May 2012 Feedback

What did you think of the last event? Post your opinions and disucss the comments of others here!

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May 2012 Feedback

Post by Haku »

Alright guys and gals, you know the drill. Good, bad or indifferent, let us know what you thought of the event
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Post by NOBLE »

Well I want to thank everyone for a great event. I had an absolute blast and am thoroughly wrung out. I really really enjoyed the story lines that are going on. they have a real depth to them. the npc staff did a great job. The strength and type of characters were on a very broad spectrum from making you feel like a total badass to rethinking things and getting help. I really really appreciated the fact that the npc's i fought acknowledged being hit. What I mean by that is that if I stabbed something it reacted to it. It didn't just bull rush and machine gun me to death. You guys did a great job of highlighting the strengths and weeknesses of the npc represented and the variety was fantastic. I personally do not enjoy being killed over and over for someone elses enjoyment so to those staff members that did this for me so I could have fun thankyou.

The pc base was so much fun for me this event. the characters i interacted with did a good job of capturing the scene and mood of what was going on. the dynamics of haven have become beyond interesting and it was cool to see new and old relationships being built or rebuilt this event. It was easy to get caught up in all of it. I appreciated it.

there were a lot of new players to me this event. Some was there first or second event some a little more that i just haven't met yet. it is good to have new faces and perspectives. I hope every one of you keep coming because you guys really made the game interesting. Im impressed with how your characters meshed so well in to the game and how well the rp'ing was. i look forward to more of it.

the only real negative i had to say the staff is already aware of it, and it was just something that couldn't be helped at the time. So thankyou again staff for all the hard work and thankyou again pc's for keeping the game so interesting and fun. I am already looking forward to the next event.
"We're not the heroes they need....we're the heroes they deserve;"....LEGION.
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Post by Persival »

I had an awesome time aside from injury and being out of larp shape. I didnt think being absent from larp for a year and a half would be that big a deal but im payin for it. The plots were awesome, the roleplay was great, the npc's and gm staff did a great job. The only issue i had has been cleared up so all in all my hat is off to everyone for a great job. Its good to be back. See ya'll at the next event, ya hear!
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Post by Varys »

I just wanted to say that I had the best time at this event. The PC's and NPC's did an awesome job. I have never completed or even been involved with so many plots that had this much depth.

Now, on to healing. I prefer the new healing system over the old system. The amount of healing that can be done with more than 1 healer with the new system makes a world of difference. I just wanted to let you guys and gals know where I stand on it. Thanks for an awesome weekend.


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Post by Dallid »

I was a bit apprehensive at the start of the event when I heard there were a lot of morality plots. In the past, morality plots came across as “Choose how you want to lose.” Like “Child A and Child B are about to go over the waterfall. You only have time to save one.”

However, this event they took more the form “Choose the easy immoral way, or take the more difficult high road” – as they should be, IMHO. “Trade the sentient puppies for the child, or let the puppies go and try to get the child back without any leverage.” That. Was. Awesome. I left that plot with a feel-good attitude and a deep sense of accomplishment, and that was just one of several plots of that ilk. Bravo!

Other plots were superbly imaginative, and a great variety was provided overall from what I could see – and I know there’s a lot of plots I didn’t see. So the plot number and makeup were definitely top notch.

Combat was tough, engaging, and best of all – fun. Some creatures, such as the snakemen, had a lot of soak and significant damage, but NPC numbers were small, so it balanced out very well.

NPC and PC interactions were, as usual, completely immersive. The people of Final Haven rarely fail to impress.

The Lurker possession of PCs seemed like a no-win situation – didn’t like that at all. But I didn’t stick around to see how it was ultimately resolved, so can’t really form a complete opinion.

The long wait for the Seal ritual plot was mostly due to the PCs, and I don’t see how it could have been avoided. These things just happen sometimes – the nature of Live Action. And, truthfully, if everything went perfectly all the time, it’d be pretty boring. We need mistakes and learning experiences – lows to give the highs meaning. In the future I trust we’ll be more careful about leaving required items in locations only one or two people can access. Had they died, we’d all have been royally screwed. On the flipside, perhaps Haven’s should not be the perfect hiding places they are today – as we just saw, they’re potential game-breakers. Enough time, effort, and resources should be able to uncover anything.

