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In-Game MMO Events Still Do Not Interest Me Like I Wish They Would | MMORPG.com

SystemSystem Member UncommonPosts: 12,599
edited April 2021 in News & Features Discussion

imageIn-Game MMO Events Still Do Not Interest Me Like I Wish They Would | MMORPG.com

MMO in-game events are one major way to drum up community interaction as well as make things interesting every few months. Events themselves can come and go at predictable times, mostly repeating themselves year over year. And Bradford has never really been able to get into them.

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  • ScotScot Member LegendaryPosts: 22,823
    edited April 2021
    Well if you are doing the same events again that's akin to having an alt redo quests and can be just as boring. Might I suggest events run by GM's, the human touch means a lot or indeed events aimed more at community. A scavenger hunt run by a MMO's staff member could be dare I say it, fun?
    MendelxpsyncKyleranTwistedSister77
  • MendelMendel Member LegendaryPosts: 5,609
    MMORPGs have never put an emphasis on in-game events, and have never included tools to enable the developers to script and operate them.  The multiple number of servers imposed by practical limitations ensures that events are difficult to offer to all customers.

    If there was an interest in operating in-game events on the developer's part, they would have developed tools to make this less a chore for themselves by now.



    xpsyncKyleranAreteo

    Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.

  • RungarRungar Member RarePosts: 1,132
    edited April 2021
    Mendel said:
    MMORPGs have never put an emphasis on in-game events, and have never included tools to enable the developers to script and operate them.  The multiple number of servers imposed by practical limitations ensures that events are difficult to offer to all customers.

    If there was an interest in operating in-game events on the developer's part, they would have developed tools to make this less a chore for themselves by now.



    Completely agree. I will add that the events you do see are more like holidays than events. They are functionally useless.   

     
    xpsyncKyleranHariken
    .05 of a second to midnight
  • xpsyncxpsync Member EpicPosts: 1,854
    edited April 2021
    I'm the same no interest, but sometimes i dip in and yeah so much fun then wonder why i never bother lmao.

    Overall the most i'll usually do if, and that's a big IF, i get involved is dabble at best. Majority of the time i ignore them completely.

    It's something i've wondered, why would i ignore such content, and it's about progression, it slows down my goals it halts progression, and is about the only explanation.

    I've mentioned before that i did at one time take to an event and it was in Wildstar Halloween, i did nothing but that for the entire time it ran which was way too long overall and they did that because it was insanely popular.

    Problem was by the end i'd lost all focus on whatever i was progressing on, my goals and like a switch the drive to play was turned off, can't explain it was just off, for good too which was weird.
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  • Viper482Viper482 Member LegendaryPosts: 4,056
    Typically events amount to event dailies and nothing more.
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  • 6stack_Chris6stack_Chris Member UncommonPosts: 118
    Asheron's Call had the best events IMO.

    A dev would log on a main story character and RP the current lore. They would call the server to a location for a huge fight or w/e, they would interact with the players. It felt epic, it felt like the devs actually wanted you to belong in the story.
    xpsyncScot
  • toxicmangotoxicmango Member UncommonPosts: 119
    Scot said:
    Well if you are doing the same events again that's akin to having an alt redo quests and can be just as boring. Might I suggest events run by GM's, the human touch means a lot or indeed events aimed more at community. A scavenger hunt run by a MMO's staff member could be dare I say it, fun?

    Right up until it gets revealed that the staff member is favoring ingame friends with inside knowledge or event rewards, which is what happened in EVE.

    Live event teams would have to be rigorously vetted or stay out of the game as players to maintain impartiality. This is because live GM run events by their nature would only be available to a subset of the players that happen to be in the right place at the right time (which could also disadvantage certain timezones). This could easily lead to accusations of favortism if the rewards are significant.  

    In contrast the standard "events" available in many MMOs are basically open to any player that logs in within the time interval.
    Rungar
  • RungarRungar Member RarePosts: 1,132
    Scot said:
    Well if you are doing the same events again that's akin to having an alt redo quests and can be just as boring. Might I suggest events run by GM's, the human touch means a lot or indeed events aimed more at community. A scavenger hunt run by a MMO's staff member could be dare I say it, fun?

