field trips/special events

[Zarnia Foxtrot]

Hi. It's been a while since I have written a negative post .. over 2 years I think. However, the Cyrene field trip for Monrian New Borns I think needs some imput that isn't all rosy.

First, this event was for Monria new borns to get the swirls and loot and the experience of big game hunters. Somewhere around 10-15 people were probably expected. We had over 40+ player after the first several globals and hofs happened...no surprise why there.

Here are the issues that I see that need to be addressed for future events.

One, I am not a developer or have computer knowledge to know anything about how the game needs to be adjusted to work for special events. What I do know, is that once there are too many people over what is expected for an event, all kinds of problems start to happen.

Loot 2.0 onwards has the game compensate the most whoever puts in the most ammo into a mob. For field trips with new born Monrians, that is not them. They can only use low level weapons and when higher level players show up, most of the loot will not go towards the newborn players.When higher level players come in later that are not expected, they will get most of the loot.. again, not the newborn Monrian players. When there are too many higher level players hunting the same mob, the highest level players will benefit but everyone else bottoms out in their loot.

Suggestion #1 would that if we want to have new born players experience the game at a higher level, we have an established number of higher level players registered in advance for the event. This way, its not only the higher level players getting the better loot but at least a chance for lower level new borns to get a better loot drop.

Suggestion #2 Limit the size of the field trip/special event participants to under 20 people in a group. I don't know other peoples experience but I have seen it on many events including the St. Patrick's Day events that when the event has too many additional participants that the developer/MA wasn't expecting, the gameplay takes a nosedive and doesn't come back usually. Disconnects, lag, no loot drops, weapon misfiring/not firing at all, avatar mobility stunted, mobs half visible and unable to be shot, mobs that are unable to be killed), mobs health bar bouncing back from being taken down under fire, etc all happen when there are too many unexpected people showing up last minute (usually higher level players not wanting to miss something) and the gameplay gets very bad and players get disappointed. The best way to have great game play is to make sure the event has been set up to compensated for what was expected in numbers of players.

Suggestion#3 Make sure that the event mobs are working properly. This may not be under DME/Ant's control but it brings a lot of negative from players when mobs don't drop loot when people are putting a lot of ammo into them in an event expecting big things happen.

Suggestion #4 This is just a personal thing for me but could some events be tailored for melee instead of long range weapons? Every hunting event I go to has higher level players using long range weapons. I don't recall ever seeing an event that was "melee only".

Suggestion #5 For a field trip with newborn Monrians, they are using long range weapons close to the TT lvl. Even with a "shared loot" setup, the higher lvl players will still get the benefit of the "shared loot" setup with their higher lvl weaponry. They are the ones putting the most ammo into a mob. So, even with a "shared loot" setup in place already, it would be beneficial to have all players operating closed to the same DPS level. If killing higher level mobs, that would allow for more players or some work for MA to compensate for the lower skill lvl weaponry of the newborn Monrian players.

There were lots of swirlies with the Cyrene Sept. 27th Field Trip which was great. The loot dropped for me after the we got past 25 players. It was consistently below 4 ped for mobs over Lvl 85+ if they dropped at all. The newborn players probably got that amount or less in their loot. Since this was for their benefit, this issue needs some work for the next time. Overall, it was fun but very expensive experience.

PZ

 

[DarkMoonEnigma]

Zarnia ... our Monrian Born field trips work exactly as intended, and when we do our field trips, we guide Monrian Borns through the beginner missions, take them on TP runs so they have them for future exploration, and we also do team hunting with them where we all use the same weapon, which I give out to everyone.

However, any shared loot events are always open to all players. When we go to Cyrene for our field trips, I always coordinate it with Kris (Cyrene Developer), and he graciously hosts a 2 hr event of spawning shared loot big mobs so that everyone can have some fun, and the Monrian Borns can have the experience because it's a unique event. I openly invite everyone to attend this special 2 hr event that Kris hosts. No matter where you go with shared loot mobs, including Monria, it's just common sense that those with a higher dps are going to capture the most loot ... it's been that way forever.

