'Skyhawk' wrote:[D]on't agree to pay the money and then phony pony about how it didn't live up to your expectations. That is not constructive critisism[sic]. That's whiney little phony pony behavior. Man up and take responsibility for your choices.
Not to stray too far from the purpose of this thread, but this is a totally incorrect perspective. "Manning up and taking responsibility for your choices" is what you do when you cheat on your girlfriend and she dumps you. It is not what you do when you purchase a product and receive something different than what you purchased, which is exactly what happened here. People paid $120-$160 for an airsoft game marketed by one of the flagship airsoft production companies in the world, and it is not unrealistic that they would expect an experience on par with an event demanding that kind of price tag. If the event doesn't live up to the hype, and falls short of the promised value, then it is absolutely a valid criticism. Imagine if you bought an expensive sports car that the dealer promised you was very fast, but turned out to have the same performance as your old Camry. You'd absolutely be in the right to voice your negative opinion about that.
Enough bullshit, AAR time.
Having attended three Lion Claws events so far, and being on a team with members who have attended even more, I feel that I am qualified to speak not just to my experiences with this event, but with the OLCMSS organization as a whole. I hope that my advice is taken constructively, because I want to see more of what OLCMSS is capable of producing in the Northwest.
To date, I have attended OP: Route 66 in Barstow, CA, OP: LCXI in Victorville, CA, and now OP: Tradewinds. For two of those events I drove, round trip, over 2800 miles each to attend. In addition to the raw cost of the events, when you factor in lodging, food, incidentals, fuel, rental car, etc these quickly become serious investments far beyond the $160-220 entrance fee. I spent well over $500 to attend Tradewinds. I do not feel that my experience was a $120 experience (the discounted entrance fee for LC veterans), let alone a $500 one. It has been my impression, both first hand and through the experiences expressed by others, that OLCMSS "Tier 1" events receive a much higher degree of attention from the administrative staff than "Tier 2" events. The "Tier 1" LCXI event I attended was nothing short of phenomenal. The AO was impressive, it was well utilized, the experience was immersive (especially being able to fully utilize technical assets like deuce-and-a-halfs and M113s). I spent nearly $750 all said and done to attend LCXI and it was worth every cent and then some, and I am looking forward to doing it again at LCXII.
That said, the "Tier 2" events are, in my experience, on the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of quality and immersion. Route 66, my first LC event, left a very poor taste in my mouth when the game was oversold, packing 250+ people into an AO fit for less than 100, with a limited administrative staff presence (I saw maybe five roaming admins all day), poorly constructed game dynamics, lack of functional props, etc. While this is not an AAR for Route 66, a lot of these same flaws carried over directly to Tradewinds.
The initial phase of the event was supposed to involve TFE taking the beach head, but we started well away from anything resembling a beach, and very quickly advanced to the (already captured) MOUT village. For the rest of the first phase and the second phase, virtually all of the fighting was concentrated within this area, resulting in rinse-and-repeat of stacking on buildings, getting killed, and hiking back to spawn. For most of the first phase it seemed the TFS were spawning within the village itself, making taking it next to impossible. Eventually the regen point was moved outside the village, but not nearly soon enough.
For the second phase, my squad was tasked with searching the outlying areas around the lake for crates. I was happy to take a break from the back-and-forth in the village and headed out with my guys to comb the area in search of these valuable caches. Soon into the second phase, our TFE forces were pushed out of the village (in part because of the indigenous people turning against us) and fell back to behind the sandbag bunkers. I noticed that our squad was uniquely positioned to covertly move to the backside of the village, opposite the rest of our forces, which would have given us the ability distract TFS and to draw their fire off the bunkers, giving the rest of the TFE guys there a chance to push back into the village. We were told by command that this was unnecessary and to continue the search for caches, which we continued to do. For the better part of an hour, we wandered deer trails and marshes, only to be informed by command half an hour later that there were actually no caches to be found that round. This was disappointing, as we had spent the last hour on essentially a glorified nature hike. This was a real turning point for me in the game because it reinforced the fact that there were very few side missions planned, and that the bulk of the event really was focused upon utilizing 1% of the available terrain in the AO.
We re-linked with the rest of our platoon outside the village and eventually pushed into it and gained at least partial control, enough to allow the elections to happen, anyway.
Expecting more of the same the next day, I decided to spend the rest of my trip enjoying the beach and downtown Seaside with the remaining members of our team that hadn't decided to return home, therefore I have no comment on the events that happened on the second day.
