Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
The first one is immersion and most specifically striking a balance between gameplay and immersion, so suppose as shown in the video a group of goblins is attacking a city, for me the perfect way to announce such a raid would be, instead of a massive notification appearing on the player's screen, environmental and sound cues signaling the incoming raid. What is difficult about is striking a balance between making the event obvious enough for the average player but also not underestimate the average player's ability to pick up on information and make it too obivous, which would lead to a break in immersion, this would need significant testing, but if executed correctly would lead to a lot of fun situations where maybe the city is caught off gaurad because the players decided to ignore the cues or maybe a total wipeout of the raid if players are astute and well prepared.
The second one is the difficulty of stopping such a raid, which in my opinion should be proportional to both the size/overall importance of the node and also the ability of the average player. To really feel like a raid and not something that can be just brushed off, these attacks need to be first of all proportional to the level of the node, which I think is pretty self explanatory. Also, please I beg you not to understimate the average player's ability, please make these encounters actually challenging and something that requires both skill, preparation and teamwork, otherwise it will just be a borefest like a lot of other MMOs out there. And later if need be, balance the raids if the are too hard, but don't make it the other way around.
I think this is sooo important, normal events (repeatable) are awesome and obviously hard to get right but I think the community has already provided enough feedback around them which you should totally listen to, but what I haven’t seen anyone talk about are limited time events, which in my opinion are just as important and hard to get right. So I think il summarize what I think are the most important features of a good limited time event.
-limitedness. Obviously, yet I see so many games messing this up. Limited time events MUST be rare, they’re not very limited if they’re happening every week, even once a month is too much imo. I’d rather have one limited time event and that blew me off quality and fun wise and have that once a year than 12 mid ones I’d have forgotten within a week.
-exclusivity. the whole concept of these events is to provide exclusive, otherwise unobtainable gear and rewards, and it’s just so important you actually keep that promise. Doing one of these events and then making the rewards available to get again a month later cause people are pressuring you is a no no. This way you break the trust and happiness of those who grinded during the event to get that limited gear.
-Work put in. I think many game devs are like “well this is a time limited event so we shouldn’t put too much work into it cause well it’s gonna have to go someday anyway”. Now, there has to be a balance, obviously u don’t want to invest too much time into developing an event if your game is lacking but you shouldn’t completely abandon them either. Limited events can be moments people remember for years thereafter, unforgettable experiences that make the game special to them for many years. Moments they will look back on as the “good ol’ days”,so they better be amazing if you wanna make an impact and I can tell you first hand, they can.
-difficulty. Lastly, I think I’ve seen many people comment on this already so I won’t go too in depth, but just like for normal events difficulty is important so it is for limited time events, or even more so cause there’s gonna be limited gear up for grabs right. You want to make it so that everyone can enjoy the event, but only the most dedicated players get the exclusive loot and stuff. You don’t want to shroud everyone with exclusives cause you will ruin the economy but want to give (still reasonably hard) but no insanely difficult items a place as well. All in all the difficulty is going to be pretty hard to balance but it’s vital that you do so which is why I recommend you try things out before hand
That’s all I have to say for now about events and I hope you consider my feedback as well😉 one last thing I wanted to add is an idea for one of these events. A Launch event! What better way to start the life of a legendary game then through a legendary event. Oh and don’t forget the exclusive rewards for the og’s😏
Event Trigger: Harvest x amount of times (of a particular harvest type?) in x amount of time in the node
Possible Events:
Special Vendor spawns to sell items related to harvesting/crafting
Spawns rare or large harvestable node(s)
Spawns an NPC caravan carrying crafting materials
Spawns an NPC quest giver to give (group or epic) non shareable quest for magical harvesting tools or an increased capacity mule
Event Trigger: Harvest x amount of times without entering combat
Event: Temporarily increases mob density in that area for a specified period of time
Event Trigger: Players in the node are cumulatively carrying over x amount of harvestables
Event: 'Town cryer' style NPC in two neighboring nodes talk about wealthy travelers roaming in node x
Event Trigger: Player trades or sells x amount of harvesting materials in a certain period of time
Event: either through mail or an NPC in the node, player is offered a quest to complete a caravan to a far away node for certain goods
Event Trigger: Player drops x amount of harvestables to death in x amount of time
Event: Player is offered a quest which yields a temporary pet npc which will help defend them while harvesting
Event Trigger: A node has X number of unsuccessful caravans
Event: A quest becomes available to obtain a recipe/blueprint for a rare caravan upgrade with a limited number of uses
Event Trigger: Player crafts X number of items of the same class/category.
