Talk:Event E2/Proposal Tamsin

It's far too quiet here! (Edit: Not anymore, eh?)

2/22 - I took the liberty of adding in the contents to make navigation easier. I moved new/unanswered stuff to the bottom.

Early questions and answers!

• The one thing that I really don't like about this event is that it seems to necessitate an alt crew. Requiring those is just so messy/inconvenient for folks, I think it discourages participation. I really hate to do it - especially since I'd like to see high participation. More ships = more crazy = more fun! I saw in one of the other talk pages, someone cleverly suggested using an 'alt officer' who can crew-hop and read boards. Any thoughts on whether that might work well for this too? It will require me to do several /vwhos to make sure folks are still at their fixed numbers, would that be sufficient? It also might change the PVP things a bit - since it would be harder to tell who's in the event, I couldn't really ask for a broadcast not to PVP the 'xyz crew'. So I might have to add a point value for PVP other racers vs. PVP outsiders... Overall, it seems like it might open up more possibilities for sketchiness/cheating - but it might up participation. What do ya'll think? (For LordKalvan specifically, I'm wondering what participation was like for the hickory daiquiri dock.)

We didn't have much of a turnout fer Hickory Daiquiri Dock, but that could have been the Euro-friendly time slot. The following month's "Out fer Blood" was on a US time zone weekday evening, and we had something like 14 sloops participating.--Tcarr 19:23, 15 February 2006 (PST)

I'm not a mentor, but I have a comment regarding your alt crew question. This same issue came up in the recent Sloop Blackjack event. I suggested the alt officer idea, but PTG correctly pointed out that it would only work if the participant is in an autocratic crew. Other crew politics would require a crew vote to promote your alt to officer, which is too unwieldly. One thought that comes to mind is this: are you only interested in seeing the ship logs? If so, perhaps OM assistance would allow you to do so without being an officer. I'm not quite sure what's possible here. A very simple, but crude solution would be for an OM to board each ship, copy the ship logs, and e-mail or PM them to you for verification. -- Bootlicker 12:48, 15 February 2006 (PST)

Ah. Clever PTG. Forget the alt-officer then. I'm most interested in the ship logs, but I really hate to ask an OM to do that...it seems like it could be potentially time-consuming for everyone too. The other thing that having the alt crew buys me is being able to see any posted jobbing notices, and being able to discourage the outsiders from PVP. It also makes it easier for the event participants to spot one another for PVP. --Tamsin 19:19, 15 February 2006 (PST)

One minor question regarding the Lo-cal option. Teams get 4 extra points for completing extra laps. How are you keeping track of the extra laps? The Hitting the Finish Line rule says that, once they transfer over a CB at point B, they're done and can't go back out. So you must have a different method for tracking the number of laps a team makes. -- Bootlicker 13:04, 15 February 2006 (PST)

Oops. I knew I was missing something when I posted the original idea. Yes - the idea was to have them use stone or some other cheap basic commodity to mark the spots...I'll fix that, Thanks. --Tamsin 19:19, 15 February 2006 (PST)

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From the desk of...

First, just some general thoughts and ideas as I read over your event:

• Are you going to be checking all of the ships beforehand to make sure they have no extra commodities or just going by the logs and adding up the winners afterwards? The latter is probably easier, depending on how long this runs, though, there could be some confusing addition.

Definitely the latter. If I'm able to check beforehand too, that'd be great - but even if I did, I think I'd still want to confirm it at the end, just in case someone tries to sneak in a transfer right before the starting flag drops.

I'd just skip checking at the beginning, takes so much time and you only really need to check the few people who win.

• What if contestants have no cannonballs by the end of the race? Or will you ahve cannonballs for sale there so they can buy one and then transfer it? Or will you have a shoppe they can transfer it to? Teams get points for hitting the finish line, why not just have it +3 if you hit it, 0 if you don't, it's the same amount of points but less adding and subtracting!

Good catch! I think we can have cannonballs for sale somewhere, yes. I still want to go through, strategize and check my point values to make sure that the numbers are all logical. My initial thought when creating the negative is that I wanted to provide some deterrent to folks who don't really have time to grab a high-point bonus, but think they do and go for it anyway. I wonder if something like you're suggesting would work (3, 0) with increasing point values subtracted the later folks are out? In other words, if someone comes in 5 minutes later, they might get -1...10 might get -2...etc.

• PVP is one concern I have, if you have two ships entering who are working together, they can continue to attack each other to rack up the points (and transfer limes.) You might want to consider a limit, so they can only attack any given ship once? I do like that teams can work together to rack up points with the pvp, although again you'll want to make sure there are some sensible limits.

thoughts on this? it's probably one of my bigger concerns!

• Diamonds are pretty easy to magick up for sale, preferably in a market. I would almost prefer that you keep them stored on a ship to be transferred over when a crew gets there so we don't have people not involved in the race buying up diamonds without knowing what they are and petitioning the poor OM's onduty! (Learned that the hard way, last time...)

