Cormyr and the Dalelands

It seems every quest I see get posted (yes, I'm on the discord, that's the only way I'd ever even see them get posted), despite the disclaimers of "people with less questing will be prioritized", they fill in like, half an hour or less. By the time I even see the announcement, it's full. Often with the first five or so people that posted.

Admittedly, I've not gotten past level 15 yet, despite playing here for a few months. I know not every quest posted is going to be in my level range, but literally all I've ever done is a single ad-hoc.

But slower responding people, like myself, don't even get a chance at quests. What chance have I to be prioritized when all the slots are full already?

Could there be something I'm misunderstanding? Maybe. But this is the impression I'm having.

I know I myself am particularly bad at seeing what people who sign up for my quests join other quests, but it is something I will attempt to be more cognizant of going forward. I usually will alt people who have been in a lot of my quests lately but that does not solve the "quests filling up in half an hour or less"

If the sign-ups stop when there's enough to fill the available slots, that doesn't leave space to alt any of the players signed up who've been in a lot of quests. It's always better to sign up regardless of whether enough people have signed up to fill the available slots or not, otherwise there's no chance of getting in if you don't sign up

What's the point of signing up if the top post has all the main and alt slots already filled up by the time I even see it?

I'll try to translate a dutch proverb 'It's better to miss a target then to not take a shot at it at all.'

You never know what happens.

Honestly, the is a cop out, not a solution.

The point is, even if signing up after every slot has been filled (something that tends to happen within a half hour to hour of the plot being posted), works (and it mostly doesn't from my experance), people new to the server, or less experience with plot, will see this and feel they missed out.  And it IS disheartening to see.  It really makes it feel like it is not worth signing up.  Honestly responding to a concern about an issue with "You should just know to do something counterintuitive" is less than helpful.  Moreover, even if people would be swapped out later, if they sign up after it has filled, then the people who were initially get bumped out, that feels bad too.

My proposition would be a waiting period, before slots are assigned.  Plots are generally posted a week or more in advance, if the DM's running them simply waited till the next day to assign slots, it would save a lot of frustration.   It will let them better see who has shown interest, before filling the slots in, and it would give people who are not on discord/the forums the exact moment the plot is posted more time to sign up.

I would also add, that from my perspective, most spots in most plots go to certain group of people.  I see the same names calls for most of the announced quests.  I would very much like to see, if possible, more effort put into making sure those who get into plot less, get a chance.  For example, I, across all of my many characters, have 1 DM item.  It came from the festival.  I know people who have gotten four, on one character, so far, just this year.  

*Edit*
To clarify, when I say the slots go to a certain group of people, I do not mean to imply cliqueiness or favoritism, just that some people have an easier time keep an eye on the forums/discord, and thus tend to sign up more often, and get picked more often.  I realized after I posted that my wording might have been confusing <3 

While unfortunately there will always be more people wanting to join events than DM avaliable to run them (a big problem even in tabletop!), my advice is to sign up anyway.  Sign up for everything you could make, as an alt.

I've gotten into a lot of quests in the past just as an alt, because things happen, people can't show up, or people decide to drop a quest for some reason.  Not always, but eventually, if you keep signing up!

Another tip is to turn on notifications for quest announcements in Discord  so you can get an alert the moment one is posted.  It sucks to miss the opening hour when slots fill fastest, and this can increase your odds of seeing it.

Unfortunately, slots are always filled first come, first served. This is to avoid favoritism and to avoid DMs hand selecting their rosters. This won't change.

What DMs can do to better cater their quests to groups of players in a fair manner is to assign broad preference slots. ie. preferencing any dwarves who sign up to the dwarf-centric quest. Preferencing characters of x, y, z faith, etc. Some of us do this from time to time where appropriate.

Only a few DMs announce their quests on discord. Most of us just post them on the forums without any flair.

Something that the staff have taken note of lately that does impact players and questing is that we're currently in a dry spell for signup quests. Between some DMs being on break, and others being tied up with long running plotlines, there's a scarcity in single shot quest or short-form plots. Some of us are pivoting to try and get some new quests out, but this will take some time and availability from our DMs.

