Protector - Day of Vigilance. Staff Debriefing and Comments

DoV Staff and players who participated: Feel free to place your comments in this thread.

The purpose of this exercise is to gauge the overall reception of the Day of Vigilance concept.

Please don't hesitate to point out what you liked, what you disliked, and any improvements you think could have been brought to the whole activity.

+1*

Overall, the results were positive, IMO.

Here are my thoughts on the events I was involved in, and the overall day's activities.

• Participation was decent, even if some activities needed a little bit more encouragement to fill.
• Coverage by KJSR.net was icing on the cake.
• Character Design Panel extended past the allotted time because it started late, and the questions received were finally more than anticipated originally. Troy Hickman and JWBullfrog handled this very professionally. My personal favorite event because it was so different from the others, yet attracted players.
• The finale went on in my (regrettable) absence, demonstrating that the organizing had worked: staff knew what to do and where to be. Letting event creators have control of their ideas worked well.
• Now, That's Clever costume contest drew in about 45 people. Sorry Layla Rei. Your custom dolls are just *that* popular.
• Involvement of P.E.R.C. and Tanker Tuesday was a nice reminder that Protector - despite allusions to the contrary - is not only alive and well, it has a thriving community that attracts "outside" attention. This, even if the event in question is not of their own making.
• I don't think this should go unmentioned: Seeing the staff comprised of people who, despite personal differences or differing agendas, chose to work together towards a common goal - everyone interested in contributing to Protector's enjoyability for one day.

• Still unsure if the stories had the intended effect: to draw players into the day on a RP level. I know we had much fun working on the collaborative and dynamically changing storyline. But I feel the feedback on those was rather minimal.
• Mentor Project activities were a failure. I think we just didn't reach the intended audience ahead of time. I was sorry to see all the volunteers for this activity, and the funds invested, be put aside that day. This is a "to be continued" in my book.
• Missing the Warburg Bounty Hunt and Recluse's Victory finale. I was just too tired and zonked out on the couch.
• Missing out on Sooner's and kidengineer's events. This could have been handled better, and these are rainchecks in my book.

• Better means of communication with the staff from the start. A forum, or the Google Groups I tried (too little, too late) to use should have been there from the start. I blame my lack of foresight into just how many people would be involved (18 in the end, 22 with Mentor Project volunteers).
• There was need for volunteers in one cancelled event that, if I'd paid closer attention, could have been resolved in time to include it.

*Since I've started using Google+ this week, allow me to use +1 for this section.

I had a blast!

I, too, enjoyed it greatly, and I appreciate being asked to take part. Thanks to everyone who showed up. It's been a while since I appeared anywhere in game (I used to do a lot more weddings, talk shows, hitting 50 celebrations, etc., but I don't get asked much anymore. I think it's because people have heard about my cologne...).

OK here go my views...

+1

All of the Costume contests went well. The two big ones were "Dress Your Badge" and "That's Clever. " I agree that Layla's dolls had a big part in those going off as well as they did. Even with that, the others had smaller participation but some incredible entries for them.

The PvP events seemed well recieved. In particular, Rasta's bounty hunt seemed to have a lot of fans. That we may want to keep on the list for a more regular affair.

The trivia contest was a good addition. That also could be a semi-regular event.

It had the potential to be an unholy nightmare of organization. Yet, we had very few hangups and only one event that seemed to fizzle. I am still shocked things went as smooth as they did. Having a copy of the event schedule in place and in everyone's hands made that go smoother.

The discussion panels went very well. I'm not sure what everyone expected from those but we got far more participation that I expected.

The TF/SF runs seemed to be a big hit.


now the downside

-1

Communications: We could have set up and tested communications earlier. I know the Ventrilo was sort of a last minute addition so, if we use it again, we need to declare a day where we get all the principals online beforehand to test and adjust that.

Pacing and spacing: We could have spaced things out a bit more during the day. We had a lot of events running right up against each other. for example: Character panel-PvP panel- Layla 2 CC. In the future we could build in a few open spots in the schedule just to allow for events running over. Maybe half hour windows every 2-3 hours.

