No more. This event was terrible.

 

useless post is useless. Be more constructive.

Edited April 26, 2012 by xorcist

Here are the two things that really made this event special:

 

1. It was somewhat mysterious without being obnoxious. You had to figure out what was going on, and there was a lot of cooperation in chat, but it wasn't frustrating.

 

AND much more importantly:

2. It consisted of quests that were only available for a short time AND involved both factions having to play in the same area (that second part is key). On a pve server it's no biggie, but on a pvp server it's much closer to what we've been looking for. Definitely the best open world pvp yet. Throw in some objectives and/or rewards (like the world bosses but maybe more creative) and you've really got something.

 

Finally, some suggestions: anticipate the whiners and don't force people to deal with anything like the plague. Personally I thought it was great and I wanted to smack all the people complaining about it (was it really that big a deal!?). Next time if you do something similar allow people to opt out more easily so we don't have to listen to the constant kvetching.

 

Also, what is with you guys and the Rhakghouls? They were such a "meh" element of KotOR and now there's a quest series on Taris, you can't throw a lightsaber without hitting one, there's two flashpoints dedicated to them, and the first event to boot. Please focus group the lore of the next event a little more thoroughly for coolness factor.

 

Ultimately want to say thanks for a fun event, and looking forward to the next one.

the event was a great idea. i didn't have much of an opportunity to do a lot of the event activities. mostly due to time constraints. but it was still enjoyable and it brought and interesting feel to the game. i believed there was a plague. the news reports and the fact that the plague actually killed you made it more so believable as a "problem to be wary of." (i bolded that to stress how important that is to me.)

 

the only thing i wish there was more of is content for all people to do. for those of us that can only get on at limited times, we couldn't experience the best parts: the world bosses. log in and see that they've been defeated already and no clue on how long ago that was. can't very well stand there for potentially several hours for them to respawn.

 

have the world bosses return for future world events. i'm sure they're a blast. but also include more than dailies to do in the down time between respawns.

 

all in all, i liked it. and i support the development of future world events

So, what is your response to the people in this thread who are complaining that they couldn't ignore the event?

 

I don't know. I didn't read any of the other responses. Were they complaining about the fleet spam? Were they complaining about being infected against their will? Other?

 

Fleet Spam: In my opinion, that's just an ad for the event, not the event itself. It was annoying, but it didn't affect my gameplay in any fashion. It's not like CDC agents periodically swarmed the fleet, quarantining random NPCs for a period of time to isolate a plague outbreak. Now that would have been cool--and annoying to some people. ("Oh noes! Can't buy speeder *right now* cause speeder guy has the hiv!"

 

Plague-griefing: I fail to see how that was a big deal. I think the people complaining about that are overly sensitive and in need of a grip. What exactly was the detrimental effect of this "devastating" plague? For all the hysterics on the news you'd think being infected would affect people's gameplay in a noticable fashion, maybe a progressive stat or move speed reduction, periodic boughts of blindness or stunning, horrific coughing fits that disarmed you. Being infected was no big deal.

 

All in all, I spent maybe 2 hours on Tatooine, exploded once, left for the day, and never returned. The rest of my time during the event was spent on fleet, in WZs and doing dailies. I saw some people cough, I heard some people explode, I listened to the ad--and none of it had any effect on my time playing SWToR that week. I was mildly annoyed by the announcement, but over all the event was practically invisible to me. I understand that some folks are more sensitive to intrusive elements in their gameplay, but the event failed to engage me let alone interfere with or alter my SWToR experience to any meaningful degree.

 

For me this event failed to deliver anything other than the standard MMO fare--boring, repeatable quests and a reward vendor.

Overall, I found the event very enjoyable and a great success. My comments echo a lot of what has been already said:

 

Pros:

• The event was a surprise and not marketed or hyped. This provided a better sense of immersion and response to a crisis. It also fostered a sense of mystery and discovery. The value of this can't be overstated. Kudos! Very well executed.
  
• News reel and announcements on fleet gave a sense of authenticity. Again, well done.
  
• Rewards were good. They were unique and will serve as a piece of memorabilia for all that partook.
  
• The event really livened-up the social activity on the server, particularly on Tatooine and the Fleet.
  
• The treasure hunt mission was excellent. I got to explore parts of Tatooine that I previously had not. Perhaps the next event could include a similar mission: gathering pieces of tech or something to construct an item to help with taking down a tough world boss or equivalent.
  

