Grand Acquistions Race Vs Rakghoul Plague

[Meanerr]

Thoroughly enjoyed GAR on my sub-30 chars. Didn't bother/have time with my higher level toons.

 

Was able to do class quest and GAR at the same time with my level 20s which was a big bonus!

 

Seeing Pubs and Imps lineup in a orderly queue on the Nar Shaddaa Lower Promenade (The Bastion) was priceless.

[Alterin]

I wish I could have taken part in the Grand Acquisitions Race, but... I goto Nar Shadaar start the chain. Next thing you know, I'm standing in bundle of 40 people all trying to click on one stupid droid(?) to start a race thing? Yeah, that's not fun. Not only is the whole hoping you click first thing ridiculous, but getting to see everyone complete the "quest" right in front of you? Very few things about this game baffle me, but this design decision baffled me completely. WHY?!?!?

[Bugattiboy]

Rakghoul Plague wins all day, every day, under any circumstances.

 

The race WAS easier, but it was just TOO easy. The means of gaining the tokens were also far more annoying than the Rakghoul Plague.

[Monoth]

OP: You left out that the Rakghoul event provided some of the best open world pvp ever seen in SWTOR..... both sides fighting over the event bosses was epic....

 

For that reason alone I would have to say the Rakghoul event was better

[Monoth]

I wish I could have taken part in the Grand Acquisitions Race, but... I goto Nar Shadaar start the chain. Next thing you know, I'm standing in bundle of 40 people all trying to click on one stupid droid(?) to start a race thing? Yeah, that's not fun. Not only is the whole hoping you click first thing ridiculous, but getting to see everyone complete the "quest" right in front of you? Very few things about this game baffle me, but this design decision baffled me completely. WHY?!?!?

 

Ya I hear ya.... What I did to complete it was really crazy, I grouped up with several people so we would all get credit instead of trying to do it individually... Ya I know, i'm just crazy like that...

[Tylthul]

I wasn't a huge fan of either, but I did them for the novelty and "limited time only" loot. I guess I'm a good (bored) hamster.

 

I disliked the Rakghoul Plague, because (as someone mentioned previously) you seemed to get rewarded for just standing around in a giant mosh pit on fleet, getting and infecting others. I had some distant hope that there would be some hidden reward for not getting infected (seemed much harder frankly), but alas...at least the quests were something to break up the grind.

 

The Grand Acquisitions Race had an interesting premise and nice cut scenes to dress them up, but (for the most part) I found the quests themselves extremely underwhelming. WAY too much admission line format. The robot race was the worst. Scores of people massed around a box futilely clicking in hopes their number would come up so they could take their turn on the 10 second ride.

 

On the other hand, there were some interesting elements (like sabotaging the phone booth), which I enjoyed. I just wish they were presented better, or, minimally, in a way that didn't cause hair pulling frustration.

[Lymain]

I enjoyed the Rakghoul event, but I didn't even take part in the race because I wasn't drawn into it at all. I guess there were terminals I was supposed to click on, but that wasn't intriguing compared to the announcements for the first event (not to mention seeing people infected).

[Deewe]

Rhakghoul Plague:

• Really poor communication on the even. Made some players miss it and some even totally avoided Tatooine because they were told to.
  
• Was designed for hardcore players as needed to start day 1 to get all the rewards
  
• Needed external websites support to finish in such a short time frame
  
• Plagued with griefing players either taging them PvP (on non PvP servers), being ganked due to population/level imbalance and vendor location, making characters sick and obliging them to buy meds
  
• World PvP but without players consent.
  
• Rewards location inaccessible for low level alts
  
• Can't choose the companion skin. Giving mostly a copy of the razer crystal.
  
• No rewards for low level characters
  
• Announcing only a few hours ahead the removal of the event vendor.
  
