Talk:Event E2/Proposal Ponytailguy

Examples?

Can you offer examples of what the secret missions might consist of? Obviously not actual, live examples that will be used, but something that gives the flavour of the assignments. Jacquilynne / Jasandrea

They'd vary... some would be difficult, some would be simple, hence the Fifth person to complete winning the familiar instead of the first. Catch me online some time and I'll lay a few on you, I don't have any I can toss out as demonstration spares at this point, although I do have about 10 I'm satisfied with so far :) --Teeg 18:55, 16 January 2006 (PST)

How can you guarantee fairness if missions aren't identical and vary in supposed difficulty? If 20 people participate, the one with the toughest mission may not be able to finish even 5th. Also, how will you counter the tendency of people to avoid reporting their win, hoping to avoid being #1-4? --Squashbuckle 00:33, 19 January 2006 (PST)

Thats a risk they'd have to take, though, isn't it. If I wanted to be especially evil I suppose I could completely change the structure and move to creative instead of literal missions, with the most creative means of completing a mission in the eyes of some judges winning the Familiar... actually, it's not a bad idea. (This would be "Ring to Mordor" types of missions; if taken literally, impossible, but if one thinks outside the box instead of expecting rungs on a ladder, very do-able.) Hmm. --Teeg 14:58, 20 January 2006 (PST)

Does everyone have the same missions, or different missions? Will being the 5th to complete the mission be a random event, or something a good spy should know? --Glia 09:13, 23 January 2006 (PST)

Missions would be different from one another. Being the 5th to complete is simply a matter of working hard and hoping, although I may be changing it to "most creative completion" (That has it's own problems, though, because some missions will invariably lend themselves more to creative conclusions than others.) --Teeg 09:40, 23 January 2006 (PST)

Fairness

As I started reading this event proposal, it sounded awesome! But then as I've read the specifics and the discussion here, it just seems inherently unfair. I particularly agree with Squashbuckle's questions above, and felt this deserves particular notice. First of all, choosing the fifth person as the winner seems completely arbitrary. Why not the fourth, or sixth, or tenth if you have some idea that finishing in the middle is best? It seems mostly like you introduced this element not because this is channel Z105 from San Francisco or something, but merely because something needed to help correct another potential unfairness, namely, different assignments for different contestants. How will you choose who gets which assignment (again, arbitrary!)? The main point of this event seems to be the spy-fun, not the guess-when-to-submit-my-entry-cuz-it-seemed-kinda-easy part.

Wouldn't it be more fair to give all spies the same 5 tasks to accomplish (ranging in difficulties, and designed such that solving one won't "ruin it" for the other spies). You'll still have a range of difficulties, but now everyone gets to have the same fun. And judging could now be consistent to choose not the middle contestant, but the best contestant (either first to complete all 5, or each task is scored on timeliness and creativity by judges). I'd rather know the best spy won, and I think this would only multiple the fun everyone has.

--Elsquido 15:26, 28 January 2006 (PST)

Aye, that's valid feedback (And sorry about taking so long to respond) What I'm currently mulling over is a tiered system. That is to say, in the first round, everyone gets the same mission. The first five people to complete move on, and the five most creative (in the opinion of the judges) solutions move on. Same deal for the second round, with different missions and fewer people moving on, until it's one on one, when they get different missions that have been workshopped to death to be as equal as possible in difficulty and expense. Is that an improvement at all? --Teeg 16:57, 5 February 2006 (PST)

Expense

You've stated: Missions would not be literal things; they would specifically be written to be impossible (or nearly impossible) if taken at face value. The trick to completing them is thinking outside the box. For example, a mission may be "Find the Ring of Power on the Islay of Luthien and return it to Mordor". By itself, quite impossible, but if you were to, say, create an alt called Mordor and give them a ring you bought from the palace on the Islay, entirely do-able.

I believe a ring costs 50k, that's quite a substantial investment for players to potentially have to spend in order to compete. I realize this was just an example you provided. My question is, will the real missions used require any expenditure to participate, and if so, what is the approximate expense they can assume to be spending? I love the spy-theme story, but I think most players would be leary of events they have small chance of winning and a high expenditure just to compete. --Muroni 15:19, 5 February 2006 (PST)

This is true, but misleading. That's an example of a mission I don't intend to use in the actual event (if selected), and that's also far from the only way to complete said mission. It's also a bit perfunctory as a solution, and unlikely to be the most creative solution proposed, which is what's more likely to get you to the next round. I am trying to write missions that don't require outlays of PoE or Doubs, though, and I'm doing very well so far at avoiding the cliche "Take the X to the Y" format... it's overplayed enough in RPGs as it is ("Appease the Grue of the West, then take the Stone of Imminent Boominess and return it to the Shire of Caustic Sardonicisim", for example.)

Participants can spend as little, or as much, PoE on their solutions as possible. I might as well make a note in the main description that the most expensive solution is rarely the best one; if you can find a way to do it without anything out of your own pocket, you're probably thinking much more creatively than people who see a puzzle and resolve it with "buy X" --Teeg 17:00, 5 February 2006 (PST)