All of this has been such a wild ride, and it is about to take yet another turn!

At the beginning of TC, we started blogging about Monsterpocalypse and picked up an amazing group of commenters/friends who connected with us and each other. That led us to implement the ability for everyone with a TC account to write blogs and have them posted right on the front page of our site. The response was incredible.

So many phenomenal blogs were posted, from general strategy discussions, to list building, to following along with the Mastering Monsterpocalypse series. The community, centered entirely around Monpoc, was like nothing we had ever been a part of.

Then the game died, and almost immediately X-Wing took its place. Theorist started rolling out with his renowned X-Wing analyses and vassal tournaments and mu0n took over the vassal updates and posted them religiously, alongside Froggies, SableGryphon, and thousands of other X-Wing players (too many to mention!) who wrote and engaged along the way.

Then the podcasts showed up; from Scum and Villainy, to Breaking News, to Knights of Ren and many, many more. We listened to and shared in the mutual passion of those productions.

Unfortunately, the entire “user blog” infrastructure was built on a house of cards. We were inexperienced and strapped for resources when that functionality was implemented, and the complications of having such a complex codebase added to a relatively minimal blog were not understood at the time.

The complexity grew bigger and more tangled every day, with each new user creating rows upon rows of tables in our beyond-bloated database. When the problem finally started crashing the site (and our store with it), we reached out for a solution. We discovered that creating a simple backup of our database was not even possible without bankrupting ourselves, as its size was outside the bounds of traditional processes.

So we basically had to decide whether we should nuke all of the site’s content and start over, or try to salvage what we could and migrate it to a fresh database.

We chose the latter, and over the course of a year carefully worked with our newly-found development team behind the scenes, exporting and importing users, categories, posts, comments, messages, products, etc. to a clean build.

At the same time, spam became a tremendous problem. Because every new user could post blogs and compose private messages, a large number of our customers, many of which had no idea that user blogs even existed, started getting all sorts of ridiculous solicitations – with the Team Covenant header attached. We had no way to implement countermeasures without adding more code and potentially crushing the site, and we were getting blacklisted by email providers – so we turned off private message notifications entirely, and restricted new users from being able to post blogs.

In this same timeframe, tabletop gaming conversations started moving organically to other dedicated discussion platforms, like Facebook groups, Discord, Reddit, and Medium. With no new users being able to post blogs, no private message notifications, and a slow exodus to more dedicated platforms, activity on the site kept trending downward – and rightly so.

We finally got every blog, comment, user, message, etc moved over to the new database. Some comments were in the wrong order or assigned to the wrong blog, and many of the categories did not get properly assigned, but the content was saved and years of posting successfully backed up. Unfortunately, we had exhausted all of our resources to do so. This meant that we could not focus on user experience improvements, and instead had to settle for what we had pretty much out of the box.

We made small improvements where and when we could, but we ultimately knew that our users, like those on many other smaller discussion platforms, had largely moved on. Much of this was due to the restrictions that we had to make and our compromised user experience, and the rest was a natural, internet-wide migration to the bigger, dedicated discussion sites.

Given this reality, coupled with the fact that the user blogging functionality consumes over 40% of our server resources, we will be revoking the ability for users to post blogs and removing that framework entirely.

What happens to the current user blogs?

In late Q4, we are planning to move the archive of user blogs to https://communityarchive.teamcovenant.com. They will remain there for an undetermined period of time, and in all likelihood will eventually be deleted.

If you wish to keep your blogs, we encourage you to copy/paste your content to other platforms or your own personal hard drives. You can find the listing of all of your posts by going to the following url: https://teamcovenant.com/members/YOURUSERNAME/ and selecting “posts” from the dropdown.

We can also furnish a WordPress blog backup file to anyone who requests one. The resulting .xml file can be uploaded to any WordPress site to import all of your TC posts, or parsed for the blog text.

We cannot provide a copy of your comments and/or private messages, though the former do export with whichever blog they are attached to.

It is our hope that those of you who are still blogging here (Theorist, mu0n, Jason) will take your content and start your own personal blog on WordPress, Medium, or elsewhere. We will facilitate this as best we can.

We cannot adequately state how wonderful it has been to see these various communities develop over the years, and how thankful we are for everyone’s willingness to share their thoughts and to connect with each other through our cobbled-together platform. It was so formative for all of us at TC, and we wish that we did not have to make this decision.

Special thanks to Theorist, who was undoubtedly the most instrumental contributor to this community from the beginning; if not Monsterpocalypse and X-Wing more generally. You are an amazing writer and thinker, Jeff. We appreciate you.

For questions about how this impacts you and/or to request a WordPress backup file of your blogs, reach out to archive@teamcovenant.com with your username.

