Automated Events Thread #1,000,000

[Jason-]

Hello,

I know I'm beating a dead and decayed horse, so I will make this short and sweet.

I've noticed a lot of threads lately concerning accuracy and shard issues, and I'd like to address them as best I can here.

It is my position that automated events happen outside of the regular world and a lot of players do enjoy them; however, that alone is not a justification for anything. I've looked at this a lot of different ways: one of which being that they sort of fill in for our intentionally low staff levels which prohibit us from doing as many in game seer type scenarios. That being said though, the staff of UOSA has been very active lately in running unique shard events. For the most part, this has been much more uncommon on UOSA in the past.

For now, I'd like to say that yes, the events are a mechanic of the shard and yes, there was not an equivalent on OSI in 1999; however, they didn't have the capability of doing anything nearly as complex as these events during that time. I'd also like to add that I really did enjoy developing the events and actually have a few more in queue that I've been meaning to get out there, but completely lack any time to work on them.

There is a nice quote from Braden somewhere, but I couldn't find it.

Anyways, as opposed to thinking that events are unaccurate, I would like to present a more positive way of viewing automated events:

Automated events enhances the shard's "era-accurate" pvp/pvm mechanics, and provides additional entertainment to the player base.

Thanks!

[Jason-]

Bump

[Brules]

If they would take silver valued rewards out, I would be all for bringing events back with a few fixes (red resurection etc).

Give trophies out, but have no silver value attached to them or $ value.

Since events are pretty much no risk, lots of reward the way they are - I have an issue with them. Take out the reward and I am 100% ok with them.

I think bringing them back in this manner would benefit the shard overall.

[Kabal]

If they would take silver valued rewards out, I would be all for bringing events back with a few fixes (red resurection etc).

Give trophies out, but have no silver value attached to them or $ value.

Since events are pretty much no risk, lots of reward the way they are - I have an issue with them. Take out the reward and I am 100% ok with them.

I think bringing them back in this manner would benefit the shard overall.

Also make 1v1 PVP events less frequent, and put the "winner of the week's" name on the main page

next to pic of the day. The winner can take value in knowing the whole shard knows they won rather

than accumulating pixels.

[Jason-]

Hello Brules,

Thank you for your comment in this thread. I would like to build on your points. Here we go:

If they would take silver valued rewards out, I would be all for bringing events back with a few fixes (red resurection etc).

I can meet you half way with the silver rewards. There are resources (regs and durability on equipment) being spent alongside with individual time, so I think some value should be compensated for both. With that said, my half way proposition is mitigating the silver payout. For example, winning a 1 v 1 tournament with 25+ competitors is impressive, but not necessarily a 200k payout (20 silver valued at 10k a piece). More like compensating on a more reasonable term.

Second part, with my experience, reds were only able to res with out stat loss penality IF and ONLY IF the individual joins the event first, then dies with-in the gap of time from which they joined, and from when they get pulled to join the event. However, you can only join an event when your character is alive. You can't perform the action as a ghost.

For example, Subject X joins an event with 100 short terms while alive. He notices the system message stating he is getting pulled in 10 seconds. At 8 seconds he recalls to the West Britian Bank for giggles. He gets guard whacked. Everything that was on his corspe (not looted with-in the 2 second time frame) gets pulled from his corspe with him and inserted in his inventory. Subject X participates in the event and has a good time while providing a couple WTF moments for some newbs at the West Britian Bank.

Example 2, Subject X tries to join an event with 100 short terms as a ghost in order to res with out penality. He can't so he cries.

Now, if there is a way to avoid example 2, then yeah there is a much bigger problem.

Since events are pretty much no risk, lots of reward the way they are - I have an issue with them. Take out the reward and I am 100% ok with them.

There is currently risk with them. The shard in general has always had a hard time grasping this concept. The following contribute to the prior way events were set up in relationship to reward:

Gold in relationship to time spent
Pk activity in relationship to event times
Resources (in survivor and tournament non free use rules) vs reward earned


Okay, CTF:

CTF you either earned 2 silver pieces or nothing at all depending if you were on the winning team A or losing team B.

Lets say on average a CTF game takes 15 minutes.

In 15 minutes, how much gold can you farm at EG knowing that the majority of pks are participating in the event? The cost associated are regs etc. The risk involved is if you die to the EG lol!

Now, in 15 minutes you are on winning team A, you earned 2 silver (20k). There is a risk that you could of lost though and lost the time you could have spent at EG to actually earn gold (Team B). This concept applies to free use tournaments.

Non free use tournaments:

Worst case scenario:
-You come in third/fourth place (no prize at all except bragging rights on the guys you beat)
-You wasted resources
-You wasted time you could have been farming EG in a safer atmosphere

Net figure here in a 25 person tournament, 8k loss!

Best case scenario
-You win 20 silver
-You spent about 10k on mini heal regs (Only spell really worth casting in a duel)

Net figure is 190k, this is where I can agree with you and meet you half way somewhere. What is the cutoff as a reward for someone who spent 1 hour at a tournament and spent 10k in resources?

Brules, I'm going out on a limb, but I would like to see that net figure cut down to 50,000 gp. How do you feel about that bruloski? (Yeah I just called you Bruloski)

Thanks!

[Brules]

No, events are 0 risk pretty much across the board.

Most events if not all but magic are free use, so there is no justification for being able to farm events like people were with no risk.

Since they take place completely out of the game world, they should have 0 reward. If you want to do the non free use events, thats on you.....pay to play. If you win, you get a trophy of na value with your name etc on it. Events should be for bragging rights only.

