Generally, I agree with the sentiment that participation in world events should not be reward-centered, they should be punishment-aversion driven. This way, consequences can be impactful and meaningful while the participation provides some decorative rewards so players can also have something to show off for their work. The gates of ahn'qiraj is remembered fondly partly because of a cosmetic mount. But events should have the potential to have big indirect impacts on the economy.
That being said, I don't think most events should always have a clear 'fail state'. I think events are boring if their outcomes are predictable. If goblin scouts are lurking around suddenly, you can figure out that if you don't kill them eventually an army will come for a siege or something. But events and outcomes can be made obscure for intrigue and more of a branching consequence than a fail and success state (I give an example below). Other mechanics I'd like to see would be the ability to sell information to other players about event stuff. Like for example if interactable items are popping up, players could 'hide' them and sell their coordinates to players /parties or just keep it obscured for later/indefinitely. Lastly and most importantly, I'd like events to be economically exploitable in some way.
Example: the event starts when large poisonous eggs are suddenly being spotted around the area, you are told to go investigate. NPC advisors from different factions will suggest different solutions. The army guy says destroy them before they hatch, the scholar says to find a way to bring them back to find a use, the priest says protect them as they may anger some god and each NPC will keep track of what the players do. When you find these large poison eggs you choose how to interact with them. You will get a counter for the # of eggs destroyed if you destroy it. Likewise, you get a counter for protecting the eggs if you 'hide' them (unless you sell their coordinates and they are destroyed). You can also find a way to transport them back to the node with poison resist potions or telekinesis spells etc. If a certain # of eggs are taken back to the node, the scholar will find a use for the eggs. For example a way to hatch them as combat pets (skin?).
After some time, the event then branches into 2 possible outcomes. If a certain % of eggs were destroyed, it will cause a world boss to spawn who is angered by this. If a certain % of the eggs survive however, they will all hatch at some known time but nothing will come out, however, all monsters in the area will now deal poison damage which for high lvl monsters will require poison resistance and more prep for dungeons/raids in the area. All mobs in the area will also drop some poison loot that can be used in crafting (perhaps to add bonus poison damage to weapons). The consequences were not too obvious and it had branching outcomes instead of clear 'fail states'. Players could adhere to any of the advisors and the mayor could adopt a recommended policy based on any advisor. Now economically, as soon as the poison event is revealed, players should try to exploit the situation. Players will likely want to craft antivenoms and resist gear to transport to nearby nodes for sale and crafters want to be nearby at the event's outcome in case rare materials can be harvested/used. Example end.
Events like the one described above that allow for choices (can be predictable or obscure in their outcome) and branching outcomes can be interesting and will not have a clear wiki-friendly solution. You do what you think is best/most fun/most profitable. The outcomes themselves shake up the gameplay in that region. There is either a world boss or adventuring requires more prep but with more reward.
Otherwise it would be good to see events where players compete in pseudo factions with each faction's progress being tracked. Players commit to the event under 1 banner and contribute to that faction's progress. This can be as guild vs guild, node vs node (citizens), thieve's guild vs scholar's academy vs ..., racial, or some other (arbitrary even) factions. I think in a factionless game, the game should try to give us some rivalries and temporary groups to identify with. It would help the social aspect tremendously and alleviate difficulty in finding social groups by providing temporary ones for us.
Other than that, I had one idea for a mayoral event being a crafter's market of sorts. All item sales in the node for 2-3 days would be discounted (25%) or so for consumers by being subsidized by the node. This would cause many players nearby to plan to move their goods to that node as there would be large numbers of buyers looking for a good deal. After the event, lots of players will likely want to move goods out of the node so it supercharges caravans too and from the node in some time window and all the good stuff that comes with that.
Follow-up Questions For You:
Mayor-Run Events: What are some events that you can think of that you’d want a node’s mayor to be capable of running? ---I can't think of anything thats particularly important to me. I'm curious to see what Intrepid comes up with. Anything that brings people together.
Consequences: What are some of the consequences of failing an event that you can imagine happening to the node you call home? Feel free to share your ideas! ---depending on the event, more resources are needed to build back up.
