I'm not particularly upset by it, but it was strange to realize I couldn't participate in a feat because I've been trying but haven't yet been able to get a quest to trigger. This isn't a matter of not being 'caught up' - either the trigger has a random element or some of us are dealing with a bug.
I'm very excited for this wonderful quest I keep hearing everyone talking about and will continuing demonstrating my love for Grendaline by maintaining high favor with her and sauntering past her shrines until she eventually loves me back.
I don't see how giving out artefacts [SIC] when we're in beta/ not accounting for lag and timezones/ choosing to do the feat on a weekday/ not making certain everyone and their brother with his kitchen sink had a chance to participate is in ANY WAY unfair.
Well, isn't that nice for YOU. *I* thought it was totally unfair and inconsiderate and just generally sucked donkey balls, and quite a few other people do too, so you can just shove that in your conch and blow it.
Persephone Pear: you don't need any particular amount of favor with Grendeline, but you do need to complete the quest "Respect for the Beginnings" before you'll get "The Last Pilgrimage of Esquibeth".
This is a game. This game is a gift to the players. TS is not obligated to do anything. Life is not fair. Be thankful TS does not pack up it's toys and go home.
Wow WalruZ. Just wow. I try not to say this to people in games, but you really need to step back and take a break.
In regards to the feat: I found it frustrating & laggy. If you wanted to find people, you had to go to the very, very crowded Cerbakul or Groddle Forest Junction. Considering that it was implied part of the reason the tool vendor would be moving around soon was to avoid having too many people in one area, I was surprised the feat encouraged just that behavior!
I love the earlier idea of tickets for participating, more tickets for better participation, and the ability to trade those in for something. If you consider this, I hope you'll make said tickets untradeable to other players, though, or some sort of point system
All in all, it was a good test, and I hope you can extrapolate what *not* to do in the future. ;)
Edit: Also, I forgot to say - thanks to the guides and staff in the live help channel tirelessly telling people over and over how to get the conch. I was very impressed by you all!
Do I have the right idea that feats will eventually be hard enough that it's questionable whether or not we finish them? That will be really fun. This one was already done when I logged in, which was a little disappointing but I forgive you all because it's beta. :-)
I really hope that artifacts from feats will be available to all players who participate. As the feats get longer, doing one action over and over for hours on end to try to leaderboard for a rare item sounds like a completely miserable experience. Kadi's idea of tickets or a point system to trade for special Feat items is a very good one.
"Perhaps a system could be implemented in which players are granted credits or tokens for participating in feats; the more the player participates, the more credits they receive. Those credits could then in turn be used to purchase rewards. The players who contribute the most would get the most credits and the rewards quicker, but the players who cannot or will not match them still get a chance for those items."
This is a great suggestion and you'll be happy to know that we have something similar planned, except it works via achievements: we're tracking Feat participation and at various thresholds we'll give achievements for the number of different feats participated in. Those achievements will unlock special items and rewards, regardless of whether the participant made it to any specific ranking within the feat.
"What if instead of playing the conch over and over, some glitchen had to work together, playing one note at a time, to re-create the conch music, while others could supply offerings of bubbles, while other could make drinks or potions or food or statues as offerings! Just a thought."
It's a good thought! But, I don't want to set anyone's expectations incorrectly: Feats will almost always be based on very simple kinds of actions because it just won't be possible to code up complicated sequences for what are essentially one-off events. Once we've ironed out some of the wrinkles, we intend to offer Feats in long-ish sequences (called Epics) which will take place over periods of a week or longer real time. There will therefore be many Feats, but each one will be simple (and each will almost certainly be easier/more fun for one particular play style, specialization or personal inclination).
Lucille Ball, re "Do I have the right idea that feats will eventually be hard enough that it's questionable whether or not we finish them?"
Yes — there are even templates designed and copy written for the "failed" state for the last two feats. This one seemed pretty questionable and I think it might have been close if it wasn't for a bug which caused overcounting.
Thanks, Stoot! It will be fun to have a challenge where we're all working together to try to get enough actions. I'm really looking forward to when the wrinkles are smoothed out.