So overall a truly stellar event – especially considering the small number of NPCs. Kudos on all fronts! Color me impressed.
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Post by Persival »

Just thought i would add this :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiXaT_1I-vw
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Post by GM-Amanda »

Hey look, I'm conscious.

I usually try to come up with a top three and a bottom three for the events, but we might have to spread the balance of that out a little bit, because there was so much that went well this event.

The roleplaying this event was spectacular. I didn't even feel the NEED to call potato at any point during the event. I may have slightly rose tints before my eyes since it was my first full event PCing in way too long of a time, but I felt like I was a bird person in the middle of a town of disparate heroes darting to and from everything that was going on, rather than a bunch of friends who got together in the woods for a weekend to swing around some PVC and foam. I have no idea where I got the energy to keep going like that until 6am BOTH nights, but it was phenomenal.

Personal plot highlights for me was the roggies and the mole rats, chasing after the drunks' coin, the simultaneous northern and southern battles (GREAT use of players for NPC time!), the bandits in the woods, and the sheer absurdity of the play (Cirrus just wanted to laugh at all of those big manly heroes looking so booping uncomfortable prancing around and reading their lines).

The plot in the north deserves its own special mention. Not only did Amanda seriously enjoy the journey, it's going to color Cirrus' motivations and development. So much happy.

Big thanks to all of the full time NPCs and GMs for letting us beat you up all weekend, and to just about everyone for NPCing to make the big battles that much better. 2 NPCs with 15 repops is easy, 15 NPCs with 2 repops induces pants wetting.

Amanda was disappointed that she didn't get to play in the Frontier Fort or deal with a more spread out playerbase, and was tentatively expecting problems to come from the compression. I am glad to be proven wrong - I felt there weren't any problems, and I can see the A/C being really nice in September if it's 80 degrees out.

I love the new healer rules, full stop.

However, there were a few problems beyond the obvious. I don't feel that check-in and the redistribution of magic items was handled well. There was nearly 6 months of down-time between the final event last year and this weekend, yet by 2pm Saturday, only a sixth of the players affected had received their revised items. Worse, only one GM was trying to check in 4 players simultaneously, with the distraction, line cutting, and missed questions that resulted. And only one rulebook? With no list of the changed rules? I understand how heavily the planning fallacy boops with your day (boy do I ever), but that's why you don't roll it all by yourself. Hopefully this won't be a problem at Silver Trails.

I will also echo Doug on the Lurker possession plot - I enjoyed the roleplay, but I think there should have been other ways to resolve it. I can imagine the Lurkers getting bored, or an attack from a Valkyn'Vi that dropped a possessed PC to zero killing the Lurker. I don't know how long it was going before Cirrus entered the scene, but it seemed like it was dragged out way too long before the clue-by-four should have been dropped (did anyone recall it?)

Finally, and it was totally my fault, but I couldn't get any continuity. There was so much going on, and Cirrus can't sit still, that I was ping-ponging between half a dozen plot lines without my brain being able to keep track of everything. When I got five seconds to grab a glass of water and think, I could keep it straight, but I may have found my limit of being TOO busy. So it was something that bothered me, but it does deserve props for the staff on their probable brick of an agenda.

I had a GREAT time. Here's to July!
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Post by Kalphoenix »

Sorry I wasn't able to make the event, I heard good things and I miss everyone!
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Post by Smitty19 »

So heres my Feedback...

This event was two fold for me, it was GREAT in parts, and others left me Wanting...

The Great Parts were the roleplay and the Northern Troll Plot, btw that was my FAVORITE plot that I have ever been involved with, Final Haven or Winterhaven combined, KUDO's to Karen and to Brad for the ABSOLUTE best scene I have ever experienced.

Now on the flip side, coming back from that plot, and not only being berated in game, but out of game as well pissed me right the F off... I understand that you have been being attacked for awhile and couldnt find us, but that was not the intention. We were told we need this to be kept safe, and we will be getting a second piece too.... NEVER in there was it told to me that WE NEED THIS FOR A RITUAL later... So yeah, sorry it took longer, but damn if that didnt sour me after such a moving and powerful scene.

And to go over that afterwords Sorry to anyone I pissed off in that battle, but that was equal parts of Serith sick and tired of all the Valkyn'vi shit we put up with, and others of Brett pissed off that he was told that we are to blame for a plot being delayed....


