Plea to Expedition Organisers

[andrewg_oz]

I've signed up for the Small Worlds 2 expedition. There was a meetup last night that I would have liked to have attended, but could not due to timezone differences. Apparently the meetup started at about 2am my time and concluded about 4 to 4:30am. These sort of times are impossible for me.

I didn't help that there was no organised location to meetup at. I know it was at Mitterand Hollow, but that's a big place. No one arrived in-system while I was there.

It's not just Small Worlds 2. Last year I tried the Crab Nebula Expedition with much the same results. Apart from one meetup where I managed to bump into a few early arrivals who promptly logged off because they were early, I didn't see *anyone* at any of the meetups (I must admit I didn't make the last big meetup because for that week I was on a long-arranged holiday without my PC). From a socialization point of view, it was a complete fail. I may as well have flown it at my own pace, at my convenience, in solo mode. In other words, I might as well have ignored the whole expedition.

Small Worlds 2 is starting to give me that vibe, and I'm wondering if it is going to be a complete waste of my time.

My plea to expedition organizers: could you please consider that fact that Elite Dangerous is a game with a global audience. People from all sorts of time zones play the game. Nominating a single meetup time guarantees that a whole section of the playing population will not be able to attend.

Multiple meetup times are one solution. If you want to do things like mass jumps, then you really need a specific time for those. Just nominate multiple times and let people arrive as best they can. For example, three times eight hours apart should make it a lot easier for anyone in the world to select a convenient time, while not splitting up the player groups too much.

For more general meetups, nominate an entire day rather than a specific time. Then people can drop in/out when they can.

In short, please consider the global playing population and time zones when organizing expeditions.

Thanks.

 

[Yanick]

I can only speak in broad terms about this, and about expeditions that I've been on (I'm not envolved in Small Worlds or Small Worlds 2).
But most expedition organisers do try to accomodate different time zones around the world, and are very aware of this as an issue.
Most expeditions have specific times due to events within meet ups, eg SRV races, mass jumps etc. And to organise the social side of the meet up, knowing that most people will be there at a certain time. Idealy there should be two different meet up times in a 24 hour period. But the numbers of people signed up in the different time zones will vary from one expedition to the next. On bigger expeditions there are often individuals who are in charge of a meet up. But with real life getting in the way, this isn't always possible. Each expedition has to grapple with this issue in its own way. When expeditions are organised, compromises often have to be be made. But the time zones and meet ups is something that there will never be an answer that satisfies everyone.

I hope you can find a situation where you can meet up with other explorers on these expeditions.
Fly safe
o7
Yanick

 

[gooddoc]

Pretty much what cmdr Yanick has posted.

Maybe if you got a message to the expedition leader then you may be able to sort something out.

I did the DWE of 3302, but I steered clear of most of their meet-up times because of disconnect issues & a small number of 'showboaters' flying around in a reckless manner & the eventual damage that occurs to innocent cmdr's ships - (that's the strongest I can word it without censorship!).

Iv also been on the CNE & the Silly Ships Expo's, both which I thought moved at too slow a pace for me & I didn't like waiting at meets ups for the rest to catch up. I then stayed ahead of the fleet & moved on.

I'm not planning to get involved in any more expeditions in the foreseeable future, I much prefer to set off at my own pace & see the galaxy. I'm currently heading back to Beagle Point atm.

 

[Qohen Leth]

Organizers know, you can be sure of that.

You have to consider that if management has to be at the meetup, doubling the meetups means having two management teams, and people willing to help are generally hard to come by.

On top of this, the majority of players, from the various public rosters, are European and among them, mostly UK. So it makes sense to accommodate the majority of the roster.

When I planned the CCC, I made it so we would have two departure windows (Euro and US/Pacific), but that required an amount of planning that most organizers can't or won't commit to.

As for basecamp meetups, for that very reason, I elected not to have timed meetups, but instead have meetups span
over an entire day, with a precise location, so anyone could land anytime during the meetup day. Then people complained it wasn't time-limited enough and that nothing was planned...

When you get on the other side of a large-scale expedition, you'll understand

 

[JT442]

In agreement with what has been said before, organisers can't please everyone all the time. With DRX, the majority of our commanders are either UK / western Europe or Eastern US, so meetups around 9PM UTC seem to suit the majority. I guess we're lucky. The biggest complaint is one of communications - we use discord for live text, XBL party for voice and instancing assistance and post the mission details here, discord, Inara, XB groups, facebook.... There are still people who miss it, or can't take an active part BUT we usually have enough to make it fun.

Perhaps the best idea is to have plenty of people in your XBL friends list so you can see where they are in-game. Wing up and make your own fun..

