May 4th-6th Weekend Feedback

Thank you all so much for coming out to our first weekend event of 2018.
We're trying out different ideas and weekend formats this year so we're especially eager to hear your thoughts on the experience.
We look forward to hearing what you loved and didn't love about the event.
We want to hear your suggestions on how we can improve.
We also want to hear about the highlights of your event.

As with 2017 we will enter the names of everyone who leaves us feedback into a lottery for 6 Dragon Stamps.
If you're unfamiliar with the benefits of Dragon Stamps, check out this thread.

Thank you all for supporting our game.
 
I really enjoyed the Mod for the Wheel of Time.
I enjoyed failing the Arcanum ritual.
My section on the Plane of Water was fun.

I did not enjoy succeeding at the Sanctum Ritual.
I don't like how causal Sunder/DFMs are used/thrown.
I don't like Finnis plot that encourages PC on PC bullying, whether passive aggressive or aggressive. I am going to handle it in-game, but as a plot choice I'd love to never see it again.
 
I had a very difficult time this weekend finding things to do. I liked the guilds and the interactions between them but seemed very one sided deal with the catalyst contracts that went out. There was strife with the idea of the catalysts auction money only going to the guilds. low pay for high risk.
maybe because there is a lot of personal plot with everyone that a job board couldn't be maintained but those who have little personal plot or new adventures there seemed to be a sense of discouragement of mods to go on.
The long wait for the elemental mods where a bit overwhelming. There was no interactions in town with anything not just monsters but some kind of plot hook.
Matt did a good job with food, I personally just like food in my stomach and don't care much of the immersion side of food in the tavern.
The amount of fighting mods is one thing I see happening too often. Don't see any mods that aren't catered to a fighter.
I did like how you guys wanted to see reps and keep people honest with magic items and weapon checks. just give us a heads up before hand so we don't leave some in the cabin.
a tavern menu before the game. some people i know will bring extra food if they see a meal that doesn't work well with them. Didn't hear anyone complain on this just something i liked from last year for myself.
I did like the smaller amount of tables out. made people sit together more.
I did like the lock boxes, being one of three people in the town to be able to open them and also having the tools made me feel like I spent build and money into something that was useful.
I personally love the dynamics of pvp because it brings emotion out and to me that is immersion. I just hope that everyone that does it knows who to do it with and can stay in character and make the game fun for everyone. I can be yelled at and beaten down by players in game for stuff i do and not worry about it after the game as I know its a story line and game. lets me feel as if I'm there involved with the world and all its problems.
I just got bored this event which lent me to being salty.
 
It was great seeing everyone. The event was trending to be smaller but, a bunch of last minute people showed up. It felt big. Glad to see we're continuing to grow.

After talking with Travis, Lou, and Chad the 4 of us decided we were going to start giving open discussion about this. We normally stay quiet about this. I think we should encourage more discussion here instead of it just being one way communication.

For starters, we're trying to slow the game down a lot. Run 10,000 mods non stop is really draining, and after 7 years of trying to do that we've grown some in that mind. But, we're also new at running a game like this. So that's pretty nerve racking. My fingers were bloody from nail biting leading up to the event.

I got more time this weekend then I normally do as an in town npc(s). Most of Friday night was spent roleplaying with people. That was another different thing. So it was a pretty strange event for me.

I'm not going to organize things as good/bad (but, there was both). Rather, I'm going to just go through the list of things I want to talk about.

Mod Sizes:
Wow. What an improvement to the game this made on our end, our bodies, and the challenge level. Cards could stay smaller but, still have an impact. In an effort to be inclusive we never did this. I think it was an example of trying to make player's lives easier and unintentionally hurting the game. As we talked after the event, Tethford pointed out that Leslie couldn't come on a mod and that kind of sucked for her. (And one more person being on the mod wouldn't have really changed too much). We're pretty open about ways to improve this. So if you have a suggestion below is the place to make it. Or you can hit me up and we can talk through it on gchat/facebook/phone. I think we need to find a system where strict limits aren't in place but the players don't try to use that system to bring everyone to everything.

Crunchies are back!
I missed them a lot. Before everything just went to the tavern (it still kind of does). Which mean there was always a doorway fight, which was never in favor of the npcs. Which meant crunchies were never really challenging. Which meant they were just huge wastes of time. As the town's started to split up some (and we've grown our player base) we have more walking around. Which means crunchies can be effective again. But, we had more wandering monsters, and people got killed/caught/scared. That always makes the world feel more real to me. I'm a big fan. I actually got jumped as a noble I was playing. Thankful for that rebirth!

Guilds:
The Healer's Guild looked awesome. The Celestial Guild looked ok. I think that they are both starting out, and so they'll continue to grow hopefully into something better then they are. They were both often empty. Which sucks. Players had to wait for a for rezzes a few times. One player had to sleep out of game because of it. I think that's probably a habit of having someone around, which when they were in the tavern was easy but, now is not. I tried to start up some guild plot. I have mixed feelings about how it went. We'll keep working at it. I'm more or less lost about how to really make the Celestial Guild work.

