Regarding the Tuesday DoM and DoF Combo Night

[Harris]

Napoleon.

Your paranoia is showing.

Why is his paranoia showing? Nappy's opinion counts like everyone else's, or so I though.

Sounds like some are saying others don't count as they do and if the player base doesn't go with the few, well sorry-it was good knowing you and stuff.

Each sport has their own player base, so are we going to toss away one set to please another?

The paranoia is showing due to some incorrect feeling of a conspiracy that I am accused of at every post or administrative decision I make.

Sounds like an off topic problem that doesn't need to be aired on the Duel of Magic OOC board to me.

Just saying.

[Claire Gallows]

It would be a split. Stats state more duels are happening. More duels, in dueling rooms, where the main event is dueling. More are happening, even if it's DoF.

So the ruse was to improve DoF numbers. Got it. The usual "DOF is best" crew take over Twilight duel and declare it a success. So what if the duels that are taking place are more DOF than DOM.

Just because I don't DoM doesn't mean I don't see what's going on and talk to people. Let's be real. There's more than just you missing. When I've spoken to players who actively avoided Tuesdays because they don't feel welcome, isn't that a problem? If they feel welcome now and are dueling/playing, isn't that good?

Careful, G, your slip is showing.

As long as it's your group of cohorts that's having more fun at the expense of those you don't like, that makes it A-OK, eh?

Let's just call it out for what it is. One clique--who quite often makes people feel unwelcome, stalked, and harassed--didn't like Taco Tuesdays and came up with a plan to chase off the other clique that didn't just roll over and play their way. They just couldn't let the DOM folks have their fun on Tuesday RDI nights and go do something else. No. They had to bring their DOF party to wind it all up. And now we have less people dueling DOM on Tuesdays than before.

And the kicker is, they got Coords all thinking this was a great idea. Even better if they didn't like the people they were chasing off, right? A little bonus.

Good job.

Attacks in discussions are completely unnecessary.

Napoleon.

Your paranoia is showing.

On the same page, also completely unnecessary.

Collie poses a perfectly valid question and this discussion has the potential to be productive. But not if it comes down to childish insults of one another. As much as I've tried to avoid this thread save for mentioning caller issues, I'd say I'd like to see a definitive answer on the original question at hand.

[Shadowlord]

What Claire said.

[G]

I apologize for my participation in the off topic display.

[PrlUnicorn]

I apologize for my post to be going off topic on PrlUnicorn's original question, but I felt that several issues were brought up in the course of this thread and wanted to address them from my point of view as a pretty new player.

You're entitled to your two bits, Grace. Welcome to the crazy house!

[Lem DeAngelo]

Not really sure where to begin here. First, please don't try to read too much into anything I type. If it's not clear, just ask me. I'll try to type as clear as possible.

1) Is DoM Tuesday's merger permanent? For now, it's in place indefinitely. I doubt anything about RoH is permanent. Except the histories.

2) Why wasn't it announced as being indefinite? Honestly, I thought I had. But I didn't. Apologies if that was troubling/upsetting.

3) Why didn't I answer the question immediately today? I worked 7-5, and then met my wife for dinner and a movie and got home at 9:30pm. Checked RoH from my phone briefly at work and wanted to quickly point out that moving callers around wasn't as easy as it appeared. I also thought the discussion should continue before I weighed with definitive answers. This looked like a good time to get some feedback, so I was hoping to read over some good opinions when I got home.

4) Why/how did the combo night start? It was actually my proposal to the entire admin team. I first had the idea when Candy took over DoS and the duels were in various settings while the Arena/Annex was remodeled. I enjoyed the various settings. Then during Hydra I enjoyed frequenting the different settings and role-playing with everyone at the same time, and thought maybe we could try hosting a fight night on Twilight Isle someday. Earlier this spring we (RoH) had caller turnover and it was difficult to cover 2 shifts on Tuesdays for 2 sports without asking callers to call 3+ hours. I submitted the combo idea to the admin team in March 2014 with pros of eliminating need for multiple callers in 2 rooms, draw new characters/players to try DoM/DoF or at least role-play with different people. We looked at some data during the trials and saw what appeared to be a positive impact and decided to continue with the merged shift (data we looked at is below). Kheld and Matt were gracious enough to offer DoM duels on Wednesdays, which to me looked like a great improvement for DoM to have 5 days of dueling available instead of the normal 3 days we had for most of 2008-2013.

