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Live events, where did they all go?
Xenduli
Member Posts: 654
I suppose before I open this debate I'm going to define a live event.
What it is.
- Games masters controlling NPC(s)
- An opening of a portal/door/race/demension across server(s)
- The destruction or creation of something very significant to rhe world in real time
What it is not.
- Xmas/Halloween/Valentines Day/Thanksgiving/April Fools Day 'events'
- AI moving something
- Anything that requires server downtime to implement
I've been lucky enough to be part of a game world when an actual living GM controlled an NPC to attack pretty much everyone on the server. The lag was inversely proportional to the amount of fun I and others were having, it was off the scale.
So why have live events become extinct? The opening of AQ gates or the Dark Portal I suppose could be classed live events, moreso the former than the latter. Anything which a living person who works behind the magic controls in real time, i.e. 'flipping a switch somewhere' I class an event.
I personally find events that parallel the real world i.e. Xmas / April fools etc to be incredibly lame, to the point where I think why bother. It feels cheap and tacky, almost like the RL event itself.
The events in WoW called elemental invasions are pretty well implemented even though I know it's just AI.
So what has happened to these live events, I just don't here about them any more. There's a shedload of world's out there, but they feel impersonal and non-living to me now. Especially without these live events. Either the AI of NPC's needs to become much much smarter or there needs to be more random events in these worlds. How about something that could happen IRL like being struck by lightning or finding a unique treasure map, something, anything! At the moment most of them feel dead.
No annoying animated GIF here!
Comments
I once played a game where they had live events but the game was a total piece of crap. Except for its live events. The big bad guy was controlled by a human. That game died. But Guild Wars 2 might have something similar. Except for the evil NPCs controlled by a human.
Sword of the New World has some live GM events (daily infact). It is fun, but it can get REALLY laggy. Every couple months they have like a big story event and half the server shows up and it gets real crazy real quick.
I think the reason why so many companies don't do them is because:
1. It is hard to schedule. In Sword the events happen at certain times maybe multiple times a week, but at the end of the day if you cannot make it, you just miss the event. That sucks
2. Lag. In general I don't get a lot of lag in Sword, but the GM Events (at least the big monthly ones) get REALLY laggy. There is very little that they can do to stop it other than say that only so many people can come and then... whats the point?
3. Variation. There are only so many types of events that can be run and they get boring really quickly. So this is one place where less is more.
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Bartle Test Breakdown: Achiever 20.00%, Explorer 86.67%, Killer 26.67%, Socializer 66.67%
They went with the mainstream...
Futilez - Mature MMORPG Community
Correcting people since birth.
Flyff had a Halloween event where the GM showed up on one of the servers.
The idea was the GM would spawn some mobs and the players would get special items with the mobs killed.
There were problems with the event.
1) There were not enough mobs to go around for everybody.
2) Lag. Almost half the population showed up for the event. Playing the game turned into a slide show.
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/RZetlin
MUDs and stuff still have events.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
What I miss are events like we had in the beginning of Anarchy Online. Before "towers", before Alien Invasion; I'm talking about right after release. Sure, it was buggy back then, but at least the game felt alive. I remember every few weeks or so the GMs would hold events, and I don't mean "oh noes GM spawns monsters in town with no real purpose except to be random" events. Back then, the events actually advanced the story, which was what made AO great. Once they stopped that, there was nothing left.
Really, it kind of makes me sick every time I hear "ever-evolving world" or "fully interactive story" in the list of features in a game these days. The world does not change based on what you do. The story does not change based on what you do. If it did, then every server would be a completely different place, because the players would have made different choices. All the game mechanics in the world can't do anything toward making the world feel alive and immersive. Maybe it costs more to hire story developers, but maybe that's a necessary cost. I don't see why graphics and game mechanics are more important, cost-wise, because I'd play a game with the graphics of vanilla EQ1 if it had an actual interactive storyline with relevant and frequent events.
I think that's why sandbox games, if set up well can create their own politics and events. EVE Online is steeped with politics and has its own 'history'. Although they have done something unique with that game in making all players play on the same 'server' [farm].
No annoying animated GIF here!
EvE still has the occasionall Event. Last one was where some thieves were running off with an Empire Titan.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
-- Jean Rostand
I remember back in the ol everquest days, there was an event where the ogres took over a starting town of another race and those people had to work out of another town for the duration of the event.. There was also one about the froglocks and stuff, but it wasnt like a real live event..
I wish GM's advanced the storylines using a REAL progressive timeline... Like maybe have a calender in their office that shows storyline advances that do NOT require patches.. It can be all server side things like denying people access to certain towns or just having certain types of mobs spawn in other places or make some things KOS.. Hell, make two races go to war or something, like NPC mobs fighting...
Dunno, but there are MANY things that can happen to make things fresh and exciting..
Hell I remember playing this game called Nexus Kingdom of the winds and they had live events ALL the time.. And not just wussy ones, they had times where kindgoms would ignite into a fierce war.. And what was even better, afterwards, all those who participated in the event would get the date added to their history timeline under their profile..