Your overall experience with the Pirate Quest was...

[VMK_Mouse]

Originally Posted by smiley76
I must say that I am taking slight offense to the mentions of people's popularity, cliques, and have/have nots as a major factor in completing the quest. ... I managed to finish the quest by messaging the ppl on my list and seeing if they were interested in teaming up. The friends who joined brought their friends until we got enough people. We stuck together and we all made it through.

But for people who did not have the benefit of, for lack of a better word, membership in a clique, the ability to do this was hit and miss. I started with several groups in which ppl would bail out after winning, or say, "Oh, plz, stay one more time bc I have to leave for [whatever]" and then we'd help that person and be down to four or five. With your friends and assembled teams of strangers, you had to get lucky and find five people who would honor their promises. If you had a group, e.g., from DIS, people were accountable to each other.

I got through for no reason other than two friends from here and one other board helped get three of us through after they were already wearing the silver ears.

[I was also hampered by the fact that I was only able to play for a short period of time from a hotel room in Puerto Rico, but that's another story.]

For the most part, I do not think cliques have anything to do with this quest. I personally find both VMK and this board to be very cliquish, but in this quest, I saw a lot of ppl who generally are not in groups together helping one another. I believe aengus said the same in his post. I know the people in my team helped a lot of ppl that we really did not know after we got done. We were working up until the quest was shut off to get as many through as possible. Overall I agree about this cliques, but not with this quest. A lot of ppl really took the high road.

 

[Adventuredaz]

But for people who did not have the benefit of, for lack of a better word, membership in a clique, the ability to do this was hit and miss. I started with several groups in which ppl would bail out after winning, or say, "Oh, plz, stay one more time bc I have to leave for [whatever]" and then we'd help that person and be down to four or five. With your friends and assembled teams of strangers, you had to get lucky and find five people who would honor their promises. If you had a group, e.g., from DIS, people were accountable to each other.

I got through for no reason other than two friends from here and one other board helped get three of us through after they were already wearing the silver ears.

[I was also hampered by the fact that I was only able to play for a short period of time from a hotel room in Puerto Rico, but that's another story.]

As soon as we reached task 16 it was obvious this was going to have the pyramid scheam effect on many players and the people at the bottom would buy in and never get the pay out.

For this reason our group tried to not add partcipants untill we all passed. I believe we got 10 people through it totally and helped a few other random people as well received help rom a few random people. We had 3 phases to our plan, phase 3 was help other friends we found that had not finished, this phase did not reach implementation but we never abandoned the group.

If it's obvious to us it should have been obvious in designing the quest. There was no clear path to happyness in designing a dificult quest - that is for sure. I think a little longer time frame with a defined ending time would have helped.

Clearly better known people and the "hard core" players had an advantage of being able to get help and not be booted and in some cases as was seen bully other people sadly. I experienced a little more realistic treatment when attempting my daughter. but in the end my group helped me with hers we just did not complete it. As I read I see more and more friend of mine that sadly did not finish we just never were able to help.

How can anyone vote good?

Some people really enjoy a challange and are not bothered by all the other aspects. I myself was borderline - I enjoyed a lot of it but "Overall" the experience was unpleasant. The reasons which caused most of the unpleasantness for most were unavoidable to produce the results VMK wanted. It's a little like designing a great looking car with good gas mileage that stinks in performance, handling and durability.

 

[llama62]

How can anyone vote good?

 

[Narnian_Princess]

For the most part, I do not think cliques have anything to do with this quest. I personally find both VMK and this board to be very cliquish, but in this quest, I saw a lot of ppl who generally are not in groups together helping one another. I believe aengus said the same in his post. I know the people in my team helped a lot of ppl that we really did not know after we got done. We were working up until the quest was shut off to get as many through as possible. Overall I agree about this cliques, but not with this quest. A lot of ppl really took the high road.

I agree, cliques had nothing to do with my success. My BFF and I joined some random people we'd never seen before, and we stuck together, helping each other, random other people, and some of our members' small siblings and children through the quest. Not only at Pirates, but also at HM (and giving hints for JC).

I've seen people saying that the people who won the quest are the rich getting richer... not at all true, at least in my case. I consider my friends my greatest riches, and in that respect I did get richer. Sure I won the quest, but that doesn't matter to me except that I love Mickey ears of all sorts and wanted the silver ones badly. I made new friends, and helped pull them and old friends through the quest. I was part of something useful that made quite a few people very happy. That is what I will take away from this quest, and that is why I have to vote that my experience, overall, despite screaming people in the lobbies, virtually-impossible tasks, and lines, lag, and crashing, was positive.