Below is the data I sent to the admin team when I proposed continuing the combo shift indefinitely:

DoF Tuesdays
4 duels - April 2013
3 duels - May 2013
15 duels - March 2014
18 duels - April 2014 (DoM/DoF integration)
27 duels - May 2014 (DoM/DoF integration)

DoM Tuesdays
16 duels - April 2013
30 duels - May 2013
6 duels - March 2014
21 duels - April 2014 (DoM/DoF integration)
15 duels - May 2014 (DoM/DoF integration)

5) Why did we move to RoH? The caller's tool is easier for calling multiple duels at once. Assumed we'd have more duels with a combo shift.

6a) Will there be a public vote on keeping the merged Tuesday shift? That is not planned at this time. 6b) Who currently says there will not be a vote? That is my current decision. I do not believe a vote is necessary at this time.

7) Is this thread still open for civil, thoughtful discussion? Absolutely.

I think that's all the questions. If not, let me know.

As for some personal thoughts, if the numbers provided by Harris show an average DoM Tuesday drop from 16.5 to 14.5, that's not a huge drop in my opinion, and it's not explained simply because of the combo shift. DoM's numbers typically increase when a really active player comes along with a new character. Lem's return in 2007; think I had 10-17 duels my first cycle back. Then I became a caller. Average duels dropped. Neo Eternity dueled a lot, then he became a coordinator and couldn't duel as much. Jesse and Claire and Shadow all dueled a good bit last year. Now they are calling a lot so they aren't dueling.

Another question I have is how many new duelists have we seen since April? Already 2 in this thread from DemiBob and Grace. 2 is great. How many did we see in the months leading up to combo shift? I'm truly asking if someone wants to crunch that data. Old blood and new blood is good for any of the sports.

Tuesdays DOF before April was a snooze fest because there wasn't a regular caller, and the shift didn't start until 10 pm. I think Scarlet took on some of those shifts, but don't know if it was an official shift or if she just covered when she could.

So if DoF was empty on Tuesdays before April, did DoM see a Tuesday increase before April? An empty Outback is similar to a closed shift, right? Claire started calling Tuesdays in February. The following week we had 5 Tuesday night duels and then 2 Tuesday night duels the next week. In March we had 6 duels on Tuesdays for the whole month. The week before Claire took over as a regular caller she was involved in 3 duels on a Tuesday. I know that's only 1 week, but you can look back at her record prior to February and see she contributed a lot of duels (and still contributes as a caller, Thanks Claire! and Ajia and Apple too!).

It seems odd to me that Harris's provided stat of duels dropping from 16.5 to 14.5 average duels is seen as proof enough that something must be done to increase DoM duels. Seeing months of 4 and 3 seems much more concerning to me, which is why I submitted the idea for a combined shift.

From what I see, the combined shift has seen steady activity on the Island, steady duel numbers, new characters/players, and a decreased burden on callers. I still think the combined shift is too young to abandon it at this point. 4 months data is not enough time in my opinion to say that something is an epic failure or wildly successful.

Also, I may have missed it while trying to avoid reading deeply through some of the more heated posts, but I didn't see a major cause of concern yet? If there's an issue of players ostracizing other players and chasing them away from the Island, then yes that's an issue that should be brought to the attention of the admin (feel free to send it my way with logs please). If we have some players that don't enjoy playing with each other, then I believe our policy there is to use the ignore function (either don't RP with them or actually use the ignore button).

Whenever we make decisions as either a whole community, as an individual, as an admin team, as a group of friends, as a dueler, as a caller, as a role-player, I think we should all first ask ourselves is this the best idea for RoH for the future? The first thing I always try to ask myself when doing anything as a DoM coordinator is "What impact does this have on DoM short-term? long-term? Does it impact the other sports? Have I recorded enough data that a future coordinator can read over the decision and understood why the decision was made at that time?" I know I won't be here forever, but while I'm here I want RoH to be as much fun as possible, organized as possible, and healthy so that when a new coordinator takes over they can take it to bigger and better places.

[LadyAjaBird]

Lem. We'd like to have each sport have its own night. This. Is not too much to ask. Or achieve.

[Lem DeAngelo]

Lem. We'd like to have each sport have its own night. This. Is not too much to ask. Or achieve.

Is it so simple? Asking another sport to close? Who will be the callers? And ultimately, what purpose does the solo night bring to DoM? If the goal is increase flow of duelers to Twilight Isle, does a combo night not also bring all duelers to one place?

[LadyAjaBird]

Lem. We'd like to have each sport have its own night. This. Is not too much to ask. Or achieve.

