Given that the final tally of the Blodfest/Master of the Blade event is a tie at 4-4 I’m defaulting this as a win to the Dark Side because the location as well as the Light Side groups that have been active should have made this an overwhelming snowball experience. This will have in-game consequences to Blodfest’s location, some of the added patrols over the course of the event, and the general Andor area.
I’m curious why the tally was so low and whether it had to do with unclear instructions or it was more connected with something else?
Over the course of the tinkers event we rolled out a couple different narratives of storyline for with the hopes that people could use some of these aspects of storytelling and integrate them into reasons to roleplay about our world. From Timmee’s master quest and the rock in the gap to the corpse of a Black Ajah in the White Tower, to the tinker camp, the emptying of the tinker camp, and the expanded patrols throughout the area, we were hoping that these pieces put into play would give reasons for players to interact from their own either political or gaming interests to have a more direct roleplay engagement and in-game impact.
Our hopes were that we could generate content and promote activity and facilitate more DM experiences rather than prescribed gameplay and outcomes by allowing player activity to influence the narrative through roleplay, events, and activities.
Some events seemed like a total dud.
The quests for dark side in particular (Kreeza quests for generating gold, the dreadlord patrol quest)
Same for the light side. In particular the quests from Joar and Raed seemed to have limited engagement.
What stops limited time quests like this from being done? Were they too difficult?
What would have influenced your gameplay to approach the game differently? Any thoughts in general on a content-based approach for WoTMUD?
Disclaimer: above all we want to keep this thread on topic. We will delete posts that deviate in a way that is not meaningful. Our hopes were that we could generate content and promote activity and facilitate more DM experiences (for light side or dark side) by giving a setting without setting a goal.
Feedback for Tinkerers
Re: Feedback for Tinkerers
I really enjoyed most of it that I could participate in. I really like to do the daily Tinker Quest that I could get and maybe get something interesting. I got sometimes junk sometimes something cool. I really like that kind of dynamic in the game. I guess my main thing is or was I didn't realize all of this stuff was changing so much because I can't read so good? I don't know there was a lot going on and my smooth brain had a hard time keeping up.
Re: Feedback for Tinkerers
Firstly let me say that I really appreciated you putting so much time and thought into making the game more fun for us. It was obvious a lot of work went in and more than that a lot of thought went into it.
I personally enjoyed the extra things to do on DS.
I did both the Kreeza and Dreadlord patrol quests. Initially Foil and I did them a few times and he was actively trying to get other DS players to engage with them. In the beginning they were interesting but I personally stopped doing them as I felt the reward to time ratio was a little off for me personally. I also noticed the variance was quite big for us on the Kreeza quest.
I personally don't enjoy RP puzzles so I opted out of some of the initial quests and instead engaged in more of the collect as many of X as you can. I was very active on that. When I asked others why they were not participating actively it seemed lack of clear reward made them take it less seriously.
The Christmas gifts were awesome and I saw massive engagement on those. I would consider putting the LS one in a slightly safer location or the DS one in a more dangerous location depending on your objective.
The clearing of patties was fun I think I was involved in almost all the DS hits people were keen but you needed a decent group and generally pk took priority. If it could have been done by 4-5 people I think you would have had more engagement from DS.
Lastly the timing of the event was at the same time as increased smob rewards with some pretty crazy loot. I think many people just preferred to smob given the rewards.
Thank you again for all the work you put in it is appreciated.
I personally enjoyed the extra things to do on DS.
I did both the Kreeza and Dreadlord patrol quests. Initially Foil and I did them a few times and he was actively trying to get other DS players to engage with them. In the beginning they were interesting but I personally stopped doing them as I felt the reward to time ratio was a little off for me personally. I also noticed the variance was quite big for us on the Kreeza quest.
I personally don't enjoy RP puzzles so I opted out of some of the initial quests and instead engaged in more of the collect as many of X as you can. I was very active on that. When I asked others why they were not participating actively it seemed lack of clear reward made them take it less seriously.
The Christmas gifts were awesome and I saw massive engagement on those. I would consider putting the LS one in a slightly safer location or the DS one in a more dangerous location depending on your objective.
