- Pronouns
- He/Him
GrapeFlavDragons
Evil
This is the promised addressing on the latest event, as well as the current campaign climate. It is not as hopeful as the last review I gave in this section, and I am still baffled as to why the section exists, as the Event Coordinator still hasn't responded to a thread here from February. Have I misunderstood? Is this a section on reviews of players, or is it from them? Were there any kind of official reply from Lannis on my own thread I would know. It looks like it includes staff from how these previous threads were featured, posted by Events Staff:
http://hollowworld.co.uk/threads/reviews-aeon-act-1.36198/
http://hollowworld.co.uk/threads/reviews-aeon-act-2.36958/
As well as reviews from players for Events Staff:
http://hollowworld.co.uk/threads/review-gift-of-the-mad-gods.31360/
http://hollowworld.co.uk/threads/constructive-critique-praise-aeon-act-1.36199/
http://hollowworld.co.uk/threads/constructive-criticism-exploration-phase.36237/
So it seems there is a continued lack of ownership from the event-runner in question.
Onto the actual event.
It was laughable to have come to this point, watching on as an NPC appeared to regale players about his adventures on his own, connecting several disjointed plot points from the last year+. Not only is it disrespectful for a character to appear to say "It was foolish of you not to connect the dots" when there have been minimal lines available to draw, but it was an even larger cop-out for a character to appear and say "It was me all along!" in attempt to tie them together. It is already horrible writing to have an NPC come in to provide exposition, but even worse for them to mock players over hints that were not clearly given. It was entirely reasonable for the character to be rebuffed the way that he was, both OOC and IC. There was no reason for his being there, nor was there for anyone to humour him.
On the technical aspects of the writing there, I was baffled that the lesson learned from the last Exposition NPC (which is already a horrible remark to have to say) was that the Campaign was put at a detriment because he was killed. Yes, it was dumb for a player to kill that NPC, but not because of the player. The NPC would never need to be implemented if there was a more respectful or proper way of delivering the Campaign Story. Watching you justify an NPC's teleporting from existence at the first sign of player retaliation not only proves that players aren't given proper agency as to how the campaign goes, but that the solution of telling an involved story in events hadn't even been considered. A sour note to return from a three month absence to be sure. Why weren't players allowed to investigate this in the absence of it all? Why wasn't there any explanation for why they weren't? The answer is because of a lack of commitment, care, and responsibility being demonstrated in the position.
Referring to the Campaign Climate begins with the fact that this was the first one in three months, I reiterate. It was not a new campaign, which could justify the quiet lapse in that time. It was not an organic transition. It was a jarring reminder that there should have been something to fill the gap that was left, while you justified it with your story character galavanting on a private adventure.
Lannis has made mention in the past about his dislike for the Broken Moon campaign (from around 2012-2013), because there were certain characters made as the catalyst that got to do something major in an effectively-offscreen way from the rest of the player base. Despite that, ironically the same mistake has been made here, but worse. The mindset gained seemed to be that players were upset that they couldn't do the same as the characters in the Broken Moon sequence, but what is odd is that the exact same thing was done here, but worse. No staff characters were given special treatment sure; however the exact same narrative structure was used. A catalyst character engaged massive world change offscreen while players were left to assume what happened. Where Broken Moon managed to at least engage players is there were things and people in the world for the players and characters interested could gain an understanding of the plot and in turn investigate. The Incursion campaign has not done this, instead creating many open ends and refusing to follow-up on them while leaving them in the world, punishing the players that invested time into it by forcing them to break character and ignore important details of their recent life.
This is where I will go and give the same suggestion that I have been given before. Make a story for players to interact with, as a DM. If you are determined to cart players along and have them make a few choices along the way as a collective, you've begun to run a reality show where they can vote every few weeks on who leaves the island. Worse is when there is no impact, and you take them on a tour of a story you've written. But worst of all is when there isn't a story, and you roller-coaster what has become an audience from disconnected point to disconnected point with no reward given for continuing, just for ceasing involvement altogether.
There has been the query of "why not just make player events" in regards to complaints about the current campaign, which is equally baffling. Not only is the incentive punished by having to take it through the Event head in question, often taking great lengths of time to reply if at all, players do not have the tools to engage the world in the same way that the Events Team does, nor are they going to be given. With that said, it then becomes questionable why there is a Campaign Department if players should be making the sole events on the server.
This is a call-out to all involved in the current campaign, from Lore team to Events themselves but I will make note of Elz and Snerus for running events or DMing in the absence of a campaign. It comes to special notice however that they have not been able to run anything official in regards to events on the server campaign platform. There have been small sightings of things sold off as plot relevant, but I have not seen anything come of them in relation to the current campaign. Were we supposed to gather who the antagonist is, his motivations, or what the plot is from the happenings with the new Shadow Rider? If so, why is it that no one put it together?
