Feedback request from James Ohlen - In-game events

[notebene]

Overall, I really loved the event. I love how it unfolded each day with something new tacked on.

 

I think for people that don't get a few hours to play every day, it needs to be designed such that if you come in one a 'single' day, you should be able to unlock every quest that was unlocked since the first day, simply by completing the quest.

 

Second, we need better notification before the event outside of the game, and outside of hipster social media. Twitter, Facebook, Tumbler, all fine and dandy for sperm, but I'm old, and just don't have any time or interest in that stuff. While I frequent the forums, I don't enough to even think that is much of a way. Emails and a clear news feed might be good.

 

The only reason I knew this event was starting on Sunday when it did was somehow it got sucked into the search for the Taunlet pet discussion, with references that @Rockjaw was making off in never-never land that everyone was so excited about. Fluke that I caught it, really.

 

On the one hand, it'd be 'fun' to just have us find out about it in the game, but people don't play every day. Some people maybe play once a week. How long did the event last? 8 days? For people that 'maybe' play once a week, not a lot of time to get on board.

 

Actually, a calendar would be nice! That always worked good in LotRO. Event, start, end, then you just check out the calendar every so often. And...what would be really slick is if it were designed such that we can add it to our Google calendars!

 

But the event itself, the mechanics, the story, it was all fun. I like the color crystals and the pet. Would have been nice to also be able to get daily commendations from completing them, that would have been swell (since for many they might take away time getting to do dailies). Didn't care for the customizations so much, but I have a weird relationship with those. With the exception (so far) of Khem, it seems 'jarring' to me to change my companion so drastically from the way I was introduced to them. Make customs that change her face completely and get rid of her dreadlocks, after I spent 10 levels getting used to her the way she was. I even saw a custom for Temple that made her white! That was just odd!

 

Doh! Off track again. Uhm...it was fun!

[Zannis]

What I liked about the Rakghoul plague:

The storyline and the mechanics. I like that the plague itself can cause problems if you're not careful, like dying in a FP or OP, yet lasts long enough for it to not be too disruptive. Dying every few minutes would have been annoying. Dying every 20 minutes wasn't too much of a hassle.

 

What I didn't like about the event:

The lack of communication and the strict time limits. By lack of communication, I mean that the event started without so much as a warning from Bioware. I personally collected the outfit, but many have complained that they weren't even aware of the event, or that it had started, and didn't have enough days left in the event to collect the whole thing. If I have to choose one aspect that could have used improvement, it would have been to extend the event for an extra week. And also...

 

I dislike that you added more social gear for light armor users only.

 

What I would like to see in the future:

World events that unfold over a long period of time and tell an interesting story. Not just a single, one-off world event, but perhaps a series of them spread out over the course of months, or even as long as a year, connected by a common theme.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Zannis

[underclocker]

The dailies were more fun than the new Corellia series, if I could choose which to keep I would take Tatooine. And the empire-set looks better than some of the new Campaign-Sets, which is also a pity due to its short availability and the fact, that you currently can't crit-craft it (and it is only light armor). What annoyed me the most was the companion-loot-boxes, I just wanted Andronikos, instead i got 3x Vector, 1x Smuggler (don't have one, probably never will) and 3 others where I have Lvl1-10 characters.

 

Overall, pretty cool event, even if the whole rakgoul-stuff isn't that starwarsy, I enjoyed it.

[corbanite]

I want to hear your thoughts on why you thought the Rakghoul plague was fun. Also, what kind of stuff would you like to see in the future?"

 

I liked the surprise element of it.

 

The daily quests opening up definately kept me coming back each day of the event and it was fun opening up a new quest each day.

 

I loved getting to know Tattooine in some deapth and questing around the alliance part for a change (I am empire). This event really brought Tatooine to life and highlighted that planet.

 

I want to see a story unfold across several events and for them to be more than a secluded event but part of a bigger picture.

