love your idea! an event/contest will draw in ~arguably, more, but more importantly active users - so a monthly raffle thing, or contest type event, that's a really good idea because some people just don't have constant time to devote to this and have other commitments, understandably

- ( please correct me if I'm wrong ) this won't draw in more users because it is still intended to be limited to group members. Sharing wins against the troll requires a certain amount of education about how to do that and not make the weapon change prematurely (thus ruining it for others) so it can't be done well as an event open to all. Either there needs to be a constantly working group like before, or a small group that works together on an every so often basis as is being proposed. But it needs to be done within a cohesive working group that will follow the sharing procedure correctly and with patience.

If you keep the group clustered together and hidden we'd basically be back at square 1 :x The admins need to organize the event and keep an eye on it to work well. Our ping group knows what to do so that it's not done prematurely and can help out with the event so that more people can join, be educated, and win against the troll

- the trick is the education part. If we are only working once a month who does the educating and when? Would anyone take the education seriously in advance, or will they all try to learn as they work during the event? It takes time to get new people acquainted with the system. And some of them don't do it right - sometimes several times. I am happy to work that way, but I can tell you that some of the biggest complaints we handled with the old group was from people upset that the weapon changed due to people not waiting. Also, a totally public group means the weapon is public when you find it. When someone who didn't put in any of the work grabs five wins and keeps group members from doing the same, chaos ensues. I remember long admin discussions about this before finally decided we had to use a private forum (hence the public thread Let's Put This Troll Under the Bridge and the private group). Again, I'm happy to work with multiple groups and in whatever way they decide, but it's good to know these things at the start and try to have a plan in mind. I was lucky enough to get to five wins against the Troll with all three of my pets (mostly thanks to some incredible late night cohesive groups that kept the weapon alive for very long time periods and waited for admin permission to register their fifth wins) but I also saw busy daytime groups where the weapon changed almost before anyone else could get to the battle coliseum. My focus now is just to be as helpful as I can for anyone who wants to get some wins in. So not trying to make decisions, just want to share hard earned experience.

ya it's intended for group members, I understand that, but we should work on getting at least some new members who are actively seeking this challengers drop so that our original members can get it also... I really don't see the harm in organizing a raffle or something to amp up interest in this. As long as you clearly state the rules in a larger size font, keep rules short and sweet - and keep referring to how it is to be done correctly and discretly, so we can all work together instead of like, against each other?? /like having gifts sent out with the winning weapon in the gift's message so everything is kept on the down low and stuff like that ? idk

- read the post above yours. Mostly it's the education part. It's hard to get people to understand and use the correct procedure for sharing wins. Just announcing it and hoping people will get it right didn't happen. (It seems simple to me, but apparently isn't.) And where would we get gifts with the winning weapon? Who will provide the sP (they can get expensive FAST - I've seen some go from under 10K to over 1,000,000 in a few minutes)? It's all the logistics that need to be handled. Certainly I expect new people. Just saying it might be best if they're not random new people recruited at the last minute. As indicated above, I will help anyone, and follow whatever procedures they choose but am just trying to be helpful about issues the old group dealt with.

I believe was suggesting that the weapon be included in the gift's message, but actually send a random or junk item. It's just a way to keep the information more private/away from anyone who doesn't care about the rules.

Because forum groups are only private-ish, not fully private.

I read your post above mine before I posted that ...k?

The gifts would be junk gifts and the gift-message would contain scode as the winning weapon in the gifts message? We're not even saying recruit random new people in the last minute.... i dont think so anyway, but I can speak for myself and say that I am definitely not saying that... I mean, I respect you've been through it, the trials and errors that were brought up when the group was still active, and I'm totally not saying that we won't ever have those problems again/still. But I am saying we need to amp up and gain at least some interest and educate, yes educate/inform/make clear group rules/loud and clear for people new to this, or just getting into battling - or this is gonna be painful/expensive/hella time consuming for the small original group of people still itching to get that drop. ... and the possible new members itching to get that drop...

I'm saying when the time comes as main admins & active members in the group are as ready as they can possibly be to create a forum in the battle thread promoting/recruiting some new active members to the current group interested in defeating the troll for his drops - have the post/s be full of clear rules/guideline, helplines and educate how this challenger and this group operates etc etc... it's gonna take some time - but so is working together to defeat the troll...

(thank you u caught my drift)

- ah, yes, you are right, I see I missed that. - that might be a bit excessive. Most important, you can't ping a group via the gift center (and it costs at least 1,000 sP plus junk cost for each gift sent which seems small but might be a problem for some users). Who will stop battling the troll themselves to send gifts, or do you wait until your five wins, then send? I think using a private forum thread seemed to work well enough and allowed everyone in the group to be notified. In my opinion, it's more important to convince group members not to share the information with other untrained friends of theirs. That was more likely to cause an issue for the old group.

curbdirt - How would you suggest educating? What sorts of materials would you create? Who will create those materials and who will spend time teaching? And will new users take time to learn early? (And wasn't trying to be rude suggesting the above post, I take long enough to type that I often miss a post directly above mine - especially if I wasn't pinged to it. Sorry if it sounded offensive.)