The clearing of patties was fun I think I was involved in almost all the DS hits people were keen but you needed a decent group and generally pk took priority. If it could have been done by 4-5 people I think you would have had more engagement from DS.
Lastly the timing of the event was at the same time as increased smob rewards with some pretty crazy loot. I think many people just preferred to smob given the rewards.
Thank you again for all the work you put in it is appreciated.
Re: Feedback for Tinkerers
I think that pace would have been pretty solid for people who played about 10 hours a day assuming that nothing else was going on. I think most people when they saw the loaders and TAR things called Holidaze, they assumed that was the holiday event and didnt dig any deeper than that. I also think having smobbing stuff that was loading well over hundred times better than normal smobbing also lowered the incentive to track down anything else that was going on. Even for people that were looking at doing more, it had seemed like things such as the bored sentry and aram were more important than things like the tinker related stuff, I had the impression they were more like a side thing/dynamic event type deal, then the main event.
Part of it may have also been player based as well, I hadn't been super active during that time but it seemed like there was a lot more roaming groups than normal, i know I was attacked within 10 minutes of logging on 6 days in a row so I personally didn't log on as often, but when i was the focus was definately on loaders and TAR, maybe because that was more familiar to previous years holiday-type activities? or maybe just because it loaded so obscenely idk.
Part of it may have also been player based as well, I hadn't been super active during that time but it seemed like there was a lot more roaming groups than normal, i know I was attacked within 10 minutes of logging on 6 days in a row so I personally didn't log on as often, but when i was the focus was definately on loaders and TAR, maybe because that was more familiar to previous years holiday-type activities? or maybe just because it loaded so obscenely idk.
Re: Feedback for Tinkerers
Thank you so much I loved the event!!
For the master and blodfest I tried multiple times throughout the event to get groups to kill blodfest but they were never interested, even when in smob groups they wouldn’t think twice about hitting blodfest or doing the quest to kill aren. I personally think it’s because loaders ran throughout the entire duration of the event and that was most of the focus of these smob groups.
The individual reward was much higher and the risk much lower for those groups to run to those smobs. I personally believe a lack of distinct rewards for killing blodfest/master and the abundance of rewards from loaders contributed.
Even when I found ds groups hitting master (happened like twice) and tried to stop them it seemed no ls were interested
For the master and blodfest I tried multiple times throughout the event to get groups to kill blodfest but they were never interested, even when in smob groups they wouldn’t think twice about hitting blodfest or doing the quest to kill aren. I personally think it’s because loaders ran throughout the entire duration of the event and that was most of the focus of these smob groups.
The individual reward was much higher and the risk much lower for those groups to run to those smobs. I personally believe a lack of distinct rewards for killing blodfest/master and the abundance of rewards from loaders contributed.
Even when I found ds groups hitting master (happened like twice) and tried to stop them it seemed no ls were interested
Re: Feedback for Tinkerers
Gonna agree with a point gok made that the smob rewards pulled players away from the tinker stuff but I don’t think that’s terrible to anything. We had a lot of people on for the holidays which was really cool so I’m glad there were multiple things going on. It could have been great to have these things at separate times but I just don’t think we have the player base for that.
All that being said, I got into the tinker game late bc I was one of the people always trying to smob. When I started doing the joar and raen stuff I was pretty into it. Someone else was definitely doing them bc I got told a lot no assistance was needed.
The most recent blodfest stuff I’ll admit I mostly avoided because I’m just not seeking pk right now. That’s not to say I won’t jump in to pk related events in the future, I just have some hardware issues I need to address that occasionally make me dt with wagons.
Now that I’ve been back for exactly three months, I feel like I know how to play again. There has just been so much to explore again and learn changes for that make me wonder if I should have only come back on one character at a time. Point being, I’d be likely to participate more in a future event since it’ll be new stuff at time when the whole mud isn’t new stuff again.
Really do appreciate the work it took. Except whatever the sangria thing was. Never found that one.
All that being said, I got into the tinker game late bc I was one of the people always trying to smob. When I started doing the joar and raen stuff I was pretty into it. Someone else was definitely doing them bc I got told a lot no assistance was needed.
