Automated Events Thread #1,000,000

[Blaise]

I'm genuinely not surprised at his barely intelligible response. "WOW damn trammys"? Did you mean tourneys? Or did you mean "They want to play WoW. Damn Trammies"?

Hell, I don't really care because generally nothing LeLouche says is in any way positive for the shard or it's players. Some occasional assistance in how to make the uber macro or setup a balron trap, so I guess positive is in the eye of the beholder. Oh, wait, beholders don't spawn here. Too NEA.

This game is ancient. The people playing it are, for the most part, old. They (mostly all) have real lives and do not spend 8-12 hours a day in Britannia figuring out how to host the perfect tourney. They do however, still love the hell out of playing Ultima and you bet your ass the people saying 'too trammy' would be attending the events as well. Rewards for participation or not, the events were something to do that wasn't a major production by players. When your player base is roughly 100 people, they want to play the damn game, not build one for others. I ran some events, and Rose used to as well as a bunch of others. Wanna know why you barely see them? They take a shitton of work and people would rather play the game than spend all their time working......but wait, there's more. Not only could they spend all that time working, they could also have their work shit on by a well coordinated grief party likely led by LeLouche or one of his ilk in cA.

Wanna know what you don't see, along with automated events? Massive fucking crowds gathered at the events and fielding en masse immediately afterward.

Wanna know what I do see? Huge IP counts in the IRC status message, and basically dick going on in the field but the same dozen or so PvP players taking screenshots of their daily ganks with the occasional '1v1, gg' tossed in for good measure.

Field is fun, but structure is sound. Having a SAFE arena with no room for foul play and a trustworthy leaderboard makes the game at least remotely present day worthy of play.

But hey, that's just my opinion. I'm sure no one agrees, or there would be automated tournaments on other shards too, right?

[MF Giant]

I agree!

[Guerrilla]

I'm genuinely not surprised at his barely intelligible response. "WOW damn trammys"? Did you mean tourneys? Or did you mean "They want to play WoW. Damn Trammies"?

Hell, I don't really care because generally nothing LeLouche says is in any way positive for the shard or it's players. Some occasional assistance in how to make the uber macro or setup a balron trap, so I guess positive is in the eye of the beholder. Oh, wait, beholders don't spawn here. Too NEA.

This game is ancient. The people playing it are, for the most part, old. They (mostly all) have real lives and do not spend 8-12 hours a day in Britannia figuring out how to host the perfect tourney. They do however, still love the hell out of playing Ultima and you bet your ass the people saying 'too trammy' would be attending the events as well. Rewards for participation or not, the events were something to do that wasn't a major production by players. When your player base is roughly 100 people, they want to play the damn game, not build one for others. I ran some events, and Rose used to as well as a bunch of others. Wanna know why you barely see them? They take a shitton of work and people would rather play the game than spend all their time working......but wait, there's more. Not only could they spend all that time working, they could also have their work shit on by a well coordinated grief party likely led by LeLouche or one of his ilk in cA.

Wanna know what you don't see, along with automated events? Massive fucking crowds gathered at the events and fielding en masse immediately afterward.

Wanna know what I do see? Huge IP counts in the IRC status message, and basically dick going on in the field but the same dozen or so PvP players taking screenshots of their daily ganks with the occasional '1v1, gg' tossed in for good measure.

Field is fun, but structure is sound. Having a SAFE arena with no room for foul play and a trustworthy leaderboard makes the game at least remotely present day worthy of play.

But hey, that's just my opinion. I'm sure no one agrees, or there would be automated tournaments on other shards too, right?

Well said blondie

[Guerrilla]

play uo, not structured box pvp. If you want to play Fight in a box style leet red pot pvp ,then host the event guerrila bongy does it why can't you ?

red pots weren't allowed in the tourney jack

[the bazookas]

I agree with Blaise's sentiment: Player run events are exceedingly difficult to put together and sometimes not even that well attended (unless there is a promise of uber loot or something, and even then)... e.g. our "machine gun maze" probably had 10 people show up (I'm not saying it wasn't fun, just that even well advertised events don't get a ton of attendance... no doubt if there was a global broadcast message, that would help, but that requires staff resources which are scarce):

viewtopic.php?f=45&t=34560

And of course the infamous bazooka house loot event, I probably spent 20 hours planning and creating the macros for / getting everybody who was involved on the same page, etc. It was worth it, of course, but again, it was a ton of work.

Conversely I've also led many directly run staff events when I was an administrator at Rel Por--these take approximately the same amount of work to put together as it does for a player... which is a lot... though you certainly get way more "bang for your buck" in terms of what can be accomplished. Even so, with a small number of staff members certainly would have difficulty running them very regularly if at all due to the amount of work it requires.

