W00t. First year aniversery w00t. When I first created this clan I had no idea that I would still be here more then a year later. This is a special 4 part weekly report all about the clan's first glorius year. Included are plenty of history bits, random facts, and info. So on with the report.

Random fact: The clan was started on Resistance 2 before steam. I had actually created the clan when me and some friends were figuring out all the Resistance 2 community features so we could get into a game together. When searching around I found clans in the options so I expiremented and created a clan. I took about 2 minuites to come up with a name for the clan. Then I looked at my user name (VehicleDestroyr) and remembered a sports team I was once on named "The Destroyers". I quickly put those together to create "The Destroyrs" and thus the clan was born. Afterwards I decided to create the clan as a Steam group in order to claim the name (didn't want anyone else stealing it). I had no idea at the time what I was going to do with the clan at the time and I kind of decided what I was going to do later on.

Random Fact: The clan was without an avatar for a couple weeks. But on May 2nd I found that the question mark avatar bugged me so I decided to take some practise with photoshop to make an avatar. After some experimentation, thought, and about 3 other prototypes of the avatar I decided since this clan was originally made in Resistance 2 I would try and use the same design ideas that the game used. The game cover is made up of 2 kind of symetrical images. One side featured us soldiers, a clear sky, and the buildings are intact. On the other side were chimeran soldies in the same position as the us soldiers, the sky was red, and the buildings were destroyed. On our avatar, on one side you can see the combine soldier, a combine city, and a combine mechanical death machine. On the other side is the same thing in the same kind of positions except replace combine with chimera. The only part of the avatar that was done in photoshop however was removing the background on many of the images. The actual image arangement and cropping was done in Microsoft Powerpoint which is another win program.

Random fact: The weekly report which is one our most unique and longest running traditions was actualy created out of boredom. I was bored on May 3rd so I decided to write up a news report for what I had done recently in the clan. I had decided to name it "The Weekly Report" but I had no idea whether I would produce another one next week. I definatly had no idea I would still be writing them almost a year from then.

Random Fact: The original spray pack idea came to me one day when I was looking at some of the other clans I was in. Then I had realised why I don't care about those other groups I was in. They never did anything intresting with their groups. Ever. No announements or events. I wanted to release some content to keep the group a little more intresting then most. Plus I needed more to talk about in my weekly reports. The idea for the spray pack came up when I was playing some garrys mod and I was looking for a good spray to use. After not being satisfied with what I had found I said to myself "Why don't I just make my own sprays?". From there the rest is history.

Random Fact: I discovered Google Groups completely by accident. When I was expirementing with some stuff in my web browser I looked at RSS feeds and decided to try out the other button on the RSS Page entiled "add feed to Google Reader". After clicking on that I logged into my iGoogle acount and I expiremented with Reader. After deciding that I really liked it (which was after a few days of using it) I decided to look to see if Google offered any other cool services. At the top of the Google Reader page was some links to Google services I had never even heard of before like Google Docs, Gmail, Google Sites, and Google Groups. I checked all the services and then tried out Google Docs, after that I tried out Google Groups. The Destroyrs on Google Groups was really just a test of the service and I didn’t plan on doing too much with it.

Random Fact: I was originally not going to use Google sites to make us a website. After checking out Google Sites I thought it sounded a lot like the services Google Groups offered us. Man was I wrong. I decided one day to take the plunge anyway and created our website. In the short time we have had the site it has evolved considerably.

Random Fact: The group website has seen over 1000 page edits in its life time. That’s quite a few. The page with the most edits by far though is our home page with almost 250 edits.

Random Fact: This is the longest weekly report made so far followed by Weekly report 18th edition with 869 words, and then followed by weekly report 17th edition which was 857 words. In character count however this is the largest, followed by weekly report 17th edition with 4800 characters then followed by weekly report 18th edition with 4487 characters*.

*character figures are including spaces because steam counts spaces in its 4000 character limit.

Random Fact: The weekly report is posted on all 4 of our main websites almost simultaneously. The weekly report is first typed up on steam. Then after it is completed I then open up all 3 of our other weekly report posting locations (Website, xfire, Google groups) and paste the report in each of these areas. Once this is done I then open my steam window again and publish the report. After this is done I go to the tab that my website is on and publish the report, then the xfire tab, then the Google groups tab. This is ALWAYS done in this order. The average delay time in between posting it at one location and then posting it at the next location on this list is usually 5- 10 seconds long. Google groups is always the most frustrating to do because it looses most of the formatting I have done so I have to redo it before starting to publish my weekly report.

