Something Wicked, Part 8

Category Quests, Sagas, and Events (6)
Topic Something Wicked ... (19)
By GS3-BRADACH from PLAY.NET (Djinn)
On Dec 3, 2000 at 12:59
Subject Bradach Falls on His Sword (2431)

I have read the complaints and criticisms posted here. Many of them, I'm sorry to say, are valid. Several things went wrong last night; some of them were preventable, some were not.

One was a very slight failure of our quality control. There was a staggering number of rooms, scripts and items in each of the four towns involved in GS Prime as well as in Platinum, each of which had to be examined and tested and sometimes re-tested. Among the many thousands of things that had to be checked was one line of code that handled falling into an abyss. It was an early piece of coding, written at the time there was only a single set of tunnel rooms...those for Solhaven. A player who fell into the abyss was moved to a room in the bottom of the abyss (and badly injured, of course). When the tunnel rooms for the other towns were built and all the traps and puzzles and scripts were reproduced, that single line of code was overlooked. Actually, that's not quite fair...the code worked perfectly. The only problem was that when a player in any set of tunnels fell they were moved to the room in the bottom of the Solhaven abyss. Our failure to change three digits in one line of one obscure piece of coding...coding that worked exactly as designed...caused a minor catastrophe.

Another failure was a translation failure. The feithidmor was designed to be unbeatable on the surface. In its lair it was susceptible to certain combined attacks, so that it would require a combination of magic-users and arms-users to kill it; but on the surface the sound it emitted was intended to be almost instantly lethal. The entire idea, after all, was to include the possibility of catastrophic failure. All too often we have given players quests in which the possibility of failure was nonexistent or remote. Those involved were universally heroes. I wanted to include the chance for those most directly involved to fail utterly, to have their failure cost their friends dearly...to have nearly the entire population of the town die and decay. This was a radical move for GS and required special approval. And to the credit of SIMU, they agreed (with the proviso that those players who did NOT want to take that risk would have a way to opt out of the dangerous part of the quest; hence Icemules special status).

In testing in DEV the feithidmor was all it was intended to be. Difficult to kill in its lair, entirely lethal on the surface. GMs who faced the creature on the surface in DEV dropped like overly ripe fruit. Just to be in the room with the feithidmor meant death. We even had GMs, who can heal and resurrect themselves, decay. It was devastating to behold. But for some reason I do not yet understand, when the creature was brought from DEV to the Live game its surface-lethality did not translate. Not only was the feithidmor NOT lethal on the surface, it turned out to be easily killed by an older player (another argument, in my opinion, for a floating level cap).

The responsibility for these failures is ultimately mine. And I apologize. Many of you are bitterly disappointed that an event you had enjoyed for a nearly a month unraveled in the final two hours. I assure you, I share that disappointment. In fact, I suspect your disappointment pales in comparison to mine. I spent a year and a half on the project and devoted the last month almost exclusively to it. I carefully designed the timing of the event so the suspense and interest would grow gradually, so that tension would accrete like coral on a reef...only to watch in helpless horror as it collapsed in two hours.

But we have learned a lot in this. Our intent was to provide a worldwide, free event in which anybody could participate and in which many relatively unknown players would have the opportunity for starring roles. For the most part I believe we were successful. If we do another large event again, we will try to improve.

Bradach

Category Quests, Sagas, and Events (6)
Topic Something Wicked ... (19)
By GS3-BRADACH from PLAY.NET (Djinn)
On Dec 3, 2000 at 13:24
Subject My most sincere thanks (2437)

I would like to extend my personal thanks to those involved in this agonizingly long and complex project. It began at the instigation of GMs Kennesaw and Gromial. Design an event, they said, that would involve the entire Lands, that would involve players of all levels. Dont worry about scope or size or time or any of the normal constraints on GMs; try anything. It was a bold and expansive offer...and they backed it up. I submitted two or three proposals and we decided on this one.