Examples from my experience (there were quite a few that weren't reported on), my brothers generally would help out with these events in a pseudoseer capacity).
http://relpor.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1460
http://relpor.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1365
http://relpor.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1373
http://relpor.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1519
http://relpor.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1525
http://relpor.com/archives/9594
http://relpor.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1894

Not only is the event a lot of work, but many events you don't really even get to "enjoy" it yourself as a staff member--you are administrating / answering pages / hotfixing things that aren't working right--really quite stressful. I still loved it, but those events (which is what I "live for" in UO) only happened once every week or two or three on Rel Por because I was bogged down with administrating and other things. But yea, my point is that running events is a lot of work whether you are a player or a staff member, and I think Blaise is right that people just want to play, and staff members have a very reasonable policy of being mostly hands-off (which I completely understand, given how much time and work it takes).

Automated events, on the other hand, take quite a bit of work up front (I think less and less up-front investment is required as systems like the XMLSpawner system are fixed and improved) but then can run themselves pretty well after that. But then there are the arguments against it: Mostly against the "trammy" instanced nature of past events on UOSA. Honestly, I think there are an infinite array of event possibilities that do not take place in an instanced location, and even those that do could require some sort of upfront cost for the players who are going to be involved (who could also be the ones to initiate such an event).

I personally really enjoyed the automated events on UOSA while they were still around, and whether or not many people logged out afterward, I can't say. I can say that I didn't, and if some people did, then they probably wouldn't have been logging in at all without the events. I'm a pretty hardcore "felucca" kind of guy too--I love the sandbox--but I think automated events were fun enough, undisrupting enough, and infrequent enough to justify having something of the sort happen fairly regularly.

I find that I don't have all that much fun in UO anymore unless I'm creating or participating in novel systems / events (and I consider chicken bombing / bazooka turrets player-run "events" )... but the amount of work it takes to make it happen as a player certainly prevents me from getting "into the game" much anymore.

[GoldMember]

Bazooka wins. When do the events start?

[Brules]

If you take away the valuable reward then no one should have any issues with events and where they take place. Remove the no risk = high reward to no risk no reward and it become just something fun to do in game.

Simple.

[Jason-]

If you take away the valuable reward then no one should have any issues with events and where they take place. Remove the no risk = high reward to no risk no reward and it become just something fun to do in game.

Simple.

That is the ultimate compromise.

Individuals who hate events hate the fact distributions have value and are done in an uniformed environment. Those same individuals also hate the fact it takes players out of felucca for a short duration.

On the flip side, individuals who love events, hypothetocally events exist, experience an end game entertainment module that has the UOSA mechanics.

Net these 2 out and you get events that cost resources with no distributions for anyone.

[Jupiter]

I think was is missing here is the concept of varying levels of player run events; the events of which the bazookas speak are what I would categorize as elaborate events. I have thoroughly enjoyed the bazookas innovation. And I agree; By their very nature elaborate events are very time consuming and I believe often result in exhaustion of the event planners to the point that some of the BEST events end up being the LAST events planned by those people. Which makes me sad.

However, I think there is room for leaders on this shard to pick up the 'down' time between these elaborate events. With a different category of events which are 'rinse and repeatable' and which don't require an enormous amount of time.

One concept is 'quest books' that are player made. If done right this would require little oversight by the coordinator and can be useful on many levels. (i.e. if used withing guilds it can give guild leaders a measurable mechanic to evaluate members' participation; of course there are some members who are clearly active based on their personality, but there are others who may not be as easily recognized because they are shy or quiet.). These can also be used to put out 'hit lists' for most wanted pks/do-gooders or simply to get activity in an area based on the requirements of the quest.

The only real time required for this idea is 1) writing the books and stocking a vendor with them and 2) being available to have the quests turned in and provide the reward 3) publicizing the quest books to the intended target. The most time consuming part of this being available to accept the completed quests and provide the reward; this can be solved if you have a few additional players you can rely on to share this burden.

My main point is that with a little effort there is much that could be done without requiring staff to be directly involved. They should be busy making sure the world works, so we can be busy in it. Also I have heard that if we provide thoughtful ideas, staff members would be willing to assist.

What about a player run survival events? I imagine a well established player could request a 'spawn' tool of some sort to initiate a spawn of increasing difficulty that could be used. The said player could coordinate event times, arrange a space, and have at it. A tower, keep, or even the 'Tera Sanctum' island in lost lands could easily be used for such activities. To prevent accusations of unfairness, the spawned monsters should be created with no loot as the rewarding system would be handled by the player (i.e. in my events I typically plan to pay out of my own meager gold pool any rewards).

