MAG 2021

The MAG 2021 was planned as an Entertainment Convention, which we intended to Gamify further for this year. Our basic system already supported some interactions between the player and the convention itself(Gathering hidden Cards, Talking to NPCs, Leveling up via interactions). However, there was no overarching thing to do to keep people from wandering around aimlessly.
 
Brainstorming in a Workshop with three other people, we reached the concept of a faction-based system as the easiest way to motivate players. The idea came from the thought that humans like to cooperate and compete, especially against other cooperating groups. So a faction would give our players something fun to do while exploring the convention and interacting with the exhibitors' booths.
 
Several systems of establishing such a faction-based system were discussed by us, gaining points by simply interacting with objects that already gave points, gaining points through merchandise, or even an organized vote. Minigames to earn points were also considered. Over the following weeks, we worked out the details and arrived at a three-pronged system.
 
People would be able to interact with specific objects in our worlds to gain points for their faction, as well as change the local decorations and colours to those of their chosen faction for a set amount of time. After a set amount of time, the object would revert to neutral, and the next player would be able to interact with it. Furthermore, the points gained this way would be publically shown on top of the screen. This would give players direct feedback and an obvious way of determining whether their team was ahead or behind. This would motivate players to either stay ahead or make up lost ground and participate more in the minigame.

The other parts were voting by buying merchandise with your Team's colours. All merchandise was provided in two variants, one for each Team, giving Super Crowd further monetisation options for this and potential future events.
 
Lastly, during the accompanying Live Stream, guests would fight for either Team in challenges that would also give each Team points. However, those points were deliberately not enough to determine the outcome of the faction battle. We did this to increase engagement, as fans of guests would likely support the same Team as their star and would likely be willing to participate in helping them.
 
To increase Team Identity, we gave each Team a clear identity that contrasted but didn't fall into a hero/villain dynamic. Both were still designed to be appealing to the core audience, with one being more rebellious and slightly more punk, with worlds themed around an industrial district, a club or an arcade. At the same time, the other was more an ace student and tamer, with worlds like a Pedestrian Zone, the City Park, and a large Convention Hall.

 Furthermore, each Team had a base of operations the other could not enter and a private channel on the discord server for the convention, allowing for better communication between the teams, which would only increase cohesion and team spirit between the different convention visitors.
 
In this context, my lead and I also finetuned the points gained from each object, as well as the time each object would be locked afterwards. Giving greater rewards for longer lock-times but also keeping short times relevant, so players would always feel that the time investment of interacting with an object would be worth their time.
 
Overall, when the convention went live, we observed great interest and quickly established teams that tried to gain as many points as possible. Both teams stayed relatively balanced for the duration of the convention, with a close finish at the end. The whole minigame was well received by our players, though some found it a bit simplistic as once an object was taken, it became neutral again until it flipped neutral again. We had also noticed these complaints, and we made initial plans to combat them in future conventions.