• Developer Time vs. Player Time; the Repeatable Content Factor. Any sort of event like this takes time to create and execute. No company has infinite resources, and it's important that the talented staff work on projects that will make best use of their time. When working on a persistent world such as World of Warcraft, where no one actually finishes the game, repeatable content is a must. Players, by nature, devour content far faster than it can be implemented. Therefore, repeatable content is key. Dungeons are an example of this. Battlegrounds are another. They're features that are used by players over and over again.
  
  Now, world-changing events such as the one you suggest tend to be one-time happenings that may take a month to create but only two days to occur for players. The question comes into play... which is better? A one-time event with all the bells and whistles, or a new dungeon? Which would best utilize the developers' time? The answer, more often than not, turns out to be the one that pertains to repeatable content.
  
  
• Dynamic vs. Scripted; the Manpower Factor. The question then comes into play... all right, if you'd rather have the developers work on repeatable content, why not hire people specifically for world events? As someone who has done precisely that job for two other games in this genre, again, I'm fairly knowledgeable regarding the pros and cons.
  
  Let me define a term before I delve deeper: "dynamic event", in this case, is a term for a world event run and executed by actors in the world playing the NPCs or controlling the monsters in some fashion.
  
  Now, developers implementing world events are more akin to actual, coded game interactions -- true NPCs and scripted occurrences patched in. Since that takes more time to create and test than players take to exhaust it, naturally the next progression is to consider a troupe of dedicated actors and strategists to do these events on the fly, without need for developer support. There are many problems inherent with this setup as well, however. First, you need to make certain you have the right people. The individuals need to be fast and efficient typists with a near-encyclopedic knowledge of game lore. They also must be trustworthy enough to be given tools that could cause any number of cancellations if abused to the fullest. Once you start hiring these folks, keep going -- you'll need enough to effectively man over 100 realms. And that's only in the North American offices -- the international teams would naturally need their own dedicated crew.
  
  The number of realms is a clear detriment to this style of event. Now let's say you want to run a dynamic event. Ideally, you want the event to occur at the same time. Internationally. Staggering times is an alternative, but unfortunately brings with it spoilers and potential technical problems that will affect everyone on the realm regardless of whether or not they're participating (I'll get into this later). So it's a simultaneous event. You therefore need at least one person per realm if it's a simple event -- that's 100 employees dedicated to this alone. If it's an extremely simple event you may be able to pull it off by two-boxing, but 50 is still not an insignificant number.
  
  The problem is that the overall effect on the game is very small in the long run; most people probably won't even know the event occurred, regardless of what sort of in-game or out-of-game messaging used prior (to a point -- again, I'll cover this later). The cost, ergo, to maintain such a force of actors is not worth it. GMs couldn't do it -- they need to be focused on supporting players in-game. There is never a slow time for them.
  
  Ahhh, but volunteers could do it, you think. This comes with its own serious issues as well. Volunteers are long-distance and extremely hard to manage -- coordinating one hundred of them to execute an event is nigh-impossible. Inevitably something comes up. Also, maintaining the quality of the event is much more difficult when you cannot manage them as intricately. (I wish I could share the stories. :P ) Lastly, giving that kind of power to someone with very little accountability in the long run is a truly dangerous risk. And overall, again, this sort of thing does not have much impact unless you have a large amount of actors working the realms often; and that sort of system simply isn't financially feasible.
  
  
• Latency and Crowds; the Technical Factor. Another serious consideration, not to be overlooked, is the technical limitation of the server infrastructure. Huge crowds in a small area can cause problems. Huge crowds actively doing something in a small area is liable to cause something that leads to a realm restart. (Anyone who has participated in an Ironforge raid will be well aware of this.) Therefore, when considering world events, it is important that no event cause people to gather in such a way that would compromise playability from a technical standpoint. In your particular example, Anubius, the numbers you quote would cause a serious problem. While not really a consideration anyone wants to make, it's nonetheless necessary that players not be drawn to one particular point.
  

---

Q u o t e:
What about adding content that only 10% or so of the playerbase will ever "enjoy"? Isn't that not an efficient use of developer time?

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---

Q u o t e:
A Comment on the Time:Implementation/Time:Player Complettion ratio...


You say it takes a long time to create, script, and implement an event that will probably only take place over the course of 2 days, and you you argue: Is it worth it?

