Get Ready to Upgrade Your E.G.O.

I’m excited to talk about our upcoming release of Dispatch. The Dev Team have been terrific in working hard to deliver improvements and features that we all have been requesting. And they’re about ready to deliver. Some of these features make it so that I can better manage the program and respond to your needs directly. Others will benefit our Retailers, GMs, and players big-time. Let’s start with me because…I’m writing the blog. 

I Have Ze Powah! (Almost)

First of all, I am über-excited about finally having an administrative control panel that will allow me to monitor progress, analyze where we need to improve, correct errors or oversights, and make decisions that are informed by real and useful data. No more having to email or DMing Dave and the long-suffering Dev Team with questions and special requests. I’m sure that’s a big “Yay!” from all of us.  

On the Dashboard, I can get numbers for how things are playing out across the program, along with the ability to track progress over time and to analyze trends. In the Games tab, I can sort and search games that are currently online, as well as those that are expired, completed, and deleted for some reason. In Scenarios, I can edit the details of each scenario–the plots, assignments, schemes, and snackables–on Dispatch as necessary, right down to the icon picture. Need to change the Level required for a scenario? Bam! Does an adventure need to be marked as repeatable but isn’t? Done and dusted. Want to add something cute to the Dispatch image of a Halloween-themed game for the season? Here: have a pumpkin. 

And finally, at long last, when the update comes out l will be able to access user accounts. This is the feature I have been waiting for. Have a player whose Dispatch registration went awry? Just let me know and I can take care of that. Did the GM not get credit for running a game for some reason. I can right that wrong. Did a character not get credit for a Milestone? No worries, I’ll fix it.

Once I am fully familiar with using the new features. I plan to draw up a list of FAQs for common issues that people have with Dispatch and E.G.O. games that I can address, give answers about how to let me know, and post them in the E.G.O. pages on our website and in the GM materials. 

Location, Location, Location

For our retailers and players, Dispatch will have a super-cool location function. Venues that are part of the E.G.O. program and run E.G.O. games will be listed in a searchable finder. The venue’s address, url, phone number, and directions to the venue will be available. Also, each location will list the E.G.O. volunteers associated with that venue and their contact information. This means that players will now also be able to request games or report issues at the venue, reach the proper people, and we will be able to respond accordingly. 

Be Our Guest, Be Our Guest, Put Our E.G.O. to the Test…

And for our GMs, besides the other features here and mentioned earlier in other posts, we are adding the ability to register a player as a guest. Right now, if a non-registered player wants to join your E.G.O. game, there is a quick registration with an email that allows them to play, finish registration later, and get credit for the game. But what if you are running an E.G.O. game and have someone who wants to join but isn’t interested in joining E.G.O. (yet!). What do you do? Well, now you can register that player as a guest and get credit for your game and all the players at your table. And, you will get the standard 50 CEN Coin points for the player. We feel it is important for GMs to get credit for the work they put into what they do, and every additional player at the table adds a level of complexity to the GM’s responsibility.

However, there are advantages for both the GM and new player to register at the game. For the GM, there is a 25 GEN Coin bonus for registering a new first-time player (75 instead of 50). And for the player, quick-registering is easy and means that, should the player wish to join E.G.O. in the future, they will get credit for their game. As E.G.O. expands and continues to play a big part in Evil Genius convention games and our upcoming IPs worlds, if a player likes and wants to play more Everyday Heroes, getting on board now makes good sense. But if a player doesn’t want to join at the time, that’s fine, too. Our goals are to get more and more people playing E.G.O. and Everyday Heroes games, and for our hard-working GMs to receive all the credit they deserve for making that happen. 

More on the Horizon

Stay tuned for more good news about Dispatch updates, our revised Volunteer Reward structure (coming soon), and Sidekick. While technically not in my bailiwick, any one who’s read the updates on Sidekick (such as in the last blog, hint-hint), can easily see how an integration of these two tools could be a powerful way to make playing Everyday Heroes and E.G.O adventures super easy, super awesome, and super fun. 

Not part of E.G.O. yet? The world needs more Everyday Heroes.  Join us today! https://forms.gle/G8Vf3NJsVNFgEnSy8