TOPIC: Some stats on availability

lazlo_hollyfeld1985 wrote: I think some people put every grind slot in their wish list. So it is held up while they decide what they want. Downfall of the wish list

I am pretty sure this is the case.

It's a little different with the dungeon runs proper, because if you want a Dungeon run between noon and 4, you put 20 of them in your cart which overlap, closest to your preferred time, and the system will give you the first one available, and automatically skip all the rest. You might end up with 2 runs, if you get a really early one and a later one still in your time frame - but you wouldn't get 4 runs.

With Grind, because the events don't overlap, you could put 4 Grind runs in your WishList, score an early queue number, and end up with all 4 Grinds in your cart!

I wonder about the feasibility of making Grind tix artificially 1 min longer than the Grind officially is, which would prevent back-to-back Grinds from ending up in the same cart. Realistically tho, that would just make the Grind tix end up in 2 different carts high in the queue, instead of all in one cart.

Maybe in the future, we could...
* Train a couple more competent Grind DMs and extend the hours.
* Talk to Jeff and run one or two Grinds as an Adventurer's Guild perk.
* Raise the price on Grind Tix (supply and demand, sadly)
* Run more Grind at WYC, complete with treasure or completion tokens?

Maybe in the future, we could...
* Train a couple more competent Grind DMs and extend the hours.

This is the real answer.

I told my group they could blame me for the lack of grind tickets.

Maybe next year will be better

For next year, I would volunteer to get trained at WYC, and then help run some at GenCon. Sadly, this doesn't help this year...

Was hoping to do grind with a buddy of mine this year as we are now 2nd level and this will be our 3rd year playing. I managed to grab one ticket after the initial rush. I was surprised to be able to later grab a whole run of the initial time slot (zephyr) after the 30min mark.

I'll try grind myself and hope for better luck next year.

binia wrote: Also, I don't see any obvious preference for combat slots vs. puzzle slots, like we've seen in prior years. Makes you go 'hmmmm'.

We ended up with three combats and four puzzles, but we like to do combat better. We probably should have gone and looked what was back open than go with the 1st picks, if we had done so it would have been 4 combats and 3 puzzels.

Raven wrote:

lazlo_hollyfeld1985 wrote: I think some people put every grind slot in their wish list. So it is held up while they decide what they want. Downfall of the wish list

I am pretty sure this is the case.

It's a little different with the dungeon runs proper, because if you want a Dungeon run between noon and 4, you put 20 of them in your cart which overlap, closest to your preferred time, and the system will give you the first one available, and automatically skip all the rest. You might end up with 2 runs, if you get a really early one and a later one still in your time frame - but you wouldn't get 4 runs.

With Grind, because the events don't overlap, you could put 4 Grind runs in your WishList, score an early queue number, and end up with all 4 Grinds in your cart!

I wonder about the feasibility of making Grind tix artificially 1 min longer than the Grind officially is, which would prevent back-to-back Grinds from ending up in the same cart. Realistically tho, that would just make the Grind tix end up in 2 different carts high in the queue, instead of all in one cart.

Maybe in the future, we could...
* Train a couple more competent Grind DMs and extend the hours.
* Talk to Jeff and run one or two Grinds as an Adventurer's Guild perk.
* Raise the price on Grind Tix (supply and demand, sadly)
* Run more Grind at WYC, complete with treasure or completion tokens?

Raven,

I definitely think if there was a way to significantly increase the number of Grind tickets it would be a good idea. The supply seems to be only a fraction of the demand, it would be great if more of the people that wanted to play could. But of course the trick would be to do that without losing the high quality it currently has. It is a real testament to you and Eric, and Stu before you, that people love it so much.

Mike

Mike Steele wrote: It is a real testament to you and Eric, and Stu before you, that people love it so much.

Stu was an *amazing* Grind DM. It was sad to see him move on to other things, but also awesome, in that he's an even more amazing Coordinator!

Eric continues to be a perfect blend of brilliant writer (I love his modules, both as a player and as volunteer), fast and helpful DM, and sadistic adversary. Grind wouldn't be quite the same without his evil banter.

As for me, thank you for the compliment! I was apprehensive about joining the Grind team, but now that I've done it a couple times (GenCon '13 and WYC '14) I'm really looking forward to serving up another hackfest for all the dedicated masochists players in TD

What do you mean grind won't be the same without him? Is he not GMing grind this year. I may have missed something.

Eric is still the mastermind behind Grind. He's not planning to leave anytime soon (that I am aware of).

I was speaking hypothetically when I said "it wouldn't be the same without him."

You had me worried there for a moment.

binia wrote:
I hope the stats dude shows up again this year and runs some weekly sales figures - I found those very interesting.

I'm here and planning a stat update soon. Last year I did the first one 24 hours in, but couldn't get that done today...too busy with work.

