August Guest Event Feedback

Thank you all so much for coming out to our August event of 2017.
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 a thank you for your feedback, we will be giving out 6 Dragon Stamps to one random person who leaves a response to this thread before Friday, August 18th.
 
The good: I had a great time adventuring on the island you guys created. The idea and story behind the lych/undead attrition mod especially made me smile. Watching Travis use his hammer until it was nothing but nubbins was something I won't forget.
I thought that having variation in the weekend was also something that was done well. It seemed just as I would think about how sick I was of salad monsters, there would be something new to learn about or encounter.
To have your first event running plot have such a large turn out, and still be pulled off as well as it was is amazing. I really felt you guys nailed it. Thank you to everyone that npc'd (you guys rule).
The bad: honestly I got nothing, between making my own fun as the rat dude and the setting you guys created I had a blast. Double thank you.
 
Although I was your friendly neighborhood NPC for most of the weekend, I still really enjoyed the moments that I got to play along side everyone. The Good: Food was awesome, atmosphere was great, and the RP was super cool. I enjoyed having an overarching story with multiple paths. Also enjoyed having to go through plant heavy territory with only four of us to save a family. The Bad: Things were getting kinda sloppy by Saturday evening, I took some rather hard shots and heard a lot of NPCs complaining about taking head shots, so lets be more conscious of that in the future. Otherwise, great job Plot, NPCs, and PCs for making me excited about feeling like **** on a monday morning.
 
I really enjoyed coming out to see people I haven't seen in a long time. The guest plot team ran a solid event for their first time. I enjoy contracts and think they have a great opportunity to not have people sitting outside NPC camp. I think that a little better communication there could go a long way as in not having the contract rift the signers out until the team is actually ready. I really thought the plot team did a fantastic job with makeup and costuming this weekend. The treant and water goblin costumes looked very nice. I did not take much part of actual plot but I appreciated the work the team did to make buildings look very good and have an atmosphere that matched the setting. I also very much enjoyed seeing people. It was a big event and reconnecting with people I hadn't seen in a long time was nice.
 
I had a great time this weekend. I was grateful for not only getting the OEF band back together in force but having multiple mods where we got to fight as one again. The doublehook by players to allow us to do that strictly in force was a gift, thank you all.

As always I was very happy for the time an attention Genevieve (and Mike of course) puts into the tavern. The place looked great and the atmosphere was immersive and fantastic thanks to all the players keeping it all in game.

I know Zane isn't all that approachable but I really enjoyed interacting with our visiting and new players. I will do so more in the future... but I just got the band back together... plus moon... so... yeah distracted. Special shout out to Mutt for cracking my grumpy exterior like an egg when I threw the stick torn from an Ent and you played fetch. That stick totally needs to be made into some kind of awesome thrown weapon.

Plot team... plus full time NPCs and all NPC volunteers. You did amazing, and for a first event you dramatically exceeded all expectations. The costuming, set up, and the highly detailed and excellent looking prop monster were inspired.

Thank you.
... a LOT... let me elaborate:

Man... I had not gotten a good long pure undead attrition fight in several years, and it was a hell of a fight to the end. I had nothing left when it was over. Far better though was that it was a great fight to have with a random group of towns people. I tried to return to the same spot on the front line every time I could and each time I knew that Slone was on my right, Naomi was on my left, X was over my left shoulder, and a giant rat over my right, with Phoenix four steps away at all times. Each and every time I pulled back to refit or when I dropped everyone rallied to fill the spot, cover me, or get me back on my feet. Everyone dropped their personal colors/egos, and rallied well under Gideon's calls while digging in and backing everyone else up. We didn't have a clue what we were in for when we went to investigate but we were damn sure gonna finish the fight.

That feeling is something I used to only get when the OEF took the field. While a number of us were in there we only made up a small portion of that fighting force. Deep into that long fight I would have died to protect anyone who stood with me. It was grand. Thank you plot and thank you players for making that fight the highlight of my event and my season.

Zane - Bear Guy
Travis - Plot/Owner Guy

Long post, paying the Ent tax:
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My first time ever travelling, and I had a blast. The water goblin make ups were very detailed and I loved the way they looked. The ent, The ent was a wonderful prop monster! I liked the contract system in general. The ambiance in the tavern was very nice. The pace was quick but was very nice, this weekend was the first time I've ever burned through my entire card, and it felt good!
 
