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Hey guys, I truly appreciate the feedback and comments. PaulO, if there ever was a concern you should have definitely mentioned it a bit ealier, please don't wait until the game becomes totally unenjoyable, the whole point is for us to have fun. I actually appologetically PM'ed you when Ekspery got caught so quickly in the Inn, so you know I am open to feedback and want to check in once in a while to make sure people are OK with what's going on.

I enjoy Ekspery quite a lot so I'd be sorry to see him go.

Now Vsteel & Mighty's comments are right on the money (and I can tell that Vsteel knows where this whole thing is going):
 
I tried to warn at the begining of the story that this scenario is VERY rough on the characters/players, because getting a whole sense of helplessness and desperation is part of the introduction to the brutal world of Athas. In 2e, "Freedom" was the 1st introductory scenario. If you read reviews of that scenario, I guess once we are done since I don't encourage it now due to spoilers, you will see that the frustration you express right now has been part of the negative feedback some people have had about it. 
At the end of this scenario, players/characters are supposed to despise slavery / Templars / Sorcerer Kings etc.
The scenario is split in 6 parts with a bunch of encounters in each. You are on part 2 with a few more encounters to play and the whole feeling of "no matter what you do, it does not matter" is 100% part of part 1 & 2 -you are prisonners and by definition have very little freedom of choice- and I understand it can be frustrating for some players.

Now, I may be rusty because I have not DM'ed in 10 years but in my defense I do think an additional layer of difficulty is added by the PbP format. I have DM'ed this in live sessions 10 years ago, and obviously when it's live you can see the body language and reaction of the players and you can adapt when you see boredom or frustration getting in the way... Here I honestly had no idea, so it's good that you point it out. 

Additionally, the game time vs real time comment that Mighty made is correct... You guys have been enslaved for a while and probably will be for another while but things should open up a little bit. In real time it does feel like an eternity I guess.

Now that I look back, it is true that Ekspery did not get a whole lot of luck throughout and I will admit I did not do a character by character analysis of how it looks from each player's perspective. I was actually more concerned about Klockwork/Iandak since he was new and walking right into this desperate situation... I did not see that PaulO/Ekspery could have a sucky start to the adventure (but I see why now, and to add insult to injury you are the one getting whipped and you intimidation would not stop the sun-striken dwarf, sorry!).

Now on some specific items

First the Inn:
Well, now, I guess you all obviously know that the whole point was to enslave everybody... it is the starting point of the adventure and it will tie-in nicely with the meta-plot of the city in the end.

Ekspery's Inn encounter was designed for 2 characters and we were missing Saranikta... Instead of leaving you alone I should have consolidated it with Tak-Tha and Zaffa but two things stopped me:
1- I wanted to give Ekspery a chance to try and contact the Veiled Alliance since you were pushing in that direction previously.
2- I had worked hard on that Inn map and really wanted to use it, but I was stupid to not just let it go... I had designed all the other rooms to let you escape and run through the owners' appartments.

What happened next is the combination of two bad elements:
1- Very bad rolls (or good rolls for the bad guys)... For full disclosure, I try to NOT 'fudge' the dice at all... The ONLY time I have done so since we started Sand Raiders was round 1 of the final fight underground with the silt runners where I one-shotted Gotho before he even did anything... THAT was not fun. Maybe I should have fudged some rolls to make it more fun.
2- I was worried about the consequences of you using arcane magic and then you end up getting caught... In Tyr, if you use arcane magic and then get captured by a Templar, you will get tortured (for names in the Veilled Alliance) and executed... not a great outcome.

If you guys have suggestions here on how I could have managed that aspect in the Inn, I am all ears... (not just rethorically I do mean it, gimme ideas!)