 

Cons:

• Explosion bug causing players to be inadvertantly flagged for PVP. I know you guys are aware of this. It happened to me and I considered it only a minor issue. I'm sure the surprised look on my face when it happened must have been golden.
  
• A little more oomph to the conclusion of the event. Say, perhaps, a news reel depicting that a cure had been found and the vaccine was being distributed either through ventilation on fleet or available at all medical droid vendors (for free or very cheaply).
  
• Perhaps a little more time than 9 days. I'm mixed on that though. Don't want an event to go too long.
  
• Fleet vendors available for 3 or so days after close of the event.
  
• Some players were upset about one boss being in a PVP zone. I'm undecided on it. Ironically, the Bantha boss was the one boss where no PVP actually occurred with our OPS group. It did on the other two. LOL. So, I don't think this really a big issue. And I don't PVP often.
  

 

Suggestions:

• As has been mentioned, regular Star Wars holidays. Not RL equivalents.
  
• Perhaps include some new crafting schematics as rewards. Orange gear schematics are always nice.
  
• Continue to surprise us and allow players room to discover and/or explore. An element of mystery that requires us to solve is good.
  
• Treasure hunting is fun. Leaving clues improves this process.
  
• Sense of emergency or crisis is good.
  
• Perhaps, instead of a series of repeatable dailies, use a progression model, moving forward in stages through different locations. Of course, this could be problematic for late starters.
  
• Race against time and/or faction.
  

Edited April 26, 2012 by ZenMorph
Grammar typo

Already been said, but the parts I enjoyed most were:

 

The treasure hunt.

The story - I loved the news pieces and reading the codex entries. Was very immersive.

World PVP. We had some great scraps on Tatooine.

 

Cons:

1 new daily per day - I don't want to feel like I HAVE to play a game every day. Which I did because...

The event was a bit too short, maybe 2 weeks to allow for RL commitments.

Can't spend DNA samples now. We can still get DNA samples as the plague is still here, but can't spend them any more. I suggest a permanent vendor for time sensitive currencies like this.

Overall I loved it and would definitely welcome more events in the future.

 

However there are a few points where I think it could have been better.

• The progressive unlock of missions was a nice idea but I think it should have been a server unlock not a character based one. This would still have the fun of discovery for those who could get on each day, but would also allow latecomers an opportunity to catch up.
  
• The story seemed very front-loaded. The two elites in the regular missions came on the first day and while subsequent missions added more armor pieces as rewards they did not really advance the story or build to a climax.
  
• I think it would have been better had the armor reward been bind to legacy so that low level and future alts could make use of it, this update has been all about legacy so this seems off.
  
• PVP. As a PVE player the PVP elements in the event annoyed me.
  
  • Why was one of the special world bosses was placed in an open PVP area? I don't understand why you feel the need to encourage PVP by mixing it up in what was otherwise a purely PVE event. If players want to PVP then they will, if they do not want to then they won't.
    
  • This event served to once again highlight the poor PVP flagging mechanism in the game. The only way a player should ever be flagged is if they manually flag themselves, entering a warzone or open PVP area also clearly signals acceptance. There should be no way that the actions of one player should flag another for PVP. Any action done by a non-flagged player that might affect a flagged one should simply not affect them - this includes direct and indirect effects.
    
  • The infection system clearly annoyed a segment of the playerbase who were just not interested in the event. Since I was actively taking part in the event I treated the infection as a natural consequence (except for the PVP flagging). The players I encountered were also actively taking part so they were OK with it. But when it affected other players it could be viewed as a form of PVP attack and clearly the flagging mechanism did treat it this way, so it is understandable that players were upset because they could not opt-out.
    

Just wanted to add, I agree with those complaining about force-flagging for PVP. Infection spreading, I think we can accept -- it's part of making the event an event, part of the WORLD, not a quest people can choose to take or not. PVP flagging is more of a meta issue, and on PVE servers, any mechanic that allows you to flag someone against their will is probably a bad idea. If the goal was to drive up PVP as part of the event, then, place some of the event quest sites in PVP areas (as was done with one of the raid monsters). This puts the decision into the players' hands -- if they want specific rewards, they have to deal with the chance of PVP, and they enter those areas willingly with full knowledge of the consequences.

I liked it and had fun but in the future I think it would be nice if it grew to more worlds and spread because of us going where we were just told not to.

 

The orange gear would of been nice if there was some for all ( heavy, medium and light )

Here are my thoughts on the rakghoul event.

 

What I liked :

• Event with actual story around it.
  