This is an open event and you can't require everyone to use the same, or close to the same dps, it's just not reasonable. The only time we are able to do that is when we do our own field trip team hunts, or ... if you should be on a team with others where you can set that dynamic yourselves.

Kris also put our field trip banner on the Cyrene client loader, posted it in the Cyrene Discord, and created a thread at the Cyrene forum to alert the Cyrene community. I also did my own advertising of this 2 hr event so that we could get a good crowd there, which we definitely had.

Kris was surprised himself today with regard to some of the shared loot mobs he spawned not having any loot, and he will take that up with MindArk and let me know any results to pass on to everyone.

In all honesty, I feel you are being a bit unfair with regard to how we conduct our field trips, because they work out fine every time, and a lot is accomplished, including having fun.

Please take into consideration what our field trips represent ... and that we provide activities that are productive, but also provide experiences a Monrian Born might not otherwise have.

 

[Zarnia Foxtrot]

Hello DME. I do disagree. Both you and Kris know the event as posted in the Monria forum was designed for the main benefit of newborn Monrians who really don't have any idea what to expect or what is fair in game. When you put both the very lowest level player with the highest level player in the same event, the lowest level players will always take the brunt of less loot overall. If Monrian field trip was for the main benefit of the Monrian newborns, then the overall goal would be for their benefit, not higher level players who jump on the bandwagon after the event for them started. So, if the field trips are for Monrian newborns, they should be the only ones to benefit the most even in a 2 hour higher level mob event. If people register beforehand for the field trip that are not newborn Monrians, they need to have the understanding they need to operate at the same level of the Monrian newborn or very close. It sounds more like Kris was making the event helpful to Cyrene, not to the Monrian newborns. He would know that higher level players would want the higher level mobs to hunt and kill but didn't consider that would work opposing to the interests of the Monrian newborns who don't have higher level skills those players would have. Although there was 30-40 players in the 2 hour event and in numbers of players successful, it was very frustrating for players who expected more and as usual got less when the mix of the lowest and highest level players mix. It may not be an intentional oversight but when its posted on the forum as a field trip for Monrian newborns, it does imply that the WHOLE event is designed for the Monrian newborn.

It's your choice how you (and Kris) run events. You are both the developers for both Monria and Cyrene. To me, it was misleading in that in trying to cover all the bases to get as many people there to the 2 hour event, the main focus which was posted on the Monria forum as the Monrian newborns was not the focus of the entire event weekend as implied. The two hour event was fun though I was dead most of the time during it..lol..but when you are a lvl 42 swordsman, you expect more than loot under 4 ped with mobs lvl 85 and up.

 

[Eric Shade Avenged]

I know this probably isn't my place to speak, but I believe you are terribly misunderstanding. If there is bad loot for low level players in shared loot, then there is bad loot for all players in shared loot. The way shared loot creatures work is you get a percentage of the loot depending on the amount of damage you do to the creature's HP. Just because people with higher DPS were getting more loot, does not mean they were "benefiting" or had a greater chance of making a profit. If lower level players were losing a lot of PED killing the shared loot mobs, then it's safe to say that the higher level players with higher DPS were losing even more PED. Bad loot is bad loot, regardless of your DPS contribution.

The Mornia born field trips are always set up to focus on the Monria-Born players. Every other activity is catered to the Monria-Borns. Just because Kris and DME scheduled 1 activity that was shared loot and open to the public, does not mean the overall focus strayed away from the Monria-born players. It was just a single two hour activity out of the entire weekend of Monria-Born field trip activities.

You also posted this yesterday, when there was still about 27 hours of the field trip left. Please don't judge the entire field trip based on a single two hour shared-loot activity.

