#[Official] Duskruin Shenanigans

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worthy stone
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I mean 👀 honesty is the best policy right

outer trellis
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I have also unironically said this for the record.

coral compass
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the irony is that if we could all just be a little nicer, more patient, and more understanding that the GMs are humans mostly doing this for fun...then we could probably create an environment where we get even better communication

worthy stone
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And I don't mean you Envoys and the GM team don't do a good job moderating, y'all are always hopping into places and changing the topic/shutting it down and what not when things get heated, it works pretty well. I just mean there's like 700 channels/forums/threads, and like 25-30 envoys/staff members. It's a lot to keep an eye on.

deep dagger
astral socket
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No there isn’t because I’m not invited to any of the unofficial discords 😔

harsh umbra
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we talk about all the important stuff there

deep dagger
astral socket
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I feel like side cords are a little different

frigid wyvern
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That's what unofficial discords are ...

astral socket
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yes, I guess I was unclear. I meant more like a general all-gemstone-players unofficial discord rather than the discords tailored to specific RP/MHO-based groups

deep dagger
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...there are levels to sidecords for sure...you have public sidecords like TV and Icemule and....crafters or whatever...then you have invitation only ones...but there all unofficial.

serene wadi
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There’s a surprising number of players in game who don’t use Discord. I don’t know how they ever know what’s going on.

astral socket
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They often don’t!

glossy edge
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People talk. I keep saying it, they’re not as clueless or as oblivious as people think. Just because they don’t speak doesn’t mean they’re not somewhat in the know.

Also, GMs got unofficial Discords?

harsh umbra
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hell we use discord and often don't either

proper mantle
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Secret is, 99% of the time you don't really need to know what's going on outside your own little bubble.

lofty fern
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There's always the news verb! Which looks like it has been updated in January of this year.. and my news previous to that is.. 2017

glossy edge
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Honestly, the secret for most is people just do their own thing. Sometimes, they don’t think they’ll affect change. Other times it’s just keeping on with preserving their fun. But the truth is, if people go out and ask folks, you’ll find there’s a decent amount that knows what’s up and just stays in their lane.

green storm
# glossy edge People talk. I keep saying it, they’re not as clueless or as oblivious as peopl...

But there are also a handful of people legit playing the game like I did in the 90s where they're just hanging with friends and have zero idea what's up just having a good time, I've met some at times and it's like "but that crazy stuff that happened last night, right?" and they're like huh? and I switch to "you going to the festival?" and they're like "huh?" And then I'm like "wow, I kinda envy your gemstone ways, teach me sensei"

glossy edge
green storm
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True, you manage to be pretty clueless and lost 😝

glossy edge
# green storm True, you manage to be pretty clueless and lost 😝

Makes the game that much more enjoyable.

Said so in my interview. Seeing inside the box, figuring out the story and wanting spoilers before the incidents happen, having expectations for a game instead of just going in and taking the fun as it comes
it chokes out the game.

My opinion, anyway. Sometimes it’s good to not know how the magic trick is done and just
enjoy the magic for what it’s worth.

hybrid stream
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Just wait until you get an invite to the super sekret whale discord. It is an envelope slipped under your private property door.

open zenith
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i'm about a dozen hours behind on this thread so I apologize if we have moved on completely from the communication piece of it all. My two cents are pretty simple: Discord has gotten out of hand and too complicated. I cannot keep up with all the stuff happening in GS discord because there are about 60 channels and so many messages. So I honestly would see it as a relief if discord were no longer the "main" way information was disseminated to the player base. Something like a blog or just announcements style thing would be AMAZING for a person like me who does not have the time or inclination to comb through hours and hours of posts on all the different threads to try to keep up with what is being discussed.

Keeping discord around for players to connect would be fine, but it needs to be more for social than for business since it is too spread out and overwhelming at this stage of it all.

worthy stone
glossy edge
hybrid stream
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All the whales are dead. Hunted down for their blubber.

sacred wolf
hybrid stream
harsh umbra
grand knoll
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.

gray igloo
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..

worthy stone
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sir your colon is sideways

livid bridge
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@ Wyrom my main feedback for you over the last few years is - ya need to not sweat individual comments as much as you do. You do a great job with a lot of things. The players that give feedback are the minority. The majority of feedback is going to be largely negative. This is customer service. It doesn't matter what organization or industry you work in.

Letting one person derail whatever you're doing just screams push on with what you were planning and then deal with the feedback after the fact. The majority of folks that won't give any feedback will be fine with whatever. That one person or group that is angry is going to be regardless.

