Outspark Blog

In order to promote the new server, Cypion, where everyone starts out as level 1, there was a trivia contest Sunday, June 13, where the players’ levels didn’t make a difference. There is usually more than one event per week in Fiesta and every event is open to all levels.

This event wasn’t advertised on the event calendar (which many events are not), so I thought it would be good for you guys to see some of the stuff going on you might normally have missed. To make sure everything went smoothly, the veteran GM superstar, Nekopon, ran it. After it finished I asked her a few questions.

Can you describe the event?
“Once the event began, players were able to talk to an NPC in Elderine that would port them to the designated Quiz arena zone. When the arena was full, anyone else who ported in could only stand on the sidelines. The arena was split into two squares, one with an ‘X’ in it and the other with an ‘O’. I would ask the users a trivia question with two different answers.

If they thought that answer number one was correct, they’d stand in the square with an ‘X’ and if they thought answer number two was correct, they’d stand in the square with an ‘O’. Whoever stood in the wrong square would be kicked out of the arena and sent to the sidelines, and the next question would begin. The last person standing in the arena got a permanent Tiger Raccoon mount!”

How smooth did the event go?
“Even after hosting many events, you still can’t expect everything to go as planned, but that can be part of the fun sometimes. The players aren’t always interested in an event where participation is simply following directions. In this event, they are able to make their own decisions by choosing an answer opposite to their friends and other players, or simply following others. But the players ended up knowing more than I thought. After thirty minutes, less than fifteen people were eliminated. I had to use much harder questions.”

In the end, the users had a great time, and even the fans on the sidelines got a reward for showing up.

For the readers more curious about [GM]Nekopon, you can read the interview between her and Straega here. It will provide you with a more intimate perspective on both GMs =D

Around 1:30 it was tweeted on twitter.com/outspark that I was going to be dancing in Fiesta in memory of Michael Jackson.

The server was Teva, and the location was in Elderine, next to Guild Master Fredrick. Although only a few came at first, the attendance quickly grew.

As the dancing continued, even magic began to get involved. But I noticed someone hanging back and being a crummy wallflower.

I took a minute to keep him company. It was a sad site. With tears in his eyes, he was staring at a guy and girl having a great time. I asked Guild Manager Fredrick, “What’s wrong, you don’t want to dance?”

He told me, “I can’t dance, Bribbo!”

 But I wasn’t going to spend all day hanging out with Guild Manager Fredrick! If he doesn’t want to dance because he’s too scared people would see his poor dancing skills, that’s up to him.  I said, “I’m sorry to hear that” and went back to the party.

Check out twitter.com/outspark for more events and possible giveaways in the future.

Starting Monday, June 8 the Cheat The Heat event begun. It continued throughout the week and gave users a chance to show off some of their cool beach attire as they hung out at the beach and  teamed up to fight off waves of monsters. In the end, players were awarded with treasure chests.
While it may have been the first event for some players, it was also the first event for [GM]Kae, the newest Outspark Game Master! I took this opportunity to ask him a few questions about his experience:

Bribbo: Hello Kae, how are you today?

Kae: I’m good, a little exhausted, though.

Bribbo: Ah, didn’t quite Cheat the Heat as much as you wanted to?

Kae: No, the heat definitely bested me this time. And by “the heat” I mean the various things that kept coming up throughout the event.

Bribbo: Ah, we’ll get to those things in a sec, but could you start out by describing the event a little?

Kae: Sure. First the players and I spent some time hanging out at Sand Beach in our swimwear, then I spawned groups of monsters while players teamed up to fight them off, in the end the players were rewarded with treasure chests.

Bribbo: Sounds simple enough. So, what would you say was the hardest part of your first event? Was it difficult to spawn all the different monsters?

Kae: Actually, spawning monsters is easier than one might think. I bet I could wipe out all of Elderine within ten minutes!

Bribbo: Easy there, save it for the next Army of Darkness event.

Kae: Oh I will. Actually the hardest part was managing everything going on. I didn’t want the players to get overwhelmed by the monsters, but I still wanted to present them with a challenge. Meanwhile, I kept getting whispers. I don’t mind when users whisper me, and I tried to read them all, but I really just don’t have the manpower to respond to more than one-third of them so it began to get chaotic especially when something happens, like a user getting stuck.

Bribbo: I see. I hear it’s a skill that takes some time to master. What about the most surprising thing of your first event?

Kae: I was pretty surprised how many players looked forward to the event and ended up coming. It’s really nice to be part of a community where the users love the game and the events.

Bribbo: Very true. So, being your first event, something must have gone wrong, right?

Kae: Well, there was this one thing. I wrote down all the commands I needed before the event because I couldn’t memorize them. When it was time to type them in, I’d look back and forth at the commands and my keyboard. Sometimes when I was done typing in the commands, which were rather long, I’d look up and see my character falling into oblivion. It was very confusing at first.

Bribbo: Haha, yeah that can be very confusing and startling. Now for a more personal question: How did you get involved with Outspark?

Kae: Well, my good friend of 8 or 9 years, [GM]SKiNG, has been telling me about Outspark for a while now. I really liked everything I’ve heard so I guess it was him who got me involved with Outspark.

Bribbo: Thank you very much, Kae. I’ll let you get back to the games.

Kae: No problem. I’d like to thank all the users who came and hope you guys enjoyed your treasure chests!

Bribbo here. Some of you may have seen me in game, or referenced in a few of Straega’s posts, but I am here today to discuss something else. I will be contributing a lot more to the blog and attempting to take over the photo contest. Straega did a great job with it but he’s so busy now with all the work he has as a Game Master he just won’t have time.

Every Tuesday and Thursday there will be something new on the blog. Expect lots of content that you won’t find any other place, like exclusive interviews and articles, and even new contests with cool prizes

Tomorrow there will be an article about [GM]Kae’s first event, including an in-depth article so make sure to come read!

For reasons both good and bad, we’ve all got to admit that we need a quick fix once in awhile. Hoping at the same time that you hadn’t taken the last sentence out of context, I’d like to present to you… free browser mini games! Exactly what you need while waiting for those four gigs of Fiesta to finish downloading and installing.

You can access all the new addicting browser mini games from here. Try some out. I’ve become quite a fan of the asteroid-based one myself, go and check that out too.

Whew! We’ve been rolling out feature after feature these last two weeks. Can’t wait to see what’s next.