Speaking of our DMs, we're always recruiting new DMs. You don't need to be familiar with the DM client, toolset, mechanical balance, or know all of the server's setting and forgotten realms lore off by heart. We'll teach you all of that during the apprentice program. You just need to have ideas for stories to tell, time available to tell them, and be able to get along with both players and staff. forums.cormyrdalelands.com/index.php?topic=625

It has been explicitly said that the policy is to try and prioritize people who get into quests less, and I have seen DMs do this in practice.  So that is at odds with that statement. 
My complaint is based on being told that.  If it is just first come first serve, then so be it, but contrary statements about this have been made, and so there is confusion.

They're not contrary, but rather complimentary as only one sentence later I stated that we will sometimes state preferences for filling slots to groups of players that fit a broad condition. This can sometimes include players who have not been quested frequently, which is something we track in detailed spreadsheets.

I have personally, literally seen full quests with alt slots taken too that end up with a public shout to actually build a party when it's time for the quest to begin. About a third of one of my PCs quest docket was made by just showing up and taking a no-show slot.

Definitely do sign as alt, this sometimes makes its own gravy as quest sign ups aren't always one shot events either. I've alted my way into a three quest series that ended up netting me a locked roster sequel as well.

I believe there is a truth that getting into quests can, at time, be tricky.

If you're a new player, not getting involved in any faction, mostly hanging out with some people of the same level as you and not daring to bond with characters from "different level ranges and different horizons", and you rely on "spotting the quest announcement and answering it in time", it does feel daunting and like you have little chances.

On the other hand, in these quests, I've ended up in rosters that made me facepalm and think "what the hell is my character doing here? I shouldn't have tagged there, this is bad." Except these quests netted me relationships, allowed me to get in touch with DMs, to gain some visibility... and resulted in me getting pings on discord by IC friends telling me "hey, so and so and me are registering for that quest that was just posted, come post to tag along!"
Which then has resulted in "optional quests" where the whole team couldn't make it/wasn't interested which allowed me to reel in friends with characters I thought appropriate for the side-quest.

All in all "activity and roleplay results in getting into quests and storylines much more easily". Now, for the specific situation described here by Comet, I see two main things.
DM activity on the server rise and fall in cycles, with RL freedom, the need to take a breath after running a serie of events, serverwide-events getting taxing on the team and leaving less energy to run smaller scenarii. I've seen times with up to 15 quests in public announcements, and when that happens, not only "everyone gets a chance" but you're also much more free to consider each quest and think "is my character appropriate for the quest's theme, is the theme adequate to my character"... while, when (like it's the case currently) for a few months, there's only 2 or 3 quests in public announcements, you feel like you're crossing the desert, and "everyone" jumps on any quest-line being offered. There's also often more "public quests" offered when there are new aDMs (from what I observed). Probably because some DMs feel like "oh, if I have an assistant, I'd be up to run this, but on my own, with the other stuff I'm already doing, it would be too much work."

In my eyes, it's a fact it's not necessarily easy for newcomers to the server to "get into the swing of things", but aside from advising "Go out, roleplay, make IC friends for your character, and do post even if all the spots are filled, show you're alive and willing", there isn't much that can be done toward the situation, except adding "be patient and don't get discouraged. DMs and admins -are- aware and it's not because you're not getting messages and promises that there aren't talking in the background that you don't hear, where they're telling each other "hey, so and so has a nice, interesting character, they'd deserve to get some quest." "Yea, I've something on the backburner, but currently I'm too busy/not in the mood." and such.

Seriously. Trust the Admin and DM team here. They look out for us.
And if you don't believe me? Well, clic the link Fox provided and apply to become an aDM. Not only you'll get to see how things go behind the DM screen, you'll be able to provide small quests for others in your situation, and... I kind of believe that C&D's model is based on the ideal that "half of the players should also be part-time DMs/DM assistants"

What if, when signing up for a quest, players are asked to post the names/dates of the last 3 quests they participated in. Or ask players not to sign up for a new quest if they have done one within a certain time frame?  Both of these suggestions would help the DMs to know who on the sign-up list has done a quest recently without having to do a lot of research and give players that haven't been involved in many quests a chance to get priority on a quest roster.