[Spiggy]

The event was a bit too short. I didn't actually get time to play for any length of time for best part of a week due to RL and then by the time I did get some time to play I the event finished before I could complete all of the quests. I would suggest that if quests are going to be unvield daily then once they become available they should be available immediately to people coming in after the start of the event.

 

I did like the way that the mobs that spawned when attacking the techs at the crash site were level appropriate to the player rather than being too easy. Overall the event was well scripted and implemented though, good job.

 

I'd like to see future events for things such as random incursions by rogue mandalorian clans on various planets, but rather than them being there for say a week, they stay until defeated then dissappear and re-pop somewhere else, maybe a different planet and/or zone. This would keep people on their toes and having to check back to see where the action was at any given time.

[Elear]

Liked:

Surprise event - true sudden outbreak, that feeling of 'what the hell is going on", community getting together to figure it out. Fun.

Each day new something - event was progressing, there was (small additional) reason to come back.

Avaible at relatively low level. Sure, I didn't manage to get that one alt I wanted high enough in time, but there was mp pther choice.

Because it had to be Tatooine - first planet where both factions freely mingle with each other. On PvP servers with serious faction imbalance it could get bad, but on PvE where PvP occured in outlaw den, it was fun enough and not too bothersome.

 

Disliked:

Bugs - but in surprise event that can be tested only internaly, one should expect them.

Can't think about anything more clearly disliked.

 

Not good, not bad:

Fact that you had to do all quests at least 6 days seemed to upset many people. It is some kind of status reward for people that pay attention to what's going on, but not sure it was worth it.

Plague. It bugged constantly, and standing here to infect others so they can infect me later so I can infect them(etc.) doesn't seem too fun to me. Still, when I thought about it as spreading disease(and event) futher, I enjoyed that.

Color crystal - I don't mind, I like them, but I already have one set of whites. Now I've got second set of G/B. And I've tan out of lightsabers to put them in. Hold back color crystald for a while.

[Jenovan]

Had a lot of fun with this event, and I'm looking forward to more in the future

 

Awesomeness:

1. The surprise. I wandered online that first Sunday night to find a packed server, barfing infected people, and scary announcements over the Fleet loudspeakers. Instant excitement!

 

2. The rewards. Not just the loot, which was good (love the armor in particular), but the XP! Since the creatures you fought generally spawned at your level, the XP rewards were huge. Without this event I probably would never have gotten my main to 50 in time for the other promotion...

 

3. The community. From personal experience and stories from my guild, the PUGs that sprang up to run the world bosses were pretty awesome And then all of that cooperative PVP murdering of the sick near the vendor Jawa...

 

4. The "enforcement". I *did* get scanned once by a containment droid while infected, and having a team of officers try to take me out was amusing.

 

 

Could have been better:

1. The continuous prerequisites for the new dailies was... interesting, but tough on those who couldn't play nearly every day, since the event was fairly short. I do like the idea of new quests every day, but maybe removing the prereq would help out those with less play time. (So, in other words, 5-6 days after the event start, you could have gotten all of the armor in one go, even if you'd never run the dailies before.)

 

2. The bit where a PVP-flagged player can explode on you, flagging you for PVP automatically. And possibly having his friends jump you. On a PVE server. Not cool.

 

3. The infected customizations are really cool, but if they're going to be random, it'd be nice to be able to trade them. Like cards! I'm glad they're at least BtL, though.

 

In the future:

- I'd love to see events that are more spread out across the galaxy -- maybe on mostly the lower level planets so everyone had a good shot at playing, but on more than one planet, at least.

- More world boss fights!

- If this is "news bulletin" worthy, new news over the course of the event, maybe every few days, would be awesome

[Miyaka]

What I enjoyed:

1. The event was a surprise. I loved having to figure out what was going on, and where. I did enjoy letting others know what I had found out, if they asked. I liked helping out other players. The end date being a mystery for a while was very nice as well.

