10 Things Learned From WitS (wherein I don't mince words on some things):
So, while this is meant to be my observations, both positive and negative, I openly note that I feel strongly about some of this and I may get a little inflammatory here (because some things really annoyed me). I'm not trying to egg anyone on or troll anyone. If anything, I'm hoping discussion on these points will help me figure out how to do some
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1) I have to say I sympathize with your concerns here. (then again, I happen to like smart girls with glasses so there's definitely some degree of bias here. >_>;) I personally liked Gina, but I can see that other people would be upset with her archetype--sometimes it seems like if you, as a character, aren't genre-savvy or badass you can't get any purchase amongst the majority of the community. I think that's at least a bit of a shame, if only because I'd find it dreadfully boring if every host character only existed to spout one-liners at each other. Part of what appeals to me about the Multiverse is precisely the diversity you're capable of achieving--sampling from every possible world ever (even if most of them are ultimately improbable) should at least offer a lot of possibilities for different sorts of creatures doing different sorts of things. Like penguins. :D (then again, I'm the inventor of the Irrelevant Moth-Girl so I may also be biased there as well)
2) Yeah
3) I can't speak very well for the design because I don't even know Code Geass that well, so skip. >_>
4) Hey NS, what's the weather like in -the frigid wastes of Northrend-? ;D Nah, that's something that annoyed me a little too.
5) Well, here's the thing. With the gameplay rewards tied into the mission system, people suddenly need to achieve every end they can reach to obtain more ph4t l3wtz or powers or whatever. Especially when you have a distinction between missions giving you different things, and the things have such a widely variant power level. In round 1, for instance, the first mission (interact with somebody) gives you the power to... have a weakness against another power. Other missions (such as the beat-up-on-Diamond-WEAPON mission) give substantially greater rewards. So people are going to naturally gravitate to the "big" rewards because they expect them to give the big prizes--when it's a totally blind draw like this, I mean. That's where the logistical problems and clusterbombs come from. The Mission System is a good idea and could be refined into something greater, but as long as the top rewards revolve around "huge" events then people are going to cluster around them.
More importantly, though, I think there's more that people are complaining about, when they complain about clusters. It's not just the fact that having to do it leads to a higher POWER LEVEL, but also that the response some of our members make in doing it is to hammer out a semi-ironclad order of posting in a private IRC channel for the purpose of doing so. I can certainly see the sense in it--it allows people to optimize their ability to participate, and thus obtain access to the minigame rewards, as well as easing the ability for a series of posts to have continuity and build on one another. At the same time, however, it makes spontaneity harder. Part of the problem I had, for instance, is that because I often seemed to have to be at work while the boss fights began, by the time I would get back the queue would already be such that, if I wanted to post, I'd have to wait until I had to go back to work again. It makes it harder to jump in with both feet, and I know of at least a few people who don't enjoy that sort of thing, or have a harder time getting access to it. So when people complain about these sorts of events, they may be complaining about the intersponsor issues rather than the sponsor-host issues, and you (NS) can't own those.
(cont'd, I told you I have a big mouth)
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