I've generally enjoyed the "global" events in the last year, although I have put very little time into the ToT III event so far because it begins to feel too much like a job after a while and the drop rate's been unspectacular. Haven't run into any rude people so far, but then I'm probably going to all the wrong places with all the wrong types of characters and no one could possibly consider my characters a threat to their drop rate!
As far as the EM events go, I can't say much. I tried going to a couple of them but at this point I feel very out of the loop with regard to the story line on any of the shards where I play regularly. There's also been such a strong backlash against "strangers" showing up, that sometimes that also makes me very reluctant to just go and try to have a good time. I'm not a very competitive person and I usually enjoy most just watching the proceedings and giving a hand with rezzes and heals and seeing what's going on with the story. However, I'm not keen on the idea of going to something and having the locals decide that no matter what I'm actually doing at the event, I'm an outsider who doesn't deserve to be there and therefore it is okay to lure a bunch of junk on me, refuse to rez my characters, and/or be ignored by the EM. Even though I've played on GL for almost five years and Baja for four years, the guilds most of my characters are in on those shards are all but dormant. And on the other shards where I play with some regularity (Sonoma, LA, Legends, Origin, Atlantic, LS, Pacific, Napa, Europa), the only people I really know or do much with are four guildmates, and we are seldom all on together at the same time until late night/early morning. The EMs pick some funny times for events, but haven't seen anything yet scheduled for real night owls.
From what I have read, it does look like some of the EMs have done an outstanding job of listening to the folks on the shards where they serve and have been collaborating with them to come up with some interesting and fun events. On other shards (e.g., Lake Austin), it "feels" as if EM events haven't progressed a lot further than "meet and greet" and a few random and widely spaced events.
I don't have anyone but myself to blame for not attending more EM events. I've got characters in enough places I probably could find something somewhere that fits my schedule. I guess the fact that I haven't bothered really comes down to not feeling a strong connection to any particular shard anymore and having no interest in collecting EM-created items. Kind of hard to justify collecting that stuff and then putting it out for display in a house you share with four other people and that's always short on storage and there's no real point in just shoving it in a bank box.
