I’m going to play Shade’s Advocate here: I actually really appreciate having an event that doesn’t require large amounts of my time and energy. While participating in larger more involved events can be very fun, it’s not something that everyone has the bandwidth for. It can also sometimes feel like having group projects in school - one or two people figure out the clues/solve a puzzle and drag half the site on their backs to get them there.
Ultimately I think the FR staff have chosen options that are supportive of community effort but do not require it. You can, if you choose to, play without ever interacting with another player, or by only interacting with them through the AH. A lot of players prefer not to do that, and that’s ok, but the site is still set up to allow you to do that if you do choose.
I kind of agree. FR is a free to play browser game, it's not going to have the same draw as some other MMO. It's nice that you can participate in the event by doing regular tasks, in case that's all you can do. Helldivers functions similarly as far as community events go: you play the game normally and the number go up and you get reward if number reach goal; however you usually have to have a few hours time to dedicate to it (and have to have spent actual monies on it... and be actually good at it). But it still feels like a community effort, it's that feeling of knowing every one is working together that's fun- even if it's nominally superficial.
I remember the glory days of gaia and... I don't think FR has that kind of capability. Gaia was writing new events every major holiday. Gaia did a shitty 3d animated movie one year. Gaia did a lot of stuff... but FR doesn't quite have the team nor the playerbase for those kinds of big events. Also many of those events you were SOL on rewards if you missed even 1 day of it. One year the halloween event was literally only ON halloween, I remember having to scramble to get the goodies before going out ToTing myself. IF the site was even functional then- there servers were often swamped and the lag made events unplayable for many people not unlike the early or big release days for FR.
FR wants to make sure it's players all have a reasonable chance to participate and that's nice.
Also as a side note: raids suck ass and never should have been a thing introduced to the mmo playstyle. They are not fun, I hate them.
Yeah, raid mechanics in FR would be a thing that would make me drop the site and not come back. That is the road to maximum burnout.
I think FR is also developing enough of an older playerbase that they're really considering people's time more. If a bunch of people got into the site in 2017/2018/2019, those people now have a good chance of being out of college, working full-time jobs, having families, etc. They also now have more potential expendable income. IMO having a site that allows someone with a busy schedule to at least be able to do some minimum things is nice, not to mention that it makes the site more accessible for people who can't spend as much time due to physical disability.
The thing is, you could add actual gameplay to the event without punishing any players who don't have time to play it. Adding an optional way to "grind" for items to donate (without touching dumb coli) would make it a more memorable and unique event. And users who can only grab one item from Pinkerton to donate still get the same rewards as users who want something more fun to do.
What other site activities would you add drops to? Right now you can get them from 4/5s of the trading post, bonding with dragons, breeding dragons, gathering, etc. Coli is the only real current game mechanic with the sort of infinite repeatability that allows for ‘grinding’. Which is kinda the point - it lets players who can’t/don’t want to use Coli fully participate in the event rewards. The site’s not currently set up for anything else. We know they are working on more mechanics (adventure mode), but it’s not complete yet, so they’re not releasing it.
the gaia online event i referenced was extremely reasonably paced throughout an entire month with new parts of the puzzle unlocking very steadily. no one had to actively participate in any of the puzzles, either. if they wanted, they could wait for the solution to be worked out, and copy off that and still get the exact same rewards everyone else got regardless of effort. no one had to get involved to be involved in the solution.
with neopets plots, they ALSO had plenty of time for people to do their parts of the plot before the end; sometimes it'd be a couple of weeks between each part of the plot being released and rarely would ever lock out progression (battledome sections of events were the only considerably timegated part, though we haven't had any battledome plot segments in 18 years), but plots would go on for months with regular content drops and new things to solve. people would work out the solutions and whoever had no time for that would be able to log in, do their part or ook at solutions, and then log out. we even have officially endorsed fansites who would aggregate solutions and tools to help people solve on their own so people could catch up to the current progress if they missed parts of the plot before it. all of these plots could be done without ever talking to a single person on forums, and actually had to be since neopets allowed (and was catered to) children under 13 to play, and that would lock a considerable number of players out of doing things themselves due to COPPA laws.
that's the recipe of a successful and interesting/involved event: offering a variety of things to do with gradual pacing that gives enough time for active users to do what they need to between real life obligations and wanting to do other stuff, regardless of how involved the event is, and never rely on exactly one person to be the solution of a puzzle. for the people who didn't want to/couldn't interact, like myself, we could work things out ourselves if we wanted to, or look at guides if we didn't. every player should have options of how much they wanted to engage and could.
