Winter's Bite Event Review

[Aelin]

Let's hear it folks.  What did you like?  What would you like to see improved?  

And best of all, what was your favourite moment?

Aso, thank you so much for coming out and bearing with us through the shitty weather!  You guys rock!

[Granyte the Ogre]

So I'll start us off I guess lol

This event was fantastic. SO fantastic that I barely minded the weather craziness. Also, for all those coming after me, please don't put "Weather" in your Cons list, we get it, the weather SUCKED, but Plot can do nothing about it. Seriously!

Pros -
- Treasure hunting with friends and being SUPER useful for the first time in a long time. Ivanna, thank you for allowing me to use skills that are usually overlooked and forgotten. I had a blast talking to nature while everyone around me was like "Okay Lam, what do we do?"
- Orc attack. On an IG level, Lam losing all his stuff blew. I was so mad when I was put to sleep, woke up and all my stuff was gone. Glad I got my cloak back but when I find out who has my stuff, there will be Hel to pay. On an OOG level for that, WELL F*CKING DONE! To the person who took it, as I told you at Afters, I am super impressed and this is going to create a ton of amazing RP. Haha sucker, didn't get any actual coin! lol
- Ice Wolves. A fun monster that I had never faced before, and I have more to add, but that will be at the bottom.
- Preaching the word of Valdr. I didn't get to do a big Mass (Weekends cant come soon enough!) But I did get to preach a little and do a mini Mass and I am loving the RP and the emotions. Mason (Kyle) I am SUPER impressed with you in and out of Game, and for a "newb" I want to say WELCOME and STAY FOREVER!

Cons -
- NONE, this event was so well done I have no actual cons. Rule calls were made in the heat of battle, and the NPCs, when unsure of the call, TOOK THE PCs CALL, then went to NPC camp to double check for future. Instead of making a whole Hold to clarify the rules, people took the calls, rolled with it, and we moved on. I could not be prouder of how the NPCs and PCs handled this event. Everyone give yourselves a pat on the back!

Side Note.
- It is not often that one has the chance to single out a particular NPC for going above and beyond, but you are damned right I am about to do that now. Nathan! Or as you will forever be known, Icicle! Oh my Valdr dude, you are amazing. You took a simple spell call and turned it into almost 20 minutes of enjoyable amazing RP. If there were such a thing as RP Awards for NPCs, you deserve them all. I cannot thank you enough for rolling with it and just all around having a blast. Keep up the amazing work!

See you all in a month!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Chèvrelier]

For the Shaper Team:

Disclaimer:

To be fair I am going to open with a few disclaimers. First everyone participates in this hobby for different reasons and each player's game is a very personal experience. My review should of course be read with an understanding that it reflects my personal bias regarding what makes up a successful event.

Second I left game around 3:30 approximately 4 hours into what I expect was an 8 hour event. 

Story Delivery:

I left this event having discovered no story elements and no over arching plot. Without some sort of objective or reason to care about current events, it was difficult for me to justify staying outdoors during adverse weather. It is of course possible that I some how managed to skate past all plot hooks and every NPC on site, but I suspect there were larger issues preventing my participation.

Players are secretive by nature making uniform delivery of story elements really challenging. We used to say that if you want to pull off a plot hook you had to tell three PCs three times and probably information would get out. However, when working with the small time frame of a day mod I don’t think there is enough time to allow information to diffuse organically through the player base.

During any day mod or weekend event opening announcements  are the only time when players are more or less guaranteed to be congregated. In the future this is an ideal time to front load some story elements.

Take this time to lay out the baseline story and lay down the stakes, tell me what exciting things need to be done, then show me the carrot and the stick. If you can front load a lot of story line, even if there is downtime happening, we have something we know we need to do at some point that will keep us hungry to participate.

Start With a Bang:

When the game fired up at 11:30 or so, there was no opening excitement. Remember we are all coming from our shitty jobs and our mundane lives and we need to transition into our larp personas and setting. Why not hit the ground running? Rush out an exciting combat or whole town puzzle and force us to dive right into the story.

As an added advantage, if content is a little bit light and we have early down time, at least we will have had something to do and our brains will hopefully be in larp mode making it easier to stay involved in the story.

Personal Plot:

Players have been raving about Ramsey’s work on personal plot, and I am thrilled that there is a shaper assigned to personal plot. I have always thought that personal plot with a minimum of NPCs was something we have been missing for the last three years, but honestly I couldn’t stand doing it so it was never a priority for me. I hope this work continues to be successful but just remember you have to run this stuff with as few NPCs as possible especially when considering the record high numbers that are expected this season.

Now let's have a talk about the catacombs. It is important for NPC camp to keep a finger on the pulse of the game, and their ability to react to player objectives and ambitions is something makes the game more enjoyable for almost everyone involved. Seeing NPC camp writing mods short notice (I assume) to allow players to drive their own story is encouraging, but there is a time and a place for this sort of mission and it was not a day mod.

