Narninian Apprentice: Season 2

[Zero]

I wonder how many days before the boss whips out his catchphrase on people for not participating in the challenge?

[Zero]

Just a suggestion boss, but if they both send you 2 there could be conflicts. The fastest method would be for them to rank the other 8 people from 1-8, then you can take the first and second choice for Strider, then the highest ranked 2 left for Pooky, then the next highest ranked 2 on Strider's list still available, etc.

[Zero]

Awesome video! (The link is broken, btw. It should be http, not html)

[Zero]

Go FSOEOHDFPEs!

[Zero]

Yes, please release the list so we can commence un-protecting all the people who went with the other guys.

[Zero]

I'm fine with either PM for this task, but I'm officially first to volunteer for PM on the third task.

[Zero]

I want to be Project Manager because I want to proove myself as a leader and step up.

I, too, do not like our name. I suggested

Cosa Nostra

and I PMed my suggestion to everyone on our team. I got no PM on 'voting for our team name', it appears Pooky choose it by himself... I'm not very happy about that Pooky.

Yes, Pooky said to send him team names, and he'd send us the list and let us vote on the name. Instead there was no vote and he combined all the names. My suggestion was "the Syndicate", but Cosa Nostra is also a good suggestion. I don't think our current name is a good fit with the image of the highly professional menace associated with the Narninian organization. Nevertheless I think we've got a good group of people despite the name.

[Zero]

Can I ask for another clarification? What if the auction isn't ended yet, but there is an actual bid from someone for a certain price. Can we consider the highest bid received so far to be the same as the final price of an ended auction? Because some human being has committed to paying that much, so at some point it will be an ended auction at or above that price.

[Zero]

Well I'm not Narninian so I can't say authoritatively, but I think those have common sense answers, TINM. The opening says Narninian is hiring for his Santa Barbara operations. The zip code is 93101. If it doesn't specify, I'd just assume its within the 8% threshold (unless its a very cheap/heavy item where you really think it could play a major role). If its a brick and mortar business that you could pick the item up at without shipping, you could just add sales tax for that locality and assume Narninian's fleet can get it to you.

[Zero]

Good thing you informed us of that the day after the deadline.

[Zero]

so uhh.... for the reward. You can spend Thankgiving Dinner with Narnininan and his Family. You just gotta stop by Santa Barbara and you get free food.

Dude, I'm so totally gonna take you up on that.

[Zero]

I wan't to give a

MVP award

(from me) to Zero for his mass participation and great findings.

Thanks man. I'd like to step up as PM for the next task.

[Zero]

Hmm, Blackberry, Bruno didn't mention your poker table in his writeup. Did you decide against it for some reason? It was over 100% profit and would have bumped our total up to nearly 50%. Not that it matters, just curious.

Lowest: $27.00

( http://cgi.ebay.com/New-10-Player-Folda ... dZViewItem )

Highest: $80.00

( http://cgi.ebay.com/Deluxe-85X43-Casino ... dZViewItem )

Percent: 296.3%

[Zero]

Oops, edited answer out, and put it in a tell as requested.

[Zero]

Well, so much for the Anti-Pookyites. Looks like we're ahead 5 to 2 now.

[Zero]

Any questions?

How will the results figure into the game in the short term? Highest scores get a reward and lowest scores go into the boardroom?

[Zero]

I would have preferred more trading, but I don't think extending the deadline will result in more trading. Most people haven't responded to trade requests, and I don't know that they'd respond given another week.

I can't see why people wouldn't want to at least swap something to get judges though. Even if each trade benefits one of your opponents equally, as long as there are more than 2 players, traders will benefit over non-traders.

[Zero]

For my first pick I take this is not me. Our first order of business will be to change the name, so any suggestions are welcome.

[Zero]

thx zero, you said for my 1st pick you know that you havent got a 2nd pick? anyway we need a cool name....

Well I get an optional 4th pick, which, if exercised, would be the 2nd pick for our team. I picked you because you did contribute in the previous tasks, and in this last task you were the only one to complete a trade with me. Others, like Iammars, would have benefitted from trading at least judges. On this last task I had a pretty unfortunate set of items too (you can check it out, I got almost all tools), but by knowing more judge rules I was able to make the best of it.

For a team name I like The Syndicate, but I'm open to other ideas.

[Zero]

Well after conferring with This Is Not Me, I've decided I'm going to take a third team member. Honestly I haven't heard much from either PBug or Pooky lately, but Pooky was PM on the first task and we did win. I think he's capable of being a valuable contributor if he focuses on the task, so I'm going to give him one more chance to prove himself a valuable asset to the Narninian organization. Hopefully finals will wrap up eventually and he can step up for the coming challenges.