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I say all this knowing that I gave feedback before the event (criticism) about communication. If you had plugged on as you had planned and not adjusted based on the feedback, all I'd hope is that you'd put it into your thinking going into the next event.

ionic nova
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I appreciate the comments about not sweating the small stuff. The surface stuff that was visible during the Saturday event, sadly, is normal. That's not what I'm really responding to, but it's a part of it. It goes a lot deeper with some of the stuff that made it my way. At this point though I've said my bit and I've made some decisions. This portion of Duskruin is officially having the door closed on it. I have other plans which involve re-inventing the bank heist to something that isn't a ticketed entry but give some randomized excitement. Not sure if it will happen August, but that's a stretch goal for 2024's Duskruin. We also have to solve some of the issues happening underground. I need to get with Xynwen one of these days so all the lore can get documented.

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Hitting my 10th year this summer of product management for the game, 14th year of GMing as of January 2024, and 17th year of being on staff as a GameHost this April. I've been through quite a bit, mostly due to my own goals. I've jumped into the fire a lot. This style event is really hard to handle when it gets too big. Juggling 300+ players in a room with the speaking, whispers, MYCHARs, actions, etc is a lot. It's very intimidating for a lot of staff to be in the room. My skin is quite calloused when it comes to hurting my feelings. That's really not part of it.

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As for people being off Discord. I get that. We made a decision to use this as our main form of communication instead of the play.net forums. People stayed off those too. NEWS is dead. We trained our newbies on it, but it is fully retire. It takes way too much to get anything decent put out there. That's why most NEWS is just a few sentences. It's got character and string limits all over the place, it requires QC in game. The wiki has most stuff. And the front page of play.net also has some stuff. But I would like us to pare this down more because we spend too much time putting everything in all areas and we still have a lot of the player base uninformed.

twilit orbit
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I would legitimately argue a large portion of modern GS fun is happening on the discords with the discussions and the banter....just hopefully not too much to distract from the game hehe

pallid hinge
# ionic nova Hitting my 10th year this summer of product management for the game, 14th year o...

I would come back to work for you in a heartbeat if simu would take me. I can offer you a 30 year perspective on things if you would like to hear them. The level of engagement this GM team has with the player base is unparalleled in my experience as a GM, as a player, and as a casual observer over the last 15 years. At the start, the game had almost 0 communication of events and goings on. If there was a merchant, unless you tripped over him, you didn't know it was going to happen. It was a lawless frontier from a player's perspective. Then things got serious and the forums played a huge part of keeping people up to date with what was happening. It wasn't perfect, and not everyone used them, but that's just how it goes.

pallid hinge
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I hired on in 2007, and trained with Isten and Hunterleigh. Then I got shoehorned by Alyias into a role I wasn't really ever experienced to take, and wasn't something that Isten hired me for. Best 8 months of gemstone that I will keep for the rest of my days. I got to see how the sausage was made. Then Kitrina gave me the boot. Since then I've watched GS ebb and flow as a passive observer. Sometime in the last 5 years I took a more active look at whats been going on. Discord is so far beyond what we had even 15 years ago that I think it's kinda hard to compare. The absolute mountain of 30 years of knowledge in the wiki, the clarion call of discord for a ton of up-to-date information, and the in-game systems are just light-years ahead of where we've been. People lose sight of that.

ionic nova
pallid hinge
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Should have been better at communicating too

ionic nova
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Alyias also told me I wasn't capable of coding.

frigid wyvern
signal sable
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Well, like many of the silent majority, I had fun this DR and appreciate all the stuff you do Wyrom! 🙂

pallid hinge
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Alyias saw my 2 years of coding experience, and thought that meant professional coder, and not desperate college student seeking info tech credits

frigid wyvern
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I spent more this duskruin than I ever have. So that's got to count for something. (I'm very appreciative of the 250lb deepen and the surprise weapon reforge.)

worthy stone
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I fired myself from a director (basically a PM but less tie-in with metrics, finances and what not) role over at iron realms entertainment because of similar issues to what Wyrom is explaining right now, so I definitely get it

This DR had a lot of really nice surprises, I didn't end up picking up a reforge cert but the availability was certainly welcome

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it's stressful stuff, and this is a much larger game, with a much larger company behind it wanting their cut, appreciate you sticking with us all these years Wyrom, we really appreciate everything you do.

pallid hinge
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Also, I think it's easy to lose perspective as a player that something like shenanigans is a personal project for one GM, on top of everything else that GM has to be responsible for.

