The Wulven Apprentice

After the third firing last week, we kept the same teams, and then set them on their fourth task. Unlike previous tasks, this one was done entirely in the public eye!




Task 4 Details

Task: Plan, organize and run two or more different events involving members of the community, with the intent of creating excitement, enjoyment and engagement!

Format: The events can be anything you like, providing it promotes community participation and fun. Be sure to mention that your event is part of Wulven Apprentice Task 4.

Winning Team: A public poll will decide 80% of the outcome, Wulven judges will decide 20%.


The Submissions

Each team ran several events and linked to them from one main thread. Links to both are below, so you can see what events they ran and how they were organized.

Nocturnal Advantage
Daryl (Project Manager),
Caleb, Tomm
Nocturnal Advantage's Festival of Fangs

Random Heroes
Sean (Project Manager),
Samuel, Shawn, Steven
Random Heroes Carnival


The Results

Daryl, the PM of Nocturnal Advantage, dropped out of the competition early, leaving his team to struggle against Random Heroes who had double the number of people. And in the public poll, Random Heroes won by a landslide, sending Nocturnal Advantage into the Wulven Lair once again. Because Daryl was sacrificed, the Wulven appetite was satisfied for this week, but we still wanted to hear the thoughts of the losing team.





Tomm

1. How do you think your team did on the task?
I really don't think their is any question that we didn't perform well at all this week. The reason for that being that Caleb and I waited too long (2-3 days) waiting for Daryl, who was the PM, to give us certain instructions for some of the ideas we came up with. The problem was Daryl never showed up until the day before the deadline.


2. How do you think you personally did on the task?

I personally think I stepped up to the plate this week and gave Nocturnal Advantage at least a presence in the tournament scene during this challenge. Had it not been for me we wouldn't have even ran a single tournament more than likely. Caleb, while more than willing to help, had never ran a tournament before and needed my help in learning how to do so. I believe that as the PM this week this responsibility should have fallen on Daryl's shoulders.



3. Why do you think your team lost?
I think the reason we lost is simple they had twice as many people as we did. In any kind of competition anywhere how is 4 against 2 fair or balanced in any way shape or form?



4. Who do you think should be fired?
I think Daryl should have been fired but since he stepped down my answer is nobody should be fired. I don't think it would be fair for Caleb or myself to be fired due to something out of our control.

There is no way we could ever have hoped to win this when they had twice the amount of resources to run and think of events. Even if neither Caleb or myself had jobs or a family could we even have hoped to compete.


5. Why do you think you shouldn't be fired?
I think the reasons I shouldn't be fired are obvious. I did the bulk of the work for the team this week. Also I didn't abandon my team even though I had RL issues myself to deal with. I stuck it out and made sure Nocturnal Advantage at least didn't go down without a fight. Even when I saw how hopeless the challenge looked on paper this week, I fought til the end and refused to give up.



6. Any other comments to Kyle?
Really no additional comments this week other than there should be some sort if backup plan in place to assure that neither team is left severely undermanned as we were this week.




Caleb


1. How do you think your team did on the task?
To be frank, I feel like we could have done a lot better on this task. From the outset, it seemed like we were playing the reactive role, letting Random Heroes get the drop on our team in terms of rolling out events for the community. I think in particular, our non-organized play events turned out to be a rather poor showing. Our pop-up tournaments were largely successful, but we also had a few hiccups on the tournament organization front for this task. We essentially did not have a project manager this week, since after a day or two into the task, Daryl stopped being available almost entirely. Still, I would have liked Tomm and myself to have produced a stronger variety of events, and I feel we were capable of better work than we ended up with.


