So I am supposed to be on leave but I don't think it's hugely appropriate for a member of GT Management to just up and disappear after the event has finished, so am going to at least give my thoughts on the matter, so I can go and rest up proper!
Firstly - this isn't an excuse by any means, just a little insight as to why perhaps some things may feel like they were overlooked, missed, rushed, etc. Secondly, this isn't an attempt to throw anyone under the bus! I am happily holding my hands up and saying faults were definitely of my doing this year for sure!
So the situation this year was perhaps a little different to a normal Get-Together. A different date was picked primarily because we didn't really have enough time to feasibly put together a GT for the usual summer slot, but it was also picked 'cause of the fact it's PC's 20th birthday and what not. Lesson learned, summer is best!
So firstly - Trivia. I was not overly impressed seeing implications that the events were not necessarily being run well, because one of two teams were struggling to send answers in. Looking at the problems several times now, I can't see how this really is in any way a fault of the events or EOs, or see anything that really needs to be done about it. The other team had no problems organising sending in the answers and I think the issue was more the team composition (as already highlighted), causing the team to not only be inactive but it seems to be all lumped in like 2 timezones. We did discuss the idea of a universal sheet for answers and such, however to me that doesn't really resolve or even somewhat cirumvent the problem. If a team can't organise answers and send them in their own document, a bit unsure how that can change for a universal document.
Also most of the events use fastest answer first as a means of breaking ties; we could for next year look into an alternative method maybe but I think this is all a lot of effort on the EOs for something that really wasn't in any way their fault; the solutions we've been discussing regarding setting up teams and such I think will actually aid this a lot better.
Regarding the setup itself, simply put we just didn't have enough manpower and that's why I think some things were overlooked (for example, the huge point inflation between three events). We also fell into some circumstances regarding setting things up right near the end of the planning period, after we thought we were mostly OK, which caused some issues too. For next year, something I've been considering is actually opening up opportunities to help to the communtiy as a whole, rather than keeping it to staff. Things may be different with it being in Summer, but this year ended up with 3 of us at the start and 2 of us for the majority of it due to Staff just not being available. At least this way I think we can always fill the numbers for a good team; seeing some of the feedback here shows that we definitely would have capable hands on deck for sure!
In terms of assigning teams... now I'm not saying the quiz we have is foolproof. BUT. I don't think there is a way that we can truly sort teams and completely resolve these issues. I honestly think this year's mishap came down to the timing over who was in where. We have so many outliers that make it hard to really balance teams - the fact 5qwerty is about 20 people's worth of particpants, the fact that Austin dropped off the face of the earth 5/6 days in, like we can set something up based on current activity and then... that can be all nullified when people decide they can't participate anymore midway through. That said, the quiz currently used does need a shake-up, whether that be in its form or its function. Something mentioned has been to use it instead as say something that can affect events - have a quiz give you a pokemon which means you have to use it in an event for example - or even something more cosmetic, so say the quiz gives you a Yanma and then at the end we just do a fun tally of the most pokemon or something.
Ok so yes, there was definitely an issue this year regarding points for events, which we mostly resolved but shouldn't have got to in the first place! As others have mentioned, I think we need to set the point thresholds we do but strictly stick to them. For events that are longform, we make the 1/2/3 scores and such, but make it clear that any other points people decide to issue are used as an internal scoreboard to determine who gets the 1st/2nd/3rd. Again we were a little experimental this year I think to try and bring some events, like Jackbox who barely contributes to anything points-wise, to the forefront and instead, like with Pictionary, we ended up creating monsters. Importantly though, we can't not have some events in which points are being added incrementally throughout the event. Otherwise it's just going to be boring, as you're taking part not knowing how you'll end up doing! One thing we could look at are splitting more events into two weekly events, like the Fakemon Design Contest for example, so that there's still an addition of some points at the halfway mark.
A good way to figure things out for the shortform events too would be again using say 100/50/20 etc. as goalposts and tweaking the daily/whatever points to fit that. That way we can at least make sure the points being given out will still result in a normalised amount, rather than getting to day 7 and realising your event has given out 1,200+ points. As Aquacorde mentioned, it's good to maintain something in which people will still be engaged with throughout the GT, so very important to get these points right next year!