For guest plot runners / 1st time running plot(?), Ian, Baylan, and David did fantastic. It isn't as easy as it looks and requires a lot time to prepare. So take any my downsides with a grain of salt in line of critical criticism. Some already discussed some with David. Thank you all who jumped fence to help them out!

The Good:
-That Ent was awesome. When it reared it's head Friday night, my little skunky butt was right up in front, it was epic. Was glad to see it used again Saturday to see a lot more of the detail. Also props to Baylan for piloting that thing, taking the falls (and rolling with it to call his own holds if he fell badly), and what not.
-Sea Goblin Make-Up. Totally going to yoink that trick for makeup scales.
-Line Battle with different flanks was neat. Dusty did good job communicating and directing our group.
-My new brother (Finch) and sister (Mutt) were some of my favorite RP'ers from this event. You guys inspire me.
-Going to the base of the giant tree for something to do, thinking we were going to probably get owned, and then having a neat RP encounter. Makes me wish would have more time to leverage these new contacts.
-Moonless Night Spoons.
-Lunch and Dinner was great, and hit the spot. Thanks Gen and Mike for all your hard work.
-Audible Projection on the locked box in the circle.
-That terrible deal I made. Sorry I already forgot your PC name, but a MWE. I made a deal with him that if either of us won the dragon poker pot we would split it. Agreed and shaked hands. Then informed he wasn't playing. LOL. I was that tired by then already.
-X's generous chit. It made for more good times and spirits at that dragon poker game.
-The bar was back. Going broke drinking my problems away.
-Finch and I finding the cure for the infection. Didn't have to kill him despite orders. The cure came in use several times, nice to see that follow through the weekend between multiple runners.
-New People and New Travelers. I hope you all return! Alliance SOMI has the needle moving in the right direction, great story, and lots of great players/staff.
-Afters. Annette. All the laughs.

The downside (take with a grain of salt / critical criticism)
-Most mods were town / very large group mods. This almost leads to small section of people doing work and a large amount of people watching or minor contributions. (I realize this is partially PC fault too). Scaling also gets wonky because your trying to challenge everyone from lvl 1 to lvl 30+. Heance the giant town fights are always the trickiest to find those balances. Rift hold / loading times also leads to tons of OOG talk (for good or bad).
-The second try at Site 3 was prob my least favorite mod. All jamed up in a cabin with bunks arrange for extra pinch point and then sound reverb from others yelling battle calls furiously, and then having a PC yell at me for not cutting people out (of phyiscal webs) with a polearm while we are all jammed up left me feeling salty and ready to play dragon poker the rest of the night.
-Really want to get our gang together and go do our thing(s) to make our own legends, stories, and failures.
-Outside observation, likely could have been better splitting Runner/NPC into smaller groups when washed with PC-NPCs. Seems like every mod I went on was all hands on deck. (Though on the plus side it makes the world more real). This would help with load time / wait times. I could be wrong, but outside perspective.
-Word is a lot of the low level job boards never made it to the board / got pocketed. Same with the follow-up to our pirates :( That and went on several contracts and maps that were handed to us that were above our "pay grade", such as a red contract Friday night. Let to lots of running into walls, which can be frustrating because we didn't feel very successful. Learning this after the fact made me feel better overall about the event.
-Saturday boss fight was too late. Up late Saturday and then woke up by NPCs raiding our cabin. Should have nap'ed Saturday afternoon maybe? Eventually decided i would "pay" 3 gold (not get a cut) to go to bed Saturday night at 2AM. No regrets when I heard those that stay up didn't make it to bed until 5:30.
-Not going to double hook. (Again take with a grain of salt). Hate it. Thanks for being cool about me refusing.
-Breakfast was meh. Maybe I came to it late.
 
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As a brand new player to alliance I have to say I had a great time. Being a former player if another system I felt it was pretty easy to catch on to yours, thank you for that.

Good: my character was extremely confused being in a tavern of a town he had JUST traveled to and all of a sudden being somewhere completely different with people he didn't know in a place no one knew it was fun getting to rp that through out the evening and most of the rest of the weekend don't know if anyone caught that, but that's ok. I felt like the mods that I was sent on were with the small group we had were a ton of fun we may not have found out anything that helped in the story in the long run be we had success. One of my fav mods was the one that we were told was going to be unscaled, it was awesome seeing what I was made of as a low lvl amongst all the others, don't know that I always felt useful in the big group stuff but I had a great time. This event did remind me of my first time larping again and I plan on coming back.
Getting to help decode a cipher even though I came late to it cause I thought you needed a skill to do so, finding out it was just based on if you knew how or what to do was a lot of fun thank you guys for letting a new player feel useful in another way I have never been able to. I enjoyed the rp I got to have with a number of the players and hope they enjoyed interacting with me.

