Word-Spreading Event: Media Day

[Siberian Spring]

There's also the Rally Part 2 - Dance Party... AP or MI on your server of choice. October 20th 8am ET to ???

[Segev]

Sorry for my ignorance of acronyms, but "AP" and "MI" stand for...?

I'll look into making the documents into spreadsheets in a bit; we've got our first volunteer entry on it, though! ^_^_d

[Siberian Spring]

Sorry for my ignorance of acronyms, but "AP" and "MI" stand for...?

I'll look into making the documents into spreadsheets in a bit; we've got our first volunteer entry on it, though! ^_^_d

Atlas Park and Mercy Island. (that would be me. :D)

[P51mus]

If we have sufficient, I might log in to the account myself to try to participate, depending on scheduling and if we have enough for all expected guests.

If you can remember your old account name/password it should still work.  They haven't deleted any accounts.

[Segev]

Not even 5+ year old ones? Huh. I'll look into it Sunday. (I volunteered to work tomorrow due to a contract terminating soon and the company needing some tasks finished before then.)

ThorsAssassin had an interesting bit to say about people "not even in the gaming industry" who might be able to help if they can be persuaded it's worth doing. They might be equally or more valuable to invite to join us for this event.

[P51mus]

Not even 5+ year old ones? Huh. I'll look into it Sunday. (I volunteered to work tomorrow due to a contract terminating soon and the company needing some tasks finished before then.)

I'm pretty sure the absolute worst that could happen is you'd have to rename your characters.  If I remember right, there was a one time thing where they might have released the lock on some character names, but I don't remember anything specific about it besides it happened.

[Prexx]

I will second the concerns about the possible EULA violations (I think there is something about sharing accounts), but I also think this is a great idea.  Just in case we can go forward with sharing accounts, I will volunteer one of my accounts to be used.  It is a free account that I created so that my wife, roommate, and myself could do the 4 man minimum events.  I now wish I went through with my plan to make 5 free accounts so that we could do TFs.

I also really like the idea of an online convention using Twitch.TV.  If we go that route, I will be willing to run a room.  I have never streamed game video, but if someone can give me some instructions, I am confident in my ability to get up and running in time.  If we do the online convention, I can probably get my wife to help out as well.  If anything, I can probably get her to duo with me to illustrate that the game is small team friendly.

[DrakeGrimm]

I will second the concerns about the possible EULA violations (I think there is something about sharing accounts), but I also think this is a great idea.  Just in case we can go forward with sharing accounts, I will volunteer one of my accounts to be used.  It is a free account that I created so that my wife, roommate, and myself could do the 4 man minimum events.  I now wish I went through with my plan to make 5 free accounts so that we could do TFs.

I also really like the idea of an online convention using Twitch.TV.  If we go that route, I will be willing to run a room.  I have never streamed game video, but if someone can give me some instructions, I am confident in my ability to get up and running in time.  If we do the online convention, I can probably get my wife to help out as well.  If anything, I can probably get her to duo with me to illustrate that the game is small team friendly.

...what's NCSoft gonna do? Ban us? >.> *snrk*

[Segev]

Fortunately, I don't think NCSoft wants to be that hostile to these sorts of efforts. It makes them look like "the bad guy," and as long as we're not smearing them with it, it would make for WORSE PR.

We're not doing this to attack NCSoft; we're doing this to create greater awareness of why people love this game so darn much.

Add in how hard EULAs are to enforce, and I think we're okay. I'm no lawyer, but I think they'd be stretching anti-"account-sharing" rules to the extreme in this case, anyway. "Reasonable man" standards are all over the place in law, and we're clearly not trying to do any of the nefarious stuff usually associated with "account sharing."

I'm currently on a computer network that forbids google docs, so I can't check the ones set up for this right now, but please, if you're volunteering, enter name and contact information and any relevant notes on them! (Again, I am not asking for you to divulge account passwords at this time, just means of getting the guest who will borrow your account in touch with you to get them later.)

[Prexx]

...what's NCSoft gonna do? Ban us? >.> *snrk*

Personally, I don't think that NCSoft would do anything about it.  I just wanted to point out that there could be problems.

Fortunately, I don't think NCSoft wants to be that hostile to these sorts of efforts. It makes them look like "the bad guy," and as long as we're not smearing them with it, it would make for WORSE PR.

We're not doing this to attack NCSoft; we're doing this to create greater awareness of why people love this game so darn much.

Add in how hard EULAs are to enforce, and I think we're okay. I'm no lawyer, but I think they'd be stretching anti-"account-sharing" rules to the extreme in this case, anyway. "Reasonable man" standards are all over the place in law, and we're clearly not trying to do any of the nefarious stuff usually associated with "account sharing."

I'm currently on a computer network that forbids google docs, so I can't check the ones set up for this right now, but please, if you're volunteering, enter name and contact information and any relevant notes on them! (Again, I am not asking for you to divulge account passwords at this time, just means of getting the guest who will borrow your account in touch with you to get them later.)

