I’d like to preface what follows by saying that I was satisfied with the event and most of the things mentioned here are of the ‘it was ok, but could be better, this is how [in my opinion]...’ sort or generally excusable and understandable in light of this being sort of a test run. I appreciate the effort that was put into making this event and I have no intention of offend anyone. My intention is still to provide more or less complete account of my expierence of the event. With that said:
The Zerg and the Lag. Yes, it was fun to see that many players in one place. It was fun to run around IC after Warboss. The first few clashes at the center of Praag was fun. And soon it stopped being fun, because it started to feel stupid and pointless. It was even less fun being farmed at choke points, but that’s besides the point. It was also not fun to crash and generally being only partly able to do anything on my character. Of course, we can say that the participants themselves are responsible for this, but I think there were some obvious and simple things that organizers could’ve done to avoid the zerg. Which leads me to my main criticism of the event:
General lack of structure and planning (content wise). It felt like the organizers hadn’t thought it through completely or, otherwise, that something had gone a bit wrong and they weren’t prepared for it. I don’t think anyone is to blame and I’m sure these things were noticed by organizers thesmselves and will be just stepping stones for better future. Yesterday I saw it more as (understandably) wasted opportunities.
-The Leaders, for example. As I pointed out earlier, it was a great idea to have them be played by live players and the event, probably, wouldn’t be possible otherwise. I mentioned also that it created a feeling of promise of meaningful gameplay. Almost only a promise, though. I sort of expected these guys to lead – at least in a rudimentary way. Instead, most of the time I saw these figures just waddling around the zerg back and forth, almost being the same zerglings as the rest of us. I was playing on Destro side and closer to the end of the event I was happy to see that the Warboss actually started doing what he, at least in my eyes, was supposed to do as a leading figure – lead. I spent the rest of the event capturing BOs along side the Warboss and eventually sieging the keep. It was a really welcome change from zerging back and forth Praag. Sadly, we didn’t meet that much resistance when we started doing that. I’d like to say thank you to whoever was playing Grumlok for that. I’m not entirely sure why other Leaders were so eager to just run in straight line for the center of Praag all the time. (I do admit, that maybe I missed something, but that was the general impression). I think the lack of initiative and purpose of Leaders on both sides played a big part in the event turning into massive zergfest, in my opinion.
For future events, I’d really love to see Leaders actually leading – be it from the front or by giving orders. Also, imagine how fun it’d be if the Leaders actually gave out commands to the participating Warbands, be it pugs or premade ones? I suppose it is a bit of a long shot, but wouldn’t it be possible to set up Warbands with capable leaders in advance? I’m sure there are 2-3 experienced and willing players who are capable of taming the pug WBs.
I won’t touch on the RP part of this aspect, since it wasn’t that important for me, but I suppose for hardcore RP players out there, the leaders also were a bit of a letdown.
Overall, I think the event would only gain if the leading figures in it had some sort of a plan or orders to pass down to the participants. Nothing too fancy, of course, since a mob is a mob, but I think there is a lot of unused potential here. Since it is an event...maybe there should also be a script?
-Lack of clear victory conditions/objectives. With the frontpage post being as specific as ‘grand battle’ and Leaders not being very willing to lead, it is no surprise the event turned out as zergfest. As a player that has just read the front page post and now stands in front Warboss in IC I need a bit more than just ‘grand battle’ for me not to turn into lemming. I suppose this is the case because the organizers hadn’t really thought further than just making something happen, and that is understandable, given the circumstances. Bystander effect (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect) seems to be just a basic fact of mob mentality and should be taken into account when making events of this nature.
I suppose, it could be said that we had the objective of killing the opposing factions Leader, but even that wasn’t clearly communicated. Even if it seems obvious for this to be the main objective, it should be somehow quantified. How many times were the Leaders killed yesterday, if that was the main objective? How many time we had to kill them to be victorious? Who was the victorious faction of yesteradys event? Was there a logical possibility of victory? If there is no clear victory condition that depends on various objectives, it is no wonder people act like lemmings.
-Rewards. For me personally, I couldn’t care less, but I understand that some people felt cheated. WHY do we, the lemmings, even want to be victorious? We want the carrot, of course! For some people, this additional layer of motivation is very important and we saw that a lot of people were quite upset about the rewards or lack there of. The (potential!) rewards were mentioned in the info post. Of course, it wasn’t said that they would be exclusive rewards, but it is only natural for people to assume they are not going to be exclusive if no condition of obtaining them is mentioned. Therefore, a lot of people assumed they would get something in return for their effort. Besides that, I think the (assumed) distribution model (DB?) for the rewards also wasn’t very fair, as some pointed out, since some archtypes aren’t very good at dealing DBs, etc.
I think, with a little bit of imagination, there is a way to make people feel appreciated and rewarded accordingly to merit. That is, in case rewards are needed at all. For example, if we want to keep the rewards exclusive, why not make a public vote where we ourselves decide who (player? WB? Guild?) to be rewarded? Maybe the Warbosses should choose who is to be rewarded? Maybe WB leaders should be somehow rewarded? Or even given the chance to reward players of their warband whom they think should be rewarded? I think, if the rewards remain exclusive and not numerous, it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle and would be truly exclusive and meaningful.