[Event] Invasion of the Cutthroats

[lawrence]

From Nevrax:

On Saturday evening, herds of bandits known as the Cutthroats have swarmed Atys, trying to occupy positions on the different territories. They were successfully repelled by homin forces who gathered to start several massive counter-offensives.

For those of you who have missed the event, I've attached to this news a series of screenshots taken on Aniro during the invasion. And, as always, you'll find more details in the events news section (as desribed further below in the news article) and on the Saga forum.

[aylwyne]

As this is in the feedback forum, I'm going to assume the purpose is to gather community feedback...

First off, I was definitely pleased to see an event after a long dry spell. It gives me hope that the spring clean might really be at an end and we have more storyline content and new features on the horizon.

I do think there's some room for improvement in how immersive events can be and how well they include all homins.

Early in the day, there were cutthroats running all over Fairhaven. The first thing I thought was, "hmm, what are we supposed to do to drive them back?" Well, the first thing I did was run to some NPCs that I thought might be involved (Guard Chief, Corporal, City Welcomer) to see if they had anything to say. They were oblivious to what was happening in front of them. So then we searched around for a while to see if we could find a camp or anything but there was nothing. After talking to a GM who referred me to the post stating that the event was at 6PM (EST), I concluded that this was nothing more than window dressing and there wasn't anything we had to be doing.

I think this could have been improved in a couple of ways.

First, use the network of NPCs to communicate the event happenings to us. I've never felt the forums are the appropriate place for the RP details of an event. Bring that in-game. You already have someone writing up the story around an event, just turn that into NPC dialog. It always makes an event feel a bit detached from the world when all of the NPC characters in that world are oblivious to it. You could have one NPC communicate the bulk of the RP background as well as point the players along the correct path (perhaps the Guard Chief for this event). The other NPCs could say simple things like, "I've notices a lot of cutthroat spies in the area, you might want to talk to the Guard Chief to see what you can do to help".

I was told that there was some character (GM controlled, I think) that did pass on some of the info in game using shouts and stuff. Unfortunately, this misses the bulk of the players who aren't next to that person. By utilizing the NPCs, you make it so more people can get the information and feel like part of the event throughout the day.

Second, I think that more information about what was happening should have been conveyed (again, through the NPC network). During the long lead-in with the cutthroats running around, people were trying to determine what we were supposed to be doing. After a while of coming up empty, people started getting a little burnt out and we hadn't even got to the event. They started to question whether there was any point to the event. It would have been nice had there been something we could have accomplished during this time. If not, at least let us know that we're not supposed to be accomplishing a task by having an NPC tell us that these are just the advance scouts checking us out before the imminent attack to happen later.

This event, like pretty much every other event, failed to have any consequence or impact on the world after it was done. If there was some hidden consequence of failure that we avoided, it was certainly never communicated. I suspect that we could have taken our sweet time to eradicate the cutthroats and the only consequence would have been that they despawned at a later time.

What I'd really like to see is an event that changed the face of Atys in some way. I want to see us impacting the world around us. Start with a simple success/failure outcome and communicate that at the beginning of the event. Something like, "The cutthroat reinforcements are coming. If we don't wipe out their base before they get here tomorrow (atys time), we may lose the city."

Finally, I sincerely hope that there will be more of a range of skills and levels that contribute to future events. Not every event needs to cater to all skills and levels but it could be pretty easy to fall into the easy trap of having events all boil down to killing some high level mobs. I'll reserve judgement on this until I see if the next several events have more variety than just combatting high level mobs.

[ajsuk]

While I enjoyed myself I'd of liked to see a bit more depth in the event.

The raiders just apearing in a few different places and having us splat them while they stand there like dummys isn't exactly a challenge. Give them a bit more.. sense.. Have them plow in to us some more, call in reinforcements, maybe even run away. If they had some goals and some sort of storyline it would produced some strategy on both sides keeping it interesting rather than the repetitive search and destroy deal.

One idea that could help out with the content of the event is maybe making teleports or other numerous structures temporary spawn points which would widen the places which we could hold events. We could then say.. defend a town or outpost in future events.
Maybe not laghaven though.

[vinnyq]

tell em to wait till I get home before attacking next time!

smeck smeck smack!

[madnak]

At first, I thought this was purely a GM-run event, in which case it sounds good.

But an official event? And they still haven't given players any ability to affect anything? And it took that long? And it was all hack-n-slash? And it didn't even move the story forward?

I wasn't there, but since the main draw for me was the story and our interactions with it, this is very disturbing to me.

[aylwyne]

At first, I thought this was purely a GM-run event, in which case it sounds good.

But an official event? And they still haven't given players any ability to affect anything? And it took that long? And it was all hack-n-slash? And it didn't even move the story forward?

I wasn't there, but since the main draw for me was the story and our interactions with it, this is very disturbing to me.

I definitely agree that this event wasn't near the caliber that Ryzom events should be, specifically in the area of progressing the story. However, this was the last "spring clean" patch and it may be that they were just throwing us a bone to let us know that they're back to giving some attention to events.

That may be a pretty small straw but I'm grasping it nonetheless. The fact that they've stated that the focus is now on storyline type content and they've shown us something with this small event gives me hope.

[katriell]

And it didn't even move the story forward?

IMO it did move it forward a bit. It doesn't make sense that the cutthroats would only attack once and only in the Matis lands. A second attack on other lands seemed obligatory. Now that they've had their asses kicked by us twice, perhaps they'll intensify their tactics and any future attacks.

[ajsuk]

and maybe run away when they realise we're gunna kick their butts a third time.
Least then we can give chase and find their base camp so we can take them out once and for all. *nudge*

[sofiaoak]

I have played this game now for month. Still I haven't seen any event or been part of them. How come I miss them all?

I think news-npc could do the job, shouting that "Cutthroats are conquer our territories" or/and when You talk to news-people they will tell latest news. Maybe shouting is too spam like, but anyhow.

[katriell]

A news NPC wouldn't be any more effective than the serverwide messages currently used to announce events and report updates to their status. I think the fact that those messages are in white text contributes to their getting missed, though.

Perhaps there could be a newsletter players could opt into which would be used to announce events ahead of time?