Lowbee Mods:
Louis is so ******* good at running low level plot and I am so bad at it. Louis did a phenomenal job. All of his mods were awesome. Had had super interesting characters. I love what I saw of it. I'm sad that a group of high level players came in and finished the bush plotline. It robbed lower level players of a chance to engage, learn to roleplay, and deal with bad situations on their own. I generally don't like "Babysitting". I think it encourages new players to rely on power rather then learn skills to deal with situations. Then they keep relying on it, things going wrong mean "those cards were too tough" vs "we should have held together as a group better". Live or die situations forge you as a player (and your characters). I know there was some miscommunication about the difficulty. Let's just agree that this situation isn't good for anyone, and try to avoid it.

Event Style - "Player's Choice":
Some events we have an overlooking story player's need to complete. Some events we give players a chance to catch up on stuff. I'm always worried about the first one. I just don't want people to have a bad time. I can have control issues. And so giving up that control is always hard. More or less though the player's did stuff and life carried on. These events can be harder for new player's to get involved with stuff but, actually Lou picked up a big weakness I think the team had prior to him with these events. Player's were in bed earlier then usual it seemed. Was that because of the lack of content? Or did the different times changes habits? I'm curious.

Elemental and Healing Aura:
Lots of Elementals this weekend. Some undead finally! The undead mod Saturday night more or less solidified my position on this. Those that had blades and used them against the elementals clearly got an advantage. A pc had an earth aura sword all weekend and it really paid of for them when they ran into undead. I understand this is a hard pill for players to swallow. I wish y'all could see it through my eyes. You'd agree it's a better change. As you engage more creatures, and start to learn how the change is affecting things I think you'll all come around.

Gathering Stuff Around Town:
Was this cool? Did this matter? There's no way I can know. It was intentionally designed for me to not need to be involved. I want to do more town stuff that doesn't need a marshal or npcs. Obviously not always go look for stuff in the woods. But, if we can figure out what works well. We can do more of it. Did you run into any crunchies in the woods? That was my hope that it would happen.

Sanctum / Arcanum:
These mods I was more or less happy with. It sucks Arcanum didn't get casted. Because that would have been a reason for people to be in the Celestial Guild. But, the door was left wide open and Chad casually walked through. The player's totally learned the lesson though when casting Sanctum. Much better tactics. Smart thinking with the wizard lock. (Especially if it was from a scroll, I think those scrolls are super useful). The NPC showed up, I heard some back talk about. Not every encounter is going to be one you can stick fight. This was one of them. I think my interaction with Annette was great. Did you win this encounter Annette? Was he lying? Would he have given you all of the stuff he promised? Are you going to struggle with these questions for a while? I hope so.

I think failure really served as a lesson the player's learn here. So while I would have preferred Arcanum was up. It's great that there was a take away still.

Out of Game Chatter:
I heard this a decent amount. I was guilty of it some. Only one thing to do. Strive to be better. If you want to have an oog talk the parking lot, near npc camp are great places. We're all friends. I get we want to catch up. I do too. Let's just make sure it's not ruining other people's fun.

Town Being Broken up:
Parts of my plan to break the town up more succeeded. Parts failed. It's a work in progress.

Trust/ Transforms/ Plot:
If you have a transform, I'd encourage you to read over the blurb in the player's guide. It's not ever free power, and you're giving up a lot of your rights to be upset when plot doesn't go your way. We expect players to be working towards becoming exceptional players. I think there was some disputes about losing magic items from transformed players or being treated unfairly.

Trust is a two way street. We trust players with these extra powers (lots that could ruin the game). We're here to make everyone have a good time. We get really really really upset when even a single player isn't enjoying something. It stresses us out (as it should). If we were just here to kill players it would be an easy task to do. If we were just here to run a game where players constantly lose, I could do it with the stroke of a pen. (Just kidding, no one uses pens anymore, and my pen stroke is garbage). We need that trust back from players. I don't think we have it at times. I believe that to be unwarranted. In 7 years, I can't think of us really making a situation so bad that it would warrant us not being trusted. And when bad situations came up, I can't think of a time we didn't try to make it right.

Weapon Checkin/Magic Item Reps/Marshall Notes/Other Rules:
We weren't doing this as much. It was a huge mistake on our part. Lots of busted reps and magic items missing reps. We as a community will work on this. Better enforcement will breed players being better about this.

I didn't check a single battleboard this weekend. Because I'm bad at my job. I'll be better. I hope Mike and Matt were checking things as well.

Marshal notes don't need to be on the outside of the cabin. Just around the door.

Wards:
There was a cabin that had Ward written on their notes and didn't have the W up. The "W" is required or the spell is lost.

Destroy Magic and Wizard Locks:
Destroy Magic removes all magic from the target. Destroy Magic targeting a building with Wizard Lock will remove the lock. Travis was targeting "Ward". As such he was specific in his target and there was no ward. Had he specified building or just thrown the packet. The Wizard Lock would have been removed. I intentionally didn't correct with Travis on the field because I thought it was a good tactic, especially with specifying ward. But, I even had a scroll next to me when it was happening. I just wanted to clarify this.

