OFFICIAL NOTICE - October 29, 2006

Mayor Winfield delivered a message today from his office in PaxLair City.  He clarifies decisions made last week regarding how cities schedule their activities.  Here is the text of his message.

THE MAYOR: Last week I met with the Viceroys of our cities and my Minister of Activities to discuss how they can cooperate more effectively when scheduling their events. Some cities were scheduling events that overlapped in timing and type, creating some duplication of effort and a perceived loss of opportunities for all cities to schedule their events during prime time.  Prime time is basically 7-11 PM ET on the week nights.

The Plan

The leadership compromised with a new plan.  The first point of the plan was for each city to have a designated evening during prime time to announce and host events for wide-spread audiences.  This could encourage many people throughout the Realm to visit all the cities during the week, learn about a particular city, and experience a wide variety of open events.

Therefore, each city could easily offer PaxLair-wide and Shard-wide events on a particular day.  This would help eliminated a fear of conflicting with another city also planning events seeking the same wide-spread audience.  This was similarly done with auctions on the Shard, since they drew the same audience.

The plan was to have Mondays for Port Baldmor and Dragons Watch, Tuesdays for PaxLair-wide events for unity of all cities, Wednesdays for a focus on shard-wide events in many cities of Sosaria or any city of PaxLair, Thursdays for PaxOku, and Fridays for PaxLair City.  PaxLane generally holds activities on the weekends, but they are un-announced at this time.

The second point of the plan called for cities to focus on events consistent with the nature of their cities.  Each Viceroy is still defining or sensing the nature and role of their city during PaxLair's "Age of Cities".  Some cities are evil, others are good, and others are neutral.  Some sail the high seas.  Some perform auctions.  Some have defense forces for open combat.  Some have libraries to record the history.  Some have wide-spread services for all the cities such as the Post Office.

I announced the PaxLair "Age of Cities" on August 9, 2006, which has three over-arching goals. They are enhance [Roleplaying], involve our PaxLair Community throughout the Shard, and increase opportunities for leadership.  Each Viceroy then expanded upon these goals for their own city.  All cities stated a goal to increase the number of events.  The "Age of Cities" will conclude at PaxLair's 9th Anniversary on January 19, 2007 when a new age will be announced.

Concerns with the Plan

Well, the plan we made has caused some concerns.  We received a great deal of feedback from some citizens.

Some stated this plan restricts the cities from holding events at times best suited for their target audience; they need the flexibility to hold a city, alliance, or guild event on any day when their target audience is able to attend.

Others stated they believe they can not schedule events throughout the week for a very limited audience, such as their guild or an alliance; they feared they would be reprimanded for holding such a conflicting event. 

Also, with our wide range of citizens who have a variety of interests, everyone is not going to be interested in all types of events.  So we need events that are diverse enough that can even occur at the same time.

So I would like to clarify the plan so it is not seen as restrictive, but full of opportunities.  The plan can also provide a little structure to event timing so events can reach the best audience at the right time for the right event for all cities, alliances, and guilds.

Clarification of the Plan

Basically everyone can hold events any time they want or need to.  We simply want to follow a goal that allows us to increase inter-city cooperation, support, and attendance.  This plan is to be cooperative, not restrictive.

We will continue to designate prime-time evenings for each city as a GOAL, but not a steadfast rule.  Again, these are to help deconflict those events that reach out to similar audiences.  This gives each city the ability to try different types of events on those evenings and even have multiple events at the same time to show off their city.  Using this goal, the city can do its planning for any kind of event without stepping on another city's events by default.

Again, these evenings are only for 7-11 PM ET and they are:
- Monday: Port Baldmor and Dragons Watch
- Tuesday: PaxLair-wide
- Wednesday: Shard Community focused events (any city can use this day)
- Thursday: PaxOku
- Friday: PaxLair City

And PaxLane holds events that are not normally 7-11 PM ET since most of their citizens are only around during the day until 5 PM ET.

As for the second point in the plan regarding consistency of the events with the nature of the cities, that point is completely up to the Viceroy of each city.

Using the Plan

It is very true that some cities can currently create a lot of events and fill up the weekly schedule.  Therefore, if there are open time slots on a given evening, and another city wants to run a large event on that evening, all it takes is a quick conversation with that city's Chancellor of Activities or Viceroy to see if a similar event for the same audience is planned.

There will also be similar types of events conducted in different cities on different days and times.  This is perfectly alright and allows for people who can not make it to one night's event to go to another night's event.  Every city can have net tosses, chicken fights, combat battles, adventures, and quests.

Events that are for limited-audiences, such as guilds or alliances that must meet on a specific day and time, can be scheduled any time.  We just don't want to restrict guild and alliance members from attending other events open to them at the same time, or events they may be required to attend based on their position in our government.

We are encouraging many more daily events on any day too.  There are numbers of people around the Shard and our cities who are in the Realm during the day.

We are also encouraging many unpublicized events that are more random in nature.  These are generally spontaneous quests or adventures.  Random activities breaths life into our cities and brings people back regularly.

In our community-at-large, there are also many citizens of cities that help out another city with their events.  This shows great unity and team spirit and we thank you.

Conclusion

In closing, I'd just like to say we are blessed with a very large and diverse group of citizens across all our cities.  We have at least 50-70 people actively involved in many aspects of the PaxLair Community and interested in a variety of activities and events.  There will be some growing pains as our cities build and work together.  Our leadership works well together to try to help everyone in our community.

Thank you, and Dragonspeed to all.