Major decrease in event hosting quality

[Daldur]

I think its a continuous cycle of bs. Public has lost interest in events, resulting in staffs (especially new ER's) interest in hosting events with less than 30 people. Less play, less host, quality decreases, quantity is sitll the same however.

I don't think we can point fingers at any one in particular because its TW population as a whole that has contributed to the decline in popularity and quality of events. Yes, people complain that the same old 'shit' is hosted all the time, but little do they realise when hosts attempt to host 'different' types of events, people all go 'oh this is so crappy, why don't host deathmatch n00b er'.

[Ricko]

you want to know why event popularity has gone down over the last few years? THERE IS A FUCKING EVENT HOSTED AT ALL TIMES.. back 3-4 years ago hosted events were alot more infrequent so more people would turn up. It's like chocolate cake; get it daily and it loses its appeal, get it once every month (I dont eat that much cake in all honesty) and you'd be relishing it.

[Galaxy Turbo]

Yeah Ricko but then it could be argued there's less to do in the zone...

I agree with you bro but gotta look at it in every single direction/perspective.

[kthx]

I really have tons to say about this, the hosting has been the same as it always has, there are good hosts, bad hosts, and mediocre hosts. The problem is that nobody can host the older events because newer players are so used to everything being done for them, so trying to explain to pubbers how you are supposed to shoot a ball into the enemies goal to get points for your team is sorta lost in translation. I attribute this to many things such as the automatic base warps in pub, automated everything, newbies don't have to learn to fly to X area if your in freq 1 and fly to X area if you are in freq 2 or be specced anymore. That is why, even though I recently quit staff again due to lack of time to host, I always would make my players do as much as possible when I hosted. I put the responsibility back on the players to read the rules, and follow the rules or be specced, not set up a bot to do everything for them. Personal responsibility to do things for yourself or be insulted, humiliated, and not be able to play a game is something that has long been missing in this zone, and it is also why we don't see a huge shift in current pubbers into our leagues. This is the reason why the same 50 players play in TWLD every year, the same 50 players play in TWLJ every year, and the same 100 players play in TWLB every year.

[Exalt]

horry cow :shuriken: :ninja: ^-^

[DankNuggets]

I really have tons to say about this, the hosting has been the same as it always has, there are good hosts, bad hosts, and mediocre hosts. The problem is that nobody can host the older events because newer players are so used to everything being done for them, so trying to explain to pubbers how you are supposed to shoot a ball into the enemies goal to get points for your team is sorta lost in translation. I attribute this to many things such as the automatic base warps in pub, automated everything, newbies don't have to learn to fly to X area if your in freq 1 and fly to X area if you are in freq 2 or be specced anymore. That is why, even though I recently quit staff again due to lack of time to host, I always would make my players do as much as possible when I hosted. I put the responsibility back on the players to read the rules, and follow the rules or be specced, not set up a bot to do everything for them. Personal responsibility to do things for yourself or be insulted, humiliated, and not be able to play a game is something that has long been missing in this zone, and it is also why we don't see a huge shift in current pubbers into our leagues. This is the reason why the same 50 players play in TWLD every year, the same 50 players play in TWLJ every year, and the same 100 players play in TWLB every year.

So we make people figure out the rules for themselves when they've never played the event and quite often <er>'s don't use the A1 rules?

So we spec them for not following rules they weren't told or shown?

I'll agree that they should be spec'd if they break them, but then again you have to tell them what NOT to do BEFORE they do it for that to work effectively. I'll also agree it's not too much to ask players to get in a safe or get spec'd: but you still need to tell them that.

Humiliating someone who doesn't know what they're doing isn't going to get them to learn. They'll probably never want to play an event you host again. If it's someone who's SUPPOSED to know the rules and they keep breaking them, then go ahead and call them out for it. They probably won't take it too seriously if they know what's up. But if it's someone new, or just making an honest mistake, calling them out isn't going to help anything. I realize this goes against everything you stand for, but making fun of people isn't something that staff should be doing. They can make fun of their friends, but not people they don't know.

You've got the same 50 ppl playing TWLD, JD, BD for lots of different reasons, but not humiliating them isn't one. On average, I think way more people play in TWD than events in general. If I were you guys (staff) I would figure out a more effective way to get people to play events -- almost everyone in pub ignores the zoners or they get lost in the chat. A big problem is that they don't know what to expect in events, or they don't know what events are, or it's an event that the average pubber won't stand a chance in.

[Heroin Bob]

Hire Moar Funneh Staff

[kthx]

Dank, I don't care if you argue about my politics with me, but you aren't even close here. I was a host for a very long time, I was one of the most popular and best host because of what I said before. Get a clue.

[Noah]

The quality of the hosted events went down when quantity was needed over quality. Hosts went for quicker games that would fill their quota quicker, mostly because these quotas was used in a big degree to see if the host was good or not.

I can use my period as ER as an example, when I had less time left over for this game I had to keep up my quota, or else I'd be axed or demoted. Since my time online was more limited I had no choice but to go for the events that would fill my quota quicker or else I'd been axed or demoted. I know that several other ERs was in the same position.