Speaking of Grind...more of it please. Agree with what everyone is saying about how the wishlists are working. I had three wish lists going, mine, and 1 for each of my kids. The top 17 items in each list where the grind runs. My first list started at 1374 and I had tickets to 6 different grind runs when it processed most with 1 ticket, one with 4, I grabbed that, tossed back the others. When my next list processed it had 2 grind runs. 4 more in the same one I bought previously. So people are definitely getting runs and tossing the ones the don't want back.

On another topic, I think the limited 50 item wish lists worked much better than the mammoth one allow previously. And I've heard far less complaining overall about the process.

First off, please continue to post your event registration experiences regarding True Grind tickets. It is very insightful trying to discern potential patterns and figuring out how/why tickets were periodically being released.

lazlo_hollyfeld1985 wrote: I think some people put every grind slot in their wish list. So it is held up while they decide what they want. Downfall of the wish list

Raven wrote: I am pretty sure this is the case.

It's a little different with the dungeon runs proper, because if you want a Dungeon run between noon and 4, you put 20 of them in your cart which overlap, closest to your preferred time, and the system will give you the first one available, and automatically skip all the rest. You might end up with 2 runs, if you get a really early one and a later one still in your time frame - but you wouldn't get 4 runs.

With Grind, because the events don't overlap, you could put 4 Grind runs in your WishList, score an early queue number, and end up with all 4 Grinds in your cart!

I wonder about the feasibility of making Grind tix artificially 1 min longer than the Grind officially is, which would prevent back-to-back Grinds from ending up in the same cart. Realistically tho, that would just make the Grind tix end up in 2 different carts high in the queue, instead of all in one cart.

David Harris wrote: On another topic, I think the limited 50 item wish lists worked much better than the mammoth one allow previously. And I've heard far less complaining overall about the process.

I wonder if GenCon might be able to put a limit to the number of Grind events one has in their cart.

Does anyone know of any GenCon events which have a specific limit to the amount you can have on your wish list?

That would be one way to prevent Wish List #1 from literally having every single Grind ticket in their cart.

Picc wrote: True enough, still it makes me wonder if ticketing for grind might be better handled through the forms and generics after the initial rush (not sure how feasible that would be but its a thought)

lazlo_hollyfeld1985 wrote: How would you do it through the forum? Adventure guild first? Would be be one slot per badge? Per person?
I think that would be a whole new headache

Well, one possible example is the usage of lottery ticket runs for Grind. Last year 1 Grind slot was taken through the lottery. This year 2 runs.

Obviously, lottery winners might not necessarily be forumites, but if they take a full Grind slot and need to fill it, they are likely to utilize the forums to fill any empty spaces.

If demand continues to rise, I would not be surprised if a greater and greater proportion of lottery ticket slots end up being Grind runs.

valetutto wrote:

lazlo_hollyfeld1985 wrote: I would like to know the number of new people( zero experience) that show up for grind...ie oh that run is cheaper I will buy that

It did indicate 2nd lvl required but I suspect it happens. Hopefully not the case.

I am always curious about this, but it's hard to determine.

Unfortunately, TD's XP system (with all sorts of "usernames" and not always real names) makes it hard to determine how much experience someone has. Also, I usually don't have access to a full list of participants.

However, given the historical situation with Nightmare-designated runs, I would say most people do NOT read instructions. In the past, so many newbies would sign up for Nightmare-designated runs because that fit their schedule or there was nothing else available. So I highly doubt the "2nd+ level only" gets acknowledged.

Most Grind players do seem to be acquainted with the game. I do occasionally see complete newbies, but they are relatively rare.

As an additional anecdote about the failure to read directions: It is always amusing to see how many (or to be accurate "how few") people actually follow the event directions and e-mail me via my truegrinddm e-mail address.

Picc wrote: Honestly I'm more concerned about the reduction in the total number of grinds. There's not much incog/Raven can do about it and I wouldn't want lesser gms handling it either but I had a buddy with grinds in his wishlist get spot 450 come up blank. Not really sure where I'm going with this but its a concern.

Disbeeleaf wrote: It looks to me like there were simply fewer Grind slots available and more demand as that event has steadily risen in popularity.

I believe there could be more Grinds offered, as they would appear to be limited only by the availability of competent DMs.

Also, we managed to grab 7 slots in one Grind after the initial frenzy. It's not what we wanted, but at least we got something.

In prior years, we typically have had 23 Grind runs. 7 each on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and 2 on Sunday. It used to be 12 - 3 PM and 7 - 11 PM.

Most of the Grind reductions are due to the formal shift to 1.5 hour Grinds, which essentially knocked off 1 from each of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Now it is 12 - 4:30 PM and 7 - 11:30 PM. So we are actually working 2 more hours a day, even though there is 1 less slot.

1 more was lost on Thursday as a contingency for the original time of the Golden Ticket (that would have been the 7 PM Thursday evening time).

So that is why there are only 19 Grind runs this year. Note that 2 of the Grind runs were chosen as part of the lottery (both were 1:30 PM runs, in case people were wondering about seeing 12:00 PM runs followed by 3:00 PM runs).