Light Spell:
If you're using a light spell and a flashlight. You need to have it diffused.
"If using a flashlight for this spell, the lens of the flashlight must be covered by a cloth, tissue paper or a gel to diffuse the light. Do not shine the light in anyone’s face." ARB 119
There were a few player's who had very bright LED lights.
 
I had a great time. I was worried that I would not like the change of pace but I actually really did. Having some big mods earlier in the day on Saturday was great! It allowed me to not panic with certain timelines I had to adhere to during the event. I would still really love to get the occasional huge town fight Saturday night but completely understand why it cannot always and should not always happen. So thank you so much to Plot and Aram for killing it this weekend. Also, the guy who plays Ethan (please forgive me for not remembering your oog name. I will remember it the next time you tell me. I'm old; I forget things). Thank you so much for coming and doing an NPC rotation. Everyone else (including me) kind of did not step up this weekend. I did attempt to go and got hamstrung by a something coming into town. So, sorry plot guys for not NPC'ing as much as I would have liked. Normally I write a shorter post but strap in. This ones long.

Highlights:

  • Shout out to Lou. I feel like he really grew into his role on Plot this weekend. This characters were amazing. Also Lou as a 90 year old man lost and drunk in the woods.
  • Cyn's heart breaking during the ritual was great. She really put her all into it and I was honestly impressed. Good job. This entire encounter was fun for me, even if I didn't fight a ton.
  • Eragon- I enjoyed yelling at you. Great job on holding your own on those undead. 10/10 would go on a mod with you again/
  • Travis as always, thanks for putting up with me. As always, sorry for making you put on make up.
  • Chris- I don't normally interact with you IG much but your roleplay on Saturday night was awesome.
  • Chad-I like the cut of your Quasit (or however you freaking spell quasit. Kwazit, quazit, Quamalamadingdong?).
  • Role playing with Ian and all of Saturday night.
  • Doug Henson showing up, stabbing me and then disappearing into the night.
  • I had a lot of non fighting experiences this weekend. I love stabbing people and yet most of my event was role play based. It made me happy.
  • I think the new laws are starting to bring an extra layer to the PCs interactions. There have been a lot more charges laid against people recently. Even in years past when we did have laws and someone was attacked, it was rare to press charges. I'm interested in seeing where this goes. Now that the town is getting bigger, there are dynamic shifts.
  • I'm super thrilled with everyone attempting to make their cabins more in game. I actually really like the candle light, only situation. If our cabin had a couple more candles and if the lantern I brought hadn't died, it would have been perfect.
Non-Highlights.

Okay, this isn't about anything plot did. There was some of out of game talk and it was kind of a 'negative nancy' kind of thing (My apologies to positive happy go-lucky Nancy's everywhere). It was actively ruining my event. I solved my situation by changing the way I was playing this event. I had a great rest of my game as a result but I ask, if you want to be grouchy out of game- please leave the PC areas. I understand we love this game and if you see something different that you don't agree with or not necessarily like- you might have high emotions about it.- Either wait until after the event or go somewhere else to bitch.

I'm actively trying to be more positive about the game and I trust plot. I can understand why they are doing things. I don't always agree with their method but I know, they're not trying to screw us over; just run a game for a bunch of people. Also, as a suggestion, talk to Plot. Instead of immediately just grousing among yourselves, talk with the guys when you have a chance. They're not tyrannical and want the game to be better just like us. They're always happy to have a conversation about what you think about the game and on ways to improve.

Okay, that's pretty much it. I don't want to leave this on a negative note so, I did see a some of the PC's really do a great job staying in game and role playing. Keep it up and I will try and be better and I hope everyone else will too. My last positive thing. The Dryads were hilarious in their interaction with Lou. when I was NPC'ing I was dying laughing inside the cabin and trying not to make a sound. Thanks for the laughs.

TC
 
Trust/ Transforms/ Plot:
If you have a transform, I'd encourage you to read over the blurb in the player's guide. It's not ever free power, and you're giving up a lot of your rights to be upset when plot doesn't go your way. We expect players to be working towards becoming exceptional players. I think there was some disputes about losing magic items from transformed players or being treated unfairly.

The only part I saw relating to giving up the right to be upset, was the following:
"The Player is subject to Plot directly affecting him or her because of the transform. It is rare that this happens, but must be followed without question or argument."

I initially read that as Transform related bad things. So, I'm a fire guy then Ice-guy comes a calling and only attacks me, or KBA ensure rez on me but not other people.
Is this clause intended to be a blanket statement about all plot? So as a Transform holder, or vacuum package user, I waive all rights to be upset about any situation related to plot/stats/treatment?

-Joe
 
The only part I saw relating to giving up the right to be upset, was the following:
"The Player is subject to Plot directly affecting him or her because of the transform. It is rare that this happens, but must be followed without question or argument."

