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Now that the Dakka Dakka World Wide Campaign is drawing to its close. The Administrators and Runners of the campaign would like to ask for your input as to the overall experience given with this first campaign. In order to provide a better experience for the next DDWWC, we would like to have those that participated (or anyone who witnessed any of the progress of the campaign) give us a) those things that they really liked (or at least somewhat liked) about the campaign, the experience, the narrative, the mechanics or all of the above and b) what they would like to see in any future campaigns and be as forthcoming as you'd like, we need the feedback and lots of it if we're going to refine this into a solid mechanic that will keep evolving and becoming more awesome over time, so please post away!

I really liked the ideas behind it.
My suggestions would be to take a look at how easy/hard it is for races to conquer planets.
The slimmed down battle reports made it pretty easy to submit them, i'd hold to that.
I'd have enjoyed more fluff personally, but thats just my opinion, I'm a fluff guy.
I'd make sure the stress the need to have the time on hand for the admins to calculate the results, maybe simplify that somewhat so the results are more quickly forthcoming

BFG needs to be revisited. 1% is still too much when in a typical 2k game we can reliably get the same vp as 2-3 40k games. Larger games and scenarios with special rules are even worse...

The modifiers for game size are far too much, one apoc game can wipe a planet??? This makes the players results that only have time or models for small games feel insignificant.

The bonuses for different planets are a good idea, bonuses for certain scenarios would be nice too.

A larger core group that can help keep the momentum going is needed, and it needs to stay on peoples minds! A weekly update news letter mass pm'ed to those signed on would require a bit more work but will also be a reminder to continue!

Keeping the signups open may help as well.

From a logistics standpoint, we should make a single thread for each system to report Battles on. I know we were doing this towards the mid-point of the campaign, but early on this was a problem because if someone didn't report then suddenly we were stuck for days waiting for them to turn in their results with no way of speeding up the process. This way we can just check and add it up ourselves.

For the next campaign, we can just reuse the forums I set up if you guys want, all I'll have to do is move the old posts to a subforum (like "First Campaign" or something if someone wants to peruse the old developments).

Personally, I would love to see the summery reports from the other factions. Yes, it does take away from the strategy of where to concentrate forces, as other teammates can either push the assault or reinforce the defense. However, since the reports are usually delayed by a few days on average, it would be pretty hard to say "quick, we are going to lose planet X, get 5 people to play a game today and write up the summery report in one day!" Also, increasing the time to hop planets to say 1 or 2 days can also combat the immediate response issues.

After a while, it does kinda feel like we are on our own, with only one tiny percent number to indicate how many wins we have compared to the opposition. From what I understand, the generals have a good idea of what is going on overall, but everyone else seems to be somewhat "out of the loop". I think if we see the enemy going on the offensive, that would help give a sense of urgency and motivation your side to help out. Thus if there was a bat rep forum, where each person posts on their battles for a particular planet, and then PM's their general, I think that would help a lot with motivation.

I really enjoyed the campaign. Thank you for running it.

Suggestions are :

Allow new players to join. Some people will drop regardless of intent. New players add extra energy and replacements for those that drop the campaign or have to take a couple weeks off due to real life. Fluff wise they can reinforcements rushed to the front.

I liked having BFG counted so much. A ship in space can do massive damage to ground forces. Command of the sky or space is fluff wise important. Keep the BFG as it is.

Making certain types of planets worth more during certain weeks mixes up the strategy and makes each side change its plans. If Agriworlds are worth so much more, we will have to move forces to assault/defend them. It was a nice touch.

Updates could come sooner. I know we have seperate threads for each faction but a fourth thread for each side to tell tales, mock the enemy, post fluff on their battle and a place for Mods to give progress reports would have been fun. Kind of a neutral site for tall tales, battle stories, or propaganda.

If an Apoc battle is reported have that side send a warning to the other sides. That size of a battle would be noticed by all. The reporting would allow the other side to respond with extra battle reports in hopes of holding the planet.

Still unsure how the Tau, Necrons, or Nids were a part of this or what their goals were.

Perhaps have alternate Mods that can pick up if work/personal issues/ hurricane sandy happens.

I personally would like to simplify the campaign a bit for next time. It was a bear to tally and account for, especially across four systems.

Ideally for next time we would have daily reports and next day stat updates.

I like the idea of an RP forum that everyone could access.

