The Desert Bus Roundup

[Graham]

And if you really want to ask the crew a question, just offer to bring them coffee - or a pie!

That pie was delicious!

[Metcarfre]

IT WAS MADE WITH LOVE. LOVE, I TELLS YAH!!!

[CommanderKeen]

IF it wasn't clear, I'm for new drivers but a set amount so we don't randomly have someone on for forty minutes because someone's late.

Or for existing drivers making it harder. Take away audio, blindfold... that sort of thing.

[epocalypse]

IF it wasn't clear, I'm for new drivers but a set amount so we don't randomly have someone on for forty minutes because someone's late.

Or for existing drivers making it harder. Take away audio, blindfold... that sort of thing.

keen, i see it for challenges, but really, why try to make desert bus harder or more interesting with things like that? the real beauty of the game is that it's difficulty comes from the nature of human focus and perception, or better put:

boring Bus is hard to busssing bus for long bus bussing amounts of bussing time!

[Evil Jim]

Welcome to the forums, Epocalypse. Have you met Alja-Markir? He may take interest in your forum signature.

[epocalypse]

Thanks Jim! So far so awesome. I have not met Alja-Markir yet, but anybody who may take interest in my signature enters the list of people i should meet immediately.

[TorachiKatashi]

It may be harsh, but how many times did they have to repeat, "Guys, no fake bids," or "Guys, keep the chatter DOWN," especially when Shuster Award winning Ken "Value Added" Steacy was there, and still no one was listening to them? People who can't even do what they're told and be quiet for two whole minutes probably aren't doing much if anything to support the cause, so it's no loss if they don't come back.

The idea of a separate channel for auctions seems like a good idea to me. People can still talk and get excited in the main channel and the side-channel can be restricted only to people who are bidding.

Thanks, Evil Jim, for that no longer repressed memory. I was looking for a reason to never close my eyes again.

As far as "making it harder," I don't really get why. Don't we WANT them to make money? Especially since I can see these "$100 for every point up to your highest point" kinds of offers being made even more next year, I can't begin to fathom why we would want to do anything to make them more likely to crash.

I'd bring pie, but I'm afraid it's quite a long walk from the east end of Newfoundland to the moon base and it would be soggy, cold, and stale on arrival. D8

[Genghis Ares]

I wonder if it would be good to have a seperate Questions section as well. It would probably be a hassle to maintain, but the chat was pretty much divided into 3 categories. Bids, Questions, and General Chatter/Spam.

One big problem is people repeating themselves and what others have said. If someone asks questions to the chat, about 50 people answer. And then when a problem comes up, like a sound skip or video hiccup, a bunch of people start moaning, and then the LRR Crew sees this and thinks the feed is down or something, and now every one has to tell them that it's fine.

The repeating bid, fake bids, and suggestions for what others should bid; got very annoying. Yes, Haha 420, 1337, 666, 1138; just STFU people.

[CtMolloy]

It may be harsh, but how many times did they have to repeat, "Guys, no fake bids," or "Guys, keep the chatter DOWN," especially when Shuster Award winning Ken "Value Added" Steacy was there, and still no one was listening to them? People who can't even do what they're told and be quiet for two whole minutes probably aren't doing much if anything to support the cause, so it's no loss if they don't come back.

kicking fake bidders or the guys going hurrr .01 is understandable. but eveyrone that talks?... you would be banning most of the chat AND saying they contribute nothing.

I think the seperate channel for bidding is a very good idea, Overly moderating the chat and banning everyone for getting excited would probably do more harm than good. maybe relay the highest bidder/bid on the driver cam, though that might be a little hard...

[White Flame]

I wasn't on for much of it, missed a lot of the big events, but honestly my favorite part was donating what I did. I had no chance during the auctions I saw, but I did participate in some of the "Let's pass this threshold!" challenges.

Some suggestions for next year:

Post more rules. Rules about how to offer challenges, how auctions work, non-exclusive list of bannable offenses, how to submit your winning bid, etc etc. You had to repeat your instructions and admonitions over and over; it would be much better to defer to a web page, and have the URL overlaid on the screen, than re-justify yourself any time something went amiss.

"Auction Secretary". Have a single person in charge of tracking bids so you don't have to re-figure things out when somebody drops off or the there's a long delay between bids.

Separate bid & chat areas. Or some sort of other interface that these might be able to run through. Already mentioned, I am appoint.

I know I missed a lot of stuff, but everything I caught was auctions, singing, or answering questions. I have absolutely no idea how much awesome stuff I missed, but as you guys are a comedy troupe, seeing live comedy sketches, improv based on chat suggestions, etc would be awesome. Much more work, tall order, I know. And it might have all been in there and I just missed it.

[MarkVI]

Perhaps, given that the donation totals seem to be going up and up from year to year, it might be worth considering changing the hourly cost multiplier from 1.07 to, say, 1.08. Just a thought. Honestly, I'm mostly concerned that the bus team might get too worn out if it had to go longer than 6 days.

For example, if hypothetically they were to raise 200k in 2010, then that would be 125 hours with a 1.08 multiplier, versus 141 hours with a 1.07 multiplier.

Otherwise, I thought everything about this year's event was amazing. The video quality was better iirc, and the auctions were epic. I was also very impressed the team went for 14 points without crashing. I guess Jim's idea worked perfectly.

The ideas going around so far about having a better irc setup, using multiple channels for auctions and chatter, are all great.

I do think the lighting could have been done better. Maybe having some kind of diffuser/filter to make it easier to see things held close to the camera, or having lights placed differently would help.

Finally, having Alex and Ken around really added a ton of value, and mayhem of course. So they both better be back next time.

