Re: event fees

S

Sarah

Newbie
I had preregistered for the labor day event hoping to make it. It turned out that I could not. Given this situation, and this is something that could happen to myself or others, what will be the policy regarding very early pre-registration and payment via paypal and the intended participant not being able to attend the event when the date rolls around?

Will it be considered a roll-over payment and the player credited that money towards their next event? Will it be a pay-no-play situation?

Just curious how this will be handled.
 
I would give the players the option of pay-no play or rolling it to thenext event they can attend. If the event they have pre-paid for is a long weekend and they cannot attend, I would urge them to take advantage of the pay-no play option.
 
Players who make an early payment and are then unable to attend the game will have the option to either have the event fee roll to the next event or to take advantage of the pay-no-play policy. We want to encourage as many players as possible to take advantage of the new lower fee and ensure folks that they wouldn't be put into an unfair situation by helping out the chapter and registering as early as possible.
~Matt,
with Event Site Coordinator hat on.
 
Coolsies. Just noticed it wasn't addressed in the announcement so enquiring minds and all that.
 
Here is a question, How are NPC's sposed to Pre-Reg to take advantage of their fee remaining the same? I would think logistics already has enough to do.

As for the turn out, for the last two events I know several others and I have been unable to attend because the dates were changed on us.
 
The labor day event was not changed. The two previous events were changed, one dueto my error withthe ELC's and one due to Amber's error in getting the paperwork in to Sheppard. We are making every effort to ensure that does not happen again. The pre-pay/pre-register is one mechanism in trying to make that happen.
 
Dave said:
The labor day event was not changed.
Click to expand...

By changed, I mean there was an October event and it was canceled, and a September event was added instead.
 
The October event was cancelled in an effort not to overlap with Oregon's event. Two chapters so close together have events in the same month is bad form. Since they were calendered first, I thought it fair for us to move ours.
 
Dave said:
The pre-pay/pre-register is one mechanism in trying to make that happen.
Click to expand...

So do I understand this correctly? You want NPCs to Pre-reg and Pre-pay, not through Paypal unless we want to pay the extra paypal fee of $1.50.
 
That is correct. NPC's can choose to pre-pay through paypal (and pay the additional paypal fee, or they can snail-mail me the pre-payments. As far as the logistics of NPC's, it's more so we can have a good count of probable NPC's for a given event.
 
So are you saying that the only way for NPC's to do their Pre Reg is to Pre Pay with PayPal or Snail Mail?
 
Very well then I will need the address, So I can send my NPC Pre-Reg/Prepay for November.
 
NPCs do not need to pre-pay in order to pre-reg.
To pre-reg, you must let logistics know you're coming by the pre-reg deadline.
Pre-paying is the encouraged way of doing that, although it is not strictly necessary. Pre-regged NPCs may pay the pre-reg cost at the door.

For PCs to pre-reg, they must send a message to logistics, then pay the pre-reg cost at the door, exactly as it has been.
Pre-regged who early register pay the lower fee online, though they must still send their logistics in by the pre-reg deadline.

Everyone else pays the at the door price at the door.

Really, the change amounts to "PC fees go up $5, unless you pay early, in which case you get a discount. Everyone (PC or NPC) please pay now so we can make our Reservation Fee and ensure the February event."

Special thanks to Seth and Jeff who early registered for multiple events.
 
Waxing poetic on Pay no play, because I'm a bit perturbed about it...

Pay no play promotes inequailty in the gaming. Granted, this already exists in the costuming/armor field, but I think pay no play really drives the point home. I know several of our players, including myself, are college students or persons of other poor status. Pay no play allows players who have money to just buy build. And that's where it becomes really tangible, that difference between the haves and have nots. It's one thing to see it in game either through the guy with all the good gear or the guy with all the coin or the title even. It's another thing to be standing next to someone that you played with just six months ago and have them throw out something drastically more potent than what they had six months ago.

It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth that I and others have to scrimp and save just to make event fees, even to being faced with not going while those who have the cash to throw around can make the *choice* not to go and still get the build for it.

I would be much MUCH more comfortable if this policy was "Pay and get gobbies that we'll use for your event fee, and if you don't show up we'll put the money towards someone else who can't afford it being able to play too."

There's already too much inequailty out of game between players to be bringing it into game like this. It's a matter of time before there's some hard feelings about it.

And no, I don't like that the EC games allow it either. I understand it's a good idea from a business standpoint. But, as I mentioned, there's an option or two available for handling it in a manner that would be more fair for everyone involved.
 
I understand your concerns, and feel that, to an extent, they are well founded. However, regardless of whether Seattle allows pay-no-play for their games or not, other chapters do, which means that characters based in Seattle will have the ability to pay-no-play in other chapters and still gain build. This decision isn't new, Seattle has allowed pay-no-play for some time. There are a number of players in Seattle that do pay-no-play in other chapters, and even if Seattle didn't allow it in their chapter, those people could still gain that build.

It is my hope that allowing people to pay-no-play will similarly encourage people from other chapters to send us money to increase a number on a character sheet across the country. For Seattle, there is no new downside. Eliminating the pay-no-play policy across the entire alliance would be the only way to remove the ability from someone here to suddenly 'buy' levels.

