Costume Contest Forcible Broadcasts

[Oklahoman]

Why do advertisements for the monthly costume contest merit being forcibly shoved into every chat window we have?

 

As far as I know, we don't do that for any other event in the game. I acknowledge there are potentially "big cash prizes" for participating in a cc, but last time I saw this going on I only saw 50 people in KW. We don't advertise like this for Hami's or MSRs, which draw similar numbers of people. Maybe the attendance is normally greater than that, and maybe the "big cash prizes" is a huge draw, I don't know.

 

I feel a rant coming on, so I will stop and see if anyone else is bothered by the practice. Probably just me.

[Greycat]

I'd say this is probably a "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. Not everyone comes to the forum, or reads the GMOTD (which, after all, you see... once?) The GMOTD is probably where it *should* be. But one way or the other someone would complain about missing it, while someone else would complain about seeing it too much, wherever you put it.

 

I don't think I was on when they did it, but it probably uses an admin channel (which would also be used for things like servers going down and the like,) and by default goes everywhere because it's an admin channel and you're not *supposed* to be able to ignore it. Whether it's the best choice or not... I don't know. Like I said, probably a no-win whatever they do.

[LiquidBandage]

2 hours ago, Oklahoman said:

Why do advertisements for the monthly costume contest merit being forcibly shoved into every chat window we have?

It is an easy form of engagement for the HC crew to orchestrate that anyone can participate. It is a low bar that allows for a multitude of people to participate in a community event. It serves as an opportunity to  introduce people (like minds maybe) to the other inhabitants of the HC community. A handful of messages in a chat window that people can't avoid isn't that much of a hardship given the upsides. There are still ways to see all of the chat in your windows that isn't these unavoidable advertisements.

 

If you are so bothered by text showing up in your window, right click and choose Clear. Minimize the window. Switch to the Combat window and watch it get drowned out by all of the reports. If chatting is your main focus, enlarge the window so it has less of an impact (scrolling other messages away).

Do you get similarly bent out of shape when the monthly announcements of the donation window opening & closing?

[Oklahoman]

1 hour ago, LiquidBandage said:

Do you get similarly bent out of shape when the monthly announcements of the donation window opening & closing?

No, that has to do with keeping the servers running, which I hope all of us would support and have an interest in the outcome.

 

1 hour ago, LiquidBandage said:

multitude of people to participate in a community event.

Why just *this* community event, though? There are others (possibly of similar size), every day.

 

1 hour ago, LiquidBandage said:

If you are so bothered by text showing up in your window, right click and choose Clear.

I'm not bothered by text showing up in my window, so much as text being forced into ALL my windows for a costume contest while I'm running, or participating in, something else entirely.

 

I'm willing to acknowledge I may be missing something here, but on Ex it is not uncommon for community events to run multiple times every day that pull in 48 people (a full league) with more interested in joining, yet capped by league or zone size. Those aren't allowed to advertise like this. 

[Arctique]

Would a better solution maybe be if a new channel was created specifically for GMs to make announcements for the GM-hosted events, that players can opt out of just the same as other channels like General, Help, etc rather than making those announcements in the Admin channel that you can't opt out of? The GMs do need a way to effectively spread word about the events they hold in-game, as not everyone pays attention to the forums, but the Admin channel should probably be reserved for more critical announcements like server downtimes and the like. A GM_Events channel that's maybe enabled by default but can be removed like any other channel might help keep these things visible to the majority of players, while making it easy for those that aren't interested to just ignore.

[EmmySky]

16 minutes ago, Oklahoman said:

I'm willing to acknowledge I may be missing something here, but on Ex it is not uncommon for community events to run multiple times every day that pull in 48 people (a full league) with more interested in joining, yet capped by league or zone size. Those aren't allowed to advertise like this. 

What you are missing is that the costume contests advertised on the admin channel are run by the HC staff, devs and GMs.  The ones run daily on the shards that you are talking about are not organized by HC staff.  (Edit forgot to add they are run once a month...imagine how annoying it would be if all your daily community events were spammed on all your tabs daily)

Edited February 2, 2021 by EmmySky

[Ironblade]

23 hours ago, Oklahoman said:

Why do advertisements for the monthly costume contest

23 hours ago, Oklahoman said:

We don't advertise like this for Hami's or MSRs,

Why do we have announcements on every channel for a MONTHLY event when we don't do that for DAILY events?

I think you have answered your own question.