This rant is going to sound like I didnt like the event. That is far form the truth, I enjoyed running about, killing bandits will my friends. There were a lot of laughs, and I thought the whole thing went rather well. The second time through especially.
vguerin wrote: What he said
DT has some good points here...and some not so good ones.
But first, the good ones
The Warlords were simply not good characters. Who are they, and why should we bother following them? How are they more powerful than the rest of us? What tactical knowledge do they have? In short, what value did they add to the team that a tour guide wouldn't have?
Their dialogue was just out of place most of the time. Certainly, Tryker are given to drink, but to suggest that a Tryker warlord can think of nothing else during a pitched battle is almost insulting. And the Tryker warlord was one of the better characters.
The messenger talks about shadowy threats, and then red level bandits appear in the bog...something of a disconnect there. Worst of all, they are not even aggressive. Not much of a threat, and we certainly were not given a reason to attack them until the warlords decided they were bored.
What was our incentive for fighting? Ostensibly to protect Matia from these 'dangerous' invaders (by they way, were did they come from...it is as if thousands more homin sprang from Atys over night); but really, how about something a bit more tangible for our efforts?
Then we have the unmatched powers. The amount of players with skills above 200 = the total amount of players on the server - 20. The vast majority of us have tested ourselves against the worst Atys has to show us time and time again. If we are called to arms, there had better be a challenge worthy of us. The first bandit raid was pretty sad. Some of the leaders were rank 3 purple, but the rest were in the red range. The second attempt was much, much better. Rank 5 purple mobs are what we fight everyday now, special events should either have insanely powerful beasts or hoards of normal ones. The hoards were a lot of fun.
There are some really great things about this event. I like the encrypted messages. I think they give us something to ponder. I would like even more for there to be an in game reward for the first person who comes up with the answer. But as it stands, I find it to be an interesting challenge.
Role-playing should tell a story. Role-players should be storytellers. There should be no difference between, as DT puts it, RP and Events. There should be a story hook, and build up and a dramatic finish. This event had those elements, but they did not mesh smoothly. New characters were introduced that had no background or apparent relevance (yes, I am looking at the warlords
what kind of warlord doesnt even fight?). I have to assume this story has not yet completed its arc, and as it goes on, I can only hope for more cognizance to the narrative. I understand that some things are supposed to be revealed over time. However, when everything is a mystery for long enough, eventually none of it is. We stop trying to make sense of any of it because we strongly suspect that none of it has any sense. We will regard the fact that a foul-mouthed messenger can kill a homin in a non-PvP area as just one of those things (sort of how our first reaction to anything strange is to assume it is a bug in the game).
Keep the events coming, please. I am offering honest criticism in a hope that future events will be even better. Make them grander in scope, more pressing in consequence and deeper in plot. Challenges, for most of us, are what make games worth playing.