We keep detailed statistics of all player quest participations already on the back end in spreadsheets.

I also know of several cases of PCs who participated in a quest or quest chain, found themselves denied entry in an serie of events that were follow-ups (or will be follow ups) and where it feels completely illogical and leads some players to wondering if said PCs are still worth playing at all.

How would you feel if you did all the investigation on a villain, successfully, leveling up in the process, and then got told "nope, you won't get in to off them. It's going to be this group of people who had absolutely no idea and no interest in the tracking"?

As someone who have stepped down from quests, who have been barred from a few "due to previous involvement", I have personally never been told "we're not taking you because you've been on too many quests recently", but the whole thing isn't as simple and straightforward as "lets give everyone a quest in turn".

Again, the better solution to what's being discussed here, would probably be in more people finding the time and the courage to apply as aDMs, thus offering more quests in more quest ranges.

I would like to point out Ladybug sneaked in a 9th spot on the Spoofine quest to include someone and that's:

1) Awesomely nice of her.
2) Shows the team really cares about including players.

That appears to have been me, actually, that got included.
Although it didn't appear to be completely full when I was typing my post out.

I did have *other* hesitations about joining that quest (mostly I have no idea what its about) but on urging from friends I signed up.

What is Spoofini about?  It's about 90% candy puns. 

Well I do enjoy me some puns.

I've legitimately never been able to get into a quest outside of the chapter ones which are organized in a different matter save for one that wasn't a forum sign-up but instead spawned via a one-shot that turned into a full-fledged plot line. Every single quest on the forums fills up well before I can get in and it feels awful to be locked out of things because I didn't hit refresh on the forums every fifteen minutes. It's more like trying to get tickets that sell out very, very quickly than anything else.

Even if there's a drought, it feels exacerbated by the way things are handled overall as opposed to individually.

I too see this repeatedly happen and is one of the reasons I decided to move on from the server. Its not only the matter of how quickly the slots fill up, but how -consistently- those slots fill up with the -same- people. Hyperbole and good intentions aside, the stated goals and aims and the functional product and process are too far apart for this to "not be an issue". I think occum's razor here really speaks better than platitude.

So, as a player who's here since three years with not a lot of breaks, I'll repeat what Fox already said: Right now, basically since about March, there's a bunch of long, ongoing plots. It's literally the timing of joining. And I think it's quite unfair to blame the DMs who already do consult lists as to who is in many quests and do their best to make it fair - but, as others have said, if you don't sign up, how are the DMs to know you want to participate? The roster size refers to how many will be on the roster in the end, not when signups are supposed to end.

There's a difference between blaming and giving feedback. And rosters are often locked by the time more people get around to noticing. Again, having to refresh frequently on a forum is not going to be people's preferred daily activity. I personally appreciate the effort going into things and that there's ongoing stuff that's more frequent than fresh stuff. Still, what people have noted is true; that there's a consistent set of people who are used to the system getting into things far more often before roster locks happen. I feel that what happens is that people see slots being filled and going into reserves, then don't bother saying they'd like in. Personally, I almost never see a quest roster that isn't full very, very quickly. Is that on me for not checking more often? Yeah, it is. Does that make it not an issue? That's not my call.

I personally think few people refresh the forum every fifteen minutes.
I am pretty sure it's the quests announced on discord that fill up the quickest and some people are on discord a lot more than others.

Good morning,

I've held off responding here for a while, while I feel like some of the points I want to make may seem obvious -  I worry that some of them may be controversial.    So will start confidently with the obvious and move warily towards the more controversial.

Supply of events is clearly being dwarfed by demand, clearly this isn't great  but it's indicative of a healthy, growing and engaged community who want to take part, get involved and be part of the story.      As a Euro player, with a day job it's a little bit harder for me than most, but I can also say as a veteran player of several years that there are DMs who actively go out of their way to host and run events in Euro-friendly time zones, regardless of them being a Euro themselves. 

