|
I became aware in the recent locked thread that the online region has a hard cap of 8 conventions that the VOs can offer. I would like to see this expanded.
1. The region covers the entire world and I would guess has one of the largest player bases in PFS.
2. PBP and VTT are different animals and each should be considered separately when determining the amount each should be allotted.
3. The online VOs have demonstrated a high level of quality in their TPKon conventions. Quite frankly, they put the other online conventions to shame with their organization and execution. They should be allowed to do as many as they would like. (They were doing them quarterly, which I always looked forward to.) I would much rather participate in TPKon than Roll20Con, Aethercon, etc.
|
After seeing the earlier days of certain chat clients and the approach therein, I humbly request that the investment that folks who make in 'meatspace' convention work be considered in any such consideration.
Not only do volunteers sacrifice their time and effort to travel to physical conventions, but they also have to cover whatever bases the OPF is NOT covering for the larger conventions, or the convention is covering for smaller ones, usually on a very tight budget.
Too many VTT conventions will dilute the physical pool of conventions as well as discourage the investment in time of such a venue by players.
Please note I am NOT against VTT conventions.
However, they do not bring in all players, but only those who have the Internet, a means of accessing said Internet, and the time to do so.
The gaming community is a large and diverse group, and setting an arbitrary goal-post of 'Must have Internet' and 'Must have Internet capable of running 'X' system' is a hurdle that some folks cannot breach.
Sure, it's easier to access -- for those who have the means.
Please weigh carefully the needs of the entirety of Organized Play, and not one particular subset when laying out future concerns, but likewise please do not penalize or overly reward one means over another.
Thank you very much for your time and consideration.
Too many VTT conventions will dilute the physical pool of conventions as well as discourage the investment in time of such a venue by players.
I don't understand why you think VTT conventions will dilute the physical pool of conventions or discourage players.
If people prefer to play VTT or PBP, why limit their enjoyment? Why do you want to force them to pay for hotels, mobility (whether they drive their own vehicle, or travel some other way), restaurant food, etc.
Let me rewrite your argument:
Please note I am NOT against VTT physical conventions.
However, they do not bring in all players, but only those who have the Internethotel rooms, a means of accessing said Internet traveling to said hotel room, and the time to do so.
The gaming community is a large and diverse group, and setting an arbitrary goal-post of 'Must have Internettravel funds' and 'Must have Internet capable of running 'X' system' paid vacation time to attend conventions is a hurdle that some folks cannot breach.
Sure, it's easier to access -- for those who have the means.
Please weigh carefully the needs of the entirety of Organized Play, and not one particular subset when laying out future concerns, but likewise please do not penalize or overly reward one means over another.
Thank you very much for your time and consideration.
============
Unless you believe that every online convention means that one physical convention must be cancelled, I'm not sure what your concern is.
Is there something beyond the fact that some people can't afford internet access, but can afford travel and vacation expenses?
"Having means" to travel is really not so different from "having means" to access the internet.
Regional Venture-Coordinator, Online
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Howdy - thanks for your post, CFoot - This is something that has been discussed on a number of occasions over a long span of time behind the scenes - so it's good to have a chance to discuss it with the community at large.
A few quick notes:
1) Indeed :)
2) The cap is actually nine total/combined online events per season.
VTT and PbP are already handled as separate entities in those decisions/counts. VTT has been allotted six events and PbP three.
The reason for three for PbP is that the PbP events can take anywhere from two to three months from start to finish, so that means six to nine months of the year the community is in "event" mode as-is. That's a lot of time and work invested by the community and venture officer crew in those events already - too much more than that would be perpetual event mode.
For VTT, seeing that those events run in real-time like meat-space events over a given weekend, it was decided six was a good number. Prior experience has shown that if you start running more than that each season there tends to be community fatigue and attendance numbers start to drop off. So six seems like a good number for VTT right now. That is basically a VTT event every other month, on average.
3) I could not agree on this point more :) - James, Richard, Helen, and the whole online community has done an excellent job organizing and running TPKon, and you will be seeing more focus on those in the coming season.
Once again - I appreciate the opportunity your post allowed - so thanks for putting it out there.
If anyone has any questions or concerns, please feel free to ask them here or email me HERE and I'll be glad to discuss further.
- Jesse
Jesse R. Davis [IronHelixx]
Regional Venture Coordinator, Online Play
IronHelixx@OrgPlayOnline.com
Discord Chat: PFSChat.com/SFSChat.com/AdventureCardGameChat.com
Our Mission: To Champion, Serve, Support, and Build the Online Community.