I have no desire to incur the wrath of the OMs. Transferring 'em from a ship is fine. Does the 'someone must be on board or gems get stolen!' rule apply for the magical gems as well? I assume you want me to collect them all at the end too, so they don't get sold as souvenirs later.

Yes, magickal gems disappear after 30 minutes. Or maybe that's all just part of the game? Make sure it's at least 30 minutes away and it'd be itneresting to see how long they last.

• Can two teams work together, picking up ice for each other and then doing a pvp to shake it up a bit?

I don't see why not. I wanted to draw a clear line between the steal and the blend bonus - in other words, to get both, you'd need to come back with 2 diamonds. 1 which you procured, and 1 which you stole from a ship (unknowingly) while you attempted to blend the first. If each ship can only pick up 1 diamond, the ship losing the diamond would be out of luck for both bonuses. So if they wanted to work together, one would pretty much have to sacrifice themself for the other to get the bonus. I think.  :) I'll double check, and reprocess.

• Shirly Temple - do you mean have none left by the time they hit port or never have any for the whole race? You'll need to check beforehand if you mean the latter, but the former sounds like an interesting challenge :)

Ooh. They both sound good...Shirley Temple was meant to mean teetotaller, or 'drink no alcochol', so never have any. But another for the 'drink all your alcohol' might be fun! I can still add more bonuses to the list, right?  :)

Well, the issue is that there's no way to confirm that someone has no rum at the beginning unless ye check. And again, you're going to spend a lot of time checking that for relatively little gain. I'd just cut that out and do the other.

• Laps - you also say that once a team hits the finish line they're done, may want to clear up how they're to do laps, then!

Bootlicker caught this too - yes, I meant to say that they'd be using stone or some other cheap commodity and selling it at both ends to mark their path.

• I'd make the point differences between the number of sailors a bit larger, only losing one point per extra player isn't all that much, depending on your strategy. How will you be checking this? (booty divvy would work, actually, it should show all pirates on board if they don't divvy during the race. )

I still have some number crunching to do before finalizing point values...I'll definitely take that into consideration, since the numbers could really affect who your PVP competition might be. Booty divvy is a great idea. If it's an alt crew for the event, I'll see jobbing notices - so there shouldn't be a danger of that, but otherwise had intended to do a /vwho. Booty divvy makes much more sense...I would need to be on board when they divvy then, right?

Yes, as long as you're onboard at the end and as long as they did not divvy during the race you should be fine. I tested this out once upon a time for a race event, I believe you also need them to place poe into the booty (not the hold) so as to be sure they didn't just split partway through and change people at that point. Then again, it's going to be your decision if you think this sort of thing will be likely, if ther'es not a huge prize people are far less likely to try bending the rules.

• Prizes: what do you expect to do about teams with multiple people, have them share the prizes? Is there an ideal number you're aiming for here?

That was the thought, yes. I really wanted to name a prize ship the Cuervo Goldfish for all those margaritas, but it may not be practical to split it amongst 5 folks. I'm thinking some sort of list of prizes to choose from might be best - so if a solo player wins, they could nab a ship...but a team of 3 might opt for a pack of furni they'd split up or something. I'll go price some things out and revisit the prize ideas...

Excellent ideas

• You need trinkets for prizes. I lubs trinkets.

Well, if you insist...  :) As per above, I'm going to rethink prizes...

Trinkets, clothing, swords and mugs are the easiest things for me to get to you (this goes for all events, really) and eventually we're going to be moving to only offering those things as prizes if you're requesting it of us. The reason is that we can plunk them down in one of your houses somewhere for you to retrieve whenever you want.

• Your side event #1 sounds like fun! you could probably even work that into the race somehow...

Aye! I was thinking of a 'Lucky 7's' bonus, so that if you had 7 of anything, or 7 in any digit of the PoE in the hold or such, you'd get some bonus. I was also thinking that it might be fun to have some 'unannounced bonuses' - e.g. throw out a trivia question or something while they're racing for a point, etc. If I am allowed to do something like this, I'd rather not post it here...there's one of 'em specifically that I'm thinking about. Should I send a PM to one of the mentors about it?

I don't see a need to know the specifics, just as long as it doesn't include me as a target ;)

--Artemis 13:08, 15 February 2006 (PST)

The indents are mine! --Tamsin 19:19, 15 February 2006 (PST)

The ident ideents are mine!! --Artemis 13:06, 21 February 2006 (PST)

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From the beer-soaked table of...

• Hello Tamsin. :)

Ahoy!

• Um.

Yeah.

• I think having the side events and FUNdraising things are nice, and I'd be happy to consider them as part of the main event as far as judging is concerned. Having events to raise the money, rather than relying on OM assistance, is always good. I think on the whole people are getting above-average support for the E2 events, and it's nice to see someone with some proposals of how to raise their own money!

