The Good Parts of This:
Factions is part of the game. Despite its participants'....oddness when it comes to anyone who hasn't been in it for years, it is part of the game and I have long-argued that it benefits when it's fully integrated into life in the game. Hence my not minding when the invasions were keyed to Factions in an unprecedented way.
Further, it makes sense that the event would focus on the Shadowlords Faction, for reasons that should be 100% obvious.
Also, sadly, players like evil and have long wanted evil events and evil content. To that end we've had Dread Mares, Nightmares, evil furniture, a champ spawn or two that caters to evil-ness, one of the must useful artifacts in the game is a Slayer for the only good-aligned creature type in the game, etc. Now, an evil event. I believe this is UO's first evil event that isn't player-run. I feel that people are sure to like it.
The Bad Parts of This:
Though it's rarely admitted, there's already a fair amount of evil content in the game. In addition to the above list, there's the glaring example of the Magincia Invasion, wherein players fighting to save the city were threatened with having GMs paged on them. Though a Vorpal Blade proved to be worth more than most pieces of rubble, there were some rubble pieces that were worth roughly 20 to 50 Vorpal Blades, and these rewards couldn't even be unlocked without doing something evil. Now we will doubtlessly have even more evil-only rewards.
Also, it's not like evil characters, or even specifically Shadowlords' characters, were prohibited from participating in the other events. Indeed, they were quite welcome despite how illogical that obviously is.
Fellies have shown little interest in events beyond griefing them. So, really, why an event that is oriented towards them? Hasn't EA learned its lessons with massively-grief EM events and the way the TB Faction on LS killed everyone who'd showed up to hear Casca's speech in Felucca?
Finally.....Evil without a chance to prevent it just feels REALLY wrong for UO; it doesn't at all feel like it's true to UO's model.
I'm sure there's more points on both sides but that's all I thought of at the moment.
Myself, I'm just going to ride things out and see what happens. I have enjoyed the events in this cycle, overall, and Draconi's earned himself a fair amount of good will with me. (And I'm sure that hearing that from one of the least-liked players on Stratics has absolutely made this all worth it to him. Yes, that was sarcastic.)
-Galen's player
. It made me laugh out loud. Thanks.