The only way I foresee someone trying to 'abuse' the pay-no-play system in Seattle would be to not attend events and then purchase them with money. This brings up two points. The first is that, since Seattle gives gobbies for cash donations (and even if they didn't, it's not that much more difficult to turn that cash into makeup, paper, printer ink, etc), someone could get the gobbies and backblanket the event anyways. The second point is that if someone wants to build up a character that they don't show up and play, who cares? There could be an 83rd level PC on the books somewhere, but if they never play, it doesn't affect the game. (Heck, according to the treasure policy, if they pay-no-play, their loot gets added in for the weekend.)

Finally, this: "Pay and get gobbies that we'll use for your event fee, and if you don't show up we'll put the money towards someone else who can't afford it being able to play too" used to be pretty much how NPCs got to play cheaper, except it did't come from just one person pay-no-playing, it came from PC fees. Anymore, there are slightly higher NPC fees to ensure site cost is being covered, since we seriously need more players. (Seriously.)

~Matt
 
What is the difference between someone with no gobbies that pay-no-plays events and someone that has massive amounts of gobbies and back-blankets events?

One is spending money while the other is spending time.

Currently, if you looked at the math, you could "donate" about 20-30 dollars or a few things to get enough goblin stamps to back-blanket an event which is roughly half the cost of pay-no-play. Thus, pay-no-play is giving more to the chapter then donations do. Plus, as Matt said, the characters at the event benefit from a pay-no-play because they are added to the treasure policy.

Seriously, if pay-no-play was abolished you might as well abolish back-blanketing events and purchasing magic items with goblin stamps. Over the years I never minded people doing pay-no-play, especially since people with goblin stamps get a free monthly blanket for one character if they want.
 
Just cause your friends jump off a bridge, would you?

Anyone remember their parents saying that?

Like I said, I don't agree with other chapters doing it either. And just because Seattle's been doing it for a while doesn't mean it's had tacit approval. This is the first it's really been announced that Seattle's been doing it so this is the first anyone's really had to voice objections.

And I'm voicing an objection. Seattle's player base has been primarily school oriented. Poor high school kids. Poor college students. Basically people who can't afford an event until pretty much the week of and so have no way to take advantage of this discount... one that can easily go to people who have no intention to show up anyway.

So it still hasn't been answered to my satisfaction... How is this fair to Seattle's staple player-base?
 
How would it be fair that someone with time makes something nifty and donates it, gets goblin stamps, and blankets an event, yet someone without time, does not donate something (money instead), does not get the event blankets? The former person worked for the chapter directly (by making something), the latter person worked for someone else and "donated" some of the rewards.

I also don't think it is fair to state that the primary player-base consists of people going to school/college (primarily school oriented). Seattle contains many players that are no longer in school, have steady jobs, and so have to take time off from work in order to make some events over holidays while those in school (or working for the government) get those holidays off. Other players have children, so if something comes up over a weekend an event is on and the player wants to still get experience for the event should the chapter say, "Tough. You're not here. No pay-no-play."?

Would you still be upset if someone was going through school yet still had enough money to pay-no-play? Or had money to pay-no-play multiple chapters? (And assume it is money worked for, not obtained from family or as allowance) What about someone who makes lots of things and gets lots of goblin stamps from several chapters, therefore back blanketing multiple chapters' events? What is the difference in the two scenerios?

Besides, it's a game. Why would someone get upset over another person advancing faster yet not get upset that other people are getting magic items without being in-game?
 
Sarah said:
Just cause your friends jump off a bridge, would you?

Anyone remember their parents saying that?

Like I said, I don't agree with other chapters doing it either. And just because Seattle's been doing it for a while doesn't mean it's had tacit approval. This is the first it's really been announced that Seattle's been doing it so this is the first anyone's really had to voice objections.

And I'm voicing an objection. Seattle's player base has been primarily school oriented. Poor high school kids. Poor college students. Basically people who can't afford an event until pretty much the week of and so have no way to take advantage of this discount... one that can easily go to people who have no intention to show up anyway.

So it still hasn't been answered to my satisfaction... How is this fair to Seattle's staple player-base?
Click to expand...

This seems like a poor way to try to convey your opinions. It would be very helpful if you could perhaps share with us some positive benefits for the chapter and the player base if we had a policy different than the one you dislike. As much as I have disliked pay-no-play in the past, it was usually for uninformed and self centered reasons.

I think pay-no-play helps the chapter financially, helps other players get more treasure and since there isn't much if any pvp in the game currently it doesn't really give anyone an unfair advantage over you.

As far as pre-payment goes, I think it's a great way to get money flowing into the chapter as well as allowing people to pay with credit cards instead of having to stop by an atm to get cash before the event.

In regard to school students who may or may not be able to afford a game until days beforehand. I agree that some people have financially limiting situations in their lives, and I know I've scrimped and saved to be able to go to events in the past, but I honestly feel that if people wanted to take advantage of the pre-pay discount, then they would find a way to get that money sooner. I've seen many players do just that in the past. They couldn't afford a 90 dollar event, but they pulled some weird black magic out of their hat and were able to show up anyway.

I'm glad that Dave, and the chapter staff, are looking to find new ways to help the chapter financially and work toward insuring that the players have a game to go to that has reserved sites as well as possibly new props and costuming. Any way we can get more money flowing into the chapter has got to be a good thing. Whether it's more players or just people from the east coast sending money in for pay-no-play.
 
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