Due the Feedback is kinda going to be derailed by discussion and not feedback, this thread is just for that. Please post here if you want to discuss about the last live missions. Devs can just remove this thread if they see so fit Note! Not my idea. @Zargh told this on feedback thread but i posted it because "why not"
Good idea setting up this thread! Having read through the discussion in the other thread, there are some things I'd like to share my experiences with, as I've said quite a few times before, from past ARG experiences: Multiple Channels/Focusing efforts: In theory, this can be a great boon to the process of solving the mission. In practice, however, it more often than not comes at the sacrifice of community cohesion. To give a specific example - and extrapolate on it further - during the End of Days event, I believe it was, the main chat got so clogged with people coming back from work/sleep/whatnot asking for updates, that a lot of people felt they needed to focus their efforts by disbanding into smaller groups of 10 - 13 people. This had the repercussion that, whoever didn't join one of those groups, was left in the dust - nearly no-one was interested in updating the main chat anymore, and as such, getting an update was nearly impossible without being part of one of the aforementioned groups. The funny thing is, this didn't result in the mission progressing any faster, at least not to a noticeable affect. It only led to animosity and fracturization, making it a proverbial pissing-contest between the groups. To make a slightly strawman-esque illustration of this, try to recall your pre-school days. I assume it's likely you were split into two or more classes for each year; now recall the competition that was between your own class and that of the second class of the same grade. This wasn't because there was any reason to be competitive, it was merely based on the fact that you were two groups; it didn't matter that you were going through the exact same curriculum, that teachers didn't encourage the competitive spirit, or that there were any difference between the two classes - it all boiled down to grouping. The above was the reason why it was decided some time ago that we would mainly stick to IRC, Forums, and Google Docs for organizing the information. IRC was intended as the "think-tank", Forums as the "diary", and Docs as the "Note-pad". It was the hope that this would allow people to co-operate on every stage of the process; that they would have a place to discuss ideas (IRC), a place to report findings that they did when putting a theory into practice (Docs), and a place that could alleviate the pressure of constantly updating IRC for those who had been out of the loop for a bit of time (Forums). Past experience as also shown that there is a huge benefit to not disbanding into groups. I can hardly count the times that a step was solved not by any of "the usual suspects", but by someone who stumbled into the main avenue of communication, got an update, and went, "Well, have you tried rrecchi Ogallala?" (to name a very specific, striking example, considering everyone else had been stuck on that step for 2-3 days. Considering the above, I can't help but ask myself; if we start making use of other avenues of communication, what purpose would they serve, other than trying to put the aforementioned theory into practice? And here I must reiterate, I've only ever seen that theory fail horribly when put into practice; investigation slows down, animosity grows, deconstructive competition grows, and perhaps most importantly, the level of enjoyment falls drastically for anyone not in a group - they become unwilling observers, as well as indirectly for those participating in the groups, as they conversely become the target of the animosity of those who are relegated to mainly observatory participation - or at least feel as such. Of course, if all avenues could be updated reliably, then it might be possible. However, as I'm sure anyone who's attempted to keep a Thread updated during a Live-mission knows, this is a full-time job if done by just one person. Reliably syncing just IRC and Forums takes a huge time-investment, and it's why it was decided that the task of updating the OP of any Thread should remain fluid, and not something that fell on the shoulders of a single person, such as the one who started the Thread, or even a single Moderator. This is using just 2 channels of communication, in addition to the already very concise and straight-forward use of Google Docs. It is my fear - and a substantiated one at that, I feel, based on the abovementioned past experiences - that if we start making use of voice-chat, adding in a 3rd avenue of communication, as well as splitting the community into smaller parts, then keeping everything synced becomes a full-time job for at least 2 people, or if the responsibility is shared, then something that will only happen half-heartedly - again, this isn't because I think we're incapable of it, but because this is what have happened time and again in the past. Finally, I must admit I have trouble seeing how voice-chat could be any less clogged than IRC; it is, after all, far easier to parse simultaneously written text, than simultaneously spoken words. From my time playing competitive Tribes 2 and PVP EVE-Online, voice-chat was something where it was necessary to relegate most speaking to only a handful of people; at most 1 who maintained order and guided the group and who could speak at will, and 2 - 5 others who relayed back to that one person, often taking turns. And those are relatively less information-heavy than any ARG. The times I've participated in voice chat where it was more casual, such as when playing Planetside 2 or Warframe, I've often found it very, very hard to get to say something, simply because turn-taking cues aren't present in voice-chat; at best I found people ended up interrupting each other, or waiting for someone to finish speaking just to have 2 or more people try to take their turn at the same time. For those reasons, I do feel that the best course of action is to stick as much as possible