And we're going with "The Syndicate" as our new team name.

[Zero]

I've submitted the Syndicate's advertisement to Narninian. I agree with Blackberry that there could be problems if the teams post them since there could be the perception that the second team was influenced by the first team. Its in the judges hands now.

[Zero]

Its a pleasure to finally meet the esteemed panel. We here at the Syndicate know how valuable your time is, which is why we expedited our proposal to under half the alloted time and got it ready for you (submitted via Narninian) last night. But I guess we'll have to wait for the other guys to throw something together before we can get down to business. If either of you would like to review our plan in the meantime, just contact me and I can provide you with an advance copy.

[Zero]

History shows in this game that the winning submissions were not those done in the eleventh hour. Milking the deadline is a sign of lack of focus, not craftsmanship. Lets face it, the movie is already released, time is at a premium.

[Zero]

This is not to say that I disagree with your statement that time is of the essence. It is merely that you seek to undermine the effort of your competitors so blatantly. I do know there are other multi-billionaires who prefer their employees to work in such a fashion, but I personally would prefer some subtlety in the sabotage, if sabotage

must

be necessary. As it stands, the only asset of your project which you have deigned to advertise is the fact that it was completed quickly. Had the other team missed deadline, you may have a leg to stand on. As it is, I see a blatant and clumsy attempt to undermine your opponent on no basis whatsoever.

I have no reason to advertise anything else about my submission to my competitors. It would only give them inspiration. Sabotage would be interfering with them, which I haven't done. What I'm doing is competing with them, and time

is

added value in this business, a valid basis to compete on. Since their project isn't available, its the only attribute open to criticism yet, but I assure you it wont be the last. I'm sure you know Narninian's niche in the market, and it isn't for the weak or submissive, but you came to him because you wanted to reach the mafiascum market, and you couldn't have made a better choice. Nice is for your partners, not your competitors.

One can hardly call the deadline being "milked", when there are still two days remaining. It causes one to wonder whether the first submission was rather skimmed through. Aha! "Skimmed"! Haw-haw-haw! ~snort~

Two days is immense in the lifecycle of a released movie. Narninian himself said that he would appreciate if we didn't require the entire deadline. Perhaps you feel differently, but most high powered executives prefer their marketing teams not to keep them waiting.

Time to market can make all the difference in Hollywood. The bottom line is about art yes, but if time to market and other commercial interests aren't considered, a film will never escape the "art film" kiss of death. The box office winner isn't the guy who takes 10 years to make a movie. That guy will end up with a movie that is out of date and overbudget. Obviously I'm not telling you anything you don't already know from your own experience, but I think when it comes to marketing, such crass commercial interests play an even greater role than they do in filmmaking in general.

[Zero]

The Syndicate's campaign isn't limited to 20 people. The version in our proposal is a working prototype of a game that can be packaged and played ad infinitum in any similar environment, a marketing campaign that can extend far beyond mafiascum.net. There are thousands of online communities, game forums, etc, where a demographic similar to that of mafiascum.net exists. I'm sure we could all name a dozen other places where such guerilla marketing could work, and each of us would have mostly a different set of them.

Even if a poster or a trailer is in a forum that is technically viewable by hundreds of people, how many of those hundreds would actually take the time to visit that particular thread and look at them? A small fraction. And even if they do, in this age of ubiquitous banner ads and non-stop commercials, how many of them would actually be influenced by what they saw? A very small fraction of a small fraction. The beauty of our campaign is its interactivity. Every iteration of the game is another 20 people who will be intensely exposed to the material, with a very high chance of being influenced by it compared to passive media.

What the Syndicate saw as the core requirement for this task was to differentiate from the generic marketing to reach out to a specific niche demographic (that of the type of gamers who might frequent mafiascum) that was underserved by Disney's existing marketing. In this light we took into consideration the marketing that Disney already had in place, and moved away from that. Disney has posters, lovely posters. They have trailers, exciting trailers. Those are their strengths, and they don't particularly need our help with that. In fact if we had wanted to go that traditional route, we would probably base it on their existing posters or trailers (perhaps with minor edits to retarget them), and blanket the existing posters and trailers on forums like this. But that would be boring. What Disney doesn't already have is a freely distributable run it yourself gaming system, like what we propose. This is a fairly unique supplement to what they already have that will reach people not easily influenced by posters and trailers.

[Zero]

Cash, that is a concern, although not a game breaking one. One fairly simple modification within our current paradigm would be to add extra suggested roles that can be swapped into the default setup, along with subtly different rulesets for some of the more powerful characters. This simple modification would give each moderator thousands of permutations to choose from, nullifying much of the advantage of metagamers trying to figure out people's roles by comparing it to other games. To some extent people will already have a broad outline of what roles to look for simply by familiarity with the franchise.