In March 2012, after five years as an online-only retailer, we opened a little gaming space called Covenant Tulsa. It was our entry into an entirely new world of brick and mortar game stores.

Almost immediately, we started receiving a surprising number of calls. People wanted to know what we sold, what events were happening, and how we made money without selling Magic. You know, the usual.

But over time, the calls started shifting to questions about who was in the store and what they were playing.  “Anyone there for Game of Thrones?” and “You know if anyone is coming in tonight for X-Wing?” became the norm.

Given the minimal staff at the time and the close-to-overwhelming volume of calls, we recognized the need for tools that solved as many questions as possible before help was needed.

This led us to streamline our event calendar and league, simplifying both and making them universally accessible online. We also created the Covenant Tulsa Players Facebook group so local players could coordinate when and what they would be playing at the store.

While the Facebook group was (and still is) extremely useful, it was all too common that someone would show up, post to the group, and not find another person to play with. The number of replies to a “playing in the store tonight!” post that equated to “sorry I missed this – would have been there but saw this too late!” became a clear sign that Facebook was only a piece of the puzzle.

Local players needed an easier, faster way to connect, and it all revolved around access to some very basic information.

Before making a trip to the store, it would be extremely helpful to know:

• Are there people playing right now?
• What games are they playing?
• How long will they be there?

While at the store, it would be extremely helpful to let others know:

• I am here and looking to play the following games.
• I am testing for an event, looking for casual games, building weird decks, etc.
• I will be here until this time.

So we built a platform that seamlessly allows for this exchange of information to occur. Introducing the beta version of Covenant Play – now available to all local players!

Covenant Play is a browser-based, mobile-optimized tool on our website that allows you to instantly communicate the most important details of your in-store gaming experience. Check out how easy it is to use!

First, when you arrive at the store, sign in to Covenant Play at playing.teamcovenant.com, accessible via “PLAY” in the header. This requires a free Covenant account and a one-time authorization for Covenant Play to access that account.

Once signed in, click Start Playing.

This pops up a modal in which you enter all relevant information, starting with the games you want to play. You can choose from any of our supported games, as well as a fully-customizable Board Game and Other Game field.

Once you have chosen the games you would like to play, let others know that you will be Playing Until a certain time. You will automatically be signed out at that time.

Next, you have the option to provide a custom Message that gives context to the experience you are looking to have. Just want to play some fun decks? Needing to test a certain list heavily before a competitive event? Hoping for 2 more players to join your Dungeons & Dragons campaign? New to a game and needing a teacher? List it here.

Finally, you can choose to display the name associated with your Covenant account or simply be listed as Anonymous. Whether or not your visit is public information is completely up to you – and you can find players regardless!

When you click Check In, your name is added to the list of players on the Playing Now page. Other players can now see the games you want to play and head down to the store to join!

We are truly excited to get Covenant Play into your hands. As noted above, though, this is still very much a beta release in active development. Our product roadmap on this is extensive, and we have big plans for where it goes next.

Those choices will be influenced by how the Tulsa community uses it and whether or not it is effectively solving the problems listed above. There is only one way to know for sure, and that is to release it and observe.

So what are you waiting for? Start playing!

Note that we are not accepting applications for this position at this time.

From the beginning, we have prioritized content creation as an integral part of our contribution to tabletop gaming. Now, having expanded into multiple channels – YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and, of course, our website –  we need a passionate, eloquent, and hard-working team member to coordinate (and contribute to) these efforts.

The Position

Our Marketing team builds awareness of the Covenant brand and clearly communicates the value of our products and services. As Content Manager, you will be responsible for developing and executing content strategies (including PPC) that achieve these objectives. You will take lead on all written communication and so should be extremely comfortable writing blogs, product descriptions, press releases, emails, advertisements, and social media posts without any grammatical errors and in accordance with SEO best practices. You will directly manage all social media accounts.

During a product launch campaign, for example, you will determine what content needs to be created in order to effectively market the product in the deadline given. You will work with our Lead Designer and Video Producer to facilitate the creation of all desired non-written assets (promotional pictures, product videos, graphics, website images, etc) and then produce all necessary copy (announcement blog, product description, Facebook ad, email newsletter, social media announcements, etc). You will then launch the campaign, analyze the results, and adapt as needed.

We are pretty data-driven, so be ready for that.

Responsibilities

• Write, edit, and update written content
• Optimize content for SEO
• Manage social media accounts
• Manage online advertising campaigns

What We Value

Our values (see below) exist to guide employee action and provide a clear picture of our expectations, both for you and ourselves. Success at Covenant is embodying these values and demonstrating them when acting on behalf of the company, especially when direct instruction is unavailable. These values are:

Awareness
Excellence
Determination
Focus
Initiative
Innovation
Receptiveness

While no person can perfectly embody every one of these values in every moment, a Covenant employee is expected to have a natural inclination toward them and a desire to actively cultivate them in all aspects of their work.

