It's going to be a long post, so first - thank you for taking us seriously enough to provide a feedback that we can take time to respond thoroughly to.
We crafted this event in contrast to previous events. Players gave feedback that the invasion events were too kill-heavy, too hectic, and not enjoyable. So we made one that was more cooperative, where users could help each other to the top instead of griping at each other for loot-theft.
In no specific order, I'll try to address some of these points:
Having advance notice, people could put in some practice in anticipation of the event.
So, if people had a month they'd have time to prep. Instead the players had about 4 days. Hands up, anyone who used that time to get prepared? ...anyone? Bueler?
What with the PoM event and XPTP events eating up most of the interim time, I doubt any such effort would have been made if we'd announced earlier. That's actually why we didn't run it weeks ago. The day I had hoped to post it, BAM there's the PoM event, and we'd better not double up on that. Would have low to no turnout.
it might be a good idea to let people know at the beginning of the festival that this event was coming up & what day
Purely from a human-being viewpoint, consider that we have lives and our schedules are subject to change, especially during a family-dominated holiday. Announcing a month ahead of time is a really bad idea when compared to that. The forecast is much more accurate about a week out, and that's what we aim for in announcing our live server events.
Many people ran to Ystra Highlands.
I'm perplexed here. The event description in the forums is about the snowlands, and the image provided is also of the snowlands (box at the top). And, when hyping the event in worldchat, I talked about Snowlands. Not Ystra. It's not true that no attempt at communication was made, but clearly it didn't quite connect. We also put no effort into vagueness: start at the bottom, walk to the top, get loots. That was the brief. Yes, the snowlands has a strat throughout the zone, but it's not impossible and you certainly don't have to get it perfectly right to succeed.
Guys, if you have confusion about an event that is in progress,
Ask. A. Guildmate. Probably more than half of the whispers I got went unanswered - just not able to split attention that many different directions AND run an event. It's not because we try to ignore you!
I think starting in a place away from the spot where you teleport into the zone would cut down on a lot of the crashes and lag. Loading into that yesterday with 100+ people there was terrible.
You're not wrong. So what's the holdup? This doesn't even all have to be on the GM: the players themselves can spread out and away from the spawn point, and thus reduce the lag on each other. But they don't, even if we aren't in a zone that encourages people to huddle by the fire. I'll tell you why: alt armies. People log in as many toons as they can, hoping to get something for nothing, and then leave the computer for an hour or two. Two hours after the event started, about 1/3 of the toons that had logged into the snowlands were still right there at the spawn point.
Dear community - you're not 100% helpless. Remove pets, mounts, wings, hide shoulder armor, and for heaven's sake put the fireworks away. The less you render the less you struggle. Does it solve all your woes? No. Does it add up? yeah, especially for those who struggle hardest.
Also, if more than one GM is on, go to separate places away from each
I can't describe how much of an IF this is. As the playerbase shrinks, so does the team. There have been plenty of events run by just one GM, or else one main participant and one other trying to respond to worldchat. Also consider that not all GMs can do gifting. So that actually narrows it further: live events can only be run with at least one SGM+, preferably with backup.
1) Where players had to visit the GM's castle. Easy and could be gotten to anywhere there was a guild castle transport.
So that's Varanas and OS (and Dalanis).
2) The invasion where the players could go repel various NPCs depending on their level.
We did this last halloween. Not more than 6 people participated in the low level invasion. Unless you're thinking of some other example, if so please refresh my memory.
i prefer pom events or giveaways
Of course you do. Everyone does. Understand that PoM events are always set by the CoMas, and NOT YOUR GMS. Same true for trade NPC events, gift NPC events, XPTP events - really anything global is not under the control of a local GM team. Also, events like "stand around, do nothing, get freestuff" are not common since they don't get approved usually. Gameforge prefers us to tie reward strength to effort needed, and that preference is becoming overriding. This is true for board events and live events.
or puzzle quests like the black bar one
.... remind me which example you mean?
its not the area that is the problem, it is the mass of toons. Maybe set up staggered groups to do these events.
Running multiple simultaneous events that are more or less equal is hard for the same reasons listed above. We are few, and not all of us have the permissions needed. I don't expect gameforge to ever approve us to run the same event back to back as players sometimes demand to better fit their schedules. While we can't and don't require people leave their alts at home, GF would grump at the idea of double dipping that repeat performances would allow.
There's more to respond to, but that's a big enough post for one night.
Events »
In-Game Event Snowy Expedition
(Jan 3rd 2018, 1:40pm)