 

[Zarnia Foxtrot]

Good point Shade about not including the last 27 hours of the weekend. It would be great to actually test the all bad loot all good loot theory for all players in shared events overall. What I have usually seen is that one or two players in a shared event, usually higher level players, tend to do better and everyone else does significantly less. That wouldn't be under DME or Kris's control but when there is a question, the questions usually get answered by DME ( or I guess for Cyrenians Kris). MA's " do not discuss loot policy" does make questions like this difficult to answer and resolve. As I said, it was a fun event but a lot more expensive than I expected it would be. I did notice the rallying support to in likes to DME postings in this thread. Sorry if you all consider me "difficult" but I'm not a very good follower. I question and I'm not imtimidated to call issues or people on the carpet to discuss or debate if I feel it is important. I may not be popular for this. I am definite not much of a "cult follower" much to Chulthu's chagrin. I respect DME but that doesn't mean I won't disagree if I feel it is necessary.

But to conclude, I did enjoy the weekend. The 2 hour event was just not what I expected.

PZ

 

[Anny]

First of all my apologies, I am known to be direct and sharp in my comments, and that can hurt some feelings.

Monria Field Trips are just that, Field Trips, to Monria Born (and friends) to see, explore and acquaintance new planets/places. Is not a prize related event, don't have hard/fixed schedule, people participate as they can when they can.

The sole goal of the event is for Newborn know other places, and have fun doing it.

Cyrene (Devs) are very friendly, and close to Monria, and with that they put some of their time and effort, and usually brings us a shared loot with Big Mobs. Something everyone always like, and in specialy new born.

That is something me as a Monrian much appreciate and thanks to Cyrene Team, in fact is what i truly believe should happen between all the partners.

Loot is exclusively under control of MA, nothing anyone else can do or say about it. Partners question MA when something wrong happen, and wait for answer, but apart of that there is nothing else they can do.

And yes can be a pain when loot is bad in any type of event. but even a slight insinuation that event organizer or even partners are responsible for it is completely UNFAIR.

Monria is the best place in EU (IMHO ofc)... why? best community, the Management closest to the community. best storydriven place (and yes storyline is important, EU is a MMO/RPG after all, even if most forget it and only look to ped card).

So in summary, Cyrene Field trip was what it should be. There was issues, well there are always issues. We can try and make it better, but next time will be different, and the issues will change, we are all humans, and our simple presence in any event will change how things happen.

And well to finish, the only thing I would want about Field trips, is to be more, because it may appear they are not very significant, but in the end will TRULY help New Monria Born

 

[Zarnia Foxtrot]

Hello Anny. I appreciate your candor. I agree with your position about the control of loot during an event being under MA control and thus, their responsibility and not DME's or Kris's. What I am trying to get across is that any organizer, coordinator or event planner in EU or anywhere else in game or RL, they set the boundaries, rules and guidelines for an event to go in specific directions. If there are no specific guidelines in place, any event will be subject to have more problems rather than less problems. Every event for the last 3+ years I have participated in I have always been expecting the best and usually getting the worst during shared events from newborn player to mid range player that I am now. There is always someone higher level would drop in and the loot shift would happen instantly and they would walk off with the special item or higher value loot from that point forward. As I newborn, I accepted they put more ammo into mobs and they should get more back to compensate what they put into the hunt and kill of that mob. What I have seen now as a mid range player is that the problem still exists despite skill lvl or the amt of ammo I put into the mob, I always leave with low loot when too many higher level players participate in a shared event. Both you and DME have mentioned that the point of the field trips is for the experience.

The responsibility of any event organizer, coordinator or planner is to establish the guidelines that will work to the best advantage of the participants. The is not MA's responsibility. That would DME, Kris or for players who chose to start independent events with other players. The point I have tried to make with this thread is that for newborn Monrians to have an honest perspective of what they can attain in higher loot, the players in their event need to be operating at the same level as them so all have an equal change of higher ticket item or better overall loot. That would be an event guideline established by whoever the event organizer or coordinator is. If that is established as a guideline in advance of the event, it sets the groundwork for less problems overall during an event. MA would still be controlling the loot either way but it would focus the hunting to the newborn monrians current abilities instead of a mix of very low and very high players in the same event in which the higher level players would be the ones to gain the most.

