On events

[gonger]

Gonger - we have suggested you change the section about rewards.

Yes, Taya, there have been some suggestions, and this feedback is appreciated, and has been integrated into the 2nd draft below. The changed part is in italics. I was refering to many other answers that were interesting, but off-topic in this thread. If, however, everybody is happy with my draft for an information text on events, I will happily relinquish this thread! 

Greetings, Gonger.


Events are announced on the PlaneShift website: http://www.planeshift.it/calendar/
If you want to join an event, check the start time, and make sure that you have enough time. Normally events take between two and four hours.
Events are open to all players, so even newbies are encouraged to join. Events are also a good occasion for newbies to meet people, and to see who role-plays how. Newbies in general have no mounts, and therefore will move slower than experienced players. At crucial event points, Game Masters will ask all participants to wait for everybody to catch up. Please do not complain about this.
Please note that these are role-playing events, so act accordingly, and try your best to play along. Most of the time many players will join events, so things will often be a bit chaotic. New information might change a situation quickly. Be flexible about this.
There will be moments when many players present also means many spells cast. This might influence the way PlaneShift is running on your computer. Therefore it might be a good idea to lower your graphics settings in the PlaneShift Launcher.
During the event most players will join a common Group for easier communication. Please use this Group for event purposes only. For example, do not spam the Group with comments that have nothing to do with the event.
In the beginning of an event, the Game Masters will register players. Normally no action is needed from your side, but make sure that you are registered properly. Click your Quests icon, select Events, and check that the current event appears there. If not, please "/tell" one of the Game Masters.
At the end of an event, often rewards are distributed, but this may vary from event to event. Normally every registered player receives a small amount of tria. If these general rewards are announced, but you do not receive them, please "/tell" one of the Game Masters.
Sometimes special rewards are given, for example for good role-playing, or creativity while solving problems. Be grateful if you receive a special reward, do not complain if you do not.
After the event, please vote on the event, and give your feedback. Once the event is complete, click on it to do so.
Most importantly, have fun, and make it fun for everybody else. Thank the Game Masters if you enjoyed the event.

[Eonwind]

At the end of an event, often rewards are may be distributed, but this may vary from event to event. Normally every registered player receives a depending on the event there may be none or they may vary from a small amount of tria or some progression points. If these general rewards are announced, but you do not receive them, please "/tell" one of the Game Masters. If a reward is handed out and you have been registered in the event no further actions are required on your side to receive the rewards.
Sometimes special rewards are given, for example for good role-playing, or creativity while solving problems. Be grateful if you receive a special reward, do not complain if you do not.

Gonger, I suggest to change this part as above (new parts are bolt).
Taya any thought on that?

[Taya]

Eonwind - Yes, I think those changes should help.

[gonger]

Eonwind, Taya, thanks for your comments. I integrated them into the 3rd draft below, with some stylistic modifications. See text in italics.
Anything else to be added / changed / corrected, or can the text now be added to the Events website, and the online help?

Greetings, Gonger.


Events are announced on the PlaneShift website: http://www.planeshift.it/calendar/
If you want to join an event, check the start time, and make sure that you have enough time. Normally events take between two and four hours.
Events are open to all players, so even newbies are encouraged to join. Events are also a good occasion for newbies to meet people, and to see who role-plays how. Newbies in general have no mounts, and therefore will move slower than experienced players. At crucial event points, Game Masters will ask all participants to wait for everybody to catch up. Please do not complain about this.
Please note that these are role-playing events, so act accordingly, and try your best to play along. Most of the time many players will join events, so things will often be a bit chaotic. New information might change a situation quickly. Be flexible about this.
There will be moments when many players present also means many spells cast. This might influence the way PlaneShift is running on your computer. Therefore it might be a good idea to lower your graphics settings in the PlaneShift Launcher.
During the event most players will join a common Group for easier communication. Please use this Group for event purposes only. For example, do not spam the Group with comments that have nothing to do with the event.
In the beginning of an event, the Game Masters will register players. Normally no action is needed from your side, but make sure that you are registered properly. Click your Quests icon, select Events, and check that the current event appears there. If not, please "/tell" one of the Game Masters.
At the end of an event, rewards may be distributed. Depending on the event there may be none, there may be a small amount of tria or some progression points. If such a general reward is handed out and you have been registered in the event, no further actions are required on your side to receive it. If there is a problem, please "/tell" one of the Game Masters.
Sometimes special rewards are given, for example for good role-playing, or creativity while solving problems. Be grateful if you receive a special reward, do not complain if you do not.
After the event, please vote on the event, and give your feedback. Once the event is complete, click on it to do so.
Most importantly, have fun, and make it fun for everybody else. Thank the Game Masters if you enjoyed the event.