 

2. I appreciate that BioWare thinks that we as players are smart enough to figure things out on our own. I LOVE that this wasn't on a PTR for months...there was no guide out for 2 weeks before the event. It was EXCITING and interesting to feel like you are actually discovering something.

 

3. The fact that dailies came out as the event went along, and everything wasn't released at once.

 

4. The rewards were interesting.

 

5. You could farm it. I know that's probably not the best feature in the world for some..but I loved it. I am VERY impatient. I want things NOW. Yes, I am aware that it's a bratty thing to say. But I like that I am able to control when I get something. I HATE gated content. It serves no other purpose than stretching thin content further than it should be stretched. Plus, it gives one more level of participation for those who don't really want to do the event...but like credits. They profit off impatience.

 

Suggestions Going Forward:

 

1. Star Wars Holidays. Not our RL holidays. That isn't very appealing, and it's over done. But I'd like to celebrate some in game holidays that would be important to the universe....or even specific planets.

 

2. Perhaps involve a space chase in some kind of event? I think that would be interesting.

 

3. HK-47 He needs to be in some kind of event. LOVE HIM!

[UCKFred]

First things first... DISABLE the Plague now that it's over! Some people are still spreading it on purpose. ALSO make companion customizations tradeable.

 

Second thing, fix the long loading times because doing anything in this game, let alone an event is tedious when I have to wait 2 to 4 minutes just to load the planet for it.

 

Third, I liked most of the things you could attain, but the random box customizations is awful and the armor set feels incomplete without orange bracers to go along with it.

[Terrorx]

Bioware I think for your first event you did a great job.

 

I would like to offer some construction criticism to help improve future events such as these.

 

First, the element of surprise. What a fantastic job you did here Bioware, this really got people hyped more so than an article would have. The pro's of a surprise is you definitely get the in game population lively and frantically telling one another, sharing information, and grouping with players they would have otherwise never have seen. The con to the surprise is some players didn't even know about the event or did not get to participate each and every day in it. So perhaps I could suggest making the event last longer to ones who don't quite catch on right away, are away from vacation, or can't play on a daily/weekly basis can still participate.

 

Second, The chain line of opened up dailies. I for one appreciated this since I can play every day. However, players who can not play every day should still have these quest opened up to them the day they are added. People who play semi-casually, casually, or just play when they can, will find it hard to do this event every day with other commitments they may have prioritized above SW:TOR. I would recommend in the future to add a new quest every day, but make the new quest available to players who can't play every day. Essentially lifting the restriction of having to have done all the quest the previous day in order to get the new daily.

 

Thirdly, I want to commend you on pulling the community together. This event I stopped doing the regular dailies on Belsavis, Ilum, and Corellia in order to take full part in this event. I grouped with many non-guildies and established some great friendships on Sanctum of the Exalted as Dynami my 50 Sorcery and Katastrofis my 50 Commando. I added several players to my friends list and I feel this event pulled the community together and certainly made for some interesting open world PvP. Also the 3 world bosses was a great idea. I have never cared to do these but this again brought the community together in order to kill these world bosses several times and sometimes even take them from the opposite faction!

 

Lastly, The rewards. I felt the color crystal was a great choice as well as the pet. I would like Bioware to please keep in mind some of us are alt-o-holics and/or completionist. So getting these rewards on as many toons as possible was tob priority. I think slightly lowering the required amounts on the rewards would help acheive this. I also would like to see some Bind to Legacy pets and/or items as rewards. So for example if a pet is Bind to Legacy, I can receive that pet on all my toons then you could increase the amount required because it would benefit every toon I have.

