[Official Event] Operation Pesticide

[BobMacaroni]

That was a very fun and intense event, kudos to all who showed up and organized

[Dark Chocolate]

Kudos to all who were able to have fun.... And Kudos to seeing 100+ players on the server just like the old days...

But the outcome felt predetermined,... With how LNS-Alma got beamed away just when it was about to die and how a few of the transports deliberately got themselves yeeted...

One of the weak points of the event from our side was definitely not making it clear that the "Titans" were there, essentially, as scenery and a minor way to even the player number odds slightly if needed.
...
The Alma going down for what was effectively a Zoner Carrier that was "made up on the spot" was not something we were intending on doing here.
...
Full disclosure: the Alma versus Zoner Carrier portion was most definitely rigged. The Alma originally was planned to be the Zoners' "doomsday timer", slowly creeping up on Erie to blow up the Zoner Carrier and do Alma things. Clearly didn't quite play out that way as the ship got involved in some Q-Ship cleanup action early on.

So the big Titan armored vessels with OP guns and stats were sceneries and not like final bosses or something..? Aaah...What ? Please don't have such ideas for future events. If you're gonna put Big OP ships, People see it as a challenge. There's nothing people want more than gathering up to kill it. Putting them as "sceneries" doing stuff in the background trying to look pretty is going to be a buzzkill.

And Pinnacle was "made up on the spot" and Alma can't lose to that.? It didn't feel that way gameplay wise did it. both the ships had Titan armour. Am I missing something? Could have made the Pinnacle have less armour to reflect that it's a weaker ship then. Funny thing is, the Alma still would have died considering how many people logged zoners. Overwhelmingly high numbers of Zoner players is a vote count of which side the community wanted to see winning. So many people spent hours to build Zoner Cruisers solely for this event. It feels like a waste of time where all people thought,:- hey.. may be our actions matter.. may be we can shape the story.. But nope... Liberty can't lose.

If you can't see a Liberty OP Titan ship be destroyed in an event, then why put it there in the middile of battle in the first place.
If you can't see the all powerful liberty losing, then why suggest people that their actions may have effect on the story narrative.

If player's actions only have minor consequences, then thats pointless and feels like waste of time and effort. Where's the reward?

I understand organizing things on this scale must be heard but, Why not organize something where you can actually see any of the side winning and then take the story in that direction. If you are going to organize open events like this, please have Player actions shape the outcome so that the community actually feels rewarded for their participation.

That's my honest feedback, My apologies that I ranted. I mean no offence to anyone.

[Promotheus]

Fun event all in all, few pointers for future ones based on what I saw:

1. implement event shields, brought this up during the stream and I think it's still a good idea. We have titan armors, make titan shields, something hard to destroy without being invincible like with admin shields. More tools in the box is only a good thing.
2. An obvious one that has been pointed out several times already, communication. Making it a respawn event was a good idea, but it should've been it from the start. No event of this scale should not be respawn unless you want it to last like 10 minutes.
3. Similar to 2, a general statement that the flagships would not be able to be destroyed by players would have prevented a lot of confusion/distraction.
4. This one is for the playerbase if an event has an objective, play the objective. Objectives are cool and fun, they make it more like the storyline rather than 'big pew'. There's nothing wrong with big pew, but they're far more common. Enjoy the variation when it presents itself, especially if you're worried about pixels like some people in this community are. Again, nothing wrong with that, but keep in mind how to do it if that's what you care about.
5. @Darius ' idea of having a phase 2 with liberty navy marines heading for Erie would have been pretty great. This not happening can easily be attributed to inexperience and hindsight, but it's a good lesson to learn for future events.
6. The outcome could have used a bit more nuance, the planet is already under liberty control, its infocard makes it obvious it's not an independent planet anymore but zoner cities are largely autonomous. I get what the writer was going for but a bit more 'fluff' would have gone a long way here.
7. Also something that's been brought up, instructions for the cargoships should have been a bit more consistent. I applaud the decision of some of them to 'put up less of a fight' when the event looked extremely lopsided, but not using shields/bots is pretty hard to justify even in that situation.
8. If there's one thing I would've suggested to change in this event, it'd be to give the zoner transports the pirate iff. We have a command for it and it would have made them stand out in a sea of white and purple contacts. Zoner players can't be expected to do something that might impact their actual character, but event ships? Yea that would've been a decent solution.
9. The semi retcon of the briefing due to reactions. Eh, I get why it was done and if it's something you catch in the first few hours then yes of course go for it, but in this case it was so late I would've recommended just rolling with the punches. I wasn't involved in any of the comms that were flying around, but I can imagine it must have been frustrating for those who were and it's not like the rp would actually impact the event. The ID and ship class restrictions would have been enough of a countermeasure to keep things in check.
10. Scoreboard! Show people how they did, some people tried new ships/loadouts, hand out some forum titles that people can use to show they were there. I'm sure plenty of Zoners would've loved to have 'Defender of Erie' or something along those lines on their forum account. Make them feel more attached to the event and the outcome

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[Venemon]

Epic event, waiting for the part 2

[Lusitano]

i totally agree with what Leo said aswell what Promotheus said. it wasn't a really that fun event because it was such a big mess that most fps died, i personaly had to lower the details just to be able to fly. i always knew that liberty had to win, but didn't expect that had to cheat to win, and just that will leave a mark to any other future event, because players will not know if what they will do will be useful or not. already said before and say again, players fell more motivated to play if they know they can do some diference, mainly when we read this:
"Considerations:
Successful destruction, or successful escapes of the vessels carrying combat supplies will be tallied. The side which secures more points in this objective will have won, and future storytelling will be affected accordingly."

in other words, this was bullpoop! that's the true and no matter the excuses the staff can invent, we all know the truth, and i bet that many players only show up because despite we all know that liberty was going to win, most had some expectations that they could do something that matter, and it didn't. this had the same value that all pvp events the community makes. if there will be more events like this my advise is stop the crap and lying to the community and tell all the truth about what are this events about, just a pvp to justify some story development that you guys want to make. but the problem is that if you do this, many players don't even will log on.

but hey ... who cares right? take care all have fun

[Reeves]

I just want to clarify for the sake of posterity that players will generally not be able to influence "big" changes in the story of the mod. This just becomes difficult to track, organize, and manage especially since it will near immediately devolve into competitive interests with little in the way of compromise. To combat this, "big" changes occur along a mostly predetermined path, but with secondary events, such as the transport objective in this event, which allow players to impact things in the future.

