Discussion on Events & Acknowledgement for Participation

Xenthos

Drocilla said:

@Xenthos, you have been told already by @Darvellan to issue and see what happens. Just because it happened that way does not mean that we intended it that way. We do miss things in the grand scheme of things, it sucks but it happens.

From a mechanical point of view, it was not possible to prepare this in such a way as to have varying shades of involvement rewarded/acknowledged by the quest system just for the release. What would have been enough? Too many variables. Nor was it possible during the event to gather names of people "contributing enough" and adding those to a live reward list because, even though a few of us were present (and some Europe based and staying up to ungodly hours), everyone had a job and we were scurrying back and forth breathlessly enough as it was. Some were smashing down the highways, some were quadruple checking restoration prep (both code and manual stuff was needed), some were overseeing the puzzle, some were possessing mobs, some were on foam duty making sure it kept respawning, etc.

Also, not a comment at you @Xenthos but re: events in general, I'd like to reiterate that as many admin as are active (I'm sure you can do a head count), not all will always have the time or available to be online. We'll do our best to be around but sometimes life happens and this is pre-Christmas time. As a team we put actual months into preparing this on top of regular day to day running of the game (which eats much enough time). Then during the week we had probably the most free-form event ever, so what did happen during that time was all designed and coded on the fly (and trust me something as simple as sea of despair to crystal sea took quite a few hours, not to mention blowing up Hallifax). Last year's end of year event was ran by a truly skeletal team but we did the best that we could. Similarly, we did the best we could this year and people have really gone above and beyond. 

A blog post about this is probably in order!

Regardless of whether or not it is issued, I think it's a discussion worth having / making known to those who are part of things.  When it comes to events, it's better to be inclusive than exclusive.  The more people you "reward" for participation (even as little reward as an honours line) the more happy those people are with how things went.  Conversely, if you reward some people (by Sidd's count, 5 people total in the entire game, though that may not be accurate) and exclude the majority, you leave the rest of them with a very different impression of how things went than (I assume) you wanted to.

I mean... I absolutely enjoyed how this thing went.  It was obvious that you guys were putting in a lot of effort.  And then we end up talking about this, when (to me) there was no need to even be having this discussion in the first place if it had been tweaked just slightly for the benefit of the players who were frantically trying to figure out what to do-- and if they made the wrong decision (or even just died to lag), they were SOL.

If nothing else, consider it constructive criticism at this point.  In the future, we can save a fair bit of angst and frustration by trying to get people included in things, instead of mechanically locking them out. Edit: As an edit, I'm not referring so much to the dream foam part which has been acknowledged to have been in error, but instead to locking them out by requiring them to have hit all 6 Gods so if they missed one, even due to the aforementioned dream foam issue, then they were locked out of the quest conclusion.  That one has been stated to not have been in error, and is the one I'm aiming at.  I feel that it could've been relaxed for the first completion, and then players informed of the requirement afterwards when the quest became repeatable.

Edit 2: Using the quest system, it shows 6 people completed it out of the entire group who was working through the thing.
the Dreamlands of Nirvana Rankings
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.    Mnemosyne                          1
2.    Synkarin                           1
3.    Tekora                             1
4.    Tridemon                           1
5.    Sondayga                           1
6.    Rivius                             1

Doesn't that seem awfully sparse?

Sylandra

Sounds to me like it was accidental. I'd issue. If people only got honors for striking the six gods or whatever, I imagine that's how the honor-giving was coded, right? Likely just an oversight in design. Something has to somehow trigger how people get honors, I would think. The admin might just have picked the wrong trigger!

Xenthos

Sylandra said:

Sounds to me like it was accidental. I'd issue. If people only got honors for striking the six gods or whatever, I imagine that's how the honor-giving was coded, right? Likely just an oversight in design. Something has to somehow trigger how people get honors, I would think. The admin might just have picked the wrong trigger!

The trigger was that it requires hitting each of the Gods at least once.

One person missed one due to bouncing off shields.  Others missed one due to the first one being killed when they were still locked out by dreamfoam collection.

However, we've already been told that that part was not in error; the error was that it was still requiring so many dream foams (which they did fix, thankfully! ).  The quest requirement is that you hit each God at least once if you want to trigger the result.

My suggestion / comment, for the future at least, is that during an event that kind of requirement be relaxed and just need the person to have hit at least one, instead of all of them.  Relax the trigger requirement, and then inform the players later (via an announce post) that going forward it will require the full clear.  That way players can plan for how to deal with it, instead of trying to guess what the mechanics are during the chaos-crazy that is trying to work through an event.