[Vaughn]

1k Milestones dont seem very significant when we get into auctions that shoot past 3 of them in one go. =D

[Keith K]

It might be worth considering changing the hourly cost multiplier from 1.07 to, say, 1.08. Just a thought. Honestly, I'm mostly concerned that the bus team might get too worn out if it had to go longer than 6 days.

I don't think it's fair to previous contributors and fans to raise more money but get less in return. The crew know what they're getting themselves into year after year. The difference between 130k and 200k isn't as significant an increase to time as it is an increase in money. The next hour this year would have been another 9k. If viewers can raise that amount, they deserve that next hour. I'm willing to bet the crew agrees.

Besides, less time in the bus means less time for donations. That's not what anyone wants.

[Evil Jim]

I'm really curious as to how much the different categories of donations brought in. Auctions, songs, dances, point challenges, etc.

[Genghis Ares]

1k Milestones dont seem very significant when we get into auctions that shoot past 3 of them in one go. =D

They should probably do 5k milestones. That way people have more time to make some and there will be more for each one. That and they'll be able to update the blog less often and still stay ahead of other things.

[epocalypse]

It may be harsh, but how many times did they have to repeat, "Guys, no fake bids," or "Guys, keep the chatter DOWN," especially when Shuster Award winning Ken "Value Added" Steacy was there, and still no one was listening to them? People who can't even do what they're told and be quiet for two whole minutes probably aren't doing much if anything to support the cause, so it's no loss if they don't come back.

The idea of a separate channel for auctions seems like a good idea to me. People can still talk and get excited in the main channel and the side-channel can be restricted only to people who are bidding.

It's not harsh, it's accurate. All of the donations I made were either A, for an approved/attempted challenge, b small amount challenges, and or c for the children. Now, I didn't win any auctions, and I'll admit that the only one I participated in was an intentional push BUT:

1) It was for something I wanted (I believe an LRR scarf, but I may be mixing memories)
2) Only for an amount I was willing and able to pay.

It reminds me of the one episode of the simpsons where bart runs out on an auction, than the next highest bidder does the same, then the auctioneer finds out that there were NO serious bids on the lot. If you can just bail on your commitment your insulting everyone involved in the process, and basically wasting everyone's time. Leave it to the professional bank robbers (snowfire) and pure gold generating midas touch types (like I can only assume octopimp is) to bid high.

I have less problems with the normal cross chatter though, it is the internet.

/except panichat. panichat is pure internet fail, guys, and really freaking annoying. Really, was there ever a time that sound and/or picture were down for more than 45 seconds? patience is a virtue!

/this concludes my pet peeves, all else was awesome.

[OmegaZultan]

I very much consider desert bus to the big holiday before thanksgiving here in Canada. For three years I've been taking the week off to see as much desert bus as possible. I tried to catch the funniest moments and get to see all the best auctions because, damnit, as much as i enjoy seeing the drivers suffer the reactions from Graham and the rest of the crew to all these donations simply warms my heart.

I've been a hardcore fan of LRR for 3-4 (the latest video when i started watching was Daylight savings) and this website has been the best part of my Mondays by far.

Barring Christmas holidays, I'd have to say Desert Bus for Hope is the best part of my year by far. Thank you all so much for entertaining us like this every year.

[Evil Jim]

They should probably do 5k milestones. That way people have more time to make some and there will be more for each one. That and they'll be able to update the blog less often and still stay ahead of other things.

Having more time to make milestone images is a GOOD thing. There are far too many school buses haphazardly MSPainted together.

[Father Time]

Your moderators at the chat are too harsh, I posted something that was mistaken for a bid and it got me banned (I hope it was just for this year). Great event otherwise.

Since you guys got so many song requests you should make some desert bus style parodies before hand and make a song list out of it that viewers can hear you sing if they donate. So basically a live desert bus style jukebox.

[Evil Jim]

If it was during an auction & you weren't bidding you shouldn't have been posting.

[Father Time]

After 5 or so auctions that wasn't made clear, all they said was no fake bids, I don't recall them saying don't talk. Hell I remember 12+ people talking about a bid by octopimp during an auction and no one told them to stop.

[Evil Jim]

No worries. Now you know for next year. It would be handy to have a separate channel just for auctions tho'.

[epocalypse]

They should probably do 5k milestones. That way people have more time to make some and there will be more for each one. That and they'll be able to update the blog less often and still stay ahead of other things.

Having more time to make milestone images is a GOOD thing. There are far too many school buses haphazardly MSPainted together.

I know what you mean, since i was trying to produce good stuff for the get images, I'd usually aim at a get mark about two to three k higher than the nearest, and only go to an odd number if my timing was off on completion (often was) but, unsurprisingly, more time makes better work.

(also, minor art nit pick: so many school buses, but the desert bus is clearly a greyhound style commuter.)

[Tim]

If it was during an auction & you weren't bidding you shouldn't have been posting.

It's a tough thing to enforce, because we didn't really mind a bit of discussion during auctions, but the joke bids were confusing us somewhat.


Father Time, hopefully next year there'll be a complete "amnesty" before the event starts or something. I'd hate to see anyone have a holdover ban from this year. But that's a long way away yet. : )

[Genghis Ares]

This is why a seperate Auction only chat would good. You just give people a heads up to join the bidding room to bid an then have at it. It would still need to be moderated of course, but I would think it would be much easier to locate previous bids without the page jumping up from people yelling out random stuff like "OMG" and 'Oh Snap" and all the extraneous talking.

Maybe even have it so that every auction gets a new chat room and if you don't want to bid you don't join and if you get outbid and decide you're out, you can just leave that chat.