For those who say "But automated events can't be griefed" I ask, where is your 'Go back to Trammel' banner? do you only pull out that banner when it is convenient to you? Or do you truly pledge by it?

[Malaikat]

That is the ultimate compromise.

Individuals who hate events hate the fact distributions have value and are done in an uniformed environment. Those same individuals also hate the fact it takes players out of felucca for a short duration.

On the flip side, individuals who love events, hypothetocally events exist, experience an end game entertainment module that has the UOSA mechanics.

Net these 2 out and you get events that cost resources with no distributions for anyone.

I think a no-reward ladder system would be appropriate. It's good to foster some competition.

play uo, not structured box pvp. If you want to play Fight in a box style leet red pot pvp ,then host the event guerrila bongy does it why can't you ?

red pots weren't allowed in the tourney jack

He's just upset that duel rules disallow the use of balrons...considering that's his version of "playing uo".

[iamreallysquall]

TL:DR they want to play WOW damn trammys.

It's disappointing to see Mr. Anti-event respond to a very well written post that stated excellent points by Blaise.

Whether you realize it or not, you are the face of the player population that discourages automated events.

With that in mind, I can't say I'm too surprised with your response. It represents childness, ignorance, and even laziness. Characteristics that one would presume anti-event individuals to have.

A bit of advice; being the front line of the opposition, you may want to try a little harder in defending your position.

check page 3 maybe or maybe one of the other 99999 threads on this topic.

edit
A. He points out people are to lazy to host tourneys or events or to join them. Which is a player base related problem 'i want to log on do some leet trammel pvp then log off'.
B. He points out T2A mechanics that make the world dangerous and the sandbox that is?
C. He points out people want a safe haven to play in. (not era accurate to t2a , go play a trammel shard)
D. Add potential rewards + taking people out of feluca to points B an C and these events become all sorts of wrong.

[chainsoar]

wall of text, I don't play anymore, I tell lies about how many people were in the field during and after automated events

The server was devoid of action during and after events. If you'd actually been on this shard when they were at their height, you'd know this. But you weren't, so you just repeat things Sandro told you. gg

[chumbucket]

With that in mind, I can't say I'm too surprised with your response. It represents childness, ignorance, and even laziness. Characteristics that one would presume anti-event individuals to have.

I don't really care one way or other about events, but it is worth pointing out how ridiculously passionate you guys are about events (or no events) in a video game. I thought the above quote was a nice example of extreme silliness.

[Blaise]

wall of text, I don't play anymore, I tell lies about how many people were in the field during and after automated events

The server was devoid of action during and after events. If you'd actually been on this shard when they were at their height, you'd know this. But you weren't, so you just repeat things Sandro told you. gg

I'm not sure what corner of town you were begging in at the time or when the tournaments were at their height. I joined here in the begining of 2011 and played a few tournaments, some CTF, some Dom, etc. I watched a ton more tourneys than I fought in but all in all, from my perspective there were a ton more people in the tourneys and the field after them.

For what it's worth, I barely have or do communicate with Sandro. Not that I have any issue with doing so. It's no different than any other person on these boards. Another guy who plays UO and gives a shit about it. I do so appreciate your attempts to invalidate my opinion based on your assumptions of how much I play or who I associate with though. GG sir, GG.

[Halbu]

wall of text, I don't play anymore, I tell lies about how many people were in the field during and after automated events

The server was devoid of action during and after events. If you'd actually been on this shard when they were at their height, you'd know this. But you weren't, so you just repeat things Sandro told you. gg

I'm not sure what corner of town you were begging in at the time or when the tournaments were at their height. I joined here in the begining of 2011 and played a few tournaments, some CTF, some Dom, etc. I watched a ton more tourneys than I fought in but all in all, from my perspective there were a ton more people in the tourneys and the field after them.

For what it's worth, I barely have or do communicate with Sandro. Not that I have any issue with doing so. It's no different than any other person on these boards. Another guy who plays UO and gives a shit about it. I do so appreciate your attempts to invalidate my opinion based on your assumptions of how much I play or who I associate with though. GG sir, GG.

Chainsoar is right about a lot of people(nightshark, Eo, <insert hally jouster name here>). These guys have no clue about the shard's pvp scene and they don't even know who the current best pvpers are( since all they have to go on is what other forum pvpers like them say. Aside from pure forum pvp against the real UO players, they occasionally log in once a month to gank a bard with 4 other trammie dueler friends and say "lol current pvpers suck". Completely hilarious....