First, you have been in Dustari for less than a week, and as I explained to you, you must first be a citizen for at least that long if you are a completely new member, and you should speak to the General or the Paladin in regards to training towards becoming a soldier, and after that has been completed you could be eligible for a promotion.
Second, I was not just busy but had resigned and left graal, and didn't even have gold for I believe all of December. I only upgraded on the 31st, so that is not a lot of time to put in, but in that time I already held one rp event, organized a GK general expansion that will help players play in character as pirates, merchants, and naval officers ic and have fun doing it, and have gotten that project approved by stefan. I have also started on graphics for that project.
I have helped Gryf with recoding his Dustari website, organized future RP events, and have been helping Dustarians improve their RP skills in general.
Dustari is definately on the rise, not in decline.
Regarding the ranks, we designed them specifically to have 'fail over' redundancy, meaning it is structured in a fashion where there is a lot of ranks but when they are not all filled, there are people above and below in the chain of command that can help fill that role when it isn't filled or the holder of that rank is offline. It is an important factor when you take into account that people are often not online all at the same time.
For instance, You could argue that a general and a field marshal are basically the same, but a general is always under the field marshal's command in heirarchy, but when the FM is not online or if we don't have one, the General is more or less acting FM.
I don't mean to sound harsh, but it does bother me when I explain the process of promotions to a new member and the training that is required, and then see them promoted before they should be eligible.
All I smell is idiot, with a hint of opportunist. *moves to stand upwind of Zurkiba*