 

[ihavewaycutecats]

I personally call me lucky on the aspect of managing to end the quest, I got a good group the third day and I am not someone popular far from behind, I think Ive lost friends over the week end but I finished the quest because someone ditched me and the person who helped me to form group on the second day (we both lost around 8 hours trying to help someone and some of his friends who never helped us back and came back to us when we were passed with the pirate task), we managed to end it on Monday, I am glad that 5 of the group of 6 managed to end the quest and I am sorry for cat. The things I liked about that quest were the teamworking, the fact to try to help people to get the quest completed, the way the quest was done (on the story point of view), to beat that quest [Pleasant aspect of it]. The lag and the crash and mostly the way VMK decided to close the quest made me mad. [Unpleasant aspect of it]
Overall still unpleasant because VMK is unfair and they always need to break the fun, a game is a game not something to be taken so like they do, awesome image of Disney (irony of course), just sad VMK ..

Our team was wonderful, spending endless hours trying to get us all through, that is what I call team work. Finally after who knows how long we were all able to make it through to the next task. It was such a relief to finally make it past those pirates.

Even though I did not complete the quest I have to say I have had a great experience meeting all of these awesome people. I am glad that the rest of my awesome team was able to complete the quest though. Thank you guys ever so much for at least trying to get me through the quest, it is the thought that counts.

Congrats to everyone who finished, you guys really deserve it!

 

[redshoe]

I agree with everyone else about the cliques. Only a few of the people I teamed up with were on my friends list before the fact. Even most of those, I knew only casually before this weekend. I now count all of them, along with my new friends list additions, as dear and wonderful friends. The majority of people that I teamed up with, I had never even spoken to before the quest. Clique? Not so much. Just people helping people.

There are several who have said that the quest itself was fantastic. I completely agree...the questions were creative, and the tasks were very challenging. I would deeply love to see more of the same in VMK events. One of the big tragedies in all of this is that VMK took a beautiful, ingenious, challenging quest that I'm sure someone spent days crafting with great care, and that could have been the absolute BEST thing VMK has ever done, and mishandled it to the point that I now consider it the all-time WORST thing they've ever done. Can you imagine how great this weekend would have been, and how much fun everyone could have had with it if there had only been enough instances for pirates to accommodate all of the players that VMK had to KNOW would be trying their hand at it? Or if only VMK had just taken in stride the fact that they underestimated how many players would make it through, and handled that fact with grace and creativity rather than shutting the quest down early and hiding behind some flimsy, implausible excuse about "cheaters?"

This could have been AMAZING, and I'm really sad not only for the players who got cheated out of finishing, but for how great this should have been and wasn't.

There is no voting choice for everything I'm feeling about this.

 

[Cardinal]

I got the prizes. But only after ditching work today so I could finish.

Overall, I would say unpleasant.

I realize that not everyone that completed the Quest thought it was pleasant.
What I meant was that everyone who voted "Pleasant" completed the quest.
Not everyone who completed the quest voted "Pleasant."

 

[Dashzap]

oops forgot to do the quest. my bad.

 

[hdmonkeybug]

My overall experience was unpleasant.

The quest itself was exciting and challenging. I actually really enjoyed the questions and tasks, but the pirate score was just outrageous for any average player. I did complete the quest, but only with the continuous help of some awesome friends. I started the quest early on Friday morning and did not finish until a few hours before it ended. I got myself so worked up I almost quit and would have if not for a great friend. This is the only time vmk has ever made my cry and just because of the emotional aspect of it, I had to vote unpleasant. My group of friends tried continously to get me through along with others. Unfortunately, we just ran out of time. I wish I could have helped more ppl, but it took days for me to complete it myself. I was not able to complete it for my kids or were they capable of doing it themselves.

 

[Jackoman]

Well, I voted unpleasant, but I quit early because I got bored. lol

 

[TikiDude]

I hated it.

 

[SorcererDonald16]

The only pleasant part of this quest for me was spending time with friends I haven't seen in ages and meeting new friends. Otherwise, this quest made me a nervous wreck with increased back pain and tension headaches. Needless to say, I voted unpleasant.