CC speed run: OK, it was kind of fun in a frantic sort of way but 15 events in a 2 hour time block was a bit much. We need either more time or fewer categories.

Advertising: We could have gotten the word out sooner and broader. The forums are good to a point but not everyone has a forum account (even more of a point when F2P goes live). We might want to explore more ways of getting the word out. Maybe more advance coordination with PERC and other player groups on other servers.

Storyline: OK, I admit this is my personal concern. It was fun to do but I'm not sure it had the impact we were looking for. By the time we got to the PvP events, I dont know if most of the participants knew the idea behind it. If we do this again (and I am willing to entertain that idea) we need to find a way to get that more in the eyes of the player base.

Organizers: We had a small group of organizers and moderators/judges. By the end of the day we were all pretty exhausted. We might need to recruit a few more bodies just to spread out the workload. Also this would let the organizers get in on the fun a bit more.

Rewards: How the heck do we top that level of cash? I have no real ideas here. Just worried about doing things bigger/ better/ more...


Overall, it was a success. A few modifications on the planning side and we could do this again.

Frankly, I didn't understand the need for the story in the first place. You had this whole thing set up as basically a fair, full of minigames, events and prizes, but not much to push any kind of narrative.

I agree that if you do this again, with the storyline, you'll need to find a way to get that to the participants (especially since a lot of players STILL don't peruse the forums). If you can't do that, however... Well...

I'm not going to say that you shouldn't write the story... I will always encourage writing, especially when it's the quality presented in the other thread. However, it will probably have to stay out of prominence in the grand scheme of the event. Perhaps the event is something happening as its own occurrence, and your story will detail your characters' adventures in it. In that respect, you could even open up a story-writing competition for participants in the event, to detail how other players view the proceedings and how they interpret their characters' involvement.

But that's one way to take it. Others may have suggestions as well.

I think spacing this out over more than just a day would be a good idea.

I had a blast! I hope we do something like this again.

Positives:
Anticipation: Had some people who looked forward to the run, picked thematic toons, and took part in each TF. That's rewarding.
Diversity: The "misfits" label help let people know that they could bring whatever. We didn't have to have any particular combo. We even did one without a single melee AT. As discussed, the strength of the game meant any ol' bunch of toons could reach their goals. I saw less common ATs too, toons that have a ton of KB for instance got plenty of play throughout the run.
Exposure: Some people hadn't really TFed much. The low pressure of the misfits run let people hit some signature TFs, try the revamped ones, and take on a wide aray of challenges.
Fun: It was fun to play together with what was basically 7 different PUGs taking on some signature content. New content is great, but it was fun getting back to roots, and by playing the TFs in order, it was like leveling up in 1 day. Good times.
Teamwork: This ties in to Diversity. The lack of team structure meant it wasn't a herd to kill zone, kill, heal the injured, repeat. It was chaotic at times, but we learned to adapt to each unique team makeup. Also, the strict scale of the TFs meant that toons specced for lvl 50 incarnate content had to be rely on early powers and adjust, while at the same time toons in their 20s made do with just single or double origins.

Negatives:
Communication: There were folks who had no idea this was coming. Also, the "Misfits" title confused people; they wanted to know if they had to bring an off the wall toon or was their main ok. I bet there are plenty of casual players who would have enjoyed a low pressure TF or two - but had no idea it was going on. I really wanted this to be something that drew casual players. Vent had its issues too. For example, no matter what I did, some people were hard to hear while at the same time others were way too loud.
Knowledge: This is on me. I hadn't run a couple of these in a while and leaned on Paragonwiki more than I should have. So more prep time would have been cool.
Schedule: Perhaps ties in with communication. We only had full 8 for 1 of the 7 TFs. Several times people had conflicts with other events like PVP time, a CC, or another TF.

I wasn't really planning on participating but I was awake and decided the Kheldian TF might be interesting. I ended up hanging out for almost the whole day; It was fun.