while i get the "school project" thought, when sites ran these events and plots, there were SO MANY people actively participating in solving the puzzles for the love of solving the puzzles that there was constant forward progress being made and was never hindered by people who didn't want to interact. there were never times where we had to wait for one person with their piece of the puzzle to pop in to solve something, so people didn't get burnt out at the thought that other people were leeching off of their work that they had to do themselves. i won't say NO ONE felt that way, but it was never an actual issue for the event itself.
even to this day, we have modern examples of this: animal well released may this year, and it took a month to puzzle out the whole game with only one part being reliant on the community to solve (and now has the solution worked out, so no one has to talk to anyone to solve it). the community was so passionate about finding all the secrets and learning what works that they worked together to solve it, and the people who wanted to do it themselves could do it themselves.
it's open knowledge that FR staff do their events this way to make it accessible and considerate for player's time/energy, and i also appreciate it as someone with pretty limiting disabilities, i'm just saying that other games and websites with smaller staff have managed to do the same for over 20 years with great success. there's lots of examples of this kind of event being accessible and considerate of people's time and energy, and i believe FR staff could do it once they feel comfortable that they could, and i believe that our community is extremely capable of experiencing the same amount of success in solving them as any other website has with how passionate our playerbase is. i'm not saying they gotta do it RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW GOTTA DO IT NOW, but that they can achieve this and have a pretty good number of staff to do it when they can get more adventurous.
TL;DR: there's over 20 years of evidence of successful and accessible plots/events that have more involved storytelling through puzzles, with smaller staff lineups to work on them, and i believe that flight rising staff and players would be able to see the same amount of success if/when staff are ready and interested in doing something similar.
I hear you - I think a more involved event like you mentioned would be possible!
Personally I suspect that part of the difference comes from the compositions of the website founders. I don’t know enough about GaiaOnline or Neopets, but I know that the majority of the people who started FR were artists (Undel and Xhastol) and coders (including people who have now left the site). Not game designers. They’ve gotten more devs in since, but my read on them is that they’re primarily functional designers with a decent focus on UI design. To me, the result is that the team seems a little light on game devs - people with experience in story, level, and player interaction design. Heck, they’ve only recently hired a professional writer! And given that the ultimate draw of the website is “dress up the pretty pixel dragons”, I can understand how this developed.
Here’s hoping that as the website continues strongly the team gets to delve a bit deeper into some creative concepts. Especially if/when they finish the site refactor.
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Re: Anniversary Thread
(Anonymous) 2024-06-09 07:42 pm (UTC)(link)Ultimately I think the FR staff have chosen options that are supportive of community effort but do not require it. You can, if you choose to, play without ever interacting with another player, or by only interacting with them through the AH. A lot of players prefer not to do that, and that’s ok, but the site is still set up to allow you to do that if you do choose.
Re: Anniversary Thread
(Anonymous) 2024-06-10 12:20 pm (UTC)(link)I remember the glory days of gaia and... I don't think FR has that kind of capability. Gaia was writing new events every major holiday. Gaia did a shitty 3d animated movie one year. Gaia did a lot of stuff... but FR doesn't quite have the team nor the playerbase for those kinds of big events. Also many of those events you were SOL on rewards if you missed even 1 day of it. One year the halloween event was literally only ON halloween, I remember having to scramble to get the goodies before going out ToTing myself. IF the site was even functional then- there servers were often swamped and the lag made events unplayable for many people not unlike the early or big release days for FR.
FR wants to make sure it's players all have a reasonable chance to participate and that's nice.
Also as a side note: raids suck ass and never should have been a thing introduced to the mmo playstyle. They are not fun, I hate them.
DA
(Anonymous) 2024-06-10 04:16 pm (UTC)(link)But seriously, I do get they aren't everyone's cup of tea. Besides, FR is my casual game. I want casual events. Not another job.
For a game like FR, this is my ideal event.
Re: Anniversary Thread
(Anonymous) 2024-06-11 04:30 am (UTC)(link)Raider anon
(Anonymous) 2024-06-11 01:45 pm (UTC)(link)I hate being treated like I'm a lesser raider because I won't spend countless hours chasing stupid hard mode dungeons like that.
Re: Anniversary Thread
(Anonymous) 2024-06-11 06:32 pm (UTC)(link)Yeah, raid mechanics in FR would be a thing that would make me drop the site and not come back. That is the road to maximum burnout.
I think FR is also developing enough of an older playerbase that they're really considering people's time more. If a bunch of people got into the site in 2017/2018/2019, those people now have a good chance of being out of college, working full-time jobs, having families, etc. They also now have more potential expendable income. IMO having a site that allows someone with a busy schedule to at least be able to do some minimum things is nice, not to mention that it makes the site more accessible for people who can't spend as much time due to physical disability.