My rebuttal is this... Does not a wedding take months to plan and prepare for, for an event that will take place really over the course of 2 days or so? It boils down to this. Major events often take long amounts of time to prepare for.

Also, about people not being able to do participate for various reasons... Have you never said, "Man I wish I could have gone to _____!"

I think the idea of temporary instance is a good idea. Build the story, set up the instance, and leave it up for a month. No loot involve, just satisfaction in knowing you helped in the development of Azeroth.

((Ok, fine... some loot would be involved, but no epics or anything crazy))

I think a battle ground type area would be good. A place where everyone from 1-60 could go and have different things to do. OP mentioned turning in boards what not.

---

---

Q u o t e:
Cay, it'd be EASILY DONE.

1. Create an NPC, lets for example use a hypothetical one that I just made off the top of my head, "Lord Somethingoranother", the giant Sprite Dragon of d00m. Now, Lord Somethingoranother would be "roleplayed" by a person in a very simple matter: You may a few /yells macroed that consist of "I COME FOR YOU _Town being attacked_!" and "GRAHH!" and "I WILL DESTROY ALL BENEATH MY METERO-WINGS OF HATE!"

2. Give it abilities, basically making it an "Uber" character.

3. Give controll of it to a GM or other person, and they use an annoucement yell in a zone and run at a town. The GM would of course know "not to be too unfair with his powers" and leave weaknesses open, but as a PLAYER CONTROLLED raid boss it could accomplish things other bosses can since it is controlled.

As popular as a raid on this would be once it was /yelled, word would spread, and it'd die prettyyyyyy fast. Amazingly so.

4. Server 1 is complete in its raid. GM selects another server at random, starts there, until all 101 (or so now) servers are done, takes likely five days I think. Stops for two months, does it again.

Its so easssyyyyy Cay. I mean, you could even just give it to a well thought player in the community, give their account special access, and while monitoring them let them GO NUTS.

---

---

Q u o t e:
Cay, I've never responded to a GM post, but I think this is pretty important...

I know you don't underestimate how difficult it would be to implement a world-event. But I do think you underestimate how much this would create something memorable about the game. The kind of thing that, through word-of-mouth, might either increase subscriptions, or keep existing customers paying.

Most of us have stories about epic instance runs, or "the best group ever", etc. But everyone from OB remembers the invasion. Sure, there were problems that arose with it (re. lag), but it was hella fun.

I've seen you post your thoughts on this thread. but, if I could get one WoW wish to come true, it'd be that the Blizzard staff would go a little crazy, and script a world event.

It wouldn't need to be GM controlled. It wouldn't need to last only 1 night (tho mebbe only for a limited time). It should be something to scare the crap out of the existing customers; that's what we're looking for: not a permanent change to the world (tho that would be cool), but something to break up the well-established patterns.

/$0.02

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---

Q u o t e:
But you only need ONE person to do it, Cay. And it wouldn't even be turly SCRIPTED since its just "Blarg!" and "I am awesome!" basically macroed. One person, Cay. Lets make an estimation of how the "Lord Somethingoranother" invasion would take per spawn. Lets be bold and say an hour (with zerg much less). Lets just say there are a hundred realms.

Now, obviously you'd want these events in "prime times", so it'd be say 7 o Clock to midnight. Now, thats a bigger stretch when you look at the simple fact that there are different time zones.

100 hours, thats twenty days IF (big if) each took an hour and it was only in the "five hour" span of primetime (actually about 8 hours when you factor in the server time differences). It'd take a single GM an evening, and the ammount of work required would be limited. He could just be clicking "smash" button followed by "bolt" button and run after a few players whose names he doesn't like, then hit the "I AM THE GREAT LORD SOMETHING OR ANOTHER, YOU CANNOT ESCAPE MY GLORIOUS SOMETHINGANOTHERITUDE!"

Hell, for that matter you could for this hypothetical event not even factor in the person. Make the Mob be basically like say Kazzak or Azuregos, except don't have it be "sitting in the middle of nowhere where it doesn't bother nobody" and have it go attack a designated town OR patroll an area once a week (randomly in the week). Whats the big deal about this compared with Kazzak and Azuregos? Its an unplanned thing, its a surprise, and what happens can be quite random. You go "Ahah, what luck for me to happen apon this to tell my guild!"

Now, you say something about it impeding people's game life. This is true, however, Stiches moving through Darkshire is the same in concept, and it can supposedly impede people. Remove Stitches? Heck no. Everyone LOVES Stitches BECAUSE of how that is.

