On Attendance, Proper Event Handling, and Why It Is Wrong for Your Character to Be Sidelined

Making events is hard, especially when attendance is pitifully low and few seem to be excited about the events. It’s even more difficult when they don’t go as planned. You've got to hand it to someone who still tries to run one with only two players. This actually happened. So how do we change things?

It's not that simple, actually. I had a conversation with Pat about how events were run, and...honestly, I didn't like what I heard. It started about attendance, because the issue of attendance and the success of events are two interrelated issues. I wasn't originally speaking about the attendance of the players, though. I was talking about the attendance of the mods.

Chat Logs:

An important issue was raised. Initially, it was about a single mod, but the underlying issue was greater than that—server attendance has been regularly low, often zero, even at previously peak hours. This is tolerable and even acceptable of the players, because they're players. They shouldn't be forced to come on regularly; they should be able to come and go as they please. But the mods? The admins? You can do better.

Chat Logs:

Point 1. A mod should ideally be present on-server 24/7.
If a moderator inexplicably fails to regularly appear on-server, they should no longer be a moderator.
12:14 PM - Uncle Pat: it's an age old problem, nobody wants to join unless somebody else is on
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Now, as you may notice, we have nowhere near 24/7 appearance of our mods or admins on the server. We also don't have enough mods or admins to fulfill that. So what can we do? Well, we can at least improve.

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Short-Term Goal: Mods will appear on-server as regularly and often as possible.
12:14 PM - 宇宙友人 Hyperiant: the mods should be saddled with the responsibility of actually being on

That addresses the issue of mod and admin attendance. But what about players? As mentioned previously, they shouldn't be required to come on. They must come in of their own accord. So how do you attract players? Well, players, tell the mods. How can they get you excited? How can they get you to come on the server?

Chat Logs:

Most of us have seen Xeloras on-server. But how many of us have actually RPed with him? How many of us have actually RPed with him recently? How many of us are willing to hop on-server just because Xeloras is on? Very few.

Chat Logs:

This is true, isn't it? All of us have left the server at one point or another because RP was thin or nonexistent. We should leave because we have other things we need to do, not because of a shortage of RP and RPers.

Point 2. All admins and mods should be prepared and ready to RP.
If an admin or mod fails to perform as a roleplayer when not busy, they should be removed.
12:19 PM - 宇宙友人 Hyperiant: it's not like people just join, thinking "I'm just going to hop on-serv and leave"
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Most of us agree that admins and mods need to administrate the server and moderate the players. But they should RP with us as well, no? Some mods already do it, but there is room for improvement.

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Short-Term Goal: All mods and admins will roleplay while on-server.

Now we turn to events. This is probably the most important, because events are what drives the plot underlying Aeria's RP. Most of us can at least agree on the fact that lots of good events = awesome. But let's face it. We don't have lots of events, or good events, let alone lots of good events. So how can we fix that?

Chat Logs:

Well, I wanted to switch topics, but attendance again seems to be one of the major underlying issues of this problem. For admins to hold successful events, they must have players to hold the events for. You can't have a party without guests any more than you can have an ice cream sundae without the ice, cream, and sundae. What else can we do to make sure that there are people present on the server when events are being held?

Chat Logs:

Point 3. Events should be held on a regular, predictable, convenient basis.
All events should be scheduled in advance to allow as many players as possible to participate.
There isn't a witty quote for this. I'm sorry.
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This shouldn't be too difficult to arrange, and it makes the most sense. After all, events lately have been happening on a very random basis. It doesn't make it fair to people who aren't constantly on the server (which admittedly at this point is nearly everyone). This is a great thing to strive for, but what should we shoot for in the short run?

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Short-Term Goal: Hold an event once a month at a predetermined date and time.

So we've got schedule down and touched a little on events. That should end the attendance issue, right...?

Okay, good. Let's continue to our final point.

Proper Event Handling

Now, this is probably my favorite part, because it's the part that's the most pleasant to talk about. It's looking forward and planning new events, which are meant for everyone to have fun. When everything works out, they're great. When it doesn't...not so much. Now, I have to give credit to the admins and mods. They're trying to provide a great roleplaying experience. That's why they're here.

