exicted!

Bring on the grrrDL times!

*EDIT : With regard to timelines, from previous experience with them in any form, they are not always stuck to as there are a truckload of external factors coming to into play. Especially here. And because we are still on the sidelines, we should not base all expectations around things going perfectly to plan. Just a thought

With regards to Pauls announcement question, maybe we should just stick to forum signatures and avatars changing to show reference to DL. An "announcement" would be looked at with way too many different opinions from the gaming community. We should discuss this more though.

[Paul]

One other question, let’s assume that everything goes according to plan and there is launch on 24th May. Now I don't know if this will be covered in the coming weeks but how are we going to announce this?

I am sure there will be a big thing on their website and in the magazine but are we going to create a thread on SGS? Other Forums? How are we going to handle disseminating this information through the community.

We also have to think about how we are going to announce this awesome venture. I mean we don’t want to make it sound like we are better than the rest of the gaming community (even though we are) and we want to maximise the exposure for both us and DL.

Just something to think about as I am sure it will come up sooner or later

[J_Th4ng]

I've just created another thread asking for contributions for everyone. There will be a big launch, we need to maximise publicity, and this is a good way to do it.

Everything in the other thread relates to our DL exposure, and growing us as a brand in their environment. We will also have a responsibility to grow DL within the gaming community. I'll worry about how we'll do that later, but for now we need to manage how we tell the community what's happening. TBH, I don't think that there will be any negative impact to this, it's simply an alliance between us and a magazine to capitalise on our mutual interests. I'll probably draft a communication that we can send to the other clan leaders just prior to launch (although I'll want to speak with certain clan leaders personally e.g. Vinko), and we can then post a statement on SGS/WAGE/wherever once everything goes live.

Of course I won't distribute anything without everyone having a chance to read it first.

How does this sound?

[Paul]

Cool, you use words well. If I did it, it would be along the lines of

"Listen up punks, because we are some much more awesome than you, we got this shit together"

An general letter/Post we can plaster up everywhere would be a good idea

[Phatso]

10th March – Provide Clan Grrr with working framework, requirements and roadmap
15th March – Soft site integration
17th March – Conclude all sponsorship proposals together with Clan branding and marketing
1st April – All contracts and agreements to be signed
16th April – Final material supply and layout (print and online)
24th May – Big Bang launch (print and online)

As anticipated, I though that there might have been a slight delay, but there seems to be no updates whatsoever from DL's side..

Are we still on for this? (i know you guys probably don't have the answer, but there was serious hype and its just vanished completetly.

[J_Th4ng]

I sent an email to Martin last week looking for an update (asking similar questions - but in a less direct manner ). I got an out of office response though, I think he was away for Easter. IIRC he is back this week, so I hope to get something when I am back in the office tomorrow.

Last email to Martin:

Hi again Martin,

I have a final tally on the ASUS front for you. Sorry it’s taken so long, but it does take a while to get responses on a forum sometimes.

Pretty much all of our members would be willing to do reviews or provide endorsements on ASUS products. As for those that use products at the moment, I have the following stats:

10 of our members currently use ASUS motherboards, some of them have more than one PC running an ASUS board. We also have a couple of ASUS graphics cards between us, as well as one ASUS Xonar sound card. One of our members builds PC’s semi-professionally, and he has installed over 100 ASUS motherboards into PC’s over the years.

On a side note, how are things progressing? I assume that there have been some delays and additional hurdles that you’ve had to overcome, when we consider the target timelines that you sent through at the end of February:

24th May – Big Bang launch (print and online)

16th April – Final material supply and layout (print and online)

1st April – All contracts and agreements to be signed

17th March – Conclude all sponsorship proposals together with Clan branding and marketing

15th March – Soft site integration

10th March – Provide Clan Grrr with working framework, requirements and roadmap

Is there anything that we can do to assist you at this point? Or do you have everything in hand on your end?

A few things have happened lately, worth updating you on, I think.

Firstly, registration is now open for the first AGASA league in Bad Company 2, with the first round starting next week. We have at this stage registered one team for this league, with the possibility that we will register a second team in the next day or two. Teams are made up of 8 players, with the possibility of up to 8 reserves per team (of which we will most likely use 3 or 4). The game is proving to be exceptionally popular, with 22 teams already signed up for the league. Not bad for a game that’s only been out for a month.

We have also had a few applications from the community, people looking for a clans to compete with in BC2. We are very happy that one of the applicants (who we are just going through the process of accepting) is one of the finest users of armour (i.e. tanks and APC’s) in the Battlefield community. This will certainly strengthen our presence in the league

One other interesting development is that we have recently (yesterday) acquired ourselves a BC2 server of our own for use in practices, as well as using as a public server for people to play on when we’re not practicing. Assuming that we do come to agreement with DL, we can arrange to have the server renamed in order to include a DL link. We are renting the server from Hype Gamez, for a monthly rental fee of R650.

With things now hotting up on the competitive gaming front, it would be great if we can get an arrangement finalised as soon as possible. There’s a fair amount of publicity to be had here if we can get in there quickly. Please let us know where we are in the process. We have delayed a few clan related decisions on the basis of the upcoming partnership with DL, so I’d like to get a realistic picture as to when (and of course if) we are going to go forward.

Overall, it looks like it’s going to be a great year for grrr, and a fantastic one for online gaming in SA. With the failure of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as a competitive title at the end of last year (due to its lacking dedicated server support), there have been some concerns as to what will be the big game of 2010 (other than football!! J). It’s now clear that it’s going to be BC2, and we are well positioned to compete and raring to go in the first league!!

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Regards,

Jarrod McElhinney

[Phatso]

Cool Jarrod, looking forward to his response.

[Stu]

thanks for the update... J

[gr@v1ty]

I've been keeping up with their website and see the traffic has picked up. All seems well on their side at the moment. I'm happy to wait and make sure we have a clean start right from the beginning rather than a screw-up that could break our relationship down.

Although times are exciting and the future looks bright, I'm patient.