I was less enchanted by having Order spies logging on to the Disorder boards and cut/pasting everything across, as that rather takes away from the campaign to me. Yes RL armies use spies and so on, but it was still a bit annoying. Great way to feed misinformation along though, and once Order had done it first, i didn't feel too bad about returning the favour.

What might be a good idea is to run it on a smaller scale, simplified a bit, and then build up, rather than rebuilding a large-scale campaign. If we set it in a single large system, for example, and then have the results openly viewable as a fluff and crunch update every day, it should keep folk more involved.

BFG will need careful thought. It was a mechanical PITA this campaign.

I'd like to see more in-character banter between forces also. That stuff' s great

I found that unless you stumbled upon the proper thread, it was actually incredibly hard to figure out where to go for updates/fluff/results of each week. I would also put in a "this many battles occurred" part, so that players can make a better guess about jumping from planet to planet. If a planet stayed at 100% but only had 2 battles over the week on it, that is a very susceptible battle field that needs reinforcing...but you would never be able to tell that from the results. Etc.

Javin wrote:
I really enjoyed the campaign. Thank you for running it.

Suggestions are :

Allow new players to join. Some people will drop regardless of intent. New players add extra energy and replacements for those that drop the campaign or have to take a couple weeks off due to real life. Fluff wise they can reinforcements rushed to the front.

Yes this would have helped we had people trying to join locked out while others drifted away

Javin wrote:

I liked having BFG counted so much. A ship in space can do massive damage to ground forces. Command of the sky or space is fluff wise important. Keep the BFG as it is.

Me too They like epic are battles on a different scale witht the potential to deploy tens of tousands pts of troops and destroy cities in single blow . While I liked being able to partake in the big battle( never really did Vassal before this campaign) and feel I was having an effect i felt having Large Apoc/ BFG Games take a world in single battle wrong maybe a limit on how much a world could move in single battle 15-30% say . or The limit per game Could be 30% of the amount needed to get full control

Andrewchristlieb wrote:BFG needs to be revisited. 1% is still too much when in a typical 2k game we can reliably get the same vp as 2-3 40k games. Larger games and scenarios with special rules are even worse...

Planetary assault could throw up some extraordinaryly large results but feels right that it can does as it is the mission involved destroying the enemey in space and on the ground but the effect was too big hopefully the limit suggest above would help . But otherwise if your opponent disengaged wisely large results were rare. The problem then comes with raising the modifier that its not worth playing 1000pts games as wise disengaging would make these games worthless.
I do think as I suggested previously BFG should have no size modifiers as it sizes up automatically and maybe no senario modifiers

Javin wrote:

Making certain types of planets worth more during certain weeks mixes up the strategy and makes each side change its plans. If Agriworlds are worth so much more, we will have to move forces to assault/defend them. It was a nice touch.

Agreed

Javin wrote:

Updates could come sooner. I know we have seperate threads for each faction but a fourth thread for each side to tell tales, mock the enemy, post fluff on their battle and a place for Mods to give progress reports would have been fun. Kind of a neutral site for tall tales, battle stories, or propaganda.

Yeah it did feel like we had to wait a long time

Ideally for next time we would have daily reports and next day stat updates.
I like the idea of an RP forum that everyone could access.

I think this would help keep momentum in the campaign. I would like the RP forum to be here on Dakka having everything off dakka i felt helped lose the momentum last time. As you could go on dakka dakka not realise the campaign was going on most the time

Javin wrote:
If an Apoc battle is reported have that side send a warning to the other sides. That size of a battle would be noticed by all. The reporting would allow the other side to respond with extra battle reports in hopes of holding the planet.

This would be a nice touch

Javin wrote:

Still unsure how the Tau, Necrons, or Nids were a part of this or what their goals were.

Perhaps have alternate Mods that can pick up if work/personal issues/ hurricane sandy happens.

Would be willing to help



Could the results go up in the results thread for everyone first they kept appearing in the DIsorder threads(including the final results) before anywhere else that was a little disappointing

The results went up in the Disorder thread first because i have no life I paint and watch the forums in the evenings.