But they aren't perfect. That's why this is an issue. That's why I'm here talking about how events should be handled. It's because even mods don't have a monopoly on great ideas. And frankly, events could be handled a lot better. Let's get right down to it, shall we?

Chat Logs - Longified just for you, mods and admins:

Point 4. Events should ideally allow the participation of all character types.
Events that effectively forbid a player from participating should be modified or scrapped.
12:49 PM - 宇宙友人 Hyperiant: events circled around small groups or players aren't classified as events. those can be handled by mods on a case-by-case basis.
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A very good amount of creativity is involved in creating an event that permits all players on-server to participate. It means a lot to people to be able to use their characters in the events, because it's not just the experience of the event that they want, it's the development of their characters that they want. This is a pretty big thing, so what's a smaller step we can take first?

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Short-Term Goal: Create events that permit the use of both combat and non-combat characters.

I wouldn't just leave you guys with a task this big and not give you any help. First of all, note past examples of extremely successful and fun events that had exactly no planned danger/combat in them.

Chat Logs - Longified:

This isn't to say combat events aren't great. They're spectacular...for those that can participate in them. I'm not saying combat events should be stopped. I'm saying that they shouldn't be treated like events. They're more like skirmishes. We shouldn't hold a skirmish at least once every month, we should hold an event.

Isn't it upsetting to be left out of an event? For your character to be sidelined because you aren't eligible for an event? All you can do is lurk from a distance, compromise and create a character you'll never use again, or just leave the server. And most of us would probably pick that last option. There's little hope for us otherwise—all of the people we would normally RP with are caught up in the event.

So...please try to improve. We appreciate your efforts, mods and admins, and we need you to step up and start doing things again. As for the players, try to be understanding, and try to support their efforts to make great events as well.

YOU'VE REACHED THE END
CONGRATULATIONS

I haven't read this in depth yet, but really..

We haven't had a major event in atleast a month and a half.

I feel like the title doesn't correlate with the meaning of the post.

Regardless, I do agree with the post. I've personally become less interested in RP because had been doing it for a few years now, so I decided to do something else, play more videogames.

The first part is about attendance and the whole thing is mostly unfinished.

But I'm glad you agree.

I sorta got sidetracked when Spadge started to not show up,

If even a few people decide to join then I'll join and help out.
IF i live through the school year,

I'll be pulling double shifts in the summer up until like July where i will be gone for a month.

>Implying Cakebread is Terran Tank
>Implying siegemode is loyal npc mode
>Spam Siegemode

Hope everyone else decides to get back on and help out with restoring regular rp.

Added some more about events. It's becoming rather long. I don't know how many of you guys will actually end up reading this, but I hope you do.

I think you'll enjoy it. I hope you will.
I hope you'll enjoy it. I think you will.

The longer it gets, the less effective it is.

Indeed. That's why I'm summing everything up I say into neat little points that I intend to put together at the end.

Events can't be tailored to fit everyone's characters, it's unreasonable to ask the admins to do that. This would mean going over everyone's character, figuring out their strengths and weaknesses, and making a event that somehow incorporates all of them. There's also the fact that some people may not even want to participate in the event, and others may join partway through. And the fact that it wouldn't always make IC sense. Remember the event where we negotiated the goblin treaty in the first place? The outcome wasn't certain, so it needed to play out on the server. How could it have been modified to include combat-oriented characters? All the diplomats just start a brawl? A giant spider bursts through the wall?

We have a lot of flexibility with characters, what they can do and what skills they have. Part of being a good RPer is learning to accept the consequences that come with the character. RPing a coward means you don't get to be the big damn hero sometimes. RPing a character who's learned nothing but how to fight all his life means you won't have anything to do during the big diplomatic event. RPing someone shy means your character will sit in a corner while everyone else talks amongst themselves. And last of all, RPing a little girl means you probably won't be doing much of anything. That's just how the setting, and the real world, works. Players are free to make more characters if they aren't getting enough out of their current ones.

Munroe wrote:

Events can't be tailored to fit everyone's characters, it's unreasonable to ask the admins to do that. This would mean going over everyone's character, figuring out their strengths and weaknesses, and making a event that somehow incorporates all of them. There's also the fact that some people may not even want to participate in the event, and others may join partway through. And the fact that it wouldn't always make IC sense. Remember the event where we negotiated the goblin treaty in the first place? The outcome wasn't certain, so it needed to play out on the server. How could it have been modified to include combat-oriented characters? All the diplomats just start a brawl? A giant spider bursts through the wall?

