I will post my overall feedback for both days here, as I didn't get the chance to properly articulate one a couple of days ago.
Overabundance of items, some items were cool, others not so much. I know it was done for crafting, but most of the time we had an abundance of crafting materials which didn't really seem any use. I loved the access to all those fucking awesome medical items, it was super fun to get to use them, along with the drugs. The blue potions were sick, I really love to see unique stuff like that done.
I loved the revival mechanics and how easy it was to patch somebody up, and how easy it was to kill people too under the right conditions. I wish we had more drugs. Maybe scavenge for food a little, and have random boxes appear out of nowhere that weren't there before, with food and other supplies (drugs, blue elixirs) a little bit more often. A farm too would have been neat, where players can harvest and plant their own seeds (at an accelerated growth rate... because of spooky paranormal entities lending their
bonemeal or something).
The disks I didn't really engage with personally, but I think other people did. I just let others manage it because I thought it was a little bit too confusing, with how they were initially scrambled and such, and I just preferred to do my own RP with people building character, relations and goals. But I'm glad they figured it out, and it was awesome to whoever did the voicing, big up to their accent and delivery.
THE NPCS WERE FUCKING AWESOME. I have never seen them before, and somebody yelling out at the end "WHY DO THEY HAVE GUNS!?" just had me giggling like a mad man. All the wheelchair and spooky
Sven-Coop 'They Hunger' -esque mobs were awesome, and the hallucinations too. Most of all, I loved the first non-NPC fight where we killed the vorts (although I didn't really want to kill them, I had to pick a side) where subsequently a huge gunfight ensued.
It was chaos at the beginning with so many players (and it was awesome for that reason) and I loved to see how quickly the numbers dwindled. I really enjoyed not really knowing who to trust except maybe a couple of people (69, 5) and how everybody was also distrusting of each other.
I really liked the music, cut screens between days, the division of the days being done so nicely done, with MORNING, EVENING AND NIGHTTIME.
I wish we had more opportunity to sabotage shit and open risks during the night, other than opening the doors or poisoning the food. (Post the playlist)
I think too many items were given for crafting, but this is maybe just me, as I don't really know what would've been helpful to craft, maybe more radios. In the end I was fine with just crafting one repair plate which I used at night at the end of each day. I think a bit more item famine would have been nice, to force us to scavenge a little bit more, thus giving items more value because there's less of them. I loved big hordes of zombies and people getting downed multiple times in a fight (humblebrag, didn't die once until the ending)
I really liked the player agency here, letting players go on and do their own thing and being forgiving to people's mistakes and with them taking their time doing shit, rather than rushing them. For example at the end, giving ample time to roleplay things out setting up for the ritual when NOBODY wanted to do it and we were missing two people, where we just went to gun down the two civies to force them (LOL IM SORRY).
I also really liked having voicelines available to everyone, I think it really opened up for a lot of funny moments. It would have been cool to have CP voicelines as a CP, just for the extra points, but maybe it was a good idea to have the suits deactivated because otherwise the map would have been SO dark with the visors on.
The ending was sweet too, and I really like the idea of having the possibility of getting other endings too. I kinda felt bad standing on the props where the NPCs couldn't get you, so I got down to defend from the floor so it would be more fun for everybody (as staff, I used to seethe when players would try to avoid danger through the use of props and bad NPC AI nodes that source sometimes offers). And I am happy that others followed suite and got down to the floor, and then GMs started blowing up the bunker and tossing the props everywhere and spawning mobs where they usually wouldn't reach, forcing everybody down on the ground for more action.
The ritual scuff didn't bother me at all, and I don't think it was staff's fault. People argued then when staff were trying to guide us through the process, but I think should've just rolled with it and made them fuck it up. Maybe they were fucking it up on purpose because they didn't wanna sacrifice, and it could've been portrayed IC. And from the player's side, I know it hurts when people tell you are wrong when you are only trying to deliver the best player experience possible, having done a shitload of events myself on
other communities, and knowing what it's like, I always give praise because of how difficult it is to actually organize everything together and cooperate with other staff members to get the right effect and pull everything off, which you achieved pretty damn well.
Suggestions:
With regard to setting players up at the beginning, I do have a couple of ideas that could ease the workload for staff, just for convenience’s sake, for both the staff and the players. I'm just thinking, setting up a little container with the players/characters name, individual to each person and just slotting in there everything that they will need for starter gear.
I'm only putting this forward in mind after having read on the event's discord channel that somebody had an issue with it. Personally I think it was fine, and I had fun messing around and getting to know everybody while we were waiting for everybody to get setup.
i.e.
"RAZOR-6 CONTAINER".. includes flashlight, CP suit, mask, food, ammo, starter guns, radio.
"WILDE EXPEDITION LEADER CONTAINER".. includes maps, books with guidance, radio, food, essentials, everything else, etc.
There were some problems with the weapons, wherein I literally couldn't load ammo into them for the duration of the entire series. I had a surplus of ammo which I carried in my bags and it never got used, I figured the only way to get ammo was to unequip my gun and re-equip it, which subsequently gave you loads of free ammo depending on the gun, around 1 or 2 magazines per re-equip.
For the MP7 it was 1 mag e
minigun I had at the end, it gave like 500 ammo (lol).
I really wish the 'clone/skinwalker' theme was played a bit more, it worked well enough to make us paranoid of each other at the beginning, going as far as making keywords with each other that we would recite after each night. Just be cool if it kept happening as it kind of just stopped happening!
I liked how initially the map changed after every night, but I think that was dropped after a while which was a little disappointing, it would have been cool to see even more bodies and tarnished fucked up shit after coming out of the bunker every day, moreso than it already was. Even just having more skeletons hanging from the tree, fucked up cars building up, more piles of bodies, etc. And risk-and-reward events to be played out just outside the bunker too, to begin the morning with as a collective. I think it would have helped with getting people cooperating with each other, rather than how we would tell everyone to come out, and we are waiting for some people to never come, or be extremely delayed.
I.e. a really dangerous energy surrounding a crate (appearing out of nowhere, at the bunker gates) that needs a group effort to try dispell. Put it down to a roll system, where you can die/be downed, depending on your stats, attribute boosts, would also put good use to those pills that we didn't really have a use for (green pills, blue pills, etc).