Event: A quest becomes available to obtain a variant in style/dye/stats for an item with a limited number of uses.
Event Trigger: X number of rare crafting outcomes occur in a node (demonstrating the high volume of crafters)
Event: A quest becomes available for a previously undisclosed version of a weapon/armor/furniture/etc.
Event Trigger: X number of FAILED max level crafting attempts occur in a node (think, like, ohhhh F*ck, I messed up)
Event: A quest becomes available to obtain a rare/epic/unique, qty limited, blueprint for X
Event Trigger: A node unlocks every variant of a particular blueprint.
Event: A quest becomes available which sends crafters to a far away node to gather lost information about a new variant of the blueprint.
Fishing Tournaments - quantity, size, rarity, rewards related to fishing gear or boat upgrades
Siege Equipment Competitions- for accuracy, range, rate of fire, ???. this makes them even more in demand, would occur in an instanced area perhaps. could be something like a group enters the instance and races to find and maneuver x number of siege engines into place to destroy gates. this would give prestige to players and guilds for real siege events by displaying results in some public leaderboard
Animal Husbandry Shows - think like a dog show or horse show. could be located in a petting zoo like area (instanced with the current vote leader as the entrance placeholder) to raise awareness of what is currently in the world, rewards related to animal husbandry
Mass caravan events of some kind. A quest that increases rewards if x number (like 5 or more) of caravans travel together (must be within a certain radius of the caravan leader) successfully by a certain deadline. This would require significant planning, which would involve many players/guilds and politics and espionage. this would also potentially have a big impact on node economies by moving that many harvestables/certificates. perhaps there is some condition (perhaps a pvp event in the target node) that actually notifies the target node that the caravans will be headed that way to spice it up. This event could maybe be triggered by an event in the target node, since the target node will benefit from the incoming resources.
Scavanger Hunts - harvestable nodes (and potentially mobs in the area) would drop rare non-tradeable items for the scavenger hunt. some might involve success at mini games, etc.
Parkour Races - instanced jumping/climbing/parkour races
Boat/Ship Races - perhaps both pvp enabled and no pvp (add npc mobs for complexity). could win titles or flags for your ship (like a pirate ship flag)
Single Group PVP Tournaments: Since the game will be balanced to the group level, have a bracketed single group PVP tournament hosted by a node. Small instanced zones could be used, with NPC/environmental incentives for those that refuse to fight. The greater population could wager on the outcome via a community board. It would be interesting if there was a way for spectators as well... maybe something like the gulag in Warzone. Perhaps limited to military nodes?
Single Group PVE Tournaments: similar to PVP tourneys, these node hosted events will pit a single group against increasingly difficult waves of group PVE content with a reset after each wave until teams meet with failure. Group who survives the longest wins. for both pve and pvp tourneys, perhaps a version that gives all groups the exact same gear so the focus is on skill would be interesting. The node could charge an entrance fee and give prize money or use these to raise funds for node development. The PVE tournament would be completed over a period of time so all groups would not even need to be online at the same time.
Freehold Karaoke w/ Proximity Chat - self explanatory
Sorry if its not related or off topic but i just wanted to share some thoughts
If i'm not mistaken, Ashes of Creation will involve a monthly subscription, regarding that did you plan to have some "GM" (GameMaster) that are basically in game character (visible or invisible) that are able to trigger some event as well ?
