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Oh and for those who didn't figure out what direction i was grading on, it was "post the following statement". A sentence ending in exclamation points is an exclamation, not a statement.
Seeing how the exclaimed statement was in quotation marks, the exclamation is considered a statement as well. Unless of course you were comma splicing two sentences together...then in that case...naughty naughty! If this were taken to a court of law, one could argue that the intent of the instructions was clear, even if the punctuation and grammar were not clear. Whatever was contained in the quotation marks would thus be considered the "statement".
That being said...I absolutely do not care who gets an alpaca or not, or even if anyone gets one at all. I am not even sure what one is anyways...a packhorse? I'unno.
What I saw in this thread was confusion. I gave my perspective on what the instructions instructed.
I also saw some excitement. A staff member came on and offered a prize for people who completed a task. People were excited. Yes, they wanted the prize. Yes, of course in a competitive game they tried to limit the prize allotment to raise the value of their potential item. At the same time, they were confident enough in understanding the instructions that they would choose the stricter criteria. But, in true Bob-like fashion, Bob tried to make things more complicated than need be to prove a point. Was that point that people are greedy? Probably not...that was probably a notion after the fact. Nope. Bob did his usual routine of trying to look smarter than others. "Oh! You think I said this, but really I meant this....are you dumb or something?" Kinda like that.
My suggestion is this:
Take the alpaca or whatever candy you want to offer the children and bring it ingame. Have one as a prize that only goes to first place. 20 people show up for the event and it is given to the winner...less than 20 nothing.
You want people ingame? Give them a reason to be there. Don't cry cus they get excited about a cool prize you will bamboozle them out of for kicks. You ask for people to log on to test systems etc...use the prizes to set up events that will help in the testing. Perhaps you can run tests while events are running etc. What better way to test combat and spells than to hold a pvp event? Or to test crafting...make a scavenger hunt....in a cave place in trunks all of the items needed to craft every item on the shard...everyone arrives naked and leaves naked. Whoever makes the most unique items in 1 hour(as a team) wins the prize. Perhaps the prize is that they get to keep what they made.
Healing contests can be held in a survival contest. Block the shifter room at Bloody Mary and drop contestants in the room...no invis or eliminated. Whoever lasts the longest gets the loot from Mary. One at a time entering the ring.
Team taming events would be cool as well....Perhaps have it so Brit castle is filled with cool rides, animals etc...everything that can be tamed. Two teams compete and when the 30 mins are up for taming, the two teams have to pit the animals against the other team. Whoever's team wins gets to keep the remaining animals(cant keep animals back to preserve them either)The team draws straws to see who picks their prize animal first.
Perhaps start a guild building contest? First guild to 100 players gets a keep or something. The players must each have unique accounts...meaning I could not sign Dracula and Maximus up and have it count..one per account. After the prize is won, if the guild goes below 50 within 4 months, the keep is taken back. Perhaps make it permanent so that when a guild hits certain plateaus of players joined, they gain a new building that only that guild can enter through a portal. Once removed from the guild, they cannot enter. 30 members gets a blacksmithy, 50 gets a large tower, and 100 gets a keep. Something like that.
EDIT* I would suggest making 4 guilds that have themed names. The guilds can be applied for when a group of twenty apply for it. They would vote for a leader and there would be monthly leader votes to see who leads the guild. The four guild houses would belong to the guild and to no single player...even the leader. You could make other guilds, but only the four themed guilds get to have a guild house of some sort. I can make suggestions on how this can be done if needed.
These are the things that will drive the player base up. These are the things that will help ease growing pains while tweaks are being done. We know you have a busy schedule and life is tough. But, you cannot expect people to come without any real reason to. People still keep tabs so that they will come back if they see that they will not be wasting their time because there is no hope. They keep tabs because they do hope that Obsi will return to what it once was, or even something that never was, but is still cool as all hell. So far, no one sees that. So yes, a free alpaca is kinda fun and why not try and get it? Imagine what people will do if offered something in return for their good faith...other than mind games, pretend prizes and insults.
These are my suggestions and views. Take them for what they are: honest and in good nature. Adopt the suggestions, adapt them or just ignore them. I do not care one way or another, but seeing things like I suggested would help motivate me to log in and check things out more often. Right now, I don't see the sense in it though.
Peace