Free 2 Play Guild Event

[Tundrra]

Free-to-Play Nights/Weeks
Pretty soon 4 of our 7 branches will be Free-to-Play (WoW/Rift are subscription, GW2 is Buy-to-Play). I'd like to start doing weekly Free-to-Play nights, where on a rotation as many people as we can get hop into a Free-to-Play branch and play together. The cost is literally nothing but hard-drive space. Sure some of the older games graphics don't stand up to things like GW2 or SWTOR, but graphics aren't everything. If those go well, I'd like to do a free-to-play week each month, where one of our free-to-play branches gets a full week of play from people who want to participate. People may find out that they really like some of these games that maybe they haven't tried before, and play it a few times a week. DDO is a surprisingly active branch, and I think if people played it as part of an event, some of them would probably stick around.

Lakasha brought this up at the recent HC meeting for additional discussion so here is a post for ideas and planning:)

[Tundrra]

My interpretation of this would to pick a game, and everyone from all our branches active or nonActive roll a new character on the chosen free game of the month. Then we take over the starter area and level, group and play the game like it was new for a week:).

I would maybe do the event in 3 parts,

Part 1 on a Sunday at noon roll the characters and play all day, get used to how the game works, customize your screen.
Part 2 on a weekday evening, have that games regular branch meeting with all the visiting members there, with some more leveling and grouping afterwards.
Part 3 on a Saturday hold a event like a world boss or a starting dungeon with the new low level characters that were made.

[Talolan]

Just a quick note about Dungeons and Dragons Online, EverQuest 2 and Lord of the Rings Online. These games can be played for quite a long time without paying a cent. The only thing stopping you would be hard drive space. I installed all these games w/in the last two months, and they are fully patched.
DDO: 9.22 GB
EQ2: 14.6 GB
LOTRO: 14.5 GB

None of them are breaking the bank in terms of HD space. Heck, the last XCOM video I recorded was 120 GB.

[Lasarian]

I love this idea. I'm not sure about declaring a "month" right off the bat, I recommend a pilot program of a "weekend" - say Friday - Sunday, culminating in the HC Meeting on TS3 with all attendees present- schedule it several weeks in advance and plug the hell out of it to give everyone time to get hip to what we're doing.

I'll start downloading games immediately (those I don't have).

[Tundrra]

- schedule it several weeks in advance and plug the hell out of it to give everyone time to get hip to what we're doing.

I'll start downloading games immediately (those I don't have).

Yep Podcast, Newsletter, global forum message, FB and Twitter!

I downloaded eq2 the other day and I have DDo ready:)

[Lakasha]

I actually wasn't suggesting a month long thing. More a once a month rotating thing. My idea was separate from yet could be tied into the initial idea of a Free 2 Play Guild Event and it would be cool if we could do both. My idea looked something like.

One HC Meeting a month (not the business meeting) perhaps 2nd Sunday each month or some such (to be decided by HC), could actually be held in a F2P game. Preferably the whole meeting but if necessary just a part of it as an open forum type thing? I would like to see the actual High Council Meeting somehow tied into that F2P game for that one Sunday as I think it would be a great way for those members who aren't already involved to become more involved. This could be a cool time to hand out awards, recognitions, promos etc and let people know what was going on with the guild as a whole. (I can see how this would be a disadvantage to those games that aren't free to play so perhaps something could be worked out; maybe those HC members who do have the Pay 2 Play games could transcribe into game for those who don't or?? no idea here)?

Roxanne brought up the problem with recording minutes and I am not sure how that would happen but I am thinking we could figure it out. If not perhaps the HC could just do a different type of Open meeting before or after the regular high council meeting and not record it as minutes but as a what was talked about?

[Lasarian]

I like the idea Lakasha, everything except the HC meeting part. We are pretty fussy about keeping those records and I have no idea how we would keep them ingame other than to take screenshots and transcribe them by hand.

Wouldn't a far simpler solution be to just use that event to encourage less-involved members to sign in on TS3 and attend the HC Meeting where we hold it?

The rest, I think is great. Promotions, awards, events, whatever - I think it all sounds good. But if you want more people attending HC Meetings, I think in that case alone they're just going to have to attend where they are held like everyone else. We went to some pains to get away from mIRC and into a simpler forum for the meetings that members could use for both voice comm and would double as the HC meeting place.

[Lakasha]

True that Lasarian!! I like the part about encouraging people to attend the HC meetings which is the goal I was looking to achieve. I would love for members to see what goes on in the HC meetings and to really know that they are welcome to attend etc. It seems to me like many regular members don't really know how dedicated you all are and how much you do for NOR.. I want everyone to know!!

Are we still giving a little award to people when they attend their first meeting?

[Lasarian]

True that Lasarian!! I like the part about encouraging people to attend the HC meetings which is the goal I was looking to achieve. I would love for members to see what goes on in the HC meetings and to really know that they are welcome to attend etc. It seems to me like many regular members don't really know how dedicated you all are and how much you do for NOR.. I want everyone to know!!

Are we still giving a little award to people when they attend their first meeting?

Agree with your objective wholeheartedly! The more members we have attending HC Meetings regularly, the better! This is part of the reason we chose Teamspeak 3, believing that, if members were on TS3 chatting anyway (about dungeons, raids, or just gossip), it isn't much of a leap to join another channel or see that the HC Meetings are conducted there.

We do still give out that award, yes. "Writ of Welcome" I believe it is called, although it is frequently scribbled in crayon on the back of a napkin ...

Suitable for framing

As he is wont to say ...

[Lasarian]

Okay, so let's stop talking about planning it and plan it.

I nominate DDO as our first mob-F2P-NOR event. Is two weeks enough? November 2nd - 4th?