 

I think this was a great idea Bioware in summation Surprise the heck out of us, make it last longer for those who play casually, keep the communities of each server ever close with these events, keep up the open world pvp aspect as well, and finally keep adding nice rewards (potentially adding Bind to Legacy rewards as well)

 

My final humble critic is be mindful of what we will be doing with the currencies/items/event items that are left over at the end of an event... I have no idea how too do this but I have had several guild members refuse to do the event because A. They felt they weren't given enough time B. They did not want the event to end and them have not gotten the reward the requested or have a ton of left over currencies that now appear to be "wasted"

 

Keep up the great work, I hope I don't sound like an arrogant idiot. I tried to give the best constructive criticism I could to help all benefit in the future

 

Your Loyal Customer,

 

Dynami (50 Sorcery) Katastrofis (50 Commando) Sanctum of the Exalted RP-PvE Server

Edited April 25, 2012 by Terrorx

[Cubertt]

I really enjoyed that it took you to a low level planet, giving incentive to explore places where i would otherwise not go to ever again.

 

I love how you guys didn't remove it. Some guildies and I were talking about it and it would be kool to find some people still infected months to a year from now just from it spreading around. The items obtained from it were a good choice the color crystal is mainly aesthetic but it is also a practical upgrade for people without ideal lvl 50 gear.

 

Overall me likey event and me veri excite for more.

[Mahaedros]

excellent event overall but too short in my opinion.

 

making it a few days longer would have solved so many issues.

 

I think it is both good and bad that players have to rely so heavily on third party websites for information to complete the quest. I used dulfy.net which was very helpful in completing the quests. I would rather find information from npcs in game though- or by completing steps to missions or some other way to get clues in game.

 

There are two more things i would like to mention: I had the most fun grouping with players for world bosses and fighting out on the planets than i have had in the entire game so far. It was a really memorable event, and grouping and traveling all over the map of the planet it made small flashpoints and tiny warzones seem inferior. Sitting around on fleet waiting for queues is just not as enjoyable.

 

Second, many people complained about the lack of information regarding the event(I noticed a few people in this thread mentioned they appreciated the surprise). Primarily, it was stated the event ended on the 24th- i made note of that and planned accordingly, and just assumed I had all day to lay on the 24th to get everything done. But in the time zone I live in, it ended on the 23rd. The servers went down on the 23rd and the event was not available for one second on the 24th. Now maybe i should have been more attentive, or maybe the company that wants my money could be more clear about presenting the information, because that was a real let down. I don't have a consistent work schedule so my play times are often late at night and I would have gotten a few more things accomplished had I know that i would not be able do anything at all with the event on the 24th... for example i would not have played all the warzones that i played during the week. I would have been out on my alts in the desert getting the pet that i wanted for each alt - instead, some of my alts had 8/12 spaceship parts when the servers went down... To top it all off, I raced to complete the tracking the origins quest on a character on Vrook Lamar server and finished minutes after the notification "The servers will be going down in 15 minutes" I was so happy and logged off as soon as i got the pet for that particular toon. It took longer than i anticipated to complete the scavenger hunt, but i did it before the servers went down and logged off so that i could log back onto my smuggler on the Ajunta Pal server who was holding 300 dna samples to buy some crystals and other event items from the vendor...but i discovered that you cannot log off and onto another server the last few minutes before the servers went down. I laughed about it but it was a let down, and, had I known, I would have made my plans more accordingly.

 

The event itself was wonderful. You can say all you want that the information regarding the event was clearly presented but it could have been presented better or at least more effort could have been put into disseminating the information so that people that don't like to go to the forums or fan sites could still get the appropriate information. It's a massively multiplayer game, and there are all types in the masses, and the hardcore responsible gamers with common sense won't have massive games with big budgets if all the dumb noobs get frustrated and un-sub. Sorry i don't like elitism any where and even moreso in games.

 

thanks for reading and it was a great event and i enjoyed it

[Vy-LinCera]

Overall I thought the event was pretty good. The spontaneous release was neat but the trouble with it was that not everyone knew about it which isn't really fair. Even that might have been okay if it hadn't been for the confusing chain quests. Even though I found out about the event early on, I didn't understand how the daily quests worked until it was too late to finish them. That was depressing.

 

I also didn't really like that dying over and over was the fastest way to get the DNA samples. It was kind of morbid.

 

It was an enjoyable event and I look forward to all future events!