• New encounters for the event (world bosses)
  
• Social Gear, Pets, Companions kits
  

 

What I didn't liked:

• Event too short
  
• Staggered dailies where it is required to wait next day to unlock next one. Prevented people to get the full set if they started to play the event on the weekend.
  
• Flagging for PvP due to the plagged while being on a PvE server. Nothing should flag you unless you willingly enter a contested/PvP zone..
  

 

Thanks for the event and looking forward to the next one.

This event was fantastic and I think this kind of stuff is going to keep me playing the game

Here is my feedback in song form.

 

Throughly enjoyed it.. what would be cool for the future is actively mixing PvP into it.

 

And perhaps making it war-based with offensive and defensive missions for the war effort.

I loved it!

 

It was so... random and unexpected. No hype or huge announcements it was just suddenly... there! I loved the "solving the mystery" aspect of it - that is, how the ship got infected. Absolutely love solving a puzzle or mystery. Loved Belsavis for the same kind of reasons... I felt I was exploring an ancient mysterious civilization there for real.

 

I look forward to more events like this! I already loved your game, this was just beyond the call of duty for you guys!

It was fun because it got everyone involved. The plague players carried made even those who are slow to get information to start asking questions about what was going on and how could they get involved. People got rewarded for all kinds of things. Rare pets, titles, world bosses, and social outfits were a huge plus. Heavy Armored looking Light Social gear was a nice touch. Even loved the newsfeed for the RP standpoint!

 

Not sure what types of events could come in the future but if they are anything like this, it'll be awesome.

it was one of the funnest things in the game so far!

I very much enjoyed the event! Particulaly the surprise of it. I also enjoyed the format of the announcements, news kiosks, warnings to stay away just to make us want to go investigate etc. I think the short duration makes the fun all the sweeter as well, though maybe one more week worth of time at most? I agree with making the rewards clearly earn able and doing away with the frustration of random rewards. I love seeing pets appearing in game, and am looking forward to finding RP reasons for them. Icertainly hope to see more surprise events occur,

 

Ideas I'd like to see? What wouldn't be fun? AI over taking some droid lab lab and luanching an assault on the galaxy? Extra galactic ship dropping out of hyperspace that we can invade/explore hinting at future threats to both republic and empire, something unexplained with a great mystery aspect? An optional portion that includes a pvp aspect to win a reward or controlof some asset? Some sort of secret organization that we can choose to defy or join? Indiana Jones style artifact/historical/lore based quests,? Abilities granted to decorate or ships? Planet we can build homes on? Mining mission that unearthed some threat, mystical or physical anomaly or energy to investigate? Ability to craft our own story events (I know I know SWG storytelling, props, and ventriloquism is gone from MMOs but does it really have to be? I miss rich player run RP events and the game mechanics supported ability to tell a story). With the excellent writers at Bio Ware I look forward to seeing what's next, I'll participate

1. From first discovery on Fleet with the news reports and the warnings, it really felt immersive. Very entertaining.
   
2. Having NPC characters wearing the containment gear helped give the feeling that something was going on. Also, things like dead npc surrounded by containment officers, etc were great for mood.
   
3. The actual crash site itself was well done. A gouged sand dune, a crater, smashed engines and parts everywhere, scattered Sand Crawlers (which made me laugh). Loved it.
   
4. Enjoyed the progressive dailies. It gave a sense of escalation to the disease and had a nice sense of discovery each day. Thumbs up.
   
5. The dailies and their missions flowed well. I was able to find them all without resorting to cheat sites.
   
6. The disease itself as a mechanic was implemented well. Very little detriments and a nice bonus when one is infected. Also easily remedied for those few who had a problem with it.
   
7. Rewards were nice without being too overpowered or too whimpy.
   
8. The simple act of it being an Event is awesome. More please.
   

 

In the future:

 

This is tough to answer. Everything I think of involves a lot of new art assets. Anyway, here it goes. I'd like to see an event on board a huge starship. Two factions fighting for control of it through completion of missions (doesn't necessarily have to be PvP)...at the end of the event, the faction with the most completions wins.

 

Or more simple: Esh-ka have finally gotten hold of a few ships to escape Belsavis. They've picked Alderaan as a staging planet to prepare for an invasion of Coruscant and Dromund Kass. Alderaan, mired in Civil War, cannot respond well-enough to defend itself, and so heroes have been called to shore up the defenses.

 

Another Idea: Create an event where we can pilot Walkers in battle.

I would say make one about a Mandalorian attack but being from KOTOR lore its so obvious its probably already in development.