/em nods. I've got some math to do, with the points and with the slot machine and drinking odds...then I should be able to determine whether or not the one-armed bandit actually has a chance at making money!

• Aht alt-crew / officer thing is a good point. I'd managed to forget that when making a comment on another event! For one event, an OM could jump ship to ship, but I don't think that it's likely to be a role they're going to want to take in many events, so perhaps it's a poor precedent. Having a long enough registration period to get a large number of alts into various crews also isn't going to be feasible.

Yeah. I'm thinking it's going to have to be alt crew. I'm going to cross my fingers and toes that it doesn't prevent anyone from entering, and maybe even ask the mentors/OMs if there's a possiblity to have a few exceptions - just in case we get any monarchs that want to play.  :)

• You said "I have yet to see a collective of Elvis impersonators on any ocean." I think we can only breathe a sigh of relief and thank Poseidon for that.

There's a small part of me that thinks this, and sacrifices bananas to Poseidon as thanks. There's also a part of me that can't stop giggling at the thought of an inn full of Elvi. Elvii? Elvises? Hrm.

• If contestants are all in your crew, then they can transfer to ship name, but otherwise (and in general) it's probably easier to give them a pirate name instead to transfer to.

Yes. Was there a specific transfer/sell point you were referencing, or is this more of a general statement?

I was referring to the bit where you talk about reaching Point B and transferring a cannonball to ship <shipname> as an indication that they're finished.

• I find the list of options terribly confusing. It's due to my tiny brain, I expect. Are you wanting people to declare the bonuses they are claiming? Or will you be examining their records and working it out for yourself?

Hey - if your brain finds 'em confusing, I know there are at least 8 other pirates out there that are equally if not more confused. Even as I was writing 'em, I thought..."My, what a lot of information!" I'm toying with better ways of organizing them (e.g. by point value, basic vs. fancy, etc.). I'll be sure to test the format out on you.  :) Regarding bonuses and their declarations, I think I'm going to need for people to tell me what they think they're going for, and I'll verify. It seems somewhat smarter than spending time going through the logs and searching for anywhere they might have picked up a point or too. Still - It seems that many of the bonuses will involve items that stand out (e.g. Diamonds) in the logs, so if someone unknowingly picks up a diamond somewhere, and doesn't declare it - I'd have a hard time finding a reason why it wouldn't be counted in their favor. The whole 'figure out a way to efficiently and correctly score folks' is on my list of things to do too...right behind the math and information organization!

Aye, I imagine it's feasible to retain your nice text, but also have the basic information in a table or something. I could probably manage that. ;)

--Crystal 03:26, 16 February 2006 (PST)

Lovin' the indents, --Tamsin 22:52, 16 February 2006 (PST)

Ok, so for prizes for you I need to know:

• What Prizes/trinkets you're requesting
• Where I should put the prizes (ocean/island/house name)
• For any renames, what the original and renames of the ships should be as well as the crew and island where they can be found

I'll start distributing prizes after I return from Blackpool in March and will discuss any problems with prizes that I have. --Artemis 13:16, 21 February 2006 (PST)

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Update!

Okay! I think I've done my math, and hopefully answered all the questions asked thus far. I'm specifically interested in whether or not this is any clearer (what with all the points!) and if it seems better balanced given new point values and rules on PVP. Changes/things of note:

• • I'm using pineapples instead of limes. They're much cheaper and plentiful up in Jade, and it led to some fun stacking bonuses.
  • New categorization of bonuses! Table up front, details later!
  • Switched from 1.5 hours to 1.25 hours...It seemed better for some reason? Happy to switch back!
  • Some of the numbers for the bonuses have been changed...crew bonuses have likely changed the most drastically.
  • Rules regarding number of PVP battles added
  • Rules about divvy added
  • Markers for the Lo-Cal option added
  • I swapped out one of the bonuses (the beat a designated ship for sugarcane), and added a stackable cargo bonus and the lucky 7s (to keep the randomness) instead. I figured that this would encourage more PVP amongst the contestants (good) and reduce potential tarting over the sugar ship crew changing their fighting strategy to favor certain contestants (hopefully good)
  • Shirley Temple swapped out for 'Good to the Last Drop." Same theme, different idea.
  • I really like that the ice melts. Thank you Artemis.  :)
  • Prizes added!

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Tentative forum post

(formatting will adapt to be better suited to forums)

Floating Bartender Championships - a cocktail-mixing melee with a twist...and a tiny paper umbrella!

Goal: Get your sloop from Kirin to Lonelywood Lagoon. Mix drinks along the way. Score points based on your cargo, speed, and everything in between!

Registration & Nit-picky details:

-Registration for the event will be opened an hour before the event. (2PM PST)

-Each sloop entered in the event can have 1-4 pirates on board. You are more than welcome to hire swabbies. Using green alts to get extra swabbies is a no-no.

