What I'd like to see in events.

[aylwyne]

Like many others, I've been longing for the "saga" of Ryzom to progress. I've been hoping for more "content" like everyone else. For me, one of the biggest weaknesses in this regard is the lack of large-scale, epic events that progress the story and change the world we play in.

To date, there's only been a couple of major events that even come close (kitin invasion,zorai-fyros portal). There's been a ton of smaller GM and player events but I don't think those really satisfy what myself and many others have been craving.

Rather than just ask for "better" events, I've put together a list of criteria that I feel major events should meet:

1) Duration: When I say duration, I do not mean it lasts a whole hour. It needs to last several days. Also, I do not mean a sequence of short RP events spaced over several days that chain together. The event should be happening 24 hours a day for several days. Obviously, to accomplish this, you need NPCs involved that guide players in their tasks as a GM can't be there all the time and talk individually to everyone. As it is, people are always missing events and don't know what's going on because they're too short. In order to allow the community to really participate, you have to accomodate all time zones and schedules and the best way to do this is to have it be primarily NPC controlled and span a series of days (i.e. a weekend or something).

2) Inclusion of all skills and levels: Not everyone in the game is a L200+ fighter or mage. You need activities in the events for crafters and harvesters. You also need something for the L50 player that started a few weeks ago. Something other than showing up and watching everyone else do the tasks.

3) A chance of failure: This is absolutely critical if you want players to feel like they're influencing the world. If there's no chance of failure (i.e. the boss just stays there until killed), then there's no risk. No risk means a less meaninful reward and less satisfaction for taking place in the event.

4) A real impact on the game world, both positive and negative: We've seen an event that had a real impact for the positive on the game world (opening the portal from the desert to the jungle). There should always be an effect for successful completion of the event as well as for a failure in the event. For example, if we fail to kill the kitin boss in a given timeframe, the kitins gain a foothold on our territory and set up shop there.

5) Clear goals and deadlines This is critical to the success of point 4. If something bad is going to happen and you fail but you don't understand what it is you should have done, that will just cause frustration. For example, if you need to create 300 guard units in 3 days, that needs to be clearly defined. Also, there would need to be a way to check your progress.

I've submitted this in-game as well. I hope this list gives the people involved in designing events and progressing the story something to consider when planning out new events.

I certainly don't propose to do away with the GM and player events that have been occuring. I think the two are complimentary. The GM events add a lot of personal feel. However, I think they're insufficient to really progress the game for the community. I think the epic events need to be in place to act as a foundation for these other events to work around.


P.S. I'm going to follow this up with my thoughts on how the biggest event to date (the kitin invasion) succeeded or failed in meeting these criteria.

[helbreat]

1) Duration: When I say duration, I do not mean it lasts a whole hour. It needs to last several days. Also, I do not mean a sequence of short RP events spaced over several days that chain together. The event should be happening 24 hours a day for several days. Obviously, to accomplish this, you need NPCs involved that guide players in their tasks as a GM can't be there all the time and talk individually to everyone. As it is, people are always missing events and don't know what's going on because they're too short. In order to allow the community to really participate, you have to accomodate all time zones and schedules and the best way to do this is to have it be primarily NPC controlled and span a series of days (i.e. a weekend or something).

we had a week long invasion b4 with good weapons as rewards for helping fight for the planet against the invasion the invasion could have gone on forever as it was very with the storyline but since that event i dont think there has been one like it since =/

it had parts for all classes too harvesters crafters and melee/mages could all take part and gain tokens which were traded for weapons with stats you cant craft but they had very low hitpoints so they didnt stay around for long if you used them it went on 24/7 for a week all round dyron was just kittins with attitude wanting to kill everything in site

[vinnyq]

Yeah, sounds like you just want that long invasion event again, but maybe with new story line and better tweaking of rewards and instructions.

I totally agree!

I want something like that again (minus the horrid token grindfest), but um, let's just do it to Yrkannis.

[raynes]

What they need to do is at the start of every month have an event that pushes the story forward.

[helbreat]

Yeah, sounds like you just want that long invasion event again, but maybe with new story line and better tweaking of rewards and instructions.

I totally agree!

I want something like that again (minus the horrid token grindfest), but um, let's just do it to Yrkannis.

the token exchanging was a real bad grind lol most of the rewards were good but there wasnt any reward any good for mages they did have amps with stats you couldnt craft but that was because they were +20% to all bonus's =/

[aylwyne]

Ok, as I mentioned, here's my thoughts on how the big Kitin invasion event back in December(??) did against these criteria:

It definitely met point 1. It had duration. It lasted a whole week and people could come and go and almost everyone had a chance to participate if they wanted. There was a nice system of NPCs that were always available and could guide players through what they needed to do.

