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Jamie

Events have reached 'that stage' now - things need to change

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G'day sports,

 

After playing the last few events, aside from the prop event, I have noticed a trend - they seem to be getting stale and everything seems rather rushed. It's getting to the point that I look at a sign-up thread and think to myself 'meh, do i?' Let's take the last event 'hold the fort' for example.

Firstly I will link you my response: 

Hold the Fort was quite obviously, a rushed event just to fill up that 2 week timeslot we have. It was dull. This, in my opinion, is due to events being hosted every 2 weeks. More thought, preparation and creativeness needs to go into hosting these.

With a 1 month timeslot, the moderators will have more time to get their shit sorted, have better prizes and make things overall less stressful. Not only this, but it will make events a lot more exciting and hyped up. It sucks when you look at an event and think to yourself 'another one'?

I won't go on to write an essay but it's something to think about.

 

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I agree with you that events are starting to get stale and giving more time for event teams to think of what to do. But, it's quite easy to bash it without giving ideas. There's only a limited amount of things that can be done in CSGO due to valve not caring about the community side of CSGO and basically only focusing on competitive.

In fairness I only ever did one event as Mod and it was a failure in my eyes. We tried to do something different and due to a bug in the gamemode it ruined the event. It's easier to do something the same that works rather than try something new that could go horribly wrong.

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There used to be an "events manager" who would sort the events, which seems to have disappeared within modbreak community (I call it modbreak due to the amount of moderators we now have and soon to have :P) - @Gunstar :>

OB Event Mod / Admin to be picked up hello?

I wasn't in the recent event but heard bits and bobs from it. Is the first time for me to see multiple people say that it "wasn't the best event" which is quite a shocker.

Detailed response on the event thread through :)

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I have only played one event the hold the fort one and i couldnt wait to play it but was a bit of a let down it felt rushed more time to plan the events would benefit them alot

Edited by Quake

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I think your title is a bit melodramatic. Yes there have been a few stale events but they haven't all been 'recent' and they've all been for different reasons. To start with I'll go with a few of the events that I feel weren't great in the last few months (bearing in mind I don't know what your time scale for 'recent' is but some of the events were ran by staff members that are now long gone etc).

Yesterday's event was, to put it bluntly, bland. The 'hold a location' is a very basic concept which is used in lots of variations but the event lacked any sort of twist to spice it up and make it interesting, instead it was done in the simple sort of way that I'd sometimes do as a piss about extra at the end of an event for an individual prize or something (separate to the main event). It was made more bland by the map choices (especially the first one) which lead to little teamwork or strategy being involved. The first map lacked much of anything and, due to lack of time for practice, the second map was a bit of a mess. There were behind the scenes self pressures I believe on these hosts which might have lead to the over simplifying of the event so they could make sure things worked on the day, not excusing the bland event but giving some context to their simple thought.

Then there was my event, which included collecting bombs from around the map. I felt this was a somewhat newer idea/twist and although it wasn't perfect the general feedback was that the event was alright and interesting to play + the zeus fest afterwards had a good atmosphere to it. The main flaw was the scoring system which was put in place before the event and I take complete fault for its faults - but I wouldn't say this 'ruined' the event.

The only other events that I felt were completely 'meh' in the last 6 months were the 'Hide&Seek' and 'Hold the Hill' - both of which were poorly prepared and poorly ran, as well as being weak event concepts - the latter possibly being the reason why yesterday's event wanted to give it another go. These failures were somewhat down to the way it was ran by an individual and I wouldn't fault the time given or the system for these possibly perceived 'failures' but rather the mistakes of someone who didn't really pay heed to advice (will not name names).

What I take from these is that not all events are great and individuals make mistakes, but in my opinion there have been far more alright-decent events than poor events. Furthermore the diversity of events alone in the last 6 months is more than it ever was on CS:S or has been previously - I'll admit some events from the past do end up similar but people over exaggerate the frequency of these style of events and are far too quick to criticise a 'lack of creativity' without providing fresh suggestions that haven't been done or considered before.