The important thing is that each game under our system is fun, whether its run flawlessly or not. I believe we can assure that the game is robust enough to remain fun. Even a perfectly vanilla game of mafia is fun, even when people know what roles to expect, they don't know who is who.

[Zero]

Umm no, I wasn't talking about extending it from 20 to 30 people at all. That was not my response to how it can reach a broader market. The response was multiple iterations in different environments, with options to allow permutations to keep it fresh.

As for its appeal beyond gamers. In my understanding of the task, as Narninian presented it, that wasn't the goal. The goal was to reach gamers. Disney already has campaigns in place to reach generic customers. I can post their excellent trailer and poster here, if by chance you haven't seen them. More of the same, not targetted to this demographic, contributes nothing.

And I didn't say it would appeal to people "on all different kinds of forums". Rather it would appeal to people on many different kinds of forums, but not all. There are thousands of gaming forums and other forums with a similar demographic. But there are many tens of thousands of forums where it wouldn't apply. In my understanding, the goal was to reach this specific demographic, with all those others beyond the scope of this task.

And somewhere in that overly verbose hypocrisy, I made an important distinction between how many people will be influenced and how many eyeballs will potentially be exposed. An interactive advertisement may reach fewer people, but a passive one will only actually be noticed by a small fraction of the people who see it. So I dispute that their poster would actually reach more people on mafiascum.net than a game would. It would be seen by more people yes, but then the game would be seen by people who didn't play too. But passive advertisements are too pervasive and our demographic is trained to tune them out.

[Zero]

As for whether it was creative to use mafia on mafiascum. No, that aspect of our idea was not particularly creative, and there is a reason for it. The idea is so obviously the right way to approach this task that there could be no better choice. We were actually concerned that the other team would come to the same conclusion and take the same approach, in which case it would have come down to game mechanics.

Where the creativity comes into play is in the realization of our idea. Just as with posters and trailers, the creativity or lack thereof is totally in the implementation of them, not the idea of having them. We took an obvious idea and used creative roles to give it an accurate feel of the story.

[Zero]

I hardly think coming to a consensus on the purpose of the task can be dismissed as mere semantics. On the teammember front, 2/3 of our team has responded to the judges so far, compared to 1/3 of the other team. But as the Project Manager on this task I do represent the team.

[Zero]

That was quite on topic. You accused me of being hypocritical, paraphrasing me as saying "will appeal to people on all different kinds of forums, but a movie poster and trailer (which appeals to a far wider audience than just the gamers) will not?" I defended my statement. That statement was in response to claims that Syndicate's campaign could only reach 20 people, it was not a statement that it could be seen by more people than a poster. You implied that it was hypocritical since a poster and trailer could reach even more people, but I addressed why it could not (degree of influence, and the broader audience being outside the scope of the task and already served by other posters and trailers).

This is a boardroom, not a game of mafia where you can randomly accuse people of being scum. If you throw around indefensible accusations at someone (like hypocrite), you have to be prepared to back it up or concede.

[Zero]

We believe our advertisement would spread through word of mouth and excitement through us, and our friend, AniX. I have great belief our advertisement would have influenced more than

twenty

people from MafiaScum.

But your social network isn't scalable to a larger campaign. If thats a component of your success, then it could not possibly be applied much further than mafiascum.net itself. We could claim that more people would be aware of our game than were actually playing. I'm certainly aware of more games than I'm playing here, and large games often have a series of substitute players over time. Its not a strong effect, but I would argue that having the game consistently around for a while is no less compelling than being told how awesome a trailer is.

[Zero]

Zero,

Good answer, although I wish you would have included that all in your original proposal. Since you just added it here, it looks to me like you are just thinking on your feet (a good thing), but that it was not thought out orginally. If you dont think out every possible outcome, you are bound to fail.

Do you have these other roles that can be substitued in to make the game slightly different in each iteration or are these just hypothtetical? Dont talk about something if you cant back it up with proof.

You're right, its not part of our original proposal, but rather a response to your feedback. We believe that our submission is a solid foundation and plan, but not a finished product. If chosen, it would be the starting point for our polished campaign, but those finishing touches for either team would be applied after the basic idea is selected. To quote Narninian: "it doesnt have to be completly finished -- (with the poster we'd have artists make it prettier) but I'd like to to be solidly laid out for me". I believe that the roles we've provided give a very concrete example of the direction we're taking this, but we can fill in the full supplemental roles if and when you select our product.

[Zero]

Thanks guys. Good work team. But we'll hold off on the champagne until Cash and Narninian weigh in.

[Zero]

Sounds cool.