Idea: Where in New Britannia is Winston?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Winston, Feb 26, 2022.

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  1. Winston

    Winston A Data Guy Moderator SOTA Developer

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    I am coming up with more ideas for in-game events for the players. Some of these run by themselves, like the Catnip Games Monthly Fishing Tournaments and Treasure Hunts. Others are done LIVE with Winston (and/or others) in the game and the event is conducted live.

    I drafted a "Where in New Britannia is Winston?" somewhat based on the old game "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiago?"

    My draft idea and details are on my User Pages on SotAWiki.net here:
    https://sotawiki.net/sota/User:Winston/Where_in_New_Britannia_is_Winston

    Here are some details:

    Player Experience
    • Winston is somewhere in New Britannia.
    • Clues are given out every 5 minutes to help reveal Winston's location in Universe Chat.
    • Entire game lasts no more than 1 hour.
    • First person(s) to find Winston win the prize(s).

    Prize(s)
    Prize(s) vary depending on number of players who find Winston.
    • ALL players get a Bulletin Board hand-crafted, hand-written note from Winston.
    • One player - a large item (e.g., deco or wearable item from the Store)
    • A couple of players - medium items (e.g., Obsidian Potions)
    • A lot of players in a big group - (e.g., fireworks)

    What do you folks think of this? What are the pros and cons?

    As an aside: I already conduct some LIVE "Decode Winston's Message" games in Universal Chat every few days. (I will document that game on SotAWiki too.)
     
    Last edited: Feb 26, 2022
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  2. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

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    I believe just doing several live tests of this event (with no rewards) would allow you to see what ways it can be improved on utilizing the current game functions.
     
  3. Kelly O'Shay

    Kelly O'Shay Avatar

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    I will just teleport to friend and win the game!
     
  4. Bayard

    Bayard Avatar

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    Many years ago, Radio Free Britannia ran a contest just like this to great success. The game system could handle it then so I'm sure it can handle it now. Finding the 'rabbit' was extremely difficult and usually lasted 15-30 mins with clues coming every 5 minutes if I recall correctly. The rabbit stayed in one place but it could be on the third floor, in a particular room of a player house that was open or waiting in an obscure corner of Britannia Castle for example. And if nobody found the rabbit in time, prizes were rolled over into next week's rewards so the incentive grew every week. The reward was usually gold that had been contributed by players to RFB for prizes but anything could be used. And since the 'rabbit' was only used for the game, nobody could friend teleport to it.

    RFB also did an "Identify this sound" where they would play a 1-3 second clip of an in-game sound and you had to guess what the sound was (there are a heck of a lot more sounds in SotA than you think!).

    Good luck and thank you for adding more fun to SotA! :thumbs up:

    P.S. Any old-timer remember the name of the 'rabbit'? I can't recall myself.
     
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  5. Kelly O'Shay

    Kelly O'Shay Avatar

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    I did not mean to put a stop to your fantastic idea by this post. I was just pointing out one of the stumbling blocks you will have to overcome to make this happen.

    I mean, you could just delete all the friends from your friends list. And, you would need to set your location to "hidden" in the settings menu.

    I have always loved participating in the player run questing and treasure hunts and fishing tournaments etc. I hope my little joke hasn't put you off of doing this and other creative user created activities. I mean really, we need all the fun we can get, right?

    @Winston @Anpu @Bayard
     
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  6. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

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    In doing that test today in game, which seemed to work just fine, I think the only issue you might come across is if you do suddenly pop in one of these events on live in chat, on occasion, u chat can get quite busy with many people talking about something, so your message could get easily lost.

    One possible suggestion might be for an option for you to use a distinct colored text for these announcements and your clues.
     
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  7. craftymethod

    craftymethod Avatar

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    Cool idea, that where in the world game was (one of) the first games I ever played.
    I wasn't very good at it being all of 6 years old!

    My only comments I can think of would be to consider additional time slots for the non Americans among us... or maybe develop it as a framework other players can use to whip up as a flash event?
    As to @Anpu 's comment, maybe a Server shout?

    It would be cool to see dev's work on Cyclic automated events, There were some in the past, perhaps a close look at the events Star Citizen have been putting on latley. Their time zone slots had a lot of discussion latley, I think Jump Town, Xeno Threat and 9 Tails events perhaps have elements worthy of looking into.

    Events events events!
     
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  8. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

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    The red server announcements should only be used for very critical information that is communicated to the players, and that’s working just fine.

    I feel just a very distinct message could be typed by Winston and we could easily find it. One suggestion (and this would only be available to developers) a bold message with a white background and possibly black text?
     
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  9. Jack SinAssist

    Jack SinAssist Avatar

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    Fyndoro's Tablet of Finding FTW!
     
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  10. Pifester

    Pifester Bug Hunter

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    might be better to place a conversationalist renamed Winston with a "win" phrase somewhere. Cant automatically teleport, and a tablet wont work on it either :p
     
  11. Warrior B'Patrick

    Warrior B'Patrick Avatar

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    Greetings all, Jack SinAssist, and Winston (Chris said you were working on fish)
    beat me to it. I was going to remind everyone of the Tablet of Finding which will point out where your Avatar is when logged in. You could change it to a Mannequin dressed to look like you Fishing pole and all. You will have to have permission of the POT Governor or Lot owner to place it but you could also have a bag/chest with 1 note in it for the winner to turn in. Sounds like fun.
     