    Right up until it gets revealed that the staff member is favoring ingame friends with inside knowledge or event rewards, which is what happened in EVE.

    Live event teams would have to be rigorously vetted or stay out of the game as players to maintain impartiality. This is because live GM run events by their nature would only be available to a subset of the players that happen to be in the right place at the right time (which could also disadvantage certain timezones). This could easily lead to accusations of favortism if the rewards are significant.  

    In contrast the standard "events" available in many MMOs are basically open to any player that logs in within the time interval.
    I agree with this which is why I think the "events system" has to be a core part of the game and also a method of introducing new content. 

    Ideally it would manifest itself as community raids where there is some objective that needs to be solved and when one person solves it, all players get some advantage. If its not solved no one does. 

    Today it might be a raid boss a bunch of players need to kill. Next one might be a crafting related raid and beyond that a collector based raid. It cannot be personal for the reason you listed. 

    The game should be designed around the events system, not a tacked on version that has no real effect on the game.  
    .05 of a second to midnight
  • AeanderAeander Member LegendaryPosts: 7,820
    One of my biggest turnoffs is holiday events. I find them thoroughly immersion breaking.

    I do not want to see real world holidays ported or slightly revised to fit into my digital world. If you're going to have ingame holidays at all, come up with new ones for their world. Use some goddamn imagination.
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  • NeblessNebless Member RarePosts: 1,835
    edited April 2021
    I'll generally do them once and then ignore all the repeats. Unless there's something there that I REALLY want, the lag fest they cause just isn't worth it to me and that goes for Neverwinter, LotRO or STO.

    Now I have no problem with DDO's Piratefest (Crystal Cove) or the Mabar evernt (Halloween), but you don't have players crammed into the same area like the other games do.

    The one I really liked was the old (pre-cu) SWG Galactic War attacks the GM's would launch on cities. The current version SWG: Legends does aren't quite the same, but still fun.
    Po_gg

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  • IselinIselin Member LegendaryPosts: 18,719
    No one has done in game events as good as what Turbine once did in Aheron's Call 20 years ago. They were unscheduled and unpredictable with live human developers running the events. Shadow Invasions anyone?

    I hate all the seasonal real world events shoehorned into MMOs as well as the quantity of them repeated year after year. It seems like there's barely any time left in the year when an event isn't running.
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  • SovrathSovrath Member LegendaryPosts: 31,937
    Iselin said:
    No one has done in game events as good as what Turbine once did in Aheron's Call 20 years ago. They were unscheduled and unpredictable with live human developers running the events. Shadow Invasions anyone?

    I hate all the seasonal real world events shoehorned into MMOs as well as the quantity of them repeated year after year. It seems like there's barely any time left in the year when an event isn't running.
    I think there are ways developers can have events based on actual holidays but put a good spin on them.

    They don't seem to do that and instead just have some event "celebrating" the holiday instead of fitting the event to the game world.




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  • ScorchienScorchien Member LegendaryPosts: 8,914
    edited April 2021
    Iselin said:
    No one has done in game events as good as what Turbine once did in Aheron's Call 20 years ago. They were unscheduled and unpredictable with live human developers running the events. Shadow Invasions anyone?

    I hate all the seasonal real world events shoehorned into MMOs as well as the quantity of them repeated year after year. It seems like there's barely any time left in the year when an event isn't running.

    I loved AC live events , some were so epic , I recall one in which a Giant was coming down the river near Holtburg , wreaking havoc the entire way , Many of us sat on the bridge raining arrows and spells down on it ... Was so much fuggin fun ..It was "a good day to die"

       Ill also add that there was some very memorable live evnets in EQ2 during KUnark Launch i enjoyed


      But the best ive experienced is in UO some were so overarching and took over a year to come to its finale ( Like the Destruction of Magnincia)

      And still today UO has fairly regular live events .. really fun stuff that the community looks forward to .. 

