Feedback request from James Ohlen - In-game events

[reluctantuser]

I had mainly low level characters - and finally got the Stardream daily RIGHT when the event ended. Only - I had no idea it ended, so it was a little frustrating flying around the crash site trying to figure out what the heck was going on without really knowing. I guess in short - wish it was a little bit longer so I had a chance to participate!

 

Seemed cool, though.

[Lord_Scythe]

I think the event was fantastic as it was though a few changes need to be made for future events.

 

I would make the Starting worlds and Fleets 100% safe zones. In this case I would have put in 2 Elite CDC type guys to kill anyone leaving their ship with the infection, shuttle bay or orbital station. Let players stay on the infected planet and infect each other.

 

Any world event should not turn on the pvp flag of a player on a pve server. In this case a plague infected player with pvp on could flag non flagged players when he exploded. This should not be possible. I loved the fact that one of the mobs was in a all vs all pvp zone though.

 

I would have made the serum persistent through death so those who did not want to participate could go about their business with very little disruption.

 

As for how the event started I thought it was fantastic. I loved the fact there was no notice and think all events should be done this way depending upon the event in this case it was done perfectly. I loved the daily increasing quests. Not everyone should be able to get everything all the time that would defeat the point of special events.

 

This even was successful because it was fun and a surprise.

[VelVenturi]

Definitely do more events! The 'surprise' nature of this one gave it an immediacy and a sense of urgency.

 

More cool rewards similar to the ones available this time--pets, clothing, titles, fun fluff stuff.

 

Next time, though, please remove mechanics that can cause people to be involuntarily flagged for PvP.

[Smeema]

I loved it, but it ended very abruptly. I would like to have seen a final cleanup quest that is a once off, where the event is summed up in some way or have a news report we could watch (or in-game mail) that cleaned up loose ends

 

eg watch some cleanup crew burning away the wreckage, see the sand people be cured, have some acknowledgement that the player actions stemmed the tide (or worsened the plague) and that in investigation into the cause is underway.

 

It was a great story and a fun experience.

[Soobe]

A short some up:

 

 

The plague lasted through death, while the vaccine didn't, which in some points wasn't all that cool, especially with those who did not own a level 50. (High price for vaccine)

 

 

I'd say, keep the events coming! Good work!

 

The event was a brilliant idea, but as stated here, no notice was maybe not the best way to approach it. Also as stated above, the vaccine not lasting through death and being ridiculously expensive... not cool.

 

In essence, it forced players who may not have otherwise wanted to participate in the event to spend an awful lot of credits not to participate (or to avoid every other player in game for a week unless they wanted to keep a supply of vaccines on hand, and at 2k credits a pop, no, my level 15 alt does not want to keep them on hand).

 

It just was, to me, more annoying than interesting due to the way it was handled both on the part of the dev team and the players.

 

Handled more appropriately (not used as a credit sink, made more clear when a player is infected so that, if you don't want your tank blowing up mid-flashpoint or your tanks and healers blowing up and infecting the whole ops group mid-world boss fight, you have the option to say so) and given some notice, events like this could be great!

[Cowhunter]

I will make this short.

 

I love the event and I hope to see more world events in the future, keep up the good work.

[kaboro]

It was fun mostly because it was something new to do (not much of that in swtor).

Downside was not accessible for low levels and also lack of direction on how and where to get the quests.

As a future event i would like something more Star Wars and less Resident Evil, enough rakghouls, how about an event inside a Jawa sandcrawler or a Jawa scavenger hunt or something.

[MorgonKara]

I'd personally like to see an event that didn't promote tons of avatars standing around on the fleet in a big group waiting to die. Maybe it's just me.

 

is that how they do events in WOW or something? I don't get it. You want to see some cool MMO events check out some of the stuff the Turbine team does for LOTRO.

Edited April 27, 2012 by MorgonKara

[Aurlon]

I didn't get to see much of this event. With that said:

 

- I like that it's a one-time thing.

 

- I liked that it was unannounced. Spontaneity is good!

 

- Event currency vendors should stay when an event is over.

 

- Future currencies in the currency tab please!

 

That's all I can come up with, nice event. Looking forward to future ones.

 

Cheers,

[shownder]

I really enjoyed it. It got a little annoying that I could still get the disease after the event, but that was minor.