I will sentiment the fact that it was nice to see so much going on in town, but I also think that there was TOO much going on... When we are told that there is 75 pages of an agenda, my head nearly sploded because as a GM I know how much that truly is. I am glad that we had a lot of things to spread around, but it seemed as if you really couldnt get involved with any over arching story arcs cause so much was happening.
Example of this is with the Snakemen, I went on multiple plots with them, but they all seemed independent of each other, like none were connected by anything other than the fact that they were Snake Beastmen as the antagonists. Now, they very well could have been more connected than I could tell, but as I said with there being so many other plots running, I would only jump in and out on certain ones.

Now I know That it seems negative but I did enjoy myself overall, especially the roleplay I have had with other members of town and it feels that we are actually pursuing a common goal for once...

It is going to be a long time for me to get my fill for LARP'n in since I wont be going to the PH event for Personal Reasons, so I just hope I can satisfy my nerdiness with Diablo 3 until then!
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Post by Torakhan »

From behind my counter my perspective of the game is obviously a bit different than most. However, from what I saw, and experienced, it seemed to be a very good game.

Check-In seemed fairly simple (but, for me it usually is anyways) and I was glad to see Game-On happen relatively on-time and that it was fairly short.
Friday night seemed to go pretty well with some inside attacks, but thankfully they happened when there were folks around who could appreciate them.

Saturday was all pretty typical, until the spirit that jumped from body to body happened... then, well... I got to stretch my wings a bit and play up a type of character that I don't get to with Quen. Though I know it wasn't planned for him to be involved, the fact that it did happen made for a very fun scene that I otherwise will likely never get to play with the character (because of the nature of the character), so thank you for that bit of serendipity. :)

The rest of the plots went by without Quen (or I) being aware of most of them as usual, so I can't really say how those things went, but what I DID see come in seemed to be a good mixture for myself (I was able to avoid what I needed to, get involved in what I wanted to, and didn't feel meta-game-forced into anything either.)

The only scene I grumbled about involved the NPCs who came into the Tavern as having just “struck it rich” and proceeded to “accidentally” empty out a bag of several gold worth of coins no less than five times on the table/floor. Whether or not it was, it felt like a really sloppy way of trying to put a large amount of coin into the game at once. Unfortunately, we're the (comparatively) Good guys and would only take the coin for trade/purchases, so it didn't really work, but it seemed to drag out for a while before it finally wandered off. Maybe “Payments” for services, or “Save my X and if you find anything else there, you can keep it” might have worked better for getting coin in. Then again, if folks followed them out and acquired it on their own later... then it worked well enough (but the spilling of coin time and again was kinda lame, IMO.)

Other small concerns that I aim towards the other players involved the abundance of food left behind (1/4 of the fridge), and the cigarette ash marks on the concrete outside (perhaps we can put an ash tray out there next time?)

Final words: "LET ME IN THE DAMNED BUILDING!"
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Post by NPC Christen »

*pouts with confusion* Just as a heads up on my end... The Lurker's minions never possessed any of the characters. I'm not sure if I did a poor job briefing the players, in which case that is totally on me and I sincerely apologize, or if we as a collective didn't make it clear... but they were playing Lurker minions, plain old shadows. They were NOT in the bodies of the characters, just a few really kind PCs who were nice enough to give me a hand and play some NPCs for me. I really am sorry if I failed to explain that and it put some folks off.

I'm new, as it were, with combat incursions, and therefore still learning. I really appreciate the feedback so that I can get better at it because the goal is ALWAYS for the players to have the most fun possible.
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Post by Smitty19 »

The npcs we are talking about the entities that were before game break that If you did anything to them they would jump bodies, only way we found to beat the was for me to magic lash myself into a coma....
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Post by NPC Christen »

Ahhhh... I wasn't there for that, so I'll have to see what happened with those. Thanks for the clarification.
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Post by Nick »

First and foremost thank you to everyone involved with Finalhaven, new and old. You guys make it greatness. Now straight to the feedback.

The awesome
The plots. The RP. The amazing effort put forward to tell stories that illicit reaction both emotional and physical. To me this was the foundation of the event, and I loved every moment of it. I was completely immersed in a world beautifully woven by everyone involved.