It did a pretty reasonable job of including all skills. There was kitin secretion you had to obtain through harvesting or quartering. That could be turned in to create generic mats. Those mats were then crated into armor and weapons. Those armor and weapons became guard units. The main flaw was that you could use your own mats for the crafting so the whole kitin secretion part of it really got skipped. That's too bad as it was a pretty cool system that really would have forced people to come together and work as a team.

Likewise, it tried to include all levels but failed to really do it. You could craft Q50, Q100, Q150, etc. items so it allowed lower level crafters/harvesters to participate but just get less reward. The problem is, those low level players had to deal with the same high level mobs. Like in Tryker, the event was in Bounty Beaches and all the kitins were L150+. It's unrealistic to expect a L50ish character to do much of anything in this environment. I think the solution would have been to have the kitin invading regions of different levels. If you were a level 200 crafter and went to the region that had Q50 kitin invaders, the NPC would say something like, "Your expert skill in weapons crafting would better serve the cause in Bounty Beaches. Please see the commander there for your assignment". This would cause people to need to work against the kitin of their level.

Unfortunately, the event failed on 3, 4, and 5. There was no chance of failure. The kitins would have stayed there indefinitely until we finally got together and killed the boss. In fact, I think the event lasted a LOT longer than was planned because we got burnt out and didn't get around to killing the boss right away. This is where point 4 and 5 come in. In this event, there was no risk of failure, no consequence, and no deadlines set so there was no real motivation to create guards and get out there and kill the boss.

What I think they should have done was have it so if we didn't create X number of guards in time and then go kill the boss, the kitin would have gained the advantage and been able to take over one of our towns (windermeer, for example). To allow for basic services to remain intact (mission NPCs, etc.) the NPCs in Windermeer could have sought refuge across liberty lake. It would cause inconvenience but wouldn't change the basic playability by causing missions to become unavailable or anything if the NPCs simply vanished. For the duration, that town would be an almost impenatrable fortress of kitin. We'd see the consequence of our inaction. We'd know that we caused it by not rallying. And, most importantly, we'd be 1000% super psyched when it came time for the next event which could be to fight back the kitin and reclaim the town.

[aylwyne]

Yeah, sounds like you just want that long invasion event again, but maybe with new story line and better tweaking of rewards and instructions.

It's not that I want an invasion every month (although even that would be a big step from where we are right now). I mainly use the big kitin invasion as an example a lot because it's the largest scale event, by far, that we've had.

But there could be all kinds of things they could base the events around:
-Fighting back the goo
-Building a new bridge across the canyon
-Opening portals (yes, they did this but it also missed on several of the points)
-Taking the offensive to the kitin, thus potentially opening a new "kitin" land.

[vinnyq]

Make sure you tell them not to do that token grindfest anymore. This isn't chuckeecheese!

[helbreat]

the only thing is without that grindfest the rewards would have been way too easy to get as it is it worked by putting people off going for the main item first so the weapons some of us grinded very hard for are prob worth more than a set of +7 parry aen armour

[systemv]

Good post Oshi. I joined the game based on a review of that weeklong event on mmorpg.com. I'm sad to have not been a part of anything like it as it sounded amazing.

UO way back in the day had this event where a bunch of pirates took over some town or something and the players had to amass a HUGE force to take it back. I don't know why more games don't do it, it's a bonding experience and a sence of accomplishment that can never be replaced.

Some of the GM events have really dissapointed me. I hope they get their act together. The last PvP one was a good sign but there's a lot of room for improvement.

Make branching story lines or ones that spiral back to a point. You can do it! It's the basics of good interactive story telling . I've only written p&p story archs so I don't presume to be as knowledgeable or experienced as a payed developer - but be honest, nothing in the last couple months have been noteworthy. And for the love of god get some noteworthy NPCs in there where we can glean lore information. Hell, have any NPCs in there worth talking to. Put them in hard to reach places... give us accomplishments other than the level grind! People still talk about that weeklong event across all kinds of other forums - recapture that.

I'm complaining more and more these days I know, and it sucks. I just want to love this game and see it reach it's full potential.

From a dev interview prior to retail release:

"Player action - or inaction - can result in dramatic shifts in control of outposts and regions. The Saga of Ryzom begins..."

I'm still waiting

Sorry for the rant in your post, Oshi.