Hi, Just watching this thread as the Festival on Great Lakes is over now time for me to review and watch. Great Lakes to my knowledge has only held fest a couple times, and I had thought I read that Baja has a fall time slot locked in???
From a NON collector I found the mix of vendor stuff interesting, and it is good to see new folks talking, asking questions, seeing different venues for buying and selling. Trying to bring a selection of price ranges and items for all levels of collectors I think is a bonus. I find that the few new faces to the game that come to auction often assume you always have to have multi millions to bid and win, or they've never operated a vendor before and done the merchant thing. It can be an addictive side of the game collecting, striving for that bargain.
I put the effort into the 100 sets of runebooks we gave out so that vendors outside of Luna might get some attention from visitors, I haven't had any feedback from those people on shard. It was mostly small team of folks who went out and marked runes to create them, unfortunately only 1 team helping were vendors in the book. The game really does inhibit communication a bit, its very hard to get word out hitting all play times of those on the shard. Used Global, some forum boards, some announcements at auction, traveling to houses trying to find the owners. We set up the events to try to get folks to mingle more.
We had hoped this Fest would create some bonds, get more people traveling, interacting, spread some of the gold beyond fest and luna. I can be a tad bit critical of my own achievements and work, but in hindsight, I see a few things that were a little off, the length may have been a tad to long it caused some renewal issues with vendors. Some of the games were a little rough, I'm working on refining them. It was a first mass run through with them, trials were limited to a handful of people, I was a little locked in to "home shard" habitual thinking rather than more "global" in some of my questions in Tic Tac Dough.
More publicity about the DEVS being there probably would have been good.
The Silent and live auctions were I think well received in general has been my feedback. Being able to wander and look at items on display at Silent Auction was a great thing even "window" shoppers liked that. In a live auction setting I think a secure display space would be a plus at least for a few items that are up for sale a bit ahead of schedule. Transparency with live auction results, seeing the results of winning auctions in the Silent went over well. People want to know.
Manticore, I'd like to ask your permission to try to move your rare's lists into a game format on Great Lakes, many don't read the forums. I think it would be a great reference in this format for those interested in reading more. Pricing is a constant state of flux in UO, the economy is fluid and over inflated true, but it has been a whacky world of insane prices for as long as I can remember, from wicked highs to devastating lows. Being a successful collector and or merchant in UO is an "art" there is a lot of knowledge stuffed into the heads of those who have perfected the skill of buying low and selling high.
MOA certainly does rise and fall with the numbers of items submitted and quality of submits, the prices bid, the perception of how rare something is. The number of dupes, exploits etc that have been found to corrupt the market. "The amount of gold an item is worth comes down to what a willing buyer is prepared to pay at the very moment the item is offered for sale." Best anyone else can do is give historical data on what it sold for last. I think this is true of every merchant and auction house, you have to constantly try to monitor and adjust.
To the next Festival Host, I wish you the best! It was a lot of fun, a lot of work behind the scenes, very little sleep but all in all a great opportunity. I have made some great new friends, more contacts and I think many of the rest of our staff experienced the same.