So, point 1 - as much as there's an issue here (and obviously, there is).   I think it's worth reflecting on the positive, growing state of CD.
Point 2 -   The DMs really are trying.    They're not just gliding along blindly, ignoring your pleas or your frustrations.     - The ones I know and have become friends with, they're good people.  They care, they won't be reading this discussion, sitting back and going "lol, not my problem".     They'll be doing what they can, but... On to... 

Point 3  - DMs are here to have fun.   It's a game, we not only want our DMs to have fun we Need them to have fun.   DMs that are having fun, run events!  DMs that turn DMing into a job, into a chore to try and quest everyone and keep everyone happy at the expense of their own free time and sanity burn out.   That only serves to make things worse for everyone, because now there's even less supply of quest time. 

This leads me onto my first controversial point, DMs have friends.   They hear these frustrations and complaints from their friends in private conversations too - so, naturally, when a DM is posting a new event for the first time in a while, if they know their friend is desperate to get into a quest, they're going to give them a little nudge.   "Hey buddy, I'm just about to post an event, I remembered you said you've been struggling to get into one lately, so if you're interested and the time works, feel free to join mine".  
 -  Now, obviously, I can't prove it happens.  Those are Private conversations, but I'm pretty sure it does.   Leaning more into the controversial side, anecdotally I can think of probably 1 or 2 DMs that I never remember seeing run a quest which doesn't have 1 or 2 of their closest 4 friends in every time. 

Point Number 4 -  While this can be frustrating for an observer who may just see "Oh DM x is running an event for their friends again" - I feel like that's a very negative interpretation, unnecessarily so.   The DM is trying to do a nice thing, for a nice person - and of course they want to run events with their friends in them!  Who doesn't like playing games with their friends?  The DMs are generally speaking good people, trying to make fun for themselves, for their friends and for the server as a whole. 

Point number 5 - a lot of these posts tend to make comparisons.   It's not just a case of "I'd like some more events please", but rather "I'd like some more events please and it's not fair because that guy over there is getting more than me".     While I can understand this, and I understand the reason for wanting to call out when something doesn't seem entirely fair I'm not honestly sure the second part is really that helpful  - either to the person complaining, or to the staff.     Because, ultimately, what you're really saying is "I want as many events as they've got now".    To which the solution is not to try and limit quest attendance by those perceived as the lucky, or greedy, few but to try and find mechanisms for increase quest availability so that supply can keep up with demand.     Reducing someone else's questing opportunities to increase your own won't make the server a happier place, it will just move around the frustration to someone else. 


So Point 6 -  I mentioned earlier that no one person can fix this problem, I've mentioned a few times that this comes down to a simple case of demand outstripping supply.   I have, tried at least, to humanise the all parties in this equation a little bit more.   We're all just people, here to play a game and try and have fun - none of us are the villain.    So, I would propose that rather than introducing controls and processes and monitoring to ensure that everyone is quested equally  - a task that would reduce the number of events, as it would consume hours of staff time every month instead I echo LackOfImagination...   We have more active players than we did before, therefore we need more active DMs.    So the server needs not just the DMs which are old-hands at this now to "Do more" (Yikes, I felt bad just saying that) -  we need the newer influx of players to really join in with the server community and take up the mantle of story-telling DM themselves. 


Thanks,

 - Ven

Speaking as a former DM, who may or may not re-apply in the future, and after seeing everyone's thoughts in the conversation for a while...

I completely empathize with people's concerns in this thread. And at a time I was trying to help as many as possible, but here is another thing, and something Sir Ven                   does well with acknowledging...

Individual DMs are human. When I tried to put out more than I should have, I ended up having less quality in my events and the end result was burnout, which also can and does contribute to players not having as much fun. I disappointed people as much if not more than if I had just done less events. There were judgment calls made that in hindsight I would not do because I was trying to do something different using niches of lore that may or may not in retrospect needed admin input or refined. To this day I second guess a lot of my time as a DM, and now have that haunting me, because I was just that burnt out trying to do that and it did no good for anyone - at the very least me. Putting the blame and pressure on individual DMs leads to that burnout over time because we also receive more negative feedback than positive in addition to all of this (for those unhappy will send feedback in usually, happy folks often continue with business as usual). Thus, some are going to take breaks. Telling them they are not doing enough, whether by players or staff, is a lot of weight when it is a repeated pressure.

