Poetry Reading Feedback and Bug Discussion

[Ptrk]

Project: Gorgon's 4th weekly poetry reading just finished up, and it was the event's biggest turnout yet, with just under 100 players packed into the corner of the Chortling Beaver. The animals were dancing, the smell was gut-renching, and the blank Gruzark's Chapbooks were read aloud ad nauseam. Poetry reading is one of my favorite additions to Project: Gorgon, but I heard some complaints about it afterward that I think speak to two aspects of the skill/community event that should be addressed to the developers for their consideration.

1. Blank Book Overload
There are so many books... so many blank Gruzark's Chapbooks. So many, in fact, that it became inconvenient to click through them all. I heard suggestions to decrease the drop rate of Gruzark's Chapbooks to reduce blank book spamming as well as suggestions that the Oratory system should be changed so that there is legitimate incentive to write or share quality work.

2. Oratory Leveling Curve
I know the turnout for poetry reading could not have been predicted, so the XP required to level it had to be estimated based on some degree of speculation, but the poetry readings have become a huge event (which I love and should not change), and I've heard from multiple people that they have maxed Oratory by reading about 5 books, which may well have been Gruzark's. Perhaps a decrease in XP per listener, a scaling mechanism, or a flat rate of XP per book should be considered, since Oratory sits far apart from ANY skill in the game regarding ease of leveling.

3. Two Bugs
I will not address the topics regarding the podium which have been addressed by the devs. But another major issues I've seen are the problem of poems not popping up, and poems lagging several seconds to minutes behind the initial reading for some players. First, despite being within range of the podium and having no poetry screen open, the poetry window did not open despite several poems being read. This was easily remedied by clicking "Use" on the podium, but I don't think that will be practical when the range for reading increases and is probably not what was intended in the first place. The second issue, the lag, may well be the result of this, the fact that books are spammed in these events, or some other factor - I don't know. But in any case, it would be nice to have some mechanic where the entire poetry audience viewed the poems at the same time, such that any remarks or discussion would be relevant to all players and the poem at hand.

As is the case with many of the complaints in these forums, I would now like to thank the devs for making such an amazing game and implementing this unique, community-driven feature into it. I look forward to seeing how this developing game grows and what becomes of it, since it is already incredible.

tl;dr: Oratory is awesome but is new and has room for improvement in terms of mechanics and bugs. What does everybody else think about Oratory and poetry reading?

[ShieldBreaker]

I liked when people actually put in different text and/or numbered their poems. Window after window of blank text was confusing, I was somewhat worried it was a system glitch where it just looped the last reading, over and over.

Found it confusing, it seem to be going by so fast. Didn't feel like I had time to evaluate the poems. This was the first poetry event I have attended. I found it to hectic
to be fun. :-|

Also I hope at some point it will be easier to see who is the one reading the poem, it feels disconnected not knowing who is supposed to be using the podium.

[Niph]

This event also demonstrated that targeting and trading when in the middle of a big crowd is an issue. Weeks after weeks, people have a hard time finding the podium, or finding a reader with high-level skill in poetry to read their book. Assigning a key to "target non-combattant" doesn't seem to fix the issue for them (and doesn't fix the issue of finding a character).

Some suggestions:

• Either add a command to target a specific character, or an interface that lists characters around you and lets you click their name to target.
• Add a command (or something else in the new GUI) to target the last character that whispered to you.
• Let us stick the "talk", "shop", "inspect" button somewhere in the GUI and not fly around the screen where it's impossible to click.
• Allow us to reduce the lag due to character models, perhaps even allow us to make them completely invisible. Ideally (if your coding time was unlimited hahaha) we could switch quickly between graphic settings:
  
  • For dungeons
  • For outside, big areas
  • For crowded cities
  • etc.

[Crissa]

Some suggestions:

• Either add a command to target a specific character, or an interface that lists characters around you and lets you click their name to target.
• Add a command (or something else in the new GUI) to target the last character that whispered to you.
• Let us stick the "talk", "shop", "inspect" button somewhere in the GUI and not fly around the screen where it's impossible to click.
• Allow us to reduce the lag due to character models, perhaps even allow us to make them completely invisible. Ideally (if your coding time was unlimited hahaha) we could switch quickly between graphic settings:
  
  • For dungeons
  • For outside, big areas
  • For crowded cities
  • etc.

I think these are good enough to be on their own thread. o-o

[Citan]

Thanks for the poetry feedback! Regarding the poems not showing up for some people, it's likely they were "busy", from the game's point of view. If they were, say, trading with another player or shopping with an NPC, the window doesn't interrupt them (because those are modes the GUI can be in -- interrupting them with a poetry screen would mean aborting their trade). It tries again repeatedly for several minutes, or you can just click the podium to force it. I think dancing also keeps poetry books from arriving -- from the game's point of view, dancing is an active endeavor, so I'm not sure how easy that will be to fix, but will take a look when I get there!

If you can repro a scenario where you definitely aren't doing anything else, including dancing, and yet you still don't receive book screens, please let me know.


RE: targeting when in a large crowd -- I think it will become less of a hassle when people can spread out some more. The new GUI will also make it easier to keep track of private message conversations (eventually). A short-term workaround might be to /invite people into a temporary group, because clicking on a group member's name in the group screen will select them. (And if they're far away, you can use a heal ability -- your character will path until they're in range to use the ability.) Definitely something we'll refine as we go forward and see what's needed!

[Feral]

Thanks for the poetry feedback! Regarding the poems not showing up for some people, it's likely they were "busy", from the game's point of view. If they were, say, trading with another player or shopping with an NPC, the window doesn't interrupt them (because those are modes the GUI can be in -- interrupting them with a poetry screen would mean aborting their trade). It tries again repeatedly for several minutes, or you can just click the podium to force it. I think dancing also keeps poetry books from arriving -- from the game's point of view, dancing is an active endeavor, so I'm not sure how easy that will be to fix, but will take a look when I get there!

If you can repro a scenario where you definitely aren't doing anything else, including dancing, and yet you still don't receive book screens, please let me know.


RE: targeting when in a large crowd -- I think it will become less of a hassle when people can spread out some more. The new GUI will also make it easier to keep track of private message conversations (eventually). A short-term workaround might be to /invite people into a temporary group, because clicking on a group member's name in the group screen will select them. (And if they're far away, you can use a heal ability -- your character will path until they're in range to use the ability.) Definitely something we'll refine as we go forward and see what's needed!

My dancing is what is stopping me from getting Poetry experience? This makes me sad. I enjoy in-game dancing and love the buffs we get (usually only at Poetry Sunday). I hope you will be able to correct this. And this also helps me understand why so many friends get so many more levels from poetry readings than I do!

[Sheawanna]

I had no issues dancing and receiving poetry pop ups. I did have to keep the podium targeted though .