• Did not feel SW at all but added life to world
  
• Incentives for players to look after world bosses (TBH never cared about them before)
  
• Ability to redo the quest
  
• Pseudo conversations
  
• Making players stand still AFK in the fleet until they die
  
• Impossible to participate for low level alts
  
• Need of external web sites to preview the rewards
  
• Event could be repeated if desired
  

 

Grand Acquistions:

• A bit better communication
  
• For new players there was no indication that the missing quest would unlock in the following days
  
• Better indications about where to do the quests
  
• No griefing however non instancing some parts created lots of frustration
  
• Reward location still not accessible for low level alts
  
• No rewards for most of the classes and surprisingly a tier 1 speeder inaccessible for low level atls.
  
• No rewards for low level characters
  
• More SW tuned but the story was just fair. Althout the event felt flat. Did not immersed the player as much as the last before.
  
• Event becomes a grind to get tokens when players are done with the main quest (Tedious for characters under 40ish)
  
• Not announcing from start how long the even would last nor the vendor would stay in
  
• Impossible to sell the tokens in the GTN
  
• New minigames (not that great but a good start. Ex: no aiming cross on the turret, droids stopping to run after like 5sec then starting again and so on,
  
• Impossible to participate for low level alts
  
• Spectator mode: no dialogs and Felt very linear and static
  
• Need of external web sites to preview the rewards
  
• Could not repeat the event.
  
• Back and forth between planets without being able to recall to the space ship
  

 

 

Future events

• Surprise the players is bad because you have to actually allow players to plan their availability to enjoy the event versus real life constraints. Or at worst keep the event for at least a month up to mitigate the issue
  
• Send way beforehand RL and later on in game emails to players because some people don't play regularly and some can spend weeks without even going back to the fleet.
  
• Specify how long the event will last from start
  
• Specify how long will the vendors (if ever) will stay. Note: other games keep them in forever so players can turn in at their convenience.
  
• Keep the event much longer than a single week, especially with such short delay notification.
  
• Either instantiate shared content or make it so one player triggering it isn't preventing another to do so.
  
• Add grouped content that needs specific classes to complete or at least 2 players
  
• Allow players to repeat at least part of the event
  
• Drop rewards vendors in low level locations to players can spoil their (spaceship less) lowbie alts and as such will be even more eager to roll alts and grind more for them.
  
• Add rewards for low level characters, even level 1.
  
• Allow players to trade the tokens in the GTN
  
• Make sure to have rewards for all the classes (No other MMO restricts rewards to specific classes)
  
• Display the rewards in game so players can preview them
  
• Improve the SW feeling on the event
  
• Add more "alive" feeling to the world
  

[Gwena]

I very much preferred the Rakghoul plague event to the Grand Acquisitions race. I loved the Rakghoul event, but didn't even bother to finish the Race.

 

What the Race did WELL:

- You could start on any day of the event and be able to complete it

- High level character was not required

- Not easy to completely miss

- Rewards vendor staying for awhile after

- Interesting treasure hunt/scavenger hunt theme without making players spend too much time traveling

- Light/Dark choice and title for each

 

Critique of what the Race did POORLY:

- Smuggler's Crates: when I was trying to get these, I hated seeing other players around and I tried to avoid them. In an MMO, this is not a good thing! Driving around Nar Shadda looking for glowing blue boxes is not particularly fun, especially when you are competing with other players. All it took was one other person farming crates in the same general area as you and your crate-finding efficiency plummeted. Also, the RNG could be frustrating for those trying to complete the associated quest, particularly as they were competing with people farming crates.

 

- Competition for Quest Objectives: it is not fun trying to do a quest when there are a bunch of other people around that need to click on the exact same thing as you and do the exact same thing as you. This sort of system only works for normal questing (usually) because there are few players spread out over a relatively large area so it is unlikely you'll run into more than a couple of people trying to do the same objective as you. This is clearly not the case in a limited time world event! Unless you wanted to call it "The Grand Clicking Race", or something.

