EM Events discussion thread

Radst

EM Events are such huge part of UO (regardless of your opinion otherwise) – and yet, we almost never see open discussions of the content at all levels, such as improvement and issues. Aren't you curious why. So, here it is:

Topic category:

- Scheduling

- Event handling

- Boss fight & Rewards

- Cheating

==========================

Here's my input:

- Scheduling:

Currently there are 3 places where schedules can be found: UO webpage, in-game towncryer, and shard EM's blogs. Previously I thought Mesanna made it clear that UO webpage is the main place that should at least be updated. BUT, in the past several months, Asian shard events sometimes dont get updated here at all. How about just yesterday (4/30 Hokuto, not on UO page), and this has happened a couple times at least on a monthly basis for Japan shards. Maybe because there are new EMs?? Anyway, please fix it.

- Event handling:

Lets take 4/27 Mizuho as a most recent example of what disaster can look like. It was sea related, and so EM put a boat and expected everyone to just jump on it. For the next 10 minutes, the crowd was trying to find way to board the ship: HOW? Do you click somewhere? (ropes by now are blocked by 50 players/pets) Finally a gate is opened. Then, everyone got shipped to a SMALL island to fight some scalis. Great. No place to run. Many players got killed and res-killed. Then we got shipped to the main land...by this time the event already took 60 minute and no one knows what's going on. Everyone is PISSED. It seemed the EM wanted everyone to board ship to the sea where he would summon the boss. But he made no effort to communicate in English as well. So, finally he summoned the boss next to the shore to get it over with.

After the boss fight and we got back to the EM hall, you bet everyone gave very "direct" feedback to his face, if you take my meaning. It seems after many years of eventing, EMs dont learn from their experiences and mistakes. Anything thats to do with boats is general a bad idea. Same thing with fighting in a tiny area.

Another thing thats usually seen with Japan events is the EMs "intention" to lose crowds: EM would tell players to go to some places (in Japanese ONLY) and you see the local players recall off right away and leave non-jpn speakers all confused. Japan EMs would finally tell you where IF there were enough players yell help in chats. But man, their intention to lose extra crowds is so obvious that they simply dont care about user experience. THIS NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED: Anytime you ask the crowd to meet at the next spot, EMs must also use English. But I guess they innocently didn't know.

- Boss Fight

In the past I've seen bosses spawned with very high resist and high regen, and this made the boss un-killable because the crowd spent an hour to just take down half its HP, and the EM had to abort. This was rare but happened a couple times in the past 2 years. 

Also, no boss should be killed in one or two minute or five. By now, shouldn't EM's already know how to design a proper boss stat that last at least 10 minutes? Currently, if you die once and get res'd, you might just miss the kill, not to mention sometimes there are no fking HEALERS.

4/27 Formosa boss also spawned half-life. EM was not sure why.

And lets take a moment to talk about "grabbing HP bar" thing. Some players still prefer using CC, and giving players a chance to grab the boss HP bar is really important. Some EMs are decent to know this and would always allow a countdown, while some EMs simply dont care. Even in EC, necro critters can show as "murderer" and this can add to our confusion. AND at times I've seen bosses with other HP color bar. (For events, I only show "murderer" or red HP bar, but occasionally we still see grey event critters) This is annoying.

Let me stop here. As you see, we have a lot to talk about.

Uriah_Heep

Two items of praise to insert here...

Legends EM Erebus.   Always spawns a healer off to the side of wherever we are.

He is also good about posting his schedule, for the month so we can plan accordingly and not have to rush to catch one that seems to have been setup spur of the moment.

He is also good about opening gates to where we are going, and leaving them up for the occasional straggler to wander into, so latecomers aren't left out in the cold.

Often times his boss appears on a mountain, top of building, wherever, right before it's time to kill him.  Gives us a chance to grab a bar.

WE were lucky, we got another good one

Ooops, guess that's more than two items...back to math class for me!

WornOutYourTool

Was going good until I read the MUST speak in English part, that went a bit off the crazy rails.

Mariah

Please keep this discussion to general terms, attacks on specific EMs are unacceptable and will be removed.

