Ambitious dream for an event: try to design a plague even just if its a one time event.

Oh no! I get WoW Classic flashbacks. The plague.... ghouls everywhere... They keep comming! Ahhhhhhh, GOD PLEASE NO I JUST WANTED TO START A BLOOD ELF TO SEE THE CITY! WHY ARE YOU EATING THAT MANS FACE?!?

WoW actually had three "outbreaks" xD
1. Molten Core Pet explosions. A boss could turn you into a living bomb, the problm was that that could also happen to your pet. Hunters would dismiss their pets, but the debuff stayed. Then after the raid sometimes (because the raid only cleared until that boss), the hunter would release the pet in a city leading to a catastrophe. That got patched pretty quickly.
2. Hakkars plague. In the first troll raid in WoW, the players had to kill an old god named Hakkar. He infected you with a sickness that could quickly spread from player to player. Same problem as before: it could infect pets and summonsm leading to players at first accidentially and later purposfully infect major cities. THIS is what lead to the whole scientific aspect.
Some healers opened "safety zones" in the city or in the entrance and cured as many people as possible, while some players made it their objective to infest as many people as possible.
3. The beginning event for WotLK. A few months before the release of WotLK, Blizzard implemented an event where Zigurats would spawn aboce or near all major cities. Players would get infected with the Plague and turn into undead after some time.

I would really like such an event regularly. Make it so that a specific zone would spawn a miasma cloud that turned or infected people in the vicinity, and you had to find a way to cure it at the beginning and then scavenge for the materials. Like the repeatable War Support Quest in WoW.

I think having different triggers and cures could be super cool as well. Like having to kill a variety of bosses before the server is cured or have the server gather x amount of mats or medicine to cure everyone

Wandering Mist

Ugh, no thanks.There's a reason why the WotLK pre-launch event was pulled early and never repeated.

The thing about server-wide events is they need to be 100% optional, simply because not everyone wants to be bothered with them. The WotLK pre-launch event affected literally everyone on the server regardless of whether they wanted to take part or not. Low level players couldn't hand in quests because the quest NPCs were constantly dying to the plague. Players who just wanted to play their game got infected and turned into Zombies, completely outside of their control.

IT DOES NOT WORK, AND WILL NEVER WORK. If Intrepid put such an event into the game I will just flat out leave.

Hakkar blood plague anyone?

@branegames
They could even turn it into a node type specific event.
Scientific Nodes would manufacture the cure themselves, requiring the inhabitants to donate or trade in pure mats or reagents.
Economic Nodes would straight up buy the cure from a rare NPC for an exorbitant amount of money and the inhabitants would be able to turn in varying amounts of gold for reputation or tax reductions.
Holy Nodes would have to complete rituals for their gods/godds and the inhabitants would have to collect incense etc.
Martial Nodes would have to slay a variety of world bosses and collect their hearts or something like that to bless their city with the protection of the war god or something.

That sounds really interesting^^

wanderingmist wrote: »

Ugh, no thanks.There's a reason why the WotLK pre-launch event was pulled early and never repeated.

The thing about server-wide events is they need to be 100% optional, simply because not everyone wants to be bothered with them. The WotLK pre-launch event affected literally everyone on the server regardless of whether they wanted to take part or not. Low level players couldn't hand in quests because the quest NPCs were constantly dying to the plague. Players who just wanted to play their game got infected and turned into Zombies, completely outside of their control.

IT DOES NOT WORK, AND WILL NEVER WORK. If Intrepid put such an event into the game I will just flat out leave.

I actually like the Wrath pre-launch event, aside from the lagging the whole server thing.

@wanderingmist
The problem with the WotLK event was that you didnt recieve anything from the event i believe.
If they gave the whole thing actual incentives (like gold or tax reductions etc) I believe that it could totally work^^

damokles wrote: »

@branegames
They could even turn it into a node type specific event.
Scientific Nodes would manufacture the cure themselves, requiring the inhabitants to donate or trade in pure mats or reagents.
Economic Nodes would straight up buy the cure from a rare NPC for an exorbitant amount of money and the inhabitants would be able to turn in varying amounts of gold for reputation or tax reductions.
Holy Nodes would have to complete rituals for their gods/godds and the inhabitants would have to collect incense etc.
Martial Nodes would have to slay a variety of world bosses and collect their hearts or something like that to bless their city with the protection of the war god or something.

That sounds really interesting^^

I would be SO up for that!

