Scavenger Hunt

[Easton]

So... no go tomorrow then?

Good try guys, i'll keep attending the GM events even if the next 500 are duds. No skin off my nose.

Easton Ghent

[Tarel]

I can tell you the problems of the this event too, from the Game Masters side.

The collecting of items started before 20:00 GMT and it was expected,
that only a handfull of people wanted to store they're items, so we could start quick.
But the opposite has happened. more then 30 people approached us to store items,
so it took more then 3 hours, before we could even start running the event.
And also when i was inspecting playersinventory, there were still players around with nearly full inventory, so they had to be send to the "Vault"too.
There was a large amoount of items and much piles of items from the players in the NPCroom. luckely we draw a map of which pile belonged to who. but because we needed to sleep quickly at the ending of the event, we had to tell the last GM the order of the piles too.
6 items were giving problems, because of the quests that are not working and items that are not ingame. [Mug, Falka, Waybread, HQ Amulet, Mushroom and Blue Dye].

To end my post i can tell you, that the storing of playeritems was the major problem.
If we had less to store, then the event could have started much earlier.
And also another big problem was, that my client was lagging very heavy, when moving between the BD-fortress and the NPCroom.

The other events, that we have ready and waiting, will not require to store you're items.
These events can be started on the spot, without having to check players first.
I hope you will like these events better.

[Kecey Ghost]

From what I see the GM's did very well to do what they could, even if i was about for 6 hours from start to finish and didn't get to bed untill 2:30am.  with so many people needing to store items im not suprised it took so long.

The bit that upsets me is why playes were so upset after my team won, all teams had the same list and all got the same information as the list was updated, all had the same chance of wining.

Anyway, thankyou to the GM's who helped to organise and run the event, even if it didn't go to planed, and thanks to my team, we all worked together and made it happen.  The prize was a nice suprise and I must say that the items suit us well.

Karyuu, sorry to hear about your hard drive, it makes one think about there own 120 gig thats half full...

[LigH]

To end my post i can tell you, that the storing of playeritems was the major problem.
...

The other events, that we have ready and waiting, will not require to store you're items.

This is probably right.

Getting as many items as possible to solve a task, means that as many items as possible are forbidden to carry with you.

The Scions' hunt which required to contact people secretly and understand verbal hints, might be the better concept.

Maybe cou can find a compromise for the next events, to mix riddles and items better.


What I don't understand, is such a childish kind of reaction from "those who lost just by a few minutes". You all know the technical problems which sometimes happen. The rule, which team wins, did not really change; only the amount of items which were really necessary.

A dwarf-only guild did not even have an advantage, because they did not have any Enkidukai who could death-travel quickly to Ojaveda and try to get the special items early (which were later removed because of not reliably working quests). And "despite their short legs" they were just faster back with enough items...

The strategy to retrieve items fast, even via item sharing with a chain of high-endurance runners, was obviously the key - you know that you had to wait for team members carrying even easy-to-get items. But I respect the fact that you retrieved more items, and kept trying the quests (or getting them from other sources?), and I agree that your team indeed should earn a reward too. Simply because you had just the same strong group feeling.

[Einnol]

6 items were giving problems, because of the quests that are not working and items that are not ingame. [Mug, Falka, Waybread, HQ Amulet, Mushroom and Blue Dye].

Actually, I stored my mug with the rest of my items before the start of the hunt and acquired a brand new set of them thru the normal quest so a mug was possible.  Maybe I was just lucky tho.  My first attempt resulted in an offer for another quest involving rodents, but after another couple tries, I got the one for the mugs.  Generally speaking tho, quest reward items are a bit difficult riight now with the work being done on the NPC speech system.

Considering Karyuu's unforeseen last minute PC problems, I think the GM's involved did a pretty admirable job jumping into it and trying to pick up the slack.

My thoughts on possible improvements:

Maybe there could be a points system with each item having a point value (undisclosed the the competitors).  More difficult to obtain items could have a higher point value than easier items.  For example, a stock requires more mining (plus the work and knowledge to make it) than a lump of raw ore so the stock could have a higher point value.  Bonus points could be awarded based on the order that the teams finished.  Each team's points could be totalled up to determine 1st place, 2nd place, etc.