I became aware in the recent locked thread that the online region has a hard cap of 8 conventions that the VOs can offer. I would like to see this expanded.
1. The region covers the entire world and I would guess has one of the largest player bases in PFS.
2. PBP and VTT are different animals and each should be considered separately when determining the amount each should be allotted.
3. The online VOs have demonstrated a high level of quality in their TPKon conventions. Quite frankly, they put the other online conventions to shame with their organization and execution. They should be allowed to do as many as they would like. (They were doing them quarterly, which I always looked forward to.) I would much rather participate in TPKon than Roll20Con, Aethercon, etc.
|
While I'm not really all that perturbed with the number of OP online conventions, what I am a fair bit perturbed by is the promise of the Regional Support Program for the online region back in November of 2017 and the fact that it is not yet available. See http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lk8k?Extra-Life-New-Regions-and-Vo lunteer-Recognition
Back then it was stated that regarding the RSP for online "[w]e are currently fleshing out the details and will post them in the next few weeks." It has now been seven months.
I think that extending the RSP to online events beyond the nine which are authorized for convention support a year would do a lot to alleviate some of the concerns with the number of convention events in the online region.
|
Regional Venture-Coordinator, Online
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Howdy - your concerns are not just your own - it is something that has been discussed and brought up a lot - luckily it has proven out over a goodly number of years now that Online Events have little to no (heavy on the "no") affect on meat-space events, at all. So, while I do understand the concern, it is not something that is an issue in reality. Online Play serves a community that, in many cases, has no access to other play opportunities at all. Many of the members of our community live in remote areas, live in an area of the world that has no organized play presence in any reasonable travel distance at all, many are deployed military who could not otherwise play, some have health reasons or other things that keep them from traveling or even leaving the house at all in some cases - a portion of the community are meat-space GMs who otherwise would never get to play because they only run in their local areas for various reasons - and of course a sub-set of the community plays both meat-space and virtually. So its a very diverse community with all kinds of reasons for playing online, and we love them all. :)
As a side note - while an internet connection is needed to play online, obviously - the only other "tool" needed is a web browser - so that is something that most people with an internet connection have already - and the web-based VTTs are free so there is no extra cost there, as a player. (And PbP is simply access to the forums) GMs do tend to incur extra costs, just like meat-space. (And there will always be limiting factors for any region, meat-space or virtual.)
Also - We, as Online VOs and GMs, incur a lot of expenses each season too - just like meat-space VOs/GMs, there are a lot of costs we eat on a bunch of different levels.
(We also help online conventions cover other organized play systems and non org-play game systems at events, helped bring in sponsors, and a ton of other things.)
I would not worry to much about Online Play messing anything up for regional events in meat-space. The two really have no affect on each other.
After seeing the earlier days of certain chat clients and the approach therein, I humbly request that the investment that folks who make in 'meatspace' convention work be considered in any such consideration.
Not only do volunteers sacrifice their time and effort to travel to physical conventions, but they also have to cover whatever bases the OPF is NOT covering for the larger conventions, or the convention is covering for smaller ones, usually on a very tight budget.
Too many VTT conventions will dilute the physical pool of conventions as well as discourage the investment in time of such a venue by players.
Please note I am NOT against VTT conventions.
However, they do not bring in all players, but only those who have the Internet, a means of accessing said Internet, and the time to do so.
The gaming community is a large and diverse group, and setting an arbitrary goal-post of 'Must have Internet' and 'Must have Internet capable of running 'X' system' is a hurdle that some folks cannot breach.
Sure, it's easier to access -- for those who have the means.
Please weigh carefully the needs of the entirety of Organized Play, and not one particular subset when laying out future concerns, but likewise please do not penalize or overly reward one means over another.
Thank you very much for your time and consideration.
|
Regional Venture-Coordinator, Online
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Valid point - I had added something about the RSP in my post above but took it out before posting - while I can't go into all the details on the delay - I will say that we should see something in place soon for RSP.
While I'm not really all that perturbed with the number of OP online conventions, what I am a fair bit perturbed by is the promise of the Regional Support Program for the online region back in November of 2017 and the fact that it is not yet available. See http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lk8k?Extra-Life-New-Regions-and-Vo lunteer-Recognition
Back then it was stated that regarding the RSP for online "[w]e are currently fleshing out the details and will post them in the next few weeks." It has now been seven months.
