Here is the log of today's great 2010 Meeting with FC Developer and Storyline Dude Kintaii & ARK Events Team. Lots of good stuff, and an excellent discussion! Read On!
[15:00] <Kintaii^> Hello!
[15:00] <Kintaii^> It is now 19:00 GMT and that means it's meetin' time!
[15:00] <Kintaii^> First off, let me thank everyone for showing up today - We've got a good turn-out here and it's great to see most of the names I was expecting and quite a few that I haven't seen before. =)
[15:01] <Kintaii^> This is our first time running one of these meetings via IRC and, for those of you who've done this before it'll work very closely to times past.
[15:01] <Kintaii^> There are a few changes from how we ran the meetings in-game, though, so please pay attention. =)
[15:02] <Kintaii^> This meeting will be run under an open channel, with moderation rules. This means that though the channel will be open for conversation, we ask that you do not speak unless you have been given the floor.
[15:02] <Kintaii^> As a note: I will not hesitate to kickban anyone actin' a fool. You have been officially warned. :P
[15:02] <Kintaii^> The meeting will run in two parts: First, where we take your questions and comments and answer them to the best of our ability
[15:03] * ShadowGod changes topic to 'The Great 2010 Events/Player Meeting of Awesomeness Has Started! if you're unable to say anything in the channe, please be patient for when its allowed (mode -m happens)'
[15:03] <Kintaii^> Then, after this, we will ask questions of you and take your feedback.
[15:03] * ShadowGod changes topic to 'The Great 2010 Events/Player Meeting of Awesomeness Has Started! if you're unable to say anything in the channel, please be patient for when its allowed (mode -m happens)'
[15:03] <Kintaii^> (thank you SG)
[15:04] <Kintaii^> During the first segment: If you have a question for the Events team, please send a private message to Maleachi: You may do this on mIRC by either typing "/query Maleachi your message here" (without the quotes) or by right-clicking his nickname in the IRC nick list and selecting "query"
[15:04] <Kintaii^> You may also you "/msg Maleachi your message here" with your question.
[15:04] <Kintaii^> Questions must be submitted to Maleachi.
[15:05] <Kintaii^> We will take your questions and answer them in the order they are received. When we are responding to your question, you have free reign to speak however you wish and respond.
[15:05] <Kintaii^> If we are answering someone else's question, and you feel you would like to comment on it, please do the following:
[15:05] <Kintaii^> !
[15:05] <Kintaii^> We will note that you have a comment, and allow you to speak.
[15:05] <Kintaii^> When your question has been answered, we will move on to the next question and ask that you remain silent once again.
[15:06] <Kintaii^> Again: Please do not speak unless called upon. This ensures that the meeting will flow in an orderly fashion.
[15:06] <Kintaii^> You may begin submitting your questions to Maleachi now.
[15:06] <Kintaii^> Now, before we get started, we'll do a quick round of introductions.
[15:06] * Maleachi hides
[15:07] <Kintaii^> My name is Brad L. McAtee, AKA Kintaii (dur) and I am a senior content designer on Anarchy Online. I am in charge of many things, but most importantly to this meeting I am the storyline lead for the team, as well as head writer on staff.
[15:07] <Kintaii^> Pheats?
[15:09] <Pheats> Erk, ok Im Pheats, Director of ARK events, I lead the team that runs the events and try to keep things running as best as possible
[15:10] <Maleachi> Okay, seems that it's my turn in the barrel now. Well, I am Maleachi, I'm the Training Coordinator in the Events Team and my main job is to train new Eventeers and ARKlings who want to participate in our events. Other than that I help out where it is needed.
[15:11] <Rainys> Erk...well my turn..Im Rainys, Guardian in Events, I just help out where it needed for the moment aaand run around having fun with events and so on. and just....Yeah thats about it..
[15:13] <Zeenab> Greetings there everyone! Yes, as you might have guessed, it comes with the "Z" I am the last in team, Advisor. Lowest in rank in team and I pretty much participate in LTCs/train lower ranks somtimes in RPing/Do an event/etc.... All rounder you would say, yes. That is it.
[15:13] <Kintaii^> (zee is awesome do not think otherwise)
[15:13] <Kintaii^> Now, we've already gotten a lot of questions so we'll begin opening the floor here in just a second
[15:13] <Kintaii^> Before we begin though, based on the questions received I feel I should state this:
[15:14] <Kintaii^> This is an *EVENTS*/Player meeting, not really a Developer/Player meeting. The only questions we'll be answering today are about the storyline and roleplaying scene of Anarchy Online - Not anything about the rebalancing, the graphics engine, the rebalancing, etc. etc.
