Preliminary Discussion: Events

[Mens Rea]

With all the discussion regarding events there is some particular information that I think would be useful to aid an informed opinion:

(1) Statistics on how much silver is produced by each event, and;
(2) Statistics on how much silver exists in the UOSA world, and;
(3) Statistics on which people recieve the silver in each event, and;
(4) Statistics on how many points/kills/etc the aforementioned people had to recieve aforementioned silver, and;
(5) Publicly accessible information regarding any instances of multi-accounting/identical IP addressing in an event, and;
(6) Statistics on the trade-in system and how much silver is traded in, for what items and by who.

The way I see it, there is no way to improve or modify the event system without understanding the effects of the system in its entirety.

The other day I made a flow-diagram of the cycle of silver. I managed to classify different kinds of players, however without knowing what class of people traded in silver the most there is no way to track the life of a silver coin from womb until tomb. (1), (2), (3), (4) and (6) would be useful information for this. Such analysis would be useful for determining where flaws in the system could be fixed.

(3), (4), (5) and (6) could be exceptionally useful for naming and shaming those who abuse the system and celebrating the success of those who do well in events. From my perspective there is no rational basis for maintaining a private turn-in system when events are intended to celebrate the success of an event participant. This information would also be useful in determining whether those who repeatedly abuse the system are the ones benefiting.

I have reached an impasse in my analysis of the event system for want of more information. Perhaps with the overhaul of MyUOSA it would be easier to create such information and make it easily available.

[Arsen]

NEA.
if they would add such a system, they could also add shown short counts on myuosa.
thats all.

btw who fkn cares about what random ppl get with there silver u stalking nerd freak

[iamreallysquall]

NEA.
if they would add such a system, they could also add shown short counts on myuosa.
thats all.

btw who fkn cares about what random ppl get with there silver u stalking nerd freak

did you even read his post or did you have tl:dr moment? Clearly you don't understand the point of what hes asking for. Not era accurate lol what? what he is asking is not asking for a game mechanic hes asking for information. Speaking of Nea events if they are not to rid of for the time being. then at least put a bandaid on them and fix the non era accurate mechanics like earthquake etc inside these already nea type events.

btw lol if you are in stat you can see your shorts on the bounty board. >_< knowing that you can know how much you burned of by paying attention to how long you left the character logged in, and if you aren't on the board its fairly obvious how long you have max and its not hard to count how many shorts you go up and or down. =\ if you are trying to manage shorts that is.

[MatronDeWinter]

Fixing EQ sounds like a good idea for a temporary fix. I would also like to see the pvp non-combatant skills incorporated into all events. Getting Hide/Stealth into CTF was a start I guess, but how come peacemake, stealing, provoking (there are npcs mobs in some events) get nothing to do? Not everyone is a tank mage, which makes the unfortunate inclusion of these events even more unfortunate.

Also, bump for the information Mens Rea requested. I think many people would really like to see this, at least a batch request for silver in the world and it's character distribution, that wouldn't require much data collection at all. We can get the average silver output for each event with enough effort without requiring GM intervention. Polling the server for information like this would be pointless as everyone obviously already has 5000 silver and they don't care if some no name random steals it because they have 20000 more in in their house and they are glad some scrub will put it to use.

[Arsen]

i know ledodge.
the point is that derrick wont add short murder counts at myuosa because ppl bitched about how it is not era accurate (aswell no game mechanic).
so i dont want mens bs silver system added for the same reason.
end of story, k ty bye

[MatronDeWinter]

Arsen,
He's not even asking about any real quantitative data that would obscure "era accuracy" any more so than the current ability to look up non guilded characters on myuosa does (or even server stats on join uo for that matter). He simply requested some information on generalized silver pay-out and existence in order to better discuss the topic as a whole.

[Mens Rea]

I intend to highlight the procedural flaws with the current event system, demonstrate how the event system creates niches for people to exploit and how to fix the problems.

To make my analysis valid I need as much information as I can get.

This is not a "get rid of events" post - this is an objective look at the current system as a whole, what flaws are there and where can it be improved.

Note:

You are entitled to your opinion Arsen - that's fine - I too would disagree with someone who is investigating the system that I regularly rip off if I was in your situation Arsen.

I would also be against an investigation into an inaccurate system that creates an inaccurate niche that I exploit to make inaccurate amounts of gold with an inaccurately little amount of effort.

[Arsen]

I intend to highlight the QQ, tl;dr

[Kaivan]

The requests you're making are essentially impossible. For one, most of that information isn't tracked in the first place. Secondly, for the information we could get right now, determining the exact numbers would take considerable effort. Finally, much of the information you're asking for is private information that we do not have a right to give out.

Beyond that, the entire system as a whole is entirely inaccurate from a mechanical perspective (no automated events on OSI servers, no 'turn-in' system, no removal from the game environment, way less frequent, etc), which renders practically any discussion about fixing it entirely pointless until the mechanical inaccuracies are addressed.