I initially read that as Transform related bad things. So, I'm a fire guy then Ice-guy comes a calling and only attacks me, or KBA ensure rez on me but not other people.
Is this clause intended to be a blanket statement about all plot? So as a Transform holder, or vacuum package user, I waive all rights to be upset about any situation related to plot/stats/treatment?

-Joe

Yeah more or less. I personally don't consider vacuum packages part of that specific blurb. Just because the nature of them. There's a clear way anyone can get them, and they go away after the event. It was written before Vacuum packages were out. Nobility and other powers are a bit more case by case. I will talk with the 3 other plot members on that and confirm though.

It doesn't mean they can't talk to us about issues that come up. It doesn't mean that we won't take constructive feedback. It doesn't even mean they can't have a bad time(We'd probably have a hard time enforcing it). But, if they don't want to play in that game were things come for them, and we put them in situations where it may not be great for their characters/health/wealth. I would avoid transforms. A lot of players have had to sacrifice important things to them. Items, they've taken deaths, they've been put in situations where other characters hate them now. Sometimes it should suck to have a transform. Sometimes it should suck to hold power that other large creatures of power view you as a threat. It does not need to be the long lost plot bad guy. Sometimes it's just things.

I think the misunderstanding has been that they get the powers and what's expected of them is your card and that's that.
It's not. The player has a responsibility to do what they can to ensure that other people are having a good time. The player has a responsibility to make sure they're not ruining others fun with their game and that their contributing to the game. Transformed players should help to be sheppards of the game and culture.

If that's not a player's bag. Great. That's OK.

Admittedly, I think we could fill that section out more. The player's guide is going to be a continuing work in progress.

I should say that by nature of the game, you get yourself in those situations regardless. Where you die, or things are hunting you, you are put in a situation requiring sacrifice. But, transformed players are treated a bit more gloves off about it.

I should say that we came into a lot of this stuff with the intention of it being this way always. And we've mistakenly focused heavily on rewards. Which we love. We love when player's feel great and get a cool power. That's great! But, there are two sides to things. We've started to bring things more or less back in line with where we feel they need to be.
 
Ok.

Thanks for explaining it further.
 
This is going to be far from organised because I only have the rest of my lunch break to share my thoughts, but tl:dr = this was great!

What I could actually participate in was awesome, very fun on an OOG level, very eye-opening for OOG me about my IG character. What I couldn't participate in, I didn't feel that I was being left out (but both me-player and me-character tend to be a bit wallflowerish, so I can understand that other more social and interactive people might have been bothered by being kept from participations).

One particular moment that stands out as... confusing, but I didn't think of it negatively... was that we had Chrono-Neutral Tavern in the midst of the elemental mods. That is, since technically all of the events were supposed to be happening at the same time, but they couldn't because of the limited number of NPCs / PCs needing to NPC for other PCs / Banradi needing to teleport everyone and sort of be on all three mods --- those of us that either didn't have their part of the mod yet, or had already finished it, were in a sort of limbo as far as "are we really roleplaying? are we actually in/outside of the tavern?" because other people we'd otherwise be interacting with were doing their part of the mod.

This is not something that necessarily needs to be worked on, but I did want to bring it to the attention of the chapter staff. In my case, for instance, it was a good opportunity to just relax, and to solidify information that my character reasonably would have picked up between the events. But that tended to blur the line between IG and OOG.

Friday night's elemental randoms were stressful but realistic; Saturday's elemental plane mod was a blast.

As stated above, I have trouble jumping into social situations, and haven't entirely reached the point where I can "use" my character to overcome that. But I was still able to do personal plot things, character development things, and feel out Ilarion's ideas about morality and honour and loyalty. To someone who comes at LARPing from a writer's perspective, that's majorly beneficial.

Also a massive massive thank-you once again to the NPCs and PCs that helped me with, and worked around, my health issues in the middle of Saturday. And the same to people that have been helping me improve my swordwork. I definitely fell unconscious IG far fewer times than the two one-days.
 
I personally had a great time this weekend. Admittedly I was concerned as it was our first full weekend making the adjustments we set forth in the town hall meeting. I felt a lot of positive improvements really came from those changes and I'm very grateful to the feedback that we are getting at where things could have been more fun.

Crunch time: Crunching all over the camp on Friday and Saturday was a great and broad feel to the game for me. I enjoyed that the players spread out to B and C cabins. I loved that the crunchies followed them out there and in the late hours remained waiting at times. Real assassins were in the woods this time and I think people could truly feel it. I enjoyed waking a few people up in different cabins. More than that I was very proud at how the players could recognize and respond to (in my case mostly) a water elemental and knew how to handle them. I think several more learned a few new tricks they got to exploit over them that really made my day. Also the late night dangerous random rifting monsters was something we had not done in a while. In the rare times when your cabin can't really protect you it is great to see players leap out of bed ready for the fight.