Random Fact: The weekly report is always posted in the steam announcement page. This has been the only exception to this rule so far as I have typed it up in Microsoft Word before pasting it to steam and all the other locations. I decided to use MS Word this time because the report would end up being so long.

Random Fact: Tomorrow will be the 7th announcement posted that is not official weekly report. The other 6 were: “Welcome to The Destroyrs”, “Scorch Reports” 1-3, and “Warning Leave Test Group 9” 1 and 2. Tomorrow is our major website announcement.

Enough random facts though lets get to the information this week.

The achievement update will occur tomorrow. Some of the updates are actually up already but I plan on getting all the updates finished and out tomorrow. Expect to see a news bit up when this happens. I also decided that yes. I would overhaul the achievement “Toolbar Colect0r”. I will now include a button in the toolbar that when clicked will show you the code that you will need to send using our code redemption page located at: http://sites.google.com/site/destroyrs/achievements/code-redemption

A couple websites updates were made. First of all a button to post the website to Google Buzz was added to the home page. Clicking on the button will make a new post in Google Buzz with a link to our website located with our logo image (avatar). This should help us get our name out there. Show your clan loyalty and buzz us. It may help us find some new members. Some changes were also made to prepare for the major website announcement tomorrow.

The 3rd edition of the podcast is right on schedule for this Sunday. It will be the 1 year anniversary podcast edition. I was originally planning for this to be a live podcast episode but I decided to push that back a bit and just release a normal podcast. This podcast will also focus on the highlights of this year, it will contain a summery of the last little bit of information including the achievement update, and the major website announcement. And it will be the first place to find a hint of what is the new feature in spray pack 4.0. So don’t miss out on that. It will be much easier to get a hold of the episode this time because the synchronisation bug that affected episodes 2 (and to a lesser extent the first episode). I still have not found the cause of the podcast device not showing up on our toolbar. I am still researching the issue and I will post if anything is eventually found out.

I updated the toolbar to fix a few of the broken links on it. Now everything should hopefully be working well and with no issues. I also made some other minor fixes and tweaks and prepared the toolbar for the updated achievement attached to it.

I found out why he Google calendar times have not been quite at the right times. The calendar was a few hours back because it displays times in PDT not EST (the clan’s official timezone btw). I have not found a work around to fix this so for now you will have to either use the steam announcement official times or you will need to go and translate the time into your timezone. This can be done at the website: http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc

I have also added this website to the group links page located at: http://sites.google.com/site/destroyrs/Home/links

The PS3 has recently gone through a major system update. This update will allow trophies to be sorted by different criteria that the user will specify. This update also resolves some security flaws and prepares the PS3 for 3d gaming. The update is needed in order to get online so I recommend that all of you update ASAP.

The new Steam beta will no longer be beta this Monday. In case you were not aware a steam interface beta was released a month or so ago. The new steam has a redesigned interface, a clock in the in game overlay, some community adjustments (such as the ability to choose from a selection of premade game specific avatars), new web browser engine (the Webkit engine is now used which is the backbone of the popular web browsers Safari and Google Chrome, this new engine replaces the internet explorer one previously used by steam for web page rendering), user wish lists, and more. I would recommend you get the beta now so that you are familiar with the new interface by Monday.

I am relooking into setting our Mag branch back up. I used to have it up but it was erased during the beta meaning that I have to recreate it. I will need to take some time playing to level up to the rank where I can create a clan however.

The member list update begins on Sunday. During this time new people will be added to the list, older entries will be updated with more recent information, and some entries that have left the clan will be removed. This will not be a quick process so forgive me if it takes a while.

I would also like to mention that Emerald has been ranked up to a private in our chain of command. His original title was recruit but because of his involvement and support I have decided to rank him up.

I recently found this in the clan’s chat room the other day. The messages I found in there made me feel great seeing that my work was appreciated in this way. I am including the message below.

guest820266: wow

guest820266: this website is really well made

guest820266: really well organized information too

guest820266: very cool!

guest820266: and all done with google sites!

