TOPIC: Too Many People in puzzle runs

Personally, I don't understand why there was such an attempt made at selling the "no show" spots at the last minute.

Sure, last year's up-front presence led to a huge increase in interest for an event that was already sold out, leading to many frustrated GenCon attendees, and True Dungeon wanted to make as many people happy as possible and also wanted to make sure they got as much income as possible (since I believe they only get money for the collected tickets, not just the ones sold).

However I think it was pretty obvious that such a practice was just asking for trouble. "Oh, someone paid $38 and is a few minutes late? Sell their spot! Nah, there will never be any problems with that!"

Simple solution, I feel: Those who don't show up within 10 minutes of start time don't get in. In case they show up though, these spots shouldn't be sold off. See? Simple! Yeah, some attendees will gripe, but they need to grow up and join the realities of life. If the loss of income to True Dungeon from not replacing no-shows is significant enough, they should just adjust their business pricing and/or practices to suit.

Garrison, the problem is, if the tickets don't get turned in, TD doesn't get paid.

Further complicating things is that GenCon has a policy that any one with a ticket that is not more than 10 minutes late must be allowed into the event.

I second the notion about adjusting the start times to avoid this issue.

for those that haven't noticed: this year, the players effectively enter the dungeon 12 minutes later than previous years.
this will allow TD to not sell their spot until after the 10 minutes are up, and still be in a better position than previous years when there was a no-show.
the unfortunate part is that the event time wasn't extended. TD is getting away with it by making XP and treasure optional. except that now when people schedule back-to-back runs, they are guaranteed to be late to the second one.

Thanks to someone for alerting me about this thread! I will chime in here, as probably the problems you're addressing were directly caused by me.

Yes, we do try to fill empty spots with wait list people. Historically we will see no-shows later in the evening or early morning. Now, my memory is slightly better than Dory's from Finding Nemo, but after reading through the posts, I'm GUESSING that the incident that is being referenced went down pretty much as noted. Two wristbands had not been claimed, so I probably gave the go-ahead to fill them with waitlist. One thing we try to always do is ask the group that is already there if they know who holds the other tickets. If they do and know they're coming, we don't waitlist anyone. If they didn't, then we probably pulled 2 from the waitlist. The two waitlisted people get checked in, get their wristbands and tokens and sit down and start getting with the program, which has now technically already started. We're happy because we've gotten 2 waitlist people into the game and filled 2 (seemingly) unfilled slots.

Now two people run up, ready to jump in, as they've just finished a run and are late, but need to get moving, so they're in a hurry! It is at this point that we realize that we have a problem. A big problem. We have sold the seemingly open slots and those two people are now in, filling out character cards, and whatnot. I'm fairly certain that in that situation I probably went in to the coaching area, told everyone what happened, asked if we could just make it work and run all 12 of them, probably passed out some extra tokens, and left them to rush off to the first room.

Now, in other situations, if we have 9 and nobody knows about if there is a 10th holding a ticket, yes, I'm absolutely going to have them pull someone off the wait list. And if there's 3 with nobody else, I'm going to tell the staff to hold them and fill them in with another group that's not completely full, because a group of 3 new players is not going to make it very far, nor have a good time, if they run through by themselves. There are a lot of situations where a decision needs to be made. And sometimes, I obviously make the wrong one. When that happens I try to rectify the situation as much as possible.

Here's a few suggestions. If someone comes in and asks if the group minds if we add an 11th and you mind....SAY SO. Please! Speak up then before we put the person in. We run into situations where we literally have 11 people show up with tickets for the event that only was supposed to have 10 tickets. Mistakes happen...we try to fix them as best as we can. We have people sit for HOURS waiting on a spot that opens up for them on the wait list. Sometimes after someone has been waiting so long I'll go in and ask groups if they will take the extra person. That's not about the money for me...it's about some poor person that wants to play so badly they've been waiting for hours and can't catch a break. Sometimes ticketed players are running late...like REALLY late...hours late. We try to get them in and let them experience the game.

Again, I take FULL responsibility for issues like this because 9 times out of 10 it's my direct call, and the other times it's my admin staff making the call that they feel confident I'd make.

We try to make sure everyone that comes through has a great experience playing the game, and even though I know it's not logical to think that we can make everyone happy every day, that's what we strive for. I fully understand that parties of 10 can be challenging. Perhaps in the future we need to reevaluate the way we handle seemingly unclaimed spots and the wait list. If anyone wants to offer suggestions or complain about a specific incident that you dealt with, please contact me personally via e-mail. Lori at true dungeon dot com

Thanks,

Lori

darkangel866 wrote: Garrison, the problem is, if the tickets don't get turned in, TD doesn't get paid.