---

---

Q u o t e:
But Cay, is it not true that people not on a specific day will miss the Holiday events as well? Do we make Holiday events "not happening" because they force people to miss them not for a month, but a WHOLE YEAR?

And by randomly I meant every server would be done, order wouldn't be "down the line alphabetically", since then people would all set their clocks for when the thing would be and miss the whole point, that it is a random thing. People won't leave because they miss such a thing, but rather will be eager to play so they MIGHT EXPERIENCE IT.

Now if the entire "realm limits" aren't strong enoguh for it, then my bad. But if Kazzak/ Azuregos can be raided, why not a randomly appeared character? It wouldn't take the forums to learn about it, it'd take people going "Holy crap!" in Iron Forge General (or /y as they like to) or in /gu.

In any case Cay, I'll just accept that loads can't take it. But what about Stitches style "attacks" but in a more "Its Stitches except now he's Raid-level-Random-spawn Stitches." You can even announce "Hey Lord Somethingoranother will be spawning once every two weeks and he'll attack either this or this town." It'll work just like Kazzak or Azuregos except it be'd "Kazzak-meets-Stitches-attacking-Dark-Shire."

Of course you're more knowledged on the issue, but it seems the server on the whole LIKES "Wow thats cool!" originality and random factors. Hence why we have PVP Realms and why we play the game. If we didn't want any random things EVER to happen, we'd be reading the WoW Strategy guide and then just sit there going "So thats how it goes." while twiddling our thumbs and staring at a wall.

---

---

Q u o t e:
Cay, do you even know what Persistant World means? It means that the players can effect the world and those effects will remain over time. Example: a bomb leaving a crater. The crater doesn't just "reset" after a day or two.

There is just as much "persistance" in WoW as there is/was in Diablo. Creating something that will be repeated ad nausium is not "persistant" in the way a "persistant world" is supposed to be.

Here's a good rundown about "Persistant Worlds":
(I won't name the game it's from)

---

---

Q u o t e:
Isn't the fishing extravaganza a 'world event'?

---

---

Q u o t e:
Cay keeps using that term "persistant". I don't think it means what she thinks it means, as it pertains to "persistant worlds".

---

• Developer Time vs. Player Time; the Repeatable Content Factor. Any sort of event like this takes time to create and execute. No company has infinite resources, and it's important that the talented staff work on projects that will make best use of their time. When working on a persistent world such as World of Warcraft, where no one actually finishes the game, repeatable content is a must. Players, by nature, devour content far faster than it can be implemented. Therefore, repeatable content is key. Dungeons are an example of this. Battlegrounds are another. They're features that are used by players over and over again.
  
  Now, world-changing events such as the one you suggest tend to be one-time happenings that may take a month to create but only two days to occur for players. The question comes into play... which is better? A one-time event with all the bells and whistles, or a new dungeon? Which would best utilize the developers' time? The answer, more often than not, turns out to be the one that pertains to repeatable content.
  
  
• Dynamic vs. Scripted; the Manpower Factor. The question then comes into play... all right, if you'd rather have the developers work on repeatable content, why not hire people specifically for world events? As someone who has done precisely that job for two other games in this genre, again, I'm fairly knowledgeable regarding the pros and cons.
  
  Let me define a term before I delve deeper: "dynamic event", in this case, is a term for a world event run and executed by actors in the world playing the NPCs or controlling the monsters in some fashion.
  
  Now, developers implementing world events are more akin to actual, coded game interactions -- true NPCs and scripted occurrences patched in. Since that takes more time to create and test than players take to exhaust it, naturally the next progression is to consider a troupe of dedicated actors and strategists to do these events on the fly, without need for developer support. There are many problems inherent with this setup as well, however. First, you need to make certain you have the right people. The individuals need to be fast and efficient typists with a near-encyclopedic knowledge of game lore. They also must be trustworthy enough to be given tools that could cause any number of cancellations if abused to the fullest. Once you start hiring these folks, keep going -- you'll need enough to effectively man over 100 realms. And that's only in the North American offices -- the international teams would naturally need their own dedicated crew.
  
  The number of realms is a clear detriment to this style of event. Now let's say you want to run a dynamic event. Ideally, you want the event to occur at the same time. Internationally. Staggering times is an alternative, but unfortunately brings with it spoilers and potential technical problems that will affect everyone on the realm regardless of whether or not they're participating (I'll get into this later). So it's a simultaneous event. You therefore need at least one person per realm if it's a simple event -- that's 100 employees dedicated to this alone. If it's an extremely simple event you may be able to pull it off by two-boxing, but 50 is still not an insignificant number.
  