Bilbo

@Radst WOW ARE YOU KIDDING ME  How about you learn the language of the shard you are visiting.  I did 21 years in the Navy and visited many, many different countries and never once did I think that they should speak English.  That is about one of the most racist things I have heard and believe me I have heard a lot.

Urge

Events bring out the worst in everyone. I thought you could get banned for not speaking the native tongue?

Luc_of_Legends

@Radst ; Gaijin how about YOU learn JAPANESE???   Seriously would you go to Tokyo and expected the the whole bloody city to speak English?  No, and you should not!  Anymore than a Japanese person would expect the whole city of Houston to speak Japanese (Mexican yes, but that is an entirely different story!)    When you visit a Non-US UO Shard you need to realize they won't likely speak English and that is fine.  Here is a list and the primary language you need to expect on that/those shard/s:



Drachenfels - Deutsch gesprochen (German)

Europa - Numerous European languages including English


Asuka
Hokuto 
Izumo
Mizuho                                 All of these are Japanese speaking shards.
Mugen (Siege Ruleset)
Sakura
Wakoku
Yamato


Arirang
Balhae        These are Korean shards and Korean is spoken.



Formosa  This is a Taiwanese shard and the language spoken is Mandarin


Now please stop embarrassing everyone here in the US and stop acting like "an ugly American".

Thank You 

KHAN

@Luc_of_Legends The Language you were referring is Spanish, NOT "Mexican". ROFL

Pawain

Luc_of_Legends said:

@ Radst  Gaijin how about YOU learn JAPANESE???   Seriously would you go to Tokyo and expected the the whole bloody city to speak English?  No, and you should not!  Anymore than a Japanese person would expect the whole city of Houston to speak Japanese (Mexican yes, but that is an entirely different story!)    When you visit a Non-US UO Shard you need to realize they won't likely speak English and that is fine.  Here is a list and the primary language you need to expect on that/those shard/s:



Drachenfels - Deutsch gesprochen (German)

Europa - Numerous European languages including English


Asuka
Hokuto 
Izumo
Mizuho                                 All of these are Japanese speaking shards.
Mugen (Siege Ruleset)
Sakura
Wakoku
Yamato


Arirang
Balhae        These are Korean shards and Korean is spoken.



Formosa  This is a Taiwanese shard and the language spoken is Mandarin


Now please stop embarrassing everyone here in the US and stop acting like "an ugly American".

Thank You 

You also!  Houston is the MOST diverse city in the US.  Mexican is not a Language.  
The invaders made all of the Native Americans speak their language.

BTW America is the Continent name.  You probably write American (or Merican) when asked what country you are a citizen of.

We have a great EM on LS. http://lakesuperior.uoem.net/

Sometimes RL takes priority over a game.

Luc_of_Legends

KHAN said:

@ Luc_of_Legends The Language you were referring is Spanish, NOT "Mexican". ROFL

Actually, according my college Spanish professor who is a native Peruvian, "THAT's NOT SPANISH!"  She called it  at best "redneck" Spanish at worst it's Mexican border Spanish.  
I've heard it referred to as "Tejano".   Its weird.  I learned my Spanish from my Mexican-Americans friends growing up in Texas. I heard a linguist say that while being primarily Spanish, there are strong elements of French and Indigenous languages.   Long story short nobody knows what the heck it is...LOL 

Bilbo

Off subject:  If you visit Tokyo go to the university there and you will find a lot of students that want to practice their English, with a little patients you will get one of the BEST tours of Japan and the most it costs you is cab fair and food.

Radst

People love to mis-read on Internet and get smar about it. I did not say EMs should use full English in every sentence. I'm sure they are required to know some level of English, and therefore they should just be able to say "Go to Minoc gate", for example. That's it.

Bilbo

Radst said:

People love to mis-read on Internet and get smar about it. I did not say EMs should use full English in every sentence. I'm sure they are required to know some level of English, and therefore they should just be able to say "Go to Minoc gate", for example. That's it.

EMs must also use English

Pawain

Radst said:

People love to mis-read on Internet and get smar about it. I did not say EMs should use full English in every sentence. I'm sure they are required to know some level of English, and therefore they should just be able to say "Go to Minoc gate", for example. That's it.