[Dzhokhar]

Why was it fun? (more or less in order of importance):

-Quests scaled to the player's level

-Numerous things concentrated in a small area (one planet)

-Event-specific enemies and rewards

-Cool lore

-Limited-Time Daily Quests

-AREA Quests (there aren't enough AREA quests)

 

What do I want to see in the future (more or less in order of preference):

-a PvP-oriented event

-events that have a lasting impact after the event ends (possibly dependent on what players do during the event, an example being cities changing faction based on the outcome of a PvP event)

-another rakghoul event on a different planet (possibly with some overlapping rewards for people who missed things like the last piece of containment armor)

 

Edit:

What would I change?:

-If you're going to have quests unlock in a progression (where a new quest unlocks the day after you completed the previous quest), then the event needs to be longer relative to the number of quests (so people who only play a couple of days a week can get through the full chain)

-Something should probably be different about the way the companion customization boxes worked. I don't need 4 Elara Dorne customizations and can't do ANYTHING with the extras (at a minimum, let me sell them to a vendor or something).

Edited April 25, 2012 by Dzhokhar

[GenthusBlackWolf]

I loved the surprise. I loved that it was for a limited time; with daily unlocks. I loved that it infused the mostly abandoned world of Tatooine with thousands of players. I loved the title, pets, companion, and armor/crystal perks.

 

What I did not love- it encouraged people to stand around to get infected. So, yes. Lots of people logged on to "play," but really just stood around. It was impossible to get a pick up flashpoint run during my playing hours last week. This was likely an unintended consequence, but it is something to consider for future events.

 

All in all, A+ for the event.

 

PS- Some Imp pvp'ers were hassling some low level Reps. The call went out and we had a big fight. As I had to leave early, I jumped into thier midst covered and the lot in green goo on my death. That was probably the highlight of my SWTOR gameplay for the last month.

Edited April 25, 2012 by GenthusBlackWolf

[TheCynic]

WHAT I LIKED:

It was fun because it was a live event which means a once in a life time event to do new things and hopefully have fun and gain stories for years later.

 

I liked the way you added a new quest for the first 6 days, it made it feel like things were getting worse.

 

Scavenger hunt was great, would like to see more quests like this for BIG quests that are GAME wide. See EQ2 Heritage Quests, and the Quest: Speak Like a Dragon to see what I mean.

 

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE

There was no real closure as far as I can tell, the event happened we found a temp cure and then poof even over. We didn't find a full cure, there was no real clean up of Tatoonie heck the only reason the Plague has been taken care of is because you turned off the event.

 

The Companion rewards were all random so you wound up with duplicates with no way to sell them even for 1 credit and they cannot be traded to other players. Yeah not cool.

 

It was cliche. Well actually EVERYTHING Bioware does is cliche, you guys have NO original thoughts and no ability to tell an original story. It also seem like its MMO LAW that the 1st live event you have to do is a Plague type event. At least when EQ2 did their plague the resolution was a temp cure by doing instances then a full server wide cure by doing a raid. Bioware is afraid to leave people out so everything is accessible which is why I think there was a lack of true resolution to the event.

[Dark_Fantasm]

The transience is the best part! The fact that it is over and never coming back, and that wreck of a ship is still in the Tatooine desert! That rules.

 

What I hated was the impossibility of completing all daily quests on the last day, and not warning of that ahead of time. I missed my containment belt and vest.

[smexymage]

I LOVED IT! What a nice surprise it was to log into the server and hear the announcement and be filled with intruigue once more. I thought the encouragement to explore Tatooine was good and it is a good way to get people back into the open world and interract.

 

The only issue for me is my server is so empty that I wasnt able to get an ops group to do the world bosses so that greatly frustrated me, I couldnt even complete the daily to infect 10 people as there was like 2 people on the fleet and same on tatt. I re-rolled to a more populated server but was unable to get levelled up enough. So im a little upset that my main 50 was unable to fully experience the event and gain all its codex entries. If I had a server transfer when I asked then this wouldnt be an issue.

