Best Of

I'm fully aware that I might catch some flak for this, but I feel like it's important to add another perspective here that wouldn't otherwise be seen. I'm going to.. try and pull this in as much as I can so that I don't get in trouble myself, but we do a lot of self-censoring and taking these kinds of things on the chin with no real ability to make our feelings known, and this one is hitting me hard for some reason. Here's a volunteer perspective that's not in any way officially echoed or condoned by the rest of the team:

This is a bummer.

I was having so much fun watching this event from the very beginning. We have logs of everything curse-related recorded, and I found myself logging in while working to read the logs and see what sneaky ways players were using to curse their friends and enemies.

I was watching Tiur in real time code in new ways to make this event more fun for players when it became clear that certain elements were being enjoyed. Every time one of us would pitch a new idea that could add some intrigue (extra powers, new directions, etc.) Tiur would gleefully hop in and start adding in the next bits to add some twists and turns. Volunteers wanted a way to send a message to all the cursed people on a whim? Tiur added it in right away. This was a daily pattern.

I was watching players that normally wouldn't interact with each other outside of their usual bubbles plotting and scheming together on curse chat, and it was glorious.

I got a message on Discord when I wasn't logged into Aetolia and let out a genuine audible, "NOOOOOOOO" when I heard somebody had the nerve to cursemote Didi - with a HUG no less. Treachery!

Esteems started popping in as more and more people started getting pulled into the event. Considering all players would see is a seemingly innocuous, normal-looking emote, there'd be no way to tell an event was even happening unless you got pulled in, or somebody talked about it. I got to watch as the curse list continued to grow, and it was exciting and fun to see happening.

Then we got a few complaints along the lines that this was too close to COVID, and that this was the worst event in the history of Aetolia.

Just a few weeks ago we had a thread on the forums where Tiur was lambasted for saying that he'd wanted to be careful with certain subjects, just in case. Replies and upvotes seemed to rally around the idea of "How dare you insinuate that we can't separate between real life and what happens in the game." So, we go ahead and do an event.

That same thread (and Discord) was full of requests for events and activities. We try to do exactly that.

..And then this happened.

I appreciate that there are some things that could have been done differently, I really do. It wasn't by any means a perfect implementation, and we've learned a lot from it. But I'm really bummed that this was the result. If people issued themselves with concerns they had, we'd have happily worked with them. There was care to add an opt out option for those that didn't want to participate. The rewards were going to be little flavor-y things that'd only even be relevant to those that participated anyway, so you weren't truly missing out on much if you opted out.

But all of these precautions and considerations still weren't enough.

This is yet another case where it feels like no matter what it is we try to do, we just can't win.

That's an uncharitable and reductive take, Nisa, and you're essentially falling for the "the complainers ruined your fun" narrative that was backed into this post when it didn't have to be.

Saidenn was one of the first people cursed, outside those who were at the tomb-opening event, and have listened and watched how people reacted to this event. @Nisavi perspective is not wrong, especially given the length and breadth of complaints that were voiced, especially if some of them decided to go to corporate about the event and how it ended up being.

There were several things that could have been handled better, I agree completely. Cursed chat was often a mess, true, and some people took the trolling far too far. I don't honestly believe removing anonymity would have helped due to the nature of the event, but I do think it may have possibly lead to some different RP or opportunities for PK interaction depending on the nature of the discussion.

Here is the thing, though, and I'll second what was said above. Events are going to have different flavors and not all of them will be everyone's favorite. This is the first and only IC world event that allowed players a choice to opt-out. Yes, you may have missed out on a reward, but if you chose not to participate, why should you also be rewarded for not participating at all? I appreciate @Tiur stating that those who avoided the Curse would also receive a reward, but I assumed that everyone who -attempted- to play along in some form would, but I do agree it may have been spelled out more plainly somewhere. Not sure how, but it could have been.

And as listed above, this is being cut short likely due to a Corporate big-boss directive. T already had a meeting with those who had complaints and spoke to them about improvements, but it seems those complaints were escalated above his head when he didn't stop the event or make the changes some people wanted right away. The Pools were attempting to give us an event that was serious (minus curse chat), suspenseful, filled with intrigue, mystery, and had dark elements with being a curse/plague that was spread through RP interaction. Isn't that what we were complaining about having the ability to handle removed from our hands by T due to complaints he received? Then he holds such an event and corporate is dragged into the mix with complaints?

Let me reiterate: Not 100% of all events will work in the way people want them. Things that are intended one way go another, and the Pools (hopefully) learn and correct for the next or, if too egregious, in the moment. This event was clearly not for everyone. Some had issues with the misdirection and dishonesty. Some took issue to the godmod-esque flavor of the cursemote forcing a touch. Those are valid critiques and something to be taken into account for the future should an event like this take place again. But here is the thing. Just as it is with large companies it is with smaller companies. Corporate complaints take power out of T's hands to fix things or shape things, and we're left with what we have now: The event just abruptly ending in a less than spectacular way.

So What do we want? Do we want more events? Do we want more engagement? Do we want our volunteers and admin feel able to take risks without getting blasted and have players go over their head?

@Tiur, @Keroc, @Razmael and all of the Celani. Thank you for attempting to bring some fun into the game for Halloween. Thank you for taking a risk. Not all of it panned out as hoped, and there are areas to improve, but thank you for trying something new. Hopefully this will not be the last time you decide to take a risk, and hopefully the next one will be better received.

I echo @Czcibor's sentiments, but at the same time want to say:

> Players complain that events aren't happening and there's a lack of stuff going on.
> Players complain when an event happens for a myriad of reasons, some legitimate criticisms but others because "BAD THINGS" happened to their characters.

Real talk, this is where I get really irritated as a player because this is the first event we've gotten in awhile and people ranted to IRE corporate about it, and now it's flat out being cancelled. This is also the first event I've seen that allowed people to opt out if it wasn't their cup of tea and they wanted to do something else, so I really don't know how the Pools can win here.

Don't get me wrong, I have some legitimate gripes about how it was run. I got tired of people intentionally trolling on Curse chat because they could hide behind anonymity like with the nicknames that were flat out pointless to people, as well as the OOC chat which should've been kept to a minimum unless admins needed to give direction. People were acting overly silly and that kind of takes away from the event. Curse chat should've been used for coordination and communication and that should've been hard enforced, rather than repeated shouting about "TOUCHING PEOPLE WITH THEIR SANDY APPENDAGE" or "WHO HAS TOUCHED THE MUFFIN MAN YET? ANYONE?". Seriously, it got annoying really fast.

In any event, if y'all want events, you're going to have to take some punches every now and again. Events generally correspond with bad things happening to your character. It's just the way of the world. Also, if there is a shared channel for "impacted folks" during a similar event in the future, please do not troll and try to take it with some semblance of seriousness.