If the field trips are designed to be experience only, the level of loot gained during shared loot even is part of the experience they will remember as much as the tp locations and new mobs. Limiting the number of people or higher level players in advance of a field trip event would help with the issue. Again, I am repeating what I have said previously. I enjoyed the weekend and it was a lot of fun. The fun was a good experience. I am not much of a sycophant to always say what people (including DME or Kris) may want to hear. I have always understood the need for honest imput and that different perspectives help to improve things, even things that people see as not needing improvement like this last field trip to Cyrene.

Hopefully, I got my point across without offense. I'm not trying to insult or demean DME or Kris. I am trying to add perspective they may not have seen with the organization of the field trips done previously.

 

[Anny]

This is getting very long, and my point in previous and this post is just this.
Field Trip is not a hunting event, is not about returns on hunts, is not about organizing a event to hunt
I will quote Event thread


ACTIVITIES

• our primary focus will be at the Atlas Hunting Grounds and the Rookie Training Area
• we will also explore the A.R.C Immigration - Tanhok location and the Tempo Trial Missions
• we will definitely be doing TP runs because there is one location we all need to be at on Saturday
• --- the special Saturday activity will take place between 14:00 - 16:00 game time
• there will also be team hunts on higher level mobs to give the Monrian Born the experience
• --- several of us usually provide healing services to keep our MBs alive and active

Although all perspective are always welcome, they should be align with the objective of the event, and taking the risk of being wrong, all your perspectives were regarding the loot and the "hunts".

That is where I (personally) do not agree with it. Pointing down the event based on that perspective seem incorrect to me.

But i will end here, i believe all was told already.

My apologies to the community for pushing this thread when possible there was no need to.

Anny

 

[DarkMoonEnigma]

The bottom line is ... we absolutely focus on our Monrian Borns during the field trips to other planets with beginner missions, TP runs so they can do future exploration, team hunts, and most are absolutely on lower-level mobs with all using the same weapon that I pass out to everyone in the team unless they already have the same weapon, and I do the healing to keep the Monrian Borns alive and enjoying themselves.

Case in point, yesterday (Sunday) before ship duties, Shadow, Malgar and I took a few Monrian Borns on a team hunt to kill lower level Drill Bots (Axel89, Artex32 and D. Logan), and I did the healing.

All the things mentioned in our field trips take place to give the Monrian Borns further experiences beyond Monria. We even supply the 10k sweat needed to do the beginner/citizenship missions at Arkadia and guide our Monrian Born through the beginner quests and others.

Anny is right ... our field trips are not about hunting and distribution of loot, but rather an overall experience from beginning to end. Even the TP runs are an adventure, just ask them.

The 2 hr event that Kris hosted on Saturday is something that only takes place on Cyrene, and as a developer, he is able to spawn very high level mobs that are shared loot and everyone can participate in. The Monrian Borns get that experience too, and Kris does area healing as well. We invite everyone to that event, including the Cyrene community.

With regard to Monria events, specifically our mid-month events and other bigger events, we always design our events so that all levels can participate and have an opportunity to win something. The random global prizes are just that, random, and cannot be predictable with regard to who will get the next global to win the prize.

As a development team, we get a tremendous amount of positive feedback not only on our events, with many saying they're the best in the game, but with regard to our overall development of Monria for our community, and we get quite a bit of positive feedback on that too.

In hosted events, especially where shared loot is involved, it's unreasonable to put a restriction on how many players can participate. Our wave events are "shared loot" activities, and when we have our big St Patrick's Day event we include waves of higher level mobs that are also shared loot with the help of MA as part of our ongoing storyline and the continued attacks on Monria.

I'm sorry that your experience with Kris's event and your loot wasn't what you wanted it to be, but it was a unique 2 hr event that Kris does for us each field trip to Cyrene, and that will not stop. You were not the only melee player, and you know that when mobs move around it's always more of a challenge, especially when there is a group of people participating. If you are unhappy with these types of events, then please make the choice not attend.

