"What is going on with the event"

[Guest]

A few people have been concerned over what is happening in regards to the event. I just wanted to explain a couple of things.

First, there is no firm date set because it is impossible at this time. The event date is tied directly to the next publish date. Without knowing when the next publish is I cannot set a firm event date. As soon as I have more information about when the next publish a date for the factions event can be set.

Next there is the issue of why event news has died down. It is because of two factors. There is no firm date to look forward to and currently I am the only person organizing this event. The first cannot be rectified but the second could be if I got more volunteer help. This event is quite worthy of the term epic, with the amount of participation that will be occurring. But there is also a ton of things that need to be done in preparation. Let me just rattle off a few of them now:

<ul>[*]Template Advice guide for all the people who need it
[*]Sub-Event Planning
[*]Keeping in touch with all the guilds signed up thus far (which hasn't happened yet)
[*]Signing up new guilds (which hasn't happened for over a week)
[*]Advertising the event (has been on hold for probably 2 weeks)
[*]Collecting Prize Donations and figuring out how to use them
[*]Stocking the Supply House
[*]Trying to get equipment (Golems, Armor, Jewlery, etc.) into the hands of training characters (has not even begun yet)
[*]Getting up to date training methods for all combat skills on UOGuide[/list]

That is all I can think of at the moment. I am currently trying to balance all that myself because there have not yet been any volunteers to help organize this. I will gladly accept any help in the above areas or someone who can help oversee the general event.

If this event was the only thing I did UO related it would be a piece of cake. But it isn't. Let me just explain my other UO related activities which compete for my time.

<ul>[*]HOT Guild - I'm a council member for the 3rd largest guild in all of UO. I have to deal with everything a normal council member has to plus more. Recruitment, settling disputes, logistics, organizing guild events, manage the guild website (of which I am the only person), set policies, etc. HOT is an extremely large organization with 183 members as of this posting. Lately there has been a ton of activity which has needed my attention within the guild and it is my top priority.
[*]UO Atlantic Forum - As I mentioned I am the sole person whoe manages the HOT website, this includes the extremely popular UO Atlantic forum. It is currently the 3rd largest English UO forum out there. Over 500 people have logged in within the past 3 months and there over 100 posts per day. I am also the only full time moderator currently on staff. Being a PVP centric forum, it requires much more moderation. In addition, I am currently the only person posting news and handling the popular Atlantic Tradeboard (which has been woefully neglected for a couple months now).
[*]UOGuide - I am the founder and administrator of yet another popular website, UOGuide. It has become the second largest UO information resource. We have just completed a merger with UOStuff, which has tripled site traffic in under a month. Thankfully there are now a couple people who contribute to the site on a regular basis and I am not needed as much. But there are a ton of things I would like to be doing on UOGuide which are currently not possible which my other responsibilities.[/list]

Any one of those could be considered a full time job. But playing UO is not my job, it is only a hobby. I have to juggle all that and somehow find time to actually play the game. I throughly enjoy all that I do in regards to UO and do not complain about it. This was just to explain why it might seem I am not putting my all into this event, even though I am.

This event will proceed one way or another. But it would be nice if I could recruit some trusty and reliable help in making it happen.

 

[Guest]

Perhaps we need a reporter? Tina? Someone? I will do what I can, but I am somewhat in the same situation as JC.

 

[imported_Tina Small]

<blockquote><hr>

This event will proceed one way or another. But it would be nice if I could recruit some trusty and reliable help in making it happen.

[/ QUOTE ]

JC, I would be happy to help somehow, however I don't think I will be available much the next couple of days. I have to work, we have a lot of family-related stuff going on, and I also think I may be coming down with the flu after being at the hospital for three hours this morning with my grandson for an appointment. Depending on what happens and how I feel, I will try to get in touch with you Sunday. I also need to figure out why my browser shuts itself down every time I visit the website where you've been posting the event information. Hehe.

 

[Guest]

Tina, you can do this. If not you are the one to find a person that can. * nods*

 

[Guest]

Thanks! Please keep us up to date. Deadlines are very helpful for a lot of people!

Also, has LNR decided to join? I can't imagine them sitting out a big fight like this, but they sounded iffy from your earlier posts.

 

[Sergul'zan_SP]

<blockquote><hr>


Any one of those could be considered a full time job. But playing UO is not my job, it is only a hobby. I have to juggle all that and somehow find time to actually play the game.


[/ QUOTE ]

The solution is obvious. Quit your job.

 

[imported_Tina Small]

In case anyone missed it, Jeremy posted the following reply in UHall today in response to a question I asked about whether we could get some hints in tomorrow's Five on Friday regarding the faction changes scheduled for the next publish:

<blockquote><hr>

The factions stuff hasn't hit QA yet, which is why there hasn't been an update - Draconi's been traveling, so that side of the schedule has been a wee bit messy. It may slip out another publish, unfortunately.

[/ QUOTE ]

 

[NB-Cats]

How about we just start this faction event instead on waiting on some random publish to come out?

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

How about we just start this faction event instead on waiting on some random publish to come out?

[/ QUOTE ]
Because everyone only agreed to participate if the changes went in. People making new characters or transferring (such as yourself) might not fully understand that we can't have up to 3/4 of our guilds get kicked because of the 1 character rule. Many people have closed their extra accounts over the past few months/years and would be stuck with a single character in factions.

The tentative date of March 21 is now off the table. I am not going to speculate on a new date, but suffice to say that the event will not occur until 1-2 weeks after the faction changes go live. Thus, if they slip this publish that couple be well over a month away.