Right now I am already at my physical limit in terms of how many runs I can do. (I am the primary DM for all Grind runs and Raven is assistant DM for half of the Grind runs). So for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, my schedule is mostly 12 PM - 4:30 PM, and 7 PM - 11:30 PM (though Thursday evening has one less run). To give you an idea of what that means for non-Grind events, for event registration I was pretty much restricted to a 1.5 hour window of possible starting event times. Given a 2 hour adventure, I can only do TD runs that start between 9 - 10 AM, or 4:30 - 5:00 PM.

valetutto wrote: Maybe in the future, we could...
* Train a couple more competent Grind DMs and extend the hours.

This is the real answer.

I told my group they could blame me for the lack of grind tickets.

Maybe next year will be better

Brad Mortensen wrote: For next year, I would volunteer to get trained at WYC, and then help run some at GenCon. Sadly, this doesn't help this year...

Mike Steele wrote: Raven,

I definitely think if there was a way to significantly increase the number of Grind tickets it would be a good idea. The supply seems to be only a fraction of the demand, it would be great if more of the people that wanted to play could. But of course the trick would be to do that without losing the high quality it currently has. It is a real testament to you and Eric, and Stu before you, that people love it so much.

Training and competent DM's are always going to be the most essential and most challenging obstacles.

In the past I have often heard experienced TD'ers complain about the quality of DM'ing. Most of the time, I would ask them if they were volunteering themselves and more often than not the response would be "no." One of the major problems with TD is that many of the most capable people are not volunteering. Obviously, they shouldn't be forced to do so. But it is harder to take someone's complaints at full value when they are not willing to be part of the solution!

To me, maintaining the quality of True Grind is really crucial, which is why I am hesitant about simply offering more events by just throwing in more DM's. Ignoring the question of whether or not this makes me a "control freak" or whether there is value-added through "delegation," right now the fact that I am running each Grind event means that I can ensure a quality event for the participants.

I am not trying to be overly critical of my fellow TD volunteers, but thinking of all the DM's I have had in the past, in the vast majority of cases I would not be comfortable having them run Grind.

In my personal opinion, this is what I value in a Grind DM:

1. Dedicated and hard-working (does the necessary prep work)
2. Social / people skills
3. DM'ing capability and experience
4. Token knowledge

Dedication sounds like something straightforward but it is always amazing how many people don't do their homework and run events or perform presentations without adequate preparation. As an example my very first year of running Grind (2010), I had several randomly assigned assistant DM's. Even though I had sent the module notes to them weeks in advance, by Wednesday of GenCon none of them had even glanced through the module notes. And in fact several of them missed the Wednesday training session. That first year of Grind was incredibly stressful, and was probably a deciding factor in me taking an active hand in running every future Grind event.

The people skills aspect is hard because most of the time, you either have them or you don't. Unfortunately, this skill set is even harder to find since historically the gamer population has not always ranked high in this area. I view DM'ing as a customer relations position where the focus is on making sure the participants have a good experience. That includes actively engaging players who don't look like they are having fun. And being adaptable to meet the specific needs of each group.

DM'ing capability is pretty straightforward. In the context of Grind, time efficiency is really important since traditionally a lot of groups have run out of time rather than actually getting a TPK.

Token knowledge is very valuable for the player coach element of the position and for the combat aspect of Grind. One thing that continually amazes me about normal dungeon DM's is the severe deficit of token knowledge. While I understand that not everyone is a tokenholic, I would hope that DM's would do some basic prepwork by familiarizing themselves with some tokens (especially those of the current year). On a similar note, I am always dumbstruck by the number of TD DM's who have never actually gone through a dungeon themselves. I really feel that should be a minimal requirement.

Raven wrote:
Maybe in the future, we could...
* Train a couple more competent Grind DMs and extend the hours.
* Talk to Jeff and run one or two Grinds as an Adventurer's Guild perk.
* Raise the price on Grind Tix (supply and demand, sadly)
* Run more Grind at WYC, complete with treasure or completion tokens?

So personally I am skeptical about the "extending hours" approach. Mainly from a quality control standpoint.

Raising the price is certainly a viable option. In fact, this year when I asked Jeff about formally going to 1.5 hours, I mentioned that it might be reasonable to increase the price (since players are getting 50% more time, and to cover the runs that got squeezed out due to time). But given the price increase of the normal dungeon, fortunately for the players, Jeff was kind enough to keep the Grind price the same.

This year at Who's Yer Con, we had several Grind events, so I think we are already moving in this direction, which I think probably is the best option. WYC can be a supplemental outlet to provide more Grind (especially since Raven and I are already overextended at GenCon). And it could be combined with Adventurer's Guild elements like it was done this year.

One question I've been wondering though is whether it would be better for Who's Yer Con to be an entirely new Grind adventure (which I am happy to design) or whether it should be a repeat of GenCon (for those who weren't able to get any tickets). Any thoughts on this?

Finally, I would like to close this post my mentioning how thankful and blessed I am to have RAVEN as one of my stalwart assistant DM's. She perfectly matches all four of my DM criteria above and it's great having someone so reliable!