As Community Manager, I also get a tremendous amount of feedback from our Monrian Borns as a result of how much we do to help them navigate this game and have a fair start to their experiences. Nowhere else in the game has a new player program like we do, and as a matter of fact, many from other planets recommend Monria as the best starting point for a new player.

Many members in our community come together to help not only our Monrian Borns, but also other players in need, as well as those who visit Monria for the first time. The Monria chat channel is incredibly active most hours of the day and night with people there to help. We have a standard for our Monria chat channel and we get a great deal of positive feedback about that as well.

As a development team, we are engaged in designing even more opportunities for Monrian Borns and their experiences on Monria, not to mention the rest of the community, it's just a matter of timing and when it can be implemented.

I believe your criticism of our Monrian Born Program, field trips and events is unfounded, and this will be my last word, because I don't think we need to continue this discussion, it will go nowhere. Your opinions and criticisms have been expressed and noted, as well as those of others who understand what our Monrian Born Program and field trips represent, and that our Monrian Borns are incredibly important to us, as well as advancing their game play.

Thank You

 

[Darth Revan Reborn]

Every event for the last 3+ years I have participated in I have always been expecting the best and usually getting the worst during shared events from newborn player to mid range player that I am now. There is always someone higher level would drop in and the loot shift would happen instantly and they would walk off with the special item or higher value loot from that point forward. As I newborn, I accepted they put more ammo into mobs and they should get more back to compensate what they put into the hunt and kill of that mob. What I have seen now as a mid range player is that the problem still exists despite skill lvl or the amt of ammo I put into the mob, I always leave with low loot when too many higher level players participate in a shared event. Both you and DME have mentioned that the point of the field trips is for the experience.

I usually don't get into these conversations on this forum, however I am just going to jump in and mention something with regards to loot to hopefully clear up that side of it. The rest of the discussion regarding the event, etc is not related to this part.

Prior to loot 2.0, you would have been correct Zarnia. Higher level players could jump in and get better loot and even more TT value than newer players by utilising crit hit %/crit dam % buffs and getting over 3.0 DPP for their weapon. In fact this was a big issue for many shared loot events that players complained to MA about for years. It only really got addressed because MA made the mistake of buffs and realised they had to fix the system.

Now with Loot 2.0, what you receive from shared mobs is directly related to your own input, not what others do.
Your cost to kill + efficency + looter level is what determines your % of loot value you get back. It can get quite complicated and I don't think i could explain it very well in a post, but basic principle would be that whatever total input goes into the mob, you will get your % from it. So if it took 10ped over 5 people to kill a mob and you did 2ped in cost, you would recieve 20% of the loot.

Now sure you could say that someone can come along and put in a higher cost to get a higher % and you would be correct. But it works the same as normal hunting where sometimes when you loot a mob you get less than what you put in, sometimes you get near what you put in, and occasionaly you get more than what you put in. So if you notice a lower loot return (tt wise) from what you put in, it will be the same for the person who put more in. Prior to loot 2.0, if you got less, most likely it was because it went to another avatar (not always). Heres the kicker though, if the mob returns a lower tt value than what is input, everyone loses. ie. if there were two of you shooting one mob and it took 10ped to kill a mob, lets say you only did 2ped on input due to low level and other player did 8ped because they had uber gun 2000. If the loot return for that kill is 8ped, then you get your 20% (1.6ped), and they would get their 80% (6.4ped). You lose 0.4ped, they lose 1.6ped...who loses more?

Where it gets complicated is your efficiency and looter level. Those together can affect up to 14% of your loot return (tt wise). I am not sure 100% how this works in shared but from what i can tell of testing, it does not look like it goes to any other player and is instead lost to MA or goes into the bonus loot pool for that mob.