Suggestions:

* Make the event a festival spread out over two weeks with, perhaps, a few events during the bookended week for people who might not be able to attend on the week ends. It did have a festival atmosphere and felt very casual.

* The rushed costume contests was a bit of chaotic fun, but I think spreading them out a little more throughout the day would be better. Perhaps have a two hour window for TF runs followed by an hour of themed costume contests; seems like a decent break for people doing TFs and, if they aren't so interested in the costume contests, they could run another TF or Tips or other missions in the meanwhile and would also allow for people who might have limited time to play to participate in at least one of the contests or TF runs.

* Have multiple TF/mission-based events at the same time. This might seem frustrating at first, but it might make it seem more active, give people choices and might make people come back to the next one: "Man I missed out on that Roman-themed ITF, but I got the Badges for the Positron two-part run. I'll have to remember to join the themed event next time."

Overall:

It was handled very, very well. I don't want to sound like I had no faith in the event, but I was rather surprised at how well it went. As an inaugural event, it was great. Perhaps, with the apparent success of this event, you might be able to get the Community Reps for NC Soft to get the company to put a link for the next event in the NC game launcher. Maybe get them to put up a link for this past event to make people aware of what it was and prepare for the next one; to point out that "Freedom" isn't because the game is dying and show them how active the game community is even on little, old, dead Protector.

+1

This was a really well-organized event. I can't describe how incredibly annoying I found having my e-mail inbox flooded on a daily basis, but it was worth it to see (almost) everything go off without a hitch.

My regular gang of SG/VGmates got together for the CCs, and took home a ton of prizes, as well as getting a few more people interested in playing with us. It was really cool to be able to go out in the open and "scare the wildlife" (aka, roleplay in local with people around) and get attention for the SG/VG that way. We're super excited to see if any of the people who messaged us interested in joining will actually show up!

KJSR.net got a TON of new listeners and they probably got to hear some of the DJs they don't normally hear on the weekends. I know the DJs had an absolute blast, and a few times in global/broadcast I even saw someone go "OMG, the DJ said my name!" or things to that effect. I was glad we could be a part of this!

-1

The story. I know I've been in on this since practically the beginning, but it had a very WALL OF TEXT feel to it if you weren't reading every. single. update. I think this contributed to a "TL;DR" feeling about it for a lot of people.

The rush factor of the Costume Contests. I loved all the categories, but for a few (like the Best Villain Duo+) my folks were really scrambling to get swapped to new toons, get costumes changed, etc. I think we needed a little more space between them-say ten minutes instead of five.

I think making it more than one day is a good idea. even just a three day event wouldnt be that bad ( fri,sat, sun) I had fun playing hide and seek in the morning but i think next time i would like it to be a all day hide and seek. Where once an hour a selected hero hides in a selected zone and if they are found by someone within say 20-30 min of the announcement then the person gets the prize. I also agree with spreading out the CCs I think it was just alot of events to try to fit in all one day with not repeating them where someone could make it another time. Thou i dont think i could do multi of my doll giveaway contests in one weekend :P but i had fun and let me know if you guys plan something like this again so i can help in one way or another

GROUP HUG!! and witch some how you missed my consist reminding of ppl to come to my CC XD i think ppl were sick of me promoting my doll giveaway. Every time i was on i talked in the pro vig channel and pro tf channel about how excited i was about the event and my CCs Plus i annoyed ppl during the weekly RtR about it while they waited for us to start. I even posted it on my Deviant Art page. But not everyone knows me or gets to play at the same time as me. So i totally understand where your coming from and i believe we will work harder at getting the word out. I suggest we actually get a "Promote the event" team. Players that are on multi channels that play alot and who can be upbeat and talkative in as many ways as possible. Also on at different times. I tried to do the "calling tree" thing like sooner suggested with all my globals.
SOoo.. lets all stay positive so we can make the next event more awesome! because there WILL be another one :P even if i have to make it a LAYLA CON.