Participation Rewards: Do you feel that events should require players to be online and/or onsite in order to receive rewards for participation? If so, why? If not, why not? ---Depends on the type of event. For the most part, I feel that a greater reward should be available for those online and participating, and maybe a baseline Success reward for the entire guild/town/group - but have there be substantially better rewards for being online and participating. Kill credits, quest credits, event milestone credits, etc. Real life happens, and people won't always be there, but sharing in the team's victory is always nice to come back to.
Bonefires.
All players should be able to place them down and build them with materials.
The ones made by the mayor could be bigger and nicer, fit for bigger gatherings.
Depending on how many citizens gather around and spend some time close to it, doing whatever they want, the bonfire could give a small bonus which would activate each time citizens meet in the world later next days.
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
Regarding participation awards, I think they should be tailored to specific events. For example, if an event requires contributing a certain amount of materials, then it shouldn't matter whether a player is on-line or off-line when the event completes. If their contribution is worth a reward, then they should get that reward. On the other hand, if an event requires active defense, then it makes perfect sense to only reward people who are on-line and participating at the time.
I don't like events in gw2, I see events as another PvE system like dungeons. I get bored of dungeons really quick just because how repetitive they are and not giving me opportunity to play VS real players, even if dungeon is hard I don't feel it as fun as playing VS players.
Because events will be active I just want to put my thought on it as I don't like theme park rewards, I think events should somehow be made as sandbox, to be tied to profession and gathering as well as some epic fight VS boss that is HARD which is very important, if it is easy then it just feels as theme park MMO event that you can do without effort.
Event for PVP would be fun too, I always liked WoW vanilla-TBC ''events'' such as terrokar forest fight or halaa in nagrand zone.
GW2 events were semi ok-ish at first, they are a blast when we are starting in GW2 but then they become repetitive.
Kenshi events ftw!
There's a great indie game called Kenshi that has attack events on cities and those events are a game changer, because of this:
attackers kidnap, incarcerate and enslave players and npcs
certain factions kidnap more than others, other factions kill more, other factions steal more
attackers pillage player built villages and npc towns
attackers can actually destroy structures
attackers can kill npcs in permadeath system
attackers can kill players in permadeath system
random friendly or enemy factions may show up and start a huge free-for-all brawl among all parties
By far, Kenshi has the most impactful and remarkable attack events among all games, it sold over 1 million copies. Attacks like that can turn the target area a ghost town without the possibility of recovery.
I know events like Kenshi would be too much for AoC, but I am posting this because what matters is how significant an chaotic events are, I still remember random events in Kenshi and forgot almost all events i had in GW2.
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
Visions
The mayor could trigger rituals which would involve expensive potions to try to gain some insight into possible future choices. The ritual would have two main participants:
- the mayor channeling the energies involved
- the receiver of the visions
The game could make is so that it would be more beneficial when the mayor transfers the position to the next mayor.
The citizens would participate by
- providing the resources needed to prepare the potions
- and during the ceremony they could also glimpse parts of the visions
The visions would enable
- understanding dependencies between quests
- to have options otherwise hidden or locked
- to predict some events (what creatures may roam next season, npc attacks, storms) or estimate their amplitude (how long the drought or winter will be)
These visions would remain visible for a while to the "main receiver" somewhere. For example on the sky reflected into a certain pool of water.
The other participants, would see only parts or fewer details.
They could also observe over time how mayor's decisions trigger consequences and alter the vision.
This suggestion started by thinking that such esoteric details could actually be visible on the sky
- when observed with a spyglass
- nodes (maybe only the 5 metros and castles) and the world NPC bosses would be represented as fantasy creatures roaming the sky and doing things, being healthy or wounded, fighting etc.