Furthering to your points about our 'system', the 2 week frequency affecting the stress, effort, preparation and creativity of events is completely inaccurate. You make false assumptions that we tell people 'you do the next event' as one ends (as was done on CS:S, where people were only given 1 week) when we usually give at least a month's notice for planning and organising. They have plenty of time to find an idea that isn't too extravagant and complicated but is also fresh and hopefully enjoyable - I think you have you increased your standards significantly and become narrow minded if you haven't noticed the increased diversity in events due to these changes that have been part of the event system for quite a while.

The only pointer I would say could be agreed with is about events becoming more hyped up, but at the same time there are loads of new players who are more than hyped up for more opportunities to take part in these events and the current frequency is about right for the majority of people - no one forces individuals to play if they personally feel the event feel is stale for themselves (especially for someone such as yourself who has been taking part in events for years). The prizes comment is irrelevant to the frequency of events as we pick and choose what events deserve better prizes (eg. Christmas, tournaments, anniversary events etc) rather than being able to 'split prizes up better' as you imply.

I won't say things are perfect because they aren't, they're a working progress - but we are constantly improving and that can be shown from the event diversity and usual standard, not from the odd blips which serve as lessons for future reference (more so to the individuals involved). We are constantly getting new staff and so it's not easy for new mods, but I think on the whole the staff do an alright job. We will always strive to improve the experience and we do take breaks when we feel it appropriate (eg. there won't be an event now for a month due to ESL + breaking stuff up a bit), but I don't think the system or frequency is the cause for concern when below par events happen. Though we probably will be splitting things up at times just out of our own interest and to spark more hype (rather than 'needed prep time').

In reply to Gibby, whoever gave you the info on 'events manager' had somewhat the wrong idea - there was a time where there was supposed to be a group more focused on event aspects but it never really came to fruition and affected anything - as it never was really a proper sorted thing, it's not really something 'we used to have' - something that you can't really appreciate if you haven't been part of the team or the current system (as you can't understand how it works from the outside perspective, you can only comment on how good or bad you found an event).
In regard to the number of mods, we're a steadily growing community - we take on staff in proportion to the players we have and the staff we need, we bulked up due to people having summer vacations and our recent expansion to a second server, if you consider the ratio of non-mod to mod it's pretty much the same as it was when we were smaller.

I am always open to feedback on events and I do admit that for some people it can have a fatigue for the events being so frequent, but you don't have to play in every single one - but unless you are part of the staff you can't really comment on the current system as shown by the fact people weren't aware of the significant advanced notice to plan the staff actually have to do things.

/essay

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46 minutes ago, Jamie said:

I still stand by my opinion that these should be held monthly, not every 2 weeks.

What about every group get's to know that they will organise an event 1 month prior? Wouldn't that be somewhat the same and at the same time we will get an event every 2 weeks. This way the event hosts will get 1 month preparation. I also feel like there is a "lack" of people with skill in terms of people who are able to play around with plug-ins/coding.

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-get a large event team like blaze - 2 high mods, 4 norm mods, 4-6 members, will develop great chemistry, understand all about what people want, how to adapt, what and what not to do.

-stop waiting till 730pm for ppl to show, pm stand ins by 650pm if everyone is not on server - stand ins here by 7pm, demonstration by 7.05pm, bans for deserters

-dont force drastically original ideas, best 3 events for me have been all 3 kings n queens, back to roots if you're struggling for an idea

-don't pick 3 spastics together to run an event, 1 spastic maximum

-if there is a problem mid-event, LISTEN to it and see if you can change it, noticed some mods are quite stubborn due to putting a lot of effort in

-make me head of event team, can overrule even the high mods, because ngl all of you bar conor and unseen are pretty fucking clueless about running events

-always mute all in explanations

-have one event host in fucking channel monitoring to stop ghosting like last event (kriss)

-mods who fail from now on are banned from future running of events unless event team goes through

