I was invited by PM. I don't remember what was on 100 at the time.

I'm not going to take sides ... I agree with both sides on certain points.

The problem with the whole situation is one of a borked bot system. Bots are present in a sector in numbers that are based upon the number of players in the sector. This is fine if it was possible to clear a sector, But the bots instantly respawn. There is no delay, the bot is instantly there (haxamagix?). If there was even a 2 to 3 minute delay before the bot respawned it might be manageable. Now, with the magic bots, you throw in pirates. This created a situation where we had 2-3 times as many protecting as mining.

TGFT has some capable fighters and we were not doing poorly versus the pirates. But like tumble mentioned, we were forced to stay in "easy bot" sectors. I am a relatively new player and I had never attended a mining convoy before. I don't believe guide intervention would be necessary or even welcome should the bot problem be fixed. Make the bots function realistically and all would be well. Hell, even tumble took a few minutes to get back after we killed him (or he made a "strategic withdrawal").

I don't like the idea of anybody getting any special protection. I think it goes agents the idea of the being allowed to do whatever your piloting ability's allow. Now doing things like dodging the chat filter, or working around /ignore (possible exceptions if somebody is genuinely trying to make amends), those deserve guide intervention. But giving special protection to people taking part in an event is not the place of the game staff.

However, if bot activity due to game flaws (like waldoze mentioned) needs to be curtailed during an event, I've got no problem with that. If theres a guide who's willing to warp people from eo to odia so they can make the start of the deneb run or nation war, cool.

With that said I'd like to offer what I remember from TGFT mining events when screwball ran them weekly,

last time I was in a mining event (actually as a miner believe it or not) it worked something like this:

there were several teams based on how many players took part in the event, I think last time there were two teams of ~5

we were given amounts of certain ores to collect and bring back to the person running the event, and we had to bring the ores back in a certain order ie: lanth, then denic, then helioscene

we had to finish one type of ore before moving on to the next

teams were allowed to work however they pleased, usually you'd have 2 defenders to every 3 or 4 miners, and players were free to engage members of the other team as they saw fit, this ment that the defenders sometimes blew up the other teams miners

I don't think we were allowed to fight in the collection sector

I believe we were told what systems we were allowed to mine in, for example we mined lanthanic in sedina, we mined denic in latos, and something else in ukari.

Oh and Spuck's team usually won

The order I have planned for things would go like this.

The group(s) enter the heavy nasty bot sectors, the hive spawns the extra bots in response.

The escorts does their magic to keep them away and distracted using several methods.

The miners mine the ore then leave for another sector. This is not your AFK mining either, it will be combat mining.

At the end of the event all the ore is pulled together and sold, the profits are divided among the group and everyone in the group could easily walk away a million or 2 richer.

Not all the bots will be able to be fully distracted, there are several techniques to lure the bots away but it does not work on every bot. With the bots like arklan, aputec's and assaults it poses some serious problems.

This is not your historical mining convoy event. This goal is to get as much ore as possible in the short period of time to make everyone richer. The other goal is to teach teamwork and develop some serious strategy.

Ed

This goal is to get as much ore as possible in the short period of time to make everyone richer.

Tell me again why Dev/Guide intervention is appropriate to protect these credit grubbing bastids?

Previously, under Obs's watch, the mining event was actually an EVENT: all types of players were accommodated. Pirates were paid by TGFT for miner/defender kills, contingent upon our following certain rules (no kills in the delivery sector).

What you're asking for is a special time for your guild to check out of the normal game environment and make money/gather XP. That's not an event, it's normal guild organized activity and you WILL be hunted as such.

Um, yeah, I thought there was more of a point to this than just people acquiring credits. You aren't going to give out prizes or have specific mining-related contests or anything? This doesn't sound any different from normal gameplay.

If we're going to define an event as a special context with unusual gameplay.. then.. it should at least exhibit that. Especially if I'm going to support it in a way that defies the context of the normal game.

Case One, Deneb Run: the sole reason for being involved is the event itself, and the possible prizes put up for win/place/show, and the pirates who follow the rules.

Case Two, This Bullshit: main reason for being involved is the XP and credits that inure to participants by virtue of the mining done during the event.

Rule Derived: in essence, if there's any significant reason to be involved in an 'event' other than the fun of doing it or prizes obtained WITHOUT the effort expended during the event... it should NOT be protected by magic limits.

This rule allows for easy sorting of events into 'protected' or 'not protected.' Example:

Nation War: nobody's getting enough PKs or Combat XP off that event for that to be driving their participation; people play for the same reason they race eachother in the DR. Thus, there's no game related incentive for participating and there's no harm to the game by protecting the event.

Yeah, I support that. Although in the case of the Deneb run, because it traverses areas that are commonly frequented by non-participants (who may even be totally unaware of the event), I wouldn't want to give it special protection. In that case, I would assume the risk is part of the involvement. Anything specially protected should probably follow the above and also be located "out of the way" (not in a capitol system, minor involvement of outlying second-tier stations only, no wormhole sectors, etc). Nation War would fit that case.

There is much more than just acquiring credits. From day one there was talk of what type of rewards to offer also what would be going on, what I posted before was just a rough outline, there are many things that can be done to liven it up and make it a very worthy event outside of normal game play. This has been a work in motion and there will be things to iron out. I was initially hoping to get some strategy to deal with the somewhat broken bot system but I am not to sure that will be possible. Here is what we have came up with so far, keep in mind nothing is etched in stone and we can make changes as needed. i.e. my initial thoughts were with the bots only but that may not be practical under the current system.

As I understand it some of the previous events would get points etc from the guide, there would be 2 groups competing against each other.

Also we are looking at several reward types, exp, credits, badges, what not. The best idea so far: Have a dump sector, with bots and with pirates. offer prizes for the best pirate, the best defenders and the best miner, best team or what not etc..

Clearing the sector of the bots would be a very big hurdle and lets face it, the really good ore sectors for groups are in not super friendly areas. We could pick an area for each week and stage there for the event.

Many possible areas to look at on this one. Also with the current bot situation it may be better to just clear all the bots in the staging area and let the players do that part.

Ed

And yet none of that was present in yer last event; still you cried for special treatment.

In the case of the Deneb Run, getting killed by pirates or random players is part of the event. The only proteciton it needs is from some disruptor flaring the racers at the beginning, before the race starts. That hasn't happened in a long time, but it would be good to allow the orginizers to remove and ban a person who does attack the race before it starts, so they can't delay it overlong. Your ideas for sector limited powers would cover that.

I agree it would be good (and even necessary) for player-run event organizers to have temporary and limited powers to manage the event sector including sin-binning greifers and disrupting assholes. Until then, a Guide should intervene to remove the disrupting dipshit and possibly sanction them (for example with muting).
Actually as we see today, that type of disruption has happened to Deneb Run regularly, despite specifically coming to an agreement with Pirates to accommodate them along Deneb Run, but keep order in Odia M-14.