- influence-able by the mayors
But now I am not sure if this initial thought is actually needed. Or if could be a separate thing. Could be those battle maps: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Battle_maps
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
[*] calendar events are great
[*] would be nice having a goblin's day
Will be nice seeing these:
[*] if players clear a dungeon from a race/faction then it could trigger retaliation against nodes or caravans
[*] node attack from npcs is a must, hopefully they lead to consequences on buildings and npcs
[*] hopefully npc attacks on nodes will demand that players go repair their structures, could have npcs repairing stuff but it should be extremely slow
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
1. Mayor-Run Events: What are some events that you can think of that you’d want a node’s mayor to be capable of running?
Guild Wars 2 does it very well with their Guild system. Generally you have tasks that have that can be intiated at a cost and the completed by any number of participants. For AoC and the concept of nodes I can think of:
- harvest XYZ -> this would be just a bare Jira task for members of the community "hey we need XYZ of wood for the next building"
- rituals to increase yield of resources -> mayor spawns a bunch of elementals that if "contained" provide a buff to resource yield over a period of time
- rituals to influence other nodes -> lets say there is a "volcano erruption" event about to happen on node B, how about our mayor can (at a cost) start up an event that if succesfull, will make the erruption bigger and/or have additional effects
- events to get rid of negative effects -> plant trees, feed fish, dig deeper mines/search for ore (only if you insist on "ecosystem" concept which I believe is a bad idea)
2. Consequences: What are some of the consequences of failing an event that you can imagine happening to the node you call home? Feel free to share your ideas!
- forests get infested by wolves so no game spawns over a period of time
- earth elementals ate all the surface ore, no iron ore for you
- water pollution (for example from corrupted water elementals) kills fish
- unsucessfull pest control stops certain crops from growing
- the local Gryphon is forced out of his nest, no regular boss event for some time
- gnomes set off explosives in your mine, needs to be closed until we clean out the corridors
- you didnt offer sufficient offering in time, you are unable to spawn some spirit bosses in a dungeon
- you chose not to pay(or couldnt afford it) to the local bandit warchief and failed to protect your people from his wrath, random bandit squads will spawn on players
3. Participation Rewards: Do you feel that events should require players to be online and/or onsite in order to receive rewards for participation? If so, why? If not, why not?
I can image there looking at it from two perspectives, rewards for the node and personal rewards.
It is ok if I'm not online for an event that benefits the whole node, because I can use its effects later (bonus yields etc), maybe I can get a letter later thanking me for dropping some wood for a construction or killing some stuff (during a long event that I had to log out in the middle off) giving me some xp/karma on reading it, Guild Wars 2 doest it well again where it calculates the "level" of your involvement and even if you are on some other map when the event ends, you still get some xp/karma.
The only way to "have nice things" is positive reinforcement, give players that take part in the event rewards so enough of them comes for the event and they will be willing to work together, especially when the world is big enough for players to do stuff in different places. Why should I dock my fishing boat while a dragon attacks the node, if there's nothing in it for me?
Keep in minds that MMO's with full loot and lack of theme park are generally unsuccessfull and only look good on paper, give the casual players a carrot.
Comments
That being said, I don't think most events should always have a clear 'fail state'. I think events are boring if their outcomes are predictable. If goblin scouts are lurking around suddenly, you can figure out that if you don't kill them eventually an army will come for a siege or something. But events and outcomes can be made obscure for intrigue and more of a branching consequence than a fail and success state (I give an example below). Other mechanics I'd like to see would be the ability to sell information to other players about event stuff. Like for example if interactable items are popping up, players could 'hide' them and sell their coordinates to players /parties or just keep it obscured for later/indefinitely. Lastly and most importantly, I'd like events to be economically exploitable in some way.
Example: the event starts when large poisonous eggs are suddenly being spotted around the area, you are told to go investigate. NPC advisors from different factions will suggest different solutions. The army guy says destroy them before they hatch, the scholar says to find a way to bring them back to find a use, the priest says protect them as they may anger some god and each NPC will keep track of what the players do. When you find these large poison eggs you choose how to interact with them. You will get a counter for the # of eggs destroyed if you destroy it. Likewise, you get a counter for protecting the eggs if you 'hide' them (unless you sell their coordinates and they are destroyed). You can also find a way to transport them back to the node with poison resist potions or telekinesis spells etc. If a certain # of eggs are taken back to the node, the scholar will find a use for the eggs. For example a way to hatch them as combat pets (skin?).