to the established avenues of communication; IRC, Forums, and Google Docs. They are inclusive, they cover concurrent co-operation, structured attempts, and updating other agents. Voice-chat, in my opinion, would only serve to exacerbate co-operative attempts, would be bar from as inclusive as IRC, and serve very little in way of updating fellow Agents. At best, it would be a more efficient - but also much more closed - version of Google docs. Atmosphere and behavior: I don't have much to say on this matter (or, well, let's let history be the judge of that ;P). I know tempers can easily run high, but I also think it's important that we do not try to censor each other. We all just need to be mindful of each other, and especially of the signal we're sending to new players. There is no greater thrill than seeing fellow Agents working together, and nothing quite as heartbreaking as hearing someone's been antagonized in PM for stating an opinion in a civilized manner. I've already heard of - and seen - examples of one (or more) players being "flamed" for stating an opinion, or going about something in a different way. I very much frown upon that sort of reaction; it is far from constructive, and serves little purpose whatsoever. If anyone has a problem with another player, I do humbly ask that you bring it to me or one of the other Moderators - so we all can find a common ground on the matter, instead of burning proverbial bridges by thinking that mean PMs or hot-headed outbursts will accomplish anything but that; it is the single most efficient way at creating a toxic and hostile environment, and that will kill an ARG faster than anything. If push comes to shove, take 5 minutes and then come back and have a discussion - that might possiblu solve things for both parties, without making anyone feel antagonized. And always keep in mind; we're allowed to disagree. Recognizing that fact is perhaps one of the greatest strengths of an ARG community. If we had to be in agreement to be friends, we'd be stuck on missions for all eternity whenever we hit a roadblock. Edit: Sorry for any typos - dividing attention between writing a forum-rant and learning about Construction Grammar takes its mental toll.
Santiak hits the nail on the head, again. One thing I will add is that the argument of 'people are going to do it anyway' doesn't hold water here. We need to change the way that we think about these things, so that people AREN'T tempted or pushed into forming these separate side-groups. This is as much about community atmosphere and mindfulness as it is about which avenues of communication we need to prioritize.
I agree with Santiak. I would just like to add that throughout Season 1, we did not use TS as an avenue of communication during live events, and it was alot more fun. One of the reasons I disappeared during the time-frame between Season 1 and 2 is because I started noticing people splitting off and making their own groups (or "Divisions" as they called them). While that is all fine, what really got to me is that they seemed to be rubbing it in everyone's face that wasn't a part of it. This made me feel like one of the most unimportant people in the community, which also made me lose interest here and I'm sure it made others feel that way as well. People splitting into their own smaller groups during live events will only make this problem worse, which will lead to the games downfall. This is not because of the devs or the game itself, but the players themselves. The people in those smaller groups won't see it, because they are in the groups and feel apart of something, but those not in the groups can see it. I know this might sound like a personal rant and not anything to do with this live mission, but I am just trying to give an example. This is the kind of thing that will eventually lead to the downfall of the game. It won't be quick, more like bleeding very slowly from a wound until death. I have fully supported this game from the beginning, even donating one of the highest amounts during crowdfunding, because I saw potential in this game and it looked fun as long as the community stuck together. Now, it looks like the community is dividing. I'll probably have more to add later, but for now, I have to get ready for work.
Thinking about it this way, I agree, but I'd still leave the TS up as a resource for the community to use in their free time, but I agree on excluding it from the live missions other then having a platform to direct all the dicking around to. This wouldn't only keep the TS avaible for people who just enjoy hearing the voice of other agents. But also would clean up the amount of jokes that is generally posted to the IRC at all times during live events. So the clogging of the IRC could be reduced. For this to effectively work the TS would have to be restructured so we don't have 30 users in the same channel, because it would become more distracting then focusing during live missions and in general, would be unappleaing to people. Another thing that TS can be used for very well is to solve the problem of keeping people in the loop that join it later, leaving the constant "what did I miss" questions in IRC to a minimum if people didn't have to ask in IRC. Collaboration and progress should be focused on IRC and Google Docs. Keeping the larger milestones on more complex mission parts available for readup and keeping some kind of journal in general should be kept soley to the Forums. (I dont include Dev-Edit only resources here) But things as keeping people in the loop of information coming from the IRC could also be done in the TS. I also think that the TS is very valuable for livestreaming on the new Season Missions and to have some easily consumable medium to relieve what happened in the live events through Highlights. @Timothy Fox can you enlighten me of the "Divisions" you mean, because the only two that I know of were Division 69, which was just a joke that three agents game up with, and Division 88, which is a project to offer ressources to the community without having the dev team provide them, such as TBW themed image uploading and link shortening.