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Even having something like this that went relatively well overall is a huge win.

worthy stone
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Yeah, like he said I think what was the biggest thing this year is that there was a "cost" associated with it so some people failed to manage their expectations, and I really wasn't expecting 300 players there after like 80 or 90 last year

pallid hinge
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Yeah, 300 people is a lot of cats to herd, and expectations are like sphinchters, everyones got em, and they often stink

frigid wyvern
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Last year you had to pay if you won. This year you just got an item worth thousands of dollars for free.

worthy stone
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yeah that was definitely part of it

pallid hinge
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Potentially, but you still got two orbs that have a market value in the tens of millions in silver, and at a reasonable price for both. Regardless that they are attuned, go buy one off the shelf, thats their nominal value.

frigid wyvern
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There's no market value to attuned orbs.

worthy stone
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The orbs were definitely worth the price of admittance, but I'll admit the thought of winning a dahcre box, SK tattoo or belt of kai for essentially free was pretty appealing, which makes the whole thing kind of stink more, I think we could have reached a version of the gameshow that worked for everyone in a couple more iterations

sacred wolf
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Kind of a dead horse by now, but nominal value is at best only tangentially related to subjective personal value. EV calculations and risk assessment deal in the latter for most GS RNG cases since the prizes are virtually never just straight currency.

Edit: ...not that most people actually bother with such math, mind you. 😂

pallid hinge
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Yeah, we know how you feel about them Leafi, and I'm not saying you are wrong to value them so. But your risk analysis isn't the same calculus that most people go by in these situations.

astral socket
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in the first version, you paid and you got something generally worth what you paid. those are clear expectations.

frigid wyvern
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It's easier to lose a prize that doesn't have a super high value. As soon as the belt of kai was lost, the crowd turned.

Which brings me back to my way earlier question, do we just expect that everyone should win? Should being spun out of 300+ people mean you win?

pallid hinge
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Me think the expected outcome for this iteration was me pay 6k me get two xp orbs, and me get n + x chances to get something free, which is far more chances than Me've had in the dozens of raffles and spinners and events that me personally experienced.

frigid wyvern
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The expected outcome .. for you.

pallid hinge
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Note the clever use of "I" in that statement...

frigid wyvern
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You should have been clever enough to use "me" somewhere.

sacred wolf
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Wasn't there an old model of EG where a limited number of people could even get in at all because of a limited number of tickets to the event, but if they did get in, they were guaranteed to win something?

And if so, what was the community sentiment around that?

frigid wyvern
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There was the whale of fortune, where each spot cost 2 million+ seashells and was monopolized by 3 people who bought all the spots.

sacred wolf
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Not talking about the Wheel of Fortune, but the entire event structure. Was called the Box Office or something?

pallid hinge
frigid wyvern
astral socket
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I think a lot of the ticketed events had some kind of guaranteed service model yeah

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not to put too fine a point on it, I would expect those made a lot less money

sacred wolf
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I'm assuming people didn't like those and that's why they went away, right? Or was it because of--yeah, that, less money? If it was just less money, that's potentially more interesting because it implies there might still be something to learn from a guaranteed win model and it just needed scalability so everyone could get in.

frigid wyvern
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Yeah, tickets were $30-50 each lol

deep dagger
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That's way too low

frigid wyvern
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We have shareholders to pay now

pallid hinge
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Thats always been the issue with trying to cater to the folks without the deep pockets. Not to mention trying to siphon as much from people's wallets as possible. Even before shareholders were on the horizon.

frigid wyvern
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This might be a hot take, but all of the bloodriven shops are catering to the folks without the deep pockets. The event with the head honco should cater to deep pockets.

pallid hinge
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I was speaking more to the 2mil per spin attempt

frigid wyvern
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The 2 million per spin was when it was free to do EG. There were just millions of seashells and no outlet for them, so one was created.

I too have 30 years of perspective to add.

sacred wolf
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Now that I think about it, isn't the battle vault basically a perfect example of a successful guaranteed win model that had scalability of any number of accounts, albeit max one per account (per Duskruin)?