[15:14] <Kintaii^> 'cause I ain't cleared to talk about stuff you guys haven't heard already anyway. ;P
[15:14] <Kintaii^> ... and hey, I said rebalancing twice, awesome.
[15:15] <Kintaii^> Change that to 'instances' or something whatever.
[15:15] <Kintaii^> ANYHOO!
[15:15] <Kintaii^> Let's get this party started.
[15:15] * Kintaii^ sets mode: -m
[15:15] <Kintaii^> Pheats, our first question please.
[15:15] <Pheats> Just want to point out this isnt the ENTIRE events team, we do have others that couldn't attend today
[15:15] <Kintaii^> Aye, this isn't all of us. ;P
[15:16] <MstrBstrd> :>
[15:16] <Kintaii^> (oh yeah and mstrbstrd is our official gimp)
[15:17] <MstrBstrd> pfh. just Mstr. of most things.
[15:17] <Pheats> Ok first question is from Windguaerd: Is there a set amount of events per server that the Events Team prepare ahead of time for each month?
[15:17] <Pheats> Other than the monthly meetings the short answer is no
[15:18] <Kintaii^> The Events team has always been pretty free-wheeling when it comes to that sort of thing. Usually we prepare storylines and then dole out events as the storyline requires.
[15:19] <Kintaii^> So its not like people sit down and say "Ok, we're going to have fifteen total events this month - this is exactly what needs to happen".
[15:19] <Pheats> because of the voluntary nature of events work its inplausible to set up a schedule for events, instead its down to when we can find time to do things and get people to help
[15:19] <Kintaii^> More like "This is the overview, here's what we wanna accomplish - Do what you need to get done."
[15:20] <Masuraki> !
[15:20] <Kintaii^> Yes, Masuraki?
[15:20] <Pheats> Go ahead Masuraki
[15:21] <Masuraki> so that acctuly affects when events are taken place timewise ?
[15:22] <Masuraki> meaning you cant anounce a few days in advance or so when an event is gona take place
[15:22] <Pheats> Very much, unfortunately we don't have (that many) people who are up to staying up untill mid morning to run events, its unfortunate but such is the way with timezones
[15:22] <Windguaerd> !
[15:22] <Maleachi> Announcing events is a problem in most cases, because in most cases the dealings and stories cannot be announced without breaking character.
[15:22] <Namiru> !
[15:22] <enilias> !
[15:22] <Rhus> !
[15:23] <Masuraki> -!
[15:23] <Pheats> Thats not to say we can't set up events before hand, but we generally wont be able to set up a full months worth up at once (as who knows whats going to happen in life in weeks times)
[15:23] <Maleachi> A bank robber for example will not announce his task. I know that this makes events a hit or miss thing in many cases, but I think doing it otherwise would take away too much from it.
[15:23] <Saetos> !
[15:24] <Kintaii^> That said, there *are* certain types of events which don't preclude some form of announcement - This is one of the reasons we've created the forums LTC accounts, and are also looking into other ways of announcing certain types of events.
[15:24] <Saetos> disregard
[15:24] <Kintaii^> But in the majority of cases, no - It's hideously character-breaking to announce a lot of the events that we do, and I don't wanna see us break that barrier.
[15:25] <Kintaii^> Anything else, Masuraki?
[15:25] <Ariensky> !
[15:25] <Masuraki> i think i got my answerd questions but i still find there are other ways to anounce events whit out braking charecter, like having rumors spread around or something
[15:26] <Ciyanid> !
[15:26] <Denali> !
[15:26] <Kintaii^> This works for things that are more major storylines, yes, and we've done that sort of thing before.
[15:26] <Kintaii^> But like Maleachi said, a lot of our events are just one-off "dude's robbing a bank" stuff, and that's much harder to plan/advertise for.
[15:27] <Pheats> even as rumours, it generally takes more work to spread such a rumour than it would to do the event
[15:27] <Kintaii^> Yep. ><
[15:27] <Pheats> I think we'll move onto Windguaerd's comment now
[15:27] <Windguaerd> Masa, sometimes they CAN do it. For example they used the CoT Meeting to let clanners know about and event, and then it was up to us the players to spread the word about the date and time. Kintaii, there should do that a LOT more often, we can spread the word faster than any single LTC. You don't want to break the barrier, but by avoiding that you also cut us off by not getting the word about an event to all roleplayers. There is a lack of participation, because nobody get's notified about events in time. You can have 2 people show up, or 30. I pick 30.
[15:28] <Windguaerd> Diamondcut did it in the old days, we spread the word about events he told a few of us.
[15:28] <Windguaerd> And then, everyone had fun.
[15:29] <Kintaii^> Yes, but again, that's a larger-scale storyline.