Yes, I noted that. If the lack of turned-in tickets is enough of a problem to cause financial difficulty, I personally feel adjusting the entry fee to account for these no-shows is better than trying to please everyone by throwing monkey wrenches. At least that's the way it looks from my perspective, not being privy to the inner numbers.

Thank you for all your hard work, Lori. I think most people realize the complex situations you have to deal with and appreciate it.

Lori Martin wrote: Perhaps in the future we need to reevaluate the way we handle seemingly unclaimed spots and the wait list.

The future is now.

Lori Martin wrote: If anyone wants to offer suggestions...

I prefer a very strict timetable. I understand wanting waitlisted folks to get in and the feeling of unease that a less-than-full run can create, but personally I don't feel the added stress, confusion, and potential anger is worth doing last-minute fill-ins.

Lori Martin wrote: Now, my memory is slightly better than Dory's from Finding Nemo, but after reading through the posts, I'm GUESSING that the incident that is being referenced went down pretty much as noted. Two wristbands had not been claimed, so I probably gave the go-ahead to fill them with waitlist. One thing we try to always do is ask the group that is already there if they know who holds the other tickets. If they do and know they're coming, we don't waitlist anyone. If they didn't, then we probably pulled 2 from the waitlist.

Lori, thank you for taking the time to respond directly to the topic here. My party knew I was coming, told the desk, and it still happened. We had texted about 5 minutes before I walked in the door, and we were in the dungeon together shortly before that. As usual, we were doing back-to-back runs of the dungeons.

Mistakes happen...we try to fix them as best as we can. We have people sit for HOURS waiting on a spot that opens up for them on the wait list. Sometimes after someone has been waiting so long I'll go in and ask groups if they will take the extra person. That's not about the money for me...it's about some poor person that wants to play so badly they've been waiting for hours and can't catch a break. Sometimes ticketed players are running late...like REALLY late...hours late. We try to get them in and let them experience the game.

The TD staff is human. I was not upset at any person, but at the situation. I hope the changes in marshalling allow for more flexibility in the wait for ticket holders and waitlisted people.
I commend you for doing your best to get people through the dungeon. It is a great experience. My group has let those people before, even. As a matter of fact, my first TD run was off the wait list back when parties could say "sure, we'll take an 8th person."

We try to make sure everyone that comes through has a great experience playing the game, and even though I know it's not logical to think that we can make everyone happy every day, that's what we strive for. I fully understand that parties of 10 can be challenging. Perhaps in the future we need to reevaluate the way we handle seemingly unclaimed spots and the wait list. If anyone wants to offer suggestions or complain about a specific incident that you dealt with, please contact me personally via e-mail. Lori at true dungeon dot com

Thanks,

Lori

I am glad to know the protocol for future problems, Lori. And your post here went a long way to soothe old wounds. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

@Garrison, I don't think that increasing the price for no-shows is prudent. A lot of criticism has already been thrown at the $44 pricetag.

I do think a re-hash of the waitlist is a good idea, but not before GenCon at this point. That's something that should be addressed in October-February.

And we had a great time in those back to back runs. I knew Darkangel and our pal were behind us and knew the puzzle. I told them as we started to look for a surprise and left them a token per room to hunt for, I believe they found 6-7 of 8.

darkangel866 wrote: @Garrison, I don't think that increasing the price for no-shows is prudent. A lot of criticism has already been thrown at the $44 pricetag.

I think that would depend on how prevalent of a problem no-shows are. I don't have access to the numbers for crunching, but if no-shows are few enough that increasing the price by 50 cents or a dollar is enough to balance the loss of those few tickets, I'd prefer that to dealing with all the potential errors and bad feelings of selling off someone's slot.

I'm not saying "this is the answer" and should be immediately initiated, but I'd at least hope it's being considered as an option.

I hope it isn't,I had enough issues this year pitching the $6 price increase to my group. A lot of them seem like they are already about at their limit for what their willing to pay for td events. Any additional price hike would effect the whole population not just those folks who end up on the rare over booked run and would have to be weighed against the potential impact to over all ticket sales.

Of course, TD strongly coming out in favor of taking extra time between "back-to-back" runs might also be helpful. It sounds like a lot of these issues (my experience included) occur when players do not include enough cushion time between runs.

How long does it <i>really</i> take in the worst of circumstances to log XP, pull tokens, take a bio-break, and make it to the wrangling room? Calculate such, keep it somewhat conservative, and post it very clearly in FAQs as well as in response to questions about this that keep showing up in the Forums.

Possibly create a clear policy (Where can I find TD policies on this website, btw? I've made a cursory look and failed to find language such as any official anti-harassment policy or the language that everyone must sign before entering the dungeon posted online.) based on reality and the current wrangling process regarding the exact minute at which tickets become no-show. Of course, I agree with previous posters that leaving more time for groups to coalesce before entering the dungeon will be very helpful in this area.

If the policy is posted clearly, it cannot be argued.