Elemental Fight: so I have gotten double feedback from people on the time-neutral function of the "three simultaneous fights". Some have told me it really kept them in the story/rp of it even with the delay. Others asked if what was happening in town was out of sync with something. To say nothing that the 2nd mod took twice as long as the other two (not the players fault, it was a heck of a fight). The presentation of that mod adjusted from the initial plan on the fly and it was my call. While I'm glad people got a kick out of the on the fly mechanic it is pretty clear to me that it's a pretty poor story telling device if half the people just remain confused. Thus something that complicated won't be attempted again. At least not without a clear format that everyone understands going in first. Either way I apologize if anyone was confused or bored by the mechanic. That certainly was not the intention.

As for the fights themselves:

Ice: I was impressed. You started on water and marched into Ice. I wondered if I had too many NPCs to make this viable and you stayed as organized and deadly as a roman legion. Even when you crossed over to Ice and the cold/double damage of the plane kicked in you rolled right into, in fact you pushed harder. Your shield wall stayed organized and nearly unbroken from armor swaps the whole way through. I have no critique. Do that every time.

Radiance: It was a blast doing the 6 man mods this weekend. This was one of my favorites. The stakes were very high for this one and you learned the mechanic quickly while rolling with the intensely threatening fight well. That was a privilege to watch.

Stone: Holy. Crap.
You planned that very well. I expected it to take twice as long. The elemental blades were handed out, and the sky rained down electrical devastating bird seed like an angry god. It wasn't just quantity it was quality and focus fire. Those that didn't have the element protected the others that did. I was also very happy to see that the highest damage dealers were not the first priority, but rather those that were not swinging quite as high. It really meant the elementals had no weak point to push on. While I can't discuss it in detail I'm certain a few of you noticed some of the specific changes taking place with our monster cards. I'm very happy that it was noticed. As much as we may have asked our players to roll with elemental aura change it is very gratifying that players are making the discovery on the plot side of what we have changed on our end. If you don't know what I am talking about... please discuss. ;) The battlefield roleplay by Nyo and a few others recognizing Monolith from the oneday (and the challenge he potentially possesed) to mid-fight negotiate their way into the portal rather than fight it out was superb. I understand the resulting roleplay after the fight in the tavern was great.

Quick note on portals and how they are handled in SoMi for everyone:
If the portal is a properly repped doorway/opening (and not just a ill defined piece of cloth or other rep) it is treated much like a circle. Nothing (unless a player or monster has a very specific and very rare ability to do otherwise) passes through portals such as packet or weapon based attacks. NPCs and Players must clearly and fully cross the threshold of the opening to attack anything on the other side just as they would if they were hopping in and out of a circle. Unlike a circle however, for safety purposes, players and npcs must give space to someone crossing over so that they can fight safely and fully on the other side. Otherwise it would be charging. When physrepping walking through an open and fully repped portal there is no need to call a 3 count to do so, you actually physrepped the action already. :)

Politics and Guilds: Wow the guilds look great! Well done to Annette for the rep! Holy crap the dynamics of the town rp have shifted with clearly defined kingdom laws for the players to make use of (or destroy ;)). Political roleplay has often been a weakness of mine. I was glad to play Ko from the beginning so I could relearn what it meant to be neck deep in them mirroring his own political ignorance. I would like to think I have gotten a bit better but it always makes me trepidatious at best. To come in and be instantly engaged by 6 players, have four passionate RP meetings that spanned many characters... it was great. I'm sorry I didn't get to address more players. I always wonder if I have been in game too long and talking (nearly always) as Ko so after all the "politic mods" were over I skedaddled. I was impressed that the laws and political tensions between other players resulted in some intense and amazing role-play. I loved that people and creatures were all over town instead of just crammed into the same building. I hope everyone else does too. Are there other ways we (staff and players) can facilitate this town feel more?

Immersion: I wasn't exposed to a great deal of OOG talk, and I am certainly not innocent of it, but I think we can do better about staying in game.

Self Marshaling - excellent work by all players. I saw a number of times where people called other on a hit or packet they might have missed. Thank you. It just makes the game so much better all the way around.

Destroy Magic on Wizard locks: just going to apologize for flubbing the call the first time. As Chris said above if I had selected no target and struck with just a destroy magic ritual effect it would have worked as per the ritual. However to perhaps clarify the Sanctum situation slightly: after the first flub every following Destroy Magic specifically and deliberately was in-game targeting a Ward that was not there (and thus never worked).

The Sanctum Fight: That was fun, I got sunburned, that wasn't fun. You guys really held it together well. Rolling with the slow power creep and the occasional insurgence well.

Mod sizes: I think the reduced mod size really let us put some quality into a somewhat slower progression of mods and properly make certain that everyone got to be involved on the mod they got to go on. I saw some really great times had from that fact. Then I saw the big shows like elemtnals and Sanctum roll like an invading army that was fantastic to fight. The limits let us create cards that did not feel over powered and do so with less NPCs. I know because of the limits of people on mods that some people got left behind... and that really sucks. I had a number of conversations with people and we will discuss ways to avoid that particular "suck" in the future that won't rob us of this big improvement in our mods. Player fun is the number one goal of course, please pardon our dust as we get this working.