I recall experiencing that on some really old mmorpgs and it felt really alive and organic and i think it was mainly because there was a person behind it!
Social/Organization events: Could be things like investigating/exterminating an invasive species for a science faction. To clarify this could be more like bug spray on trees rather than killing x mobs, and could use the gathering/refining branches of artisan trees.
Religious: It would be really interesting if certain calendar events were node specific. Like in game religious holidays only for upgraded religion nodes. Science fairs, hunting tournaments, or something.
Races: I love this idea, and can't believe I haven't seen it mentioned more often.
Cooking contest: I would travel the world of Verra and back if I knew I could get a silly limited time only title like, "Glutton for PIE-nishment" (the pun works on two levels here)
Thanks @Dygz for putting amazing ideas in my head.
Something like, "there has been a burst of natural magics in x area, causing the local flora to grow to maturity in large quantities." Once x total nodes have been gathered the event progresses into another event. For example, "the source of the vast quantities of magic has been discovered, a herd of Floralis Crabs have migrated to the area, these creatures grow rare plants and herbs on their backs as camouflage. Picking the node will spawn an enraged crab you must fight or run away from."
Perhaps these profession required events could be smaller parts of event chains instead of entirely apart of them but I think you get the idea.
This, perhaps, is the downside of transparent development. The node system is the big innovation, at least in my opinion. In Alpha one the nodes were barely working, yet... when Clover was the mayor and EVERYONE was dropping off harvestables just to level up buildings in the node to open up crafting and merchants... it was amazing. It gave us just a tiny taste of what the nodes will bring to the world. I think we are now sort of used to the idea of nodes and take them for granted. It seems to me some of us are developing very unrealistic expectations for the game. Many of the systems/events people are remembering so fondly evolved with the games they were part of... everything was not there in the beginning.
The core of the EQNext design.
Completely valid, but at the same time, Intrepid isn't giving us this as 'We're starting on this and we're eventually hoping to make this great', because that would just be 'Alpha-2 and Beta iteration' for some things. That's why it's an unfair reason, if anything. They're still working.
I take Nodes and Events for granted because if one promises innovation, I feel like one must at least equal even those games which have had years to develop similar concepts. If not immediately, then it would have to be 'in the plan' (not that this is a requirement for the game, but for me to not take the feature for granted, moreso).
I can get that same feeling of dropping off materials and harvestables in varying degrees in multiple games I play now. Ashes isn't a game saying 'we will be at least as good as some other things you play so try us out' (maybe I am misinterpreting their marketing?). And we don't receive enough information to see how these things would be innovative or different, anymore, mostly because they're still working on it, I guess.
I don't find Ashes' development to actually be transparent anymore, and I consider that a good thing, but they're in a tough spot now. Can't show off everything because negative people will tear it down, can't stop showing anything because other negative people will take that poorly.
If I had to suggest or care, I'd tell them to put out another Nodes video based on their progress with the assets/art in Nodes. That one, after all, is pretty innovative, and still a core part of this. "No two nodes will look the same". They're working on this so there's probably some progress to see.
But 'Sometimes NPCs will attack your node' or 'your node's status will be affected by a random event' is such a barebones aspect of a 'Node based game' to me that I just feel the need to know considerably more before it feels innovative. And to be clear, I don't much care if it is. I don't even think it should be as detailed as Elite's, since they built that game entirely around that. There's just no reaction to have, yet.
I have been sensing that as well. I have a theory that they have retracted a bit to combat overly negative commentary of unfinished work by some to uneducated viewers (as directly stated in the last live stream) and also to push back on the narrative that everything we see is 'just a first pass and will be polished later'. I want to play this game in my lifetime... if they were literally to go back and rework everything, it would NEVER be done.