-The deed to the sloop must be held by one of the pirates aboard the ship, and the deedholder will need to join an alt crew for the duration of the event, for purposes of record checking. The deedholder does not need to be your main pirate.

-The deedholder should be the person to register - by sending Tamsin a /tell with their sloop name. They will then be jobbed into the event crew, and promoted to officer.

-Other pirates on board the ship should also be jobbed into the event crew in order to hear the event crew chat.

-Your sloop must be in port at Kirin at the start of the event. No ship whisking will be provided.

-Your initial cargo should consist solely of cannonballs, fine rum (optional), and sugar cane (optional). No other grades of alcohol (grog, swill) are permitted on board - we want top-shelf cocktails!

-Upon your registration, your ship will be provided with 20 delicious pineapples.

The basics:

-The event will start at 3 PM PST.

-You have one hour and fifteen minutes (until 4:15) to get your ship from Kirin to Lonelywood Lagoon.

-You may retire from the event at any point.

-Time will be announced over crew chat at 45 minutes (halfway point!), 1 hour, 1 hour 5 minutes, and 1 hour 10 minutes.

(3:45, 4:00, 4:05, 4:10)

-At the end of the race, time will be called, and judges will come around to check vessel records and tally up points! Please be prepared to let the judges know what bonuses you were playing for!

The Twist:

It's not about who gets there fastest - it's all about the points! There are many ways to rack up the points, but do note that some are mutually exclusive...so pick carefully! A brief overview of the point distributions and the categories they fall into follows, details of all the bonuses are at the bottom of the post.  :)

1 point bonuses:

Pineapple Daiquiris (Mostly Cargo, per pineapple)

Three's Company (Crew)

Paper Umbrella (Flare, runner-up)

Glassware (Flare, runner-up)

Lucky 7s (Other, per 7)

2 point bonuses:

Finishing (Speed/Time)

First to finish (Speed/Time)

Blending (PVP, lose battle)

Frozen Daiquiri (Mostly Cargo)

Borrowing Ice (Mostly Cargo)

Paper Umbrella (Flare)

Glassware (Flare)

3 point bonuses:

On The Rocks (Mostly Cargo)

Good To the Last Drop (Mostly Cargo)

Escape (Mostly Cargo)

Pina Colada (Mostly Cargo)

Mixed Doubles (Crew)

4 point bonuses:

Blending (PVP, win battle)

Lo-Cal option (Other)

5 point bonuses:

Old salted rim (Crew)

Penalties:

Not in port when time is called (-1 for every 2 minutes late)

Unblended cocktails (-4, no PVP throughout entire event)

The handsome rewards:

The winner(s) of the melee will be determined based upon which ship has scored the most points.

Grand prize (most points): Bragging rights, and the Floating Bartender trophy trinket- a piece of golden 'spiked' coral for each team member.

2nd-6th prizes: (2nd will choose from the list below, 3rd picks next, etc...)

-a charming little party sloop, the Drunk Rumm...complete with drinking table on board, and a bit o' rum in the hold.

(note: this is a single sloop. You will need to figure out how to share this amongst your team.)

-a drinking table for each member of your team

-a stein for each member of your team

-a tap for each member of your team

-a rum barrel for each member of your team

Bonuses - detailed explanation

Speed/Time based bonuses:

• Finishing ( + 2 points, possible penalties! ): When you reach Lonelywood Lagoon, and are ready to put into port, transfer 1 cannonball to the Sick Alewife, and toss 1 PoE in your booty chest. Do not divide the booty. Transferring the cannonball signifies that you are done, and you may not go back out and try to earn any more points post-transfer. If you're all out of cannonballs, let Tamsin know. Finishing any time within the hour and fifteen minutes will earn you 2 points. Ships that are still at sea when time is called will lose 1 point (-1) for every two minutes they are late.

• First to finish ( + 2 points): Fairly straightforward! Being the first to reach the finish line will earn you 2 points. We'll tell you when someone gets this bonus...but not until the end of the race!

PVP based bonuses:

• For the purposes of the melee, blending is defined as a PVP battle between you and any of the other ships in the event. Please be aware of the might rings, and know that the black ship will come and get you. You may only blend a maximum of 2 times (each side engaging once) with any of the other ships in the race. In other words - you can only engage a ship exactly once!

• There is no reason to PVP ships outside of the event crew. It will do you no good, and might do you some bad. A broadcast will be sent to the ocean to remind those not competing that PVPing any of the ships in the event is a Very Bad Idea (tm). In the event that an outside crew engages you in a PVP battle, let Tamsin know ASAP!

• Blending your drinks will net you 2 points for every battle you're in, plus an additional 2 points (+4 total) if you win!
• Ending up at the finish line without blending any of your drinks (blech!) will lower your point total by 4. (-4)

Mostly Cargo based bonuses:

• Pineapple Daiquiris ( +1 per pineapple): You get 1 point for every pineapple you have on board (hold and/or booty) at the finish line.