Is it so simple? Asking another sport to close? Who will be the callers? And ultimately, what purpose does the solo night bring to DoM? If the goal is increase flow of duelers to Twilight Isle, does a combo night not also bring all duelers to one place?

"Is it so simple? Asking another sport to close?"

You're already doing that combining magic to fists. -- Magic is a more mellow sport. We have two nights where all three combine. That's plenty.

ONE night. Where Magic has it to itself. Fists will still have TWO.

Oh. And in case it was missed. I will be more than happy to call on Tuesdays for Magic.

[Lem DeAngelo]

Lem. We'd like to have each sport have its own night. This. Is not too much to ask. Or achieve.

Is it so simple? Asking another sport to close? Who will be the callers? And ultimately, what purpose does the solo night bring to DoM? If the goal is increase flow of duelers to Twilight Isle, does a combo night not also bring all duelers to one place?

"Is it so simple? Asking another sport to close?"

You're already doing that combining magic to fists. -- Magic is a more mellow sport. We have two nights where all three combine. That's plenty.

ONE night. Where Magic has it to itself. Fists will still have TWO.

Oh. And in case it was missed. I will be more than happy to call on Tuesdays for Magic.

The combo night is completely different than a solo night. Combo night allows DoF and DoM. Solo does not allow DoF at all that night. Solo night is asking all the people who want to duel DoF to take a night off. For what purpose? So they will duel DoM? If they want to duel DoM, they could duel DoM during combo shift.

I'm not sure about the mellow of magic? Magic being mellow is up to the player. When Lem duels magic, he is typically throwing fire and attempting to scorch the earth. Lem is meant to be a gentle soul outside the ring, but ready to destroy when he enters the ring.

[Jake]

Lem. We'd like to have each sport have its own night. This. Is not too much to ask. Or achieve.

But how does that actually benefit the forum overall?

When McDonald's wants to promote their Big Mac, they don't stop selling Fish Sandwichs.

Making a product *not* available doesn't necessarily mean that people will come in for the one available product.

Overall, I think the Fight Nights have done more to advance cross-promotion of all the sports (including DoM), than having an individual night *ever* did. Me personally, I think we should just go to "all Fight Night, all the time". But, people have resisted that idea because it would lose the flavor of the settings. Still...if my goal--as a forum--is to promote matrix-based dueling/RP, then Fight Nights are my best way to do that.

What McDonald's *does* do when they want to advance a product is do a promotion. Like 2 for 1 deals. Same with other stores trying to promote a particular product.

I don't think the solution is to have solo-sport nights (except as a special event), but instead to have the special tournies and events. Things like double-win months. Things like DoF at Star's End. And special tournies with usable prizes (gems and so forth). I think these are the things that do more to promote a sport.

[LadyAjaBird]

Jake.. God love ya.
BUT.
Magic has suffered since the combination. Harris gave you numbers.

We were lied to. One month. That's what was said. One month to try it.
Then... all of sudden it's two.. and now.. Indefinite.

[Lem DeAngelo]

Jake.. God love ya.
BUT.
Magic has suffered since the combination. Harris gave you numbers.

We were lied to. One month. That's what was said. One month to try it.
Then... all of sudden it's two.. and now.. Indefinite.

I don't think 16.5 to 14.5 is a defining number that says the combo night will never work.

As for saying you were lied to, we tested the waters for 1 month. It went well. We tested again. It seemed to go well, so we kept it as indefinite and extended it to Wednesday night. A clear post was never made to say that it was indefinite, but I don't think it's fair to say "we were lied to." I do take offense to that.

[Jake]

Jake.. God love ya.
BUT.
Magic has suffered since the combination. Harris gave you numbers.

Well...Harris' numbers aren't really complete. If you look at recent Fight Nights for example, DoF is also crushing DoS.

Does that mean DoF is hurting DoS too? Has the option to fight DoS gone away? Or is it just that DoF is popular night now?

DoF being popular doesn't mean DoM "suffered". There's always still been an option to duel DoM.

It's cyclical, and always has been. There are ups and downs. And there will be in the future too.

[Lem DeAngelo]

I don't think the solution is to have solo-sport nights (except as a special event), but instead to have the special tournies and events. Things like double-win months. Things like DoF at Star's End. And special tournies with usable prizes (gems and so forth). I think these are the things that do more to promote a sport.

I do want to bring attention to this. Player run tourneys (like Shadow and Jesse ran earlier this year) are great additions to the duels and community. I think I've said many times I fully support them and will offer gems, spirit staff, etc to anyone who wants to run the tourney idea by me, but I'd like to again state that I will be glad to contribute to tourney ideas.