I do understand there is a lull in the number of events right now compared to demand, and I hear that. However, this is still a volunteer position. If anyone does have ideas for stories, as Fox²                   said, there is an application process for new DMs, especially for the less-represented time zones (Euro, Australia, Asiatic, etc). That was one thing that was actually a very serious concern when I was DM last round and I am so glad to see so many more DMs now. Granted, there are more players now too (a good thing), which also means the demand is higher than it was than when I was about before.

You can be part of the change you want to see in this case and I would, in honesty? I would love seeing more activity by more DMs with more ideas, and a variety of events. You do not even need to be perfect with lore, as even those who pride themselves on being experts are not perfect with it, either. Just be willing to put in good faith effort, improve, and make the server a fun, wonderful place for the community. 

I can say being on the other side we do (at least did when I was topside) try to keep track of who might be getting more DM attention, less to not include people who get a lot in the future but to keep in mind when DMs are trying to do as much as possible. As an awareness thing more than a point of 'this needs done or else.' I know of many examples who are trying to accommodate a variety of folks. I know Lady just made a big sign-up for Spoofini stuff. With some others trying to do similar, the only solution right now to make things better is having more people who can DM to back those who need a break, who need to limit their activity due to IRL (it's a legitimate thing), and so forth. Again, because there are only so many and as this is a voluntary position, it is something that needs not just a little more time, but the community to help take part in making better. Otherwise, we need to consider our expectations that we set for ourselves as well as the community.

Just my own thoughts for having been on both sides of the issue, as it were. I know for myself, I have been trying not to sign up for too many open sign-ups for I know I have been around a long time and am trying to space out my participation. I have a sign up in the server plot already and I know when time comes, there will be other opportunities for me. 

Best,
Arya

Since this server prides itself on transparency and we all seem to agree we all have the same desire, why don't we make that spreadsheet of who has done what how often public? Its not a matter of comparison for personal jealousy, its because its the most empirical way to be flat honest about what is going on. You could even make the names anonymous and just show independent ids to involvement incidents, since reportedly that information is being kept. We are all here to have fun but when you take something like this, which is something done in many closed communities that are kept closed for these very reasons, and advertise a publically open server then you are presenting the notion that if -characters- involve themselves they will get some sort of interaction down the line. I get we are all human and there are constraints, but I also know that same humanity makes us blind to our own biases. People do want to play with their friends but to be utterly straight forward (honesty is trust, not negativity) you shouldn't have to become ooc friends to get IC involvement and underlying all thats going on that seems to be the true requirement of involvement, at least on a deeper level, in my experience. We come to this community as a game about the characters, some people are less social then others, others like it just about the game, making a shadow requirement of doing something in a shared fantasy world where the price tag is me having to make an emotional connection with the staff can be problematic for more than a few reasons. And has shown itself to have already created problems in the past. I don't want to have to feel like I have to establish a deep ooc relationship with someone to advance a plotline. Especially given the very abuses reported in the ban forums of staff misdeeds, its just not a safe place to force players to be, and frankly its not an ultimately healthy mindset to take if you want a big public world.

To be honest, I'd be very uncomfortable with a rigid numerical solution like those that have been proposed. Number of quests / month. Public spreadsheets. That kind of stuff. It feels like that would involve a ton of risks and potential for toxic behaviour and constant whataboutism. I'd much rather trust that the staff know what they're doing with their non-public spreadsheets.

For one, players don't always have the ability to see how many quests/month they'll be in. It can be weeks or months between a quest being announced and it actually happening.

And with public spreadsheets, we'd inevitably get into horrible, horrible arguments between people debating, angrily, if "two small quests are the same as one big quest" and "how many ad-hocs are equivalent to a personal quest". It sounds... not so great.