      Here is the Event Calendar , in addition to these there are frequent unannounced Events ..


      and again another situation where UO got it right 24 years ago , still waiting for the genre to catch up to it



  • SovrathSovrath Member LegendaryPosts: 31,937
    Scorchien said:



      and again another situation where UO got it right 24 years ago , still waiting for the genre to catch up to it



    I don't think it's about the genre catching up. This is just about the game developers have a very different vision of what they think these games should have. I would almost bet that events are a pain in the ass for them as they would rather just work on regular content but instead they have to come up with something to fill a void that some producer says they need.

    In my opinion it takes a better vision of their game in order to make the game world, events, leveling, and everything that goes with an MMORPG cohesive and interesting.

    I would almost bet that many of these things are just "get er done and let's get on with it" types of things. 
    Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb." 

    Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w


    Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547

    Try the "Special Edition." 'Cause it's "Special." https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/64878/?tab=description

    Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo 
  • RungarRungar Member RarePosts: 1,132
    Sovrath said:
    Scorchien said:



      and again another situation where UO got it right 24 years ago , still waiting for the genre to catch up to it



    I don't think it's about the genre catching up. This is just about the game developers have a very different vision of what they think these games should have. I would almost bet that events are a pain in the ass for them as they would rather just work on regular content but instead they have to come up with something to fill a void that some producer says they need.

    In my opinion it takes a better vision of their game in order to make the game world, events, leveling, and everything that goes with an MMORPG cohesive and interesting.

    I would almost bet that many of these things are just "get er done and let's get on with it" types of things. 
    i have to agree which is sad and shortsighted because if they build a proper event system the need for content would be dramatically lower. 
    .05 of a second to midnight
  • QuarterStackQuarterStack Member RarePosts: 546
    edited April 2021
    I used to really enjoy the events in FFXI early on. They were interesting events that brought players together for fun challenges and cool rewards.

    I remember one where you had to pair up with someone of another race. You'd both be teleported into a random high level zone where you'd be stripped of your armor, but given infinite invisibility and sneak (unless you left the zone). You were each dropped at a different spot and had to first find an item, then find your partner and trade the item. At that point, you were done and sent back to town.

    The challenge was finding your way around these huge, terrifying areas, where anything could one shot you, probably without a map, and having to communicate with your partner to coordinate where you were, etc.

    There were others that were a lot of fun as well.

    But over the years, events in MMOs have become just another kind of grind for people to sink their time into.

    One recent example I can list is ESO. ESO's seasonal events are nothing BUT grind, with arbitrarily limited-time rewards. 'cause why not sneak some of that FOMO in there while you're at it, right? In a game where everything is 0s and 1s and they could give the reward(s) to every character on every account if they wanted to... they pretend somehow they're limited. Though I'm sure at some point, they'll sell the "discontinued" rewards on the crown store anyway.

    Fake scarcity to create FOMO in a video game is one of the laziest, lamest and cash-grabby-est kinds of "incentive" I've ever seen.

  • Morgenes83Morgenes83 Member UncommonPosts: 286
    Of course they do not interest me because 99% of them are crap and could be exchanged between games without anyone noticing.

    Do daily quest 1 to 5 and/or collect 100 of event items to trade them at the event npc for useless crap or even worse, immersion breaking outfit that doesn't fit to the games style aka clown/cop/cowboy so you can roleplay the Village People.

    Why aren't we having events anymore that are really interesting and/or affect the world.
    Enemies taking over a city, plagues, giant ass all killing dragons, hunt for a kidnapped npc, gm driven custom events, ...

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  • WizardryWizardry Member LegendaryPosts: 19,332
    edited April 2021
    Worst event i ever been in was  GM run and turned me off forever on that idea.

    The best content i ever played was not in essence an event but in reality it was because it occurred about 2x a day and you might miss it each day.That was Besieged in FFXi.

    IMO devs make events because it looks good in the PR,they don't want to be pointed at for being the only dev that didn't make any events.Besides being good PR they also use them a LOT now a days as advertising.

    SO then i have seen some WORLD events but if your not the one solving the puzzles then your just basically an onlooker.My point is that World events don't really focus on the whole community like they appear to on paper.
    So i have to decide if i really care if the events are ground breaking  or amazing and imo i don't need them to be.Just give me something decent to take part in,something that i will actually do and not just look the other way.