 

I think for a future event it would be really neat if you could drastically change your character for a while.

 

Example:

 

A Jedi starts the event questline which sets him/her on the path to the dark side. Each daily progresses this descent, gradually replacing the Jedi's animations with those of his/her mirror Sith class. Eventually it accumulates into the Jedi almost committing an unspeakable act and one of their padawan helps bring them back to the LS before the act is committed. The rewards would end up being some really cool looking Sith-type orange gear.

 

A similar story for Sith turning LS.

 

Troopers could start a questline that relies on them going deep under cover. Each daily requires them to train under mandalorians to become a BH, gradually changing some of their animations to the BH ones. It climaxes by finishing to under cover mission for the republic and gaining some cool BH orange gear as a reward.

 

A similar undercover mission could be given to Smugglers/Agents.

[Baptes]

Good event, could have been better.

 

Give people more notice then one little thread in General forum. Many people that play don't haunt forums day and night. If they read them at all its for specifics. Next time just put it up on a launcher notice.

 

World bosses. Nice idea, but having to wait for spawns is just bad. Didn't get a single kill of any boss on my 50. Also don't like the idea of bosses in PvP areas. Keep PvE and PvP seperate.

 

The daily system was just silly. Don't have a poorly advertised, short duration event have a series of daily unlocks. That's just being obnoxious.

 

The freaking RNG companion thing. Should have just been a straight up purchase (increase the cost if you had to) of the companion customization you want. Its not cool getting Kira over and over again when you don't even have one Jedi, let alone the dozens RNG seems to think players have with an 8 slot character limit per server. RNG has no place in short duration world events (or anywhere really IMO). RNG systems are just the lazy way to make people do a bunch of things they really don't want to have to do.

 

Event was pretty freaking short. I didn't find out about it until the 19th, so I missed out on a gear piece (despite the fact it was stated if you started on the 19th you could get everything. bad form that).

 

Now I did love that most things were BoE. The outfits would have been nice to be bind to legacy. My lowbie inqis (only character of any of my 50 characters that actually has any social at all) would have looked awesome in it. Alas she was far too low as I keep her low to eek out what little social I can from BT runs. Now that was kinda irritating.

 

The fact things were farmable (except the quest gear) was a huge plus.

 

Vaccine was kinda high. Poor low levels with 5k credits to their names when they hit fleet just lost a good chunk of thier credits trying to stay uninfected to quest.

 

All in all decent first try guys. Just need to polish it up a bit is all.

[Copperheadr]

We in our guild loved the event.

 

Would like to see events similar to what they had in SWG, where enemy faction NPC heroes would land in enemy faction areas with an assault force and players would have to drive them out.

 

Sometimes they would even spawn huge AT-AT walkers, that was awesome.

[Azurax]

The event was pretty good. It was a fun surprise, but I think in the future hints should be dropped. That way the player base can expect to be putting some time towards it, but the content is still a surprise.

 

Overall the event was fun, and I enjoyed the varied amount of items offered for completing the quests. I have quite a few souvenirs to show off that I participated in the event.

 

The fact that the virus seemed to bother some people is consequential with such things, and I think changes could be made if people would rather avoid something like that all together. Maybe an opt out instead of a vaccine that costs credits. However the plague being able to infect anyone made it seem more interesting.

[DarthFreki]

I did not know much of what was going on when the event was happening, my thoughts:

 

do not make it allow PVP flagging just for being infected. someone that was sick exploded near me and i became pvp flagged while standing there doing nothing but looking at mail.

 

do some unannounced, and some announced events, I'd suggest a cinematic for the opening and ending of the event or some sort of life action event at the end, something epic.

 

over all great job, keep up the good work.

 

Darth Freki

[maxnmum]

I thought the event was great. I like that many different things were offered during the event, and the fact that the reward costs (from the DNA vendor) were reasonable and attainable for everyone. What I didn't like was the fact that the DNA vendor didn't remain for at least a couple of days after the end of the event.

[Nishifumi]

Interestingly, the company that you got Hero Engine from (Simu) has a game that I played for many years and they did a lot of in game events. They were always favorites with the people that played. It gave those people something to look forward to and the events/invasions/festivals usually brought back old timers to the game.

