The main thing I want to touch on here is the few expressions of 'who cares' that were posted in the post-PAX update. It gave me an idea so I thought I might as well share it.
I think the main reason some felt a little disenchanted with PAX is that a lot of us just straight up can't go, for obvious reasons. The fact that those who could go were able to participate in unique fun and games just added the the sighs from the rest of us.
The update mentioned that they are not entirely sure whether they are going to continue to develop Conquests of Elyria for future conventions. The idea I have is to convert Conquests of Elyria into a game that actually allows non-event goers to participate, rather than being the opposite.
It is a little hard for me to say what would need to be changed, having not played it myself, but from what I gather the game was based around event goers physically meeting at the convention and trading resources via the pairing of their smart phones.
What I would suggest as an alternative would be making the event goers all nobles, and having all non-event goers be their subjects. The subjects could gather resources in the app, craft weapons and then basically become pawns for whichever event-goer they had pledged to. The event-goer would then meet in person with other event-goers and use their troops to try to take out the enemy's troops.
The reasons I like this idea:
It involves literally anyone from the community who is interested.
It still gives a unique experience and interactive experience for event-goers.
It stops the game from being dominated by the 4 or 5 largest communities from the geographic area of the convention.
It encourages interaction and cooperation between community members from different timezones
It encourages healthy competition between members of the same community (event goers competing with their own allies).
I could go more into how I would personally design the mechanics of the non-event goer and event-goer apps, but in the interest of keeping this short I'll save that for if there are interest or questions.
