Something I don't understand about events...

[Dor of Sonoma]

...why is it that the recent crop seems to consist of asking players to gather in a predetermined area - and then immediately gating them en masse to parts unknown?

When I arrived for today's event, it was to find several players who had just managed to miss The Gate - even though they had arrived promptly on schedule. They had no idea how and where to proceed, and were left rather disappointed. (They were ditched, basically)

My question is thus: Why, oh why is such a routine necessary in Trammel? Why is it not possible to either *gasp* actually conduct an event at the prearranged meeting place, or, failing that, to provide directions to those whom are jostled out of the gate, and thus denied participation?

It makes no sense to me.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Don't feel bad Dor. We just had ours on Baja and it was the typical go kill monsters and die a lot. At the end some shards fell from the sky so not everybody got event rewards, like promised by UO. Then we went back to Yew Abbey and nobody explained what we just did and why we did it. Same old BS EM Event.

 

[Crysta]

They didn't bother to send any messages as to where it was happening by town criers either. I was guessing they'd have us meet somewhere first after sending out a message. Instead I go to where I thought it would be happening to find nobody and a moongate. SO I go in. People killing random stuff. Casca apprears. More stuff dies. Suddenly an unexplained flash of light and crap raining from the skies. Within seconds and before I have any idea what the hell is happening, everyone else is gone except one person who said Casca siad to head back to yew.. except I was standing next to him and he didn't say a word. Then i go back to the abbey to a crowd of people talking about selling crystals they had gotten, and the middel of a conversation from the event chars that should have lasted about 2 minutes but took 10 for them to finish talking that didn't actually explain anything of what the hell just happened. Then it was over and everybody left.

What the ****?

 

[Tina Small]

...why is it that the recent crop seems to consist of asking players to gather in a predetermined area - and then immediately gating them en masse to parts unknown?

When I arrived for today's event, it was to find several players who had just managed to miss The Gate - even though they had arrived promptly on schedule. They had no idea how and where to proceed, and were left rather disappointed. (They were ditched, basically)

My question is thus: Why, oh why is such a routine necessary in Trammel? Why is it not possible to either *gasp* actually conduct an event at the prearranged meeting place, or, failing that, to provide directions to those whom are jostled out of the gate, and thus denied participation?

It makes no sense to me.

At the one on Baja, the Captain of the Royal Guard put up a gate from the Abbey to outside the Yew crypts. Then she apparently put up another gate that led to where we did the fighting. Why we had to take the long way to get there and go through the confusion at the Yew crypts is beyond me. Maybe when the person doing the gating does something like that, it gives his or her friends a bigger headstart getting to the destination than others.

 

[Jhym]

Donno... though since they were having the events at different times for each shard I -thought- they'd have other EMs helping out; for instance to create semi-perm gates and removing them later, or gating stragglers around as needed.

It is par for the course though to just be herded around fairly randomly until 'goal' is done. I'd love the EM's to come up with some multi-path goals that would split everyone up into smaller groups that could be worked with... and it would make it more fun for people to compare stories later.

*sigh*

 

[SwordBlaze]

ON CATSKILLS

Ten minutes prior to the event everyone got a message saying the event would be at Yew Empath Abbey in ten minutes. Lord Casca came and spoke to us about how he found out how to stop the crimson dragons from coming into our realm. He lead us (through gates) to a blood sigil in a dungeon like area. We killed many monsters and he destroyed the sigil. He claimed it was how the dragons came in. After destroying it, if you were too close you got pushed back and crystals dropped to the ground. Easily obtainable unless your connection was bad. Basically the people complaining must be on dial up or had some back luck. After that we gated back to empath abbey. Casca started saying how great he was and how the crimson dragons bow before him when a crimson dragon appeared. It asked who said that and Casca ran. A platinum dragon appeared and killed the Crimson dragon and they both left..... I will admit the ending to the event was a little out of the blue.

 

[Lord Frodo]

ON CATSKILLS

Ten minutes prior to the event everyone got a message saying the event would be at Yew Empath Abbey in ten minutes. Lord Casca came and spoke to us about how he found out how to stop the crimson dragons from coming into our realm. He lead us (through gates) to a blood sigil in a dungeon like area. We killed many monsters and he destroyed the sigil. He claimed it was how the dragons came in. After destroying it, if you were too close you got pushed back and crystals dropped to the ground. Easily obtainable unless your connection was bad. Basically the people complaining must be on dial up or had some back luck. After that we gated back to empath abbey. Casca started saying how great he was and how the crimson dragons bow before him when a crimson dragon appeared. It asked who said that and Casca ran. A platinum dragon appeared and killed the Crimson dragon and they both left..... I will admit the ending to the event was a little out of the blue.

ON BAJA
You got more info then we did prior to the event. Alot of us really didn't know what was going on. It was an event are we were there to do our part. I died 4 times, by what I do not know. 146 hit points gone befor I could get one heal or aid off. Don't mind dying but it would of been nice to know why and what we were going to go fight.

 

[Ailish]

ON NAPA: People were gathered at the Abbey at least an hour ahead and we had some great fun with one of our EM's for that entire time. Sadly, alot of off-sharders got the crystals.