The price was between 1500 Simucoins (if a person would have bought at least 50 entries anyway) and 6500 Simucoins (if they would have bought nothing at all) and the guaranteed win was a scroll plus people's choice of a golem chassis or a violet orb. And people seemed to love it.

pallid hinge
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Yeah, it seemed to be a pretty clear win

twilit orbit
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the 2x scrolls were a really good deal though, obviously Wyrom said too good

rapid fjord
frigid wyvern
pallid hinge
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Time has always been a large motivator in a game like GS. Reduce the time it takes to make number go up and a good portion of folks will be all over it.

frigid wyvern
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There was also Draughtmans, where you bought a ticket and were guaranteed a prize. The issue with that event was that some people won Ebows and other people won crystal amulets.

pallid hinge
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I vaguely recall talk about that, but it must have been in one of my away times.

astral socket
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The EG merchant pass still essentially runs on this model, since they deliberately try to ensure everybody gets several merchant services and the orb afterwards

frigid wyvern
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Alters are too common to be considered a prize IMO.

pallid hinge
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Considering it's as easy as 1-2-3, I tend to agree, though I kinda wish they were more precious.

frigid wyvern
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Being able to customize yourself is the best thing GS has going for it. I'd hate to see that gated behind artificial scarcity.

I don't consider it a "prize" but it's still valuable. I just consider a prize something new I don't already own, with value.

pallid hinge
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I remember coming back in like 2006 and being like: "Wait, you guys are getting alters?"

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And then that being a large portion of what I did in the game as a GM, finding pockets of non-afk people and plonking down an NPC. Even my experience seems way more extemporaneous than what goes on now.

unreal bison
gray igloo
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I don't know why, but when I thought of Shennanigan's (first time for me), I thought of Oshea's Irish Pub at the Linq in LV. Wild at night, random people dancing on poker tables, etc..., I was there one time when they had a deal or no deal game too.

Ram also talked to the old has-been gladiator and apologized for not seeing him as a person and having solely seen him as a means to profit. He can see his dagger clear as day now. (and not a longsword)

glossy edge
# sacred wolf Now that I think about it, isn't the battle vault basically a perfect example of...

This was awesome. Like, awesome.

I loved getting two orbs for 6k, and it essentially offset the orbs I was using for the 2x scroll which got me mad xp.

The games could have been better, sure. But that's trial and error. I just thought people would have been happy for the chance. I was. I didn't win. So what? It was closer to a chance as opposed to just watching Wyromania, where the most I would get was the prospect of an RPA.

It was fun to cheer for people. Fun to see them win. I'm good with that!

tardy bridge
tardy locust
opaque vessel
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Gemstone is built on layers of RNG. We experience it in pretty much every facet of the game. RNG as a means to distribute prizes starts to feel tiring when it's multiple layers of chance on top of each other. Ie winning the opportunity to win a chance to win etc etc

strong oxide
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I rarely leave feedback because for most events because I am generally happy with most of them. This time though, I feel I need too, and probably ought to more often.

First, huge thanks for the game show event. Although I liked both options; I voted for option 2, because I felt like I already won with the pricing of the two orbs. The rest would be just a fun, good time, and icing on the cake if I won anything else. I also felt like option 2 gave the best chance for even poor characters to win really stuff they might not ever be able to afford. Could some things have been done better? Probably, but of course its impossible to please everyone. Even so, the event was still highly enjoyable to me, as are just about every other event by hosted by the man behind Wyrom and his PC’s.

I’d like to echo the positive sentiments shared here — don’t let the salty few get you down or spoil your fun. I’m sure there are many more like me that don’t read or post very often that feel the same way as me. I love the fact that you are very much connected to the player base and like to interact and have fun with us. Your events and personality behind your characters are very entertaining to me; I always have fun even if I walk away empty handed. Keep being you, Wyrom, and thanks for everything you have done for the game.

I'd have some suggestion’s for improvement I’d offer for future iterations, but that seems moot at this point, given you will be retiring the event. I can’t blame you for that. I also want to give a huge shout out to all the other GM’s that work tirelessly to bring us continued enjoyment and content, for all of Gemstone. I want to thank the entire staff for all the work and give a special thanks to Tivvy, Estild, and Naiken to name a few.

trail sundial
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We're also at the tip of the Iceberg for Discord functionality, but the way play.net was originally established is likely the biggest bottleneck for some advanced features. The In game authentication is top notch connectivity though.

It's so easy even I can do it to use something like IFTT to scrub an RSS feed into an announcement folder, then utilize a discord bot to create a particular thread when a new post is in a particular folder. IFTT can then go tweet about it, throw it on Facebook, and it's probably not far off from spamcalling your grandma about it.