It feels great sometimes to be complemented and appreciated for the work you have done. Thanks to guest820266 for totally making my day. I also recently got some positive reviews for the toolbar that I have posted up on our website. You can see them up on the Community Toolbar page at: http://sites.google.com/site/destroyrs/project-event-list/the-destroyrs-community-toolbar

That is pretty much it for our 1 year anniversary weekly report. I just hope our next year will feature the same kind of improvement, fun, and learning that this one had. I also hope that you will continue to stay with us over the next year to experience the ride with us. Another report will be posted up on Sunday with a recap of our major website announcement and our achievement updates. It will NOT feature the info on spray pack 4.0 that is on our podcast so in order to get all the info listen to our podcast and read our report. Until then keep on Destroying guys.

Ok guys.  I am back and loaded with another report for you guys.

First of all the update to the achievements will occur this saturday.  I will finally be updating the achievement images and description to be improved.  2 achievements will be affected by this change (sprayr, and chronicle readr)  and one more may be reworked (toolbar colect0r).

Second of all a major announcement in our website will also occur on saturday.  More details will be given on that day.

On sunday I plan on starting to update the group memberlist.  It has been a while since I have done this.  I expect the update process to take a while so don't expect the list to be fully updated on sunday.

Friday will be the one year aniversery of our group being formed up.  Although I wish I had a project to celebrate the event I do not and you guys will have to settle for the website updates.  I am still working on the map so you may expect that within the next month or so.  I think I may finally have an idea how I am going to do some of the level effects.  For the friday aniversery event I plan on doing a large weekly report cellebrating the event.  This one would go over some facts about the group, some of the highlights over the past year, and maybe some other stuff.

The podcast episode 3 will occur this weekend too.  I originally said this would be a live podcast but I decided that I would make the 4th one live instead.

Thats it for this week.  Keep on destroying.

Ok guys I know I am late but on with the report.

The fix I implemented on the Podcast has completely gotten rid of the itunes bug now.  Itunes now has the cover art and they seem to have it almost finished processing.

MAG came out recently and I haven't got it yet but when I do I plan on ressurecting our mag section.

I really didn't have the time to work on the group this week so this is the best ive got for this week.  Keep on destroying.

Ok guys I know I said we would be caught up by now with a post last thursday then one on monday.  Instead of getting caught up I seem to have got slightly further behind.  How the heck did that happen? I WILL get caught up.  Just not in the next 2 weeks.  It will happen though  Anyway on with the report.

The move away from feedburner has fixed the itunes issue.  The podcast episodes are now normaly downloaded to itunes database.  Episode 2 is now out on the store.  The cover art has been downloading but it is still processing.

I updated the alliences and foes page to include some more info including how to get your clan added to our ally list.  I also added this information to the FAQs page.  I updated the home page on the website with a couple more pictures.  It has so far made the website a bit more enjoyable to use with the addition of some colour and pictures.

I have worked a bit on the toolbar.  Some of the outdated and broken links were fixed up.  I still have a bit more to fix in this regard but you can expect it to be sometime soon.  Also the damn podcast gadget problems haven't gone away yet so I still have to look further into that.

Thats it for this week guys keep on destroying.

Hey again guys.  I know I have still missed a week so you can expect another weekly report on thursday.  The one after that will be on monday so that we are all caught up.

I think have finaly found the problem with itunes not fixing the podcast.  I think the issue was with feedburner which I have chosen no longer to use.  I have notified itunes of the change and the new episodes plus cover artwork should come on the store soon.  If not I guess some further troubleshooting will be needed.  Let me know in the comments if the new episode comes on.

Still looking for a solution on the toolbar.  The radio gadget with the podcast on it still isn't quite working.  I will give you guys an update once I figure out the problem.

No new website or project developments.

Thats it for this report.  Keep on destroying.

Hey guys.  This is the 4th time ive written up this report.  The first time I wrote it up the power went out (some guy crashed into the power lines with his car), the second time my internet went out (stupid rogers) the 3rd time my computer restarted by itself to install updates (stupid windows update).  So thats why this post was about a week late.

I have came up with a name and a plot for the second Destroyrs Chronicle.  For some of our newer users the Destroyrs Chronicles are a series of fictional mini novels taking place from the perspective of our online characters.  This one will be all about the first few months of the war with test group 9, the spray pack, and more.  It will be titled "The Clan Conflict".  Expect more on that in the comming weeks.  This one will be longer and better then the first one.  The story is more thought out and explained this time.

As you can see I have put (TDr) in my name.  This is the group's clan tag.  Any member of our group may use it in their username as long as they are a member of the group.  We encourage you use it because it brings more attention to our group, but it is in no way required.