 

-----------------------

 

Ban lengths:

-Not showing without explanation, and explanation is shit after - 3 events in a row banned

-Not showing without explanation, decent explanation after - 2 events in a row banned

-Not showing, but has explanation just before - 1 event banned in a row

 

--------------------------

 

-25 down to 20 if its going to be a cluster fuck event

-Don't ever do anything with surf

-one mod who can actually speak, and is good at explaining stuff, refer to 3 spastics point

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The start of this post contained 1 line correcting Oldmike, but UnSeen had been typing up another novel and decided to edit my post to make his seem more relevant. UnSeen is a baby.

 

During my time on the Moderator team I only hosted one event (Ghost Invasion) and it got some of the best reviews of any event during my time at OB.

Gunstar, Brand0n and I put tonnes of hours and thought into the event, actually scrapping our whole concept not once, but twice. 

Hosts simply need to be better organised and not take on the job of hosting if they're not willing to commit plenty of hours into the event.

 

While writing this I got a little idea that might help the situation. Anyone who's been a Mod knows the pressure you feel to get your 7 hours a week. If Mods are working on an event, have the Senior/Admin that's organising it add the hours they've put into the event to their hours for the week. Gives a big incentive to actually spend time playtesting and actively working on the event rather than just sitting in a channel talking about it while everybody is tabbed out browsing forums.

 

EDIT: I've been given 9 warning points for calling UnSeen a baby :spooky:

29s1Hok.png

Edited by IrishChamp

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30 minutes ago, Oldmike said:

What about every group get's to know that they will organise an event 1 month prior? Wouldn't that be somewhat the same and at the same time we will get an event every 2 weeks. This way the event hosts will get 1 month preparation. 

 

1 hour ago, UnSeen said:

Furthering to your points about our 'system', the 2 week frequency affecting the stress, effort, preparation and creativity of events is completely inaccurate. You make false assumptions that we tell people 'you do the next event' as one ends (as was done on CS:S, where people were only given 1 week) when we usually give at least a month's notice for planning and organising. They have plenty of time to find an idea that isn't too extravagant and complicated but is also fresh and hopefully enjoyable - I think you have you increased your standards significantly and become narrow minded if you haven't noticed the increased diversity in events due to these changes that have been part of the event system for quite a while.

Quote

You make false assumptions that we tell people 'you do the next event' as one ends (as was done on CS:S, where people were only given 1 week) when we usually give at least a month's notice for planning and organising.

Quote

give at least a month's notice for planning and organising.

b49.gif

 

In reply to Lewis first 4 points (ye inc the spastics part):
1. We do have a few people who are more focused but the idea is that everyone is capable - issue being we've had so many new staff rotated in over last 6 months = basically admin+ are only confident event hosts and they also do a fuck ton of other stuff.
2. That should be done anyway, weak hosts should learn to man up and replace people at 7pm sharpish.
3. This is something we explicitly tell people to do, people just try to find new stuff and they *should* ask us if it'll actually work.
4. We try not to put 3 spastics (event wise), but sometimes they volunteer and it's let slip, sniff.
5. I've chucked this 5th point in here to see if any of you fucktards actually read, because clearly you didn't take note of my /essay.

Edit: In response to Irish - we do take into account people who run events when we do hours and assess their time committed to OB, we aren't complete idiots/twats. Otherwise I do agree with you that when issues happen in events it is heavily down to the problems in that event (likely the hosts) rather than our system.

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Just now, Oldmike said:

@UnSeen You liar, we only got 2/3 weeks preparation time :o (kriss did 80% but let's not talk about that)

Kriss asked me like nearly 2 months before your event, so he had tons of notice. It was then confirmed that he would do it with Hades and Strogglok just a month before your event and you got added to the group a little later on.

In a minute I'm going to punch a hole into my screen if your next reply gives me ebola and for every penny it'll cost me to replace the monitor will be an hour you will be banned from this community. See the previous gif for appropriate reaction.

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