@Skinnyman:
Forgive me if I’m completely wrong but surely such an event does not necessitate an FBG employee to sit in front of a computer every single minute, monitoring everything? Aren’t these things programmed? Once all the writing has been done and everything has been implemented into the engine, don’t they just press the big GO button and then as people start playing the storylets the quality trackers start running down and when they hit zero the closing storylet autofires? Surely they can go to sleep while all that happens?
And IF I’m wrong, a longer event would make even more sense. With 24 a hour event, they could implement shifts. Since their entire company is remote with people in different timezones anyway, that seems like a better QoL solution for them than the 12-14 hour working day you inferred.
Anyway, I completely fail to see the sense of events lasting less than 24 hours. No matter how you time them exactly, a sizeable chunk of timezones will always be left out of any given 11 hours. Why leave people out? Sure, one day I’ll be lucky enough for one of these mini-events to time perfectly for me. But why should I need to be lucky?
For the record, I didn’t downvote anyone and I had no idea LukeFBG = Barse. Good for him! But I fail to see what that has to do with anything.
As for the rest of what you wrote, I’ll just believe you’ve had something wrong for breakfast and leave it at that.
I’ll have to second @Skinnyman for the most part here.
I can speak from the perspective of a professional software developer. You don’t just hit the go button and can go to sleep. Any launch of a new feature in a production environment (in this case the live game) has to be monitored. There is always a good chance, that somewhere a nasty bug snuck in and something weird happens and manages to shut down your software. Now that would get people to complain, if the game could not be played for several hours because everyone is asleep as it happens.
And from the timespan perspective you have to consider that they will be evaluating all the data in the next few days. That takes considerable time even from such a short time span. And I would like to point out, that there probably have been showing up lots of error messages on FBGs side. We as players just never see them. But they will have to see which problems need to be addressed before running the whole thing for a longer period of time with many more people throwing their actions at it.
A small test run absolutely makes sense from that perspective.
I will however say, that communication on that side could be better. I think that if they would just announce these small events as test runs with an actual run of the event to follow soon, that would lead much less people to be annoyed.
Yeah, definitely that would make a huge difference. "Test Run" sends a completely different message than "New Event".
Thanks for your input! I have no idea about software developing, so I don’t know the view from that side. But I guess that’s true for a lot of players, so that’s another reason to improve the communication upfront.
I happened to get in on this one, was pretty happy to get 10 hunts in. I’d be probably a bit miffed if I missed it. My most unpleasant memory of my first stint in fallen london (~10 years ago?), when I eventually quit playing, was missing Aestival because I was at a professional conference IRL, and in FL I was out in Polythreme when the event started, so even logging in a few times I was unable to get back before it was over.
Fortunately I’m not expecting this one to be unique though, like the crab hunts. There will be more lifebergs. I bet future ones will last longer.
But it would be nice if there was some indication of that in the announcement, so people know they’re not missing it for good.
Has there been more than one Crab Hunt? I grant my memory may not be that good anymore but I can only remember one. If there have been more they’ve come and gone before I was ever aware of them.
It was really frustrating to hear that [quote=LukeFBG][color=#ff3366]Today we’re launching a new living world event, available to all players with their own ship and a point of Monstrous Anatomy[/color][/quote] but find that, like other zee-beast hunts, it was only available to my characters who already had Making Progress in the Labyrinth of Tigers 16. Is that going to continue to be a requirement for events of this type? edited by Azora Perlino on 4/23/2022
[quote=Perlino the Thief]It was really frustrating to hear that [quote=LukeFBG][color=#ff3366]Today we’re launching a new living world event, available to all players with their own ship and a point of Monstrous Anatomy[/color][/quote] but find that, like other zee-beast hunts, it was only available to my characters who already had Making Progress in the Labyrinth of Tigers 16. Is that going to continue to be a requirement for events of this type?
edited by Azora Perlino on 4/23/2022[/quote]
As a requirement, it makes sense, because that is what opens up hunting for a plated seal, and that’s the tab the other hunts have been piggybacking on.
As a requirement, it makes sense, because that is what opens up hunting for a plated seal, and that’s the tab the other hunts have been piggybacking on.[/quote]
It would be consistent, but that’s not what [color=#ff3366]LukeFBG[/color] said, and I thought for a minute my character who needs the money most might get a chance to benefit.
[quote=Yehochanan]I will however say, that communication on that side could be better. I think that if they would just announce these small events as test runs with an actual run of the event to follow soon, that would lead much less people to be annoyed.[/quote]Yes, that would be very helpful! I’d expect players who missed the test run would be happily anticipating the actual event instead of grumbling - I know I felt a bit cranky about missing the initial crab hunt and then a bit silly when the next one lasted for ages. :) And so easy to explain in-game - there’s always an initial scouting expedition before the big hunt, or the big dig, or whatever adventure is planned next!
Perhaps the event could be made more inclusive. For instance, adding choices other than monster hunting, such as rescue the crews of the sunken ships, or finding the missing lifeberg hunters. Instead of the Admiralty, their rewards comes from the families of the victims. This will allow early or mid level Londoners who just started zeefaring yet do not meet the requirement to join the hunting party to participate in the event.
My idea is to make a temporary storylet at the docks. You go there after the announcement, and a weary mariner tells you the latest news. It’s on but you need X quality to participate; or did you hear what just happened?! Maybe you could get a Zee-story as compensation if you were too late to join in.
[quote=fishandchips]Is this event over? I see nothing from my ship.
A pop up event notice in-game during sign-in is more helpful than some forum or blog post. Most people wouldn’t notice.[/quote]
Yep, the lifeberg was successfully murdered by the citizens’ armada already. No more lifeberg, for now.
I’m certainly expecting a new one to crop up at some point but this one’s gone.
[quote=Yehochanan]I’ll have to second @Skinnyman for the most part here.
I can speak from the perspective of a professional software developer. You don’t just hit the go button and can go to sleep. Any launch of a new feature in a production environment (in this case the live game) has to be monitored. There is always a good chance, that somewhere a nasty bug snuck in and something weird happens and manages to shut down your software. Now that would get people to complain, if the game could not be played for several hours because everyone is asleep as it happens.
And from the timespan perspective you have to consider that they will be evaluating all the data in the next few days. That takes considerable time even from such a short time span. And I would like to point out, that there probably have been showing up lots of error messages on FBGs side. We as players just never see them. But they will have to see which problems need to be addressed before running the whole thing for a longer period of time with many more people throwing their actions at it.
A small test run absolutely makes sense from that perspective.
I will however say, that communication on that side could be better. I think that if they would just announce these small events as test runs with an actual run of the event to follow soon, that would lead much less people to be annoyed.[/quote]
There’s also the fact that FBG might prefer having staff on hand during a new event in case bugs turn up in play; that’s harder on a weekend.
BTW–there was a pop-up notice of the Lifeberg hunt; that’s how I found out about it.
[quote=amalgamate][quote=fishandchips]Is this event over? I see nothing from my ship.
A pop up event notice in-game during sign-in is more helpful than some forum or blog post. Most people wouldn’t notice.[/quote]
Yep, the lifeberg was successfully murdered by the citizens’ armada already. No more lifeberg, for now.
I’m certainly expecting a new one to crop up at some point but this one’s gone.[/quote]