  The problem is that the overall effect on the game is very small in the long run; most people probably won't even know the event occurred, regardless of what sort of in-game or out-of-game messaging used prior (to a point -- again, I'll cover this later). The cost, ergo, to maintain such a force of actors is not worth it. GMs couldn't do it -- they need to be focused on supporting players in-game. There is never a slow time for them.
  
  Ahhh, but volunteers could do it, you think. This comes with its own serious issues as well. Volunteers are long-distance and extremely hard to manage -- coordinating one hundred of them to execute an event is nigh-impossible. Inevitably something comes up. Also, maintaining the quality of the event is much more difficult when you cannot manage them as intricately. (I wish I could share the stories. :P ) Lastly, giving that kind of power to someone with very little accountability in the long run is a truly dangerous risk. And overall, again, this sort of thing does not have much impact unless you have a large amount of actors working the realms often; and that sort of system simply isn't financially feasible.
  
  
• Latency and Crowds; the Technical Factor. Another serious consideration, not to be overlooked, is the technical limitation of the server infrastructure. Huge crowds in a small area can cause problems. Huge crowds actively doing something in a small area is liable to cause something that leads to a realm restart. (Anyone who has participated in an Ironforge raid will be well aware of this.) Therefore, when considering world events, it is important that no event cause people to gather in such a way that would compromise playability from a technical standpoint. In your particular example, Anubius, the numbers you quote would cause a serious problem. While not really a consideration anyone wants to make, it's nonetheless necessary that players not be drawn to one particular point.
  

---

Q u o t e:
What about adding content that only 10% or so of the playerbase will ever "enjoy"? Isn't that not an efficient use of developer time?

---

---

Q u o t e:
A Comment on the Time:Implementation/Time:Player Complettion ratio...


You say it takes a long time to create, script, and implement an event that will probably only take place over the course of 2 days, and you you argue: Is it worth it?

My rebuttal is this... Does not a wedding take months to plan and prepare for, for an event that will take place really over the course of 2 days or so? It boils down to this. Major events often take long amounts of time to prepare for.

Also, about people not being able to do participate for various reasons... Have you never said, "Man I wish I could have gone to _____!"

I think the idea of temporary instance is a good idea. Build the story, set up the instance, and leave it up for a month. No loot involve, just satisfaction in knowing you helped in the development of Azeroth.

((Ok, fine... some loot would be involved, but no epics or anything crazy))

I think a battle ground type area would be good. A place where everyone from 1-60 could go and have different things to do. OP mentioned turning in boards what not.

---

---

Q u o t e:
Cay, it'd be EASILY DONE.

1. Create an NPC, lets for example use a hypothetical one that I just made off the top of my head, "Lord Somethingoranother", the giant Sprite Dragon of d00m. Now, Lord Somethingoranother would be "roleplayed" by a person in a very simple matter: You may a few /yells macroed that consist of "I COME FOR YOU _Town being attacked_!" and "GRAHH!" and "I WILL DESTROY ALL BENEATH MY METERO-WINGS OF HATE!"

2. Give it abilities, basically making it an "Uber" character.

3. Give controll of it to a GM or other person, and they use an annoucement yell in a zone and run at a town. The GM would of course know "not to be too unfair with his powers" and leave weaknesses open, but as a PLAYER CONTROLLED raid boss it could accomplish things other bosses can since it is controlled.

As popular as a raid on this would be once it was /yelled, word would spread, and it'd die prettyyyyyy fast. Amazingly so.

4. Server 1 is complete in its raid. GM selects another server at random, starts there, until all 101 (or so now) servers are done, takes likely five days I think. Stops for two months, does it again.

Its so easssyyyyy Cay. I mean, you could even just give it to a well thought player in the community, give their account special access, and while monitoring them let them GO NUTS.

---

---

Q u o t e:
Cay, I've never responded to a GM post, but I think this is pretty important...

I know you don't underestimate how difficult it would be to implement a world-event. But I do think you underestimate how much this would create something memorable about the game. The kind of thing that, through word-of-mouth, might either increase subscriptions, or keep existing customers paying.