The NPC's felt real. The attitudes were there. The reactions to word and wound was present. Just more to add to the feel of the weekend and how action and reaction were represented better than ever before. I threw some 2's at a guy and he thought twice. Warriors sat in the way of weaker villains who swiftly learned they were getting nowhere fast.

The not so awesome
I'm echoing the rest on this one. There was one plot in particular I arrived to late, and that was the Lurker's minions leaping into PC's. The lack of a concrete way to end it from happening (and the severity of the situation dictating time was of the essence) did lead us to alternative solutions but it was only by sheer luck we managed such.

Check-In. I got there later than most, but 1 person handling Check-In for the multitude of people. For the new players. The lack of rules books also caught me as unsettling, as it meant memory alone of the entirety of the Main Rulebook and the Heroes and Villains Expansion AND the various rules updates and play-tests was our only hope. And that is a shit-ton of information.

My final gripe is on the Playerbase. The only reason I caught it was by being on the other side. By NPCing a few rounds and getting right up in the faces of as many people as I could. Remember your soak. Remember your numbers exactly. Armor, Combat Reflexes, Life Points. Remember that you have to physically extricate yourself from combat in order to Regenerate.

Thank you all for the weekend. I look forward to July. I may think of more later.
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Post by Alice Tex »

My turn! Yay!

The general feel of the game I got was that everyone was having a great time, and there was so much going on that no one was ever bored outside of personal choice (save that whole "we need the tablets now, but we can't get to them" debocle, but that was an extreme exception). I felt the OOG chatter was kept to a healthy level, and the Metagaming and usual OOG issues were minimal and/or completely unintentional. Awesome!

I did however observe that there was so much going on, and everything moved so quickly, that it seemed like no one had enough time to really become emotionally involved with the plots being dealt out. Some people really threw themselves into the moment, while others just seemed to go through the motions, which is sad. But I also know that there was so much going on that there were at least a few moments where we could really become immersed with our characters and the plot going on. I would like to thank Noble during the Snakemen Cave plot for shouting out things like "If we wait, he'll be dead!" and "Imagine if this was YOUR brother being tortured and killed!" He really kept me and others in the moment and truly immersed in the plot. So, thank you!

There were a few moments where certain individuals didn't seem to understand their skill rules (or care to follow them). One cannot simply spend a life point to do a skill instantly (rather than count). That's not only lazy, it's rediculously cheaty...nor can one "call it good" and throw or swing damage/heal/fix your armor without actually making the effort to COUNT. I saw most people counting aloud and slowly (aka-fairly), and I saw a handful of people who simply didn't make the effort at all or were going off of other peoples' counts and saying "good enough". Being unaware of the change in rules or misunderstanding the wording of the rule is one thing, but some of these individuals didn't even seem to be trying to follow the rules of their chosen skills. And clearly, I'm not the only one who noticed (as made obvious by previous Feedback comments). It wasn't bad enough to be called full-out Cheating (everyone makes mistakes), but it was bad enough to be mentioned here in Feedback for future improvements on an individual player level. I know it's not easy to remember EVERY little rule, because the rules keep changing every year and there's so much to remember (even the GMs have trouble with this, as Mike so well explained, and I know I do too), but not even trying leads to a whole lot of other problems and generally bad role-playing, which ruins the overall feel of the game for everyone. Just putting that out there.

Also, it was wonderful to see everyone (old players and new) pulling together and helping one another and playing real heroes. It was wonderful to see everyone communicating and coordinating their efforts to reach our goals. It moments like that that make the LARP great! ^_^

Usually I sort out the good from the bad, but in this event's case, everything was pretty well mixed with the tiny bit of bad being overshadowed by the immense good. I had a lot of fun this event. Personal IG/OOG reasons had me feeling a bit out-of-place on some of the plots, but my overall goal was to help out any way that I could (as is Alice's nature), and I feel I achieved that quite well. It was sad that I got there late and had to leave early because of work, but luckily I got to see everyone and have fun. ^_^ I can't wait to see you all again in September, and I can't wait to see what this year brings! Cheers!
"Pity the selfish, for they do not know charity...pity the cruel, for they do not know kindness...and pity the heartless, for they do not know love." ~ Alice
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