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  • ScorchienScorchien Member LegendaryPosts: 8,914
    Aeander said:
    One of my biggest turnoffs is holiday events. I find them thoroughly immersion breaking.

    I do not want to see real world holidays ported or slightly revised to fit into my digital world. If you're going to have ingame holidays at all, come up with new ones for their world. Use some goddamn imagination.

    I check out of games until the Holiday event is over ..   Horrible shit for the most part
  • MendelMendel Member LegendaryPosts: 5,609
    Aeander said:
    One of my biggest turnoffs is holiday events. I find them thoroughly immersion breaking.

    I do not want to see real world holidays ported or slightly revised to fit into my digital world. If you're going to have ingame holidays at all, come up with new ones for their world. Use some goddamn imagination.

    If they want to make an in-game event based on a RW event, fine.  Just don't tie it to the RW calendar; tie it to the in-game calendar.  If a one-day event occurs at 3:45 AM local time, you either stay up, miss it or just wait until the RW date and the game dates are closer to a time you can participate.  I have slept through St. Patrick's Day and the occasional Arbor Day, but rarely Christmas.  (close once, though)



    Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.

  • JyiigaJyiiga Member UncommonPosts: 1,187
    They are canned junk for the most part. Overly scripted, rarely updated. I miss live events, back when developers used to have GM characters that actually participated. Those days are long gone though.
  • RandomCasualtyRandomCasualty Member UncommonPosts: 327
    edited April 2021
    I seem to recall in EQ a GM controlled dragon pop up unannounced and Epic battles ensue as hoards of people druid ringed into the zone to join the fight

    Ah the memories of frame by frame combat with 100's of corpses littering West Commonlands.
  • ScorchienScorchien Member LegendaryPosts: 8,914
    edited April 2021
    Sovrath said:
    Scorchien said:



      and again another situation where UO got it right 24 years ago , still waiting for the genre to catch up to it



    I don't think it's about the genre catching up. This is just about the game developers have a very different vision of what they think these games should have. I would almost bet that events are a pain in the ass for them as they would rather just work on regular content but instead they have to come up with something to fill a void that some producer says they need.

    In my opinion it takes a better vision of their game in order to make the game world, events, leveling, and everything that goes with an MMORPG cohesive and interesting.

    I would almost bet that many of these things are just "get er done and let's get on with it" types of things. 

    Sorry but 24 years later, UO still does Live Events better than the rest and yes the genre needs to catch up in this area

      There problem now is they do not want to dedicate the resources and money to implement this mechainic that should be a staple of the genre ..

      Instead the spend there money and resources on implementing new ways to get Events into there cash shop and players wallets ..


            In there defense this what players have shown that's what they want by continually spending in the cash shops ..

     
             Players are generally stupid and easily seperated from there money . it seems that the majority of the MMO community considers a Cash Shop content ..

       
    Post edited by Scorchien on
  • ScotScot Member LegendaryPosts: 22,823
    edited April 2021
    Well two posters have already mentioned Asheron's Call, for me that's how it should be done. Their events were tied in to an overarching story line as well, I have really no idea how difficult this was to do. I guess it must have taken up a lot more time than the average update but a lot less than the average dlc do for MMOs.

    As for some MMOs doing events "favouring" certain players well I think you only had to be there in the right location to take part that was about it. It was not cliquey at all.
  • RungarRungar Member RarePosts: 1,132
    edited April 2021
    I would just have a monthly task. The task could be anything and doesn't necessarily even need to have combat at all. You present the task to the players and then they either overcome it or not. If they overcome it, all benefit, if they don't, no one does. 

    As long as this task focused on at least two kinds of players per task I think it  could be successful and fully automated. 

    This month something needs to be built. Next month its some kind of fight, a month later something completely different. 

    Players don't want events as much as they want to participate in some cooperative theme that has some real benefit to it. The event also has to be unique each month. The only ones you should see again are the ones that were failed to complete. 
    .05 of a second to midnight
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