I do not know the intent for all the servers.  If they were made for a specific geographic region then I would say they should be able to communicate with that region.  

Some EMs drop symbols that take you to an area or make gates to lead the party around. So, if you are just there to kill stuff and get a drop chance then the Lore does not matter.

Garth_Grey

Luc_of_Legends said:

@ Radst  Gaijin how about YOU learn JAPANESE???   Seriously would you go to Tokyo and expected the the whole bloody city to speak English?  No, and you should not!  Anymore than a Japanese person would expect the whole city of Houston to speak Japanese (Mexican yes, but that is an entirely different story!)    When you visit a Non-US UO Shard you need to realize they won't likely speak English and that is fine.  Here is a list and the primary language you need to expect on that/those shard/s:



Drachenfels - Deutsch gesprochen (German)

Europa - Numerous European languages including English


Asuka
Hokuto 
Izumo
Mizuho                                 All of these are Japanese speaking shards.
Mugen (Siege Ruleset)
Sakura
Wakoku
Yamato


Arirang
Balhae        These are Korean shards and Korean is spoken.



Formosa  This is a Taiwanese shard and the language spoken is Mandarin


Now please stop embarrassing everyone here in the US and stop acting like "an ugly American".

Thank You 

You embarrassed yourself enough with the Mexican language reference..ibtl.

EM Erebus

Hello. Just wanted to comment (or ramble, as my post is turning out to be) on this part:

In the past I've seen bosses spawned with very high resist and high regen, and this made the boss un-killable because the crowd spent an hour to just take down half its HP, and the EM had to abort. This was rare but happened a couple times in the past 2 years. 

Also, no boss should be killed in one or two minute or five. By now, shouldn't EM's already know how to design a proper boss stat that last at least 10 minutes? Currently, if you die once and get res'd, you might just miss the kill, not to mention sometimes there are no fking HEALERS.

This can be a bit tricky sometimes. With the increasingly immense damage output being put out by the large crowds of players (the size of which varies from time to time), sometimes it's not always possible to predict just how quickly a boss will go down. Too little damage mitigation, and the boss goes down disappointingly fast. Too much and you find a situation as you described, where the boss is unkillable. So it's a bit of a balancing act sometimes. In my view, 5 minutes should typically be enough time to get to get enough of damage/healing to get looting rights, generally speaking. I'm not saying it's impossible to produce generally consistent results, but my main point is that there will likely be some funky bosses from time to time due to varying factors (and in such cases, do tell the EM what you think!). But this leads me to another matter altogether, concerning difficulty...

Bear in mind, this part is just my personal view. In my view bosses should be very tough, very challenging, and even a little bit frustrating sometimes. I know that last bit seems counter-intuitive but hear me out! If the bosses are merely served up in a simplistic, methodical way every time to fulfill some sense of "fair play", a few things happen: they lose their air of formidability and dread, the game world itself becomes a little bit less interesting, and the game begins to feel less like an adventure and more like Elmo getting his wish for Christmas to happen every day (my god I am invoking muppets for my analogy, what the hell is wrong with me (how about this for an analogy: playing Monopoly and circling the board for the millionth time)). Like bosses, a game, in an abstract sense, requires its own particular kind of balance - between challenge and reward. Too much challenge for a pitiful or common reward, and the game becomes arbitrary. Too little challenge and it doesn't matter what the presumed value of the reward is - the reward will not be as thrilling to win and the game will not mean quite as much. The value of a reward and the thrill of achievement is defined in part by the challenge that must be overcome to acquire it. This is why I am somewhat hesitant about some of the suggestions I have seen in the past that rewards should just be clickies or 'everyone' rewards because - and again, this is just me personally - when I get a drop at an event after a couple months of not getting one, it's kind of cool. It wouldn't really feel quite as cool the same way if I got a reward every single time. Losing from time to time, or coming up empty handed, makes the eventual victory so much sweeter.

This will go a little beyond the scope of events. I am reminded of an event from many years ago, during the original EM program. I don't quite recall what the event was about, but what I do recall was that a ridiculously powerful demon was unleashed in Luna that would eat the bodies of dead players and spit out body parts (some of these body parts obstructed movement, too). It was so powerful we were unable to kill it. There was some trick to killing it that a few players figured out the next day, but for the rest of the day Luna was a complete hell hole.

