Ishgar Symposium Feedback

The Ishgar Symposium has drawn to a close and, as such, the events that transpired have been written canonically into the lore of the site. First and foremost I want to thank everyone who participated, making it a truly active and exciting event for us that helped craft and run it. It truly meant a lot that so many people worked together or by themselves to make the event a success.

As this was the first lore event with this design and concept, the event developers wanted to get some input from you all that participated. I know there was a lot of discussion about the first official event so we attempted to craft something a little different and see how it appealed to the community overall. So please provide constructive feedback in the following thread. You're more than welcome to offer any level of assessment; criticisms, compliments, observations or suggestions. The only thing we ask is that it's constructive and something we can use to build upon, rather than just "I liked it" or "I hated it".

That way we can help mold future events to better suit the community as a whole. Once again, thank you for all those that participated and offer their insight.

Pros:
- Event design allowed everyone to participate on whatever level they felt comfortable and not be excluded.
- Simple, open prompt.
- WC was not brutally high to earn participation, but made you work for it.

Cons:
- Main event felt detached from rest of event (which it sort of was) - recommend short status update mid-way through event, which would allow future participants in non-primary group to weave in potential developments from main group as part of their canon to provide them additional content to write about.

I personally liked that those who couldn't participate in the main storyline, due to whatever reasons, could still do stuff and get their rewards.
What did I not like? That the main bitch in the party (I'm looking at you, Stefan Borisov) did not die... I personally don't have any issues with how the whole thing was run. Actually looking forward to another worldwide event such as this.

I quite enjoyed the opportunity to be apart of the event, and really liked the flexibility of prompts for people depending on what they had available. Not to mention the rewards were quite nice, if a little bland. But that's my only serious complaint, and it doesn't take away from the event as a whole for me.

Of course, I am very curious to see how everyone's efforts factor into the site canon as a whole, as I can't figure how to tie it all together nice enough myself.

-Rather than restating them I'll just say that I agree with the Pros above.

-I liked that the deadlines existed and were enforced with extensions when reasonable. This allowed the event to progress at a steady pace for everyone in Group 1 instead of it taking months waiting for a single person to post. I've seen way too many threads, such as guild scales, die or take over a year to complete due to not having enforced deadlines. Seeing a big event get completed at a reasonable timeframe made me very happy and hopeful for future events having the same organization.

-Although I didn't participate in it myself I really liked the concept Group 1 had with the Lorekeepers directing the thread. It gave everyone there a lot to react to, added limits to characters, and even some very interesting twists by the end. It looked fun, and I hope these continue.

-Darks mages could actually be dark mages. Both threads had that going for them by the end and I like that. It's rare that dark mages can impact site-wide canon lore.

-For the Group 1 sign ups I was actually worried that the spots would be filled before everyone got a chance to even read up on it. That didn't happen thankfully but seeing as this part of the event was pretty much a success I imagine the slots will be filled up much quicker next time. I'm not sure if treating it like IOTM where you have to wait a certain amount of time before sign ups for the Lorekeeper group open up is the right way to go about it, but I do think something should be done to prevent groups from being filled and full before most of the site is even aware the event is up.

-Group 2 might have been a bit too overtuned for lower ranked mages. A fully decked out one might have little issue but for people just getting into stats or don't quite have the funds to fully deck out their character it looks terrifying and not worth the effort. Maybe this was only designed for high ranking mages in mind, or maybe I missed where the enemies scale based on rank when I was reading it over. I guess Border Clashes was built the same way looking back on it. It just wasn't as noticeable to me since there were a few groups that completed the stat version (all high ranking mages) compared to the Symposium event which was, I think, zero.

-I'll admit once Felidae City was pretty much destroyed my muse was crushed for a couple of days. It made me question the point of Group 3 in particular. Members of my group temporarily had the same feeling. We got over that and finished the event, of course, but I was still a bit disappointed. Not saying it shouldn't have happened since it did add something big to the event that will be remembered and I actually do like how that Group 1 thread in particular ended. My group is even going to add its effects to our continuing freeform. I just think in the future entire group goals shouldn't be made nearly pointless before the event has even ended. As an additional suggestion perhaps having different locations for each group would help with that so the events of the main group do not interfere with the other groups or their goals. Group 2 kind of had that since it was outside the city.

-While the destruction of Felidae City added an interesting detail with long-lasting effects I hope destroying cities or countries that easily isn't going to be common with these events. Now that one person has done it I wouldn't be surprised if others want to attempt the same thing in the future. I would hope that in the future player characters are actually able to stop or minimize something like that, especially if the destruction is coming from another player character instead of a NPC designed specifically for the event. From what I noticed in the thread and in the Discord Group 1 members in that thread had to just accept it and get out immediately. Obviously due to the way the character was designed there was pretty much nothing anyone in that thread could do, but you know, for future events I'm just saying my take on that lol. Don't allow it to be too common and have this be a little more difficult to achieve.

I don't think I have much more to add, honestly. I'll either update this or post again if I think of more. Overall, I think this event was a delight to not only read but to also participate in. A lot of work was put into it and I thank the Devs for not only putting this together but also asking for feedback. I can't wait for the canon news reports and for more events like this to be put together.