 

[disorganise]

It's unfortunate but there really doesn't seem to be too many us antipodeans around the exploration forum.
Pretty much all of DWE was 4am starts for me.....usually Monday morning :/ I did 2.30 once too.
On the flipside I found lateish nighta (10/11pm) coincided with some Euro buddies I made whilst at Beagle. I guess what I'm saying is that there are options but you'll need discuss with the expedition.....maybe there's several happy to be online Sat or Sun morning to match our evening....maybe alternate week to week.
Much respect to event organisers. It's a lot tougher than it might appear o7

 

[Erimus Kamzel]

It's unfortunate but there really doesn't seem to be too many us antipodeans around the exploration forum.
Pretty much all of DWE was 4am starts for me.....usually Monday morning :/ I did 2.30 once too.
On the flipside I found lateish nighta (10/11pm) coincided with some Euro buddies I made whilst at Beagle. I guess what I'm saying is that there are options but you'll need discuss with the expedition.....maybe there's several happy to be online Sat or Sun morning to match our evening....maybe alternate week to week.
Much respect to event organisers. It's a lot tougher than it might appear o7

Pretty much this.

On Distant Worlds 3302 there just weren't enough volunteers from Oceania timezones to oversee basecamp meetups for those players.

So most meetups ended up being 20:00 gametime for Euro players, and 6 hours later for US timezone players, as this covered 90% of the participants.

For Distant Worlds 2 we'll again ask for Oceania based players to be on the organization team and volunteer to oversee that side of things, but if there aren't enough to oversee it or to make it worthwhile there's not much that can be done sadly.

 

[The Tick]

To the OP: there's a very simple solution to the TZ issue you are pointing out. Get involved! Volunteer to organize official meet ups in your TZ. I'm sure that the organizing teams will gladly accept your offer.
As as side effect, you will learn to appreciate the time and effort that those expedition organizers are investing. And you will make new friends.

 

[Corbin Moran]

It's unfortunate but there really doesn't seem to be too many us antipodeans around the exploration forum.
Pretty much all of DWE was 4am starts for me.....usually Monday morning :/ I did 2.30 once too.
On the flipside I found lateish nighta (10/11pm) coincided with some Euro buddies I made whilst at Beagle. I guess what I'm saying is that there are options but you'll need discuss with the expedition.....maybe there's several happy to be online Sat or Sun morning to match our evening....maybe alternate week to week.
Much respect to event organisers. It's a lot tougher than it might appear o7

I seem to recall getting up at very weird Euro timezones in order to train formation flying at Beagle with you - were there even any others or was it just the two os us, I can´t recall. Good times though
Anyways, getting timezones and meet ups to work for all is a real pain, and it gets more difficult the smaller the expedition.

 

[Starlanced]

It is hard to have enough players to cover all the times especially on smaller expeditions. Also feel some of them move to slow, anyone heading on one should plan on 1000lys a day, but I've been on some that give a week to move 1000-1500 lys, that's to slow a pace IMHO. If you want to go slow you are better off on your own but that's just me

 

[Qohen Leth]

None of this would happen if the Earth was FLAT!

... It isn't, right? :s

 

[duckofdeath]

Nonsense, Qohen! The earth is flat. I say, some people just have really bad sleeping habits! I can prove that by looking at my clock, it says it's 20 minutes past midnight.

 

[disorganise]

Nonsense, Qohen! The earth is flat. I say, some people just have really bad sleeping habits! I can prove that by looking at my clock, it says it's 20 minutes past midnight.

Hold on. That means E D is wrong

 

[disorganise]

I seem to recall getting up at very weird Euro timezones in order to train formation flying at Beagle with you - were there even any others or was it just the two os us, I can´t recall. Good times though
Anyways, getting timezones and meet ups to work for all is a real pain, and it gets more difficult the smaller the expedition.

Yeah I think it ended up just is two

 

[Alex Ringess]

It's unfortunate but there really doesn't seem to be too many us antipodeans around the exploration forum.
Pretty much all of DWE was 4am starts for me.....usually Monday morning :/ I did 2.30 once too.
On the flipside I found lateish nighta (10/11pm) coincided with some Euro buddies I made whilst at Beagle. I guess what I'm saying is that there are options but you'll need discuss with the expedition.....maybe there's several happy to be online Sat or Sun morning to match our evening....maybe alternate week to week.
Much respect to event organisers. It's a lot tougher than it might appear o7

That was probably right when DWE was launched but I'm not sure it'll be like that forever.

For example, there is an expedition to Beagle Point that will start soon (at the end of this month), organized by french folks, and that aim to be internationalized (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/353085-Summer-Great-Expedition). We are in discussion about this issue right now ^^

 

[andrewg_oz]

Perhaps I'm over simplifying things, not having ever been involved in organizing an expedition, but what I see as the main issue, at least in the most recent SW2 meetup, is that there was a single meetup scheduled at a time when I was asleep.

How much organizing do meetups need anyway? What if there was simply three nominated times, spread throughout the day. Folks meet at the nominated place at whichever one of the nominated times suits them.

That would be a start at least. If further organized activities were desired, then for sure more effort would be required. Simply being able to meet other people would be a great step forward for me. Last years CNE proved to me that a single time suitable for EU players simply doesn't work for me, and I presume most people in my APAC time zones.