2. How do you think you personally did on the task?
I feel like I did fairly well on this task; however I think two people doing a pretty good job just won't ever add up to a greater result than four people each doing a good job. I was responsible for hosting three separate pop-up tournaments this week (Shang Tsung, Yin/Yang, and Money in the Bank), I played in several of the pop-up tournaments we hosted (even won one of them), and I was responsible for the Future Art Challenge in our non-OP selection, as well as maintaining a high level of input and participation in the creation of the 'Ask Me Anything' thread. Although this was sort of a rough week all around for Nocturnal Advantage, I am particularly disappointed in the results of the art challenge. I think that if I had made more intelligent decisions on how to structure that event, we would have achieved a better showing. For example, I think it was a dumb move for me to make submissions only viable through email, rather than accepting them via pm on the forums. Also, perhaps I should have allowed a wider range of cards in terms of what was acceptable to illustrate. I think it might have limited the community's interest to have to produce images for one of the ten cards we designed during Week 2 of WA, rather than allowing alternate illustrations for any Shadow Era card, for example. However, I will say that since I had never hosted a tournament in Shadow Era before, I look at this week as a success at the very least in giving me a quick and dirty indoctrination to the SE tournament scene. I look forward to continuing my participation in the Shadow Era tournament community, and I hope people enjoyed the tournaments that we hosted.


3. Why do you think your team lost?
I think our team lost this week for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the most significant was that Daryl, our project manager, was unable to maintain any significant degree of participation during this week of Wulven Apprentice, and ended up withdrawing from the contest towards the end of the week after just simply not being around much at all. Tomm and I put in a valiant effort to get ourselves organized, but for the majority of the week we quite simply didn't know where Daryl was, whether or not he planned to maintain his involvement with the contest, etc. Had he withdrawn from the contest earlier in the week, one of us could have stepped up into the role of project manager, but essentially we were waiting for Godot for a significant chunk of the work-week. Also, bear in mind that we were essentially a two-man team competing against a four-man team with Daryl out of the picture. However, the proof is in the pudding, and I feel that the most damaging aspect of our submission this week was our lackluster selection of events for non-organized play. Random Heroes were able to keep the non-OP events coming, and I believe that one of their smartest decisions was to structure their non-OP events in such a way that they were basically rewarding players for doing something they already do: playing Shadow Era on the quick-match ladders. On the other hand, as far as our non-organized play events, all of them required what could be termed 'outside involvement' from the community. No one submitted anything for the art contest (largely due to the time constraints and the inconvenience of submitting artwork, I believe). Our Scavenger Hunt contest met with lackluster response, I believe largely due to the fact that the winner of the daily challenge was usually just the first person to see that challenge and hop onto Google image search. And perhaps worst of all, our Ask Me Anything thread offered no incentive for community involvement (other than the chance to have us answer questions from the community). I believe that our showing on the tournament play side of things was equivalent to the work that Random Heroes submitted (especially when you factor in their extra manpower on this assignment,) but I believe that our tepid selection of non-OP events put the nail in our coffin.


4. Who do you think should be fired?
I think the fact that Daryl has chosen to withdraw from the competition obviates the need for me to answer this specific question.


5. Why do you think you shouldn't be fired?
I think I should not be fired because despite our team having a bad week in general, I still put in a good amount of effort on this task. I started out this week as a complete Shadow Era tournament noob and finished it as a member of one of the premier guilds in the Shadow Era community, with multiple tournaments under my belt as both a host and also a participant. Even more importantly, I feel like I learned some hard won lessons about encouraging community involvement and providing incentives for participation in events. I am confident if my team had this task to do over again, even if it was just Tom and myself against the four members of Team Random Heroes from this week, that I would be able to improve the quality of our work exponentially with the lessons I've learned.


6. Any other comments to Kyle?
As I said last week, and I hope to not have to say again next week-- It's a pleasure and an honor just to be here. Even during some of the most grim, challenging, and stressful moments of this competition, I am always excited and feel privileged to be involved. I am confident that this point, that whoever should win this contest, they will certainly be an asset to Wulven and will help elevate Shadow Era to the next level. It is one of the most elegantly designed, well-balanced, and subtly challenging collectible card games of all time, and I have confidence that the winner of The Wulven Apprentice will help Shadow Era achieve recognition as such, even while it continues to develop and expand. I just hope I'm that lucky guy. This experience has been a bit like "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" to me, and I hope it never ends.




Kyle's Decision

This week was great because the players got to take part in the festivities. I think both teams held some fun events and everyone had a good time.

Unfortunately Daryl had to drop out of the competition due to personal reasons. He wasn't available for further comment this week, but we can only sympathize with him and wish him the strength to get through this difficult time.

It was good to see that Nocturnal Advantage didn't give up in the face of overwhelming odds. Although they lost this battle, their spirit and strength of character just might win them the war.

But alas! This week, Daryl, you're the sacrificial lamb!