Also, maybe a more clearly defined method of indicating that your team has arrived and are finished would help.  It could be required that alll the items be carried by one person (maybe the team leader) at the finish line.  Only that person would approach a GM and indicate that they were finished.  That player could then be ported to NPCroom so none of the other team members could give them more items.  The team's finishing position (1st, 2nd...) could be recorded and the items checked by another GM in NPCroom for checking the items and totally up the item points.

It might also be nice if not only one team was rewarded, but instead a scale of rewards with 1st place getting the biggest reward and going down from there with last place getting the consolation prize (a complimentary copy of the home game of Scavenger Hunt?    ).

Finally, the rules on the forbidden items were not exactly clear.  My understanding was 'weapons, armor, and glyths only allowed'.  So, I ended up storing my books which made it impossible for me to make the stock item.     Luckily, another team member did not and was able to make it.

[Kerol]

Now that I'm back and see what happened.. I say..
I haven't been involved in the planning and running of that event at all, but I only can shake my head upon the idea to make people to have empty inventories. That's just nonsense - organisational wise as well as RP wise.
That the HD screws just before the event starts was really bad luck.. but there the event should have postponed right away.
Especially since Karyuu was the main organisor of that event.
Well. Let's regard the event as screwed and learn from what went wrong.. that's all we can do.

If you think you need to avoid GM run events.. I can't help you

[Peacer]

Actually, I stored my mug with the rest of my items before the start of the hunt and acquired a brand new set of them thru the normal quest so a mug was possible.  Maybe I was just lucky tho.  My first attempt resulted in an offer for another quest involving rodents, but after another couple tries, I got the one for the mugs.  Generally speaking tho, quest reward items are a bit difficult riight now with the work being done on the NPC speech system.

you weren't the only one, the quest worked for us too...

@tarel: the time it took to store items and the time it took to start didn't went very well. Maybe it shouldn't have been world shout that this event would start seeing that more people who didn't prepare for it by storing items might have been added to the list.  Don't know if this can be taken up for aproovement though .

The worst part however woren't that team anfa didn't win or the dwarven team did win and didn't care much about team anfa, for both sides... It's all the players who got all their items stored but had to leave and were having troubles getting them back (don't know if some still does) But they had to run around without theese and if that weren't enough they were standing there at the eagles head wasting their time waiting exited for a gm event but had to log off

As for our team (the shadowless ghost) I think we did quite well and won in being the coolest team :p, getting 27 items and learning our team members to know better was a pleasure to us, So i give out a big thanks to our team for working greatly together (and for being cool).
If there's another scavenger hunt going up and running i'll offer a mule to put items on

@karyuu: sad that your hd blew up, hope it got sewed together nicely again

[hint]find the hidden and your mind bitten[/hint]

[Akaye]

I will not be attending the next so anyone who thought to play on team Anfa you will need to find another team leader.

Anfa walks away from anymore GM events.

  Wow anfa I thought you of all people would understand karyuu's hardware computer problems. It is obvious that she had some troubles and due to that could not make the event all it could be. Plus the item storing. You have played long enough to know how long that would take. I would hope you will reconsider your decision. It saddens me that you are angry with the Gm's. Obviously they tried the best they could.

@everyone: I wasn't there but from what I can gather, almost everything that could possibly go wrong did. I am sure noxide did the best he could. *Akaye gives Noxide a hand in his efforts* Please understand that planning out these sorts of things takes time. Do any of you remember when we had a guild war for the shadows roleplay?  We waited half the darn day to get that going before something happen, and that was ps players that put that together. So it isn't just the gm's who have these sorts of problems. I would hope that one event going wrong won't be judged upon as all the gm events will go wrong. As a matter of fact this is the first Gm run event that was disastrous. It wasn't like the Gm's weren't doing their jobs. Thank you to all of the players in this thread who understood and were forgiving to the Gm's, that is what makes this a lovely community.