For many, the idea of an unstoppable boss that a smaller group of players take down later might at first seem like a terrible idea from where we stand presently (and for reasons that are, at this time, certainly valid). But to me, however, this was awesome. I have no idea if there was even a reward at that event, and I never cared. For me the experience was a thousand times more valuable than any reward I could have acquired at it (although a reward from that event would certainly have a particular value all its own). So what made the value of this event, for me? Not just the challenge posed by the all-powerful demon, but an idea that in this living, breathing virtual world there are monsters to be feared, and that I, rather than being a hero of Britannia, am just a mere mortal trying to survive it, and endure. Also, that the event wasn't simply an EM dancing on stage neatly packaged into a tidy, 1 hour event with a boss destined to die within minutes being pulled methodically at the end, but a threat of indeterminate power and duration with an open and unknown ending and possessing the quality of being persistent - a persistent threat in a persistent world. Lastly, it had a sense of unpredictability - the idea that anything could happen. Now don't get me wrong. I am not suggesting that the game, or events, should only ever be nightmarish hellscapes where EM Erebus res-kills everyone for 2 solid hours. As enjoyable as that would be, I wish to stress the value of the game itself over my own personal entertainment. :P

I am not really here to make any specific suggestions. What I do wish, however, is to share my own feelings on the subject and offer a perspective that is slightly different than what I normally see to my fellow players, for your consideration, so that discussions about events aren't limited to bosses and rewards.

In any case, thank you @Radst for the thread. I always enjoy reading these types of threads to see what everyone's thoughts are about events.

One last note. A question for my fellow players. No doubt many of you have attended a great many events. Out of the many events that you have attended over the years, how many do you remember? What specific events do you remember - which ones stand out in your mind?

What made them memorable?

Dixie_of_Chessy_01

would be nice if UO would have an auto translator in game,  I love Asuka and the people but there are so few who speak English and I just don't have enough brain cells left to learn another one lol, would be nice if UO itself could help close that gap

Pawain

EM Erebus said:

One last note. A question for my fellow players. No doubt many of you have attended a great many events. Out of the many events that you have attended over the years, how many do you remember? What specific events do you remember - which ones stand out in your mind?

What made them memorable?

I dont like the insta deaths.  Or poison that cant be cured and you die.  I like the ones where you need healing but there is not a pile of bodies.

Our EM makes some bosses that need adjustment. We give helpful feedback during the fights if the mob is a wrong fit for the group size or templates.

The EM made a Pet Eater for this event:

EM Erebus

Pawain said:

I dont like the insta deaths.  Or poison that cant be cured and you die.  I like the ones where you need healing but there is not a pile of bodies.

I share a similar sentiment. Sometimes, I'll admit, I enjoy some of the chaotic, death-filled events (as a player!). But there are also times where the difficulty makes something feel pointless. I'll give you an example: tormented minotaurs. I may have used one of these during one of my events at some point, but I tend to avoid them because, when one of these appear at an event I am at as a player, I pretty much sit out the fight due to the fact that consecutive stomps (which is much more likely to happen with a crowd hitting it) is insta-death. No point in even bothering with it. They're not really a proper challenge.

Tim

I'll limit myself to one point.

How easy is it to set the power of the Boss when you don't know how many players are going to show up? 

OK two points isn't the EM position a volunteer rather than a full time employee?

Margrette

Tim said:

OK two points isn't the EM position a volunteer rather than a full time employee?

I believe they are paid contractors.

Radst

Hello EM Erebus, thanks for the input. I appreciated it! I agree on the 5 minute duration in general. I'm just surprised from time to time to see a boss that can get killed in like 30 seconds. While the number of players may vary, I think the number should not vary too much, say close to 100 each event, as far as I've observed. So, I'm just curious, is there a global rule set for these events; for example: boss stats, boss abilities.