 

- Rewards: Speeder is rank 1, and with legacy perks especially, is has very limited use if you aren't a newbie or a mount collector. Weapons are awesome but less than 1/4 of AC's can use them and it costs a ridiculous sum to remove the barrels. Lobelot is very expensive. Pet you get for completing the event is a recolor of a pet that almost everyone just recently got as a transfer reward. The Sandpeople outfit is very similar to an already existing social set, and maybe I missed something, but what do Sand People have to do with a treasure hunt that takes place on Nar Shadda and the Capital worlds? The rewards weren't horrible or anything, but they seemed very thrown together and impractical.

 

The main issues with the Rakghoul event were that is was so time-sensitive (had to pick it up early in the event to be able to finish it), had a reward that was RNG based (companion kits) and that the vendor vanished immediately after. The Race event fixed all of these problems, but was not nearly as immersible or engaging and brought with it all sorts of different problems that were, IMHO, even worse.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Gwena

[JWillets]

get out of here with that grand acquisition race nonsense lol. Apart from 2 little news stands, you wouldve never know the event was happening unless you visit the website. Had you followed the quests in the Rakghoul event, the story was actually awesome and there was an actual reason why the event happened and it linked to Lost Island and Kaon. 3 world bosses was pretty dope Some of the quest layouts were rough but it wasnt a big deal. The missions were far better imo.

 

Id also like to point out that you didnt have to sit on fleet all day. That was your choice to farm commendations, and thats because the event rewards for the rakghoul plague were awesome and everybody wanted something from the vendor. Sitting on fleet was not the event. but it did give me something to do while looking for a fp group or crafting. You were pretty much guranteed a ton of comms by sitting there. Whereas if you actually wanted any of the dumb stuff in GAR, you had to run all over Nar Shaddaa looking for small crates for 1 maybe 2 comms. Of which, there were at least 40-70 ppl doing the same.

 

The rewards were atrocious in GAR. A legacy weapon is cool so you can ship color crystals and whatnot between alts but a rank 1 speeder for a generally lvl 50 event was an oversight and i think should be patched. We already had a sand people outfit (which is ugly). And idc about vanity pets. I have a sith inquisitor and a sith warrior.....i didnt get an interesting new weapon.....

[AshlaBoga]

Rewards:

 

Rakghoul:

RNG Companion Skins? I've got 8 Vectors and 1 Kira - someone explain how this is fair.

Black-Green Crystals - :D:D:D

 

GAR:

Legacy Rifles - I can transfer my BoP White Crystals to my fresh 50s to make them 100% more awesome:D, but I can't transfer Hilts, only Barrels.

 

Overall my only complaint is the the Black-Green Crystals were fun for EVERY class, but the Rifles favour specific ones. Still, I put a White-Crystal in a rifle so now my Sentinel has a Black-Purple and White Crystal:)

[Kubernetic]

The rewards were atrocious in GAR. A legacy weapon is cool so you can ship color crystals and whatnot between alts but a rank 1 speeder for a generally lvl 50 event was an oversight and i think should be patched. We already had a sand people outfit (which is ugly). And idc about vanity pets. I have a sith inquisitor and a sith warrior.....i didnt get an interesting new weapon.....

 

Whoa, who said it was a "generally level 50 event"? Plenty of the quests could be easily accomplished by players of level 20 or higher. I know. I completed the entire event with a level 20/21. I only needed some help during the Bounty Hunter chase, due to Imperials ganking players in the area.

 

In the case of mobs spawning due to a triggered item, the mobs that spawned were specifically tailored to your level... even Derester and his probe droid.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Kubernetic

[THAAC]

I didn't get why the Lead missions were time locked. Was there a valid reason as to why they wouldn't let you complete them till days later?

 

Of course there was. There were 3 missions that were opened 1 at a time. The 3 and 6 month subbers time expired on the 17, which meant if they wanted to complete the whole thing, they would need to resub.

 

Cynical, and undoubtedly vehemently denied by EA and fanboys alike, but most likely the reason. EA is all about the $$$.

[Persephonee]

I loved the Rakghoul Plague event but really didn't care for the Grand Acquisitions Race at all.... riding around in circles finding and clicking on boxes reminded me too much of "PVP" in Illum... I clicked on enough to get my pet but never did get the last piece for the bonus... random is random I guess and that's fine.