• On the rocks (+3): Swing by Harmattan to pick up a cube of ice (A diamond), and bring it back (on time) to the finish line for 3 points! The diamonds will be waiting for you on a crew ship. Be warned - ice melts if left unattended! Someone will be on board guarding the ice right up until the melee begins. You'll have about 30 minutes to get to Harmattan to pick up your ice cube up before it melts from neglect! You may take one, and only one ice cube. If anyone attempts to take more than one, they will be punished. If there is no ice left when you get to Harmattan, talk to Tamsin.

• Frozen Daiquiri (+2): After you've picked up your ice, blend (PVP), and win the battle for this bonus!

• Borrowing ice from a neighbor (+2): Nab someone's ice while blending and get it to the finish line for this 2-point bonus. (Note: Borrowed ice will not get you the 'On the Rocks' or 'Frozen Daiquiri' bonuses. However, you can try for both. Pick up your own ice, and borrow some more...savvy?) Yes, you can borrow ice from multiple neighbors.

• Good to the last drop (+3): Plan your trip and bring just enough rum so that when you decide to finally put into port at

Lonelywood Lagoon, you have none left anywhere on your ship - either in the hold or the booty. Drink every bit! No throwing it overboard, either!

• Escape! (+3): Do you like pina coladas? Getting caught in the rain? Not much in to yoga? Escape to Corona Reef, grab a coconut (just one, or else!) and bring it to the finish line (on time, of course!) for 3 points.

• Pina Colada (+3): Have all of the ingredients (ice, pineapple, coconut, and rum) for a pina colada on hand at the finish line!

Flare bonuses:

• Paper umbrella bonus (+2): Give us your best impression of those colorful little paper umbrellas and garnishes you find in your drinks by dressing up to win this bonus! 2 points for being the top team/individual, 1 point may be awarded to other deserving teams!

• Glassware bonus (+2): Serve your drinks up in style. If your ship's color scheme/furni feng shui catches the judge's eye, this bonus is yours. 2 points for being the top team/individual, 1 point may be awarded to other deserving teams!

Crew member bonuses:

• Old Salted Rim (+5): Ah, the fresh sea air! Looks like it's just you and the swabbies for this race. This bonus is given to those

making the trek solo.

• Mixed Doubles (+3): Just two of you racing? This bonus is yours.

• Three's Company (+1): If you're racing in a group of three, come and knock on our door for this bonus!

Other bonuses:

• Lo-cal option (+4 per lap): Work off your Cocktails! We'll give you this bonus for completing extra laps (once you hit the finish

line, run back to Kirin and back to Lonelywood Lagoon for one lap. If you choose to pursue this bonus, you'll be responsible for stocking your ship with however many pieces of sugarcane you think you need. Mark your progress by transferring one sugar cane at each end. In other words, when you get to Lonelywood, port and transfer the sugarcane; head back to Kirin, Port and transfer the sugarcane; Head back to Lonelywood, port and transfer the sugarcane: One lap completed!

• Lucky 7s (+1 per 7): If the number 7 appears anywhere in the hold or booty (e.g. 7 of an item, 1,470 PoE in the booty, etc.) - you'll get 1 point for each 7 spotted. These must be naturally occurring 7s! No throwing things in/out.

• ???? (+?) : It never hurts to be prepared - watch for opportunities to nab an unlisted bonus!

Unanswered questions and potential problems

• Do the prizes need upgrading? downgrading? Are there enough places? Would it be better to only have the grand prize + 2 or 3 runner-ups (vs. 5 as listed now) in order to make them snazzier? How about ribbons? I was thinking that aprons might be fun too in one of the slots...or aprons + a furni item. I could swing four sloops (assuming a max team size is 4 people) and not furnish/stock them, but maybe give them nice names if that seems like a better option....  :)

Overall, the prizes do look nice as they are. The coral is good'n'unusual but can't be inscribed. For the first prize a set of renamed sloops would be pretty nice (and based on the other events, standard renames should be fine if you're providing the sloops). Ribbons and flowers can be inscribed which makes a nice memento. Hmm. Partly, I suppose, it depends how many people you have entering. Ok. Why not have the top three prizes being a set of renamed sloops (one per person, and they do only get one per person!), a set of corals, a set of ribbons. Then have three further prizes which are drinking tables, steins, taps. --Crystal 07:58, 22 February 2006 (PST)

Good idea on the ribbons...I'll plan on four sloops, and the two tiers of prizes. I'll leave the 3rd place in the top tier as a 'tbd' until I get confirmation from Artemis.

• I'm still not sure if you want/expect me to run the side events as well? Will side events and any fundraising/FUNdraising be judged? This'll impact prizes...