The other complicated part is items. They do not just go to the person that has the highest input. Granted some items do require a set amount of TT value before you could get it, i.e, say the mob can drop an armor piece that min tt value is 10ped. If your input is only ever 5ped, you will never get the return of 10ped unless your global. If your input is 11 ped or up, then there is a good chance that at some point, you could get the armor piece during a hunt without a global. With shared loot, generally the cost to kill is quite high and usually there are multiple people that can reach the min value required. All that happens is RNG, it could go to any of those avatars and many times it goes to the newbie and not the long time player that has invested a lot in the game.

There are also more things that affect what items you can get, your DPP (damage per pec) reduces your cost to kill a mob but gives you a greater chance at looting items within your input range. Crit H % and Crit D % affect DPP. How eco your weapon is (note this is not efficiency). Limiting your armor/healing cost, etc. All of these affect what you can loot but no longer affect your TT return. If your DPP is low, then you will see more shrapnel than items.

It gets more complicated when you have a weapon that has high cost but low dpp, it can allow you to reach that threshold for items easily, but due to low dpp most times you end up with shrapnel. I haven't quite figured out where the best balance for that is yet, but if you decide to use a weapon like that, you should only use it on Land areas when there is a highest single loot event or a nice return per global.

This all got more complicated than i wanted and doesn't really scratch the surface. Lets just say this game is complicated and if you get bad loot in shared, then everyone else did as well unless someone managed to loot an ESI, and thats pretty much RNG so pray to lootius and Chulthu.

 

[Eugenio Anhithe Wilde]

Thanks for all the perspectives here, I don't always comment on the forum posts as I like to see how they play out and think about the different opinions offered but I always read them

I won't really go into loot, return and all those 'dynamics', I'll leave that to people that understand it far better than I ever could but I'll try to explain why I support the field trips and what we're trying to achieve with them. If I take a pretty short term view on it and put my business hat on it really makes no sense. Why on earth would I want to take so many of our Monrian community, stick them on a ship and get them to spend their hard earned ped elsewhere? It's because our primary goal has always been to bring new players to Entropia Universe and to try to give those new players the best possible experience so that they are more likely to stick around. That's how I judge if we're achieving our aims.

I collect a lot of empirical data to work this out and have been doing this since day one. I know how much it costs me to get a player to sign up, what percentage of people in different demographics sign up, download, login. How different marketing efforts impact the likelihood of converting to customers, which missions are popular, which ones are abandoned, what our activity levels are, etc. DME also does a great job of giving me more qualitative information through quotes from players (good and bad), I read all forum posts about Monria and I also get a lot of direct feedback from players and also from MA.

What all this tells me is that we are much better at bringing new players to Entropia Universe than we were nearly four years ago and a higher percentage of them stick around. This is a combined achievement by the community (including everyone in this thread). We're small but every new Monrian born wouldn't be around if it wasn't for our collective efforts.

From my perspective these are just a few of the reasons why I think our field trips and other efforts help us in our main goal:

• We are more likely to stay with EU when the game is active
  • New players going to new planets in large groups, think about why certain places in EU are popular for certain things, read up on some of the approaches in second life of making certain locations more popular, busy is important.

• We are more likely to stay with EU if we are socially interactive
  • Creating an environment where players can socially interact will help inclusion, especially with Veterens & experienced players who we may not ordinarily get to interact with when we first start. Field trips are a great way to achieve this.

• We are more likely to stay with EU if we have a goal or series of goals
  • The field trips are great for giving new players achievable goals with experienced players that can help them achieve those goals and take some of the complexities out of it.

There are plenty of other reasons and those above may not be true for everyone but I'm betting that if we are able to achieve them then we would have a better chance of retaining new players.

On the special event I personally appreciate that Kris took a few hours out of his weekend to spawn some shared loot mobs for us and I know his motivation was because he shares our belief that closer interaction with Entropians is important. I'm not really too familiar with those big rainbow pony things but without a decent number of high level players there's no way we would have had the DPS to mill through them and increase our chances of getting HOFS. If we only had a small number of high DPS players we would have spent more time waiting to revive and would have killed far less (meaning less chances of high loot drops) or we would have needed to spawn smaller mobs which means small loot, less swirlies.