I'd disagree respectfully though that you had to have membership in a clique to win. I'm not popular nor do I have a clique. My "end game" team that I played with from Saturday evening until Sunday evening was predominately formed by fairy's family (her, jazz, car, and forever), with forever switching out after a while; others changed, but we played with shine and zsmile, Suzee, jennasn, cats (or maybe that was just me playing with cats, I forget ), Rich, KrazyLuke (I think, or was that one of my earlier teams? it all runs together now, folks), others I'm sure I'm forgetting, and strangers who were total sweethearts and awesome players too. I played earlier in the day with great people like Dude, Emmios, and more. Some players I knew well and consider dear friends, some I know a little less and like very much, and some I don't know well or don't know at all but would love to hang out with more. In some ways I agree in that there are cliques in VMK and they stick together, but mostly I saw many people working with folks they don't even normally socialize with. I think that's a good thing.

 

[anya.sparrow]

The only pleasant part of this quest for me was spending time with friends I haven't seen in ages and meeting new friends. Otherwise, this quest made me a nervous wreck with increased back pain and tension headaches. Needless to say, I voted unpleasant.

I'd disagree respectfully though that you had to have membership in a clique to win. I'm not popular nor do I have a clique. My "end game" team that I played with from Saturday evening until Sunday evening was predominately formed by fairy's family (her, jazz, car, and forever), with forever switching out after a while; others changed, but we played with shine and zsmile, Suzee, jennasn, cats (or maybe that was just me playing with cats, I forget ), Rich, KrazyLuke (I think, or was that one of my earlier teams? it all runs together now, folks), others I'm sure I'm forgetting, and strangers who were total sweethearts and awesome players too. I played earlier in the day with great people like Dude, Emmios, and more. Some players I knew well and consider dear friends, some I know a little less and like very much, and some I don't know well or don't know at all but would love to hang out with more. In some ways I agree in that there are cliques in VMK and they stick together, but mostly I saw many people working with folks they don't even normally socialize with. I think that's a good thing.

I saw you display this over the weekend, and I have never even met you in game.

 

[BayKid]

I started the quest but as soon as i discovered the points needed in pirates, and the fact that i was going to have to cheat and manipulate the system in order to complete the pirates task (i refuse to call it "teamwork" when you throw games for the sake of winning), i chose to end the "quest"....a lot of ppl are upset about the lobbies being crowded, the bad sportsmanship in POTC, the fact the quest ended abruptly, etc....i think the big picture is being missed!

VMK essentially required players to play POTC in a manner that required manipulation of the game in order to win, and this is a form of cheating in my opinion...and cheating on a grand scale since you had to bring others into the "challenge"....hey staff, when you invented the POTC game was it really designed to have ppl sit there and purposely get sunk by a buddy over and over so that they could win? i think not...yet this is what they wanted players to do...i especially like how the POTC part of the quest had the ordinary player, who was not part of a "team", wait to get into the pirate lobby only to get booted game after game because they were not part of the particular team cheating - i mean playing- for the quest. nice, way to encourage ppl to have fun and treat each other right.

did anyone really think that vmk's target audience (kids last time i checked) would not only figure out this POTC "challenge", much less actually complete it? i know i know, the game is designed for 8-14 yr olds but all are welcome to join in the fun...well if that's the case shouldn't ALL ages have an equal opportunity to win the quest? seems to me the game was designed knowing it would exclude kids....

so anyway, i played other stuff this weekend like fireworks since most everyone i knew was consumed with this need to do the quest. nothing like seeing ppl u know acting like rabid zombies all weekend while they quested away...congrats vmk

 

[Jeffcat]

I'm going to say that while the quest was an unpleasant experience, the after effects of completing the quest were pleasant, and not for the items themselves (I'll explain later).
The quest honestly was too difficult. I know VMK was attempting to give us a challenge and a chance to win some pretty cool items. The problem was providing barriers that normal players could never hope to pass. Dealing with the lag and crashing, having so few pirate lobbies, hoping that all of your team got through the game loading screen, people yelling and screaming that they needed help - it was stressful.
I was lucky enough to be one of the first to complete the quest, and I thought my work was over and I could relax. But, I had to help all my friends (I know the connotation is weird, what I mean to say was I had a desire to help my friends, not that I felt an unecessary obligation). It was stressful, it was time consuming, and brought many of my friends to tears or outright anger. I saw a dark side to people I hope never to see again.
I will say that I did run through the quest three times. However, this was after a Dollop and I provided help for many pirate teams (both with information and playing through 4 different teams), aided in the mansion, provided jungle cruise information to those who needed it.
But why I say the quest was most pleasant was how I was able to brighten up a person's day. I gifted a pair of silver ears to a person who was helping teams all weekend, but said she wouldn't be able to pass mansion and jungle cruise. Then, I heard a story about how a young relative of another Diser didn't get through the quest. I was fortunate enough to be able to give this child a set of the quest items. Being able to brighten a person's day was truly rewarding and why I say that the endgame of the quest was pleasant.