 

I'd personally like to see some form of festivals in swtor (these usually came around in the MUD I played only 1-2x a year sometimes 3x for a week or two). It gave people who saved their credits something to spend them on (moneybelts to stop thieves from pickpocketing them was a big one and they were extremely rare). Invasions are great too. Unique armor items from invasions used to sell for quite a bit just due to their rarity.

 

Also, they'd have events where GMs would come in and contribute but this game is far too big for that sort of thing. It allowed for people to get custom type items (whether you can create a system to allow for customized items during short periods I dunno). It'd be interesting to see a traveling merchant who'd customize certain items for you (possibly by name or color etc).

 

Auctions also happened during events (whether that could be automated or not... not sure). But they would sell literally one of a kind items.

 

I understand the reasoning behind BOP items but there should be more BOE stuff to trade/sell etc. More rare items (lots makes it fun to have unique items and still be able to acquire others down the line or trade for them). Usually this ends up being cosmetic stuff because of balance issues but not necessarily all have to be. I think the biggest fear is that things end up like one of the older MMOs that I won't mention where one had to gear in extraordinarily rare items or not be valid in raids. (That or spend so much time camping that it was unreasonable that a casual gamer could do endgame). But a good variety of unique non game breaking items is fun. I never did get one of those lev cloaks.

 

All in all, I liked the event. I'd like to see more of them. It was done fairly well and I like the customizations and the containment suit (I missed the belt but no biggie there). The title is nice too.

 

Hopefully we see more events like this with more unique items and titles.

 

-Nish

Edited April 27, 2012 by Nishifumi

[dscount]

Loved the missions and dailies that grew over time. I like the first part that required you to find the missing pieces. Didn't like the fact we had to depend on external resources (Google) to find said pieces. That should be game content material and readily available.

 

HATED the boxes. That was a complete random waste of DNA and time. Drop only EMP or REP stuff please.

 

Suggestions:

• Multiple Vendors next time (So you have an option to goto the second if one is overrun).
  
• Random boxes should tie to the Faction or better yet the characters Companion list (IE: All FIVE options).
  
• BIGGER!!! Don't tie the next event to just a single planet. Made it hard for characters < 30 to play. Maybe something on the starter planets?
  
• Story line should be more available. Instead of that broadcast station, you have DETAILS like a newspaper or reports of what's happening so people can research and figure out what to do (Without using Google).
  
• Use MAIL for example to publish messages or hints if your character is doing missions. (NO missions = NO MAIL messages giving you hints or directions)
  

 

Future IDEA: You need THREE or MORE items from different classes in order to complete certain dailies. IE: Agent/Bounty Hunter needs to get AAA item from Hutta, Sith gets BBB from Starter planet and so forth. When you collect three parties or more they work together and get larger gifts (Not that crap you have via Inhertitance Construction Kits).

 

FUture IDEA 2: Guild based Event(s). IE: Guilds needs to complete a certain level based mission set every two days in order to obtain guild based gifts. Like an EXTRA TAB or maybe BUFFS for a day (RAID Day) for any guild that managed to complete say 10 Missions with at least 75% of the guild participation. (Tracking of this would need to be published via Guild Bank) The more people that contribute the bigger and better the buffs.

 

Future IDEA 3: Something that has a rewards based system that provides RESOURCES to individuals. Let's say you are an Artifcase and need a flow of Arch and Gems. You would complete said missions and get materials daily based on your skill set (That's the catch - You need to have you skill set at certain levels to get certain levels). After the 6th DAY of doing this you have unlocked getting level 6 items. (In theory you should be getting points and resources for each of these missions). - USE of Companions for "NEW" Missions just for the event would be used instead of the same ole boring ones. New set of missions opened up across the BOARD.

Edited April 27, 2012 by dscount

[imjomama]

I love the in game events. The outbreak was fun and the rewards are cool infected skins unique light saber crystal.

 

Man I hope each event has its own unique colored light saber crystals and unique skins.

 

Maybe a crystal with a red center with an outer green glow.

 

A unique player set of modifiable armor - like a set that makes you look infected

 

Please make some Crystals Bind to Legacy -Increase the cost of Bind to Legacy items.