I'm near constantly online in the evenings, so i tend to be quicker off the mark with some results. The other Mods presumably have other stuff to occupy their time

It should be noted that only the Disorder folks should be accessing the Disorder threads btw

Mhmm, Order was very untrusting early on because we all thought everyone was a spy. I agree though, I dropped in on the other forums occasionally to make sure everything was running smoothly, but never spied once. I consider it dishonourable personally

Disinformation is like that I'm sad no-one fell to chaos during the campaign though. That would have been awesome

Doesn't help that we had players with forces on both sides of the fence, reporting what they could see on the other boards.

your more regular updates in the disorder forum kept me interested in the campaign and coming back there.

I found you the most helpful and enthuastic of the MODs along with Swampyturtle

Just felt it would have been nice for you post in both places

Really sure one of the other MODs said spying was allowed

We even had the odd disorder player taunting us on our forum


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
Mhmm, Order was very untrusting early on because we all thought everyone was a spy. I agree though, I dropped in on the other forums occasionally to make sure everything was running smoothly, but never spied once. I consider it dishonourable personally

Yeah the main reason i dropped in the disorder forum was to get the results/news as it was in short supply
everyone was very tight about not giving anything away
Yeah I remember a few people being accused


Automatically Appended Next Post:
do not want to come as across as critical as I have loved this campaign

just want to make it better for next time

I considered it bad form for the Disorder Warmaster to access the Order tactical forum directly, or i would have posted there too

Next time we'll likely have a general issue forum where everyone can see what's going on.

There's a possibility i might be insane enough to skipper the next one, if the other mods agree. If so any pertinent info will be shared as often as possible

i wasn't able to get into any real gaming due to bad timing whenever my club set a date, but i was in charge for reporting the battles from the guys on the order side who are in my club.

from what i was able to see from the BATREPS and the posting on the forums that everyone who played had a great time

a few things came to mind ( some people have said before)

--Allow new players into the campaign , it will keep the flow of the event going

--Set a Date - like it says set a start date and end date that way you dont get as many "when does this start" or " when is this over" messages

-- start an event banter thread for all sides to be on - or make one forum with sub forums that way we all go to one place for info - i do believe you can password protect the sub forms if you choose to ( or able to for that matter)

hope this helps

---CR---

Ya a joint room where everyone can get togather would be nice, might help people find games too.

I thought it was great. THANK YOU to the mods for putting it on. What an unbelievable undertaking. PLEASE do another one early next year.

A few things:

Communication: More streamlined + More informative = More better.
I felt that communication was great at the beginning, but deteriorated significantly after week 2. A singular, unified communication path would benefit the campaign as a whole and keep hundreds of players on (relatively) the same page. From a Necron perspective, our goals were a little ambiguous and our plan was a total wash after week 1.

Mechanics: Again, simpler may be better.
I give big credit to the organizers for creating a mechanics system. I thought that, as a whole, it was really creative and great. I liked that certain planet types had certain provisions regarding scoring week to week. I suggest that more information be passed to the players about it next time. Further, it seemed like that the mods themselves were confused about the mechanics and multipliers at play during some of the weeks. We common players felt doubly out of the loop.

New Players: I understand the utter chaos that this brings to the mechanics of such a campaign. My suggestion: Each week (if the "week-per-turn" mechanic is to remain in place) have a waiting-list of new players who signed up that week. These players would be introduced into the campaign at the start of the next weeklong cycle, and such list and contact information would be forwarded to the relevant mods and organizers.

Again, THANK YOU and PLEASE GET BETTER, RED!

This isn't so much a feedback as something I could have done much better....not scheduling it during the hectic part of my university semester. Weeks where I had 3 assignments due....*shudder* Doesn't add up to smooth contributions to my role in the campaign.

We'll do better next time though, we couldn't have found all the faults to improve without running a campaign anyway, and the fact people enjoyed it despite the flaws is a great bonus

Doesn't help that we were disrupted so much.

You and Soundwave both got swamped IRL, Red had his accident, I started a new job on monday of week 2...

After New Year might be a bit quieter

I had a lot of fun, and I appreciate the work that went on! That said, a few things from my perspective:

- Too decentralized. There was no "one thread/forum to rule them all" that I found. It took me awhile to find the link to the order forum, I had some trouble finding other threads and info. Likewise, things were not standardized well across the board - I noticed even other order system forums had different methods of reporting, threads and the like.

One main thread that could be subscribed to and updated to include all relevant links, and be linked TO in smaller threads/sigs would help keep things centralized, and a bit more standardization in reporting and the like might help.