I am of an obscene doubt that the party system now imposed does anything short of fuelling the constant "clique" issue being brought up, and it now segregates these cliques into competing groups as they have no basis to cooperate. This is a similar issue to the Altera Alive system, and it seems that a lesson was only half learned from that, too.
This is going to now be handed off to players to critique if they find something here arguable.
http://hollowworld.co.uk/threads/reviews-aeon-act-1.36198/
http://hollowworld.co.uk/threads/reviews-aeon-act-2.36958/
As well as reviews from players for Events Staff:
http://hollowworld.co.uk/threads/review-gift-of-the-mad-gods.31360/
http://hollowworld.co.uk/threads/constructive-critique-praise-aeon-act-1.36199/
http://hollowworld.co.uk/threads/constructive-criticism-exploration-phase.36237/
So it seems there is a continued lack of ownership from the event-runner in question.
Onto the actual event.
It was laughable to have come to this point, watching on as an NPC appeared to regale players about his adventures on his own, connecting several disjointed plot points from the last year+. Not only is it disrespectful for a character to appear to say "It was foolish of you not to connect the dots" when there have been minimal lines available to draw, but it was an even larger cop-out for a character to appear and say "It was me all along!" in attempt to tie them together. It is already horrible writing to have an NPC come in to provide exposition, but even worse for them to mock players over hints that were not clearly given. It was entirely reasonable for the character to be rebuffed the way that he was, both OOC and IC. There was no reason for his being there, nor was there for anyone to humour him.
On the technical aspects of the writing there, I was baffled that the lesson learned from the last Exposition NPC (which is already a horrible remark to have to say) was that the Campaign was put at a detriment because he was killed. Yes, it was dumb for a player to kill that NPC, but not because of the player. The NPC would never need to be implemented if there was a more respectful or proper way of delivering the Campaign Story. Watching you justify an NPC's teleporting from existence at the first sign of player retaliation not only proves that players aren't given proper agency as to how the campaign goes, but that the solution of telling an involved story in events hadn't even been considered. A sour note to return from a three month absence to be sure. Why weren't players allowed to investigate this in the absence of it all? Why wasn't there any explanation for why they weren't? The answer is because of a lack of commitment, care, and responsibility being demonstrated in the position.
Referring to the Campaign Climate begins with the fact that this was the first one in three months, I reiterate. It was not a new campaign, which could justify the quiet lapse in that time. It was not an organic transition. It was a jarring reminder that there should have been something to fill the gap that was left, while you justified it with your story character galavanting on a private adventure.
Lannis has made mention in the past about his dislike for the Broken Moon campaign (from around 2012-2013), because there were certain characters made as the catalyst that got to do something major in an effectively-offscreen way from the rest of the player base. Despite that, ironically the same mistake has been made here, but worse. The mindset gained seemed to be that players were upset that they couldn't do the same as the characters in the Broken Moon sequence, but what is odd is that the exact same thing was done here, but worse. No staff characters were given special treatment sure; however the exact same narrative structure was used. A catalyst character engaged massive world change offscreen while players were left to assume what happened. Where Broken Moon managed to at least engage players is there were things and people in the world for the players and characters interested could gain an understanding of the plot and in turn investigate. The Incursion campaign has not done this, instead creating many open ends and refusing to follow-up on them while leaving them in the world, punishing the players that invested time into it by forcing them to break character and ignore important details of their recent life.
This is where I will go and give the same suggestion that I have been given before. Make a story for players to interact with, as a DM. If you are determined to cart players along and have them make a few choices along the way as a collective, you've begun to run a reality show where they can vote every few weeks on who leaves the island. Worse is when there is no impact, and you take them on a tour of a story you've written. But worst of all is when there isn't a story, and you roller-coaster what has become an audience from disconnected point to disconnected point with no reward given for continuing, just for ceasing involvement altogether.
There has been the query of "why not just make player events" in regards to complaints about the current campaign, which is equally baffling. Not only is the incentive punished by having to take it through the Event head in question, often taking great lengths of time to reply if at all, players do not have the tools to engage the world in the same way that the Events Team does, nor are they going to be given. With that said, it then becomes questionable why there is a Campaign Department if players should be making the sole events on the server.
This is a call-out to all involved in the current campaign, from Lore team to Events themselves but I will make note of Elz and Snerus for running events or DMing in the absence of a campaign. It comes to special notice however that they have not been able to run anything official in regards to events on the server campaign platform. There have been small sightings of things sold off as plot relevant, but I have not seen anything come of them in relation to the current campaign. Were we supposed to gather who the antagonist is, his motivations, or what the plot is from the happenings with the new Shadow Rider? If so, why is it that no one put it together?
I am of an obscene doubt that the party system now imposed does anything short of fuelling the constant "clique" issue being brought up, and it now segregates these cliques into competing groups as they have no basis to cooperate. This is a similar issue to the Altera Alive system, and it seems that a lesson was only half learned from that, too.
This is going to now be handed off to players to critique if they find something here arguable.