The questions you asked to be answered that were not touched in my huge post:
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Do you believe that the events are held at an inconvenient time?
No, there"s plenty of warning and it seems to take place at a fairly reasonable time for where I"m at.
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Any suggestions to improve events or ideas for new events?
New events? No. Improvements? Yes.
On with the show.
I’ve only been in about 3 events, and I loved 2 of them. However, I do have a few suggestions…which leads to this huge post.
[spoilerUgh it"s too long, I won"t read all of that:d0939f03]1. Have a list of rules that staff can literally quote. In every event I"ve been to, the rules were explained sporadically and people were left confused every time.
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Create maps that streamline the map-transition process so people will be left behind less.
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Don"t play a game that doesn"t work in heavy lag during heavy lag. Play a less intensive game, such as quizzes.
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Furthermore, have at least one or two staff completely focus their energy ONLY on the payers during events. (At least, until the 2nd round when people have a grip on things.) They would be the ones to answer questions, remove troublemakers, and fix the people who get stuck.
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1) In almost every event I’ve been to, staff either assumed players already knew the rules or didn’t go over them thoroughly enough. I suggest having more organization for explaining events, ESPECIALLY considering how people like to spam/talk in local in the event hub during these things.
My first example is from yesterday, in the Pictionary game. The Staff member said “the rules are like last time” and I had to say “please explain the rules” before a player started going over them in a thorough manner for us newbies. The staff did also join in the explanation soon after, however. :) Even then, a lot of people didn’t understand the /buzz concept until somebody (who wasn’t staff) FINALLY said to use “/buzz answer,” not just "/buzz.â€
For another example, in Dodgeball, instead of saying “No pokemon but a level 1 leader, no sturdy ability, no items and no moves,” the rules were explained in a very disconnected way that lead to some confusion and delays. (Example: They said “No moves like protect or endure” when simple saying “no moves” would have been easier to understand and would’ve yielded the same result. They said to use a level 1 pokemon instead of saying to ONLY use one level 1 leader pokemon. This lead to people having to put some pokes in the assembly and thus caused delays…and this was all explained sporadically as people talked in local.)
This is easily fixed by having very standard, already-written rules that staff can essentially quote. Also, if possible, give staff the ability to temporarily mute the local chat. This would make rule-announcing much easier.
Dodgeball is easily my favorite thus far, simply because it is a very active, challenging game that provides room for strategy and luck. Everything went generally smoothly, it seemed like everyone had a lot of fun. The announcement ceremony involving random party confetti was a great touch.
The maze was fun because it involved teamwork. (At least for the one I was in.) Those of us that couldn’t win but could still complete the maze started to drop berries and stuff for others to follow us. That way, a lot of us finished and got the single event token awarded for completion. :]
However…Pictionary was a bit sloppy yesterday. Along with the vague rules came another problem. The reality is a lot of people simply could not play Pictionary because they were getting left behind in maps. Staff would help those guys at first, yes. They even waited a while for people during the first map transition. But over time, despite players saying “WAIT so and so is stuck” the staff would keep moving at a faster pace. Some players, despite actively trying to move forward to continue would randomly warp and be unable to see the picture before the game started…they were left behind without a second thought, the game starting without them. After a few times of seeing this I just /gaveup the event. It’s not fun to play knowing that several others are stuck and nobody will do anything about it.
In the end, it wasn’t the lag itself I minded, but how the lag was handled. And despite the first post’s mention of avoiding lag-related comments, I hope that this is a fair enough perspective of the issue. I’m not demanding people fix it, I’m saying there are ways to try and work around the issues that crop up from it.
2) I really suggest creating maps and systems with common problems (like lag) in mind to keep people from getting stuck behind the map walls. Warp panels worked much better in Dodgeball than the gates in Pictionary, for example.
3) Furthermore, if certain events just don’t work in very heavy lag, do a different event. Like yesterday, quizzes might have been a better choice. In fact, the Quiz Event is a great backup that you can use in cases of emergencies when other games just will not. It is something you can create a list of questions for ahead of time, and then pull it out on the rainy days.
4) Finally, have one or two staff focus solely on the attending event community. If you already have this, it doesn’t show. Questions go unanswered, staff make empty threats to people lagging/delaying the game, people get left behind. Having one or two staff just attend to this side of things would streamline games a lot more. It would also reduce the unpleasant side-effect of players begging for help and nobody noticing.
I suppose that sums up my feelings about it. I know you guys do work within tight limits, and that it can be hard to find a common time staff can do something. So please do not take this as whining; you ask for suggestions and improvements, and I like pointing out problems and solving them at the same time. So you get a huge mouthful of the things. xD