The cumulative achievements that unlock rewards sounds perfect. I'm not averse to grinding, as can be seen by my growing tower, but I grind in fits and starts and not necessarily on a schedule.
köô┘αròô, re: "from now on don't do it on wedsday or thursdays nights thanks.
I can't tell if you are joking or not (hope so!) but: everyone has a different schedule, lives in different parts of the world, etc., and it is just implicit in the nature of "events" that some people will miss them. Feats will run at different times of day, different days of the week and typically last much longer. So, it will be easy for nearly everyone to participate in a feat if they want to, but some people will still miss some feats (you have to sleep sometimes).
Pale Queen (and TomC): "When I first read the description of this quest, I assumed that the number we were trying to reach was a certain number of unique glitches who had heard the song. In other words, as soon as I walk into Cebarkul and someone hits me with the conch, it doesn't matter if all 192 other people in Cebarkul also play it for me. The ticker won't go up since the first person popped my conch-cherry, as it were, and I'm off the playable-for list."
Yeah, it was a clear idea for us, but a bit hard to explain: instead of a single time hearing per-person, it was a counter that went up every time you played it for someone that you had not played it for before.
In any case, because of the size of the crowds, we ran into a bug which caused the counts to go off: if you look at the Feat page, you will see many people who allegedly played it for 200 different people, 300 different people, 400 different people, etc. That definitely didn't happen —I doubt there were very many people who managed to play it for more than 100 distinct listeners, since it (obviously) gets harder and harder to find someone for who you haven't already played it.
How about maybe one feat that is accomplished based on the total number of participants (some percentage of active Glitches), and not the number of actions? So one one action per person, or one action per person per day. That way it could be a truly community effort.
I am not suggesting this for all feats, but it might be a different way to keep one going over a period of time.
You probably wouldn't have any leader boards that way, but sometimes the process is better than the win. A community accomplishment.
This is a game. This game is a gift to the players. TS is not obligated to do anything. Life is not fair. Be thankful TS does not pack up it's toys and go home.
What absolutely vapid drivel. I am unhappy with the way this 'feat' occurred, and I have every right to be unhappy, and I don't need you or Kadi to tell me how I should feel.
artefact" is a perfectly respectable spelling of the word in the U.K.
I had no idea. Thank you.
ETA: So far these feats seem to be structured to favor the unemployed, who, I would like to point out, are not the audience you want to appeal to if you're looking to make money. Just sayin'.
I do sincerely hope that spam-clicking will not be the typical model of feat behavior. It makes me feel like a rat in a lab, pressing the bar over and over for a reward.
What would be nice is for a feat to have everyone on an equal level for contributing, no matter what time zone/schedule they are on.
Each Glitchen gets X amount of minutes to achieve a goal, for the first two feats its just a click fest. Maybe we need something structured a little differently?
I didnt enjoy the few street projects I saw, because when I finally got to see how it worked it was more about who had the most crap to throw into the project and not about how much I could dig dirt or use my pick. It didnt use much if any of what skills I had, and used lots of cooking skills which I rarely used then or now. To me that was more of a picnic and less of building a street: Digging dirt and mining up rocks to make way for the building of things. Clearing plants and trees and changing raw Ur wilderness into habitable land.
Feats need some very fine tuning, and hopefully we will get it. In the mean time it will be messy and frustrating, and not exactly balanced.
I'd like some situation where everyone has a very equal chance to contribute to the maximum, no matter where they live or what they have going on in their lives.
We all have lots of skills so putting those to use together is going to make feats much more fun and desirable for folks to participate in, in my opinion.
It would also be nice for a feat to include action that does not encourage everyone gathering in one spot so that it lags so bad that folks drop out of the game left and right. Cebarkul is already laggy enough with a small population in it, with 150+ Glitchen there its a mess.
TS - we all know you guys work hard on this stuff, and I dont want to seem ungrateful for the work and effort thats been put into this for years now. But I'd like it so that when folks come home from work they can log in and spend some time in Ur and feel like they had an excellent time and chance to contribute to a Feat. Feats are supposed to be HUGE, right? Then lets have everyone be a part of it no matter what.
Missed it again, oh well, I'm sure TS will keep at this and make it a fun experience. One idea have is make them hourly over a 24 hour time span. every hour needs X clicks. you also could lock out the winner(s) of previous hours to allow more people to have a chance at winning.