It also made no sense whatsoever to axe those who only hosted like 10 games per month. Granted, that wasn't much, but atleast they enriched the game by adding 10 more hosted games per month. That's better than 0.

I also agree with Wark on this one. When new hosts got more and more dependent on using bots, they lost the ability to use the basic manual commands to improve the game outside of what the bots was programmed to do. A bot cannot be programmed to do everything a good host can do, and when hosting was put into bot commands, everything outside of the bot repertoire fell away.

[Vehicle]

I think that the reasons mentioned here are all good ones and I wanted to add my two cents as to why hosting quality has decreased (which I agree it has.)

Reasons:
Shit is constantly being hosted. I'm on staff again and more often than not when I try to call an ad someone is already hosting or about to. Not a bad thing in-and-of itself but coupled with monotony it creates an issue.

Which brings me to my next issue: the same 4 events are hosted over and over and over again. I get it, people like hunt and freezetag, but how many fucking times a day can you play this?
As evidence:
Of the 360 events this month, here are the top 8:
pictionary 31
twisted 15
hunt 14
deathmatch 11
balanceout 10
pinky 10
warpwars 10
freezetag 9

The top 8 events account for 1/3 of the total hosted events. I think it's time for some new shit kids.

Next issue: lack of real training. This isn't to say our staff-ops haven't done a good job, as they have, simply that the resources aren't available. New staff are often unfamiliar with some of the older events TW has to offer (spaceship anyone?) and may have never played them themselves. Without proper documentation as to hosting procedures, these hosts are religated to hosting events that they are familiar with or have played before. A long long time ago, and I think it's still online but I'm not sure, there was a resource for staff members that gave a run through of events. Either update and push this site like it's crack cocaine, or put someone in charge of actually training these staff members, not simply hiring them.

My last point of contention is that, because of a decreasing population in TW, hosts are hosting the wrong events at the wrong time. Zombies shouldn't be hosted on a huge map if there are only 280 people in the zone. A basing arena shouldn't be hosted if there is a game of ?go base happening. Simple things like this will ensure that you get enough players to make your event interesting.

[DankNuggets]

Dank, I don't care if you argue about my politics with me, but you aren't even close here. I was a host for a very long time, I was one of the most popular and best host because of what I said before. Get a clue.

look, this has nothing to do with your politics. I made my post based solely off of yours. I know you were a popular host. I'll go through it line by line to illustrate this. and I'll format it how i fucking feel like it forum douches


Originally Posted by kthx:


I really have tons to say about this, the hosting has been the same as it always has, there are good hosts, bad hosts, and mediocre hosts.
To say that it's the same as always isn't a very good opening line if you're bashing the status quo

The problem is that nobody can host the older events because newer players are so used to everything being done for them, so trying to explain to pubbers how you are supposed to shoot a ball into the enemies goal to get points for your team is sorta lost in translation.
I think it's more to do with newer hosts not having played older events, and not knowing how to host them. The event doesn't fail when a few pubbers can't figure out goals (but honestly, it's incredibly self-explanatory) it fails when hosts don't know what they're doing. I don't see how you jump from having things done for players to events with balls and goals.

I attribute this to many things such as the automatic base warps in pub, automated everything, newbies don't have to learn to fly to X area if your in freq 1 and fly to X area if you are in freq 2 or be specced anymore.
Automatic base warps don't equate at all to flying to one area to start a game. It's done by the <ER> telling the freqs to go here or go there. That's part of hosting, you complain about bots doing all the work, but that's a part that falls on the actual host to do. Blaming newbies for not knowing how to play an event is stupid when the <ER> should be telling them how to play to begin with.

That is why, even though I recently quit staff again due to lack of time to host, I always would make my players do as much as possible when I hosted. I put the responsibility back on the players to read the rules, and follow the rules or be specced, not set up a bot to do everything for them.
I had no idea you were the only host to spec people who didn't follow the rules. Also didn't know that every event you hosted had the exact rules posted already, and you never deviated from them. Very simple, explain the rules at the beginning, and if they break them, spec 'em. Nothing new or different from any hosting style as far as I can see; not unique.

Personal responsibility to do things for yourself or be insulted, humiliated, and not be able to play a game is something that has long been missing in this zone, and it is also why we don't see a huge shift in current pubbers into our leagues.
This is simply your own personal opinion, which i happen to disagree with. For some reason, you think personal responsibility entails knowing how to play the game beforehand. That's simply not something you should EVER expect as a host, even if you're hosting hunt for the third time in a row. Personal responsibility in context of hosting falls on the hosts, not on the players. Once again, the responsibility of the players is nothing more than to show up, follow the rules, and not leave in the middle of the game. All other responsibilities (like setting up the game, reading and enforcing rules, and answering questions) fall to the host.


This is the reason why the same 50 players play in TWLD every year, the same 50 players play in TWLJ every year, and the same 100 players play in TWLB every year.
Nice jump in logic, from event hosting quality to why the same people play TWD year in and year out. I'm not going into that tangent, because it's not what the tread is about and just further disorganizes your argument.



I'm not making any assertions to your ability to host, but your "explanations" are extremely lacking and your answers to the problems are non-existent.