It seems reasonable to me, at least.

Zvoltz

Nirvana is a permanent area to the game and you will be able to access it and complete the quest for the honours line once we get the entrance set up. I'm sorry that people feel left out that they did not get the honours line but it'll be there to get some time soon. In my memory we have never had an area where everyone got the honours line just because they entered it at release. The honours line for Nirvana is not intended to be the End of the Year "He survived the end of the world again." line. It's the line for completing the quest and no one is being excluded from getting that.

Eritheyl

Completing the quest later will also spit out one of these fancy globes, yeah? Cause I'm still annoyed by this circumstance.

Zvoltz

Yes, you'll also get a globe so no one has to feel like they were cheated out of a reward opportunity.

Eritheyl

Yeeeeeeeeeeeee I feel better then.

Qistrel

I remember missing the Zenos reward (the coins, not the line) after making the bad decision to focus on feeding the machine instead of fighting skulls on Astral.

Seems that what you should do in these event things is to just do everything possible.

Ieptix

As Zvoltz said, this is an area quest, and will be accessible in full before long. Further, this quest is the only one of which I'm aware that even allows multiple participants to complete the quest in a single run, so from my perspective it seems we're already doing quite a bit more to allow more people a chance at the honours and reward. Most area releases, for example, end with only one person able to complete the quest during the event itself, due to how the vast, vast majority of quests work.

Marcella

I'm prettys ure all of the OH MY GOD NOOOOOOO was about

"We're pretty sure this is a one-time area. I CAN'T GET BACK IN WHERE ARE MY HONOURS AAAAAA"

Shaddus

Aside from the shaky start, and the problem with renouncing a patron by accident, I really enjoyed this event.

Kaalak

Players understand volunteers work hard.  However volunteers, were players and that does not give them an excuse to be snide in communication to players.  The "oh this is so much work" is appreciated but it is NOT a shield nor an excuse to be unprofessional.  If you can't do the work, don't volunteer. 

There are plenty of example of volunteers who communicate and act professionally.

Shaddus

So...uh...since this was a dream, do we get our essence back from dying due to taunting the fake gods? Asking for a friend.

Zvoltz

Kaalak if you want to file a complaint about admin behavior, please email support@lusternia.com. It's not really your place to tell us whether we are capable of volunteering or not, though.

Ieptix

No.

EDIT: In response to Shaddus.

Kaalak

Zvoltz said:

Kaalak if you want to file a complaint about admin behavior, please email support@lusternia.com. It's not really your place to tell us whether we are capable of volunteering or not, though.

Zvoltz, I understand some people have told you some erroneous things. Eventually you will realize they are erroneous. I don't need to know when you reach that conclusion. 

I said specifically "

The "oh this is so much work" is appreciated but it is NOT a shield nor an excuse to be unprofessional."

It is an excuse used as a shield too often.  Do not misconstrue this statement to be anything other than literal. I am not " tell us [you or anyone else] whether we are capable of volunteering or not, though."

Also I don't go through the issue system at support because I know who sometimes handles it and the bias certain individuals have. 

Also I don't issue until I have finished an investigation. And I don't threaten. 

Edit: I appreciate some of this conversation is out of loyalty. 

Ieptix

None of the administration (or players, for that matter) involved in this discussion has been remotely unprofessional, and your implications regarding the character, integrity, and effort put into this game by the people who make up the administration of the game are completely inappropriate and uncalled for, Kaalak. If you have an issue with how something is handled, you may contact support@lusternia.com, which is handled only by Estarra, the game's producer. This part of the forums conversation is finished, now.

Xenthos

Absolutely no response has been snide or dismissive in regards to any of these forum communications with any of the volunteers or staff.  This thread is intended to discuss the end result of the event, and while they have no direct control over that (only Estarra does), they have given their view.  Hijacking the thread to push some personal gripe against the game's volunteers in general is unproductive and unwanted.  Please take it elsewhere, if that is what you want to do with your time!

I have a disagreement with the quest design / mechanic.  That in no way indicates that I have any disregard or distaste for the people I am having the conversation with; the administrative staff is full of people who I feel are remarkably creative and invest a great deal of their time and energy into helping us, the players, enjoy ourselves and have a good time.

Edit: Edited a sentence for clarity.