From my side, they sound fun, and if you run them, I'll include them in the judging of your event. If you decide not to include them, I'd suggest that you won't be penalised for it in the judging of your main event! --Crystal 07:58, 22 February 2006 (PST)

Looking at my budget, I'm honestly not sure if I'll be able to have enough cash to a)provide decent enough payouts for the bandit to make it worthwhile/tempting for people to participate or b)accept bets beyond the low hundreds, at risk of running out of bandit funds after the first two larger bets, thus preventing more people from playing. I think that I might have enough to sqeak out the Elvis event, but I'm not sure it's legit at this point, since the workshopping phase has been focused on the bartending aspect. I also wouldn't be able to post the Elvis details today, since I'd want to talk prizes and logistics first. I think I'm going to post just the floating bartending today (it'll have to be evening, my time), finish the rest of my prize shopping, and see what I've got left over to work with!  :)

• Since this is an event planning event, do you want us to post things like our 'To Do lists' and such to the wiki so you can see more of the process work? Or is that overkill?

Probably no need to do that unless it's useful for you to do so. --Crystal 07:58, 22 February 2006 (PST)

• I picked a route that would be accessible to people. The problem here is if there are blockades set to go at any of the ports involved, it'll be very problematic indeed. In the offchance that this happens and the event time doesn't change (I'd like to be able to slide it if some sort of big ruckus is set to happen at that time), there are other routes (that are still easily chartable) that are possiblities.

• Fruit takes up way more room than I remembered. The contestants should be fine on their sloop, but I'm going to need something bigger in port at Kirin to transfer the starting fruit...unfortunately, I don't have anything bigger than a sloop on Cobalt. I'd also like a bigger ship to be in port at Lonelywood Lagoon just in case the number of entrants makes for many goods transferred...I don't want to risk running out of room. Any chance I can borrow two largish merchant-class ships?  :) It'd be great if they had drunken names too, so they're easy to spot...

• If there's a tie...Well, I'm really hoping there won't be. I suppose we could try and decide it via an OCL style drinking game, no mugs.

Alternate drinking and swordfighting games one-on-one. No team member can play twice until everyone has played. Winner is the first team to get 2 games ahead in total (so could be after the very first pair of challenges).

Or find out whether they would actually go for the same prize. If they wouldn't, declare it a tie, and let them choose their own! --Crystal 07:58, 22 February 2006 (PST)

• smacks self* Of course! That (wanting different things) would make it easier, yes.  :) The one-on-one is an interesting idea too, but personally, I like 2 vs. 2 a bit more. The other thing that's making me lean toward drinking is if we play 'no mugs' it's a decent equalizer, whereas someone who had to participate as an alt b/c leaving their crew would be a hassle due to rank/royalty/etc. might not have their weapon of choice.

Divine assistance required

• 2 Larger class loaner ships (See above!) for the course endpoints
• Some prizes ('spiked' coral is approved, looking for feedback on other proposed prizes before going shopping and making official list as per latest instructions!)
• Magicked ice to be put on one of the detour ships
• Ocean-wide broadcast that folks should not be PVPing the event crew, or else.

• The event post looks great. Still slightly intimidating in length (no way round that!) but the summary of bonuses at the top is very helpful.

Good, good. I think when I stick this in the forums, it'll be two posts in a series- the first post with the contest info, the 2nd with the bonus explanations.  :)

• Artemis probably won't get back to this page now before you need to post it. I'm certain, though, that the merchant ships, ice and broadcast will be fine. The trinkets, sometimes you get a "no black or gold" requirement for trinkets. I'm not sure what restrictions there are generally, but perhaps don't promise gold coral until you've had that explicitly confirmed. It might be up there ^ somewhere and I just can't see it, of course!

I did get a confirmation of gold, but outside of the wiki. Since the yellow and orange are pretty pale, my 2nd preference would be to offer a choice from a set of 'cocktail-colored' corals. I'll list it as spiked for now, and add the color later.

• Re PvP against non-participating ships. Do you want to be explicit that any goods won from PvP against a non-participating ship will be deducted from the final count, just in case it makes a difference?

I suppose being more direct instead of hinting at this would be better, yes.

--Crystal 07:43, 22 February 2006 (PST)

Indents from the last two sections. --Tamsin 10:52, 24 February 2006 (PST)

(moved up from below) Just dashing a quick note at the bottom to say Yes, I am still here - I'm busy with midterms and fighting off the flu bug this week, but am trying to get Cobalt Tamsin up to crew-forming standards ASAP. I should have information for Artemis in the next 2 days or so. In the meantime - I did have a question for you, as I've had little luck finding gems to check out on Midnight. Gems can be transferred from ship to ship, right? And the 'abandoned' counter starts over as soon as someone sets foot on the ship, right? Thanks!  :)

Yes to both of those! --Artemis 12:07, 9 March 2006 (PST)

Final Prize and Support Information

As of right now, this is the list of prizes and support I have listed for the OM's to provide for you, if anything is not correct or complete you need to get in touch with me as soon as possible, I will not around the whole weekend! Please give the OM's plenty of time to respond to any requests and speak to them in advance if at all possible, for some of you that will be more important than others. I've given a copy of the standard OM schedule to Jacquilynne as well if I'm not available.