[Dolos]

Good post Mens; this information would be extremely interesting to see.

[iamreallysquall]

Good post Mens; this information would be extremely interesting to see.

we forgot the inaccurate part that if you sign up for a tourney and then get pulled when you die your corpse goes to trammel whats next item insurance?

[Mens Rea]

For one, most of that information isn't tracked in the first place.

track it

Secondly, for the information we could get right now, determining the exact numbers would take considerable effort.

track it

Finally, much of the information you're asking for is private information that we do not have a right to give out.

I'm going to have to correct you here Kaivan.

Private information is personally identifiable, sensitive information about a person that is held by someone else with some expectation that it is kept private.

Private information is not information on the activities of a fictional character in an online role playing game.

To say that purchases made with an imaginary currency, in an imaginary online computer game world, is in any way private information which "[you] do not have the right to give out" is absurd.

I cannot see what other reason you would rely on for not having the right to give out private information than some obligation under the law.

I can catagorically state that the type of information I am talking about is so far removed from private information that I am dumbfounded at the assertion you make.

On a practical note, there is no rational distinction between displaying the attire, 3 top GM skills, character name and karma/fame title of a character using MyUOSA, on the one hand, and displaying the name of a character, what characters have been used to multi-account/multi-IP events, how much silver the character has earned, what items the person has "traded-in" for and how much silver that person has traded in.

Beyond that, the entire system as a whole is entirely inaccurate from a mechanical perspective (no automated events on OSI servers, no 'turn-in' system, no removal from the game environment, way less frequent, etc), which renders practically any discussion about fixing it entirely pointless until the mechanical inaccuracies are addressed.

Accuracy is not at issue here. What is at issue is the flaws in the event system. The system is exploitable, the system causes problems with the economy (which are hard to demonstrate without statistics) and the system is not transparent enough.

But I digress... Private information... LOL...

[Kaivan]

For one, most of that information isn't tracked in the first place.

track it

We have no use this sort of information. As a result, the only intent of tracking this sort of information about particular player's game play habits would be to reveal it to others, and we will not do that.

Secondly, for the information we could get right now, determining the exact numbers would take considerable effort.

track it

As before, we have no need to compile the information that does exist. It is a time consuming process, and only has the purpose of revealing which players have certain items, which is not information that we will provide.

Finally, much of the information you're asking for is private information that we do not have a right to give out.

I'm going to have to correct you here Kaivan.

Private information is personally identifiable, sensitive information about a person that is held by someone else with some expectation that it is kept private.

Private information is not information on the activities of a fictional character in an online role playing game.

To say that purchases made with an imaginary currency, in an imaginary online computer game world, is in any way private information which "[you] do not have the right to give out" is absurd.

I cannot see what other reason you would rely on for not having the right to give out private information than some obligation under the law.

I can catagorically state that the type of information I am talking about is so far removed from private information that I am dumbfounded at the assertion you make.

On a practical note, there is no rational distinction between displaying the attire, 3 top GM skills, character name and karma/fame title of a character using MyUOSA, on the one hand, and displaying the name of a character, what characters have been used to multi-account/multi-IP events, how much silver the character has earned, what items the person has "traded-in" for and how much silver that person has traded in.

The position that only information which is personally identifiable to a specific person is private information is entirely ludicrous. On top of that, citing the fact that just because it's done within an imaginary environment doesn't make it any more correct.

The reality is that you're asking us to reveal information about player behavior and play style (which can be argued as personally identifiable to the person behind the screen). Not only is this information entirely unnecessary, but it has a large effect on in-game interactions. In fact, this has the same type of impact on the game that would be had if we were to give the exact location of all players currently logged in, or how long an IDOC had left, or how many murder counts any player had left, or any number of other things. Each reveals information about a player and their play style that is entirely unnecessary, and extremely obtrusive, for no reason other than to give that information to others.

Beyond that, the entire system as a whole is entirely inaccurate from a mechanical perspective (no automated events on OSI servers, no 'turn-in' system, no removal from the game environment, way less frequent, etc), which renders practically any discussion about fixing it entirely pointless until the mechanical inaccuracies are addressed.

Accuracy is not at issue here. What is at issue is the flaws in the event system. The system is exploitable, the system causes problems with the economy (which are hard to demonstrate without statistics) and the system is not transparent enough.

But I digress... Private information... LOL...

[/quote]

Accuracy is at issue here. Attempting to address a different issue does not erase the first issue, and exhausting resources on a task, which is solved much more easily by contending with the related problem, is foolhardy at best.

As a final note, regardless of the posturing and arguments put fourth, there is no good reason for us to reveal this information at all, so it's not going to be done.

[Mens Rea]

Oh okay - I see - "don't bother trying to perform any type of analysis on the event system, don't try to improve it and don't you DARE question it."

This is about a negligently designed and implemented system that is ruining the game - not just era accuracy.

[Kaivan]

If you want to discuss improvements to events, then do so. However, like everyone else, you will need to work with the same information.