That sounds interesting! I wish all these events would actually have an impact. Now it is the same old "kill thousands of monsters, and if you don't it doesn't matter anyway". I see no real reason for participating in another monster slaying event.
Even if there wouldn't be an impact, the characters don't know that...And, of course, the various UO teams have usually, to their credit, been good about finding rewards we can get that are appropriate. Thus granting us an out-of-character reason to participate, if the potential consequences weren't enough. (Good loot and doing the right thing were rarely incompatible goals to the heroic characters of fantasy. Or, for that matter, the RL knights those heroes were modeled after.)
But do we really know there wouldn't be an impact for most of this? We can assume that some things need to happen or not happen for storyline purposes, I suppose. But I have always thought it best to not assume one way or the other and just try my hardest to contribute to the positive outcome.
I, for example, simply do not want to know what would have happened if we had failed to defeat the Shadowlords. I'd rather just try my hardest to contribute to a win.
But, one of the virtues of non-epic scenarios is that a loss by the players may not necessarily be a catastrophe. Thus the players could lose and the consequences would still be manageable. (For example, let's say in a given scenario, loss means the gargoyle separatist spawn is increased somewhat; victory means there's some useful buff you can get from some gargoyle related locations in Ter Mur and Ilshenar. Either outcome is manageable and can probably differ shard to shard without breaking something. At least I hope so.)
I, and many others, would still try our hardest to win, of course.
Oh, as I recall they didn't do the reagent rarity scenario because they were worried there'd be too many warriors who would try too hard to make the players not win as an effort to weaken mages in PvP. They could resurrect it now with the LRC thing, I think, because I don't think the effects of loss would be
as catastrophic. We now have LRC, reagents, and arcane clothing. Back then we had only reagents. So even if we lose and LRC gets limited, it wouldn't (I hope) be limited that badly and there'd still be the others to fall back on.
And, of course, these smaller-scale scenarios would be a supplement to, not in addition to, EM events. (Though I'd imagine EMs would have a role in implementing the global events as well.) Thus, conceivably, there'd be something to do in the events rather frequently for those interested.
And then, after a year or two of non-epics, perhaps we'd be ready for the next world-ender.
-Galen's player