 

I would consider that for the next time, there are plenty of servers which are really underpopulated and is really hard to get a group together to do anything, so I hope the next event allows people in those circumstances to get the full experience.

 

As for the next event. I would like something on Revan, or perhaps something that gives us a glimpse back to KOTOR. Maybe if you want to bring Revan back into the game at some point he can call out through the force to people and begin a series of events that is going to bring him back to the physical world.

Edited April 25, 2012 by smexymage

[Spaj]

Bloody good event overall. Very much enjoyed it.

 

I was a bit late in getting started with the link daily quests to obtain a full set of containment gear. This could cause the unknowing some issues. This is minor in an otherwise fantastic event. Using less visited planets, scaling levelled mobs, useable rewards, encouragement to participate all good stuff.

 

Something to continue to do in future events.... push Republic and Imperial into the same areas. Random spontaneous world pvp was great.

 

Kudos. Thank you.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Spaj

[Kaann]

Great Event! I loved that we found out through guildies and not some post on the forums. I like that those that were aware of the event will feel unique in the future for getting rewards that others didn't put time into getting. I like how it brought my 50 back to tatooine and that my 34 could do all the quests as well.

 

In the future ideas

- Maybe an event that if all quests done leads to a species unlock or maybe a unique companion

- Maybe a social type event that involves casinos in Nar Shadda with games and clubs. you have to do certain quests to gain access and the club is only open for a couple of weeks or something. playing the games gives unique tokens that can be turned in for prizes.

- A starwars holiday event . Probably to late for this but something to coincide with May 4th (Star Wars Day) would have been nice.

[-Kraxis-]

I liked how you encouraged world pvp by how you laid out the quests. THANK YOU!

 

I would like to see a Legacy 50 reward that allows us to control monsters/mobs so we can fight players.

Edited April 25, 2012 by -Kraxis-

[Varteras]

I loved the event. I really enjoyed the way the community had to come together to figure out what was going on, where to find things, and how to do them. The dailies were fun and getting ops groups together to take down new world bosses was a nice touch. I also enjoyed how there was a background story to what was happening and you had to discover it. The codex entries were a great way for people to look back on the event through them. Adding rewards like two Rakghoul pets, social armor, infected companion skins, and now exclusive color crystals were also ways to make people look back on it. It helps give the game history instead of everything being here and now. The fleet announcements and news terminals really helped give you the sense that there are people actually living in this world. That there is more going on than just what you yourself get to interact with.

 

I do have some recommendations for it. A couple downsides stood out to me. The progressive daily unlock for the individual was interesting but with the downside that late comers could easily find themselves at a point where they would not be able to experience all of it. I would recommend that for future events in which you use this individual daily unlock that the events last longer than 10 days or less. I would say nothing less than 2 weeks. People will always have an excuse for missing out but the longer the event lasts the fewer players will find themselves in this situation.

 

While I very much enjoyed the surprise of an event suddenly taking place that was not announced there were quite a few people who were completely or near completely oblivious to the fact that an event was even taking place. For the future, I would say that a surprise event should be announced on the website at least a day after it begins with two or three days being the longest you wait to post something about it.

 

The vaccine was a nice way to allow people to avoid the plague but the downside being that it didn't persist through death. While those people who are just questing wouldn't really feel the sting of this it became rather problematic for people running Warzones. I would be bold to say that Warzones are the one area of the game where people die more than any other. They are also the one area of the game where a simple stun can be the difference between victory and defeat. Flashpoints and Operations probably weren't as bad but I can definitely see where problems would exist. I understand if you guys wanted everyone to feel the effects of this event but doing so to the detriment of some players who just wanted to play the usual parts of the game was causing a bit of grief for them. In the future should any event use a type of plague scenario I would recommend either making such vaccine items either persist through death or have the infection automatically removed upon entering group based instances.