The most recent blodfest stuff I’ll admit I mostly avoided because I’m just not seeking pk right now. That’s not to say I won’t jump in to pk related events in the future, I just have some hardware issues I need to address that occasionally make me dt with wagons.
Now that I’ve been back for exactly three months, I feel like I know how to play again. There has just been so much to explore again and learn changes for that make me wonder if I should have only come back on one character at a time. Point being, I’d be likely to participate more in a future event since it’ll be new stuff at time when the whole mud isn’t new stuff again.
Really do appreciate the work it took. Except whatever the sangria thing was. Never found that one.
Re: Feedback for Tinkerers
Probably making the scores public at some points would have generated interest, even more if some known reward was on the line.
Re: Feedback for Tinkerers
I made an effort to participate in most of the Tinker event stuff. Even if I didn't do it everyday. Mostly because it was new content. But sadly most people are goal/reward oriented so without seeing some sort of dangling fruit at the end (even though you had noted that this could affect the mud long term). Of which I picked up on the undertones and put in some effort to affect the outcome. But apparently I'm the weird one here.
Let it also be stated that this was all going on during the holidays so that does have an X Factor in all of this as people are more likely to be thinking about IRL things than participating in MUD events.
Let it also be stated that this was all going on during the holidays so that does have an X Factor in all of this as people are more likely to be thinking about IRL things than participating in MUD events.
Re: Feedback for Tinkerers
From a grazing mudder who primarily PKs and still doesn’t know the basic mechanics of wotmud, I had no idea the tinker thing was different from Holidaze. Both were giving presents.
Re: Feedback for Tinkerers
First of all, thank you for the effort and careful planning that went into this series of events. Discovering, exploring and mapping the new zone was one of my favorite experiences on this mud. A new zone in a strategic central area, rather than a peripheral one, was a brilliant move. Given the number of rooms, I hoped some hidden doors would be revealed at some point later, but other than that, I can't imagine a better addition to the mud as it exists today.
From my perspective, the Joar and Raed quests were initially very interesting, but I quickly learned to ignore them. For a quest to work well and produce engagement, we need to consider how it integrates with existing gameplay. This includes understanding why people decide to log on and how they make decisions about what to do once they are here. Any quest that achieves good engagement is going to have to integrate well with players existing goals and compete with the quite compelling existing gameplay. The alternative would be to create a quest that is SO compelling that it changes players existing goals.
The tinker quests were well written. They were novel, required an appropriate (and variable) level of effort to figure out and complete, and often required me to engage other players. I thought the mob narrates to either introduce or remind players of the quest was also an excellent choice, as it provided a trigger for me to change my behavior during lulls in existing gameplay as other players logged on and off, groups were reformed, etc. These are all positive quest elements and why they were initially interesting. However, they failed to integrate well with existing goals or be compelling enough to create new goals. The most common tinker quest experience, for me, was a fun challenge that led to a frustrating end. With plenty of fun challenges already in this excellent game, this just wasn’t a pattern that I was going to repeat very many times.
For a more engaging series of quests, I’d recommend focusing attention on how they integrate with existing player goals, and reducing frustration. If I were writing them, this is how I would do it.
Reducing frustration:
Clear mob responses to both successful and unsuccessful quest attempts. Need a scalp and get a wagon wheel, or vice versa? Always have the mob say so. Responses to unsuccessful attempts reduce frustration when compared to lack of responses. Messages like: “I’m sorry, that’s not what I was looking for!” . Or “I’m sorry, I’m looking for ITEM from a different location.” This includes clear instructions or explanations about reward limits, e.g., “I’m sorry, this quest has already been completed once today, so your rewards are X instead of Y” for quests that can only be done once a day, or can’t be repeated. The satisfaction at completing a puzzle can sometimes be a useful reward, but the frustration of figuring out why a mob is mute can quickly erode those positive emotions.