Most of us have stories about epic instance runs, or "the best group ever", etc. But everyone from OB remembers the invasion. Sure, there were problems that arose with it (re. lag), but it was hella fun.

I've seen you post your thoughts on this thread. but, if I could get one WoW wish to come true, it'd be that the Blizzard staff would go a little crazy, and script a world event.

It wouldn't need to be GM controlled. It wouldn't need to last only 1 night (tho mebbe only for a limited time). It should be something to scare the crap out of the existing customers; that's what we're looking for: not a permanent change to the world (tho that would be cool), but something to break up the well-established patterns.

/$0.02

---

---

Q u o t e:
But you only need ONE person to do it, Cay. And it wouldn't even be turly SCRIPTED since its just "Blarg!" and "I am awesome!" basically macroed. One person, Cay. Lets make an estimation of how the "Lord Somethingoranother" invasion would take per spawn. Lets be bold and say an hour (with zerg much less). Lets just say there are a hundred realms.

Now, obviously you'd want these events in "prime times", so it'd be say 7 o Clock to midnight. Now, thats a bigger stretch when you look at the simple fact that there are different time zones.

100 hours, thats twenty days IF (big if) each took an hour and it was only in the "five hour" span of primetime (actually about 8 hours when you factor in the server time differences). It'd take a single GM an evening, and the ammount of work required would be limited. He could just be clicking "smash" button followed by "bolt" button and run after a few players whose names he doesn't like, then hit the "I AM THE GREAT LORD SOMETHING OR ANOTHER, YOU CANNOT ESCAPE MY GLORIOUS SOMETHINGANOTHERITUDE!"

Hell, for that matter you could for this hypothetical event not even factor in the person. Make the Mob be basically like say Kazzak or Azuregos, except don't have it be "sitting in the middle of nowhere where it doesn't bother nobody" and have it go attack a designated town OR patroll an area once a week (randomly in the week). Whats the big deal about this compared with Kazzak and Azuregos? Its an unplanned thing, its a surprise, and what happens can be quite random. You go "Ahah, what luck for me to happen apon this to tell my guild!"

Now, you say something about it impeding people's game life. This is true, however, Stiches moving through Darkshire is the same in concept, and it can supposedly impede people. Remove Stitches? Heck no. Everyone LOVES Stitches BECAUSE of how that is.

---

---

Q u o t e:
But Cay, is it not true that people not on a specific day will miss the Holiday events as well? Do we make Holiday events "not happening" because they force people to miss them not for a month, but a WHOLE YEAR?

And by randomly I meant every server would be done, order wouldn't be "down the line alphabetically", since then people would all set their clocks for when the thing would be and miss the whole point, that it is a random thing. People won't leave because they miss such a thing, but rather will be eager to play so they MIGHT EXPERIENCE IT.

Now if the entire "realm limits" aren't strong enoguh for it, then my bad. But if Kazzak/ Azuregos can be raided, why not a randomly appeared character? It wouldn't take the forums to learn about it, it'd take people going "Holy crap!" in Iron Forge General (or /y as they like to) or in /gu.

In any case Cay, I'll just accept that loads can't take it. But what about Stitches style "attacks" but in a more "Its Stitches except now he's Raid-level-Random-spawn Stitches." You can even announce "Hey Lord Somethingoranother will be spawning once every two weeks and he'll attack either this or this town." It'll work just like Kazzak or Azuregos except it be'd "Kazzak-meets-Stitches-attacking-Dark-Shire."

Of course you're more knowledged on the issue, but it seems the server on the whole LIKES "Wow thats cool!" originality and random factors. Hence why we have PVP Realms and why we play the game. If we didn't want any random things EVER to happen, we'd be reading the WoW Strategy guide and then just sit there going "So thats how it goes." while twiddling our thumbs and staring at a wall.

---

---

Q u o t e:
Cay, do you even know what Persistant World means? It means that the players can effect the world and those effects will remain over time. Example: a bomb leaving a crater. The crater doesn't just "reset" after a day or two.

There is just as much "persistance" in WoW as there is/was in Diablo. Creating something that will be repeated ad nausium is not "persistant" in the way a "persistant world" is supposed to be.

Here's a good rundown about "Persistant Worlds":
(I won't name the game it's from)

---

---

Q u o t e:
Isn't the fishing extravaganza a 'world event'?

---

---

Q u o t e:
Cay keeps using that term "persistant". I don't think it means what she thinks it means, as it pertains to "persistant worlds".

---