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« on: May 31, 2011, 09:15:38 AM »
Hey everyone, Team Purple here! I actually had a great time with the event. We were in 1st place during the first day, but ended up 2nd at the end. The competition was very enjoyable, and... to be honest, I really don't have any complaints. So, here's some of the things I think went really well this year! And I've got a few responses to what other people have said too.
RUNNERS:
We had great runners, actually. The first day, our runner was actually someone who'd never been to a convention before. So, we ended up having a lot of fun just watching him explore the con as we ran around. xD He kept up with us, didn't complain, and he was pretty chill the entire time. The second day, we had a good runner too. I ended up joining back in the race an hour after it started (I'll explain below), but from what I could tell, our runner was cool with just running after us as we ran around the city collecting business cards. He did get stopped for a couple pictures, but he ended up catching up after. I think that would be my one note then: Have runners who aren't cosplaying. It's a bit of a pain to have to keep looking back to make sure your runner can catch up with you after having gotten stopped for photos. But really, we liked our runners.
CHECKPOINTS:
I actually think it was really cool how some of the people we had to find DIDN'T have orange sashes. It made the game much more complicated and difficult, but what's a reward if you didn't have to earn it by doing difficult tasks? When we couldn't find the Peet's coffee guy, we ended up going upstairs, seeing someone else with an orange sash, and asking him if the guy had gone missing. We got told that maybe his sash wasn't orange, so we kept looking. So, I learned throughout the entire game that if you find someone in an orange sash next to the checkpoint/challenge, they could possibly offer a little hint.
DAY/LENGTH OF RACE:
I liked how it was spread across two days, but I do agree that all the information should have been given out BEFORE the prelim round started. I'd been reading the forums, so I knew the rules. But I could tell a lot of the people who qualified were then unhappy when the time/rules were elaborated upon. Also, times NEED to be put out beforehand. On the online schedule, the race wasn't supposed to start until later on saturday. Because it ended up getting moved down to noon, I had to miss the first hour of the race due to being on a panel. I think that pretty much was what lost us our almost constant 1st place lead.
PRELIMS:
Have everyone start at once! I was one of the first to start, but I like fair races, so I do think everyone should have been given the paper at the same time. That's something that can be fixed next year.
RULES:
I like the idea of having written out rules. Somewhere along the line, it was mentioned we could text each other, but because we weren't sure, we asked our runner to find out for us. He didn't even have the contact numbers of anyone coordinating the event. We didn't text, because we weren't completely sure what the final verdict on that ended up being. But written out rules would make the entire event SO much easier.
HELPFULNESS:
I really have to thank the staff for putting up with our team this year. During the prelims, my partner was still standing in line for her badge, so I was allowed to do the prelim quiz myself. That put me at a bit of a disadvantage, but I still was the 3rd/4th (Can't remember) person to finish. So, thank you for letting me do it while my partner was in line. Also, I had a panel from 12pm-1pm on Saturday, so I'm greatful the staff let my partner have a replacement partner for the first hour of the race that day. I kind of regret not being there, as I feel we could have kept our lead and won, but then again, I had committed myself to a panel way in advance.
ARTIST ALLEY:
Gotta say... this was the BEST part of the entire event. Neither me or my partner can draw (We like stick figures!) and I had to re-draw a second character after the first one did not pass. But it was a really fun challenge, and I LOVE how we were able to decide which team would get stuck at the artist alley and not move on. That was like, the best part of the race. (Sorry green team, you were the first team there that we saw. xD)
