Yavn Speaks 2/19!

[anya.sparrow]

Well, it appears that my conviction is shot.

Signing in now to do this quest...

Woot... and smap!

 

[hdmonkeybug]

Am I the only one upset by the spring card start? I am going in two weeks to WDW and this WILL be my only chance for a trip for at least 2 years. They said they were starting with winter - even made the 1st card the winter card, so why start in Spring with card 2? That makes no sense to me and I was so so hoping that it would start before I went.

 

[Goofy_Bob]

Am I the only one upset by the spring card start? I am going in two weeks to WDW and this WILL be my only chance for a trip for at least 2 years. They said they were starting with winter - even made the 1st card the winter card, so why start in Spring with card 2? That makes no sense to me and I was so so hoping that it would start before I went.

I'm with you monkey! I say start with card 1 (Winter) and let it run for how ever many couple weeks or a month or however short and then when Spring comes you can release that for a full 3 months and then each card that comes out after can get it's full 3mos worth. If they expect the set to be around next Winter for an initial release of Winter card, why not have it's first full three months just be it's second release. Why hold off?

I was really hoping to get the card when I go to DLR at the end of Feb.

 

[Melp]

Am I the only one upset by the spring card start? I am going in two weeks to WDW and this WILL be my only chance for a trip for at least 2 years. They said they were starting with winter - even made the 1st card the winter card, so why start in Spring with card 2? That makes no sense to me and I was so so hoping that it would start before I went.

I can understand this. I would recommend sending your opinion into the contact us link. He did say he was looking for opinions. I know I won't have the opportunity to get any of the cards My idea is that since they said they would start with winter, do that now and since winter is part over restart winter when winter starts again. Yes I know that this would make winter less rare, but it is still enough so. (and yes I will send this opinion in )

 

[Xpdtion-futureWDI]

I doubt there will be more than one Epcot room. He did say not to worry that the room would be available until March. I doubt they would tell us that and then have new rooms each week or whatever...

Wondering if you read the newsletter..

Here's how it works, each Monday for the next 4 weeks we'll launch a new Epcot Quest, complete the Quest and you'll win an Epcot Guest Room.

..

 

[Cabelle1863]

Well I know we're all hoping that by saying "an Epcot room" that Yavn was referring to more than one type of Epcot room. It would be really neat if there were more Epcot rooms as a surprise for us but I'm not going to count on it. I hope I'm wrong but using "an Epcot room" instead of "the Epcot room" might have been an incorrect choice of words by Yavn. We could be misinterpreting what he actually means. Again, I hope that I'm wrong and that there's more styles of Epcot rooms for us over the next Mondays but don't be surprised if it's the same room. At least though it's a great room and I'm sure some awesome furniture & decorations are in the works.

 

[Xpdtion-futureWDI]

I don't understand what you people are saying by it being the same room every monday?

 

[Cabelle1863]

Check the post on Yavn's HSM room here- http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1364938

Many people asked and Yavn said that it will be the same Epcot room for each Monday quest. So there's our answer. A bit disappointing but it's still a very cool room. And there's Epcot furniture planned for later too. Something fun to look forward to.

 

[Pirate-Emery]

Well, I sent off a great suggestion to Yavn and team via the Contact Us link:

Why not make ALL the cards available throughout the whole year, and guests can CHOOSE which of the four will be their reward when they return their completed quests.

 

[cteddiesgirl]

Am I the only one upset by the spring card start? I am going in two weeks to WDW and this WILL be my only chance for a trip for at least 2 years. They said they were starting with winter - even made the 1st card the winter card, so why start in Spring with card 2? That makes no sense to me and I was so so hoping that it would start before I went.

I can understand where you're coming from. But, he did say that the quest it's self may not be ready to launch until Spring. So none of them may be available when you go.

Personally, I don't really care what card they start with. I know I won't be able to go to a park for a very long time.
So no matter what, I have to trade for those items.

 

[Xpdtion-futureWDI]

Yes, I was in his HSM room when he said that.

So does he mean that we will be able to get 4 of the Epcot Entrance Rooms?

 

[Cabelle1863]

Yes, Yavn is saying that we can get 4 of the Epcot entrance rooms.

 

[DaraAllen]

from www.yavn.com:

Quest for the Quest

February 19th, 2007 by yavn

[FONT='Arial','sans-serif']It’s taken me a bit longer to writing this then I had planned.[/FONT] The last few weeks have been busy with lots of stuff and it’s finally getting back to normal. What kinds of stuff? Well the move was a biggie, but to tell you the truth the team has been really busy with quests, the VMK Central redesign, and the next updates. Notice I said updates as we are actually working on content for early spring and summer. This is typical as when we develop content for one build we are also doing the early conceptual design for the next. For me I’m also busy with a few other non VMK projects. As was the case when we originally built VMK, I was also designing and producing Buzz Lightyear Online. Unfortunately I can’t say anything about the other projects yet, but I will as soon as I can. Of course it’s VMK you want to hear about and I’m very excited about what’s on the horizon!! We have some big announcements on the way that should drop before summer, but enough of the cryptic talk, let’s talk about Quests![FONT='Arial','sans-serif'] [/FONT]
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[/FONT][FONT='Arial','sans-serif']Have you seen the VMK Animated Quest?[/FONT] This is my favorite quest we have done. To be fair it’s been a pet project of mine for the 12 months and I’ve been like a broken record to get it created. [FONT='Arial','sans-serif'] [/FONT]
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[/FONT][FONT='Arial','sans-serif']So let’s take a step back to the original quests the launched when VMK originally launched.[/FONT] Prior to launch we had many ideas about the in park component and not all were paper based. As we tested our design and did more conceptual work, the idea for a trivia / scavenger hunt was the most popular. The team then spent several months working on quests at both Disneyland & The Magic Kingdom. The quests would be themed to each land and take the guest all over the land in a scavenger hunt fashion. Completing the quests would earn the players prizes that would be redeemed in the game. [FONT='Arial','sans-serif'] [/FONT]
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[/FONT][FONT='Arial','sans-serif']We started working in Fantasyland at The Magic Kingdom and wrote around 100 questions of various difficulty.[/FONT] The two main rules were that the questions needed to be out and about in the land, not in an attraction (although we ended up not sticking to this 100%). The answers could also be found by exploring the land (we did not ask about old attractions or questions about things that were changed). The real issue was that most of our questions were much too difficult. It’s very easy to make difficult question that only you will know, and much more difficult to make them easy but not obvious (to give you an example of a really mean question, we asked for the number of green gems in the area between Snow White and Pooh…thankfully this was dismissed). Part of this was the fact that we know the park pretty well and spent hours looking for details that most people never notice, even after numerous visits. In the end we threw out most of the questions and came up with 12 we liked. Nine for the quest and three back up questions. We did this same exercise at both parks for Adventureland, Frontierland, Main Street, Tomorrowland and Liberty Square / New Orleans Square. Between the writing, testing and retesting this whole process took around seven months and our original plan to have five quests for day one was dropped to three quests. In the end Main Street was dropped and Tomorrowland became an online quest printed from home. We debated long and hard about what to do for Liberty Square & New Orleans Square. Our New Orleans Square quest was very solid and contained questions from both Haunted Mansion and Pirates as well as the extremely themed streets and window displays. On the other hand Liberty Square is all about Haunted Mansion and the questions we created were less varied. [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']
[/FONT][FONT='Arial','sans-serif']This brought us to our second type of quest, the attraction specific quest.[/FONT] Instead of having a question or two about an attraction, we built a quest that took place just in the mansion. This worked really well and we decided to use it for the Insider Tours (aka VIP Tours). For the time being we put the Disneyland Pirates questions on hold until the summer of 2006, when we then launched the Pirates quests at both parks. [FONT='Arial','sans-serif'] [/FONT]
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[/FONT][FONT='Arial','sans-serif']Now the only thing worse then a question that is too difficult is a question that’s impossible![/FONT] During the writing of the Disneyland quests, the park was being specially decorated for the 50th Anniversary. Many items and decorations that has been in the park for decades were suddenly removed and replaced with Hidden 50th Mickey’s or golden ride vehicles (anyone remember the giant carrots that “grew” outside the mad hatter in Fantasyland…in the middle of one of our tests there were removed and replaced with a golden tea cup!!). Yes the parks are always changing and this lesson hit home hard when one week before going live we noticed that the Monstro weather vane in Fantasyland was removed and replaced with a 50th logo!! We had already printed thousands of quests and suddenly had a question that was impossible! Fortunately the operations team at the park was understanding and moved the 50th logo and replaced the whale (it should be noted that the whale was lost for days and was found at the last minute! We were no so lucky with a wooden statue of a bear in Critter Country that rotted away and was removed after hours one day. He never came back and to this day the remaining Frontierland quest cards have a free question on them. Along the way we have made adjustments to the Quests, as the park has changed and tried to let guests know when a question is not answerable. But the truth is that there is no 100% guarantee that an attraction will always be open or that the park won’t change and that fact stayed in the back of my mind…[FONT='Arial','sans-serif'] [/FONT]
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[/FONT][FONT='Arial','sans-serif']I have always been a huge fan of Disney animated movies.[/FONT] I own them all on VHS, Laser Disc and DVD! My favorites are Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and The Adventures Of Mr.Toad. I also believed that many of our guests know and love them. Just take a look at how many kids in the parks are wearing clothing with a Disney movie character on them. Go up to any kid and ask them who Ariel is or the name of the blue space alien who surfs and they will know the answer. And of course there are no worries about the movies changing (yes I know Fantasia and Aladdin were both edited post theatrical release, but it’s pretty rare and the edits are minor). But this could also do something else, the quest did not require guests to walk around and look for answers, it could be done while waiting in line! This was a major shift from a quest being an attraction to a quest being entertainment while waiting for (or between) an attraction. And thus the third type of quest was born. I was also insistent that we try something else new, design the card to focus on the traditional animated characters and not VMK items. Our Art Director did a wonderful job of the layout and after going back and forth several times on the specific characters we were happy with the finished results. The real fun however was writing the questions. Since the goal was to create questions for families I wanted to included the most popular animated features such as The Little Mermaid, The Lion King and Sleeping Beauty. However I also wanted to add a little spice and so while the first few questions should be easy, the last three are more challenging! Of course none of this matters if the people playing aren’t having fun, and only time will tell.[FONT='Arial','sans-serif'] [/FONT]
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[/FONT][FONT='Arial','sans-serif']So what’s next?[/FONT] Well we are working on something else a little different, our fourth type of quest, but I can’t give any hints, you will have to wait ‘till it’s ready!![FONT='Arial','sans-serif'] [/FONT]
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[/FONT][FONT='Arial','sans-serif']Yavn [/FONT]

 

[VirtuallyUnknown]

Ive just read the newsletter again about the National Magic Day. I dont know about everyone's opinion but is this a clue for the release of Magic Carpet magic? I think Magic Carpet magic was first seen in February 2006, but I could be wrong, since Ive only been playing since the end of August 2006. Thanks for reading.