Energy to enter party lobby
Last night I entered a gate and joined a party in progress. It turns out that it was one player waiting in the party lobby. That person fell asleep soon after I entered and was peacefully emitting Z's for several minutes. It was my last 10 mist energy so I just decided to wait for them to timeout and hope I would be able to enter the level. I think it would be better if it didn't cost anything to enter the party lobby but instead cost 10 to go from the party lobby to the first level. Then I would have been able to pop out and then create my own party and try again.
In the end it was well worth the wait. She woke up, we explored the level, and I learned a lot about the workings of the game. You know who you are -- thank you. I had a great time.
I think one of the reasons why you prepay for the first level when entering the lobby, is to prevent players from simply going to hang out for free in a lobby to chat thus trapping anyone trying to play.
The problem you see with someone falling asleep would be the same no matter which level it was on, but of course less exciting on the lobby.
I suspect we'll have some change to how we handle sleepy party leaders. Perhaps we could pass the leader status to the next member when the leader falls asleep, so the new leader can choose to send that sleeper to bed so the party can continue.