I was thinking more of a pass-it-on/copy and paste buddy system sort of thing/chain-gang the prezzies but then again idk I'm just kinda shooting ideas out here to see whats up cos I'm not really sure how exactly the admins operated before all the shit started going sour/inactive

Honestly IF I were an admin, and I personally don't want the responsibility of that because I'm not a full time or even all that experienced battler, and I don't actually have copious amounts of time on subeta in general because of my personal life at this specific point in time BUT I DO plan on being as viciously helpful and as active of a member as I possibly can be! ~ramble I would create a forum, with a fellow admin or interested active member - first post: educating ALL USERS on how the troll operates, keeping things short and sweet, simple, point form (??) this can be a public forum. In the second post: educate on how the group works, as a group, teamwork, the helplines, the weapon sharing if people cannot afford what they are assigned to, how member are assigned pages on weapons and how to report in for that day or time (I know we as people can only do so much at a time what with ~life commitments and other things) but we'll do our best to stick to some sort of schedule or something. and then idk maybe in a new post to make it obviously as clear as possible : our main goal/objective: how to report a winning weapon discretely enough but also informing as many active or currently online members as possible so as many people can get as many wins as possible before someone squeaks. / I know there will ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS be squeakers but I think that's the point? like he's a Troll for a reason and he's suppose to boil our blood and get us pissed off - lol! Then in the third or 4th/whatever post promote the group as a community desperate to defeat him, are they/users reading: committed? trusting? work well in a team? YES?! THEN WE WANT YOU sorta ~amp up kinda stuff with a link to the group - and hopefully the group is or will be invite/or admin permitting so we can verify with new members that they have read and understand rules and guidelines completely, are assigned to maybe a helpline or helpful users to answer any further questions or help set them up with their pages/or schedule etc - and try their best at making sure these new members are more than willing to fight the good fights with us to continue to kick his troll-butt....but something, generally like that

(((but you were the only one I pinged in my post? ... sooo - nope not offensive but you are coming off a little short with me, I'll admit - But I can try my best to assure you, I understand how terribly frustrating it can be to run a group like this with all the things that can go wrong and how eternally time consuming it is to begin with, it's maddening :s )))

- I guess what I'm trying to say is that we did first try public education about the system and it just didn't work. The original group started as a public forum thread and moved to the private forum partly because of that problem. I can post the mechanics on any public forum, but when the weapon is found, people just don't all follow those rules. Some didn't understand. Some didn't bother to read the materials (or didn't have time yet). As you noted, the admins spent an enormous amount of time trying to coordinate the testing, create education materials, trying to check (and we never really came up with a foolproof way) whether the materials had even been looked at (much less understood), keeping up the database required for all that, responding to questions, accepting new users, etc. I can tell you that, for some of us at least, for awhile it was a more than full time job. Then afterwards people would get frustrated (and sometimes angry) and the admins spent time dealing with that and trying to make improvements. A small coordinated group could eliminate that. A large public group will need a lot of hours put in by someone. I really don't want to be short with anyone. And I will absolutely work with any group and whatever procedures they would like. It's just that from my previous experience, I personally feel it's not realistic to think that lots of new users will follow any procedure without some trial and error (and even, on a few occasions enforcement). I emphasize that mostly because I would like to avoid the anger after the first few weapons are found, when mistakes are made and some don't get those much anticipated wins. If everyone goes in expecting a smoothly oiled team, then I think it needs to be a small well disciplined group. If it's more open, then I think that participants need to be willing to be forgiving when it takes multiple tries. I hope I expressed that better this time. Whatever is decided, I'm happy to do my best to provide support and help wherever I can. I would really love to see every user (and pet) that wants them to have five wins against the troll.

By the way, the old group died partly because graduated and went on to something that took up most of her time. And a very large percent of the active core membership also were in college and were busy for the summer. Afterwards, we did work a bit at trying for a revival but couldn't get enough interest at the time. With the group owner gone and not many wanting to resume that much work things just stayed stopped.

I love the contest idea - maybe we could award people for finding the weapon and then offer rewards to everyone based on how many people actually get wins on the troll before reset?

- now that is something we never tried - rewarding patience - that's worth a try if we are able to provide the rewards.

and I'm game. My armory is still full of all the level 1 and 2 weapons I had amassed for this group. I will only really be helpful on and off until Spring Break but over the Summer we will rock this :D

I have a good amount of sP I would be willing to put towards a rewards system. Just saying :D

here is our new forum group! (let me know if it doesn't take you anywhere)