I think that extending the RSP to online events beyond the nine which are authorized for convention support a year would do a lot to alleviate some of the concerns with the number of convention events in the online region.
|
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
A convention every two months certainly seems fair, however I know the online venture staff is aware that not every VTT convention serves the same online audience. The online audience is divided by which virtual table top they use (with crossover of course). Fantasy Grounds has different fans than Roll20. So FGCon draws a different crowd than Roll20 Con. TPKon is Pathfinder/Starfinder specific (as far as I know), Aethercon is not. The point being, each of the online cons offers something a little different from the others. That there are 6 VTT conventions receiving support does not mean that every player online is able to participate in all 6 conventions without learning, or in some cases purchasing, new software.
Overworking the online VO crew is definitely a concern. Unlike in person conventions, it’s the same VO crew responsible every con, and that must take a lot out of them. I would not ask them to take on the responsibility of organizing more conventions. However, the issue to me is that if someone else wanted to go through the trouble of organizing a convention to fill a gap, they wouldn’t be able to get support, because the 9 online convention slots are all spoken for. Knowing that support isn’t available actually discourages anyone else from stepping up to do so. There are Warhorn sites that run enough games they could host their own convention, but support would not be there if they did.
It’s important to note what support matters more than others as well. Gift certificates are nice, but I don’t think a lack of gift certificates for an online con is going to make a difference in the attendance. GM and Player boons, however, matter. And providing scenarios to the GMs matters.
As far as the boons, I think looking at Roll20 Con is a good indication of how lack of boon support can kill participation in an online con. Through no fault of the online VOs, Roll20 Con is not receiving support this time, because the convention did not announce their dates until it was too late to submit for support. As a result, there is minimal PFS offered at the con. There’s no incentive for an online GM to offer games through the con, because they could just list them themselves. And to make matters worse, that’s one of the 9 approved conventions, so if it’s not replaced by something else this year, there will only be 8 supported.
Scenario support has been an issue for online cons (and in general from my experience). I think that a con can get by without it, but it’s also a bigger issue online than it is for a face to face convention, because VOs can’t distribute PDFs. For a local convention, the VO can print off the scenario and lend it to the GM that needs it. For an online convention, the GM must own the pdf and usually must build an online table (sometimes those are shared). Not getting the scenario means GMs are limited to what they own or required to buy the scenario.
Timely scenario support is also very important. It’s tough for a GM to get a scenario two days before a convention and properly prep it. Online, prepping it also involves building the virtual table. Some GMs can do this very quickly. Others (like me) take some time to put one together. I’d much rather do that over the course of a couple of weeks a little at a time instead of having to find 2-3 hours in the day before the convention to make it happen.
Not knowing whether or when scenario support is going to happen affects what scenarios can be offered. Solstice Scar, for example, has not been offered at any of the VTT conventions (to my knowledge). It has been run once over VTT that I know of (part A)? And I believe part B is being run PbP currently. Despite being, in theory, available to run anytime as long as there are three tables, if the GMs can’t actually get the scenario, it can’t be run. If they don’t know whether Scenario support is going to drop in time for the con (it did not for the last TPKon, though Jesse came through with a solution), then the special can’t be scheduled at all, because there’s no other means to get the scenario to the GMs. Again, unlike a local con where physical copies can be provided if one person has the scenario, online each GM must have it.
One last, important difference between in person and online cons is that at an in person con, there is typically a price of admission. Even if a con is receiving no support from Paizo, generally a GM can gain free admittance by GMing enough sessions. So there is still incentive for a GM to participate, even if scenario support doesn’t come. Online, there’s generally not a price of admission. So if a GM is not getting a boon, is not getting their scenarios provided, and is not getting admission waived, there’s really no incentive to offer their game through an online convention other than maybe having a larger pool of players looking at the listing.
I think if Paizo just said they would provide boon support and special scenario support to more online conventions that would encourage a few people other than the venture officers to organize smaller events, which would mean more people playing PFS/SFS and less of a burden on the VOs to be responsible for organizing everything online.
|
Rampant speculation: I wonder whether boons (con boons or RSP boons) are seen as inexpensive "marketing" support for Pathfinder / PFS?
If so, I wonder whether there is a visibility component that online PFS play is perceived (rightly or wrongly) as lacking?
If so, I wonder if there's an opportunity for Paizo to steal a march on a certain other League of Adventurers in rolling out a plan to integrate online play into PFS marketing/recruitment/retention?