OK, its happened again… I started typing a response to ’s comments to ’s entry about ToC and I was typing and typing and the whole thing morphed into a State of Atlantia entry – so I am posting it on its own…
With apologies, I am going to mesh together BdeB’s comments and expound upon them to make a coherent thoughts.
Maybe folks are tired of the stress of Kingdom or “Kingdom Like” events. … to take the pavallion, chairs, benches, armour, clothes and feast gear that me and my lady need to feel comfortable
I think its partially a too full calendar as well as the impact level of the event. When I first started playing there was an event every month within Windmasters – usually a Kingdom level about every six months or so. The rest were small, low key affairs. I think in many ways we have lost the low key local events and driven things to the larger kingdom size events with all the hoopla. Don’t get me wrong – I love it when an event looks good, but it’s a fair bit to pack, haul, set up, take down, haul home, clean, etc. And once in a while its nice to go to a primitive site with a picnic shelter for a hall and not too much drama and just enjoy a relatively quiet event with friends.
I have been hearing the ‘fewer better’ events for a long time now, but can I propose that maybe what we need to think about are more special and intimate events? Not every event needs to draw 450 people have a 27 remove feast and look like every other event etc.
Now, before everyone sets their sights on me, I am thinking out of the box and off the top of my head…
The fencing community didn’t care when it was at Fortunatus, because they still got to fight.
I always find this interesting – does the heavy community resent Rapier Academy? The fighting community resent KASF? Etc. Why do people think that every event must be all things to all people, and that they have a G-d given right to have their particular field of interest at every event they go to?
NB: Carefully avoiding the war practice at KASF conversation here…
I [] think, in many ways, the Kingdom has moved beyond armoured combat.
Yes, the fighting force has diminished yet most new comers I meet list armoured combat as their primary interest. I wonder why the dichotomy.
The Economy and finance. … Location
The year we were forced to move Ymir 90 minutes south attendance dropped by a significant factor (around half I believe). And gas was cheaper then. The three words of real estate also apply to events – location, location, location.
Timing of this event [ToC]. It is two weeks after Coronation. It is two weeks till Crown.
Everyone says we need fewer, better events and yet in a six week period we have three kingdom events… at least two of which we expect a significant portion of our population to travel to.
I think we need to take a long hard look at the Kingdom Calendar. Are events spread appropriately? Should some be let to die? Do we really need three Universities plus KASF? What can we combine? What can we eliminate? What can we move on the calendar? Should we look at the funding model to encourage bids?
And when we look at the Kingdom events, we cannot do it in a vacuum. We have to look at the long standing Kingdom Like events as well – Sapphire, Ymir, Kings Assesment, etc. so that we get an accurate picture of the calendar.
Movitation.
Don’t just limit it to the fighting community. While I am not qualified to speak for the A&S community, one only has to look around and see the issue in the service community. We cannot get event bids. We cannot get people to take offices. Etc.
I am not sure if its burn out, or if the modern law infringements upon our game have caused it to look more daunting, or what. I do know that fewer and fewer friends have free time at work anymore and are working more hours then ever. Which makes it harder to want to motivate in the evening or over the weekends.
In my mind, I keep thinking about the Pas that Elvegast did this past fall. I saw people motivated and excited in ways I had not seen in a long time. The same is true for this past Coronation. I chalk the reason for the excitement in both up to being because they were new and different. The differences energized people and pushed them to try new things. They caused workshops and classes and A&S nights etc. At Coronation in court, I could see and feel it – people were really jazzed. And then it hit me – and I know the trigger. Someone said within ear shot ‘we should do a quest at every Kingdom event this reign’ and I thought well then it would become just another thing we do – not something different and fun. It would become rote and, forgive the expression, mundane.