Dammit, missed it again cause of being European. Anyone in the US want to adopt me for a bit until TS make the feats world-friendly? I am house trained and make fabulous cookies. Thank you. :)
They have to last three days or more, and. more importantly, be difficult enough that they are not unlocked in first three hours or so. With the meditation feat it was certainly very nice to allow players to contribute even after the limit was met, but from my perspective such participation was nowhere near as fun as the frantic race in the beginning.
Also, lots of good ideas on lag issues. And the elf is speaking wisely.
☣ elf ☣, re: "I'd like some situation where everyone has a very equal chance to contribute to the maximum, no matter where they live or what they have going on in their lives."
In principle, I agree … but I am not clever enough to come up with something which would be perfectly equal regardless of skill, ability, amount of time one has available, etc. However, we are open to suggestions! :)
Malthus, re "One idea have is make them hourly over a 24 hour time span. every hour needs X clicks. you also could lock out the winner(s) of previous hours to allow more people to have a chance at winning."
That's a good idea. It would make things much more complicated, but would ensure the event was spread out. However, one thing we've been trying to avoid is stating the requirements in advance (once we're done testing, Feats will be on a regular schedule and visible in the calendar far in advance; the specific requirements will be secret until each Feat begins though). The concern is that if the requirements are known in advance the whole game will be about preparing for the next feat …
I would like to suggest something more similar to when we had street creating, and now we have repairing plots.
You walk up to a FEAT.
Sign in and state for the length of 1 working day you will gather the items requested of you. You can go and get as many of that item as you want and only that one item, maybe from a selection of choices. It would be nice if it did not count anything you had ever gathered before and only fresh from that moment of accepting the feat. This would make it more balanced. Maybe even you have to go up to the feat with a bag slot free to gather for the feat only a special FEAT bag would be given to you. No purchase from Auction or SDB can fill that bag. I would like simple to create items to be on that list so newbs can create them, but not just bubbles and beans... maybe cheese or cheese plates. Its been so long now that I do not remember some of the first thigns we could make.
you can sign in only once per game day.
You can also choose provide work instead of providing gathered item, but only one of each per game day. Up to 4 game days in a row, never the same thing twice. (work examples: music, digging, smelting, tuning)
I know that would be particularly hard to program in to the game but I cant see any way that would be more balanced. What we have now is certainly not balanced but TS know that.
Yet another feat I could not participate :/ Are you planning to do one also for people in Europe? We are 7-9 hours ahead from TS time, it means most of us are sleeping when these wonderful things are happening...not mentioning there are prizes such some artifacts :/
It would be a help to many people if the feats could involve places rather than numbers of clicks. If it required people to play the conch, for example, in different streets it would be possible for a small group to go to a quiet street and avoid lag.
The frantic activity on a crowded street is not something I enjoy and it is not even possible for some; witness the lost conches because of lag and crashes.
Something that required travel rather than crowds would be nice in future feats.
I am in Europe and I could have participated as I was not asleep yet... but I wasn't keeping an eye on Glitch. It was blink-and-you-miss-it, and miss it I did.
I am fully confident though that in the future they will last longer, be harder to achieve and somewhat more exciting. These were just tests, and I am sure the TS team learned from them, which was their goal.
I, too was disappointed not to be able to take part, but how else are TS going to see what works and what doesn't and get suggestions for improvements?
Lots of good ideas have come out of this learning situation and the original quest was amazing, so I look forward to new "terms and conditions" for feats in the future!
I think five little words from TS in the beginning may have stopped all the ranting and disappointment afterwards. Thus saving on time having to explain the why and wherefore of dishing out a task - which had we known was just another beta test run.
Yeah guys chill the hell out! Yes I did get to participate in the feat, but honestly this is feat #2 guys. They're still testing this new feature for us. I'm sure that these are going to get bigger and more complex and difficult. I agree we need feats that stretch over 24 hours and have phases, and I'm sure those are coming.