We have added the Animus Clan to our list of allies.  The Animus is a clan owned by a friend of mine (d0t_c0m).  He is the person who gave me the idea of doing a podcast as well as the person who gave me the idea for the spray pack 4.0.  If you are a fan of asassins creed or modern warefare 2 you may want to contact d0t_c0m about joining. 

I am going to re add Jupdown as a general to the group.  He will retake his place as official recruiter and he will be one of our art directors.

That is it for this week guys keep on destroying.

Hey guys. Not quite on time this week I know. Friday I was busy with a few things, saturday I saw Avatar (awesome movie btw), and sunday was taken up by some work for another clan that contacted me to do some work for them. Thats enough excuses, lets get on with the report.

The Spray Pack 3.5 will come out on December 25th. Look at it as my gift to you guys. As I mentioned last report this new version will include some more holiday themed sprays.

I have made some changes to the website. First off would be The Destroyrs Survey. I have added a page on the website containing a survey for any of our members to fill out. I decided to do this to find out about you guys so I have a better idea of where to go in the future with the clan. It is recomended that you participate but it is in no way mandatory. There is a reward to participating in it however. If you fill out the survey there is a fourm where you can fill in your email to be entered into a rafle. The winner of the raffle will get into our beta program. View and fill out the survey at: http://sites.google.com/site/destroyrs/Home/survey

I added the second episode of the podcast to the file page on the website. I also added another folder to the page. The podcast folder (which is just our podcast page). That way you don't have to search through some of our other files to find podcast episodes. I added a link to our youtube group on the homepage (I don't remember why I didn't do that earlier).

Thats it this week guys. Keep on destroying

Ok now for my totaly on time weekly report.  This time nothing has gotten in my way of writing this report when it was supposed to come out.  Keep in mind development has been a little lite due to some other things such as the work I have had to do for some other clans and a few other things.  With all that said on with the report.

I did some work on the podcast.  I made some new images for the podcast.  I made episodes 1 and 2 of the podcast it's own unique cover art.  I also created a cover art for itunes to use.  Itunes has had some issues with getting the second episode and the new cover art on the store for some reason.  I will look into it.

I decided to make a version of the spray pack that would come out before chrismas because spray pack 4.0 would probably not be availible by then.  Spray pack 3.3 (aka the holidays pack) will feature 4-10 new sprays for various holidays such as chrismas and new years.  Expect that to come out sometime before christmas.

I plan on redoing a few of the achievements.  I already did this with the first achievement (you will see a notable increase in picture quality) and now I will redo some of the ones I was not quite as proud of.  The changes won't be very large and you probably won't imediatly notice them.  Just changes to the icon mostly so the requirments and names will stay the same.

My return (and near completion) of metroid prime 1 had helped me develop my map.  Playing the area I was mapping again quite a bit refreshed my memory of the place quite a bit.  The final map may end up being a bit bigger then I had planed it to be.  Once I am done the map you can expect a trailer and screen shots to be added to the website.

That is it for this week guys.  Keep on destroying.

Yes I am late again.  I have had some other things to do recently that have pulled me away from writing this out such as work and the Metroid Prime Trilogy (what its reasearch for the map).  Anyway lets get on with the report.

The Second Achievement Pack has been released.  I ended up restruturing the achievement structure at the last second pretty much.  Now there is no gold silver or bronze +.  I changed that to Platinium plus which you get for obtaining 7 of our new achievements as well as all of our previous ones.  There is one achievement in the new pack you do not need to get in order to get platinium+ and that is epic fail which you get for great success in the field of failing very epicly.  This achievement was made for Jupdown's massive epic fail (cause you know that jupdown means fail in every language except russian).  If you want more detail then that then listen to our latest podcast which is my next annoncement.

The second edition of the Podcast is out.  I was planing to put it out later in the month but this was the only week I had to record with our special guest.  The guest is d0t_c0m who was the person who gave me the idea for the podcast in the first place.  He has opened up his own clan.   We are in discussions about becoming allies with this clan. 

The beta program has just got a large boost with the release of the new achievement pack.  There is now an achievement for recruiting 10 members to get into the beta program.

The Playstation 3 has had a recent system update.  3.15 includes a new program which allows you to easily transfer data between two ps3s.  It also enables minis to be played on the ps3.  This is an optional system update but it is recomended to all PS3 owning Destroyrs as updates usually also include bug fixes and security fixes.

I am planning to update our history on the website.  I am also currently looking at gmod server hosts and compairing services.  If I find a host I like we may have a 24/7 server in the future. 

That is really it for this week.  Make sure to listen to the podcast and keep on destroying.