So, with tonight, another HERC event comes to a close. And with tonight, an entire year of events has been brought to a close.
Of course, before the event, that's not what I'm thinking about. There's all sorts of fear and panic. Mostly unjustified: "What if nobody comes or shows up?" (They did.) "What if the DJ has to cancel?" (Has never happened.) "What if Paragon Chat goes down from excess activity?" (It's Pocket D. One of the two 'safe' MUC channels on OpenFire that has no user cap.) This, of course, combined with personal issues (car's acting up, tax season, etc.) as well as my day job, and it's no surprise that this volunteer work is still very much work.
But every event, things improve, even if it's a scale that is sometimes hard to see let alone recognize. Mitigating problems before they start. Coming up with contingencies in case my rules on games get exploited. Reexamining past work and trying to improve or up the ante a little bit from before. Things that caused drama in the past are either eliminated or reapproached. (And yes, anything worth doing has some drama attached to it.) Things that people yawned over that I was expecting applause on get tweaked or retooled.
And none of these were as scary to me as the first one, the City of Heroes 12th Unofficial Anniversary. That was a genuine shot in the dark, and it's amazing that it worked anywhere as well as it did. But it did.
And just like the Anniversary Event, now that the scary stuff is over and the 'performance high' of throwing something like this has died down, and the event is over, I'm missing it. The algebra of needs and wants rears it's peculiar head again, laughing at my condition.
And like New Year Resolutions, I find myself reflecting on the past four quarterly events we threw in Paragon Chat. The good, the bad, and the slightly ticklish and ready to sneeze. Of course, this will be a slightly different conversation than what I'll have with HERC Representatives. But it's a conversation I want to have with you all as well.
So, first, to temper expectations. Titan Network forum users are not the typical crowd. And HERC is born from that group; each and every one of us in HERC come from all walks of life. Some of us are students. Some of us are in the workforce. Some of us are dedicated to their families. Most of us are eccentric in our own ways. And with each person comes different trappings, limitations, and considerations based on those commitments we all have. Therefore, when considering what we can or can't do in the future, some modicum of restraint is necessary as we are all volunteers. Not a single one of us can pour into HERC the same amount of dedication and time that one would do for their work, family, or school.
But we can do something.
Second, our brush and watercolor set with which to work with are limited. We have Paragon Chat, which is, thankfully, very creative, flexible, and open to possibilities that other MMOs can't do, even if you only consider what we have today and not the future of it. We have free MMO games, some of which are less accessible to RP play or events like what we do in Paragon Chat. (For example, HERC can't throw a party in Neverwinter with the split "chat/menu" interface and the "gameplay" interface that is essentially out of control when chat is in use.) So, there may be a division of labors concerning the two. We use Paragon Chat as the socialization and RP playground that it is. We use MMO games to meet up and slash at things away from Paragon Chat when we want something fighty. There are also paid MMO games, but the barrier to entry on making events happen at those games is higher when a price tag is involved. (Not all of HERC can afford to pay for things like that, so at best there'd be a few of us.)
Our imagination is required where our tools fail us. Not just in Paragon Chat, but elsewhere too.
Finally, third, the reason why I'm writing this. We don't do HERC because we're looking for personal recognition. We don't do HERC because we hope to get in good with Cape or Dawn Radio. We don't do this for the press coverage (Don't get me wrong, it's nice when it happens, but past the 12th Anniversary, AFAIK we have silence on the MMO radars. And for good reason: what we do isn't of prurient interest to anyone except City of Heroes fans...) and we're not doing this to fashion a clique of Titan Network folks who are 'with us' and ignore the rest. We're doing this because we don't want to see the community here fade into nothing after the New Efforts thread count increases and new information decreases. We're doing this for all City of Heroes refugees.
This means you. Really. My finger is pointing at you, and I've made eye contact. I mean this.
With that in mind, Season 1 of HERC has come to a close. What about Season 2?
There's no wrong answer to this. If you think one or more of our events isn't fun, say it. If you find costume contests to be a bit repetitive, that's okay. If you didn't like one of our games, tell us. But any ideas in consideration of the three points above are worth entertaining. We're meeting together in February, so this is a perfect moment to steer how the rest of 2017 goes.
For purposes of grounding this discussion in possible outcomes rather than moonshots, consider only NOW what is possible in Paragon Chat and NOT the roadmap. Pretend what we have now is all that we'll ever have (which is not true, but if someone has a great proposal that requires superbases to work, and the feature is delayed indefinitely, that idea is delayed right along with it). Imagine HERC with the same four people doing this. And that the City of Heroes community (you guys) still watch for the day when a proposed spiritual successor will drop the proposed part of that moniker and actually go into beta this year, even if it doesn't happen by this time in January 2018.
What did you enjoy the most about the last year? And what would you like to see in future HERC events?
