I’m trying to not be my usual self and keep this short and sweet. We had a rather lengthy discussion after the event tonight with about two thirds of the people who attended tonight.
We talked about some ideas for changing our event schedule a little bit.
The underlying discussion focused on:
Avoiding Burnout
Focusing on High Potential Areas for Expertise
Keeping the events short and sweet - about one hour
Potentially enabling more people to attend or not feel rushed if we started later.
The take away that I came away with and which I am proposing here for everyone to provide input on is that we:
Discontinue Thursday Nights.
Push back our Monday, Wednesday, and Friday start times to 9:30pm EST.
Focus on Malevolence and Imperial Palace since they are both level 66 point of interests everything they drop has a chance to be an expertise bump for anyone who isn’t 600 expertise or higher.
With 20 azoth travel starting Monday it will be fast and cheap to move between the two locations and knock them out in one hour.
I’d like anyone who is currently active and participating in events or thinking about participating to throw any feedback they have on this idea into this thread. Positive or Negative. I am interested on how everyone feels about this.
This all sound good to me and the reasoning is sound. Our high levels have been carrying the rest of us forward for so long it is no wonder some are getting winded.
Those of us that still have a long ways to go can join other chest runs on the server if they wish.
For me, for whatever reason, that run we do out of MountainHome is always the most productive in the number of expertise messages I get. Could be luck or just one of those mysteries of life.
I appreciate the folks who lead this stuff taking their time to do these runs. I aware of the effort it takes as a past raid leader and puller in another life. /salute
I do feel that consolidating the orgs down to maybe two (one active and the other for not so perhaps) could drive our membership to more social awareness and participation. Discord is not for everyone (especially moody old farts) and a few gentle “hey this is going down at Imperial Palace meet here at 8:30 est” in org chat may get one or two to join, enjoy and progress that would not otherwise.
Many are a long way away from and may never really do the mutated stuff so these runs for them are a way to connect, progress and enjoy the MM part of MMO. The better we do at helping that occur the healthier the org may be as the connect, progress and enjoy part of gaming is cyclical and sustainable.
Enough talking for me but as a slow progressing, grateful, not going anywhere, top down game hating, beer drinking, bean farting, middle percentile but durable dude who plays every day with his wifey…I salute you and your efforts!
You pick a spot and tell me where it is going down and likely we will show up!
Thank you Sonlkat for all you do to help us. I am 100% up for what you propose. A later starting time would make eating dinner and being on time for the run so much easier. Bullvyyn sometimes doesn’t get home from work until 530 or 6 cst and then to eat and be at the starting area by 7 cst can be tough. We love doing the runs with all the guildies. Makes learning the different areas easier. We want to help the grp not be a hinderance.
We are always available to help anyone if we can.
GO OTG!!!
First, thank you to you and Lynn for taking up the runs we are doing! I know it can be hard with a young child and living on the opposite coast trying to accommodate all of us.
Have they made you an officer yet? You need to be with all that you do!
Those changes sound great, with the exception of the starting time. Can we start at 9:00 pm? I know it is hard on the west coasters.
Would we still do mines and myrk? They are so good for crafting supplies, which we all need.
I do agree with Bullvyyn, lower geared individuals, as I once was, do tend to get more expertise bumps from mines and myrk and sometimes the forts. I remember one night getting 14 bumps from those 2. As I got higher, there became less and less bumps, now those are just for weapons I’m not using on a regular basis.
I have no issues with the 9:30 start time and I’m a big fan of 1 hour runs.
For me, it’s the GS. I need the crafting supplies and rare items (just like most of us) but I need to get my expertise up so I’m not locked into pre-patch auction house items and I can possibly field enough gear for mutations.
I do want to thank SonicKat for organizing these, it’s been a real help to get things moving the right direction. With the drop in active players (OTG and others) and the lower frequency for officers we need all the help we can get. Thanks again!
I’m happy to assist whenever I can. As an east coaster with kids, 9:30 is their bed time. My wife’s work starts at 6AM and she gets up and works out for an hour before departing. This means she tends to hit the rack at 9pm making it my responsibility to see the kids get to bed on time.
I’ve found when I go tell them good night and that I’m trusting they go to bed on time… there’s a high likelihood it isn’t going to happen. What would parenting be without “herding cats”.
I can probably support a 9:45 start time. Certainly not asking to change the time on my behalf. That’s just my normal availability.
I’m not sure. Mines has a soft cap of 577 and Myrk has a soft cap of 591. When we choose to do those areas over doing Malevolence and Imperial Palace we lose out on two areas that are soft capped at 600. When I say soft cap it doesn’t mean you can’t get a drop higher, it just means your much less likely too than the higher level areas. That’s the trade off we struggle with and need to discuss further and see what everyone is willing to live with in terms of opportunity costs. Do we want to focus on expertise collectively in the most efficient way or are we willing to run a less efficient expertise run and grab more reagents? If we do, to what degree to we split that focus and how often?
Myrk also has portals so each time we run it - it’s equivelant to roughly 50 umbral shards starting Monday (since it doesn’t have enough for a full gypsum each run). Thats greater rewards than a gold M1.
Understood. I don’t think we will ever find a time that works for everyone and hopefully we can get enough people providing feedback like this that we can target a time that works for the most people. If people don’t provide feedback like this we don’t know what times work and don’t work.
Credie has benefitted immensely from the runs both from expertise and getting to know our OTG players and what a fun caring group they are.
As a west coaster we generally eat at 7:30 pdt. The 8pmEST start time worked great. Starting at 9EST works ok for an hour run as that gives me 30 min to prep dinner since cooking is my family responsibility. 9:30 EST would make it hard but ok and 9:45pm EST impossible. Will go along with what everyone wants. If later is better, then would vote for 9pm EST.
I was one of those in on the discussion. I am at the stage in the game where I need expertise bumps. I am not at the upper tier capability. I suspect a lot of others are in the same situation. My time is flexible most evenings currently. I am willing to help how I can. I try to get in on invasions for some coin.
Bullvyyn and Kbella are up for whatever time you decide. The later time of 830 est is better for us in cst. He gets home between 530 and 6 cst so that gives us a little more time to eat. He needs to go to bed by 10-1030 cst at the latest because he gets up at 630am cst to go to work. Not every time is going to work for everyone.
We really appreciate all the hard work you have been putting in to help us grow as a group and team! Yellow Unite!
OTG together!
I am on every day during the day so hit me up for help, if I can I will gladly do my best to help anyone.
I want to thank everyone who has been organizing and running events.
I think the simpler schedule is good. I can make more events at 9 or 9:30 than I can at 8 pm.
If we could add Myrk once in a while, that would be great. The portals are worth it plus I seemed to get a lot of bunps there when most of my scores were under 580.
The chest and reagent runs will have a primary goal of keeping it to 1 hour. If we get to where we are taking too long then expect to have the leniency with small chest looting get a little more discouraged. We’ll try to optimize routes to include all elite chests and stockpiles we can squeeze in, in two POIs in a night.
On a side note it sounded like Tech has volunteered to step up and organize the Coffee Runs at least for the time being. Hopefully having someone back on point posting and planning those will keep it rolling for the foreseeable future. It sounded like there was quite a few ideas for what to do on that run and if you have any ideas be sure to forward them to Tech!
Thanks for all the hard work from Sonickat. Also, the 930 EST was going to be a bit late for me, so 830 works better. 1 hour run times look good. Really, although I can advance, the chest and reagent runs help me advance faster. I do understand they made this a marathon after 60 and not a sprint. Therefore, thank you OTG for stepping up and helping us all succeed.