GM Carraig was given the thankless task of managing the creation of the event. He took the idea, broke it down into its component parts, picked the appropriate people to create the individual components, and then oversaw the construction (taking on many of the more onerous tasks himself...those chanting children and old folks were his handiwork as was the player possession). Overseeing GMs is as easy as herding cats, but Carraig managed it all with grace and infinite patience.

GM Von made the linden trees, which we like so much we intend to leave them in the game permanently. GM Mikos undertook the massive and incredibly difficult job of building the ritual and all the components for it...the blades, the cauldrons, the cutting of the branches, and all the possible variations of mixing the ingredients. I am not a natural programer; to see the coding for the ritual...including the creation of the baton and the breaching of the tunnels...taught me that coding can be graceful and elegant.

One of the things that makes an event like this rich is the atmosphere. GM Jessine oversaw the many wonderful GameHosts who played mourning townsfolk. They added an entirely new depth to the event. GHs in the game usually add atmosphere by playing cheerful parts, by sparking roleplaying through teasing and flirting and spreading good cheer or joyful mayhem. It is much, much more difficult and much less rewarding to portray sad and despairing characters, yet they filled the roles with memorable characters who were quite touching. Additional thanks to all the Sages who helped test some aspects of the event. They worked very hard at breaking things...fun for them and helpful to us.

GM Brauden was incredibly helpful. Not only did he organize the Mentor society, he also handled a number of vitally important last minute tasks (the volunteer list, by the way, was his design). Most importantly, though, the similarity in our names also made it possible for me to pass off blame for things that went wrong (No, no, no, it wasnt me...it was Brauden who screwed that up!). The Mentor players who helped the visiting lorekeepers were marvelous. They acted as guards, interpreters, assistants and all-around handlers. Their participation was invaluable.

The GMs who played the visiting Lorekeepers...Kristing, Talairi, Claw, Uliq, and Isten...were universally wonderful. They put in huge amounts of time and effort. Without them and the skill they demonstrated, the event could not have happened. Not only were they willing to put in the extra time (beyond and above their regular duties) they often re-arranged their schedules to be involved. The biggest problem with the visiting Lorekeepers was keeping GM Claw restrained; I never witnessed such unalloyed pleasure in slaughtering players before. We actually considered getting him rabies shots.

A special debt of gratitude goes to GM Aelsidhe. Not part of the original team, Aelsidhe was approached with the idea of perhaps closing one or two of the shops in the Landing. She responded with such enthusiasm that virtually no shops in town remained open. She quickly became essential in providing some of the atmosphere of the event, including the most horrifying messages (high-pitched screams of children in the distance...that sort of thing). We wont go into detail about the glee with which she dropped banaltra in the dying caverns.

I also need to thank Gromial a second time (and probably a third, fourth and fifth times). He was tireless in fixing and correcting and adding and tweaking and making everything work well. He also built the banaltra in all their many wicked forms.

Id also like to thank Suz for not balking at the idea of including the chance for catastrophic failure, knowing there would be many complaints from players about losing experience. Id like to thank GM Lyredaen for letting me avoid my other duties for the last six weeks or so. I'd like to thank Tracy Butler for the wonderful artwork. And Id like to especially thank GM Llearyn for her constant encouragement and support.

The people who deserve the greatest thanks, however, are you...the players. In all my days in GS, both as a player and as a GM, I have never witnessed so many people working together in relative harmony. I never anticipated such an enthusiastic response. Every day I saw players doing the most extraordinary things. I saw players infamous for their behavior actually begin to roleplay. I witnessed unheralded acts of generosity (players donating armor, deed gems, imbedded items to those entering the tunnels) and courage (one afternoon around the well in the Landing I watched as a level 7 or 8 bard defend three or four sleeping characters against a banaltra that slowly nicked her to death; she could have run away and abandoned them...but she didnt). Although there were, as always, a few tuna-heads and malcontents for the most part the players were amazing.

Thank you all for an extraordinary experience.