That being said, I do have some concerns as well. Classes. We have seen almost nothing of the classes... this is a pretty fundamental part of the game to me. Perhaps finalizing classes does not make sense until a final decision has been made on combat.
I think Intrepid should do another node video. Show styles, show buildings being constructed. Start talking about the volume of resources which will be required to level nodes and build them out.
Those articles were written years ago, but Steven says they're still tweaking the design and people will complain if they make changes after the articles are posted.
To have various possible events at the same place that spawn at different moments.
Are there types of events in other games that you feel are done well? If so, what makes events in those games good?
Wasps Queen event from Guild Wars 2: You must fight the Wasp Queen and she spawns “soldiers.” If your HP is at 0, you fall at the ground and throw rocks to enemies. If you succeed, you recover some health and can continue to normally fight.
Is there anything, in particular, you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown for the event system?
Too many repetitive events,
Bandit guilds that prevent you to defend the node.
There could be a giant boar world boss that likes to terrorize these farming nodes by eating their crops and maybe livestock. This boss could appear in level 4, 5 or 6 nodes when farming fields are reached some spesific size. The boss could spawn in random or some spesific times to eat crops but if the crops have been gathered by players or eaten by vermins and other creatures when the boar arrives, this boss would go rampage and destroy some buildings that could prevent players from important services.
Players would have a chance to prevent this rampage by gathering lots of crops and bringing them into a some kind of ritual place where this boar boss could be lured into and then be killed. In the node there could be a smaller pre-events, including defending crops from vermins and harmful creatures or watering crops etc.
The arrival of the boss could be predict from various factors, such as the fallen trees in the nearby forest or the emergence of new types of boars, for example.
Feel free to give your opinion about this world boss event!
I think this is relevant so that the servers are not covered by large communities.
I would agree with you, but then we would both be wrong.
Mini-Event - Events for solo players or a small group (Directly tied to player or group activities - Your group is mining in an old abandoned mine, you swing your pickaxe at a group of rocks resembling a certain ore, the ore starts moving!? Its an Iron Golem - kill it for cosmetic items/emotes/materials)(You're cutting down a tree - guess what!? It's a treant!)(OSRS events?)
PvE Event - Large scale event that's centered around an area/node/castle/civilization.
Monster Coin Event - PvP? PvE? Slay the Horde
PvP Event - Sieges, War & Player driven Events?
Holiday Events - Centered around Holidays. (please don't make us grind to receive different rewards - especially if it's a low drop chance and it's a timed event.)(If you're going to make us grind, at least make it a currency so we can go spend it at a shop and choose which items/cosmetics/emotes/etc. that WE want.)
What aspects of the event system are important to you?
Variety, Communication on how long it will last & how long a player will have to be active for that event (do I need to sit here for two weeks and slay the horde of goblins or did I Kill my share for the event and now I can go back to my duties?), Rewards (ALL Events should give Cosmetics/Emotes, PvP & PvE can reward gear & in some situations, like pillaging a guild Bank, it can reward materials for your guild or be divided amongst the Entirety of the Players that took apart in the Event. Mini-Events tied to professions may drop extra materials than you would normally receive. Time, How much time do I have to sink into these events. Importance, is this event directly tied to me in some way?
Are there types of events in other games that you feel are done well? If so, what makes events in those games good?
OSRS, Mini - Events can help you track down Bots & Clickers. When a person doesn't respond to the Iron Golem beating on them, why? When a person isn't responding to a mysterious figure that randomly appeared out of nowhere, why?
Is there anything, in particular, you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown for the event system?
Yes, Some Events might be too much of a time sink for players, especially casual players. the events have to be aimed at everyone or at least have proper prep time.
I'm sure there's some things I'm missing - add unto it.
The wide variety and diversification of spontaneous events that are planned for the world of Verra is what excites me the most about this system. I really like the idea of certain events being tied to node progression.
Do you feel anything is missing from the event system we’ve shared so far?