From my personal experience, when I started playing I initially decided not to be a depositor. I just found something on the Internet, downloaded it and was checking it out. This meant in the early days I used to repair an axe, go hunt snables or other low level mob, stand around twin trying to sell my couple of hides, wool etc for an hour. Go sweating for a couple of hours, sell my sweat, repair my axe and repeat. This was to put it bluntly simply boring. Around this time I met someone who would become a close friend (it is why @sidekick069 is chained to Monria ;)). With him and some other players I was able to experience things like bot invasions, land grabs, Crystal Palace and other elements of game play that I would never have been able to participate in as a solo player for a long time. I would sweat and save ped then head to CP with my then soc mates and with my comparatively measly 50 ped and low end weapon and have a couple of hours of fun and mayhem. Everyone else would spend far more than me, die far less than me and get more loot back than me (only fair IMO). I would lose most of my PED whereas previously I used to make a small profit but it was a hell of a lot more fun and therefore better value for money. Some point after this I decided to start depositing for entertainment and if I didn't get these experiences early on I definitely would have simply got bored and uninstalled.

I can't control the loot so I've always held the view that I'll control the 'controllables' and let the 'uncontrollables' control them self. In Monria's case we try to put all our efforts into the things we can actually do something about.

Ant

 

[Zarnia Foxtrot]

Hello again all. Thanks for all the imput. I really just meant to address a possible low loot solution and gameplay problems and how I thought that may be possible. I appreciate all the reasonable explanations. I now have had a monrian field experience so no others will be needed so I can check off that on my bucket list. However DME and Kris want to do things will happen as they chose for field trips. I still believe that if the group of players involved in an event are more at the same player skill level, it would help with avoiding game play problems like glitches and disconnects. Not to stoke Anny's anger, but every event can always be inproved including field trips. I'm sorry we seem to be polar opposites when subjects of discussion come up Anny. DME always mentions how much you do behind the scenes so I hope what this thread brought up wasn't taken as a personal attack to you in any way. That was not intended if that happened. If it did, then I do apologize.

 

[Mario]

One thing I might suggest may be to do TWO special events during the trips. one as it is with the 'shared loot' big spawns for everyone and a second one just for the monria born. My understanding of the way the event system works is that you can essentially rent out a Land Area type space and set parameters on it that will only allow avatars that have tickets to the event to be on that LA for the specific time that the event is going on. Any other avatar that tries to enter that LA during these type of events get auto TPed away to nearest TP somewhere else, and they cannot enter or else they'll get TPed away again on trying til the event is over.

Set up something like that 'special' just for the Monria Born and make sure they are the only ones that get the tickets for this special portion of the trip. Don't allow others to buy the tickets. I think events like this allow event organizer to buy out all of the available tickets before the event starts when they set it up.

A couple of other advantages to this is that the event system allows event organizer to set up limits on a lot of thing, for example, it could allow melee only, etc. (I cannot remember but think it also may allow a certain limit on highest dps?), and most importantly it can allow event organizer to assign a prize to the 'winner' so even if loot is crap there is one involved that will with the prize no matter the situation. Just don't make the prize a stackable thing since Mornia Born will likely want to go home through lootable space at some time after the event and may not want to take the big mothership bus sometimes due to various reasons.

A Monria boxing glove only pvp event just for newborn Monrians might be fun, lol. With the way event system works you could set up a bunch of different 'fun events' like this on each field trip, or a different type of event on each field trip. Could defintely do weird rules to make it unexpected what the result will be ahead of time. I think you may even be able to fiddle with it so lowest looter takes the win if you know what you are doing as an organizer.

 

[Zarnia Foxtrot]

Hi Mario. I personally think that is a great idea and if I ever get to the point where I am doing special events for Monrian Newborns or some other specific group, I will apply your suggestions. In regards to Monrian field trips, that would be DME's decision or if its on Cyrene, hers and Kris's. Thanks for the helpful tips.