• Prizes: Set of 4 ribbons, set of 4 spikey corals,
• Support: borrowing two large ships. Broadcast to advertise the event as well as a broadcast to warn about pvp. Diamonds Magicked up. It'll probably be best to coordinate this with the OM who will be onduty at the time.
• Pre-Prizes and ship renames: For all prizes being handled one one ocean, if you've not yet given me an idea of where you want the prizes (ocean, pirate, island, house) you will not be getting them at the last minute!) For Ship renames, send me the ocean, old ship name, island, crew, new ship name. Just send in a petition, my availability will be sketchy this weekend.

--Artemis 09:34, 3 March 2006 (PST)

---

Prize Verification & Delivery Information

• Yes, the above is correct - Thanks! I'll coordinate with the OM on duty re:broadcasts and diamonds. Might you be able to tell me who to contact so I can give them a little advance notice about the event, or are petitions (placed well in advance of any time-based deadlines) sufficient?

• Could Tamsin (Cobalt Ocean) please be slipped the deeds to the loaner ships (one docked at Kirin, one docked at Lonelywood Lagoon) sometime before Tuesday? I'd like to have them in place so I can start stockpiling pineapples.  :) I think a Merchant Galleon'll do it, for hold size, but if you want to make extra-sure, maybe a Grand Frig. I'm not sure we'll have quite that many entrants though!

Oh - and it would be extra nice if you could temporarily rename the loaner ship to be parked at Lonelywood the 'Floating Bar' Just so folks can spot it easily. Many thanks! :)

Re: Prizes

• Could I please get the trinkets (4 gold spiky coral, 4 yellow over white plain ribbons) delivered to Tamsin's shack? It's on the Cobalt Ocean, Olive Island, at the Shore Shack.

• Ship renames (all deeds held by Tamsin, Captain of the crew "Floating Bartenders", on the Cobalt Ocean:
  • Alone Sawfish -> Blended Rumm (docked at Lima)
  • Deadly Anglerfish -> Chilled Glassfish (docked at Dragon's Nest)
  • Funny Sprat -> Well-Stocked Bar (docked at Cochineal) (Note: If 'well-stocked' isn't a suitable adjective, 'Stocked' is good too. )
  • Skillful Gurnard -> Twisted Pineapplefish (docked at Terra)

Thank you so much! I'll wait to bump the thread with prize updates once I see news on this page, or see that things have materialized in game (just in case something doesn't come through, I'd rather not have to change it...) I'll be gone this weekend, but will be back Tuesday!

Trinkets delivered, ships renamed, I'll try looking for you on Tuesday for the loaner ships! --Artemis 10:56, 13 March 2006 (PST)

Got 'em! They're lovely, thank you so much! I'm back in town, so I'll try scouting around for you to get ahold of the loaner ships...if there's a good time for you, feel free to send me a PM or IM to let me know when to find you! --Tamsin 13:13, 16 March 2006 (PST)

The section in which Tamsin decompresses

Yarr! Sorry for the delay – here’s my thoughts on how things went down. I know this is far too long, but this kind of stuff is truly what runs through my head when I’ve run events…either in RL or in YPP-Land. So it’s a bit stream of consciousness, but if you have any questions – or if you feel I’ve missed anything, please let me know!

General: This was really fun to plot, write up, and execute…there’s something about the insane, intense whirl of activity of in-game events that does make ‘em a blast to run/help with. Exhausting, but fun. I had a total of 12 sloops signed up, but one gave up towards the end of the event, and one waited a little bit too long to get their sloop over to Kirin, and kept getting waylaid by brigands…they didn’t make it to the starting line until 3:45, and opted not to run since it was more than halfway over.  :( I had a total of 32 players spread across the 10 active sloops …plus the 3 folks that never made it across the finish. I’m pretty happy with this number, though I would’ve loved to have had more, if only so there was more opportunity for people to find one another for PVP. One thing that I’m particularly proud of is that this event started on time. Okay, so technically…I was 47 seconds late…but man, having helped out with other in-game events and dealing with the /tell influx that comes with OM broadcasts and trying to explain the event while getting the qualified people entered, and answering their last-minute questions over crew chat…I know that it can sometimes be a challenge to have these things start when you’d like. So I’m pretty happy that things pulled together in time to get everyone going at 3.  :)

Return to Sender: I have the deeds to the Fruity Pineapplefish, and the Floating Bar in my possession. Artemis, thank you again, and let me know what would be a good time to catch up with you to return these! The Fruity Pineapplefish also comes with some 800 odd pineapples. I wanted to be prepared, so I ran 500 or so over to add to your generous stash of 500. Extra fruity fun!