I will also add that I think the Achievements worked really well for their pilot year! I think we could tweak a few things for sure for next year, but I think they worked really well and didn't cause people to swing/throw events just to stop them being obtained or affected the scores for events so much that they invalidated anything. GJ on coming up with those EOs!
I'll use this space to discuss specifics about some events.
Considering this was the first time this was done, this was an amazing event, I am chuffed! This was really fun to participate in and I think being able to collaborate really made this event shine; a lot more people got involved knowing they could partner up with someone to make up for what they lacked in and we got some great designs out of it! I think the judging could be polished a little, but how will you know that unless you do it?! Hope to see this in future GTs <3.
My only gripe with this was that it wasn't on for longer!!! This was one of my favourite events, it made really good use of the VC channel and generally was, once we got there, put well together! Now we've got the groundwork down, again I hope this comes up in future GTs as I think this will be a great event moving forward.
As a whole, we did good! 5qwerty your Anime/Manga debut went really well! As mentioned I think some variety in the types of rounds could've been good, but it was your first time hosting AND you did come up with some fantastic rounds, so I hope you look to pick this up again! Taylor E&M as always was super great and thank you for taking it on this year so I could participate, the variety was amazing; you managed to make rounds good enough in that you could get most of the answers but have some difficulty too!
As for VG Trivia, I have taken on the feedback regarding variety/difficulty, but will address a few things. Regarding variety, it is hard for me to balance it so that I am picking things which are not super easy and boring, but also obscure/challenging enough that people still want to do it; I COULD wipe the floor with stuff I do know but that's no fun for anyone. This year for example I added a few more obscure/niche things initially and generally some rounds genuinely just stumped most of the teams.
As I do every year, I always have spots open for co-hosts to come in and add their trivia to the table, as I appreciate I can stick to some same-y areas. As of yet, that has not been taken up so if someone wants to change that, please do so next year!
So this year's GT Challenge was... interesting. Once I got into the swing of it, I found it really fun! It was however a bit of a mission to realise what I should be doing AND I had the fortune of my team removing basically everything before I even got to play really, so am not sure I experienced it in full. It was a very cool idea but I think this really needed the full attention of both of you as hosts and... you were both so busy that there were definitely some roadblocks. The Baton Pass event was so good because it was quick - we all passed the games around amongst each other and such. In this, we were having to rely on two people who were not around for a lot of the time and therefore for some players progress was impeded to a point it probably affected them finishing.
If we do something like this next year, I think we need to either set say specific times of the day in which you will do a large update for everyone, or maybe just allow it via Discord as well, as you did towards the end.
This was a really great idea and I know we had some quiet spots, but it seemed to go OK? I like the idea of just a chill period in the GT, nothing that's about getting pointspointspoints and all about just hanging out. I get art isn't everyone's thing, but maybe we can push again for more things generally like this next year!
So Fortune Cup for me is the best it has been I think since I started taking part, I think we've managed to get to that peak now. Battle Bash really complimented this well also! I appreciate the sentiments regarding the PC Showdown server, but it was getting next to zero activity and I think the only person who knew how to do anything with it was someone who was... never here. So I think unfortunately unless someone is around that can maintain that, we may have to just look at bolstering the logistics side of things on the main server for next year.
This is mostly notes for next year, just a few things that we missed or could definitely polish up:
- Have the GT Calender available to all GT Management & EOs so if changes are needed, everyone can access and change in live time
- Provide alternate timezone info or at least something which can convert timezones to local time
- Actually post schedules for the day on Discord (this was not done by me)
- Post information about Achievements on Forums (same as above)
So to summarise, things I'd want to consider for next year:
- Broaden GT team recruitment to entire community
- Strict point thresholds, normalise points in events to match these rather than the other way around
- Split events more evenly so that we get more gradual point increases for teams throughout the GT for engagement!
- Assign Team Leads or something similar in channels to help keep teams in check WRT scheduling deadlines etc.
- Change quiz/team sorting method to try and even out activity where possible. Somehow.
- Revive Showdown server?
Thank you all for the feedback so far by the way, it's always greatly appreciated!