[Mikel123]

Jason, you're trying to argue that there's an opportunity cost to entering events. Which is certainly true. And you're arguing that one uses up reagents in some tournaments/events, and so there's an opportunity cost there as well. And that's certainly true.

You're also arguing that one should be compensated for that lost opportunity. But you haven't actually explained why. Clearly the enjoyment of such events in which players lose reagents and time, is enough of a benefit for many players to outweigh the cost of not killing gazers instead. If that price is too high for you, then by all means you could simply not join the events and instead enjoy relatively uninterrupted time killing gazers while everyone else is capturing a flag.

You don't have a right to events that compensate you equally (or greater) than the compensation you get from actual in-game gameplay. In fact, I'd argue the opposite - shard accuracy and integrity implores that there be no compensation from events that equals or trumps the opportunity one would have in the actual game. I couldn't be happier that your bank account would be better suited if you played in-game and not in tournaments; that's ideal IMO.

[Brules]

Jason, you're trying to argue that there's an opportunity cost to entering events. Which is certainly true. And you're arguing that one uses up reagents in some tournaments/events, and so there's an opportunity cost there as well. And that's certainly true.

You're also arguing that one should be compensated for that lost opportunity. But you haven't actually explained why. Clearly the enjoyment of such events in which players lose reagents and time, is enough of a benefit for many players to outweigh the cost of not killing gazers instead. If that price is too high for you, then by all means you could simply not join the events and instead enjoy relatively uninterrupted time killing gazers while everyone else is capturing a flag.

You don't have a right to events that compensate you equally (or greater) than the compensation you get from actual in-game gameplay. In fact, I'd argue the opposite - shard accuracy and integrity implores that there be no compensation from events that equals or trumps the opportunity one would have in the actual game. I couldn't be happier that your bank account would be better suited if you played in-game and not in tournaments; that's ideal IMO.

Well. Said. !

[Soma]

I still have my red box of 1/ea reg and pot in the hopes one day events will come back... I'm starting to think of trashing it lately.

[Jason-]

Jason, you're trying to argue that there's an opportunity cost to entering events. Which is certainly true. And you're arguing that one uses up reagents in some tournaments/events, and so there's an opportunity cost there as well. And that's certainly true.

You're also arguing that one should be compensated for that lost opportunity. But you haven't actually explained why. Clearly the enjoyment of such events in which players lose reagents and time, is enough of a benefit for many players to outweigh the cost of not killing gazers instead. If that price is too high for you, then by all means you could simply not join the events and instead enjoy relatively uninterrupted time killing gazers while everyone else is capturing a flag.

You don't have a right to events that compensate you equally (or greater) than the compensation you get from actual in-game gameplay. In fact, I'd argue the opposite - shard accuracy and integrity implores that there be no compensation from events that equals or trumps the opportunity one would have in the actual game. I couldn't be happier that your bank account would be better suited if you played in-game and not in tournaments; that's ideal IMO.

That's exactly what I'm arguing. I'm arguing the opportunity cost with an emphasis on the free use events such as CTF and the 1 or 2 tournaments that happened per week that had that feature.

However, the risk is present in non free use events such as survivor and non free use tournaments. Resource loss, which obviously translates into gold, is a factor.

To keep this simple,

Non free use tournament

0 Event winngs
8,000- gp in reg loss/repairs
-------
8,000 loss

But in reality, I don't care about that.

Again, the idea of events should enhance the "era-accurate" pvp/pvm mechanics and provide additional entertainment to the playerbase.

If that requires no prizes, then so be it. At this point, the individuals who want events to come back could probably care less about prizes and just want to have fun playing this shard, and don't really see having silver or not as a prize as a big issue.

Thanks you guys

[Mikel123]

By your logic, I would hereby like to announce my request to have Headless carry with them 1000gp as loot.

The way I see it, they are very hard to find and have very little loot, and when I choose to hunt them, I am giving up the chance to hunt gazers in one place and make more money during that time instead. So right now, I'm losing money every time I go out and hunt Headless instead of Elder Gazers.

[Jason-]

By your logic, I would hereby like to announce my request to have Headless carry with them 1000gp as loot.

The way I see it, they are very hard to find and have very little loot, and when I choose to hunt them, I am giving up the chance to hunt gazers in one place and make more money during that time instead. So right now, I'm losing money every time I go out and hunt Headless instead of Elder Gazers.

That's a very poor interpretation of what I was saying. Can your next post include the school you attended so I can write a memo to our HR department to ensure no one ever gets hired into the firm from the school you participated in. Thanks.

Anyways I will say it again:

Again, the idea of events should enhance the "era-accurate" pvp/pvm mechanics and provide additional entertainment to the playerbase.

If that requires no prizes, then so be it. At this point, the individuals who want events to come back could probably care less about prizes and just wants to have fun playing this shard, and don't really see having silver or not as a prize as a big issue.

In other words, give the playerbase a reason to log in. We've been beaten up with game changing patch after game changing patch.

[Blaise]

I still have my red box of 1/ea reg and pot in the hopes one day events will come back... I'm starting to think of trashing it lately.

LOL!!

[Rammar]

Pay to play, split the pot across winners.

Additionally, since the silver system in general does not seem likely to go away, delete the entry gold and payout instead with silver. Maintains the accessibility of the silver rewards, provides a regular and consistent gold sink, and ofc the enjoyment of the event itself.

[Kabal]

Pay to play, split the pot across winners.

Additionally, since the silver system in general does not seem likely to go away, delete the entry gold and payout instead with silver. Maintains the accessibility of the silver rewards, provides a regular and consistent gold sink, and ofc the enjoyment of the event itself.

I like this idea