That said NEVER hesitate to come to plot/npc camp to let us know things got missed or you are bored. Never never never. We likely won't know if you don't tell us. We need you to tell us. Pretty please. :D

I had a great weekend. Thank you to you all.

Travis
Plot Guy/Owner/Favorite color: Green/hates cucumbers


PS- I really enjoyed what I am calling the "Dryad Grove". I can't wait to see what you do next. :D
 
I had a great time this event! I tend to worry a lot about if I'm cheating, doing something in character appropriately, or messing up for some other reason, but I think it worked out overall. I really enjoyed getting to interact with people that I don't normally do.

Here are a couple of things I wanted to bring up to tack on to what other people have already said:
  • "Player's Choice" Events
    • I love these, however I feel like it's hard to tell when they're going to happen, so it's hard to jump right in and go without some preparation ahead of time. (And then feel like we missed our chance to get some things done) Or sometimes people don't want to do things, thinking we're waiting for something else to happen and doesn't. And then when we're prepared at the next event, it's an overlooking story we need to complete. I like the mix of the two, but I think it's hard to plan for without knowing, "Hey, you're going to be on your own" or something like that.
  • Plane of Water
    • I thought the way that these mods were laid out were really cool, especially getting to be a part of all three, helping people understand the plane, and talking with Torrent. That being said, I agree with Taed that it was difficult from a timing standpoint when you weren't on the mod itself. Personally, I also didn't realize that plot needed me to be that link (I didn't mind, it just took me a second to adjust).
    • THAT BEING SAID: I absolutely LOVED walking from Water into Ice. We had a unique set of players, and even though I don't fight with you often, you let me stand back and take command of a legion. The shields were constant and were able to refit without letting the wall break. When we got out of formation and I yelled at everyone to get back into place, you did so immediately, and fought valiantly through the swarms of elementals. Extra props to Aragon and Taios to know when to really push the line forward while I was backpacking them.
  • Smaller Mods/Travel Time
    • I really like taking the travel time into consideration as well as mods that aren't just discussions outside of monster camp. That made my Saturday night, and I hope more people get to experience them moving forward! It really adds to the immersion of the game on multiple levels, including the fact that you've spent so much dedication on determining where everything is.
  • Transforms/Trust/Plot/(Even Auras)
    • I appreciate having additional disadvantages to things. I think it makes better sense for game balance, and you have to think more tactically about how to address certain situations. I think a few small tweaks could be made (maybe giving those with other auras on a weapon access to an elemental blade spell for each additional aura), but overall I noticed the impact and appreciated these sorts of things.
Thank you NPCs!

Best,
Ian
 
"Player's Choice" Events
I love these, however I feel like it's hard to tell when they're going to happen, so it's hard to jump right in and go without some preparation ahead of time. (And then feel like we missed our chance to get some things done) Or sometimes people don't want to do things, thinking we're waiting for something else to happen and doesn't. And then when we're prepared at the next event, it's an overlooking story we need to complete. I like the mix of the two, but I think it's hard to plan for without knowing, "Hey, you're going to be on your own" or something like that.

From my personal view point I don't see how this could be naturally done. If our intent is to back off and give the players much more space than a tense "assault-like" event or overwhelming singular problem letting everyone know in advance is like some kind of nonsensical fortune telling. How could anyone know that the sky won't fall on a gathering and you would have time to see to one challenge or another, or one personal conflict or another?

We try to give focus to what, if any, is the major threat that is coming in a gathering. We also try to update with news and rumor all that is happening abroad. Every event needs to be an opportunity to weigh the challenges of the world against what challenges you directly and make the call. Plot will always attempt to facilitate any proactive endeavors. Frankly they are our favorite kind. :D
 
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I don't disagree with that at all Travis. It's also part of why I didn't provide a solution... because I don't necessarily have one. There's pros and cons to both, and I think I'd prefer it this way as well, but thought it's important enough to at least mention in passing.
 
I don't disagree with that at all Travis. It's also part of why I didn't provide a solution... because I don't necessarily have one. There's pros and cons to both, and I think I'd prefer it this way as well, but thought it's important enough to at least mention in passing.

Im certainly not denouncing the idea. What I want to gain from this is acknowledging that we can help by presenting opportunities for players to take those proactive measures. We worry often that if we pump the breaks that players are just sitting in the tavern waiting for us. It’s one reason I like that everyone is spreading out and we are going there to meet you.

Funny enough it often comes to players coming to be proactive and head butting plot as we were coming out to engage because we fear you might be bored.


.... and discuss.
 
For me, the weekend felt really slow/uneventful until late Saturday for me. The below comments aren't complaints, but more constructive criticism (or is my intent). I know this was the first full event and many changes were in the work.
  • Clear lack of NPCs is a becoming more and more obvious. I feel hypocritical to complaint about it cause I do feel bad, it is I don't want to NPC/Plot in two chapters, cause I know it will burn me out of Alliance all together and playing allows me to refresh some / see ideas and gather inspiration. That said I did do a stint of NPCing (more on that below) and had fun, but then didn't have our “first mod” until Saturday early afternoon. Not having our first mod until then feels like we don't have traction to get things done and no one likes spinning wheels. I would rather see everyone has to do a NPC shift sign-up than NPC before you go do your mod or begging. Thank you Malaki (sorry I forget your oog name still) coming to NPC this whole event.