Out of curiosity I went to watch the Oceanea event and was somewhat disappointed to see that their EM, rather than interacting with the people and going with the flow while still doing the story, chose to call Messanna to "quiet the hordes". There were less than half the people there than were at the Napa event, and they were not nearly as rowdy.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

The reason why people are dying like flies is that they run blindly into their doom, following the others like lemmings.

If you'd have been more careful, you would have noticed the SHADOW FIENDS attacking intruders. And with a little experience, you'd have known that Shadow Fiends do MASSIVE damage the more creatures or players are standing near them. Fight those alone, and they're an easy kill. Fight those with 10 pets or players standing around you, they'll kill a Greater Dragon within 2 seconds.

Anyway, I agree that it was difficult to follow what the EM (Casca) said, mostly due to players spamming the scene.

 

[Faeryl]

Out of curiosity I went to watch the Oceanea event and was somewhat disappointed to see that their EM, rather than interacting with the people and going with the flow while still doing the story, chose to call Messanna to "quiet the hordes". There were less than half the people there than were at the Napa event, and they were not nearly as rowdy.

From what I gathered, Mesanna was called in due to the fact that a few people were spamming and fielding so bad that it was near impossible to read what Casca was saying at the end. They'd been asked to stop repeatedly, even to the point they EMs said they wouldn't continue until it was stopped. Unfortunately, as soon as the Crimson appeared, they started up again. The event ended so abruptly, I got the impression the EMS were so frustrated they just ended ASAP...

 

[DevilsOwn]

no idea if or how this would work

would be nice if there was a system in place so that, during EM events, if a player is targeted by X-number of different players, and spamming is witnessed by GM, they are blackholed or jailed for duration of event.... the targeting would have to trigger a GM response for determination

hmm... that could be a problem

 

[Cyrah]

I missed this event but after reading many posts about it I also have a question.

Was this a preplanned script all EMS had to follow? I ask this because I just cannot see the LS EMS raining junk from the sky is all. Ever of their own free will.

 

[Crysta]

I missed this event but after reading many posts about it I also have a question.

Was this a preplanned script all EMS had to follow? I ask this because I just cannot see the LS EMS raining junk from the sky is all. Ever of their own free will.

I'm almost certain it was. There was probably a bit of leeway as to what cahracters would appear (maybe some EM chars and such I mean), but it certainly seemed like an official script rather than them talking.

And for the record, I probably wouldn't have had so many complainjts had I been able to see the beginning explanation of the event (had there been a town crier message). Was a fine event by itself. Do wish they had kept the area open, though.

 

[RichDC]

Great lakes event im not sure if it was on the town criers but every shard had it announced on uo.com, it was well advertised!

Good fun, over too quickly but we found out that the reason for it was the em's were testing how we dealt with the lag.

I heard some other shards got overrun...in fact i heard that one shadow fiend dropped pretty much the entire party!!Too funny!!!

The crystals falling i thought was a well done part, made it interesting...much better than them say falling into peoples backpacks. Rewards the quick of hand while giving everyone an equal opportunity.

Events are getting better, Great lakes was for the most part well conducted with no spamming...Would have been nice to see a dragon fight though at the end...look forward to the next

 

[Crysta]

The *time* was announced on uo.com, the *location* was not.

 

[sablestorm]

The *time* was announced on uo.com, the *location* was not.

That was mentioned in the Fiction.

 

[Crysta]

Didn't notice that. Still, how often do events go straight to a specific location? Usually there's a gathering somewhere to explain things to people that might not read the websites and such. I was waiting for the town crier announcement as to where to meet up specifially rather than risk waiting somewhere forever when I should be somewhere else.

On LS at least, the mesage never came.

 

[sablestorm]

Didn't notice that. Still, how often do events go straight to a specific location? Usually there's a gathering somewhere to explain things to people that might not read the websites and such. I was waiting for the town crier announcement as to where to meet up specifially rather than risk waiting somewhere forever when I should be somewhere else.

On LS at least, the mesage never came.

Oh I hear ya! It would be nice to have a consistent means of learning when and where events will be taking place.

 

[Dor of Sonoma]

Didn't notice that. Still, how often do events go straight to a specific location? Usually there's a gathering somewhere to explain things to people that might not read the websites and such. I was waiting for the town crier announcement as to where to meet up specifially rather than risk waiting somewhere forever when I should be somewhere else.

On LS at least, the mesage never came.

I suppose that what I was remembering were the days of yore, when Seer events were never instanced...and wondering if there isn't some way to return to good ol' fashioned open action?

As an example, the screenshots that Poo took of yesterday's event remind me of a rather extensive, bloody affair that involved twice as many players on Sonoma several years ago - and took place in the Deamon Temple on Fire Isle. It was massive and inclusive (if you could fight your way in to help), involved a great background story, stellar roleplaying, a good deal of advance planning and anticipation by players - and enough blood to satisfy any lust. Sure, they didn't have stuff rain down from the skies, but I suppose that they could have.

The current formula seems a bit trite to me: gather players in some meaningless (to the actual activity) location, gate them to an instance, have stuff attack them, rain items from above, gate back. Any roleplaying seems to be a cursory afterthought...but really, I cannot fault them on that score. I cannot summon the inspiration to interact with an instance, either.