We have a lot of flexibility with characters, what they can do and what skills they have. Part of being a good RPer is learning to accept the consequences that come with the character. RPing a coward means you don't get to be the big damn hero sometimes. RPing a character who's learned nothing but how to fight all his life means you won't have anything to do during the big diplomatic event. RPing someone shy means your character will sit in a corner while everyone else talks amongst themselves. And last of all, RPing a little girl means you probably won't be doing much of anything. That's just how the setting, and the real world, works. Players are free to make more characters if they aren't getting enough out of their current ones.

Ideally they should be tailored to fit all types of characters. Not every situation will be ideal, and not every character will fit in the covered types. It's unreasonable to ask the event creator to create an event that will accommodate every single character in the compendium, but it is reasonable to ask them to accommodate as wide an array as possible.

It's unfair to restrict characters from playing because of a lack of effort or creativity on the part of the event runners. All that is asked is for more effort to be put into the adaptability of an event to a large character base.

Would the goblin treaty event have suited Jolie? No. Does that make it a bad event? Absolutely not. It included a wide variety of character archetypes. I propose that if an event does not suit the preferred characters of a person on-server who is being neglected, a sub-event should be created; ideally, this would be a sub-event that had some sort of impact on the larger event.

Here is the summary, preferably for stickying purposes.

- - - - -

1. A mod should ideally be present on-server 24/7.
If a moderator inexplicably fails to regularly appear on-server, they should no longer be a moderator.
12:14 PM - Uncle Pat: it's an age old problem, nobody wants to join unless somebody else is on
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Short-Term Goal: Mods will appear on-server as regularly and often as possible.




2. All admins and mods should be prepared and ready to RP.
If an admin or mod fails to perform as a roleplayer when not busy, they should be removed.
12:19 PM - 宇宙友人 Hyperiant: it's not like people just join, thinking "I'm just going to hop on-serv and leave"
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Short-Term Goal: All mods and admins will roleplay while on-server.




3. Events should be held on a regular, predictable, convenient basis.
All events should be scheduled in advance to allow as many players as possible to participate.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Short-Term Goal: Hold an event once a month at a predetermined date and time.




4. Events should ideally allow the participation of all character types.
Events that effectively forbid a player from participating should be modified or scrapped.
12:49 PM - 宇宙友人 Hyperiant: events circled around small groups or players aren't classified as events. those can be handled by mods on a case-by-case basis.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Short-Term Goal: Create events that permit the use of both combat and non-combat characters.

Might I make a suggestion? Create an "event" flag that allows no clip and event powers. Give this flag to active members trusted by the administration for maturity and knowledge of lore. Bam

Blitz wrote:

Might I make a suggestion? Create an "event" flag that allows no clip and event powers. Give this flag to active members trusted by the administration for maturity and knowledge of lore. Bam

these actually do exist as default with tiramisu 2, and there's a few people with them on-server. (i think like 2, but don't quote me on that)



and honestly i think i don't really agree with most of this post. the whole "admins need to be active" i agree with, but the rest of it it seems to just be stating that admins are the sole reason for inactivity, and that if they just ran events all the time people would be coming on.


what i think people need to do is just realise that they can make their own roleplay.
you shouldn't need events and admin help to do that. a sub-problem of this, i think, is also that people are too afraid to go out and do stuff, and as feel restricted in what they can do.
just look at the Cartel. i think i made that a pretty big thing on-server without much help or consent from the admins. i just went out and actually did stuff in-character, and then the reactions of the player base did the rest.

granted it wasn't that good of an outcome to it all, as it mostly just seemed like a "lol ur arerst" and then it was all gone. i had more stuff planned, but we won't discuss that here.


of course, this is all just what i think, so whatever.


but summarize this useless wall of letters;

you don't need /event and k&b powers to create roleplay for yourself and others. in fact, you don't need -anyone- with admin to create roleplay. just stop being afraid, and get out of the tavern and do something other than
/me drinks ale. "So how was your day?"