 

[imported_Tina Small]

JC, I hate to put you on the spot on this one, but just how convinced are you that the changes will include (1) dropping the "balancing rule" and (2) letting you put multiple characters per account into factions on the same shard?

If these changes don't happen, do you know if the large guilds on Atlantic that were going to join factions have a backup plan to start allied faction guilds so this event still happens?

 

[Guest]

There is currently no backup plan. If the changes are not made then we'll have to see what alternatives could be done or whether the event has to be canceled.

 

[Alagos Galadrim]

Why don't these guilds set up a faction guild and let their members put 1 character in it so it doesn't mess with their primary guild and just start playing already?

 

[NB-Cats]

Then they wouldn't be forced to play factions.

HOT guild has no intention of participating in this event for more then 10 days...

Do not count on them for anything.

This event should have been set up on Great Lakes in the first place. The only shard to have already have an established faction environment.

 

[imported_Tina Small]

Here's my suggestion: Let's start another thread on U.Hall asking for news about the faction changes coming in the next publish. Perhaps if enough of us starting posting there about it we might get some kind of response that will help folks decide how to proceed.

Edited to add: I started a new thread on U.Hall...please add to it if you have a few moments. Need News About Upcoming Faction Changes

Personally, I would rather do this on Great Lakes because I already have characters in factions there and kind of hope it might get some of my old KDL guildmates who still have characters on GL to give WoW a break and make our guildhouse a busy place once again. Plus, I know there are already a LOT of people in factions on GL. However, I'm willing to keep working on my new characters on Atlantic or transfer existing ones there from other shards if I have to. I also realize more than a few people have already started working on characters on Atlantic or have transferred there.

JC, I don't want to kill this event on Atlantic. Can you please speak to the guilds on Atlantic about the possibility of them just going ahead and creating faction guilds so we have a viable strategy for moving this event forward? In the meantime, I think it would be very helpful if the people who are planning to participate in this event could post here in THIS forum whether or not they've got characters already on Atlantic that they planned to use for this event, whether they haven't moved yet but already have transfer tokens or the gold or cash to get them, etc. Basically, who is at this point committed or semi-committed to doing this on Atlantic. Let's give people (including Draconi) a week or so to respond and then let's reevaluate and see what we can do.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Why don't these guilds set up a faction guild and let their members put 1 character in it so it doesn't mess with their primary guild and just start playing already?

[/ QUOTE ]
Because the whole point of the event was for every active PVPer to play in factions all the time for a week. Making side guilds means you have two sets of PVP instead of all Factions.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Personally, I would rather do this on Great Lakes

[/ QUOTE ]
I just did a count on the UO.com factions page. Atlantic and Great Lakes currently have the same number of guilds in Factions. Atlantic has 27 players with points to the 37 Great Lakes has. This is just from some people who have been antsy and joined up for a little pre-event fun.

Picking Atlantic for the event was clearly for the best if activity is almost matching Great Lakes at this stage.

 

[Alagos Galadrim]

<blockquote><hr>

Because the whole point of the event was for every active PVPer to play in factions all the time for a week. Making side guilds means you have two sets of PVP instead of all Factions.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm a supporter of the one character rule in factions. I think this event is an excellent idea and I would love to see factions return to Atlantic - but I think the people that want to be involved need to take their best PVP character and join that character. I think it would dilute the strategy involved in factions if 8 of us jump on our thieves and go on a sig stealing spree and then switch to our Necro/Mages and defend them - I personally don't like that idea at all and I think that is part of the purpose the one character rule is in place. By no means do I run an 800 member PVP guild and I realize that I'm nobody to anyone involved in this event - but what I did was created a side guild and put my character in it and friends/others that want to get involved are picking their character and putting them in. I'm not sure how this creates two sets of PVP other than people that don't want in on the factions just don't join and get involved and the ones that do join the faction guild. Again, I'm a very strong supporter of the event taking place and I hope it goes through successfully one way or the other.

 

[NB-Cats]

In the end, Great Lakes still has a lot more players then Atlantic currently commited to factions.

I refuse to wait 2-3 months for some random patch to hit to PvP in factions for BARELY 10 days before the numbers go down again.

HOT is not dedicated to this event. We should not base our decision around them.

 

[Alagos Galadrim]

Is this event taking away something from you and Great Lakes because you seem awful concerned about making negative remarks about it at every opportunity you find? If you don't like what is going on, don't want to wait, whatever - then don't participate in it. You state that factions are solid on Great Lakes so it sounds like you are all set - have fun there. This event is about bringing something fun to Atlantic - if it lasts 10 days, or hangs on for long term, then it will still be a lot of fun. For those who want to join, I can't wait to see you there. For those that don't - then I'm sure your happy doing what your doing and good luck to you. Constructive criticism/input is great from anyone who has some to throw in to help get this thing going. But I don't see the need for trying to run down the event and/or stop it from taking place. It seems like anyone who would do that is either opposed to people getting together and having a good time or has a personal issue with someone involved in the event. Either way I think people should pitch in and try to make this a success, or if you are opposed to it then go your own way and don't try to pointlessly ruin the fun of others.

 

[NB-Cats]

I'm saying to move it to Great Lakes so we can start it as soon as possible and not rely on HOT participating in factions for 10 days only.

I'm trying to have players avoid working or transfering a character to a shard that might not even have decent faction numbers if this keeps up.