After some time, the event then branches into 2 possible outcomes. If a certain % of eggs were destroyed, it will cause a world boss to spawn who is angered by this. If a certain % of the eggs survive however, they will all hatch at some known time but nothing will come out, however, all monsters in the area will now deal poison damage which for high lvl monsters will require poison resistance and more prep for dungeons/raids in the area. All mobs in the area will also drop some poison loot that can be used in crafting (perhaps to add bonus poison damage to weapons). The consequences were not too obvious and it had branching outcomes instead of clear 'fail states'. Players could adhere to any of the advisors and the mayor could adopt a recommended policy based on any advisor. Now economically, as soon as the poison event is revealed, players should try to exploit the situation. Players will likely want to craft antivenoms and resist gear to transport to nearby nodes for sale and crafters want to be nearby at the event's outcome in case rare materials can be harvested/used. Example end.
Events like the one described above that allow for choices (can be predictable or obscure in their outcome) and branching outcomes can be interesting and will not have a clear wiki-friendly solution. You do what you think is best/most fun/most profitable. The outcomes themselves shake up the gameplay in that region. There is either a world boss or adventuring requires more prep but with more reward.
Otherwise it would be good to see events where players compete in pseudo factions with each faction's progress being tracked. Players commit to the event under 1 banner and contribute to that faction's progress. This can be as guild vs guild, node vs node (citizens), thieve's guild vs scholar's academy vs ..., racial, or some other (arbitrary even) factions. I think in a factionless game, the game should try to give us some rivalries and temporary groups to identify with. It would help the social aspect tremendously and alleviate difficulty in finding social groups by providing temporary ones for us.
Other than that, I had one idea for a mayoral event being a crafter's market of sorts. All item sales in the node for 2-3 days would be discounted (25%) or so for consumers by being subsidized by the node. This would cause many players nearby to plan to move their goods to that node as there would be large numbers of buyers looking for a good deal. After the event, lots of players will likely want to move goods out of the node so it supercharges caravans too and from the node in some time window and all the good stuff that comes with that.
Mayor-Run Events: What are some events that you can think of that you’d want a node’s mayor to be capable of running?
---I can't think of anything thats particularly important to me. I'm curious to see what Intrepid comes up with. Anything that brings people together.
Consequences: What are some of the consequences of failing an event that you can imagine happening to the node you call home? Feel free to share your ideas!
---depending on the event, more resources are needed to build back up.
Participation Rewards: Do you feel that events should require players to be online and/or onsite in order to receive rewards for participation? If so, why? If not, why not?
---Depends on the type of event. For the most part, I feel that a greater reward should be available for those online and participating, and maybe a baseline Success reward for the entire guild/town/group - but have there be substantially better rewards for being online and participating. Kill credits, quest credits, event milestone credits, etc. Real life happens, and people won't always be there, but sharing in the team's victory is always nice to come back to.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP31ixSBO7GHKLBefWVcJaA
All players should be able to place them down and build them with materials.
The ones made by the mayor could be bigger and nicer, fit for bigger gatherings.
Depending on how many citizens gather around and spend some time close to it, doing whatever they want, the bonfire could give a small bonus which would activate each time citizens meet in the world later next days.
Because events will be active I just want to put my thought on it as I don't like theme park rewards, I think events should somehow be made as sandbox, to be tied to profession and gathering as well as some epic fight VS boss that is HARD which is very important, if it is easy then it just feels as theme park MMO event that you can do without effort.
Event for PVP would be fun too, I always liked WoW vanilla-TBC ''events'' such as terrokar forest fight or halaa in nagrand zone.
Kenshi events ftw!
There's a great indie game called Kenshi that has attack events on cities and those events are a game changer, because of this:
By far, Kenshi has the most impactful and remarkable attack events among all games, it sold over 1 million copies. Attacks like that can turn the target area a ghost town without the possibility of recovery.
I know events like Kenshi would be too much for AoC, but I am posting this because what matters is how significant an chaotic events are, I still remember random events in Kenshi and forgot almost all events i had in GW2.