On boss abilities: the worst possible template is probably the Slasher. The white-out effect can easily crash CC/EC on a new desktop. And the constant Fear/Freeze adds the impossibility to do anything at all, therefore even 5-min wont be enough in this scenario especially if you died and there is no healer. The slasher can spam Fear as often as it wants with no cooldown control; it's crazy. That's the worst possible case that still occurs.

I'm sure everyone doesn't mind dying N times or not getting a reward at times, as long as the process is reasonable and makes sense.

Uriah_Heep

I wouldn't want the job.  Really.  Never know what to plan for, one event there are 5 people there, next event 50.  Even with it being drop night the numbers (and strengths) of the players vary.

The only constant is that someone at the end will be bitching about something.  Even me *blush*  Sorry bout that Erebus.  

We have been blessed with a few good EMs, try to support them.  If there is a language barrier, well so be it.  It should be expected when on foreign soil, so to speak.

WornOutYourTool

I don't go to many events because of that... 

What's the quest?  "We're going to go to a place, kill some stuff then a bigger stuff, hand out participation trophies then go home."

I much prefer the confusing meat grinders.  The example of the Luna demon was perfect.  Something to actually be afraid of and think about.  There not really any content experienced players look at and think they're in peril if they go up against it.  Peerless to shadowguard, mightiest in the land, farmed like vegetables.  Funny how the scariest and biggest obstacle left in the game is a creature with 150 HP.

Radst

This thread is about consolidating feedback on the events. If you have nothing to add, please refrain from sidetracking. I'd ask the mods to remove ones that keep talking to themselves.

=====================

Now continuing with the main topic: Rewards

"Rock around the clock":

Nice color, tells time and you can sit on it. Awesome deco, so I bought one for myself and another for a friend. And they STACKED, which caused them to lose the ability to tell time. GM wasn't able to fix it for me. So there goes my gold.

Another inconsistency with instruments:

This nice looking cello plays a tune as expected. Solid.

On the other hand, this harp does not play any music at all.

The_Higgs_1

I don't do any events due to many reasons, but the most obvious reason is long ago I found out how corrupt the whole thing is.  Lets just say I was in a voice chat back in like 2011 where 4 of the 7 people in it were EM's on different shards and would share information on what monsters they were using and what type chars were best to kill it so you would get a drop.   This has been going on forever, maybe it got cleaned up but I doubt it.  

Kirthag

OH! I remember the Luna Daemon! Wasn't that on Napa (if it was on multiple shards, I dunno - I was a Napa player then)? The carnage was immense and the event - although frustrating - memorable. The satisfaction after slaying the daemon was placating enough to where some players (myself included) wished there would be MORE events with a boss that ...

• would frustrate the gathered players immensely
• would last for more than a day (multi-day-bosses are rare, but gives a reason to go back again and again for the gathering of death shrouds)
• loot drop that would equate the level of frustration for this "uber-boss" (and i'm not talking about just a rarity or a shard-bound, more like items and gold and such)

Luna players begged other players to come and help kill the thing - "... for the sake of the Luna Mall!" was a battle cry for a bit. The community came together to thwart a common foe, THAT is what I enjoyed about events... COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT - not just players running amok to kill a spawn and get loots and drops.

Of what I can recall, I had more fun healing/ressing/gathering during this event and periodically screaming out loud as I ran willy-nilly through blocking body parts whenever the immortal daemon would come near. I'd get a few hits in, but the two-hit-kill-move that monster had (Ba'al was its name if I remember) was more than enough to make me reconsider my tactics. Even Tal'keesh was a wimp in comparison.

THAT was an event! Yes, if a player remembers it, then it was a good event. 

An EM from the early days once said, "The event IS the reward!"
Aediwulf.... (salute), your words are so true - if it is a well planned and executed event.

Most of what happens now are show up, blah blah, battle, loot, complain fests which I avoid now. I've not been interested in any events for some time as they are boring, repetitive, and frankly do nothing to pique my interest by way of story line, involvement, or even booty.

I have more fun dancing a tango with PKers in Fel than I do with an EM event. Sorry but that is the brutal truth.


((final edit, promise))

I want to add, what helps make a memorable event.