You've plenty of valid points, Hyper, and I admit that I haven't been particularly active in Olden. However, I do regularly check up on the forums even though I don't leave posts all that often. Serverside things, true, often I just rather do something else. Recently that something has been Torchlight, Firefall, TF2 and such. Time zones also are a bit of a hindrance (GMT +2).

I set up a rather large event not-too-long ago with the magical anomaly, but it apparently sort of dropped off the radar since nobody paid any attention to it. Not until I made it go boom and threw beasties in people's faces. A grand total of four or so people ever meaningfully interacted with it (Kain, Kali, Col Awesome, Munmun) which is not including staring at it for a minute and then walking off again.
Personally I tend to cater towards more magic and study oriented events that are largely player involvment driven and that tie in to other events, happenings and characters. This also applies to a lot of my characters. At times, sadly, that trust seems misplaced as things I try to do get plain ignored. I suppose I just got my fill of that and opted to do something else for the time being.

Don't misunderstand me, though. I haven't thrown Olden and its inhabitants to a trash bin. I've recently been semi-active and mostly on standby for calls of help. Everyone is welcome to poke at me for a question or two although I can't guarantee I can help to such an extent as Xeloras or Pat could. Mostly because I'm never told anything.

Also the Watch is sitting on a pile of crystals with nobody doing anything with them.

Horizon wrote:

and honestly i think i don't really agree with most of this post. the whole "admins need to be active" i agree with, but the rest of it it seems to just be stating that admins are the sole reason for inactivity, and that if they just ran events all the time people would be coming on.

Admins aren't the sole reason inactivity is here. The players are the ones who make the decision to come online, after all. But the administrators are mods are the only controllable factors. The players have no responsibilities to the game and shouldn't have responsibilities to the game. They shouldn't be forced to come online just because another player like me says they should. And would you even be moved to do so if I told you to? No. The better idea, then, is to make it more appealing to come online, and that power rests with the creators of events. This doesn't need to be an administrator or even a moderator. In fact, it's a great idea to give the power to the players. But the players acting as event creators should keep the guidelines I brought out for events in mind.

Horizon wrote:

what i think people need to do is just realise that they can make their own roleplay.
you shouldn't need events and admin help to do that. a sub-problem of this, i think, is also that people are too afraid to go out and do stuff, and as feel restricted in what they can do.
just look at the Cartel. i think i made that a pretty big thing on-server without much help or consent from the admins. i just went out and actually did stuff in-character, and then the reactions of the player base did the rest.

you don't need /event and k&b powers to create roleplay for yourself and others. in fact, you don't need -anyone- with admin to create roleplay. just stop being afraid, and get out of the tavern and do something other than
/me drinks ale. "So how was your day?"

Markka wrote:

I set up a rather large event not-too-long ago with the magical anomaly, but it apparently sort of dropped off the radar since nobody paid any attention to it. Not until I made it go boom and threw beasties in people's faces. A grand total of four or so people ever meaningfully interacted with it (Kain, Kali, Col Awesome, Munmun) which is not including staring at it for a minute and then walking off again.

. . .

At times, sadly, that trust seems misplaced as things I try to do get plain ignored. I suppose I just got my fill of that and opted to do something else for the time being.

. . .

Also the Watch is sitting on a pile of crystals with nobody doing anything with them.

I never figured out what was up with those crystals, and it was never explained further. The word from the admins was "nobody do anything with the crystals or anomaly until you know what they do" but they never actually explained it, which made it impossible for players to plan events around them or interact with them in any way. Your event idea was great, but the handling from the administration was, for lack of a better word...poor.

Hyperiant wrote:

I never figured out what was up with those crystals, and it was never explained further. The word from the admins was "nobody do anything with the crystals or anomaly until you know what they do" but they never actually explained it, which made it impossible for players to plan events around them or interact with them in any way. Your event idea was great, but the handling from the administration was, for lack of a better word...poor.

That kind of ties in to my point on trust on other people. I would've gladly explained what the crystals do if anyone had bothered to interact and study them. In fact, I've explained in fair detail what they do to Col Awesome who, so far, has been the sole person to try and discover the qualities of the crystal formations. Currently his computer is shot to hell, so his interaction regrettably at a minium.