Non-TBW Related voice-chat/Socializing: I agree that for anything non-TBW related, voice-chat is perfectly acceptable - after all, if you hit it off with someone, then of course you're going to be playing other games with them, and in those cases, there's nothing wrong with using voice-chat - quite the contrary, there would be something gravely wrong with people saying you shouldn't do that. It also changes the comparison dramatically if that becomes the case: One can equate it to, for example, playing a game that already has another chat-system than IRC - The Secret World, for example. It would be absurd to say that anyone who plays The Secret World with others from TBW should keep their conversation in the main channel. Personally, I've played a brief bout of Warframe with JKKennedy, and we made use of the in-game voice-chat there, too. I can't really think of why anyone would feel left out because of that, at least not in regards to participating in The Black Watchmen. On personal level, outside of The Black Watchmen, if people do feel left out, they'd be more than welcome to join me. So, again, I agree that for socializing outside of The Black Watchmen, voice-chats are fine - they can't and shouldn't be "policed". For me, the only "grey area" in all this is when socializing within The Black Watchmen - which category would that fall into? It still falls under the "not anyone's elses place to dictate" notion of non-TBW socializing, but at the same time also the "decentralization" issue. However, people are extremely good at inviting other players when they do play different games than The Black Watchmen together, with the specific aim of socializing with other TBW-players; for example when someone invites others to a round of Cards Against Humanity. Voice-chat as active-update tool during Live-Events: My main, and largely only concern with voice-chat, is when it's used in conjunction with live-events. Since I didn't really touch on the matter of updating players via voice-chat in detail in my previous post, I'll make a mention of it here: I can see how it would be more efficient, if it was just a few people every now and then; 1 or 2 every hour or so - which would indicate it'd be a closed group to begin with. However, the (community-wide) norm seems to be tens of people an hour, and I honestly can't see how anyone could rightly bear to parrot "<this happened>" ad nauseam in voice-chat, and still be able to participate in the mission themselves - let alone keeping themselves up to date. Nor can I see how it would be more effective than, say, making it common-place that the first place you look up is the ongoing thread or google-doc, make a note of what's been added since you logged off, and then joining in on the fun in IRC with everyone else. Of course there may be some gaps even then, but they should - hopefully - be so miniscule that you'd catch up just by reading the first few sentences uttered in IRC. And then the main difference between voice-chat and IRC, becomes that of someone actively updating anyone who needs it on an individual basis, and that of everyone being "passively" updated by everyone else, by way of the resources that are concurrently updated (Forums, Docs) in conjunction with the ongoing discussion (IRC). The hurdle then becomes making the "passive approach" a norm to such a degree, that Agents can feel confident that they aren't missing any piece of information; but then again, updating via voice-chat also has an equal risk that the person updating isn't in the loop, as a result of being busy actively updating people ("Hello Catch-22 my old friend~~"). So really, the answer is, perhaps, that all of us try to be more prudent in not only adding our own theories and attempts to the Docs/Forums, but that we also get a bit more proficient at adding each others input (when relevant) - and of course making sure to quote the person who said it, albeit I think everyone's already really good at making sure to give credit where credit is due.
To the first part I qouted, I kinda assumed that every player of a puzzle game should be aware of the fact that the first go to place for catch up should be the place constantly updated with static information. On the second part, well, not much to add really, I just hope that if this happens from time to time, the first part manages to keep the second from happening so this problem never actually ocurrs, because I'm sure that people will ask on TS if the server is available about what happened. And I'm also sure that one or two things might slip on irc, kinda like "I think I've got something", if on voice, its hard to hold back your join and information. We just have to make sure that is just being ALSO said on TS, not JUST said on TS. And allways posted to either the instant, constant or collaborative channel. One thing I assume is entirely uncritical to use TS for in live missions is these parts that I like to call "periscope parts", because its usually only accessible if you have access to both visual and audial resources at the time of the stream. Also, its alot easier to coordinate these periscope missions using a TS relay, and if, as in most cases, someone else is the main information relay from IRC to Field Agent. Having this person on TS along with all the people live streaming, you can get some very valuable viewing experiecence from it. I also want to remind of the fact that the use of periscope is not part of the mission, and is just a thing in order to make them a bit more "live" and have a way to fill the waitin period that ocurred on S1 live events I wittnessed, where the field agents were just gone for an hour ot two because they couldn't connect to the IRC outside their home. But I'd definitely exclude TS from any actual part of the mission. The route planning itself should be done on the IRC, but I don't want to remove the entertainment value of TS from the whole live event experience. Becaue I want to keep in mind that the livestreams we did can be shown to potential new players durin a live event by agents who want to get them into the game, so we should make them as entertaining as possible.