This is not the last event in this series of the story around Pennsylvania and Erie, and with the Zoners having won the transport objective, certain elements of the story down the line will change accordingly. I won't spoil as to what these exact things will be, but consider it similar to the process of completing side quests along a main quest line and then getting a really elaborate end credits scene, where the totality of your actions are summed up.

I also understand that some people may be frustrated that I didn't allow the Alma to be destroyed in-game, but please understand that during official story events, if an asset is destroyed then I want to maintain consistency in the form of that asset literally being destroyed. To me, it feels like it would cheapen the spectacle of watching the Alma explode, only to see it later respawn as if your actions had no meaning.

You still have a pretty wild future to look forward to in Pennsylvania, and I intend to be more creative with future events.

[TheSauron]

[...]and with the Zoners having won the transport objective,[...]

I feel like this requires a clarification, I apologize if it was already given: far as I can tell, the transport score was a six to four in favour of LN.

[27.05.2023 18:07:26] ZTS-Greater.Fortune: Smith: Greater Fortune has reached the designated location, entering radio silence.
[27.05.2023 18:13:39] ZTS-Gran.Canaria: Berkey: Gran Canaria has made it out!
[27.05.2023 18:19:28] Death: ZTS-Anna's.Voyage was put out of action by 46th|Sebastian.Muller (Gun).
[27.05.2023 18:27:24] ZTS-Voluptuous.Vixen: Vixen is battered, but still in one piece
[27.05.2023 18:31:41] Death: ZTS-Lady.of.Livadia was put out of action by 46th|Delta-19 (Gun).
[27.05.2023 18:38:07] Death: ZTS-Beaushire was put out of action by [LN]-Adam.West (Gun).
[27.05.2023 18:47:47] ZTS-Sapporo: Sapporo has made it out but uh, we need to put out a fire onboard
[27.05.2023 18:51:06] Death: ZTS-Bed.of.Roses was put out of action by Sleazy.Guardian (Gun).
[27.05.2023 18:56:21] Death: ZTS-Freudentanz was put out of action by Chips.Dubbo (Gun).
[27.05.2023 19:04:25] Death: ZTS-Prosperity was put out of action by [LN]-Adam.West (Gun).

The event page states the winner is the side with more points, yet I keept hearing that Zoners succeeded in their objective anyway. Was there a change?

---

One MD Admiral

[Lusitano]

i wasn't expecting big changes, i know very well that will not happen, but something yes, and zoners won the transport part no thanks to some pilots of those transports that forgot how to pilot a ship and how to use bats/bots. that is the big cheat part.

[Reeves]

[...]and with the Zoners having won the transport objective,[...]

I feel like this requires a clarification, I apologize if it was already given: far as I can tell, the transport score was a six to four in favour of LN.

[27.05.2023 18:07:26] ZTS-Greater.Fortune: Smith: Greater Fortune has reached the designated location, entering radio silence.
[27.05.2023 18:13:39] ZTS-Gran.Canaria: Berkey: Gran Canaria has made it out!
[27.05.2023 18:19:28] Death: ZTS-Anna's.Voyage was put out of action by 46th|Sebastian.Muller (Gun).
[27.05.2023 18:27:24] ZTS-Voluptuous.Vixen: Vixen is battered, but still in one piece
[27.05.2023 18:31:41] Death: ZTS-Lady.of.Livadia was put out of action by 46th|Delta-19 (Gun).
[27.05.2023 18:38:07] Death: ZTS-Beaushire was put out of action by [LN]-Adam.West (Gun).
[27.05.2023 18:47:47] ZTS-Sapporo: Sapporo has made it out but uh, we need to put out a fire onboard
[27.05.2023 18:51:06] Death: ZTS-Bed.of.Roses was put out of action by Sleazy.Guardian (Gun).
[27.05.2023 18:56:21] Death: ZTS-Freudentanz was put out of action by Chips.Dubbo (Gun).
[27.05.2023 19:04:25] Death: ZTS-Prosperity was put out of action by [LN]-Adam.West (Gun).

The event page states the winner is the side with more points, yet I keept hearing that Zoners succeeded in their objective anyway. Was there a change?

The end score was actually dead even, but accounting for my own interference in clearing the way for the Navy using the Alma, and some of the transports being quite generous in letting people catch up, we made the decision to rule the tiebreaker in favor of the Zoners.

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[Verticalius]

The problem now is the same as it has always been: you are stubbornly clinging to your own ideas, and there is no flexibility in sight. For decades. With these solutions, you only reinforce the idea that everything is predetermined, set in stone, and the community can do as it pleases. Yet it was a great awareness-raiser for the 100 players who attended the event. It would be worth reflecting on the reasons for this, because I don't think there will be that many at the next one.
I (and others) have always had the illusion that the community can influence events by participating in them. The illusion of that has now been completely dispelled. Has the Alma died? So what? Could not a flagship with a different name have been brought out to continue the event?