Get everyone involved. Not everyone plays a tamer; they might have a tamer on their account(s), but is that their main toon? Does everyone diversify their playtime and schedule this day tamer, this day crafter, this day mage, this day melee? No - we all have our faves and the toons we play the most because we enjoy it. Figure out how to cater to the "favored toons" of the players.

A sort of multi-stage event where all sorts of characters/toons could get involved. Not just those with certain skill sets (typically tamers with uber-pet or some other tweaked template), but how about crafters? Or maybe an event for mages based in Wind? 


Also, a story line which involves the community of the shard (uh oh.. treading that path again) as it acknowledges the uniqueness of the shard, the efforts of the players on that shard, and the community that gathers on that shard. I believe EMs are not allowed to play on the shard they manage, but it wouldn't be hard to be around and learn the people upon a shard. That, I think, is the biggest fault of the EM program. Not knowing their assigned shard(s) communities. Some of the longer-run EMs do, but a newbie-EM.... highly doubtful.

Yes, an EM must be impartial (do they  sign a non-disclosure? If not, then its a shame) but without knowledge of the local community, I think it would be hard for an EM to cater to the players. Overall story arcs for the worldset is only part of the job - getting into the details and knowing their community should be another. Without know if an EM is full- or part-time on the job and other such what not business things, all I can say is if there is to be improvement, bring back the RP. Make the content of an EM event relevant to the shard, and get to know the community of a shard (not just the governors and their special interests).

Luc_of_Legends

The_Higgs_1 said:

I don't do any events due to many reasons, but the most obvious reason is long ago I found out how corrupt the whole thing is.  Lets just say I was in a voice chat back in like 2011 where 4 of the 7 people in it were EM's on different shards and would share information on what monsters they were using and what type chars were best to kill it so you would get a drop.   This has been going on forever, maybe it got cleaned up but I doubt it.  

I have had issues for a long time with EM events.  On Legends back around the time you speak a certain guild that I used to be involved with had the EM's direct ICQ number.  The EM had an event that was basically for that guild because they run everyone off but their members.    That was way back.  Fast forward to 2013 and several EMs later, Legends got a new EM and this one didn't even try to hide their favoritism to another specific guild.  This EM was helping with a player run event.  The player had done all the proper "paperwork" to get EM help. This was before the PEC program.   This certain guild showed up started fights, harassed players, trashed and generally ruined the player run event. This EM did nothing to intervene.  Nor did the EM do anything when this same guild basically destroy the elections by "paying" players for or trading votes on other shards for votes on Legends.  I do not know if Mesanna ever cleaned up the voting mess or not as I stopped participating in the elections stuff.   It resulted in the player who held the event closing his four accounts and quitting UO.  I know of several players that just quit participating in EM events until the arrival of EM Erberus. Me and my sister being two of them.  Many have gone back to doing events, but we have not.   It has nothing do with EM Erberus, everything I hear about him is positive.  It just that due to RL issues I don't want to be in the middle of an event and have to leave suddenly.  Its easier to leave a dungeon or stop decorating.   

TimSt

EM events in Felucca should have a temporary Trammel rule set around the area the event is taking place at so PKer's can not show up and ruin the event by killing other players.  They can still show up and participate in the event but they can not kill other players.

Bilbo

TimSt said:

EM events in Felucca should have a temporary Trammel rule set around the area the event is taking place at so PKer's can not show up and ruin the event by killing other players.  They can still show up and participate in the event but they can not kill other players.

Then why have it in Fel to begin with and this is coming from a Trammie

Uriah_Heep

TimSt said:

EM events in Felucca should have a temporary Trammel rule set around the area the event is taking place at so PKer's can not show up and ruin the event by killing other players.  They can still show up and participate in the event but they can not kill other players.

The memorable Fel event I attended, that might be the one Luc is speaking of, was wild.
!O! ran in and wiped out everyone and everything but the EM lol.  Wherever it was, it was a no recall zone, and the only way out was down a short tunnel to his gate.  !O! had a good time I reckon.

At that time, we had several PvP/spawn raider groups on the shard.  I always thought it woulda been cool, and fun, had he hired one of them to protect the event from just such happenings.  Then we would have had the event, it would have included everyone, and wouolda been a good show .