Event Hosting Procedures

[Addah]

Some of these things are already done and I'm just suggesting a tweak to "how" it is done, but some are new.
Lockzilla asked me to come up with some suggestions so this is me following-up with my ideas.
The conversations in my last thread regarding events got sidetracked and nothing was resolved or improved as a result.
I hope this thread cuts through the noise and explains to you (the reader) why # 1-5 would benefit events overall, therefore the server, if they were implemented or updated.



1) Post locked registration threads longer before hosting
-- More Forum publicity for events/annihilus
-- Some people might not even see the thread, even if they don't participate, until after it's over

2) Advertise in-game for events longer before hosting them, perhaps during the peak time of the day before
-- Instead of announcing periodically 6 hours before it starts it would be more effective to make it 8 or 12
-- If you're worried about spam then reduce the frequency and increase the overall duration

3) Encourage players to "Register/Subscribe" to the event section and receive website notifications
-- It's the ultimate announcement, when a new event thread is posted players will receive a notification instantly
-- More likely to grow a dedicated group of players participating in events

4) Make a Poll about when players are most likely to participate in events
-- Find out when the community is most ready to participate in events, help decide on peak times
-- Advertise the Poll in-game and get newcomers to check out the Foru and the event process

5) Pay Event Hosters a flat rate of gold for doing their duty as a Team, instead of claiming players prizes
-- When the same people win every event it diminishes the will for new participants to try
-- When someone Hosts, that person would automatically have the best odds of winning it because it is planned in their favor
-- (currently) When events are hosted the GM/Hoster benefits from lack of participants
-- (currently) There is a potential conflict of interest when an event hoster has total control of event times, types, the registration times and the amount of prizes

[acyroma]

1/2) This will happen. We're looking to expand the events team to have more members so that we can create a schedule, rather than just when Lockzilla is able to volunteer his time. It's hard to find people who actually want to help, so this is taking time. We've been looking for a while.

3) Good idea, will look into this.

4) Also good idea, working on making something like this shortly.

5) First off i'd like to say that this might be a good way to go, but there's some points in this idea where you're just flat out wrong.

The same person winning an event over and over would probably be impossible to stop. For example, even if I completely removed lockzilla from staff he'd still win 95% of the events he participated in. We can't punish people for being good at the game. That is not happening.

Also, events are not planned in the favor of the person hosting it. They are planned to be fair for every participant. The rules are setup the way I want them to be. If the person hosting it isnt participating, the rules arent going to change at all. I don't know where you got the idea that the host decides the rules but that's just not the case.

Nobody benefits from less people participating. The more people participate the higher the gold prizes are, and the more of them there are. Therefore, if there's more people participating it's more likely the host would place high enough to win gold, and if they got first they'd win more gold than if there was less.

I do agree there's a potential for a conflict of interest and we're working on removing that potential by adding more staff to the team who will run the actual events, and Lockzilla will be working on the schedule and not running the events himself. This has been the plan for more than a month, but it takes time to implement these things. I have always handled the amount of the prizes as well, just so you know.

Thanks for the suggestion, there's lots of great ideas here.

[Addah]

First of all thank you for the reply, I'm glad to see it and that you agree with some of the things I said.

Unfortunately the more controvercial part is going to take more convincing before it's changed, so let me say now that I don't want you or the staff to be defensive regarding event host payment, instead I want you to keep an open mind about what system is better, the one you are using or the one I propose.

This is what I am arguing the solution is:

Pay event hosters (approx) 800 gold each event, (approx) 500 for assisting, instead of incentivizing staff to out-perform the players they are hosting for.

This change is not going to hurt event hosters, but it will help the community.

For many reasons I will now discuss, my system is simply a better alternative to yours because it removes

a potential for a conflict of interest

from the equation of event hosting.

The same person winning an event over and over would probably be impossible to stop. For example, even if I completely removed lockzilla from staff he'd still win 95% of the events he participated in. We can't punish people for being good at the game. That is not happening.

I think you elaborate too much on punishment, my idea is about prevention, which is simple enough by paying a rate of gold for the job of hosting an event and letting other players fight each other over the prizes.

With the current system, if I'm not mistaken, an event hoster only gets paid if they win the event.

I sense that it is better for the server that staff be paid a flat rate per event, even if they participate in the fighting, because it allows for regular players to have more odds of being rewarded, making it more appealing for new players to register. People won't be expecing power-house veterans like Lockzilla or DrLukifer to be claiming the majority of prizes.

It is inherently better for the server if players who might quit tomorrow are encouraged to stay by winning events and prizes. There is much more "community value" in regular players winning events as opposed to the server staff which serve them. Staff are far less likely to leave than your average player, therefore events can and should be more oriented towards attracting and keeping players.

Also, events are not planned in the favor of the person hosting it. They are planned to be fair for every participant. The rules are setup the way I want them to be. If the person hosting it isnt participating, the rules arent going to change at all. I don't know where you got the idea that the host decides the rules but that's just not the case.

Nobody benefits from less people participating.

You're mistaken because the events rules for players are not in question here, it's partly a problem of skill, but also the amount of participants.

This means when any staff hosts a free for all event late at night they will, by definition of lacking competition, have increased odds of winning.

If an event hoster has to decide between peak-time events and late night events they surely have the potential of a conflict when they realize the simple truth that they are more likely to win gold by having less participants, less potential for more skilled fighters.

I'm not saying any GM abuses this simple fact, but the potential will remain there for new staff to feel happy about events with less players until the method of payment is changed.

[acyroma]

The most skilled players will win, we can't prevent them from playing. No matter what we do about if the host gets money from hosting the event or not, the same people will end up winning the events time and time again. Also, if the host wins first place but doesn't get recognized for first place, it's not fair to them. The person who got 2nd will still feel like they lost, the host who could have won more gold gets less than they could have had they just participated and not hosted.

I think the idea is interesting, but in practice i do not think it will work unless the host cannot participate. The current system was changed very recently right before you started playing. It used to be that event managers would not participate in any events that they hosted at all. We're looking into changing it again but I don't think your idea is a good one to be honest and I'm almost certain we're not going to go that route. It's bad for the economy (we'd be giving out more gold every event because the host gets some), it creates ambiguity, and it doesn't solve the issue of the same people winning the events over and over in the slightest.

That being said, we might still use it, or something similar, but in my 8+ years of running diablo 2 servers, every time we've tried to implement a similar system to this (and trust me, I've tried) it's never helped.