And I say this as a person who didn't even get close to being in a quest for many months after joining this server.

Yes, of course it would be nice to have more quests. But I really, really don't think it's helpful to see quests as something we're somehow owed to as players. Certainly not this way.

Adding to what Morena said... not all quests should be visible for everyone, not even close. Drow plots, general evil quests, some personal stuff that by nature of characters involved need to be hidden away... there is enough reasons the transparency has to be halt at some point. Not to mention activity of people being publicized in general can be quite uncomfortable for some, and it would definitely invite constant comparison, counting who did what how much, and accusations of favoritism.

I think this thread has more or less run its course. Going to go ahead and lock this one down.

Those who have provided useful and helpful feedback, we appreciate it. We are always looking to improve the server and community and every bit of constructive criticism is part of that. If you have further concerns, critisims, or comments, please send them to the SDMs (Fox, Nokteronoth, and Melody) and Admins (myself, FireWraith, and Vincent) via PMs using the form provided here: forums.cormyrdalelands.com/index.php?topic=10353

So, there's a lot to discuss here - let me try and wrap this us as best I/we can.

First, let me make clear that we as DMs want to run quests for as many people as we can, and to spread involvement out as best we can. We don't like leaving people sitting on the bench, because we understand that DM quests/events are an integral and necessary aspect of participation on CD.

That said, we run into two general hurdles:

One, we only have so many DMs with so much time. For instance, the reason we can't just add more players to the main plot groups right now is that we already have something like 150 players signed up, and 8 DMs working to keep them all plotted and involved. We actually had to shift more DMs on because the others were starting to burn out from the load. 
And that gets to another important aspect, in that as DMs we're just people, and we only have so much time/energy/enthusiasm. We're volunteers, not paid, we do this for fun. If someone makes it "Not Fun" whether that be players involved, or me as Admin telling them they have to do XYZ, that adds up and eventually it's too much - and a DM who quits runs zero plots. 

Two is that adding new DMs is not a simple thing, because we need people who have suitable skill at running events, whom we can trust not to abuse the powers/etc granted, and whom the rest of the DM team gets along with. It doesn't do us any good if someone applies who, if we accept them, multiple other DMs are going to quit, to be blunt. 

So ultimately, we grant the DMs a fair amount of leeway in choosing who they want to include in their plots. We're not going to tell someone "yeah you've got a great idea for an epic level adventure, but you have to run something for newbies instead because we've got too many high levels being quested right now", or similar. We can and do say "hey, seems like we could use more of X type of quest for Y type of players" but that'd suggestion rather than imposition. I for instance have at times run plots where I specifically post in the signups that preference goes to people who haven't been involved in (a lot/any) quests recently. I haven't done so of late because I've had my time taken by helping with the main plot and with other responsibilities. That said though, I can't/won't force others to do the same, because DMs work best when they're having fun, not when this becomes work/stressful (at least any moreso than it has to be).

---

So, what now then?

Here's what I would suggest, because I know there are players out there who are newer to CD, have had trouble getting involved, and would like to participate more:

One, be as social and interactive as you can. The more people you talk to/know/are friends with, the more awareness we have of you, and the more likely you are to get pulled into something, or have people want to invite you along. Joining guilds or factions is also a good way to do this, though certainly not foolproof. Conversely if you just hang out in private with a couple of friends, the assumption tends to be that you're busy, don't want to interact with others, and people will leave you alone to do that.

Two, make things fun for the DMs. We're human beings and we respond to things as expected, so someone who's sour grapes and complaints and is a pain in the ass to/for us in quests isn't someone we want to be around, and will probably avoid or even refuse to quest again. On the other hand, people who are a joy to quest for has the exact opposite effect - it makes us tend to want to run more quests, and we may even go out of our way to come up with and run stuff for them. This goes both for interactions with the DM and for with the other players on the quest, too. I strive to be the latter sort of player, even if I make mistakes at times, and I recommend that everyone do so too.

Three, you can also volunteer to DM. Note that we can't take everyone, but if you have the interest, and get along well enough with the rest of the staff, there's always a need for more of us.