[Eonwind]

Gonger, I explicitly removed the second "/tell the GM" sentence to avoid over encouraging players to sent /tell to the GM masters during events.
As far as I know the GMs have always answered any tell sent to them, and tried to help solving player's problem, but doing so is another thing to care about in an already busy schedule. May be it's something not so easy to understand if someone has never done the GM job but during an event, especially when involving large amount of players, they have to look over 3-4 chat channels: main, whisper (to help players in need), their own group channel to coordinate with other GMs and people helping with the event maybe the GM own channel in case they have to coordinate something people in the group channel should not know and sometime even the IRC GMs channel when lag make it more convenient to avoid using the in-game chat for coordination (or when there is a client crash).

So my suggestion is removing one of the two sentences to make it clear that if there is a problem the players should /tell one of the GMs but not make it seem they should do so for every little thing, especially related to rewards.

[gonger]

Eonwind, I totally understand your point, and agree. You should have said this from the start... 
It is probably true that most players do not really know what it means to run an event from the GM side. I removed the second sentence, since a player's proper registration normally should be enough for them to get the general rewards.

Greetings, Gonger.


Events are announced on the PlaneShift website: http://www.planeshift.it/calendar/
If you want to join an event, check the start time, and make sure that you have enough time. Normally events take between two and four hours.
Events are open to all players, so even newbies are encouraged to join. Events are also a good occasion for newbies to meet people, and to see who role-plays how. Newbies in general have no mounts, and therefore will move slower than experienced players. At crucial event points, Game Masters will ask all participants to wait for everybody to catch up. Please do not complain about this.
Please note that these are role-playing events, so act accordingly, and try your best to play along. Most of the time many players will join events, so things will often be a bit chaotic. New information might change a situation quickly. Be flexible about this.
There will be moments when many players present also means many spells cast. This might influence the way PlaneShift is running on your computer. Therefore it might be a good idea to lower your graphics settings in the PlaneShift Launcher.
During the event most players will join a common Group for easier communication. Please use this Group for event purposes only. For example, do not spam the Group with comments that have nothing to do with the event.
In the beginning of an event, the Game Masters will register players. Normally no action is needed from your side, but make sure that you are registered properly. Click your Quests icon, select Events, and check that the current event appears there. If not, please "/tell" one of the Game Masters.
At the end of an event, rewards may be distributed. Depending on the event there may be none, there may be a small amount of tria or some progression points. If such a general reward is handed out and you have been registered in the event, no further actions are required on your side to receive it.
Sometimes special rewards are given, for example for good role-playing, or creativity while solving problems. Be grateful if you receive a special reward, do not complain if you do not.
After the event, please vote on the event, and give your feedback. Once the event is complete, click on it to do so.
Most importantly, have fun, and make it fun for everybody else. Thank the Game Masters if you enjoyed the event.

[Eonwind]

Ok thanks for me it works

[Pierre]

At the end of an event, rewards may be distributed. Depending on the event there may be none, there may be a small amount of tria or some progression points. If such a general reward is handed out and you have been registered in the event, no further actions are required on your side to receive it.
Sometimes special rewards are given, for example for good role-playing, or creativity while solving problems. Be grateful if you receive a special reward, do not complain if you do not.

There are 8 people on now.  We are having more GM events than usual, almost every weekend.  Numbers have gone down steadily in the past weeks.  I would like to request a change to this policy, back to the old policy of pp and tria for events.  I think the "special rewards possible for PCs who make interesting contributions" along with "don't expect any pp or tria and don't complain" gives rise to competitive behavior during events and a general disinterest in the game.

