Unofficial Desert Bus Challenges Conversation Thread OF DOOM

[Lord Hosk]

The only problem I see is this is the internets and people on the internets are dicks. If DB was only populated by DB fans I doubt it would happen but since DB is the largest marathon for the largest gamer charity it gets all sorts, which is good, but also problematic.

If there is no limit on the number of requests a person could put in I forsee people spamming to get their thing done.

I dont know the full details of the linking to the donorbase but would it be possible to put a cap? like you can only submit 5 challenges. You said it would be periodically purged so it wouldn't really be something that would stop people from submitting a new funny idea they came up with just stop "TeenGirl15XXX" from submitting 500 requests for "Kate, Kathleen and Tally to Caramelldansen for 10 minutes facing away from the camera" Or other such nonsense.

[AdmiralMemo]

The only problem I see is this is the internets and people on the internets are dicks. If DB was only populated by DB fans I doubt it would happen but since DB is the largest marathon for the largest gamer charity it gets all sorts, which is good, but also problematic.

If there is no limit on the number of requests a person could put in I forsee people spamming to get their thing done.

I dont know the full details of the linking to the donorbase but would it be possible to put a cap? like you can only submit 5 challenges. You said it would be periodically purged so it wouldn't really be something that would stop people from submitting a new funny idea they came up with just stop "TeenGirl15XXX" from submitting 500 requests for "Kate, Kathleen and Tally to Caramelldansen for 10 minutes facing away from the camera" Or other such nonsense.

Don't you have to have a donor account to make a challenge still? If so, if a person spams, they can get the BanHammer, which would (I assume) remove all their challenges from the list.

[Lancer]

The only problem I see is this is the internets and people on the internets are dicks. If DB was only populated by DB fans I doubt it would happen but since DB is the largest marathon for the largest gamer charity it gets all sorts, which is good, but also problematic.

If there is no limit on the number of requests a person could put in I forsee people spamming to get their thing done.

I dont know the full details of the linking to the donorbase but would it be possible to put a cap? like you can only submit 5 challenges. You said it would be periodically purged so it wouldn't really be something that would stop people from submitting a new funny idea they came up with just stop "TeenGirl15XXX" from submitting 500 requests for "Kate, Kathleen and Tally to Caramelldansen for 10 minutes facing away from the camera" Or other such nonsense.

I'd assume that each donor account can only submit so many challenges at a time.
Of course that does still leave the problem of the ability to mass-produce donor accounts, so trolls still have a way of getting through, but really it would be no more bothersome than someone putting up a challenge and not ever paying for it.

[LadySephiroth]

In response to the end of the video ... why was the start time changed to 9 PM PST? For us east coast bussers, that makes it start at midnight I will nap if I have to but ... i won't be able to watch as much of feed as I want to ... I hate to miss cool stuff, and I want to see as much of the zanyness as I can ...for the CHILDREN!

[Tally]

In response to the end of the video ... why was the start time changed to 9 PM PST? For us east coast bussers, that makes it start at midnight I will nap if I have to but ... i won't be able to watch as much of feed as I want to ... I hate to miss cool stuff, and I want to see as much of the zanyness as I can ...for the CHILDREN!

We're sorry about the start time being not as good for you and your neighbours out on the east coast - we realized that would be an unfortunate side affect of this start time change. However, hopefully it won't mean that you get to see any less of the feed overall, maybe just a bit less at the start. And it might let some of our viewers in places like Europe see more of the start than they've ever been able to before.

There were a few different considerations behind the time change, but one of the big ones concerned our end time. When the end of Desert Bus will happen is always guesswork, but we made some educated guesses based on previous years. We're hoping that pushing back the start time will actually mean that many more people are able to be around to watch the very end of the run. We'll see how it goes obviously, but we wanted to give this a try.

As I say, there were some other considerations, some of them tied to things you don't know about just yet, but that was one of the big ones.

[Lorithad]

It would be nice if there was a separate queue with a minimum donation requirement ($50 or something, pushed upward if necessary to keep it manageable), so if there's something we REALLY want done and are willing to pay for it, it's easier to get it noticed. Is there already some way to indicate that you wish for a challenge to be crowdfunded?

This.

I've tried to get a specific challenge done every year, and I don't mind paying for it. But if there are tons of challenges all the time, the plan was always to just bump up the donation so it gets noticed and preformed faster.

Witht the planned system, that no longer is possible. The children will be sad.

[Graham]

The children will be sad.

No, they won't.

You may be, and I'm sorry about that, but we're doing this to raise more money.

You all need to give this system a chance before you start knocking it.

[Lord Hosk]

You all need to give this system a chance before you start knocking it.

I think the problem is that we love Desert bus on this side of the screen, and you love desert bus on your side of the screen but those are very different perspectives. We understand that you guys have a lot of administration and we have seen the headaches that go along with challenges. I just think people are worried that they will loose out on the direct interaction which is what many people see desert bus as. DB1 was nothing but direct interaction, from what I have seen you guys were all kinda live members of the chat room. LRR and Desert bus have both grown the individual attention has dropped off which had to happen when it shifted from 100 people watching to what 10,000?

People are innately afraid of change and more so with something we dont understand. We cant evaluate how the system will work and are trying to express our concerns so that both the interaction stays strong and the money flows. Because He who controls the Bus, controls the universe! the bus must flow!