Bad: I can't really think of a lot of bad things personally, I saw that at one point a few of the players were a bit frustrated with the amount of information they had or had access to, and I can understand that. Other than that can't think of much else.

Thank you so much for making someone who knew no one feel welcome, thank you to the new player reps who answered questions and were willing to invite or tag along/let me basically follow them around the field cause that's just what my character does sometimes. Look forward to seeing everyone again when I can
 
The Good
  • Meeting new people and rping with them was fun. Shoutout to finch for the business advice.
  • Completing the objectives I had set for the weekend
  • Dragon Poker was fun. Winning dragon poker was even more fun
  • The fish golbin makeup looked cool from what I saw in passing
  • The line battle with the right flank, left flank, and vanguard each having it's own commander was cool and very organized.
  • Fighting undead can be pretty boring, but the addition of the wraith was cool and kept us on our toes
The Bad
  • Not much of a variety of creatures to fight. I only fought plants and that one undead mod this weekend. I heard there were other, non-salad enemies, but I guess I must have missed them.
  • I had no business being on that undead mod and I was pretty useless, but I saw 3/4ths of the town going and didn't know it was for higher leveled pcs
  • I really think that all mods should be contracts, not a combination of contracts/maps. Load times this weekend were the slowest I've ever had. I understand there was not many of npcs but waiting for 45 minutes for a mod (only to be forced to flee and wait around again immediately after) was not very fun.
  • This will always be the biggest gripe I have with SoMi, things are done way too late. Meals are served really late, mods are ran til 5 am and you don't realize it until you get back to the cabin and look at the time on your phone. It really fucks with me and makes the drive back home miserable.
 
This will always be the biggest gripe I have with SoMi, things are done way too late. Meals are served really late, mods are ran til 5 am and you don't realize it until you get back to the cabin and look at the time on your phone. It really fucks with me and makes the drive back home miserable.

I can understand it messing with sleep schedules, but I really prefer that timing. Sunday is usually just pack up and leave, so I like the longer Saturdays.
 
Wow! What a fun a weekend!

Let us begin shall we -

Good-
- love the change up of the location of pc cabins and monster camp--- made it feel very different ! Even if we had at least one adjust corse as we riffed to monster camp and we all had to turn like a Fock of drunk birds !

- I LOVED literally walking into the teaser ! Entering that lab in the rift for the first time felt like we were injected right into the real world of this sorry- it existed before we arrived - that was awesome !

-loved the use The of the Art room as the lab and the fact it stayed that all weekend ! Another aspect of reality for the whole event!

- ok the kidnapping thing was nothing Cyn thought ... but you all were light pissed about it! That was a cool unexpected thing!

- the Ent prop monster was - AMaZING!!! It was hard to see Friday but Saturday you walked out... I think I looked like a muppet running for my camera I was so excited!!! Job well done On that!!! You kept the Somi tradition of best prop monsters in the Midwest going!

- the use of the space was well done... while only photographing the siren encounter, it was cool it was at the beach!!! The use of the cabins and the paths - also very well done!!!

- loved the makeup and costuming and props
Used this weekend ! Scales were sexy !

- Ian as the Councilman's wife- I and so glad my sleep dress was used :)

- the general feeling of - well we are here let's fix stuff and save people - it after all what we do!!

- the final battle to get to the siren and the Dryad was fun- and the interactions were well done!!

- getting time with the poor broken Dryad.. Elios. Damn motherly tendency.

- the tension at the end - of yeah we are stuck here till we get sent back. That was fun and - tense !

- we are all artifacts now;-)

- lots of new people, returning people and traveling people--- hello!! Thank you for coming!!!

- food as always is amazing!

I love the lateness we run in SoMi - the community as a whole knows that is typical and we all prepare for it:) I think it helps make the fact we are here for such a short time and have so much to do more real! And I think our food times fit for the fuel
Needed for the hours the chapter runs - late late night!