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  12. Violet Ronso

    Violet Ronso Avatar

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    You know, you do raise a good point, and even with all those tips you're giving, there will still remain a tool to help some people find Winston a bit more easily (hint : some people have acquired a certain tablet ;) )
     
  13. craftymethod

    craftymethod Avatar

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    Good chance to promote the possible need for being able to place a conversational in the world away from Lots.

    Event design away from lots is beneficial! (even consider with town criers and being able to direct to non lot locations!)
     
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  14. Pifester

    Pifester Bug Hunter

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    Good lord yes, a Gov or steward place able conversationalist would be nice. I wouldnt mind having a few to do a wild goose chase, ie - lich conversationalist in a pot graveyard, hidden in the depths of the woods. The only way to know about it is to find it, or have a quest to find it. Cant locate it by doing a town crier search and see who has plots to check out.
     
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  15. Stryker Sparhawk

    Stryker Sparhawk Avatar

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    Where's Baldo
     
  16. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

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    I think this could be a fun idea / event, provided that the clues give enough specificity to make the goal of finding the Winston achievable.
    I've participated in things like this (in other games) from both the "hider" and the "seeker" perspective and it works great in that circumstance, not so great if it is too vague.

    IE, if you give a clue that leads players to a scene, and they have to spend half an hour methodically going house to house, floor by floor - that gets tedious quick, and participation drops because there's nothing to "solve" it just becomes a sweep exercise.
    I'll give an example of what I mean:
    A clue that says "I can hear Arcadian stomping around downstairs" tells me what town, what building, and what floor provided I have the knowledge of who/where Arcadian is. A clue that kinda just vaguely sends me to Etceter and makes me search every building, not so great.

    Some considerations:
    Fyndoro's Tablet of finding? Will this be a problem?
    Obviously friends list was mentioned but that can be solved with going anonymous there.
    Players in scene? Would Winston show up? Do we want him to? etc
     
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  17. Winston

    Winston A Data Guy Moderator SOTA Developer

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    "These are GREAT ideas! Thank you all so much!

    Sorry I have not replied ... I've been working with another Dev on some UI features for Release 100 to support Tournaments. So I've had my head down in that and not watching the forums. I need more monitors!

    I am glad to read that others like this game, have played it in other games, and there are several things to figure out with mechanics and procedure.

    • Time slots for the game - International Focus - yes, I want my games to be "International-Friendly" in time and content. When is the Hofbräuhaus in München open again - Might be in a WinstonCode someday, eh?
    • Fyndoro's Tablet of finding - I've never used it, so we will need to test it. - https://sotawiki.net/sota/Fyndoro's_Tablet - "Fyndoro’s Tablet of Finding can be used once per day to find a player by writing the name on the tablet"
      • Possibly a deal breaker here. Will have to test this. Hmm.
    • Friends list with zone to friend - I tested with notRevealLocation to friends and it seems to work, as long as you log out and back in to clear it properly. ("Oh look, Winston just turned off his Location to Friends mode in Friends List... he's getting ready to play the game!" Hah!)
    • /point Winston emote - this could point to Winston if in the same scene. Need to test.
    • Players in scene - I tested and as I enter a scene, even as a GM GHOST mode, I show up for about 1 second on the Nearby Players list then disappear. So I'd have to position myself 15-30 minutes before starting the game.
    • Universal Chat - need to highlight (invert text colors) to Bark out a WinstonClue. I would not use the Server-wide announcements; that's too bold of me.
    • Test game without rewards - try out procedures, mechanics, etc. and see what happens for fun/testing first.
    • Alternate methods:
      • NPC conversationalist on the POT (not on a lot).
      • Vendor with one item to sell
    Fun!
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2022
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  18. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

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    You know, you might be on to a cool option here.

    I know that you dev-types can give yourself permission to place things on people's lots/towns/etc so there's nothing stopping you from simply placing a vendor down on a lot of your choice selling a single slip of paper, and having it be a case of the first person who buys it and trades/mails it back to you is the winner (or you could have multiples, whatever). There'd still be the blip of your name showing up in ghost mode when you went to whatever scene to do it, but you would be presumably placing these in non prominent locations so could do a few minutes before and people would have to already be in the target scene actively watching for the "blip" (not likely) and even if so, you'd see who was in that town, too so you'd know if that person instantly came and did it that shenanigans were in play.

    You could also have player-agents list the items for you on your queue....and nobody knows who is involved, so could just be people in town going about their usual business...while sticking a vendor named Winston in their attic behind some crates...nothing unusual going on here.

    You'd be limited to player lots or existing npc/public vendors tho, but it is definitely a cool option with a clearer way to determine the winner and it solves the fyndoros/point-emote/etc. issues because you could place it and poof, and then move Winston somewhere else entirely for the sheer joy of misdirect!
     
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  19. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    would have to remove that vendor from the scene-wide vendor search, but i think there's a toggle for that
     
  20. Vaentorian

    Vaentorian Localization Team

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    Would the nearby players list issue still apply if you went into a private instance of an adventure scene? AFAIK all towns are now forced public but maybe you could place something like the automatons from the tour guide quest in a rural location?
     
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