[ThomPhoenix]

Noxide? I'm not sure, I thought Syilph ran the event.

[Karyuu]

Both of them did, though Noxide ended up staying much longer and smoothing out the ends.

[Akaye]

  I didn't know Syilph was there too. Well, a hand to him as well.   

[Tarel]

4 GM's were running the event.
I offered Karyuu to lead his event, when i had the required information.
Syilph, Noxide, Hadfael and me were present at the event.
Both Syilph, Hadfael and me were very tired at the end of the event.
Syilph and Hadfael logged as first GM's out.
I still managed to not fell asleep, till the first group returned with the required items.
Noxide offered, to stay online longer, because he was not tired.
So Syilph explained which piles of items belonged to which player.
And after that i explained Noxide the same things for the items, that i had stored.

[ThomPhoenix]

I offered Karyuu to lead his event

Quickly edit, before she finds out!

* ThomPhoenix hides

And to all the GM's that helped out, especially Noxide at the moment.

[Peacer]

Our whole team agrees with thomphoenix :wub; to all the GM's that helped out, especially Noxide at the moment.

[Anfa]

Seems to be a misunderstanding as to what we were upset about..

Kudos to all the GM's who tried to get this to work, but the delays were not the reason we were upset. As you pointed out, with any large event delays are expected.

Anfa shrugs..as I was told "who makes the rules" by one GM, I took that as a "shut up, if you dont like it, don't participate"...

Good Luck on all your future Events, I am sure everyone learnt alot from this.

I know I did,

Cheers

edit: perhaps a clarification

A scavenger hunt is not a shopping trip, the items on the list are not meant to all be easy. IRL if your list requests a calendar do you take the one off your mother's wall or go all the way down to the store to buy one? well sorry, but Momma's going to need a new calendar, just like boots..they can be purchased or they can be wrestled off the first friend/guildmate you come across [wrestling is more fun]

When we were given the list at the beginning of the hunt it was stated then by Proteous that some of the quests weren't working. the items were requested anyway. So off we went.

Our protest is how the hunt was ended. We did not agree with the changing of the rules near the end of the event. Supposedly unobtainable items were taken off the "required" list although several of the groups had been able to obtain them, just not in the easy traditional way. They had to be scavenged. [First two items were no longer required, than after a bit of a wait three more were dropped I believe]

Our arguement was..if no "one team" was able to get all the items off the orginal list, than the one team able to get the most items should have been declared the winner. [at the time Peacer had stated that his team had gotten 29/30 items, so I pointed out that makes them the best scavengers and therefore they should be the winners.] We felt it unfair to change the rules at the conclusion of the event. To suddenly drop the number of things required allowing the "winning" team to fulfil the list requirement did not sit well with us since having the "unobtainable" items did not earn bonus points. Time was spend searching and scavenging for those items and it irked us that all that time spend was suddenly for nothing. [considering you can find mugs in the local tavern in most people's hands we do not see how this item was suddenly "unobtainable" other than you would have had to ask nice to get one of the players to cough it up, same goes for the amulet which most people are more than happy to give away, especially if it is just a borrow]

After being ignored by the GM and getting tired of being told to "stop having hissy fits" and being "poor losers" by the "winning" team, [who by the way did not have the most items accumulated but enough to fulfil the modified list] It was pointed out that the GM's can do whatever they damn well please because they make the rules so too bad..so sad. there was no avenue for discussion about how the players felt about this turn of events. I got the message and I stopped arguing with the GM about it. We gave up the arguement and went over to sit quietly to wait for the return of our items in storage.

{Perhaps it was our mistake not realizing that the items on the list could only be obtained the traditional way ..ie, by doing the quest, or buying the item or killing the creature yourself and that actually scavenging the items off friends strangers and guildmates was not allowed. That would than explain why items that are fairly common throughout Yialkum were suddenly dropped off the list. [the mug/the amulet/the mushroom/falka and blue dye were the items removed I believe.]}