Players at a day mod expect more entertainment in a shorter period of time than a regular weekend, and running personal mods at the cost of the entire player base’s entertainment is a mistake.

During the second season players asked for an opportunity to raid the catacombs  during a day mod. We had a quick talk out of game we agreed that we would push it back to the first weekend event, and I stand by this decision as the correct way to handle this situation.

Conclusion (Sort of)

I have very high hopes for this season and I believe that the shaper team has the potential to run the best season I have ever played.

I however was very disappointed with this event. Day mods are really difficult, but we deserve better than this. I will not attend the remainder of the off season. Good luck and I will see you in May.


For the consideration of Ownership:

With two day mods done and two to go in this off season, I think it is time to look at how many and when we schedule our day mods. 

1. It is time to put the February  day mod to bed. We have rolled the dice on the weather for a few years and I honestly think it isn’t worth risking the cold and wasting your plot team’s time and energy if you get blizzarded out.
   
2. We used to run seminar days which I understand are out of favour,  but I would like to see the return of one of them to the schedule.
   

The Warden Department:

I have to admit I am terrified by with the direction we are heading on this one. I am not saying this idea is bad, but I am really worried about how things will develop. I am going to go through a number of things here and probably makes some people really unhappy:

1. Player Authority:  Giving plot sanctioned authority over other players to someone is a nightmare. Given the chance most players abuse the power they receive and decrease the enjoyment of everyone around them.
   
2. Power to Detain:  I watched some bandits get steam rolled by the amoeba which is nothing new, but once the fighting was over the new police started detaining the NPCs tying them up and dragging them off for processing. For a couple of crunchies this is not a big deal, but watch out because this behavior will torpedo mods one day.
   
3. Warden Appointments: A head warden is appointed by plot and so far as I can tell is responsible for appointing the remainder of the wardens. The end result is the creation of “The Boys Club.” If you are going to make this an important position it has to open up to the entire player base without player bias.
   
4. The Laws: These things are really damn complex and 4 and a half pages long. If we are going to be using these regularly we probably should consider laminating a copy and posting them on site.
   

Having watched the development of the warden department, I  feel like I am staring down the barrel of taxes and the dreaded creation of player government. I fled Jericho to get away from the bureaucracy and it is nipping at my heels.

---

The porto potties were smelly

[Fra]

THIS EVENT WAS FANTASTIC, I know some people dont like the cold and the mud but everyone has the choice to not attend an event, and being a day mod in Canada, in February you should expect it to be mucky and cold.

Pros:

I got to use my new shield! thank you to all the people who made shield walls with me, and to anyone that I tried to defend, I hope it helped block some attacks.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the muddy ground, my boots got SOAKED and I had mud up to my knees, BUT it really makes it feel like an adventure, the battle ground is littered wtih footprints afterwards.

It was so happy that we were getting giant groups of enemies that kept respawning in again and again.

I finally got to use a skill I bought like 5 months ago, TWICE!

I got a lot of good loot this game and that makes me super happy

Cons:

Cons is very hard to come up with for me. I understand the nature of the game and as a LARP game you are always going to have lots of player development and world development happening at the same time, so it is understandable that you will miss things. A day mod as well only has so much time to introduce all of this to the players, who need to catch onto certain bait that is throw out for them.

The Team always tries to make it as fluid as possible and keep the action going, thats the whole point of world plot, personal plot, and even insta-mods, and I feel that this event utilized the time pretty perfectly, there were a few moments of downtime that made it a bit draggy but that WASNT bad, I just liked the action because it kept me warm.

Final thoughts:

Id give this event 9.9 outta 10, everything was perfect but I realize I really need to beef up my skills set and weapons because I cant do shit against stuff with magic threshold, so I would love a nice magic sword tag for my new dwarf sword, wink wink.

IM SORRY I YELLED IN YOUR FACE MATTY BUT I WAS EXCITED

[Lilith Caia]

I quite enjoyed this game. Like, a ton. A lot of this is because I just sort of ran around making my own fun (not that there wasn't stuff to do, but I came into the game with a bunch of shit I wanted to do already and ignored a bunch of plot hooks for it. As a result I'm not sure what a bunch of stuff was that happened). Some of these pros are relevant to the Shaper team, etc., some are not.