  • Went to go do a first mod Friday night and got turned into NPCing from 2am to 5am, with the fate/success of the NPCing affecting our characters (Popcan mod). This was a good and bad experience. Good wise, I made you as an NPC care about your life rather then being a suicide bomber NPC. Good, we got more information then the original interaction we going to have (I believe), even though overall I don't feel we were that successful. Playing (a good) rogue is the hardest class to play, in my opinion. Bad, NPC dieing = you die, means off screen death and friends can't help (which is why we travel together). Bad, timing; by the time we were in the field, completing objectives felt more difficult because many had already went to bed.
  • Louis was fantastic. Really that last mod, while not difficult, set the stakes to be raised and begin the next chapter for the Moonless Nights. Only criticism I can give all of your NPCs looked alike (costuming, race, or even scars). That last mod really saved my weekend because it made me excited again to see what is next.

  • I wasn't a huge fan of the elemental mod. It felt like the big town fight when there wasn't suppose to be one, though it could have been more PC fault then plot fault. We (Moonless Nights) were half way headed out before getting called back to wait a couple of hours after already waiting. The last group was pretty close from rebelling to go do our own things. Information was thin (prob a Plot to PC relaying to PC issue) and I didn't feel invested. It was probably more OOG fear of being enlisted to NPC those elemental fights while waiting to do we wanted. But the wait was making that entire group stir crazy that you would have thought it was blue thirty.

  • Rifting into cabins is cool every once and awhile. I was bummed to hear it was the new player that bit it.

  • Dark Cabins I thought would suck, but the candles helped a lot. Thanks Matt to have the foresight to deal with that issue and it help add immersion for me.

  • Food was good. Echo Jared's comment about knowing the menu ahead of time is helpful. Thanks Matt and Lisa for managing that this event! I also appreciate everyone that step up and took turn doing dishes. My only cry was there wasn't always coffee.

  • Shadow Ko was interesting and creates new mystery.

  • Liked the stuff to find in the woods. Makes it fun to explore and find. I did notice one box on the trail before lay on and then even before lay on box was gone, so assuming someone scooped it up before layon. But anything like that is a nice bored breaker, and encourages exploring the camp.

  • Moonless Nights. Reason I play this game.
 
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From my personal view point I don't see how this could be naturally done. If our intent is to back off and give the players much more space than a tense "assault-like" event or overwhelming singular problem letting everyone know in advance is like some kind of nonsensical fortune telling. How could anyone know that the sky won't fall on a gathering and you would have time to see to one challenge or another, or one personal conflict or another?

We try to give focus to what, if any, is the major threat that is coming in a gathering. We also try to update with news and rumor all that is happening abroad. Every event needs to be an opportunity to weigh the challenges of the world against what challenges you directly and make the call. Plot will always attempt to facilitate any proactive endeavors. Frankly they are our favorite kind. :D

Travis

The only solution I can think of is cleverly worded teaser. Mentally I don't expect openers or closers to be clean your laundry events. Opener is all kinds of rust, that I was like okay what were we doing and who were we talking to etc etc. Also I don't think it is bad personally to talk about it at PC talk in an OOG manner, sets expectations and maybe less boredom for waiting for things to happen.
 
I am going to stick to the new player perspective. :)

Overall I thought there was a great use of the camp site. Dying sucks, but feeling scared to walk around alone is a great feeling and most elementals seemed slow, so if you out ran or out thought them you were alright.

Game definitely seemed to have a slow start. This could partly be to being new, but there was not much for me to do the first night. I was not a fan of the hard cap on the mods. I get the idea, but it kept me from going on one. As a new guy I would not have changed the dynamic too much (I think), but a cap is a cap so I sat around for the most part.

Saturday morning proved fun with finding boxes, components, and learning more about the world. I think the boxes could have been hidden more than what they were and made it slightly more challenging, but that also depends on how much plot wanted them to be found. It made me feel useful that I and my friend were able to stroll in with four boxes and lots of feathers and down.

I had fun on both newbie mods even if I did die on one of them. We never returned because... well one of us died and that is usually a sign the "big kids" need to deal with the problem.

As I said in my NPC commentary, I loved the fight outside the Earth Guild. Great job with calling out people and making new players have to be involved in the fight. That fight left me feeling awesome and debating if I wanted to be full offense or defense in the future. Also, thank you to the wisdom of the plot team for allowing us to remove armor.

The Water Plane mod was great and we really did well with team work. Everyone needs to remember not to use the word HOLD as a battle command. Several times I got out of place or went unconscious because someone said HOLD (as a command for the troops) and I stopped fighting immediately. Get used to saying STOP or STAY instead. HALT just sounds too much like HOLD.

Saturday night I left early since there did not seem to be much left for me to do.