Re: Anniversary Thread
(Anonymous) 2024-06-11 08:17 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Anniversary Thread
(Anonymous) 2024-06-11 08:34 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Anniversary Thread
(Anonymous) 2024-06-11 09:07 pm (UTC)(link)A wholly new mechanic is what I mean. Even something simple and text-based would be more interesting than no new gameplay at all.
Re: Anniversary Thread
(Anonymous) 2024-06-12 12:13 am (UTC)(link)the gaia online event i referenced was extremely reasonably paced throughout an entire month with new parts of the puzzle unlocking very steadily. no one had to actively participate in any of the puzzles, either. if they wanted, they could wait for the solution to be worked out, and copy off that and still get the exact same rewards everyone else got regardless of effort. no one had to get involved to be involved in the solution.
with neopets plots, they ALSO had plenty of time for people to do their parts of the plot before the end; sometimes it'd be a couple of weeks between each part of the plot being released and rarely would ever lock out progression (battledome sections of events were the only considerably timegated part, though we haven't had any battledome plot segments in 18 years), but plots would go on for months with regular content drops and new things to solve. people would work out the solutions and whoever had no time for that would be able to log in, do their part or ook at solutions, and then log out. we even have officially endorsed fansites who would aggregate solutions and tools to help people solve on their own so people could catch up to the current progress if they missed parts of the plot before it. all of these plots could be done without ever talking to a single person on forums, and actually had to be since neopets allowed (and was catered to) children under 13 to play, and that would lock a considerable number of players out of doing things themselves due to COPPA laws.
that's the recipe of a successful and interesting/involved event: offering a variety of things to do with gradual pacing that gives enough time for active users to do what they need to between real life obligations and wanting to do other stuff, regardless of how involved the event is, and never rely on exactly one person to be the solution of a puzzle. for the people who didn't want to/couldn't interact, like myself, we could work things out ourselves if we wanted to, or look at guides if we didn't. every player should have options of how much they wanted to engage and could.
while i get the "school project" thought, when sites ran these events and plots, there were SO MANY people actively participating in solving the puzzles for the love of solving the puzzles that there was constant forward progress being made and was never hindered by people who didn't want to interact. there were never times where we had to wait for one person with their piece of the puzzle to pop in to solve something, so people didn't get burnt out at the thought that other people were leeching off of their work that they had to do themselves. i won't say NO ONE felt that way, but it was never an actual issue for the event itself.
even to this day, we have modern examples of this: animal well released may this year, and it took a month to puzzle out the whole game with only one part being reliant on the community to solve (and now has the solution worked out, so no one has to talk to anyone to solve it). the community was so passionate about finding all the secrets and learning what works that they worked together to solve it, and the people who wanted to do it themselves could do it themselves.
it's open knowledge that FR staff do their events this way to make it accessible and considerate for player's time/energy, and i also appreciate it as someone with pretty limiting disabilities, i'm just saying that other games and websites with smaller staff have managed to do the same for over 20 years with great success. there's lots of examples of this kind of event being accessible and considerate of people's time and energy, and i believe FR staff could do it once they feel comfortable that they could, and i believe that our community is extremely capable of experiencing the same amount of success in solving them as any other website has with how passionate our playerbase is. i'm not saying they gotta do it RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW GOTTA DO IT NOW, but that they can achieve this and have a pretty good number of staff to do it when they can get more adventurous.
Re: Anniversary Thread
(Anonymous) 2024-06-12 12:16 am (UTC)(link)holy fucking essay batman
TL;DR: there's over 20 years of evidence of successful and accessible plots/events that have more involved storytelling through puzzles, with smaller staff lineups to work on them, and i believe that flight rising staff and players would be able to see the same amount of success if/when staff are ready and interested in doing something similar.
Re: Anniversary Thread
(Anonymous) 2024-06-12 01:02 am (UTC)(link)I hear you - I think a more involved event like you mentioned would be possible!
Personally I suspect that part of the difference comes from the compositions of the website founders. I don’t know enough about GaiaOnline or Neopets, but I know that the majority of the people who started FR were artists (Undel and Xhastol) and coders (including people who have now left the site). Not game designers. They’ve gotten more devs in since, but my read on them is that they’re primarily functional designers with a decent focus on UI design. To me, the result is that the team seems a little light on game devs - people with experience in story, level, and player interaction design. Heck, they’ve only recently hired a professional writer! And given that the ultimate draw of the website is “dress up the pretty pixel dragons”, I can understand how this developed.
Here’s hoping that as the website continues strongly the team gets to delve a bit deeper into some creative concepts. Especially if/when they finish the site refactor.