Pros:
- Having instamods and tags and whatnot around the site. Very cool. This was the first game I've seen where a ton of the PCs were not in town centre a lot of the time. I liked it
- Realism: go into a spider undead cave? People die. People should die. This makes sense. You aren't always going to be prepared for what you encounter, and RUN is a big part of what I love about Underworld (Ralinwood in particular)
- I'm also a fan of deaths in general. Scary is nice
- God damn that makeup was good on NPCs - the magic eaters were creepy as all hell
- Broing out with the usual crew
- The new players this game were really great. Seems like they really got into doing stuff and talking with people, and I never once saw any of them being infernal. Great job, guys! Hope to see you soon!
- People were great sports about PvP and things going ways their characters hate <3
- Also just generally watching people allow their characters to get fooled was neat
- Lilith and Drakkon are hilariously derpy together. Super fun
- The cabins were warm, thank god
- The Wardens are leading to some neat plot where there are actual laws and possibilities for fun corruption
- It seems like taking initiative is being encouraged and the team is running with player-driven things a bunch
- Bombs
- A storyline from the chat got resolved during game. I think that's pretty cool. RIP Thomas and Sabrina
- SEEING MY NIECE!
- It really seemed like all the Shapers had a bunch of shit they were doing and really going all out (bounty hunters, chosen trials, ghost plot, personal plot, etc., etc., etc.)
- Giving PCs some leadership roles, like how Sheala was able to lead the hunt which makes perfect sense!
- Favoured trial consequences
- That thing that I did with Brit was swell. Thanks, Brit! I am very much looking forward to the regret!
- Hanging out with people I can't hang out with as Lark. Y'all are swell
- Alexis running out of the catacombs and falling at my feet, out of breath and terrified. Your RP there was fantastic, girl
- Kym's tree cookies and chilli. I don't know what I'd do without you. Probably starve
- MYSTERY BOXES! I didn't get one, but like, they're cool. I just really love mysteries
- I love the fact that every Ralinwood magic item has a flaw. It's just extra fun
- "This never happened. We will never speak of it again."
- Getting to have the following conversation:

"Lilith, there was a little girl who turned into a demon."
"What kind?"
"I dunno."
"Was she hot?"

Cons:
- This isn't a con so much as a caveat. I went on few mods and had no idea what was going on most of the time, so perhaps take my review with a grain of salt
- There were definitely significant stretches of downtime. This may be my fault for not going hunting for things, and I would have if the downtime had bothered me, but I mention this because it was pretty damn cold and downtime is not good for February day mods
- I have never really found the whole "farmers are starving" plot hook compelling. As we don't really live in this world, we aren't going to starve. We know that. I don't know what the consequences would be if we just totally murdered all the farmers or let them starve, but having no idea what they would be, and knowing that the game would go on regardless makes me not really take it seriously. Now, this is totally a good hook for good-aligned PCs, but besides just "it's the right thing to do, don't be a jerk", guilt's just not that motivating. Consequences are good. Benefits are good. Imagining starving isn't that compelling, in my mind
- The magic eaters are going to give me nightmares
- DAN. PLEASE. PLEASE PUT HAND SANITISER IN THE HAND SANITISER DISPENSERS, I'M BEGGING YOU

[A goblin played by Matty]

Cat, you are a master of deep,meaningful quotes "People die. People should die."

[Lilith Caia]

Hey, man. Don't you snub "Was she hot?" like that.

[A goblin played by Matty]

I still quote "Funny,when I woke up and looked in the mirror I didn't look like ctrl+f"

[Lilith Caia]

Yeeeee.

[Demetria]

So... the first review I wrote didn't post so I'm going to attempt to rewrite it. This will probably be much shorter than the original.

This event was very interesting and I really want to thank all the shapers and NPCs that came out. I really appreciate how much effort everyone puts into everything they do.


Pros

▪ The idea for foraging was wonderful to see. As a PC that doesn't hunt I was worried I'd be stuck in town doing nothing most the day but I'm glad there was the option of looking for tags around town. It was also really nice to see PCs running around in the woods instead of everyone sticking in town when there's no mods going on.
▪ The cabin with the two little space heaters. The weather was too cold for me to run around in most of the day so I was very thankful to have a space to hang out in to dry off and retreat from the cold. From a medical stand point, I also really appreciate that barely anything came into the cabins to fight people trying to take shelter from the weather to warm up.
▪Personal plot. I got the chance to tag along on some of the personal plot and it was very well done. NPCs and Ramsay were fantastic, and emotions were running high for us PCs.
▪ Undead spider cave mod. I've been hearing mixed feelings about that mod but I for one like how it went. Sometimes when you do dangerous things that you're not properly prepared for, people can die.
▪ Magic eaters. The last mod was terrifying and I spent the majority of the time cowering with other mages and casters. I'm used to not being able to or wanting to fight but nothing is more scary than the thing you're hiding from being able to find you at any moment.
▪ Ice elementals and Titan. It's always a pleasure interacting with the Titans and watching Jada run around with a small posse of elementals is always adorable to watch.
▪CARMEN!

Cons

▪ The insta-mods confused me a little and the organization was all over the place it felt because there was just SO many of them people were finding. Maybe just put out a couple less on day mods? Npc camp always seems so busy during day events and I can live with a few less insta-mods floating around if the team has so much on their plate already.
▪The tavern food is delicious but there's a bit of a lack of vegetarian options.
▪Lastly, this is more constructive criticism, Brian has a bit of a point. While day mods are fun, the weather in February can be very unpredictable. I understand that we can't do anything about it any month and the weather is something we'll always have to deal with and prepare for. Maybe next year though having another tavern night or seminar for February would be an option to look at and at least consider so NPCs don't get struck outside in the cold.