There were several "Divisions" players created. Division 88 being excluded from that list because it is considered official, as well as Division 69 because of the poor joke. If you are looking for names, I won't give out any even in a PM, because that is the kind of person I am. I want to keep the fun of the game going and not have anyone get in trouble unless they truly deserve it.
Alright, I know I rustled some peoples feelings the other day when I said during the next live event I will just have my VoIP while I stream. I guess in hindsight that is not really different here and still leaves split. For me, I have to remember to include myself streaming in my analysis. Some of you find that offensive perhaps or wrong to do, but it is a part of what I am and what I do and a huge part of my enjoyment is the ability to share the live mission experience with others, especially those who are unable to participate, but get to watch. So I am going to agree that utilizing IRC as the main source of information gathering, discussion, etc, is a priority. In that respect I want to outline some of what I plan to do individually to help prevent my stream from becoming an off-shoot division separate from the IRC. First and foremost, I am going to re-integrate IRC chat into my stream for the live missions. I removed it b/c it both broke and I was not sure if it was more of a breakdown to the experience or enhancement. I have decided that overall, especially for those watching the Live Missions for replay value, I want to include the IRC as the mains source of information. Second, it is truth that streaming does better when the streamer is paying attention to his viewers and constantly engaging them. I fell pitfall to the enticing factor of human communication in TS and lowered the viewer experience that way in reality. So I will not be joining a VoIP with a group of agents for an entire mission like this last one. However, it is also true that I personally will not be able to keep up with IRC at a reasonable pace and will need updates. In this case I will likely have 1 other person with me in a personal VoIP for communication between the IRC and me. I have not decided on this, because I am not sure I want to relegate someone to this actually, but I wanted to put it out there to see if you all think that is ok. There are a few instances where I may join a VoIP with fellow agents. If the mission some reason calls for it. I doubt this will happen, but I never know If I am late or need an update on what I missed I may request someone from the IRC to join me in a VoIP for a moment to explain everything up to that point for me and the stream viewers. This is best done with a Voice + Forum history review. I can't think of any other. In any case, I am going to do what I do and that is create an enjoyable experience and atmosphere for my viewers. I don't think TeamSpeak last time actually did that. When I reflect on it, it not only split people from the IRC, it also split interaction from my chat which used to be people in IRC telling me stuff from there and thus their interaction level increased with both my stream and the event itself. I realize some may be going "he turned this into his stream", but to me it is important to me, and I wanted to be sure that my stream is an enhancement to the events, not a division of people.
For what it's worth, I definitely think your stream is a huge boon to the game! Not only in terms of bringing in new sacri... bloo.. Agents, but also in terms of keeping a very detailed and vivid record of events, reactions, and by extension, an entertaining walkthrough for people who might get stuck on a particular mission, or wish to find out what a Live Mission was all about, without being forced to read through a thread or logs (which are quite lengthy if you're looking for a recap of the entire mission, and not just a "since you were last here"). And it acts as a social gathering point for Agents outside of TBW, as well. If anything, I'd say it's a factor in maintaining cohesion in the community - and I hope I never gave the impression that I thought otherwise! From my perspective, it wasn't your stream that split anything, largely because it is per definition a (mostly) one-way communicative street, so it doesn't remove you nor the viewers from the "main pool" of Agents. To pain a metaphor as I'm prone to do: Your stream is you opening a window to intrigued onlookers, it removes nothing from other Agents, and gives a lot to interested parties. The "issue" is more if a group of people goes into the next room; shouting between the two rooms is taxing, and ultimately some might start to miss their good buddies in the other room, perhaps some even begin to wonder if they went to the other room because oneself forgot to shower properly that morning.
For the record: I am reasonably sure you're referring to me(and maybe some others) in that first part, and you did not rustle my jimmies. I've been having a bad few days... That being said, I think that what you're proposing is a great compromise. Additionally if you ever need anyone to give you audio updates, I'm willing, as I'm sure many other Agents would be.