Also, I'm kinda glad to see this one was bugged. I thought the number just ended up being unintentionally too low and some peoples computers were faster than others and were able to get hundreds of plays. I'm sure that in the future, there will be more bugs and that's just something we'll have to deal with. But in the meantime, fantastic job, TS. Hopefully soon you can find a way of getting the feat out to those in other timezones. I guess the numbers should just be bigger. Maybe 3.5x what we needed for the first feat would have stretched it for quite a few more hours and maybe enough for everybody to participate.
I was able to participate in the feat and certainly understand that at this testing and learning time, the feat needs to be timed to occur when the TS staff are normally working - after all it is a test, not just new content for us.
My participation was limited to 9 plays...then I crashed...got back in...and immediately crashed again...gave up then.
My solution for increasing the length and participation is to limit the amount any one Glitch can contribute in a single glitch day...then the rewards would be *gasp* more even (and btw, I like the points system for reward - where the points would accrue until you had enough to get a relic or artifact - everyone would have the same chance you see - and of course, points would have to be non-transferable ~~ but, for the record, I don't think we need rewards per se, opening the new area would be enough!!)...and it would extend the length of the Feat. And then, maybe, when any Glitch gets a pop up that says 'you can't play your conch anymore today' or whatever the action for that feat is, that Glitch would leave the area thereby cutting down on the lag and crashes.
Furthermore, I think we should all get something kinda rare. The legends could get a certain piece of the artifact, while all the other tiers get different pieces as well. Non participants could get some kind of, I dunno "token" or something. Anywho, you would have to collect all the parts of the artifact to create a full artifact. And maybe said artifact could do something special OR just to say how awesome you are at the Feats.
I've noticed that my name has disappeared from the list of contributors? My 41 plays definitely occurred during the feat, and I see people who were much much lower on the list when it ended still managed to accumulate plays
Although they seem fun to do, and its probably been mentioned, but i would like the Feats to be schedule at different time zones so all can participate. Seems that they are set to go on at the same time: Pacific noon time?
Stoot, I know you are just testing them right now but you were saying some people would miss some, others not, but what is the point of playing a game if all the fun events, feats, special quests or whatever that is put out there are always set at just 1 time zone?
You have people from every time zones paying for subscriptions so every time zones should all have a chance at the fun things you guys come up with to keep us entertained & to keep us subscribing. Personally, I like to participate in those Feats and events for the fun of them, not just to get prizes, trophies..etc (although those are a nice bonus)
Maybe even start things during different time zones also.
Just a though. :) Love the game.
P.S. For the perfect English grammar inclined, I apologize in advance for any grammatical mistakes I made while typing this post.
It isn't even a time zone thing. I have a life, thank you, and I only get a few hours at best to play glitch. If fun parts of the game are going to be staged such that they occur when I am not around, I will be much less likely to want to play at all.
I missed it as well. I was bummed, sure, but I think we can cut TS some slack, here. They're testing a Brand New Thing that looks as though it will become a regular part of our gameplay. What better time to test and observe than during their own daylight office hours (as some have mentioned above)? There will be growing pains with it...but we're the guinea pigs. It might not go the way we'd like it to, but the short-term pain and frustration of now will yield a cooler, tighter, functional feat system in future that we can all participate in and enjoy.
This is a test. How the test went does not indicate how future tests will go and does not say anything about the accessibility of the mechanic when it is a regular feature in the future. Figuring out rewards and figuring out length are part of testing. That's why this is a test. How the test went does not indicate how future tests will go and does not say anything about the accessibility of the mechanic when it is a regular feature in the future. Figuring out rewards and figuring out length are part of testing. That's why this is a test. How the test went does not indicate how future tests will go and does not say anything about the accessibility of the mechanic when it is a regular feature in the future. Figuring out rewards and figuring out length are part of testing. That's why this is a test. How the test went does not indicate how future tests will go and does not say anything about the accessibility of the mechanic when it is a regular feature in the future. Figuring out rewards and figuring out length are part of testing. That's why this is a test. How the test went does not indicate how future tests will go and does not say anything about the accessibility of the mechanic when it is a regular feature in the future. Figuring out rewards and figuring out length are part of testing. That's why this is a test. How the test went does not indicate how future tests will go and does not say anything about the accessibility of the mechanic when it is a regular feature in the future. Figuring out rewards and figuring out length are part of testing. That's why this is a test.