Folks SHOULD enable discord notifications for the announcements they care about. Sure, there's a lot of them. Because sometimes, I don't need an announcement to my phone that --insert MHO name-- is doing spellups at the small park from 5:30 to 6:15 AM every second Tuesday of the month, or there's a merchant in Shattered in 5 minutes that nobody will be around for. There's not DISCORD sprawl, that's GEMSTONE sprawl. Tons of MHOs, Tons of Items, Tons to do. I mean, even Spirit Beasts are a thing... It's a 10000 year game riddled with all sorts of nooks and crannies that folks settled into.

glossy edge
dry glacier
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Whirlin, that one hurts. If we have Merchants in Shattered, we will be there. Like Field of Dreams man. If you send a merchant, they will come.

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Sometimes autocorrect becomes autowrong. Also, I have no idea of what you're referring to.

strong oxide
# glossy edge I just hate that the emotional beatdown leads to people saying, "Bleep it," inst...

Oh I agree there. The game show is still in its infancy and I’d personally love to see it continued and be improved upon. Constructive criticism goes a lot further than whining and moaning. There will be more events. I think it’s important for some players to realize that GM’s need an outlet to have fun too as for most of them, this is also their hobby. They are volunteering a lot of their personal time to give us a better experience and product. I sure wouldn’t want to volunteer much of my free time if I felt like I was constantly under a microscope and only nitpicked for every little thing people didn’t like.

glossy edge
# strong oxide Oh I agree there. The game show is still in its infancy and I’d personally love ...

Exactly. And worse, when people are constantly bombarding GMs with things in the way that this situation occurred, I believe it slowly repulses GMs from ANY feedback.

As of late, I've seen any feedback offered raise GM Spider-Senses and break out their defenses, which harms many because it deters people from even bothering to share their feedback with them or even feel their voice matters. I don't think that's what GMs want others to feel, but because of these situations, it often leads to that false viewpoint.

It's why I say that people are more aware than others let on. They won't bother. They'll stay in their lanes, or worse, they'll just leave the game.

grand knoll
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For what it’s worth Wyrom you’ve helped keep this game afloat for a lot of years doing what you do. There are “triple A” titles that can’t even come close to that. Keep up the great work and we will see 2038.

serene wadi
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Sadly. Anytime you have a crowd of 300+, there are going to be a dozen bozos or so, and they’re almost always going to have a disproportionate impact to the environment, on account of being a bozo.

I think last night proved that for an event like that, with a crowd that size, the room likely has to be silenced, and only removed for the game show participants.

strong oxide
frigid wyvern
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Vive le NBotB

round narwhal
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I think the whole thing about silencing and all that is it's against the spirit of the event itself, it was hoped/meant to be fun and goofy, to allow at least a little crowd interaction. The reason that it's going away isn't that they couldn't refine it more to make it work better, it's that it's nolonger shenanegans at that point, and not nearly fun enough for Wyrom to spend a ton of time trying to setup and run.

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I'm as sad about it going away as anyone, but the ever looming need for "fix this, structure this" is just so counter-intuitive to what it was supposed to be, that there's no point in it existing at that point.

heady summit
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I probably did a very poor job (or not at all) of really saying thank you for trying to get older stuff out and explicitly the Dahcre box. Which I hope my needling came across as playful instead of aggravating leading up to the other night.

jaunty bluff
heady summit
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I did not. but I am sincere and serious when I say that just the opportunity is enough, that means the script isn't dead and it could come around again.
Plus the plat people have been extremely kind (as they almost always are) and have shared a lot of information with me.

glossy edge
cobalt steeple
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I left this event about an hour into it. I realized there was zero chance I'd answer a trivia question, or have an item for a hunt game. But hey, that's on me. My constructive feedback on an event like this would be....let the person selected win the prize. Make the games so easy that you just can't lose. Probably an unpopular view, but there are limited items given out, most are not overly powerful, and your odds of actually being selected are very small.

harsh umbra
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Surviving the fire balls was my favorite game. Requires zero brain cells so I feel I'd have a chance to win as compared to the trivia ones.

plain star
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maybe scale the survival to character level though. I can see lower level characters having more issues with it.

pallid hinge
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very few people without external help are going to survive three crits to the same area

proper mantle
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Kind of like arguing how to cook dodo birds isn't it? lol

trail sundial
glossy edge
modern osprey
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❀

deep dagger
toxic vigil
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Just wanted to say how much I appreciate the effort you put into the game Wyrom. I for one had a good time at the entire event including the Shenanigans. I won nothing and was not picked, but still it was worth my time. Love orbs so I was super happy.

deep dagger
neon herald
lofty fern
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Why rum? ::gestures broadly::

pallid hinge