The manner in which Intrepid has shared how and why these events occur make it seem as though the events are unique and people SHOULD want to participate in these events. One aspect of the game I hear mentioned a lot is "replayability." Will these events continue to make players want to participate in them a few months/years after release? To touch on what I first mentioned in this section, I hope that these events remain relevant and encourage players to continue participating in them through a balanced risk/reward scenario where the reward outweighs the risk of non-participation outside of the first few months of the game's release.
Are there types of events in other games that you feel are done well? If so, what makes events in those games good?
For as frustrating a game as New World is. I think their invasion events would do very well in AoC. In NW, you are fighting the same mobs over and over in each event (corrupted). In AoC, I think events like these could be really cool if the mobs that were attacking each node varied in each "invasion." This type of event is very similar to the goblin invasion of a node, however I am just stating I think the event would be even more interesting if it were not the same mobs over and over again.
Is there anything, in particular, you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown for the event system?
I absolutely love the idea of events such as the goblin siege of a node that was triggered by progression of that node. However, in the second section of this post, I question whether these events will encourage players to participate time and time again after the game has been released for x amount of time. To reiterate, I hope that the rewards force the hand of players to continue to participate in these events.
Alternatively you can simply go FFXIV's route with Fates and have a small icon under the mini-map that you click to opt-in to it, and leave it at that.
1. Events were not visible by large number of people. You need to be nearby to see that some event is happening. If I enter the game location and I don't see events that are happening now - I won't participate in them. GW2 fixed it by displaying events on map for everyone in current location.
2. Nobody farmed bosses until fixed schedule on wiki was added. Boss events require large number of ppl, so players should intentionally gather for it. And to gather, need to know time. It's even good if boss time will be random every day, but when I login to game today, it should be visible in advance that boss A will be at 21:30, boss B at 22:00 etc.
3. All changes made by events are reset each 2 hours. This ruins impression of changing game world. It's too visible that it's just decoration.
- Frequency of such events, and the amount of total events available in a local area in any given time. As many have mentioned before, these events should not feel repetitive to play, and there should not be too many events going around to the point that they take over the game.
- Proper incentive. Events should carry rewards / consequences that properly motivates player to respond / participate, although I think this part is quite difficult to get right.
It's probably ok to somewhat *force* players to respond to an event once in a while, by attaching heavy negative consequences to some events (e.g. Node attacks). But if you have too many of those, it'll quickly feel overwhelming, and players in general don't like being forced to do things very much.
Events should also carry sufficient rewards that make players feel it's worth their time (otherwise ppl just won't bother), although I believe events should not carry "gatekeeping" kind of rewards (e.g. faction reputations, or tokens required for some semi-essential items or perks), otherwise ppl will feel the need to grind the events, and that's suddenly not fun anymore.
An example (done wrong) would be the living season maps tokens in GW2 -- you need to grind a certain amount of LS4 map tokens to unlock the *FLYING MOUNT* -- Great! Now I have to grind the map events, what other options do I have now? Watching othes fly over my head while I'm pathetically tethered to the ground? No way! (Although they did add a few achievements later which grant said map tokens as rewards to alleviate the problem)
Q: Are there types of events in other games that you feel are done well?
- The opening of Scarab Gates / Ahn'Qiraj in vanilla WoW.
Sure it's a one-time event, and you can only have so many of those on a server, but back then I felt it was quite immersive and exciting. It was probably the first world changing event that involves the whole server in wow.
And examples for things that are done wrong though:
- Events that are predictable and happen too frequently, could result in gameplays like the Fate-trains in early days FF14 (not sure if it's still the case now) and event-zergs in GW2. ppl just keep running around in large groups doing the same events over & over & over again becoz it's an efficient way to grind exp or gold or whatever. I still remember my time in FF14 when I had to level a class through hours of Fate-train becoz I've ran out of quests to do. Ohhhhh the pain, ohhhhh the boredom.
