Darkfall Recruitment 2.0

[Lits]

OOoohhh... interesting Likwid. I'd say if you could add some stylized images or font, but it's a great idea!

[likwidtek]

lits, it's all going to be done in flash.  My thingy is only to test the questions and riddles.  Once everyone agrees on the riddles then someone who's a much better writer than me can tweak the "script" then move on to a story board, then record the voice acting then get to the flash animation.

[Anonymous]

As one who got in the "easy" way, I'm a bit reluctant to put my 2c in here, but I would like to explicitly volunteer to assist in any in- or out-of game recruitment events that are devised.

One of the things that really attracted me to Darkfall was the lack of levels - there won't be a massive rush to get to the endgame, and therefore I won't have to sacrifice fun in order to try and catch up in my limited play time. So I'd love to have an active roll in helping out with events, and, frankly, in weeding out unworthy applicants. I may not have been here long enough to feel any degree of elitism, but the FA vision and style are clear, and I hope I'm a part of building the kind of success and reputation in Darkfall that you enjoyed in Matrix Online.


**EDIT** I'm volunteering this way because, unfortunately, I have no flash or web design skills

Ditto. I'd love to help but don't feel certified or skilled enough to offer an opinion, I've only been here a week after all. I could do some voice acting though. Lits says I sound older than I actually am which is pretty awesome, although that counts for nothing in terms of talent.

[Adad]

READ IT AND WEAP:

passed Lik's little trial test.  Not to sound pompous, but I think it's a bit easy as it stands.  It took me less than 20 minutes, where as the MxO trials took me 3 or 4 days.  But, great start, and I think if the dialogue was reworked a bit we could make this fit the Darkfall world really well.

[Lits]

OMG that last question.... *facepalm*

[Tbone]

It'd be nice if the riddles could tell a story. Right now it's kinda like:

"I don't trust this dude."
"Me neither...I've got it! What lives when fed but dies when it has a drink!"

Some of them are good, though. The example listed above actually is put into context once you learn the answer. I don't really like the dialogue, to be honest. I don't like us to seem paranoid and, well, retarded like "omg he could be an alfar". The story should be more about self discover.

Some of the answers could be put into the context of a personal discovery story. Others (such as the last one) could not and are completely random. I say focus on the ones that pertain more to the game and to the Angels. Don't worry too much about the dialogue...I can adjust that. There won't be two people in the room. Just Tbone, I think.

[Anonymous]

My take:

Took me about 20 mins total, giving time to try to come up with a couple of answers before googling...

I really like the first 3 questions - game lore and especially Mirdain lore is great stuff to ask.

I'll talk about the riddles without giving away the answers, if I can....

I couldn't figure out 4 and 8 on my own (giving just a few minutes to think about each), but easily googled the answers in less than 10 seconds each.  Number 4 (it runs with no feet) I probably could have gotten if I'd taken more time, so difficulty isn't the issue.  Number 8 (the tool that dies if given drink) I'm not sure I would have gotten, as I tend to think of tools as something created by hand for a specific purpose, which works here loosely at best.  

The rest I got almost instantly.

I really liked riddle number 5 (the image in you mind).  Very appropriate for the genre.

Overall, a great start.  I particularly like how the dialogue gives guidance into the FA mindset.  Feels very "chaotic good" (shout out to the D&D fans).  A very good "first step", in my opinion.

[likwidtek]

Awesome feedback.  I don't care about the dialog at all.  Like I said I'm a shitty writer and I'm hoping that you guys rewrite it to make it fit.  I just wanted to give an example of how they would flow together.

My biggest fear was that I'd be making it too hard which is obvious that it's not.  So let's expand and kick it up a notch.  

I'll add some more tomorrow. Feel free to add some awesome riddles in this thread and I'll start incorporating them.  Once we have a final set of riddles and questions we'll give them to tbone and he can script something around them.

Good work guys!

[likwidtek]

Also, I'm really having troubles coming up with angel / game related ones.  Please help with that.

[Anonymous]

I've been surfing around trying to find some genre-related riddles, but I've also been thinking about the whole format, and I have to ask, are riddles really the way to go?

First of all, as I quickly discovered when I took the test, the answers can be googled very easily.  So we have no idea if the applicant has any intelligence or not.  Secondly, rating the difficulty of a riddle is very hard - minds just don't work alike.  So even if the applicant didn't cheat to find the answer, I still wouldn't consider their score indicative on how smart they are (or, of course, what kind of person they are).

Finally, is riddle-solving really a skill that is useful to us?  I suppose tactical or roleplaying questions would be more relevant, but they are also subjective and really hard to nail down to a few-words, correct-or-not type of answer.

I get that we want to make applicants jump through a few hoops to ensure that they are truly interested, motivated, and, hopefully, dedicated.  But I'm thinking that they should be relevant hoops.  How to work that into a flash-type, out-of-game format is something I'll think about tomorrow at my boring-ass job.

[Phienyx]

I think what we're looking for is an a situation where the potential has an encounter with members of FA and are led/sent on a path of self discovery and trial where each riddle that is solved leads them along the path to the next stage.  Each riddle/puzzle should be relevent to the situation.  Perhaps even have questions that have two or more answers that lead the potential along a slightly different paths.

There should be a focus and a specific message to the "quest riddles" as opposed to random riddles presented with no apparent point or purpose.

Its late and I don't know if my intent is coming across clearly and maybe when I read this tomorrow I can explain better.

[Zero]

I managed to complete this in about 20 mins as well.  I thought it was pretty fun though, haha!  My thoughts are similar to what everyone's already been saying.  I think it's effective as an initial filtering.  This will weed out the least dedicated, but it's still simple enough that many will get through.  I think it's a really good start though.  I imagine this alone would probably buy us a small amountl of rep in the darkfall world, hahaha.

[Jeyk]

This may be too late to consider given that we're looking to get this up ASAP, but should we have a few different riddles to pool from so friends can't simply share answers with each other?

[Phienyx]

This may be too late to consider given that we're looking to get this up ASAP.....

I'm not sure what the rush is unless we're expecting this game to crash and burn withing 6 months.  (I'm not saying we take 6 months to build the challenge btw.)  If we do a good job and put up a good challenge, this alone is a great recruiting tool.  It will be passed along by word of mouth.  Our challenge NEEDS to live up to our reputation and mystique and not come off like a quick rush job.

but should we have a few different riddles to pool from so friends can't simply share answers with each other?

I agree with this 110% if it is possible.

[Anonymous]

*know im new* but thats excellent thinking