Expo Icrontic 2012 Hunger Games
It's been brought to my attention that there's no OFFICIAL thread for this. Apologies for the extremely late notice, then.
We are scheduled from 6pm to 7:30pm. This will hopefully be done in that time period and not overlap the wine and cheese party.
I have 24 slots. Thus far, those who have expressed interest are listed below. If you'd like a spot, go ahead and holler.
@Gnomequeen
@Cola
@Midga
@BobbyDigi
@CrazyJoe
@UPSLynx
@Cannonfodder
@pragtastic
@Annes
@UPSHitman
@Spencerforhire
@ErrorNullTurnip
@Guppy
@Rexxar
@Redburn
@Teramona
@UPSKingpin
@UPSFooman
@Bandrik
@Ryokyo
@lmorchard
@Zanthian
@Thrax
That's twenty-three. There were some statements in the other thread that were kind of one way or the other (looking at you NateDog, are you even here?).
If you want in, please sign up below. First come, first served - although perhaps we can schedule a second running, if it goes well?
Quick Rules
-Last one alive wins.
-You can build shit. Some servers don't let you. I do.
-NO FIGHTING IN THE SPAWN. I couldn't come up with an easy way to take care of this, so we're on the honor system. EDIT: The spawn is the poorly lit area that you actually spawn in, not the cornucopia. You can fight and wail on people all you want in the cornucopia.
-The server is set to hard. Hunger will kill you.
-Animal item spawns have been tweaked - some drastically, some not so much. You'll figure it out preeeeeeeetty quick.
-This is proper hunger games style, act sporting... or we'll make you.
-If for some reason the elevator that transports you from spawn to cornucopia doesn't work, start jumping like a madman and a GM will build you out. We're watching for that.
Questions, comments, concerns, any other signups?
We are scheduled from 6pm to 7:30pm. This will hopefully be done in that time period and not overlap the wine and cheese party.
I have 24 slots. Thus far, those who have expressed interest are listed below. If you'd like a spot, go ahead and holler.
@Gnomequeen
@Cola
@Midga
@BobbyDigi
@CrazyJoe
@UPSLynx
@Cannonfodder
@pragtastic
@Annes
@UPSHitman
@Spencerforhire
@ErrorNullTurnip
@Guppy
@Rexxar
@Redburn
@Teramona
@UPSKingpin
@UPSFooman
@Bandrik
@Ryokyo
@lmorchard
@Zanthian
@Thrax
That's twenty-three. There were some statements in the other thread that were kind of one way or the other (looking at you NateDog, are you even here?).
If you want in, please sign up below. First come, first served - although perhaps we can schedule a second running, if it goes well?
Quick Rules
-Last one alive wins.
-You can build shit. Some servers don't let you. I do.
-NO FIGHTING IN THE SPAWN. I couldn't come up with an easy way to take care of this, so we're on the honor system. EDIT: The spawn is the poorly lit area that you actually spawn in, not the cornucopia. You can fight and wail on people all you want in the cornucopia.
-The server is set to hard. Hunger will kill you.
-Animal item spawns have been tweaked - some drastically, some not so much. You'll figure it out preeeeeeeetty quick.
-This is proper hunger games style, act sporting... or we'll make you.
-If for some reason the elevator that transports you from spawn to cornucopia doesn't work, start jumping like a madman and a GM will build you out. We're watching for that.
Questions, comments, concerns, any other signups?
0
Comments
You will spawn in a chamber BENEATH the cornucopia. No fighting in there. You will then enter an elevator chamber and be raised to the cornucopia. At that point, feel free to beat the crap out of one another.
Hopefully everyone had fun, let me know if you thought something sucked, so that I can fix it!
Since the lot of us who worked on the map are proud of it, here's the design:
The general design philosophy is that fun comes from two places: the threat of another player, and the threat of the environment. Death by environment is less fun than death from people. To this effect:
-There are NO TRAPS. This is because players dying to environment is not fun at all.
-There are TWO scripted events, the first being the volcano.
The rest of the environment factor was built into map design - the map was designed to funnel people into certain areas by using risk and reward. As an example, the risk of going into the river is based on the lack of cover and difficulty exfiltrating, the reward; that it was the only reliable food source. A small amount of cover was placed in the river in the form of trees, reducing the risk of that small zone - effectively creating a 'funnel' into the high-reward zone, which we had hoped would force players together.
Thaaaaat one didn't work. But there were LOTS more. Tons of time was spent designing this map - I can't even talk about all of it.
Additional environmental factor was built into training the GMs. There is a GM manual floating around google docs which we used to set GM boundaries, etcetera. We are allowed to mess with players, but only to try to force them into different players. Bandrik knows this firsthand - he exploited his way out of the map (sneaky sneaky!) and a GM tried to funnel him back in. He wouldn't follow the funnel, so he wound up dying to the lava pushing him in. People in the desert were supposed to be 'running scared' after a fight, and that area was designated for explosions to herd the players around.
EVERY SINGLE PART of the map has a purpose. Some worked better than others. My favorite is the volcano:
Upon entering the cornucopia, players were supposed to notice the big, easily defensible mountain surrounded by water. We had hoped that someone would fortify the area, expecting to stay safe. When the fortifications came under attack, we wanted to erupt the volcano - effectively robbing the player of fortifications, and possibly his life. The latter is against the PVP philosophy, but we decided the thrill of the defender ESCAPING the volcano would be worth more than the risk of death by environment.
Midga's experience represents a failure in the philosophy - he was not driven out of his hidey-hole fast enough, and when we finally DID blast him out, a group of slimes that had had time to spawn devoured him. He needed to be driven out earlier and more carefully, so that he could determine more of the map dangers and accumulate resources before winding up in his hidey hole.
Finally, the two scripted events: The volcano was one, the systematic burning of the forest and seeding with creepers was the other. We had hoped to drive tree-climbers to the very dense forest and keep people out of the resulting 'wasteland' with creepers, slowly driving players closer and closer as the end drew near.
Anyway, I'm horribly glad this all worked out - my heart was positively breaking when we nearly couldn't play it! Thank you all for playing!
Big hats off to @Myrmidon @Tiberiuslazarus and @Tushon for all the work that went into this. I would participate again in a heart beat.
Congrats to the following:
1st place: @rexxar
2nd place: @pragtastic
3rd place: @ErrorNullTurnip
Most Kills: @ErrorNullTurnip