[15:29] <Windguaerd> End of comment.
[15:29] <Kintaii^> We've done that for things since then - I know because I've done it myself for events I was involved with. ;P
[15:29] <Kintaii^> Like I said, it's easy to do it for something that's part of a "big plan". But when it's a simple one-off event (like the aforementioned bank robbery) then it's usually something that's run more 'spur of the moment' and doesn't have any pre-existing storyline in-game to back it up with.
[15:29] <Pheats> I also have to point out it HAS been tried for smaller stuff, and failed spectacularly as no one seemed to want to give information to others, even when asked specifically to do so
[15:31] <Kintaii^> Anything else on that comment, Windguaerd?
[15:31] <Windguaerd> Not regarding this question. Thank you.
[15:31] <Kintaii^> Cool.
[15:31] <Pheats> Ok then Namiru, your floor.
[15:32] <Namiru> I'd just like to note that no forewarning really hamstrings the people that want to be involved in RP Events. Rubi-ka is a big place, even when you exclude the Shadowlands and the Wilderzones. Finding an event (even if you know it's going on at that time) is "needle and a haystack" searching. You factor in that you don't know WHEN it's happening, and most people will (and have) give up trying.
[15:32] <Kintaii^> ( We're closing comments for this question, just for the record - Don't wanna spend all day on the one topic. )
[15:33] <Pheats> Well I want to point out we dont expect people to wander the wilderness to hope to find events there, we know the way the population is spread so even if the event IS in the middle of no where, it will be announced in the major cities in some fashion
[15:33] <Maleachi> We are aware of that and we try to announce events when and where we can. Just one comment about them: The events are not meant to be the be all and end all of RP on the servers, they are meant as a hookup point to get you involved and to give you chances to start your own stories and events.
[15:34] <Kintaii^> Again, that's one of the reasons why we've started the forum LTC accounts and are looking at other options for announcing events - I mean, I agree with you completely, but there's also a fine line in how far we can actually *go*. Part of the impetus *has* to lie on the player to try and get involved, by doing things like meeting LTCs at the OTAM/CoT and such. There are ways to start getting involved that don't rely on stumbling across
[15:34] <Kintaii^> n stumbling across a random event somewhere. =)
[15:34] <Kintaii^> Anything else on that comment, Namiru?
[15:34] <Namiru> No, that was it.
[15:35] <Kintaii^> enilias, your comment please?
[15:35] <enilias> How about the news channel to get people to gather? Omni-Tek might ask for volunteers to assist in a sensitive case they're not ready to divulge details on yet, for example.
[15:35] <Pheats> I assume you mean the newswire broadcasts/
[15:35] <enilias> yep
[15:35] <Rainys> It has been done several times, but i would personaly say its always depending on the event.
[15:35] <Pheats> We do infact use that as much as we can to announce events (when its working...)
[15:36] <Kintaii^> We're looking at increasing some of the functionality of the newswire as well. I don't want to say exactly *what* yet as it's all still in the formative stages, but it *is* a good resource to find out about events-related stuff even now.
[15:36] <Pheats> It has worked quite well but at the same time not everyone always takes notice of them.
[15:37] <Pheats> having it enabled in your chat with a noticeable text colour may help with it.
[15:37] <Maleachi> Same goes for the zone wide broadcasts we've done.
[15:37] <Kintaii^> Anything else on your comment, enilias?
[15:37] <enilias> no that was all, thank you
[15:37] <Kintaii^> Rhus, you're up.
[15:37] <Rhus> Are there any ideal times to be on the lookout for Events then? Like x and y hours GMT type of thing?
[15:39] <Kintaii^> We're a pretty multi-national group, so not really no. We're all over the place, so we're in a lot of different time zones.
[15:39] <Rhus> k, thanks
[15:39] <Kintaii^> Looks like... Ariensky's up next.
[15:40] <Ariensky> Dear Brad, I understand why you don't want to break the barier on announcing events ahead, but some times you must take the real world into consideration, that most people/players have not seen an event.. Announcing an event on the forum once in a while.. 1 a month? might introduce some new people
[15:40] <Ariensky> As you mention, speading rumors take more work than the event..
[15:40] <Ariensky> ..and only people knowing someone that has heard the rumor will get it.
[15:40] <Ariensky> New players are stranded in AO, if they want to RP.
[15:40] <Ariensky> one event a month announced on the forum would not hurt I think.
[15:40] <Ariensky> -Over-
[15:41] <Kintaii^> Well, that's the thing - There *are* announced events in that sense. There's the OTAM/CoT meetings every month that people know about and can attend. They're great ways of not only meeting LTC/Legacy characters but also a good way to *network* with other RPers. And those we do announce every month.