I put my info on the docs before I even posted  ;D

Also, if we go ahead with the account sharing, what is stopping us from doing that along with the online convention?  The volunteer accounts could be like the VIP pass and the streaming could be for general admission.

[Segev]

Do we have any experienced TwitchTV users here who would be able to take point on putting together this "online convention?" Let me know what kind of organizational requirements you have, and I will try to get another google doc or few up to help with that! If there's anything I can do to create a central repository for the efforts involved, I'll be happy to do that, too.

[P51mus]

Could you edit the google doc signup sheet into the original post so that it's easier for people to find?  Preferably at the start of the post.

[Ironwolf]

I seriously doubt if you keep an email trail documenting you are giving someone the account and when and then that person stupidly does something in the game that it would come to you in anything but the preliminary start of the investigation by the police.

Once they trace the IP address and find as of xx date that person had the account............

[Graphite]

I would like to volunteer to be a Mentor.

I have 10 years of experience with the CoH community (joined the Prebeta boards in Sept 2002) and have convinced many of my friends to try coh over the years.  The only caveat is that my account is at the Free to Play status due to financial reasons beginning this year.  I love this game and sharing it with others, so if you manage to get this set up, just let me know what you need from me.

[Segev]

I have taken the suggestion of putting the link at the top of the OP; thanks for pointing out how hard it was to find!

Another good point that has been brought up elsewhere is means-of-contact between mentors and guests. Is there a good preferred program onto which anybody can sign up to participate in voice chat without having to exchange a lot of contact information? Skype is a bit out for this. I have heard teamspeak and ventrillo mentioned, however, but I know nothing of them save that they are voice chat enablers. Thoughts?

The goal here is ease of access and smoothness of communication for the guests; we don't want chat programs to become the focus in any way, but rather to serve as a facilitator to enhance their learning and enjoyment of the game and its community.

Thanks to everyone who's posted, pointing out difficulties to overcome and offering suggestions and advice on making this work.



I am not ignoring the concern about account-sharing getting the account owner in trouble; the best I can do is provide witnesses as to who shared with whom and the fact that the dates line up. On the "up" side, NCSoft likely won't take much if any action simply because the game's ending (for them at the least) in less than two months after Media Day. The concern will be making sure you don't get banned based on something a guest does from the revived game. Which, if this becomes an issue, I tihnk we can probably work something out with the revived Paragon Studios. I can't make promises, so it's always a risk, for which I'm sorry. But I can promise that I will do all I can, if some problem arises from the generosity of an account-donor being screwed by his guest player, to get some extenuating circumstances defense in place. (That said, given the environment and cause, I think we'll probably be okay. But take that for what it is: the opinion of just another guy trying to organize something to help save the game.)

[Quinch]

Added myself to the donor list - it might be a good idea to note whether the accounts you're donating are freem, preem or vreem, as they influence what kind of content is available as well.

I might also volunteer as a mentor, but I'd need a bit more information on what exactly that would entail. For example, I specialize in PUGs, but aren't too involved in the community.

[P51mus]

Another good point that has been brought up elsewhere is means-of-contact between mentors and guests. Is there a good preferred program onto which anybody can sign up to participate in voice chat without having to exchange a lot of contact information? Skype is a bit out for this. I have heard teamspeak and ventrillo mentioned, however, but I know nothing of them save that they are voice chat enablers. Thoughts?

Ventrilo and Mumble (two voice chat programs that I'm familiar with) would work fine.  Both of them require for someone to have/host a server, and then you give out the server info to whoever is connecting.  I know ventrilo can be setup to have someone running a personal type server (usually with a low number of max users) or you can pay to rent a dedicated server (which can handle more people, and are always running).  But no contact information has to be exchanged directly, just have to give out server info to participants.

Anyway, I got in contact with my friend, and apparently his extra account was a fresh free account (nothing on it), which I've now pledged. I'm afraid to write my e-mail in a public document due to spambots, so I listed to contact me through pms here.  Going to make sure I have e-mail notification on.

[dwturducken]

Unfortunately, the ubiquity of Skype means that we may find it to be the preferred program from the media side, though I am seeing only Gmail addresses. That suggests Google Talk to me.

Is there some sort of verbage we should be using?  TonyV was cautioning us to hold off on trying to contact the media in general, unless we personally knew someone, and I've yet to see a posted press release.  I'd like to invite Laura Sydell, or one of her minions, from All Tech Considered on NPR, but I'm not exactly certain what to offer..

Also, I haven't actually tried, but is the sign up sheet openly editable? I'd like to volunteer the account that I made to try out the F2P side.

[P51mus]

Fansy has apparently managed to contact a few people.  They're not journalists, but they are fairly high profile media (mostly webcomics).  The people he's mentioned are behind, in order, Megatokyo, Questionable Content, Penny Arcade and For Better or For Worse.

Edit: fixed link -eabrace

[dwturducken]

Anyone thought of or know how to contact Bill Amend?  Foxtrot has had more than a few the reference WoW in ways only a player could, plus the liberal application of Linux/Unix references. It's no xkcd, but it's definitely nerd-centric yet still mainstream.