The mayor could trigger rituals which would involve expensive potions to try to gain some insight into possible future choices. The ritual would have two main participants:
- the mayor channeling the energies involved
- the receiver of the visions
The game could make is so that it would be more beneficial when the mayor transfers the position to the next mayor.
The citizens would participate by
- providing the resources needed to prepare the potions
- and during the ceremony they could also glimpse parts of the visions
The visions would enable
- understanding dependencies between quests
- to have options otherwise hidden or locked
- to predict some events (what creatures may roam next season, npc attacks, storms) or estimate their amplitude (how long the drought or winter will be)
These visions would remain visible for a while to the "main receiver" somewhere. For example on the sky reflected into a certain pool of water.
The other participants, would see only parts or fewer details.
They could also observe over time how mayor's decisions trigger consequences and alter the vision.
This suggestion started by thinking that such esoteric details could actually be visible on the sky
- when observed with a spyglass
- nodes (maybe only the 5 metros and castles) and the world NPC bosses would be represented as fantasy creatures roaming the sky and doing things, being healthy or wounded, fighting etc.
- influence-able by the mayors
But now I am not sure if this initial thought is actually needed. Or if could be a separate thing. Could be those battle maps:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Battle_maps
[*] calendar events are great
[*] would be nice having a goblin's day
Will be nice seeing these:
[*] if players clear a dungeon from a race/faction then it could trigger retaliation against nodes or caravans
[*] node attack from npcs is a must, hopefully they lead to consequences on buildings and npcs
[*] hopefully npc attacks on nodes will demand that players go repair their structures, could have npcs repairing stuff but it should be extremely slow
Guild Wars 2 does it very well with their Guild system. Generally you have tasks that have that can be intiated at a cost and the completed by any number of participants. For AoC and the concept of nodes I can think of:
- harvest XYZ -> this would be just a bare Jira task for members of the community "hey we need XYZ of wood for the next building"
- rituals to increase yield of resources -> mayor spawns a bunch of elementals that if "contained" provide a buff to resource yield over a period of time
- rituals to influence other nodes -> lets say there is a "volcano erruption" event about to happen on node B, how about our mayor can (at a cost) start up an event that if succesfull, will make the erruption bigger and/or have additional effects
- events to get rid of negative effects -> plant trees, feed fish, dig deeper mines/search for ore (only if you insist on "ecosystem" concept which I believe is a bad idea)
2. Consequences: What are some of the consequences of failing an event that you can imagine happening to the node you call home? Feel free to share your ideas!
- forests get infested by wolves so no game spawns over a period of time
- earth elementals ate all the surface ore, no iron ore for you
- water pollution (for example from corrupted water elementals) kills fish
- unsucessfull pest control stops certain crops from growing
- the local Gryphon is forced out of his nest, no regular boss event for some time
- gnomes set off explosives in your mine, needs to be closed until we clean out the corridors
- you didnt offer sufficient offering in time, you are unable to spawn some spirit bosses in a dungeon
- you chose not to pay(or couldnt afford it) to the local bandit warchief and failed to protect your people from his wrath, random bandit squads will spawn on players
3. Participation Rewards: Do you feel that events should require players to be online and/or onsite in order to receive rewards for participation? If so, why? If not, why not?
I can image there looking at it from two perspectives, rewards for the node and personal rewards.
It is ok if I'm not online for an event that benefits the whole node, because I can use its effects later (bonus yields etc), maybe I can get a letter later thanking me for dropping some wood for a construction or killing some stuff (during a long event that I had to log out in the middle off) giving me some xp/karma on reading it, Guild Wars 2 doest it well again where it calculates the "level" of your involvement and even if you are on some other map when the event ends, you still get some xp/karma.
The only way to "have nice things" is positive reinforcement, give players that take part in the event rewards so enough of them comes for the event and they will be willing to work together, especially when the world is big enough for players to do stuff in different places. Why should I dock my fishing boat while a dragon attacks the node, if there's nothing in it for me?
Keep in minds that MMO's with full loot and lack of theme park are generally unsuccessfull and only look good on paper, give the casual players a carrot.