Integrating well with existing player goals:
When a gameplay behavior (engaging in a new quest) is not rewarded with something a player values, that behavior is less likely to repeat or propagate to other players. If you want broad engagement in new quests, they need rewards that players value. There is no way around that. You can rely on novelty as a reward, and you'll get initial engagement by a group of players that find that rewarding, but by definition, that wanes pretty quickly. If I were writing a new quest series that was intended to be available to players once every boot, and the goal was broad engagement, I would include a baseline predictable reward that was present every single time, and a jackpot reward. The jackpot reward would be produced on the first quest completion, and afterwards on a percent. If reward inflation is a concern, then your choices are either temper your concern, reduce rewards elsewhere (to likely complaints), produce a token of some type that can lead to rewards once a player obtains a series of them (costly in terms of development time), find a new valuable reward type that can be integrated into existing gameplay (also costly) or have low engagement. A low chance of a reward that players value is not going to produce engagement in a new activity unless you can create a low frustration high emotional valence quest, which is a very fine needle to thread.
In summary, I believe the new zone is fantastic, and the well written quests received limited engagement because the payoff included too much frustration and not enough reward. I have more thoughts about the LS/DS challenge quests but I think I’ve written enough for now. Maybe I’ll add my thoughts on those later.
From my perspective, the Joar and Raed quests were initially very interesting, but I quickly learned to ignore them. For a quest to work well and produce engagement, we need to consider how it integrates with existing gameplay. This includes understanding why people decide to log on and how they make decisions about what to do once they are here. Any quest that achieves good engagement is going to have to integrate well with players existing goals and compete with the quite compelling existing gameplay. The alternative would be to create a quest that is SO compelling that it changes players existing goals.
The tinker quests were well written. They were novel, required an appropriate (and variable) level of effort to figure out and complete, and often required me to engage other players. I thought the mob narrates to either introduce or remind players of the quest was also an excellent choice, as it provided a trigger for me to change my behavior during lulls in existing gameplay as other players logged on and off, groups were reformed, etc. These are all positive quest elements and why they were initially interesting. However, they failed to integrate well with existing goals or be compelling enough to create new goals. The most common tinker quest experience, for me, was a fun challenge that led to a frustrating end. With plenty of fun challenges already in this excellent game, this just wasn’t a pattern that I was going to repeat very many times.
For a more engaging series of quests, I’d recommend focusing attention on how they integrate with existing player goals, and reducing frustration. If I were writing them, this is how I would do it.
Reducing frustration:
Clear mob responses to both successful and unsuccessful quest attempts. Need a scalp and get a wagon wheel, or vice versa? Always have the mob say so. Responses to unsuccessful attempts reduce frustration when compared to lack of responses. Messages like: “I’m sorry, that’s not what I was looking for!” . Or “I’m sorry, I’m looking for ITEM from a different location.” This includes clear instructions or explanations about reward limits, e.g., “I’m sorry, this quest has already been completed once today, so your rewards are X instead of Y” for quests that can only be done once a day, or can’t be repeated. The satisfaction at completing a puzzle can sometimes be a useful reward, but the frustration of figuring out why a mob is mute can quickly erode those positive emotions.
Integrating well with existing player goals:
When a gameplay behavior (engaging in a new quest) is not rewarded with something a player values, that behavior is less likely to repeat or propagate to other players. If you want broad engagement in new quests, they need rewards that players value. There is no way around that. You can rely on novelty as a reward, and you'll get initial engagement by a group of players that find that rewarding, but by definition, that wanes pretty quickly. If I were writing a new quest series that was intended to be available to players once every boot, and the goal was broad engagement, I would include a baseline predictable reward that was present every single time, and a jackpot reward. The jackpot reward would be produced on the first quest completion, and afterwards on a percent. If reward inflation is a concern, then your choices are either temper your concern, reduce rewards elsewhere (to likely complaints), produce a token of some type that can lead to rewards once a player obtains a series of them (costly in terms of development time), find a new valuable reward type that can be integrated into existing gameplay (also costly) or have low engagement. A low chance of a reward that players value is not going to produce engagement in a new activity unless you can create a low frustration high emotional valence quest, which is a very fine needle to thread.
In summary, I believe the new zone is fantastic, and the well written quests received limited engagement because the payoff included too much frustration and not enough reward. I have more thoughts about the LS/DS challenge quests but I think I’ve written enough for now. Maybe I’ll add my thoughts on those later.