[Yaxley]

Each year's "What to Expect from This Year's Desert Bus" thread seem to share a common, "We are afraid of change!" theme, don't they?

What we need is someone to watch the stream of DB6 while simultaneously re-watching DB5. Then, they mark it down each time something is different. And then they donate a dollar for each difference. See? Change is good!

[Graham]

I know you guys typically fear all change but do give us the benefit of the doubt here.

Hosk, the idea here is not that we're focussing on making the admin better, our focus is solely on making these better for you, the viewer.

The complaints we received about challenges last year were all based on how they were administered, which is why we're fixing it. By making our backend better, our frontend (what you see) will be better too.


And it's not like this was an easy decision.
"Don't we need to make sure we charge for them?" was a big one.
But the more we discussed it, the more it made sense.

[Graham]

We're also reducing the number of call-ins this year. Last year's call-ins were awesome, but too frequent and could really slow the energy of the run.

[Lord Hosk]

Also, for algebra I had to write a word problem to solve with a linear equation.

The table below is the amount raised for the children by driving a bus from Tucson to Las Vegas in 5 consecutive years.

1. 22,805
2. 70,423
3. 140,449
4. 208,250
5. 383,125

Write a equation in standard form and find what will be raised in Year 7.

BTW, you raised too much money last year, you should have only raised $329708, DB5 is a aberrational data point, screws up the math

[Drdiggit42]

... Because He who controls the Bus, controls the universe! the bus must flow!

This reminded me of a thread about DB subtitles for DB5. Do we have a subtitle for DB6?

Some ideas if not:
Desert Bus VI: Return of the Bus
Desert Bus 6: The Bus Must Flow(or Drive)
Desert Bus 6: This Bus Gets Surprisingly Good Gas Mileage

[Graham]

Desert Bus VI: Desert Bus III in America

[Geoff_B]

Desert Bus VI: Twice as good as Desert Bus III

I'm looking forward to it

[TheRocket]

IT'S BRILLIANT.



....if people donate out of the goodness of their hearts rather than the twisted gnarled hearts of torture.

[Graham]

We figure, even IF the person who submitted the challenge is a dick and backs out, SOMEONE else will pitch in.

[Lord Hosk]

will there be a "for $X" section or just "Insert Challenge here"

[Pikachaos]

Whatever happens, it wont be too bad. I mean, last year we had chaos with overcrowding and times where Bid bot completely DIED, and I still consider last year to be the most entertaining and amazing thing ever.

It only gets better every year, so even if this new system has kinks [which I'm sure even if it does will still be a better system], I'm sure it will be amazing. :3

[TheRocket]

^ That is how I feel. I have been the sole and or head organizer for large charity events before, and every year is learning experience and making sure you top last year in efficiency and fun. I have no doubt in my mind about this year being just that.

[AdmiralMemo]

I still feel that you missed an opportunity with Desert Bus 6: The Undiscovered Country.

Also, with less than a month left, I'm still kind of annoyed that there are only still DB5 announcement posters: http://desertbus.org/faq/

I want to spread the word in the physical world!

[Tally]

Also, with less than a month left, I'm still kind of annoyed that there are only still DB5 announcement posters: http://desertbus.org/faq/

I want to spread the word in the physical world!

We're working on it! We plan to have whole bunch of promotional DB6 stuff available by the end of next week for people to grab, download, print and display/plaster wherever they can.

[Kapol]

It would be nice if there was a separate queue with a minimum donation requirement ($50 or something, pushed upward if necessary to keep it manageable), so if there's something we REALLY want done and are willing to pay for it, it's easier to get it noticed. Is there already some way to indicate that you wish for a challenge to be crowdfunded?

I'm kind of torn on that because it does kind of cut out for people who can't afford much. But, at the same time, it does raise more money for the children. That's the important part in this anyways. So I could live with that. The only problem I can see is someone abusing it by requesting it and then not paying. That would be fixed by making them pay first, but that leads back to the original problem of having to check it to see if they've paid or not.

As for DB challenges, I'm interested to see what happens. I'll try to make a challenge or two, but there do seem to be a lot of interesting ideas put forward. I won't mind Gungnam Style a few times. But... it will likely get old. Especially given it's already a pretty big thing by itself. We'll see though. The system that they came up with is very interesting though in my opinion.

EDIT: Slowpoke post. Didn't realize I'd missed almost a full page. Oh well.

[Slack Mesa]

We're also reducing the number of call-ins this year. Last year's call-ins were awesome, but too frequent and could really slow the energy of the run.

Slow the energy of the run? Aha! I wondered how you would top last year's Desert Bus, but now I know the answer.

Old and busted: driving a slow bus through the desert.
The new hotness: driving a turbo rocket bus through the desert.

You heard it here first, folks: LRR are overclocking the Sega CD to make the game run at 10x normal speed. And if the bus goes under 500 Km/hr, everyone in the moon base has to drink a club soda.

[Slack Mesa]

We're hoping that pushing back the start time will actually mean that many more people are able to be around to watch the very end of the run.

That sounds like a good idea. The end of DB tends to be really energetic: all the LRR cast and friends and family are there, everybody is excited about what the community has achieved for Child's Play, and the chat is going wild. A scheduling change that allows more fans to be part of that experience is a net win.