I'd rather not put blame on anyone with this issue, but perhaps those other admins who told people to not interact with them are partially to blame with the anomaly & crystal dilemma. On the contrary, I hoped for interaction and study from people under supervision.
I've great and fairly extensive plans for the anomaly and what will happen with it in the future but first people would have to pay attention and get their rears in gear, at least a little bit.

Markka wrote:

On the contrary, I hoped for interaction and study from people under supervision.

I've great and fairly extensive plans for the anomaly and what will happen with it in the future but first people would have to pay attention and get their rears in gear, at least a little bit.

My alchemist character might be interested in the crystals when I finish him. Other than that...do what you can to get other players interested in the crystals. Maybe someone drags a few into town and players start finding them in random places and playing with them. Maybe haul in some crazy guy who sells the crystals to people in town. Get it in the players' hands.

There's more to having a good event than writing a good event. Players need to be interested and players need to know about it. Maybe advertise in the "Current Age" section?

I've been intending to throw some more crystals and beasties around to get the thing noticed, but I've been a tad shy about doing so. I'm somewhat coy when it comes to interrupting on-going RP for the sake of my event, unless there's literally nothing going on. My most recent attempt was easily and swiftly deal with by Munmun, who got a glimpse of what I might be planning on.

That said, I've made a news post on the matter.

Markka wrote:

I've been intending to throw some more crystals and beasties around to get the thing noticed, but I've been a tad shy about doing so. I'm somewhat coy when it comes to interrupting on-going RP for the sake of my event, unless there's literally nothing going on.

That said, I've made a news post on the matter.

I remember that news post, but it was made quite a while ago, and since the news has been moving rapidly lately and there hasn't been any further information on those crystals...some people might get the idea that the ordeal is over.

I think we should have a true-to-title OOC "current happenings" thread that tells us what's going on currently and what things have happened recently, perhaps with links to the original news posts. It would help returning players and new players understand what's been going on lately and get up to speed faster. It would also serve the dual purpose of informing players of subjects that events can be held on. It might even be a good place to put scheduled events. Something like this, perhaps?

Magical Anomaly!
Next event: May 10, 2012
Last event: April 6, 2012

Inactive or complete plot arcs should be removed as soon as possible from the thread to prevent confusion from the active or in-progress ones.

That could be a nice addition and bring much-needed clarity to the whole ordeal.

Hyperiant wrote:

, and that power rests with the creators of events. This doesn't need to be an administrator or even a moderator. In fact, it's a great idea to give the power to the players. But the players acting as event creators should keep the guidelines I brought out for events in mind.

The funny thing is that this is how it's supposed to work, right now. There's nothing that says that players can't come up with and run an event. Blitz had a few (his giant events), Munroe's grew into a chapter plot of it's own, and Jacker ran events without being an admin too. Maybe it's a problem of communication (as it often is in Olden) but it's been that way for quite a while, though nobody seems to believe it. A lot of people seem to think that only I or one of the admins can make lore, too.

The only thing I'm not sure about is whether or not event running should be a position one can occupy with the authority to do so (meaning nobody else but those event runners can hold events) or if it is on an event-to-event basis, (the current way, meaning that any player wanting to run an event needs to run it by an admin first).


Speaking of communication issues,

Hyperiant wrote:

The word from the admins was "nobody do anything with the crystals or anomaly until you know what they do" but they never actually explained it, which made it impossible for players to plan events around them or interact with them in any way.

Rutabega only said that because people were starting to ask if they could forge them or use them in weapons. He said that because he was waiting for someone that actually knew what they could do, (Markka), to explain their effects. Said information was never really widely released, meaning any random joe who started pounding on the crystal had no idea what it could do and instructions not to do so until someone said what would happen.

Proper communication, I think, is one of the biggest issues with Olden. Most lore, information, and administration business is passed on via grapevine word of mouth. This is how people believe that only admins can make lore or run events, and how some people are in the dark with the lore. It's something that I think my style of administration has perpetuated, sadly enough. The only way I think it could be fixed is with a lot of work on the forums. Lore pages, rule edits, format pages, and the like.

I think the two newest events that have cropped up are excellent examples of how events should be handled in their own ways. Markka's recent crystal event made things exciting and rewarded participants. Pat's fundraiser event has been scheduled in advance and attempts are being made to incite anticipation and raise player participation. Good job, guys.

wow it sure is getting like TnB in here
I sure missed the walls of text