Special Game Event!

[Havena]

Wouldn\'t it be awesome to have special medium/long-term game events introduced and managed by the devs!? I\'m talking not just adding another quest, but a longer-term story thread intended to permeate the direction of play for some time in the game.

Imagine these examples:

- Rumours originating with the NPCs begin to materialize as mysterious player deaths at night in the streets of certain cities of the Yliakum. Speak is afoot of werewolves spotted lurking in the shadows. A high-level player claims an encounter with one - he was very nearly toppled by the beast! Concerned citizens everywhere gradually gather more information about the beasts and band together to put an end to the unacceptable deaths. A party of well equipped and brave avatars draw near to the werewolves lair......

- An unfamiliar NPC of a worn adventurer appears in a town on the outskirts of the Yliakum. Terrified, he brings grave news of having sited a huge swathe of evil beasts of all shapes and sizes marching through the Stone Labyrinths.. towards Yliakum!! Horse riders and fliers of the Magaras soon confirm that it is truth! Who is behind this outrage?! Sentient fighting men and women of all species forget their differences and rally together. An army begins to form against the coming innundation of darkness. Finally as the writhing army decends towards the Bronze Gates, a great army of players has formed in the courtyard. Archers line the walls and great wizards prepare their most devastating magiks. The dark army advances....  8o

Only planeshift with its open source and endless possibility has the potential for such major events. Even as such there would be limitations in what can be acheived without having everyone d/l a modified build just to support the one event. Imo it would be worth it either way

Dev management would definitly be a necessity as well. Consider the second example; what if the army actually proves too much for the strength of all our greatest champions? The monsters penetrate the walls and monster PKing is happening rampant around the city! Some form of intervention by \'the gods\' would need to be possible. What fun if we succeeded in beating the army tho :] ! I can just imagine the victory cheer!

I know a lot of potential players complain that they don\'t like the fact that MMORPGs can\'t be \'finished\'. With such long-term events as these, the game could certainly reach a climax and a satisfying \'end\', but then life would go on..  

What do you think my friends?

[elminster]

Wow, you have some phrasing skills
I was quite ecxited reading it, really, so I think somehow, this can be good. I think these \"bigger\" events should only occur rarely in time, and would have a 2-3 day \"forecast\". I mean the events should be \"announced\" in a way 2-3 days before it will actually happen (scouts, etc.) This will make the opportunity for players to prepare for the event (battle for example) - i.e. to log on in the right time (for those who don\'t have much time to be online).

A must, I think

--
Greetings,
E.

[LordSpyder]

i like that idea, could be done well too

[Bonez]

yea its a great idea

[kyp14]

Wow, you have some phrasing skills  
I was quite ecxited reading it, really, so I think somehow, this can be good. I think these \"bigger\" events should only occur rarely in time, and would have a 2-3 day \"forecast\". I mean the events should be \"announced\" in a way 2-3 days before it will actually happen (scouts, etc.) This will make the opportunity for players to prepare for the event (battle for example) - i.e. to log on in the right time (for those who don\'t have much time to be online).

A must, I think  

I\'ll second that

just a little addition to what you just said I would like to see cutscenes not normal ones like in single player games but in game ones that use the chracters in the area and only the people in that area can see it eg the massive army is just behind the bronze gates and it cuts to the cutscene of the army of player looking worried and then it swings to the broze gates as they crash down and the army charges in then its back to game play and all hell brakes loose (just an idea)

[beza1e1]

Sounds really good!

Perhaps the Dark Armybe beaten throught the mighty spell of heavenly light, where 15 wizards have to do a difficult ritual. The fighter would have to secure them long enough.

[Morte]

What I was really looking forwards to was UO2, mainly because it was going to have a story line in the game. I\'m not sure quite how they were going to implement it, but it would be really cool and would give players something to do. As it is, personally I lose interest in an MMORPG after a couple of weeks simply because there\'s not much else to do but repeat what I\'d been doing (does that make sense?).  Having a story line in it would be so cool... I mean you can talk to other people about what\'s happened, join up with a group to help implement part of it etc.
 Also another idea is why not create randomly generated quests to keep people busy, but have the effects of the quests wider- eg: You go on a quest to save a small child from a den of evil creatures (standard fantasy fair). If you succeed the Town Crier says something like \"Little girl saved by heroic adventurer\", if you fail \"Blundering adventurer to blame for little girls death\" and if you die \"Adventurer killed attempting to save girl. Says he feels much better now and might try again\". Also put a lock on certain quests so they can\'t be undertaken by more than one character/ group at a time. Again, just some thoughts.

[Fiztkarloff]

Great idea. Nothing better than random events to add a good touch to the game.

The capital city overrun by enemies, the government completely changed, new cults threatening to overthrown the temple, a plague brought by merchants, a mysterious lord seeking mercenaries, a sudden mana leak that put mages in danger, etc.

The possibilities are endless. Very good idea indeed.

[Nadius]

A good event is always good

[Nikech]

Sounds great!
In the beginning when everyone is still weak there could be an invasion of rats led by giant ones. =)