If this new way of being harsh with players, "don't expect anything and don't complain," made our numbers go up, I would reluctantly go along.

It's not working.

[EDIT: If anyone needs convincing, let us be scientific about it.  Continue on with the GM events for 4 weeks as is - no pp or tria unless the GMs decide after the event to give them, no prior knowledge to players.  And special rewards perhaps given if GMs decide certain players merit them.

Then, for 4 weeks, hold events the old way.  1k pp and 5k tria (we used to get more sometimes but I don't think this team will go for that) for every event, regardless of who is the best RPer or the most creative.  Extra rewards given if the event dictates (like how the "Master Engraver" event had no specials that I knew of, but the "Fenki Guard Lost her Tools" scavenger hunt type event got some of us rewarded with really good sets of weapons, for the ones who located the hints).

I LOVED writing up those events - they were fun, interesting, you knew that the time spent in the event, no matter how much of a bit player you were, would mean you would be able to get your agility stat that much closer to what your char needs (i.e. would not have been better spent fighting rats in the sewers as far as advancement of char goes).  AND I think that it encourages more people to play.

Let's do it for 4 weeks each.  I am willing to bet good tria that I won't be seeing 7-15 players every bloody night if the events are set up in a more helpful and kind way again. 

Especially because the frequency of events is getting so much better - that part is awesome - why do we have to get so much better in frequency and at the same time be like "don't expect anything people" and "well, Bilbous threw his reward on the ground so you can't please everyone" about it?]

[bilbous]

There is always a player drop in September when school starts up as many of that age or their parents suddenly have a lot less free time.

[Pierre]

* Pierre stops herself rolling her eyes with extreme difficulty.

I've never seen it drop down to 7 people, at any time of year.

But Bilbous, you seem happy if it is Bilbous playing all by kra's self, so you are not the target audience for my comments.  I am speaking to people who like the server to be filled up to the brim, as this damned stalagcite (stalagmite, stag-a-site, stackamite??) deserves.

[cdmoreland]

Bilbous is always responsive to anyone that approaches kra. I spent a year on EZPC before I came to the main server and created Waesed. There were many times that I was the only player online. I keep an eye on how many are online so I know when it is worthwhile to open the RCD and it is seldom below a dozen players unless the server has crashed.

Playing with less than optimal graphics posses problems when I engage in events as the lag is terrible. But I like all of them even when I think the reward sucks. I even take it when I get scolded by a GM for playing my character true to himself.

[Mouli]

I've never seen it drop down to 7 people, at any time of year.

Well Then you werent there much last year Pierre...
http://dwarfs.servebeer.com/forum/index.php?topic=262.0
we were 3 online for more than 2 hours and one was Ircel...

[Pierre]

Ok, but the EXCUSA server doesn't count, Waesed   Agreed about Bilbous being responsive and helpful to any fool under the crystal, he's identified every weapon and piece of armor I've got, all IC all darlingly RP'd.

Kra is not the target audience for my comments, still.  He would RP with rocks if he had too.  I like TONS of creatures in Yliakum, tons.

Mouli, I accept this correction, I didn't realize we had 3 PC nights last year.

Well.  I still make my request, even though my fellow players are illuminating me on life in the dome.  I still think that changing the events - which are awesome and frequent, as I've said in the event reviews and in that repository of all that is true, the gossip channel - will increase our numbers and make the events more fun, not so jostle-ly.

I still make my request!!

EDIT:  [Numbers have been less than a dozen every night for over a week, maybe 2?  Last night I played for hours and it hovered around 8.  So the "more than a dozen unless server crashed" is sadly false.]

[cdmoreland]

I'm not around 24/7 but I am checking from 6am till 10pm EST(EDT) on most days. I don't know what happens in the Far East.

[bilbous]

I was on briefly this afternoon ~1pm EST and there were 22 on.
I don't role play at all. I just play my character.

Oddly enough though I have berated the mine for not providing enough ore.