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 Posted: Sat May 10, 2014 2:27 pm
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Symbolon I was wondering if there might be a subforum viewable by plain members containing last year's summer event, Shipwrecked. I'm part of the planning crew for another event- the annual user-run ball- and though I can't say too much about the plot I was hoping we might be permitted to take a few pages out of your book on how to run a well-organized team-based contest. (Primarily, we need a dependable points system in place.)
Here's hoping for the best!
Quick note that I've moved this to the Q&A as the main forum is for crew announcements only~
All of the Shipwrecked threads are in our Crew Workshop, so unfortunately, they are no longer viewable by the public. We'll gladly give you pointers and help answer questions, though!
The main thing to keep in mind is this: Team events are a LOT of work. Not just for those participating, but for EVERYONE who is involved in keeping up with those points.
I'l use myself as an example, because at Shipwrecked I headed The Crimson Gale, while the year previous, I hosted a mini-contest and had nothing to do with team leading, so I know how it works on both sides. Before that, even, I captained the pirate crew of The Wayward Cygnus- which is relevant for a completely different reason which I'll touch on in a moment.
The most important thing to keep in mind, when beginning, is: How am I going to keep this event fair for EVERYONE and make sure that every team has the same advantages at the start? At the NSTG, we do this by ensuring that all points are available to everyone- there is nothing team specific. We also choose teams by way of RNG - participants are no longer permitted to choose their own teams. As I mentioned before, I took the head of the Wayward Cygnus team several years ago, against a single other team- The Clarion Fleet. At this time, users were able to choose their own teams. They overwhelmingly climbed aboard my ship- our team absolutely dwarfed the other. It was nothing that the other captain did- but it pretty much locked everyone who DID join her out of being able to win the VIP prizes at the end. After this event, we quickly went to RNG team selection. It made for more fun for everyone involved and ensured that nobody would be locked out just for choosing the team that was smaller.
SO! With that aside, the next thing to keep in mind that participants should have to work equally as hard as another participant to earn their points. This comes into play when you're looking at things like auctions and raffles. When we started, we did not cap the points that could be won for buying raffle tickets, or making bids. This allowed the very real potential of users being able to visit once and buy their victory, if only because they had more gold than everyone else. We have since been capping the points available to be won in this way to make sure that those who are playing games and actively participating are more likely to be able to win than those who post only once or twice.
For the events themselves, we choose point values based on the complexity of the game. For example; winning something on a prize wall after rolling some dice would be worth less than posting several times to assemble a raft. You'll need to use your own judgement to decide how you're going to value things, but value=effort has worked well for us in the past.
Now, the most serious part of the teams element is time. At the NSTG, when someone spearheads a team, we are responsible for all maintenance on that team. We record every user and all of their points- we are not permitted to do anything else, because we just don't have the time to record keep across multiple areas. The Crimson Gale had over 200 mates; whenever one came our way, I received a quote and documented their presence on our team. Whenever someone won points, I received a quote elsewhere and updated their point totals. It was also my responsibility to run small events for prizes within my thread, chat with my team, and resolve disputes and keep morale up. It doesn't sound like much when described in a paragraph, but believe me it can get overwhelming - especially if responsibilities are not being fulfilled elsewhere in the event and you find yourself taking up a mantle that was not initially yours.
That being said, keeping points in activities is also time consuming. Those running the activities are responsible for accurately reporting points earned in their thread to the team leads. When activity is high (such as, when a spotlight directs hundreds of new people your way), it DOES get a bit overwhelming trying to keep up with all of the players, what they're winning, and how many points everyone should have- in addition to making sure that nobody is breaking rules. In a guild, we have the advantage of being able to see who is deleting posts. This is very important when weeding out rule-breakers who are trying to win more than they otherwise should, or to avoid their first RNG selected team, etc.
tl;dr - this is our basic flow: Member gets assigned to a team by RNG > Member is recorded in team base by leader > Member plays games and wins prizes > Points for these activities are recorded by whomever is running the thread > Thread leader reports these points to team leader > Team leader updates their team and member totals.
It is a system that requires hard work and honesty from all involved.
Let me know if you have any questions about the process, or if there is something that you'd like clarification on- and I'll do my best to give you helpful information. |
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