Edited April 27, 2012 by imjomama
thought

[Taciturnul]

The event was great because of the way the plague works, spreading and in a way keeping itself up. It was a good event because the plague was not automatically removed at the end of it, and I for one, would very much like to see how long can the plague go on until it dies out( if it does). Frankly I prefer it doesn t. What I didn t however like so much if at all about it was the idea of dailies. Repeatable quests are boring because they have no variation, randomness in the way they are carried out. The idea of progressive dailies wasn t bad, doing one daily then unlocking a new one the next day because of that, but like i said doing the same thing over and over just because you're being carefully pointed at a nice shiny carrot at the end of a stick doesn t make things fun, and lets face it we re here for the fun.

Overall its definitely a step in the right direction, we need more engaging things to do and these things must be spread out in terms of what the particular action does or doesn t do for the player.

As it stands, once a character gets to level 50, it has 2 options available: warzones and raiding, and as much fun as they can be, for awhile, they do tend to get tedious and boring in the end. So we need soem other things to keep us busy at that point. Introducing some sandbox elements would be a good ideea at that point.

So plague good, lets keep the swtor world changing and alive.

[Vorloran]

Cool event, but wish it would have lasted longer.

[Palahad]

I love this event!

 

Specifically, i loved how its introduction made sense from an in-game perspective. You don't plan an airplane crash, nor should a spaceship crash be planned. Therefore, no advanced warning made complete sense to me. If it makes sense not to announce it(like this one did) then I am totally all for not announcing it. If it doesn't make sense(id est, a festival of some sort) then you can bet I'll be among the vocal complaining about it.

 

As has been mentioned, i didn't like the Infected Companion Lockboxes being generated randomly. I for one have only Republic characters on one server, and Empire characters on another. Giving me customizations for the opposite faction, when i have none of those on that server was just a waste of my time. I also didn't like the fact that I couldn't get one for Khem Val. I thought he'd have looked best with one..since equipment doesn't show up on him, and all you have are customization options to alter his appearance.

 

For future events, I'd like to see something for all levels. Perhaps a scavenger hunt for each tier..level 1-10 being able to get their items on the starter worlds, Levels 11-20 getting their items from starter worlds and home worlds et cetera and so forth, with level 50's having to travel all over the galaxy for their items.

Edited April 27, 2012 by Palahad

[Ancen]

I enjoyed the plague aspect of it and the social humor it brought about, as well as the "expanding" dailies that unlocked further and further each day. It was a great way to have something new during the event consistently. The event having its own unique currency tokens was also quite nice a touch to give you an overall "progression" during it. Edited April 27, 2012 by Ancen

[Anonyms]

Perhaps this threat could even come from beyond the outer rim (!!!)

Not the Yuuzhan Vong! please. The books kind of died during that invasion.

 

But seriously...

 

Great event. Loved the sneak update. Loved the new content each day. Loved the rewards I bought (Black-green crystals).

 

Would like to see separate reward vendors to reduce camping, and new quests each day on a time release instead of tied to the character(I.E. available for everyone at the same time, say when Dailies reset).

 

Keep up the good work.

[Frksax]

Great event! I loved how it created some faction unity and competition on the PvE servers with a little PvP going on and fighting over who gets to kill the worldboss. Also liked how it made the affected area much more lively, moving the lvl 50s off of their butts in the fleet and out into the universe.

[Yavin_Prime]

Loved it! Can't wait to see more events, maybe with less RNG on the boxes, and more things to earn based on time played, and not based on how lucky you get with those damn lucky boxes.

 

I have to disagree with this. I, and many other people, don't have tons of hours to play the game each day/week. Rewarding people based on time played just seems unfair. I think they should get rid of the "random" loot boxes but I don't think rewarding people for pouring tons of time into the game is fair outside of traditional level/point progression.

 

I found that the event was advertised to lightly. Funny thing is I went to go play ME3 when the event started and I came back the day the event ended, so sadly I missed it (my fault though). I would like to see the events last a bit longer, perhaps a week or two longer. I do have to say it was exciting to see Tatooine filled to the brim and it was kinda sad to see it end and then the planet go back to being rather empty.

 

What would be nice would be a longer "rolling" event. Events with phases. If players on a server win at an event then the problem clears up on a planet but may spawn on another. If they "lose" or neglect the event I think the situation on the planet should get worse and worse. Kinda like Rifts "rift" events... I loved how Rifts had constant events going on at all times. I know that is asking a lot but start small and just do one event for like a month and see how it works.