Healing the Half-Giant:
Well I don't know what to say... NPCs do not have surges, I thought you knew that... Probably another example of a situation that a live session would have avoided ("I use my healing power" "ok but he will only move and get no healing" "wait let me do something else then!")...
BUT you need to know that the shift you applied to him made a big difference because it then prevented me from using the nasty "double dealing" attack, so the use of the power did accomplish something very meaningful... At the time I thought this was why you did it and sacrificed the healing benefit just for the sake of shifting the Half Giant. If that was a big problem, again you could have told me and I would have let you change your action (but one more time, I did not think about that because I thought you had actually smartly played and this was all on purpose!)

Fighting the Elves:
Well I will disagree a bit here about lack of choices:
1- You did not have to jump inthe fight at all. Both individually or as a group. If everybody had stayed out of it, you would have witnessed Urrgos getting killed. (FYI, without giving too much spoiler, there will be other situations like that. You don't have to get involved if you don't want to, depending on what kind of "hero" you want to be).
2- For those who could not put their hand on decent weapons they could have spent more rounds looking for them.
3- You in-combat tactics DID matter. had you made bad tactic choices, there could have been party members dead.

The one part that is "no matter what we do..." is the fact that guards showed-up to break-up the fight.

Now... I would like your feedback on how you (everybody, not just PaulO) think the fight with the Elves should have ended. You are all captive, and a fight errupts... at some point guards will show up and break the fight, no?
Guards will be well armed and have enough "punch" to prevent a general riot. Did you guys want the fight to go all the way to the end? i.e. all Elves dead? I could have done that but it felt less realistic to me because the Templars, Guards, etc are DESPERATE to complete the Ziggurat on time and want to break-up fights not because the care about the people involved, but because they need the workforce.

I invite more feedback on my DM'ing and things you would have liked to see done differently, please post more

That's understood and that's good advice if I wanted to run this scenario in 4e again.

What's funny is that the parts you decribe you enjoyed the most in Sand Raiders are the ones I totally made up on the go. You can check DSCS, I made up the skill challenge, I made up the bottom cellar part. 
In fact for the bottom cellar I was also thinking of having a riddle/lock/skill challenge to open the cellar door... In parrallel, since the inixes had to be recovered quickly you may have decided to split teams and have the smart guys stay to do solve the riddle on skill challenge 1 while the tough guys would have chased the Inixes on skill challenge 2. For my education: would you have liked that better? (1) FYI, if you had decided to do things sequentially OR one of the two challenges failed, the downside was travelling at night instead of day time leading to a night encounter with night predators.

Finally the caravan part was also made up as a transition encouter between the two scenarii. My goal that was to scare you by having you cross another potentially dangerous caravan when you were already weakened after a tough fight... I thought the negotiations and roleplaying part would last longer and I did not feel that you guys enjoyed that part much, so I moved on. It is interesting to hear that someone liked it because I did not think so and I cut it short... I guess another function of PbP... I really can't read your emotions. Would you have enjoyed more if I kept the tension rising more, leading to more bargaining/bluffing... potentially full skill challenge? (2) (one downside is you could have been made prisonner on the spot and sold to Tyr).

For the rest of your comment... Well... Again I would probably do things a bit differently with your feedback on this first part of the scenario and I would railroad a touch less...

NOW ... to talk about the "future"... and I don't want to spoil anything... BUT everything you describe is coming up (it was planned from day 1), such as challenge(s) and maybe a guy or two on the outside (not guaranteed but it COULD happen, depending on choices YOU make, and it could be anyone).  It's just that the "tough part" had to get out of the way... and again you made some choices... Urrgos could have been left to die

Finally, I need you all to give me input here: Did you like the way I ran the skill challenge in the 1st scenario? (3) (please feedback on my picture format & presentation + the way I handled it)... What would you have liked to see different? I can't promise I will comply but I can definitely try to make it more to your liking.

Note: I would have presented my post differently now that I know what I typed, but feel free to post back and give input on question (1) (2) (3)... especially (3)... Itake negative comments as well as positive, so please don't be shy, I am a big boy.