 

Maybe one about the war like full on battles breaking out on a planet. You could have dailies to kill members of the other faction so people will PVP but also have some elite mobs for PVE people to complete them.

 

Maybe some kind of spying/espionagey event based on the you know who from act 3 of the agent story.

 

I enjoy the event a lot. The only thing that bothered me was that I couldn't do all the dailies in a row to get the armour set. You had to do them all then you could do a new one each day, this was annoying as a casual player with limited play time.

As a mostly-casual player with a highest level character at 31, I seriously enjoyed this event. Could have been a bit longer, but not with more dailies. Just a little more time so people who don't play every day could see more of it. I did like the progressive dailies, though, and the flowed well from one to another.

 

-- Containment Officer Gear is all BOP Light Armor? My trooper says "Yeah, um, no thanks."

-- Random companion customization boxes: WHYYYYYYYYYY? I got three Vectors, two Andronikos, 1 Corso, 1 Kira. I didn't mind grinding out a bunch of DNAs, but it maybe should have given me a random one out of all the ones I didn't have. Even if the one I really wanted (ELARA!!!) was the last one I got, I wouldn't feel like I wasted all that time if I had no dupes.

-- I liked that the event was accessible to characters under level 50, but I'm not sure I would have found out about this event if I hadn't been leveling on Tattoine already and sorta ran into it. I barely go to Fleet. I do like that style (accidental discovery) and I liked the emergency nature of the event without any warning, and I don't think EVERYTHING needs to be officially announced in loading screens and emails and such, but that also makes things easy to miss; maybe another reason to make events longer.

-- Some of the respawn rates were pretty brutal for a character at level with Tat, especially at the sand people areas. Other players were very helpful though, often killing stuff with which I was clearly struggling. That plus the fun "both factions standing around pvp flagged waiting for someone to go feverish and then get killed" really made me like the community.

-- Could have used some explanation as to how I'd just gone through an experimental vaccine test quest on Taris that made me immune to rakghoul infection, and then in the world event, I get rakghoul infection?

1. Random rewards such as the customization boxes either need to randomly roll for your group of companions, I got one for someone I dont even have a character fr yet. Or need to be cheaper, half the price or need to be fixed so you can choose whose appearance you get given its a days worth of event.

 

2. An announcement pop-up when I logged into game saying, there is an event you should find out more on your fleet base from, for the first few days I didnt know it was happening as I spent the time on my ship.

 

3. I was disappointed that the iconic drop crystal wasn't made to be level-neutral and work with a scaling system so the benefits built the higher level you got. I managed to et enough credit to get the maximum level version (just) but I really wanted to be able to use it at lower level and have it be my characters "Schtick"

 

4. Putting event world bosses inside of PvP zones is dodgy as, after helping out to kill that thing I didn't notice my flag was on and got ganked a few times by campers at the Crashed ship. Really annoying to do this event with the high level mobs popping and having to worry about PvPers hanging about, too much stress and I dont play games to get stressed.

 

5. A slightly shorter reset on the "Daily" timer might be nice, a couple of days I had to log on at really odd hours as it felt like the timer kept going up and up as I had other things take priority and drag me away from the computer.

 

Mostly though, we really need a better way to alert people that something is actually happening, the news reports were a good touch but it would have been better if they at least said something about special forces being called upon to help contain the plague and should report to so-and-so on tatooine to volunteer.

 

- Raith

No or limited RNG on boxes that drop items that bind to Legacy, the fact that I bought 27 companion customization boxes and didn't even end up with a full set of 8 is horrible game design. Do you guys really thing I'm going to make 6 Sith Inquisitors, and 5 Jedi Consulars? Not to mention all the other dupes I got, or the fact that those skins alone are more character slots then you get per server. If the items were freely trade-able it wouldn't be a big deal because I could have just traded for the skins I wanted and not wasted time grinding for DNA only to get something that I already have that doesn't have any value and I can't trade.

 

Other then that the event was great, it felt very dynamic like you were uncovering a new piece of the mystery each day. The scavenger hunt for the Crimson Rakling was fun, as were the new world bosses.

I loved the event. There are some things I would love to see a event skirmish between the republic and empire to give more depth between the actual conflict. The only problem I saw with the rakghoul event was the Flagged pvp player exploding on an non-flagged and then getting flagged. There is no issue if a non-flagged person exploding on a flagged person and then being flagged because it follows current in game mechanics.

I loved the event. However, i would have totally missed it, were it not for asking around for twenty minutes about the dizziness debuff. there was nothing on the forums officialwise . really need some kind of notification system for events. even if it's just an ingame mail.