 

I am happy that some people really enjoyed the last event... hopefully we will see more events. I look forward too seeing something new, different and fun.

[Vasala]

I definitely liked that the Race missions were globally unlocked instead of individually unlocked like the Rakghoul event. That made it a lot easier to get alts through the event. I did like the way that the Rakghoul event had dailies though. I was a bit disappointed that there were no repeatable missions for the race.

 

My main suggestion for future events would be to either have more places where each individual mission can be completed to spread people out or not make them funnel where only one person / group can complete at a time. If something has to be a one at a time thing then it should be behind an instance portal so it does not become a pile of people all trying to beat one another to the click.

 

I would also suggest taking events like these and making them return on a yearly basis so as you get new players in the game they can experience the events as well. Then the codex entries would still be obtainable in the future for people that missed the original run of the event. Then you would even have the option of upgrading the vendors to be close to whatever the current gear level is when the events make their annual appearance.

[tausser]

I didn't get involved with the plague til near the end and while I did the quest chain on one character, I didn't collect enough things for a pet.

 

This time, I didn't even bother with it other than collecting the tokens the chests I passed and which I may be able to sell in the next couple of days, hopefully.

[Monoth]

You guys do realize that the Grand Acquisition Race Event is a lead into the new Warzone and Operation thats coming out.... So those who decided not to do it lost a bit of the story....

[DarthScruffy]

One real positive to the GAR was the "spy mission". My friends and I were so jazzed when we got the spymaster emails and did the Casino mission. Unfortunately, it could have used an ending.

[Mallorik]

I didnt do either of them very much, just one time to see what they were all about, but i would have to say the grand aquisitions race loses by a mile just because of the stupid bottle necks where people had to spam click items for an hour and things kept getting sniped and quests screwed up.

 

It was a horribly implemented event, i keep hoping bw will surprise me and come out with something that isnt horribly implemented in the game. Not just an event, anything in the game that isnt horribly implemented would give me hope for the future.

[Lymain]

You guys do realize that the Grand Acquisition Race Event is a lead into the new Warzone and Operation thats coming out.... So those who decided not to do it lost a bit of the story....

 

It's not our fault they held a week long event with terrible in game "advertising." If it's crucial to the story, that just makes it all the worse on their part.

[alricka]

I'd agree that the Plague was more surprising - and thus more immersive in theory - but that's a double-edged sword. On one hand, yes, the surprise factor. On the other, by that time I didn't have the time to log in every day and when I did, I didn't bother to go to the fleet. The result? I found out about the Plague too late and barely had the time to get a few rewards. So, while the preemtive declaration of the Grand Goosechase Race mitigated the surprise factor, I was totally prepared for it.

 

I think that the gameplay mechanics of the events weren't that dissimiair. Both times you mainly had to walk around and click on objects. Well, the Plague did have world bosses and the crashed ship is still in the desert, and it's very cool to see how the planet changed (even if it was a tiny change).

 

The rewards for the Plague were much better. No, I'm not ranting about the bowcasters, I found use for them with my alts. But the Tuskan suit and the broken speeder were a joke, IMO. At least the Containment Officer suit had some pretty cool looking pieces (love the boots, they are gonna be perfect for my Bounty Hunter when they make Nautolans a playable race ) and the little Jawa swindler sold some unique companion customizations.

Edited August 23, 2012 by alricka

[EternalSoul]

Next event can we get gaffi sticks. Thanks!

[DLBoyd]

The last email I got made it sound like the GAR event isn't over....just waiting for the next part.

[corvuscorvus]

I really liked the forcejunkies.com analysis article of the latest event: http://www.forcejunkies.com/2012/08/23/the-grand-acquisitions-race-a-review/

[Deewe]

I really liked the forcejunkies.com analysis article of the latest event: http://www.forcejunkies.com/2012/08/23/the-grand-acquisitions-race-a-review/

Seems to me a fair review of the event.

 

They are indeed pointing at the good and "needs to be improved" elements.

 

Good read, thx.