My two big critiques would be the lack of NPCs (as stated above) and the use of language. Those that did NPC were great in their energy. One or two more at times would have added a LOT more to fights and living world. I was told ahead of time that some people get a little loose in their language, which is fine. I let loose the F-Bomb or make an off-color joke involving anatomy from time to time (I may even have a song in my song book that I only sing when only adults are around) but I heard a lot of swearing and it seemed almost unnecessary in its quantity. Maybe that is just me, but something I wanted to note.

All in all I had a great time. I have so many hobbies that I am not sure when I will be able to make it out again, but I definitely look forward to swinging stick with all of you in the future.
 
For me, the weekend felt really slow/uneventful until late Saturday for me. The below comments aren't complaints, but more constructive criticism (or is my intent). I know this was the first full event and many changes were in the work.
  • Clear lack of NPCs is a becoming more and more obvious. I feel hypocritical to complaint about it cause I do feel bad, it is I don't want to NPC/Plot in two chapters, cause I know it will burn me out of Alliance all together and playing allows me to refresh some / see ideas and gather inspiration. That said I did do a stint of NPCing (more on that below) and had fun, but then didn't have our “first mod” until Saturday early afternoon. Not having our first mod until then feels like we don't have traction to get things done and no one likes spinning wheels. I would rather see everyone has to do a NPC shift sign-up than NPC before you go do your mod or begging. Thank you Malaki (sorry I forget your oog name still) coming to NPC this whole event.

It's painful man. I didn't touch on it here. But, we had 1 pc jump the fence for 4 hours. (We don't consider pop can mods true npcings, since there's such clear benefit to the pc but, rather a way to emulate the experience of doing something in a better way then talking through it. They're great and they help out but, it's very specific) That was all. TC and Ian helped out because they were traveling a lot for an hour or two. That was all. Doug and Chris showed up around 9 on Saturday which gave us a few more for the end of the night.

People seem to not like double hooking. Or wanting to do shifts. Forcing them I believe will not really create fun. I don't really want a community where we have to force players to do things either.

I truly believe we can offer rewards to the sky and most people would still not jump the fence. So there needs to be social pressure/encouragement from the players. Notable people in the community have a responsibility to try to help make the game better. At this point it's starting to actively hurt the game.

I feel pressure to have the same responsibility when I'm at Traverse City. (Although I don't explicitly ever go to npc camp to npc, I always offer, which as we discussed in afters isn't really useful. So I could totally be better about that.)
Brining props, donations, creating a culture of players ready and willing to help out however. We need outstanding players others should look at and be like wow a pc did this just because they love the game.

I believe that the groups we have forming have a responsibility to game as well to encourage good behavior. It would be great to see more groups npcing together for shifts or a mod here or there.

Malaki's name is Aram. And he totally killed it this weekend.
 
To be honest, it why I jumped the fence in TC was cause of social pressure, seeing the game suffer, and Thetford stressed. Probably helped the Vanguard members moved to Tenn, West Virgina, and California.

Is why I feel bad to see you guys suffer and be actively against helping. Don't ever feel pressure to NPC at TC. Mentally I kinda expect the same thing, you host us and we host you. (Same with Travis, Louis, and Chad). Still maybe I will talk to Moonless Nights that we may NPC either very beginning of event or very end so I don't have sweat makeup.

Even still, per sign up you have 25 PCs and ever PC did 2 hours, that would be 50 hours of NPC. Nix sleep and meal times that is a lot of coverage.
 
Is why I feel bad to see you guys suffer and be actively against helping. Don't ever feel pressure to NPC at TC. Mentally I kinda expect the same thing, you host us and we host you. (Same with Travis, Louis, and Chad). Still maybe I will talk to Moonless Nights that we may NPC either very beginning of event or very end so I don't have sweat makeup.

Even still, per sign up you have 25 PCs and ever PC did 2 hours, that would be 50 hours of NPC. Nix sleep and meal times that is a lot of coverage.

I can't speak for everyone but you'll always have my volunteer hand up for NPCing in TC. It's critical to the game health (any game) and fun for all involved. I didn't always feel that way but over the last few years with our growth not only as a game but a community I have reoriented on what the goal is. To have fun. If what we are running at the time is presently leaving you alone and abandoned come NPC with us. That will certainly speed things up and not only will we certainly reward you with something for your character to do right after I'm certain we can get grateful players to NPC right back for you whom you just hooked up with an even better time.

Of course we will never force a player to NPC. I play a lazy bearman and if you say you don't need me then lounging is totally my thing. If I am not engaged I am only just barely (no pun) LARPing and that's what I came to do, LARP by any circumstances to have fun with my fellow LARPers. The same amount of stories get told at afters if I got to protect or murder players. :D

These are my personal feelings on the matter of course, not the policy of the SoMi ownership.

That said if we can provide means to accommodate certain times that works so much better for you and the Moonless Nights then they will be done. We will bend over backwards for NPC assists. Now this time I AM speaking SoMi ownership policy. You just let us know and we will recombobulate whatever we have to in order to get the help.
 
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