In Review: Terrible Quest, Too Much Stress, Great Prizes, Even Better To Spread Magic to Others

Have a Magical Day

 

[PirateBell]

Well I would have to say that the quest was pretty cool! I have never seen so many people helping people...some disers and some weren't...all more than willing to help others! Now to me that the was the best thing about this hole quest! Like..the people who helped me pass it...I had a really good friend
HAppy_Guest who got a team to help me with Pirates! This team was lead by a super nice lady whom I have never met before...her name is Ladybodicea
she was just fantastic..she explained to me how to do it.. but me who dosen't play pirates (really stink at i) repeated it again to my husband who stepped in and helped me...!! They rest of the team ( CoasterzRock, CinderPrincess, MummyKat and Happy_Guest) if it wasn't for all of them helping me..I wold never had made it thru... as my son Goofy_Bob was trying to get a team together to help me and my DH... So I really am so grateful to the team who helped me... There was PloarFish and Villabug who helped me in playig Ghost and then my son who was also trying to help others too was finally able to get back to me and help with the last part of the qest!! So THANK YOU all so much for all your help! My DH was so close to mkaing it thru but thats when VMK stopped the quest! To me that was the worst thing they did..as so many paople have said they took a wonderful thing and made it aweful! As for the quest..I though it was ok..I did like going and finding the items and it was cool...but again to me... what i thought was the best thing about this quest was the amount of people who would take their ime to help friends and strangers...out of pure kindness..spending long hard hours to help othes!!

 

[Iris]

being bullied by a VMK_ to join a Pirates game or be booted, and

Thank you, I totally AGREE on this!!! Imagine my shock on Saturday night when we finally get our team in the lobby only to have a certain VMK staffer stand there and tell all of us to either join a game or get booted. We had one person in line who was next in and we were just waiting for them. There was another team who was waiting so it was almost impossible.

Then to have them threaten us with a boot, unbelievable. I did witness a game that was up and waiting for a team member being canceled as well.

This totally shocked me.

Overall the experience was frustrating and at the same time, dare I say...fun. I liked hanging out in our "team waiting room" just chatting the time away until we got in. We did not wait in pirate lobbies, we had a group room and this worked well. We all got in the same line for the same lobby at the same time so when we did enter, it was normally 1,2,3 etc. in. This worked well for us.


But being bullied by a staff member was just too much..................

 

[MarshmellowSmoothie]

It was way too hard to complete! I logged into VMK this weekend to see this quest and COULD NOT complete it! What were they thinking?

 

[Howze]

It just goes to show that if yavn is no longer at the helm, then whoever is, is still using the broken compass that he sailed the ship with.

can anyone name anywhere else in the entire Disney Corperation where they blame their shortcomings and downfalls on the guests and customers?

When a ride goes down in the parks do the operators get on the PA system and tell the chubbies to get off cause they broke it?

If you cannot tell by now this "blaming the players" for their incompetence (ie closing the quest early) is really bothering me, mostly because it has gone unchecked by the suits for far too long.

 

[Rygo]

I need to vote both pleasant and unpleasant...
I did not like the attitude that developed from a lot of players, making it a very unpleasant experience. I thought that being a kids game, they should have made the tasks slightly more obtainable for the the kids. There is no way my boyfriends daughters would have made it through without us playing for them in all the mini-games. Even as an adult, I was ready to throw my computer out the window a few times
Overall, it was a good quest, and I made lots of new friends, and saw lots of team work and people helping get friends and non-friends alike through it all. It felt great to see that screen pop up (finally!!) at the end. Knowing I fought the good battle and was victorious, made all the blood, sweat and tears worth every minute of it. Then the icing on the cake? Helping as many other players as my team and I could get through it as well...that, like my treasure magic, is priceless.

To everybody who worked their tails off to finish, congrats! You deserve it.
To everybody who could not finish it when then closed early, I am sorry, and I give you my heart for sticking to it and never giving up