Q: Is there anything, in particular, you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown for the event system?
If a certain large scale event carries *permanent* consequences that will change the world forever, please give enough time to let the knowledge / information spread sufficiently, so that players can understand what's actually at stake before they decide to say "nah I won't bother".
e.g. In Eve Online, I guess many players have skipped the defense of Niarja system back during the Triglavian invasion event, only to later realize that the system's fall has permanently cut off the high-sec (*relatively* safe) trade route between the two largest trade hubs (Jita & Amarr), and that has sent shockwaves through New Eden's trade & prices & economy.
Judging from the number of petitions / suggestions to CCP for Niarja to be restored, or for jump-gates to be built around it, I guess many players regretted not-participating in the defense, and many probably would have joined if they had known before-hand what was actually at risk...
A possible solution: events that give players ways to "nudge" spawn timers.
The idea being: A node could influence the spawn timers of its local bosses to timeslots that suit its residents - so the entire node knows when to prepare.
If you take this idea full blown, you could have a tracking/survival skill (somewhat like DnD) that:
- reveals spawn timers
- hide/obfuscate timers for other players
- influence the spawn timers
- etc.
You can then highly randomize spawn timers, and a part of gameplay becomes trying to tame the wildnerness.A cool way to start an event is a player picking up a random item that you can't sell or trade to a person or NPC as the owner hunts you down. There would be assassins after you or a pirate mob. You would need to enlist a growing number of players to your aid as the enemy grows stronger until the boss/final wave comes out. Players are awarded if they win, they get part of some loot. You can switch this to be PVP by making other players take on the opposite roll where a boss bribes people to assassinate you.
Other good triggers for events; pissing off another node's leader, Bribing innkeepers to make bad gossip against someone who happens to be high up in power in a military node and you have to evade or escape them, digging up a casket where you get cursed in a religious node and spawning undead are after you and if you don't get blessed by Priest soon enough an undead boss or undead wave comes after the node, having a group of players get hired to patroll the lands outside a node and walk right into an ambush letting one enemy get away its your fault and it brings enemies against the node, get hired by a local rich merchant to escort his caravan in a multi-node PVP event.
The main point is to put the players into the slot of the 'cause' and 'resolution' of the events in a fun and creative way.
Rewards I would like to see collectibles like titles, funny emoji, silly or cool item effects specific to the original item that triggered the event. So the losers have something give out a letter sent to them by the enemy leader's remaining henchmen that is also a collectible that threatens them, or blows up in their face, or gives them a traitor/deadbeat title for a while.
and if some events change the gameplay (not just Use an object or carry them around) would be great.
because if they don't bring something new - then its just a sidequest or so
I have read that a few people fear they have to be present at certain days and hours in the game to receive awesome rewards for it but I don't think it needs to be this way. With the node system the focus of events can be much more drawn to the nodes and their state which then later on affect the players. Meaning: You don't need to be there for an event as long as the citizens of the node made sure that just someone is there to take on the goblin tribe attack that you maybe see coming for some time because the build up their camp near the city getting ready for the attack. Maybe you could even take care of them before they are ready to strike if you can get a large enough group together to avoid damage to your node's city. As a crfter you could make sure all citizens are well geared/armor repaired, have a decent amount of consumables for the fight or something in advance to help even if you can't be online at the exact time of attack. Events could be more about community effort and community success and failure affecting the node which in turn then affects what the players can do in it. Certainly there can also be events with personal rewards but I would love to see a world with a lot of community events.
Though I am also not sure how about what level events sould have in a node and whether they should scale to the amount of players or not. Usually I'm not into scaling mechanics but it might be necessary to have some scaling. Concerning the level I would like to see that even low level players could help in higher level events to a certain degree. Not fighting themselves maybe but being able to prepare or use items or have them establish a supply chain that has a bit of an impact so even if they can't participate directly there is something they can to to help
As an upgrade to that the forest or whatever biome could have a winter storm roll through,cover the ground with snow and with it creatures or undead that started inhabiting through out it. Maybe some GoT inspiration too. The upgrade would also be that players could fight back the undead and there would be a high level boss that would need to be defeated.