I don't know if you've watched the anime Tate no Yuusha no Nariagai (Rising of the Shield Hero) but in that show there's this boss that upon death corrupted the land and the hero had to fight off the undead version of it and craft healingpotions in order to heal the inhabitants of the nearby city. If intrepid were to go for a more mild approach, they could do something similar where only those in close proximity to the corpse would get a debuff

Wandering Mist

damokles wrote: »

@wanderingmist
The problem with the WotLK event was that you didnt recieve anything from the event i believe.
If they gave the whole thing actual incentives (like gold or tax reductions etc) I believe that it could totally work^^

No, that's complete bullshit. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with rewards or incentives. Just for a moment, put yourself in the shoes of a low level player during that event. Every time you go to hand in a quest or use a flightpoint, the NPC you need is dead. Anytime you meet a zombie (out in the world or in a town) you will die because your hp is so low compared to them. You can't do anything to stop this, and your gameplay is completely halted while the event is happening.

nalowahine

They could try a super form of anthrax to ruin everyones day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthrax

@branegames
Saw he series and loved it^^
That would be a really nice idea for a dungeon and later raid.
You slay the dragon in the dungeon and someone collects the skelleton, and revives it later and you have to slay it again in a raid, where it reveales that it was just minding its own buisness and then we came and just killed it xD

It would also be a really cool setup for an expansion.
You kill the dragon at the end of the earlier expansion, but then it corrupts the land and we have to search for the cure in a far away land etc. xD

As for server events being entirely optional, I can't say I entirely agree. I don't think these events should have rewards that are required to progress in the game, but at the same time if there is a catastrophic event that is affecting the game world players shouldn't be able to opt out of it like it isn't even happening, having these types of events affect everyone makes the world feel more alive.

wanderingmist wrote: »

damokles wrote: »

@wanderingmist
The problem with the WotLK event was that you didnt recieve anything from the event i believe.
If they gave the whole thing actual incentives (like gold or tax reductions etc) I believe that it could totally work^^

No, that's complete bullshit. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with rewards or incentives. Just for a moment, put yourself in the shoes of a low level player during that event. Every time you go to hand in a quest or use a flightpoint, the NPC you need is dead. Anytime you meet a zombie (out in the world or in a town) you will die because your hp is so low compared to them. You can't do anything to stop this, and your gameplay is completely halted while the event is happening.

Yes, I was a low level player at the time. I tried to level a blood elf at the time (rerolled to horde) and only found desolation and I FOUND IT AWESOME!
I felt as if I was in the middle of an apocalypse, I was alone, death was everywhere, i walked through the scar and saw all the skelletons and then the nekropolis above me. The city was a cemetery of bones and ghouls. THATS WHAT I WANT IN MY EVENTS.
New players will have to put up with it until stronger players can help them. I saw guilds raid their own cities to cleanse the streets. Thats what i call awesome.

wanderingmist wrote: »

damokles wrote: »

@wanderingmist
The problem with the WotLK event was that you didnt recieve anything from the event i believe.
If they gave the whole thing actual incentives (like gold or tax reductions etc) I believe that it could totally work^^

No, that's complete bullshit. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with rewards or incentives. Just for a moment, put yourself in the shoes of a low level player during that event. Every time you go to hand in a quest or use a flightpoint, the NPC you need is dead. Anytime you meet a zombie (out in the world or in a town) you will die because your hp is so low compared to them. You can't do anything to stop this, and your gameplay is completely halted while the event is happening.

I was actually leveling a new character during that event because a friend decided he wanted to change factions, it was a bit frustrating to run back to a quest hub and see the ground littered with skeletons and have someone run up and turn you into a ghoul, but I still think the event was fun.

damokles wrote: »

@branegames
Saw he series and loved it^^
That would be a really nice idea for a dungeon and later raid.
You slay the dragon in the dungeon and someone collects the skelleton, and revives it later and you have to slay it again in a raid, where it reveales that it was just minding its own buisness and then we came and just killed it xD

It would also be a really cool setup for an expansion.
You kill the dragon at the end of the earlier expansion, but then it corrupts the land and we have to search for the cure in a far away land etc. xD

Tbh I think intrepid should just hire us to create their future expansions

I kind of have this idea for an expansion involving the seven deadly sins - kind of like the Diablo 3 lore

arzosah wrote: »

As for server events being entirely optional, I can't say I entirely agree. I don't think these events should have rewards that are required to progress in the game, but at the same time if there is a catastrophic event that is affecting the game world players shouldn't be able to opt out of it like it isn't even happening, having these types of events affect everyone makes the world feel more alive.

They could always give away cosmetics as rewards unless they are part of the main questline or an expac

neuroguy

Sounds like fun and feasible for a node specific event.

@wanderingmist
Sounds like you had issues with the implementation of it, but that shouldn't scare you off the concept. If anything you could help inform how it might be implemented.

unknownsystemerror

They have said that they will have dev triggered server specific events once live as they have time. And they already have player initiated ones with the monster coin system that give cosmetic rewards.

Edit* Read that later and realized that sounds like players start the monster coin events. Not so. The events are random in the world and if you possess a coin of the needed value, you can participate.

T Elf

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
We had the plague in EQ2, and it was horrible! Please, for the love of the gods, don't do a plague event.