 

None of the problems I mentioned affected me in the least bit. I jumped right into the event from Day 1 and loved it. I just know that some people weren't so fortunate or as enthusiastic as I was and I believe the things I mentioned would have gone a long way in making it something that either everyone enjoyed or just simply had no opinion on. Instead there were a fair amount of people who felt negatively about it and the usual complaints were as listed.

 

As for things I would like to see in the future with events. Oh man where do I even begin? Seasonal events are very popular in other MMOs. Obviously keep them within the Star Wars lore but I would really like to see something like this added.

 

Monthly events would be nice as well. It doesn't have to be the same thing every month but something to keep at least some people looking forward to each month I think would be very helpful in maintaining interest. This could be something you do should you ever add things like Pazaak, Dejarik, and Swoop Racing. One month you have a Pazaak tournament in the casinos of Nar Shaddaa, the next month a Dejarik tournament on Alderaan, and the month after that a Swoop Racing tournament on Tatooine. Ofcourse for those areas that don't have neutral hubs you could create them specifically for these events. Swoop Racing tournaments wouldn't have to take place only on Tatooine in the interest of giving players different tracks to find themselves on for the tournament instead of the same thing over and over. Such events would also have some other things for players to do who aren't in the tournament but keep it themed to the event.

 

Random events are something I feel many MMOs lack and would love to see them added to this game. Things that happen in the game that become the norm rather than the exception. Republic NPC forces assaulting an Imperial base that Imperial players have to rush to defend. Republic and Imperial NPC forces clashing in the middle of a planet in which both Republic and Imperial players assist their NPC allies. This would be a great way to generate open PvP that many players feel isn't happening enough in this game. A 'stampede' of Rakghouls on Taris that needs to be dealt with. Pirates making random attacks on certain planets. You could also spawn exceptionally powerful world bosses, like a Krayt Dragon on Tatooine, that are only around for a certain period of time before they despawn. These super world bosses would require a ton of players to take down. Likely more than one ops group. They would also have a very large pathing area in which they may even attack other NPCs making the area difficult and even dangerous to be in. You could create missions for such events with nice rewards. How you go about giving players these missions, how often they can do them, and how they are alerted that such things are taking place would be up to you.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Varteras

[veyl]

In-game event feedback:

 

What I liked:

--I generally enjoyed the entire event. Between the little film footage outside the Main space ports to the "news alerts" in fleet and out into the adventure through tatooine, it was very well done.

 

-- I liked that there were two ways of getting pets in case someone didn't have the time to farm up that many DNA's (Though 60 was relatively easy if you were pvping)

 

--The limited color crystal was a very nice *top* reward to get and the fun companion characters were a good idea (But I'll get to this one in a second.)

 

--The world bosses were a very good way of getting people to join up randomly throughout the day but I fear that on smaller servers, this was probably a downside. (My server is consistently standard pop).

 

What I didn't like:

--The way DNA was obtained. (aside from dailies) This lead to two issues: 1) The massive clusterbomb of people standing in one circle, on fleet, right in the center. This caused a nice lag spike anytime you approached it due to the exploding bodies and sheer number of people. I can understand why players did it, but it was obnoxious. 2) I'm pretty sure other servers did this as well, but if you flagged up and were killed during the second stage of the transformation, you would get your DNA quicker. So we had a pack of people standing near the vendor just kill trading. (like Ilum all over again).

 

-- The companion customizations random roll. This was a problem because you could obtain multiple ones of the same character. (the first 2 days I had 4 Makos and this was extremely frustrating.) It should've just been x amount of choices, not a random roll box that could potentially screw you from seeing your favorite companion zombified.

 

-- Having to do the dailies every day to open up the new ones ON EACH CHARACTER. At first, I thought this was just a new daily per day type of thing since I was just doing the daily on one character (time constraints so I focused on one first), but when I switched to another 50 of mine I realized that I could only get the area quests and blood sample. The other dailies were non available and that sucked. If you opened up the other set of dailies on one character, it should be opened for all of them. (Hi Legacy, nice to meet you, glad you're in this game.)