I always loved the idea of knowing that there were just some places I didn't go as a low level player at night.
Horizons also had a system that sort of involved weather where when they happened a lightning storm would come through with dark clouds and thunder.
This forest is a part of a node, the forest is rich in recourses such as wood, and plants needed for alchemy, therefore this forest is an attractive spot for players.
The creatures live deep in the forest and are high lvl. They are capable of making decisions on forest behalf whats good and whats bad and act upon that decision aka attack or help to players. The creatures are not defensive of their territory unless harm comes to their territory. The creatures have supporting abilities, such as healing, and defense auras.
Once players inhabit that node, they will get events such as " defeat a mad beast in the forests of Sentient Bugs" and when players do that they can occasionally meet the bugs and receive help from them in combat. Since the players are defeating a sickly beast, the bugs deem their deed as good and reward players with revealing some of the resources. Players are free to take that specific resource without making the bugs angry.
If players keep up helping the bugs with keeping the forest healthy - bugs will reward them with a selection of random rewards, such as allowing taking forest resources or on rare occasions shells of their dead comrades. The shells are most valuable since they are very durable and can be used as housing or wagons depending on the size. The rarest shell - the shell of a baby bug can be made into armor, but since nothing kills the bugs the will be a VERY limited amount of such shells.
If players progress the node without damaging the forest ( resources for the node progression will be in that case transported from another node) the forest will act as a type of natural defense - no creature with ill will, will be able to pass the bugs, and other players when planning an attack route through the forest will need to be mindful and not damage anything in the forest. In the worst-case scenario, they will be fighting against two enemies.
But.
The forest is plentiful in resources that are needed for the node progression, and eliminating bugs will allow players to take all of the resources - such as their shells and use them as durable housing or strong walls for the city or armor. If players decide to attack the bugs and the forest they will have a plethora of resources, but the forest will not regrow and all of the creatures that lived there will leave for good, armor from the baby bugs' shells will become limited to the amount produced prior to deforestation of the node.
Please incorporate an in-game calendar so we can see upcoming planned Events. It sucks finding out I’ve missed an Event because I missed a pop up message or info tucked away in a menu or on a website.
Being able to sign up for a text notification when an Event starts on my server would be handy!
So im gonna focus on something more specifically and hope its not too late to get my feedback to the intrepid design team @Vaknar
Imo one thing that is heavily underutilized in other mmos that have these kind of event systems is the build up to the event.
You mostly discover the event randomly, rush to it and engage with it. This also a symptom of the frequent and "on farm" type of events, as you need to make those events spawn frequently, otherwise most people could not discover it , as they are not in it´s proximity for most of the time.
I think this works for some types of events really well (especially with indicators that you can observe from a distance, like suspicious sounds from the forest as Steven indicated), but it should not be the case for every event, especially for bigger ones.
Here is how i´d like to see some events pan out:
An envoy spawns somewhere in the node´s zoi, maybe a single dude on a horse, for bigger events a caravan with royal envoys or important NPCs.
These envoys make their way to the node´s town, (maybe even to several towns) and place themselves at the town´s center.
They then shout out the news that something happened and they are in dire need for help. They call for people to assemble around them and take on the task.
People would sign up and the challenge might get scalled according to the player quantity.
After 15 minutes the NPCs then ready themselves for departure and bring the players to the location, where the fighting is gonna take place.
If succesful the players can claim their reward from the npc envoy.
I think this can deliver a nice dymanic that builds up anticipation and i think it would be cool to see groups and guilds gather up in a big influx to the node. Players can observer other participants and seeing all the players ride out in a horde together would be cool
On another note, i think having PvP/PvX events that pits nodes against each other would be nice as well!