[Illusion]

Halloween is over and I have my notes open and I'm ready to critique the event as a whole.
I'm braced for any potential love hate relationship so here we go.


1. The Event as a Whole:
Around 60 separate items included with the RIG, 6 games, and a fair amount of balance. My only complaint as a whole was that there was nothing really indicating it was Halloween. (if only it was possible to just make all the green background images orange colored.) Not a necessary change, but changing everything orange tends to send positive signals indicating it's event time and the site made a drastic change/something big happened. Or just a Halloween painted over the Trisphee logo and inserted to the site would had been a quick change. Maybe I should had suggested this? (Sorry it's now my fault for not suggesting this earlier, maybe for the next event?)
Quick 3 minute thing:


Personally I'm glad to be moving on from Nox, the Trisphee Holidays never really worked out well. They needed to be more closely related to our world's holidays than anything. The stories weren't something to care about, and overall I'm happy we're now moving towards traditionally celebrated holidays. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't mind some made up holiday events like Bacon Day or Dinglehopper day. ;D

2. Candy

The numbers we're off, Toho did remedied this by raising rates on Day of the Dead. I think you guys would benefit more by raising rates on certain days (Like Halloween, Day of the Dead, Weekend, ect.) and let people know that rates are up 2x and so on.
The candy never should had been 1 piece possibly per post. The rates should had been 1-3 candies for 90% of the posts, and 10% for a RIG.

3. The RIG

I still wish there was a few rare items from it with low roll chance of getting it (I feel like Blood Splatter somehow became one unintentionally because it was a highly sought out item in general that wasn't showing up much.)
Overall I hope every event has it's own RIG and some items might make a return in future RIG's.
Overall I love how it was implemented and it was by far the best event item giving mechanic we've had.
I'm very iffy on how I felt about the RIG game giving out a player's item of choice. It kind of ruined the chance of anyone trying to stay active during the Halloween event once they got that item from the RIG they wanted. Though the event set on the side did slightly remedied this.

4. Event Items

Overall you guys did a good job from keeping most of the event items becoming throw away items ( by that I mean little uses outside of the event items, really the only one I disliked we're pumpkin slippers and that's being very nitpicky at best.), and opening up the item exchange in time for the Halloween event worked out wonders for exchanging them and or donating them.
Past event items had more clothing sets, most of which we're either too decorated for that one character/item set alone. But at the end of the day did offer a ton of great items for uses outside of the event. So I'm glad we got the Day of the Dead outfits on the side to call back to this. It's a overall nice balance.

5. Event Games

I'm just going to focus on Murder at Scrimshaw Manor
Overall I love how Salone handled the game, the videos we're helpful, and even though he had power outage difficulties. I'm actually surprised that I solved the case it sort of felt very anti-climatic with my accusation. (I sort of feel like Salone rolled with it because the event was close to ending.)
My only gripe? It took 3 threads to make and the information was spread crossed them and that was a little annoying. I sort of wish next time you limit it to at least 2 threads.
The structure of the game was a little compromised because of the 3 threads. But allow me to make a bold statement and say: Salones way of handling story base games/events is how I want to see future events run. This is exactly what I've been talking about for years, we need events that it's story engages with the user through interactivity, Scrimshaw did just that. It had a slow start because a lot was going on with the event, but at the middle and end the game was a lot of fun.
ALSO! I always wanted an exclusive game item and the skeletons we're the perfect item to use. I heard from Salone other people think they should just give out the item for free. DON'T. Just bring the item back next year alongside another new item, then at the end of next years forum game give people the choice between the Skeleton or the new item. Or just make a new item for the game and the Skeleton be a rare reward for another game. Either way just make it a reoccurring rare item for user game participation. I want to see this done for almost every event.

6. The event was 2 spoopy make it less creppy next year. ;D /cornyjokes

I won't talk about the exchange as a whole as that should be done in it's discussion thread.


So everyone what's you're opinions on the event?
- Did you find it engaging?
- Did you like the rewards?
- Is that anything you agree or disagree about my statements/opinions?
- What would you like to see for the next event?
- Anything else you want to state?

[Lawtan]

1) The Event as a Whole - I like the idea of "Nox" - it is not that uncommon of a use for alternative Halloween in other worlds, but it is true that perhaps some image of Nox/Halloween could be on the front page. I think it is more that attempts to understand the Trisphee lore (70+ chapters) in other events that are difficult for newcomers. Also, just the large amount of lurking. That is a problem anytime there isn't an event.

2) Candy - I agree and commend the Item Exchange along with the effort to make the candy more available. :)

3) RIG - I don't want everyone to wear themselves out on items, but the variety and the contest associated with it was excellent. I think that the offers of choosing a specific rig for winning contests works well. If you aren't really that invested (are new or lack time) you may be annoyed and eventually just leave if you do everything you can late and randomness alone screws you.

5) Event Games - I agree. I think Salone pulled the event off marvelously. He made sure that the murderer wouldn't be guessed right away (but could be), provided good audio narration, among other things. I am with Illusion on a growing number of event participation items brought back at one time a year. (For comparison, this is sort of how Holiday Pets on other sites work - allowed to breed once a year.) I'll note that the Loot Search and the Avatar contests were popular.

