Server events and live interactions
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Being a old school vet MMORPG gamer I have seen many different forms of interaction, some good, some bad some game changing epic. My first full time MMORPG was EverQuest. That was the best sandbox game ever made in my opinion. It was far from perfect but its was the right game at the right time for me. I dabbled in pretty much every MMO after it and other than an extended stay with WoW and a love hate relationship with the first PlanetSide nothing stuck like EQ.
With that said I would like to share some experiences I had in EQ and other games that were memorable. In EQ I remember the early days you had to /petition to get your last name added at level 20, and if you got a good GM it became an event. I got a good one. It was EPIC, I felt much much more attached to both the character I was playing and the game world. There were random GM based events in EQ that would just happen, you would gather the forces and fight or solve riddles that could only be solved with game lore. The loot was never super amazing for the events but the events were always good fun and social. I did however get stuck in a GM event that delayed me and the guild I was in from doing something, and that delay ruined the night so it was not all good all the time.
Server events are another thing, waking the sleeper in EQ was quite an event and depending on what you and your guild wanted to do once it happened it was over and everything changed. It caused great strife with my guild and the guild that woke the sleeper but it was still memorable as it was a sever wide event and done quite well. Some other games did this stuff as well, Rift, and EQII but none on that level.
The thing I have noticed is that developers and GM staff have become more and more hands off once games go live. There is less personal interaction as games strive for numbers more than player experiences. WoW and the way it was done streamlined and canned the MMORPG for the masses, no longer just for the niche market. It was fun to an extent but as time went on it became less and less about the characters and more and more about streamlined meta.
Me... I am looking for a game that has life, not hand holding canned quests with a linear level path in a world that is safe if you follow the level path. I want to dodge specters and stay out of the path of giants, I want fear. I want to see this world cared for with active GMs, fun events and at times server changing epic events. I want to feel like I have an active part, and want to be rewarded for my activity. I am active in most new MMORPGs out there, still looking, hoping.
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Prolly because it was what players were looking for ;). I miss the vanilla days for example. Especially gather up players to do quest or to move for a dungeon. End game was awesome and battleground were really funny. I thnk everyone enjoyed that game but as Prometheus said once this game (fractured mmo) is not going to be like wow.
About events.. well I think they have something in mind already. For what i see from spotlights the game is going to be super dynamic ;). As you can see there will be buildable cities, seasons and weather interactions, gods influences and more. For sure it's a nice idea to suggest some event concept, like the canonic theme events: christmass, halloween, lunar festival, chinese year, easter, summer festval.
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With as many MMORPGs that are out there and are on the horizon its going to be hard to win over players and even harder to keep the ones you get. Stuff like what I mentioned would help but by no means is the be all end all. Just sharing what I have experienced.
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I do remember Eve having an event where a capital ship was trying to leave a system after destroying something. we could kill it or defend it and events would change based on that. a crew defended it while others tried to destroy it.
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Stuff like that sticks around long after the event is over, makes for some good times.