Qualifications

• Extremely strong written and verbal communication skills
• Proficiency with computers and technology
• Familiarity with SEO best practices
• Familiarity with PPC advertising (Facebook, Adwords)
• Familiarity with tabletop gaming
• Desire to constantly learn and improve

Experience

• Minimum of a high school diploma or equivalent
• 18 years or older

Interested? Submit an application below!

Note that we are not accepting applications for this position at this time.

The Holiday Token tradition continues with fresh sets compatible with Star Wars: Destiny, Arkham Horror: The Card Game, Star Wars: X-Wing, Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn, and Android: Netrunner. The latter also gets an extra special surprise – the launch of revised Data Tokens!

2017 Holiday Edition Token Sets

We just love white acrylic so much. That clean, high-contrast background makes every design come to life. Throw the festive colors into the mix and it is hard to resist bringing a little holiday cheer to the table this season!

This year we focused on holiday themes that could be bundled together into full sets. Saga Tokens and Arcane Tokens get the full treatment, Mythos Tokens get a cheery Investigator Set, Data Tokens sport a new white-out Credit Set with revised designs (see below), and Squad Tokens add the only holiday-themed Shield Token that we have not done – bright santa red!

These tokens will only be available during the holiday season!

You can find out more by visiting our store, or browse directly below.

Data Tokens, Revised

We could not be more excited to announce a comprehensive update to our Data Token line. Five years on the market, Data Tokens were our first real token offering, and one of our absolute favorites. With Netrunner getting a comprehensive update of its own, we went back into the lab and optimized every line, angle, font, pattern, and arrangement on those original designs, producing a set of tokens that demonstrates how much the little things truly do matter.

Data Tokens still carry the iconic designs that have graced thousands of Netrunner tables over the years, but like the game itself, the fundamentals have been tightened up. Line thickness is now consistent and more crisp, the angles are standardized (note the Brain Damage, Tag, and Power Token triangles), the numbers and letters are uniform, and the patterning and spacing is aesthetically improved – and mathematically perfect.

The 2-Credit and 3-Credit have flipped colors, finally, so that Green Level Clearance nets a green token and Blue Level Clearance nets a blue token. Even though the latter has rotated, Green Level Clearance in the Revised Core makes it worth the change. Similarly notable, both the Bad Publicity and Tag tokens are smaller, crisper, and more intensely parallaxed.

While nothing compares to seeing the real thing, check out this bare bones comparison of the designs. Though subtle, the overall effect of these changes looks simply phenomenal on the table. A sleek new look for a newly revitalized game.

You can check them out in further detail on our store, or buy them directly below.

We send each of you the warmest of holiday wishes this season, and hope that each day is filled with immense happiness and great games. Thank you for all of the incredible support over the past ten years!

Exciting news! Due to the support and passion of our customers, we are adding additional seasonal staff. Our Operations team needs diligent, meticulous, and focused individuals who share our passion for unrivaled quality and service with an inclusive and positive attitude. We are seeking a handful of employees who are ready and excited to contribute to Covenant on a recurring basis!

The Position

The Operations team is responsible for the the tangible delivery of the Covenant brand, which is no small task. Our in-house directive is to leave nothing to chance, so only apply if you thrive in demanding environments.

As a Seasonal Specialist, you will be responsible for unpacking, unboxing, and organizing inventory during busy seasons of the year. This role may be expanded based on performance and may offer work throughout the year.

Responsibilities

• Receiving, unpacking, and organizing inventory
• Adapting to general operational needs

What We Value

Our values (see below) exist to guide employee action and provide a clear picture of our expectations, both for you and ourselves. Success at Covenant is embodying these values and demonstrating them when acting on behalf of the company, especially when direct instruction is unavailable. These values are:

Awareness
Excellence
Determination
Focus
Initiative
Innovation
Receptiveness

While no person can perfectly embody every one of these values in every moment, a Covenant employee is expected to have a natural inclination toward them and a desire to actively cultivate them in all aspects of their work.

Qualifications

• Strong attention to detail
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Proficiency with computers and technology
• Ability to accurately assemble and package products to fulfill orders
• Ability to stand and perform physical tasks at a brisk pace for eight or more hours
• Ability to maintain focus on a single task for multiple hours
• Ability to routinely lift 50 pounds or more

Experience

• Minimum of a high school diploma or equivalent
• 21 years or older
• Familiarity with tabletop games

Interested? Submit an application below!

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On Tuesday, April 25th, starting 11AM CST, we will be on /r/boardgames for an AMA (ask me anything). We will be fielding any questions you might have for a few hours, so stop by and ask away!