Improves- Improve the coordination amongst administrative staff to ensure the event starts on time. We showed up, ready to go, at 0630, only to find the registration booth wasn't even staffed, which it should have been at 0600. We patiently waited before finally being able to register around or after 0700.
- Implement more side missions/have plans in place to address stagnant gameplay
- Focus more resources on building the atmosphere of the game with more immersive props/storyline
- Make better use of technical assets where available. There were multiple HMMWVs on the field but they were seldom used in gameplay, mostly they were stationary. This does help to create atmosphere, but LC games are known for their heavy use of vehicles, especially in moving troops around large AOs, or to insert troops into combat to help break up stale battles
- Use more of the AO. The MOUT facility is a phenomenal asset to have at Rilea, and I enjoy playing there, but the AO has very diversified terrain beyond what your standard woodland field can offer, and therefore there is great potential for the rest of it to be used accordingly.
- Stronger and more identifiable administrative presence. It was sometimes hard to tell who was an admin and who was a civilian player-actor. Orange safety vests are only a few dollars each and are very identifiable. I have been heavily involved in producing half a dozen events with ~50-100 attendees at each one. At every game I have coordinated, we have strongly utilized administrators to help balance and control the game. Having good communication between admins, and having them stationed at key areas is a great way to give valuable feedback to Game Control and gives you eyes where you wouldn't otherwise have them, giving you the ability to implement on-the-fly changes to game dynamics to keep it flowing and balanced for all players.
- Properly brief all players (and especially player-actors unfamiliar with the sport) about the safety rules, especially in regards to MOUT play. I understand that it is the players' responsibility to read the WARNORD, but a deliberate re-iteration of the most critical safety points, such as blind fire and semi-auto-indoors would go a long way to help a lot of the shouting matches and hurt feelings (and faces!). I had to take a smoke break at one point to chill out, after having been shot at multiple times full-auto by players inside buildings (whose barrels were certainly not breaking the plane of the window), and even a couple of times indoors. Also, players were opening and closing windows, something that was forbidden to my knowledge. Stronger admin presence would help cull this behavior.
Sustains- The simulated fire was incredible, I was just sad that it fizzled out later in the day
- The PsyOp unit was very engaging.
- The AO is unique and exciting, definitely a big step up over anything else available to us in the PacNW. I was lucky to be able to explore the parts of it I did. Hopefully it can be had here next year, as well.
- When the registration booth was open, the process was fast and seamless.
- All of the staff were professional and cordial when I dealt with them, when issues surrounding hacking or respawns or whatever were brought to their attention they seemed to be addressed promptly.
- The chain of command was very well implemented, and mostly followed, which is one of the shining parts about all LC events. In most airsoft games, the command structure falls apart after the first fifteen minutes, that was not the case here. Platoons and the squads within them largely stayed organized and followed their respective orders, which is as much a testament to the players themselves as it is the organization of the command chain. One thing about spending upwards of $150 on a game is that it tends to weed out those interested in simple skirmishing and leaves mostly the more serious and invested players.
Conclusion Although I do not feel that this event was worth the asking price, do not take this to mean that I would not attend another one, assuming OLCMSS takes the points offered in this thread to heart and work to make the appropriate changes at future "Tier 2" events. Whether the event is a Lion Claws/Irene or a Route 66/Tradewinds, the expectation by the player is that the promoters will invest themselves fully into creating an immersive and enjoyable experience for everyone. My suggestion would be to either dissolve the mental boundary between tiers, and focus on giving 100% to ALL events, or to withdraw focus entirely from 200-300 person events and shift strictly to producing ONLY large Tier 1 events.
Most of the players in the Northwest have never attended an OLCMSS production and therefore Tradewinds was a really pivotal game, because its success would mean an otherwise mostly untapped market would see the merit in spending the time and resources to attend future events, especially those further away from home. However, its failure would serve to turn off a lot of people to making the commitment necessary to travel to another. In my eyes, although not an abject failure, Tradewinds left much to be desired and really reminded me of my frustrations with Route 66. I hope that this can be a learning experience for all involved, and will serve as a turning point in the mentality of OLCMSS regarding how it treats smaller operations moving forward.
by Jester316 » Tue Aug 21, 2012 8:56 pm 
AAR's are being posted by people giving their honest opinions. They're simply telling you how they felt about the event. Don't take it so personally. All event hosts should read AAR's and learn from them. I didn't attend, and have no dog in the fight, but I like to read event AAR's. Hopefully people feel they can post their opinions on games, without being attacked for it.