-Losses. I played 5 games and never lost one, but each time I played there was always a question in the back of my mind as to whether I should post it if I did. I noticed no one else was posting them in my forum... In a team game where all info offered is voluntary, reporting a loss seems almost like undermining your "side". A tabulated loss doesn't feel like it does in an observed campaign where losses and wins are tabulated by impartial folks, it feels like a minor betrayal you have foisted on your team.

I was thinking you might get a broader range of wins and losses if player losses counted for something on *their* side instead of just helping the enemy. A kind of "though your defeat is bitter, your brave fight to the last held up the enemy advance for precious hours". I'm not sure how it would best be represented, but something along those lines would get a wider array of batreps, I would think. Conversely, you could make just reporting wins standard.

-Big Games. One battle wiping away pretty much the entire previous effort, plus adding a commanding enemy lead is always a bit disheartening. At a certain point, my little 2k games seemed just a drop in the Ocean on Valos, for instance. As suggested by a few others, some kind of cap on the influence of one battle might be good for morale - though honestly, I enjoyed the doomed battle against all odds feel, it probably dissuaded a few folks.

I have to agree with the opinions that while the idea in general was very nice, the execution could obviously have been improved.

One thread linking all the other relevant threads and info, and maybe trying to do without users having to register at a different website would be a good idea. Less channels of communication make the information flow smoother.

The way of reporting games should also have been made as easy as possible - not all people have time for extended Batreps and posting lists of both themselves and the enemy.

All that said, I'm confident that the next event is going to be even better.

- Sides - As suggested before IoM vs all others would make things much easier. Although on the Unaligned side these last few weeks we were seeing 1-2 b reps per week it was a bit daunting at the start to figure not only VP per planet but VP per planet per race.
Also on that many of our players were confused by what they were even trying to achieve. Necrons had a powerful first week posting 114 vp to get the world engine but after that interest dropped off and in the entire rest of the campaign they did not accumulate over 100vp. I think this was due to confusion on what they were actually supposed to do (except a few who kept reporting)

- Communication -
Also as suggested before, a 'neutral' thread would be great. I found myself reading reports on the admin forum that order and disorder posted just to get an idea of what was going on. We had some people posting with the minimum info for bat rep which was fine but there were a few guys who were great at Fluffing up their reports. Those were a blast to read, and that kept my interest going.

Stickying some topics here on dakka in the relevant areas for people to post to might help keep interest and generate new interest) as people dont have to bounce back and forth. Even just having the Admin create a new board on Dakka just for the campaign shouldnt be too difficult right?

Stickying isn't really up to us, nor is creating a new board. We could ask, but there are people asking for new boards all the time (Kickstarters, other wargames, etc.) and are told no, and these are things that will be around longer than a campaign.

I'm not saying that it is a bad idea, but that it is probably unlikely.

Don't know how it went with other systems but our (Order) communication in the Antropis System basically fell off once the campaign started. I visited the DDWWC-Order/Antropis boards regularly for about 2-3 weeks and with little in the way of progressing fluff or any reports beyond posted bat-reps I lost interest. Only managed 2 games.

I liked the campaign, I just wish it didn't feel like the armies where spread so thin.

Doesn't help that we had hundreds sign up, and only a handful post

Disorder had to concentrate on only two systems to have any effect, and other than the Desecration of Valos, almost everything was just in Inon. And we had to sweat blood just to get that, as i think i wass down to only about six regularly posting members then.

I think four systems, though cool, was a bit much. If everyone who had signed up had actively played it would have been fine, but the dedicated players who kept playing were spread awful thin.

If I had been Order's commander I would have piled everyone into Inon to fight it out there, but that's why i play Orks. Simple, to the point, and in the thick! (and thick as a grox... )

The way I saw it, if Disorder was focusing all its forces on 1 point, then we couldn't compete without making our other defences suffer, so we just let it burn. Plus you could have relocated by the time we moved to Inon and attacked our weakened defenses.

That was part of it too

We could have relocated, but then we'd have lost the progress we took weeks to achieve in Inon, overnight, (which we pretty much did on a couple of worlds, anyway..)

I don't know, from an order perspective we were doing a similar game of musical chairs, in Dagon we almost lost Hera after it got up into the 90%'s and we did lose Valos after it was in the 100% range, I think having less battlefields will make those battles seem more intense and meaningful in the long run.