 

[Qohen Leth]

Perhaps I'm over simplifying things, not having ever been involved in organizing an expedition, but what I see as the main issue, at least in the most recent SW2 meetup, is that there was a single meetup scheduled at a time when I was asleep.

How much organizing do meetups need anyway? What if there was simply three nominated times, spread throughout the day. Folks meet at the nominated place at whichever one of the nominated times suits them.

That would be a start at least. If further organized activities were desired, then for sure more effort would be required. Simply being able to meet other people would be a great step forward for me. Last years CNE proved to me that a single time suitable for EU players simply doesn't work for me, and I presume most people in my APAC time zones.

You are more than welcome to set up a meetup in your TZ and to holler at people so they know about it. It's one thing to plea and complain, it's another to take the initiative Everything here is done out of good will and can easily stack up dozens of hours of *not-fun-at-all* work (and I know what I'm talking about), so the least participants can do is make it easier for organizers whenever possible. And this is not aimed at the people in this thread in particular, but I know several organizers that simply stopped after one experience, due to the persistence of complaints, the lack of help or even the disdain of people who wouldn't give an evening to help the community. And *that*, in my opinion, is unfortunately a much bigger problem. See what I mean?...

 

[andrewg_oz]

I think folks are making mountains out of molehills. As an example, this is quoted from the Small Worlds 2 first post:

Rendezvous and Launch times (IGT):
Weekends: Meetup 18:00, Launch 19:00
Weekdays: Meetup 23:50, Launch 01:00
Weekdays (EU) Meetup 19:00, Launch 20:00

The basic problem is that essentially only a single timezone is represented. People in other timezones are given no guidance as to when would be a good time to meetup, and so they probably don't.

Translating those quoted times into my local UTC+8, you get:

Rendezvous and Launch times (IGT):
Weekends: Meetup 2:00am, Launch 3:00am
Weekdays: Meetup 7:50am, Launch 9:00am
Weekdays (EU) Meetup 3:00am, Launch 4:00am

Not exactly workable! All I am suggesting is publication in the main thread of a number of alternate times like so:

Rendezvous times (IGT), Launch times one hour later:
US: 02:00 (weekends), 03:00/08:00 (weekdays)
EU: 18:00 (weekends), 19:00/00:00 (weekdays)
APAC: 10:00 (weekends), 11:00/16:00 (weekdays)

That's all. Nothing more. No SRV races, canyon runs, or dancing girls. No further organisation required other than posting in the main expedition thread which is the first (and often only) place people will go to look for information.

You are more than welcome to set up a meetup in your TZ and to holler at people so they know about it

Compared to the original expedition thread, anything I post will disappear immediately. As an individual, I just don't have the visibility that the main expedition thread has. Without alternate times published with the main expedition announcement, they won't happen.

As an example, I have several times tried to promote an alternate route into Beagle Point that doesn't require huge jumps apart from two final jumps when you're almost there (I flew from Beagle Point to the bubble in a 25Ly Asp using only two boosted jumps). It just got ignored and disappeared into the depths of the forum with no one taking any notice. This was before engineers finally made the exercise redundant. I simply could not compete with all the attention the original DWE route got.

I really do not understand why there is so much resistance to the publishing of alternate meetup times in the official/main thread? Is it really too much to ask?

 

[Qohen Leth]

Compared to the original expedition thread, anything I post will disappear immediately. As an individual, I just don't have the visibility that the main expedition thread has. Without alternate times published with the main expedition announcement, they won't happen.

As an example, I have several times tried to promote an alternate route into Beagle Point that doesn't require huge jumps apart from two final jumps when you're almost there (I flew from Beagle Point to the bubble in a 25Ly Asp using only two boosted jumps). It just got ignored and disappeared into the depths of the forum with no one taking any notice. This was before engineers finally made the exercise redundant. I simply could not compete with all the attention the original DWE route got.

I really do not understand why there is so much resistance to the publishing of alternate meetup times in the official/main thread? Is it really too much to ask?

Have you asked the expedition organizer directly via PM?

 

[JT442]

Since this thread seems to be dissolving into rage, here's an example of what can happen when people take the initiative:

DRX's expedition is currently a couple of weeks in, with most of our guys spread between the California Nebula and the Jellyfish nebula. Most of us had jumped ahead of where we should have been last weekend, so the planned meet-up was somewhat under-subscribed. The guys who were in the right area spoke to each other and arranged their own meet up. They met, had SRV races and made mayhem, and fun was had. They then proceeded to the next waypoint. This was without the influence of the organisers, without any clear plan of what to do - just a few guys arranging things themselves to suit their own needs.

There is no resistance to publishing alternate times for meet-ups, just a lack of action from those who want to meet at different times. These expeditions are supposed to be quite flexible with regards to meet-ups, so talk to your colleagues, arrange it yourself, have fun.