 

-- Where's the aftermath? Now that the event is over, there's nothing said, no traces (cept for the ship) across the planets, no why it happened or what the outcome of it was. It was like a blip in the radar that will be forgotten in a months time.

 

My thoughts on future events:

-- If you're going to use currency, there should be multiple ways to obtain it from mobs that you have to kill during the area quests. If I'm killing a monster, what's to stop me from taking a sample from its body? This could lead to another quest line that allows the player to create the item needed to obtain currency from mobs. The addition of drops from bosses in flash points might actually provoke more LFG action as well. If there's a pet to be obtained in each of the Hard Mode // Normal Mode flashpoints within level range, you damn well better believe most people will hit them with a passion.

 

-- Leave the vendor up for a few weeks and leave the "aftermath" in the game (Much like the ship in dune sea!). Can't stress this one enough, it sucks having this DNA and nowhere to go spend it. Leaving the little jawa up for another week despite the event being over should be enough time for people to get what they needed. (Or, that currency should be used as an exchange for the next events currency).

 

-- Dynamic Events. This game doesn't have any of these and it's an absolute crime. (though briefly discussed at the guild summit... it's a little too late. Dynamic events should've been in the game from the start and why in the hell it was left out is a -poor- developer mistake.) These need to be small in scale and happen within a tight time frame all day long so not everyone is just camping in one spot waiting for it to happen. (Your servers/client is horrible and we've all seen what happens in Ilum when more than 60 people are in the same spot) These dynamic events could be part of one massive elaborate story that all tie in with one another. Taking part in these events could lead to specific rewards (Much like killing the 3 world bosses granted a title... only I would hope for some form of an artifact moddable weapon/armor). If you look at this past event, You could've had dynamic Rakghoul population explosions terrorize fleet or specific starports and had players combat them down for a daily/reward.

 

--Class quest story line within the event! ALl of us 50's need more story added on top of the pile of what we've done. If each class did something unique and have them all lead somewhere it could be one majorly fun adventure...( say each class quest required you to do a certain flashpoint and find specific items // do certain things within the FP. ) This would encourage more grouping I'd think so that people could -see- all the classes storyline for the event.

 

-- Finally, though I think this would be way more work then you're looking to do for a small event... Why isn't there a space mission? This recent event could've lead to people chasing down smugglers or shooting down infected cruisers before it overcomes a planet // orbital station and infected them all.

Edited April 25, 2012 by veyl

[Vindigore]

Due to the well known griefing PvP exploit on my PvE server, I hated the event entirely. Tried to avoid it by bypassing Tattoine but even in 50 heroics/FP's people were trying to infect me and half the time I was running away avoiding them, instead of doing the heroic/FP. Bored of this behaviour and leveled an alt up until 24-25 (to avoid Tattoine) but since I did it out of need and not out of preference, I ended up logging in only 2-3 days during the week and only for a few hours. In conclusion : I lost almost 7 paid days due to the event because I didn't want to participate.

[Rohanshot]

The lack of warning caused some people to miss the event. I suggest before future events, you drop small hints about what is coming.

 

For example, here's how you could have done it with the Rakghoul Event. A week or so before it began, you could have announcements that "Republic/Empire satellites were picking up a mysterious unidentified fast moving projectile on a direct collision trajectory with Tatooine. Impact predicted at DD/WW/YYYY". Announcements could be placed on the fleets, on Tatooine itself and on the website. As the time left until the event counted down, you could see things happening in preparation. Soldiers evacuating citizens from the predicted impact zone. Dropships releasing NPC troops to help with the evac effort. Guards locking down the zone. Players could come down and watch but no more information would be given. At the very second the timer hits zero, the object would be seen streaking through the sky and impacting.

 

The clues could be left intentionally vague so the community would have to put together the pieces. This would also help build cohesion in the community itself.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Rohanshot