The less than perfect-
- there was a delay on load out times but with the numbers of players we had who is really surprised?:)

- some contracts not making it to the general public- not plots fault as they apparently put them out.

- some confusion on what sort of contract or map we had ... was so sure one was a contract... nope map- but I got adventuring autographs lol

- there was more divide in the adventuring community than normal- I do not know why but it was a tad sad :-(

That is my initial thoughts... will post more if they come!!

Thank you Baylan, Dave, and Ian- you guys did amazing for your first time running plot!!! Heck I would say you did amazing for long term plot runners ! Thank you for sharing your world with us!!!

- Nette
 
Really solid event for your first time out guys. The amount of work you guys put into writing the world and structure of the event was evident.
A few mishaps along the way that you can only fix with more experience and running more events, nothing huge. I sent you guys an email.
Best compliment I can give is: I'd attend/recommend another event you guys ran.

All the good stuff I can say has already been covered.
Amazing Ent rep, excellent characters/ costuming.

I really enjoyed seeing all the returning players gelling together.
The event was certainly more 'clicky' than other Somi events but I think that's inevitable with large amounts of people who haven't see each other in a while, and just generally a larger event attendance
I hope some of you return again when timing allows.

Some Memorable moments for me:
Despite fleeing the mod, I really enjoyed killing an entire wave of dudes in true C Caster fashion while trying to convince the team to flee the mod.
Reading Mutt's story in my book.
Being chastised for referring to the "Alpha Prostitute"
Gradually recruiting people to Gideon's empire of Salt.
Twinsies <3
"Yes the book will really work on Dustie"
Being absolutely tapped. Every wand charge, entire elemental pool, every meaningful spell for the mod, every consumable I had on me... and we hadn't even killed the Lich yet.
Being very good at planning murder, and very bad at executing said plan. Practice makes perfect I guess.
"Stealth 6 column"

-Joe
 
Story/plot related comments:
First off, I want to say that this whole event was the dryad equivalent of Disneyland for Trellis, because of the weird plant monsters, weird ancient magic, and dryad ruins trapped with jokes and sealed with puns.
I really enjoyed the world you guys created. Making a new world from scratch (from the ground up, if you will) is no easy task, and I think plot did a really great job of making it feel different and weird, as well as lived in, and diverse. Getting to meet the townsfolk who we had just procured food for over dinner was a really moving moment, despite most of them asking me if I was going to attack them like the other plants ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The main NPCs were great, we had a great laugh about the fact that Bellamie's glasses were spirit linked to him (NERD), and I was able to have some really neat conversations about magic with Ignatius.
Getting to see the OEF in action was cool, especially after all the stories I've heard as young adventurer, as well as FINALLY getting to meet Quinn (getting a nod of approval from him for bringing "Wall of Force" scrolls to a cabin/cave mod was definitely a highlight of the weekend for me).

Gameplay/ logistical comments:
As said before, load times/wait times for mods were a bit rough, but I understand that NPCs were in short supply. Double hooking was fun, probably my first or second time actually swinging a weapon in this game, so apologize if I brained anybody. It was nice to take a break from my vine-covered plant PC to play a... never mind.
Speaking of which, as much as Trellis loves to fight flammable foes, the plant monsters did get a little tiresome. I liked that there were several varieties (the spore releasing, thorn shooting, grasping, and basic kinds), but it was supposed to feel like an infestation, so I get it.
Makeup and costuming for NPCs was phenomenal. I'm still trying to figure out how you did the scales on the fish people.
and the Ent was amazing too! seriously so much work must have gone into that because it looked amazing. I wish I had gotten more of a chance to RP with the purified Ent. He seemed nice.

Using different buildings was rad as well, loved the craft room as the workshop, and running mods through the cabins. Next time though I'd like a bunk further from the sea lamprey tank.
There's probably more that I'm forgetting but I think that's all I have for now.

Baylan, Dave, Ian, Thank you guys so much for creating this crazy wonderful world we got to play in, I really hope we're able to go back there, at least in some capacity, because right now Trellis doesn't want to leave! I can't wait to get to the root of the problem on Colinthus.
 
I wanted to say thank you for all of the constructive feedback from those of you that posted it here on the forums or sent us an email. It was our first time running plot, and we've learned a ton both personally and from your comments.

Thanks for coming out to the event and giving us a chance!

Best,
Ian
 
Who ended up winning the Dragon Stamps for this?
 
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