Distant Worlds: Debrief

Whiterose

Whiterose
May I just point out that this post in no way is meant to denigrate the excellent and extortionate amount of work that Erimus and Dr Kaii put into the Distant Worlds Expedition. However, with such a large undertaking and the seemingly ubiquitous number of Commanders that took part there are always going to be aspects that worked well and aspects that didn't work well. This by its nature is going to be personal and subjective, so the aim is to help the organisers out by posting what we thought worked well and what needs rethinking, so here is my very personal and humble opinion:

What worked well:
1. Waypoints: This worked very well, it gave people a focus and the meetings were always fun. The locations chosen were excellent if somewhat spooky at times.
2. Time: I personally thought the time given to get from A to B worked well, there was always time to peruse neighbouring systems to the waypoint.
3. Sub groups: the fuel rats prospectors and the other supporting roles worked well.
4. Big meet ups: the 100 commanders at Sag A will always stay in the memory, even if we did crash the server.
5. Forum communications: updates and important information was always posted in a timely manner.

Work in progress:
1. Waypoints: I fell the exact locations could have been posted a lot sooner, I agree that that they should be kept secret to prevent people flying ahead, but the prospectors could have had a lot more information ahead of time.
2. Communication: As part of the Candy Crew I felt that the teamspeak was vital for handing out beacons on locations, whilst Discord was good, the ability to communicate is better via the verbal route rather than the written as important info was lost in the myriad of posts.
3. The way back: Whilst this should be open for the individual it would have been nice to have an alternative route to follow back to the bubble, as there was a lot of post Beagle blues, if we could continue back as a group I feel this would be better.

As I stated above, this is not meant to be negative in any way, the planning that went into the event was phenomenal, and I have not enjoyed myself so much in ages, but I am just providing my own personal feedback.
 

Chrystoph

Chrystoph
I found that DWE 3302 was a bit Euro-centric.

Later expeditions and activities learned from this by setting up dedicated alternate time zone events, but, often, the primary events focused on people whose evenings fell on the time period. For me, the timing put the events around 1300 or 1400.
 

Major Klutz

Major Klutz
I was not on DWE, but on other expeditions ...

We have had specified meetup places and times but me being in the GMT-8 time zone, I was rarely able to make it there during the primary time.
I just ended up going later and there were usually people still there or others who had come later.
Knowing about the meetup places ahead of time would also let players east of GMT meet earlier.
It might help to have different meetup times for each country. One each for Europe, eastern Europe, Asia, Australia, US West coast and US East coast, etc ...
Perhaps even a few players in charge of organizing things for each zone.

Waypoints: In other expeditions, I've always know the waypoints at the start. I'm not sure how I feel about keeping them secret.
People travel at different rates and I can see not wanting the big jump range ships to get too far ahead.
On the other hand, knowing ahead of time lets players plan their play time. We can't all play every night and players with short jump ranges may want to jump ahead to make progress before they go on vacation or have some other reason they won't be able to play for a few days.

The way back: I think having a specified route back and scheduled waypoints and meetups on the way back is a good idea. Of course anyone could leave early and beeline back but giving players something to do along the way will help those who struggle with the motivation to travel all that way back by themselves. I remember players getting home from DWE over a year later.

Communication: Discord can handle voice comms as well as written. We can't all wing together and not everyone has a second monitor to keep an eye on text chat.
If players are organized into groups, each group could have it's own voice channel so there's not too many people in each. And of course voice comms outside the game would be entirely optional.
 
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Orvidius

Orvidius
Huh, I never realized that the first DWE didn't make a complete circuit. That explains a lot though, since I keep hearing of a few stragglers only now returning, or who took a full year to get back, etc. I think it makes sense to have a few interesting destinations near the bubble, both at the beginning and the end of the planned journey, so that no one is left fending for themselves for half a galaxy's distance when the expedition is complete.
 

13A

13A
Waypoints - Keep the first waypoint or two fairly close to the start, because you just know that somebody is going to have to head back and pick up the SLF/SRV/something_else that they forgot to equip!
 

disorganise

disorganise
For me, the expedition itself was fantastic and the efforts that must have gone into choosing the meet-up points was incredible.

My main gripes:
Timezone. Most meetings seemed to be Sunday evening UK time which translated to wee hours Monday morning here in Oz, which is not ideal for work. Saturday night for Sunday morning would be better imo, and of course I'd support different timeslots though to be fair, there's nothing stopping us doing that ourselves.

Having said that, I could not keep up with the relentless pace (gripe 2) and so ended up falling back to the FGE group so if I'm mis-remembering the DWE group meet times, apologies.

So yeah, the pace. I *almost* caught up just before Saggy but pancaked for a selfie and from then, no amount of buckyballing was gonna help. It was easier with the Asp than the T6 and now with engineering it's easier still.

My other complaints are levelled at FD:
Instancing was generally very poor. And from what I observed at Mitterrand for the final DWE meet and the pre-launch DECE meet, it has only gotten worse....much worse. I don't plan on jumping in game at 3am until I hear of a meet-up that went smoothly without disconnects because I'm afraid my patience at 3am is low.

The continuous 'something special' inferences that amounted to nothing, including the non arrival of Jaques.


We *need* expeditions 'in-game' I think....something similar to CG but different. You sign up and get a special notifications tab/console/filter or something that keeps you up to date on aspects of said expedition: Current/Next waypoint clickable through to Gal map for routing
Number of Cmdr's signed up
Number Cmdr's at waypoint (I know we have EDSM but we shouldn't *have* to use external tools)
Expedition special events and stories so we don't *have* to use the forums/discord etc....additional info is still on the forums etc, but ideally we can take part in the expedition sorry through the in game channels.
The ability to contribute 'green systems' etc....which means we need the in game equivalent of EDDB.
Ability for organisers to drop a landing point coordinate beacon
Ability to opt in to an 'expedition friend list' which is either a new separate thing or translates into a bulk friend request that autoupdates (auto sends request) when someone joins.
Preferential Instancing for those being part of the expedition so we don't have mess with wing invites to grow the instance...it should be automatic.
 
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