Problems: My first problem was that I somehow forgot that coconuts don’t spawn on Cobalt. Silly me! I truly thought I had seen them for sale at one of the islands, and ran around for a bit on Friday morning before it hit me. So that was one more thing that ended up requiring divine assistance (Thank you Castor!). The other glitch I ran into was I didn’t explicitly spell out that disengages weren’t awarded any PVP points. This was my intention by having the +2 for a loss and + 4 for a win, but like I said – it just wasn’t explicit enough. So I decided it would be better to award more points rather than go with more original intent – and awarded 2 points for a PVP disengage as well as a PVP loss. The other issue I ran into was with scoring taking longer than I had anticipated. I thought I was clever with setting up an Excel spreadsheet to automatically add things together as I entered them but it decided to helpfully reformat (sigh) everything to the time format I had in one row – so I had to unformat/redo all the calculations. I think what really slowed me down though was having to check the Booty (for number of pirates on board + Lucky 7’s), The hold (for lucky 7’s – I checked before and after divvy, just to give out as many points as possible), the vessel records, the hold again, and the crew’s PVP records. I was not only looking for certain cargo items & certain times, but combinations too – like ice acquisition + PVP times. I would’ve loved to have done this more efficiently, but all the information wasn’t in one place! The only thing I can think to do that would’ve cut the time down would have been to have more than one person checking & scoring. I know I was really hesitant to accept help with that not only because there was so much potential for confusion in scoring, (That’s what I get for coming up with something wacky!) but I guess there’s a part of me that wouldn’t feel right asking that much of someone for something that’s considered an individual competition? Does that make sense? With hindsight, knowing that it would take that long – I probably would’ve opted for help. Everyone was really sweet and understanding, and they all had some really funny conversations over crew chat while they waited– so it was nice to see some true ‘friendly competition’.  :) I have logs, if yer interested…it also has a lot of the participant feedback in it, which might be helpful to you.

Picking Nits (super event-specific thoughts/details that might be applied to future events of this type): People brought sugar cane along with them, but nobody managed to finish any laps. A lot of people were able to grab either a coconut or ice (and quite a few nabbed both) and still make it to the finish line on time…some with a PVP along the way, and one team did manage to steal ice…so I’m quite pleased that those parts worked out so well. Everyone ended up with rum…I think getting the pina colada bonus + coconut + ice bonuses was somehow more tempting/easier than ‘Good to the last drop’ + coconut + ice. The melting ice was such a great idea (thank you Artemis!), though it did break the hearts of one team who was one league away at the half-hour mark and tied up with brigands. I started with teams of all sizes, with the majority being foursomes, but the only team of 2 was the one to drop. Lucky 7’s ended up being a good add – lots of people picked up 1 or 2 of those…there were a couple ‘forced 7’s’ that tried to slip in, I didn’t count those ones. People would’ve picked up more if I had counted 7s in weight/volume and not just sheer numbers of PoE or items. Only a few people ended up picking up penalties – we had no problems with outside PVP (phew!), but a couple sloops were late into port, and a couple others didn’t catch any PVP action. These seemed to be a result of folks getting waylaid by brigands. It might be good to either have them off for a future event – or just extend the time a little bit to allow for it. People either went all out for flare or ignored it completely. The trivia questions went over well (despite getting a screenful of incorrect “screwdriver” /tells), and the bonus items (Apron, Purple Mug, Liver) seemed to be a fun surprise for people.

Whatever happened to…? : I really had wanted to run the side events, and feel badly that I wasn’t able to pull them off. My time during the event-running period got seriously crunched. I was out of town for 2 of the 3 weekends, and was fighting off the flu while taking midterms all throughout that first week. So it really didn’t leave me with a lot of time to run the slot machine, or prep for anything Elvis. I also felt like I didn’t have enough funds to make the slot machine worthwhile– in other words, I don’t think that the payouts would’ve been good enough to keep people coming back! I still have a dream of a roomful of Elvis pirates…I had wanted to award a throne & a couple of other themed-prizes for this type of thing, and again – just didn’t have the funds. I felt so lucky to get such great and unique prizes from the OMs, and felt it would be greedy to ask for more help…8 trinkets ( 4 of ‘em gold!) + 4 renames was more than I ever expected – and it feels really good to be able to give out such cool prizes that people seemed to truly appreciate and want. While I’m disappointed I didn’t get to do the side events, I do think it allowed me to spend more time (which I needed) to finesse and prepare for the bartender championships. The upside is that while I round up more money to get the prize set I want, I’ve got lots of time to plot out an Elvis event…with piratey impersonators, and quite possibly with a hunk o’ hunk o’ bananas! The plot thickens!

All in all, this has been a blast. Thank you so much for the vote of encouragement in shortlisting this event, and for all of the help and support…the questions, the pointers, the ideas, and the fabulous prizes! Despite the problems I ran into, I’d still consider the event a success. I really couldn’t have asked for a friendlier, nicer group of entrants – they were all so kind to one another, had great spirit (and sense of humor), and really made the event extra-fun and rewarding for me.