I think I would like to see some things done in events used outside of them. I'll think on that bit.

[Salone]

I can actually confirm that there were two choices for murderer, which were selected by events in the first round. Once certain things happened, the murderer was locked in from Round 1 and it went from there. Surprisingly, Illusion was the first person to even guess Dervy, it just happened to come at the last possible chapter. You can ask Galla, I typed the entire summary at her. It was incredibly boring for her. I'm glad you guys enjoyed it. And I know it was a long read with a lot of doubling back. I'll probably tone it down a bit next time!

And yes, it's always the butler, but this time, the butler was the red herring! Or...was it Communism? I can never remember.

[Gallagher]

It's true, there were different possible endings planned, just in case someone happened to guess correctly based only on the clues at the start.

There's only one thing here I really want to comment on, and that's the RIG.

I will always, ALWAYS, be against having rare items in RIGs. It is not a mechanic that I find enjoyable when I play RIGs, and it is not something I will put together by my own hand, even if the entire rest of staff agrees to do it. I will never be the one to pick and item and go "that should be the rare one" because I like it better, or I think it has more worth, or whatever. Not when it comes to RIGs. Not when there's less than a month to try and get it. Not when you users have to spend aurum, or runes, or whatever other currency we have to get it.

I've explained this to you before, Illusion, but I'll say it again. I am 100% against inflating the worth of an item just because I happen to think the design is "better" or it'll find more use. Every time we release items, there are some that I personally think will be more popular, and a lot of times I'm wrong. And I firmly believe that if anyone on staff were to try and pick the "rare" item in a RIG, there would be a lot of times that they were wrong, too.

If a RIG that has different rarity of items in it is released (which it still very well may in the future, who really knows), I can assure you it was not something I agreed to.

So, aside from that rant, thank you both for the comments, and thanks to whoever posts after this post! I'm excited to see what we turn out for the next events, and hoping they turn out just as well as this one did!

[Illusion]

Originally Posted by Gallagher

It's true, there were different possible endings planned, just in case someone happened to guess correctly based only on the clues at the start.

There's only one thing here I really want to comment on, and that's the RIG.

I will always, ALWAYS, be against having rare items in RIGs. It is not a mechanic that I find enjoyable when I play RIGs, and it is not something I will put together by my own hand, even if the entire rest of staff agrees to do it. I will never be the one to pick and item and go "that should be the rare one" because I like it better, or I think it has more worth, or whatever. Not when it comes to RIGs. Not when there's less than a month to try and get it. Not when you users have to spend aurum, or runes, or whatever other currency we have to get it.

I've explained this to you before, Illusion, but I'll say it again. I am 100% against inflating the worth of an item just because I happen to think the design is "better" or it'll find more use. Every time we release items, there are some that I personally think will be more popular, and a lot of times I'm wrong. And I firmly believe that if anyone on staff were to try and pick the "rare" item in a RIG, there would be a lot of times that they were wrong, too.

If a RIG that has different rarity of items in it is released (which it still very well may in the future, who really knows), I can assure you it was not something I agreed to.

So, aside from that rant, thank you both for the comments, and thanks to whoever posts after this post! I'm excited to see what we turn out for the next events, and hoping they turn out just as well as this one did!

Rare items doesn't have to be quality/better design, it can also just be the number of poses.

For example the rare item could had just been the Day of the Dead items all combined into one DI-like item. (But I still liked having a item set on the side of the RIG for currency balance.) Think Aurum DI's. That's more what I mean now as what I'd want as a rare item.

I agree that it's hard to guess what is the better design that people would want and so on, and I also understand your point of holding back on quality. I completely changed my view on that matter. I agree with you on why that would be a bad decision/idealism.

What I want from event RIGS is the possibility that some of the items can be re-used again because their weren't many of them in the system. So on the off chance that next year you can't pump out a bunch of stuff like you did with this event, you have a backup of items that can be reused (recolors, or scarcity of the item in the system), and some rares in it that people didn't get last event can at least try and aim after getting again even though there wasn't much added.
This is why I brought up a orange recolor of of or two of the poses from the first yearly items (I know you don't have the files, just hypothetically speaking.)

But to counteract your point, not being able to get a item within the month of the event, but still knowing you have a chance to get it next year. Or you can just buy the item because you really wanted it as a easy way out. That's still equal chance, and it also prevents event items from becoming too limited in number as well. (There are plenty of event items from the past that have been low because of low participation, high cost of the items, or simply low activity at the time. That's just sort of a waste in my opinion.)

That's why I like event RIGS in general, you have the choice to bring them back in some way or not next event. And you off balance this by having items sold in the shops on the side for being exclusive to that event.
I just think having a rare item just helps drive activity because you have a long term goal/something to aim for each event. That's what I really want. Because as I said before, the problem with events with items in the past once you got whatever items you wanted you we're pretty much done. You just need ways to extend that from Point A to Point B while being fair and reasonable.