Report Card on the Shard EMs for this year

Drakelord

Greeting, I was once asked how I like a shard's EM events.  I told the person that I would give them A if I had to give them a report card to take home to Mommy.  

the grades are
A+
A
B

I only listed three grades, B being the worst, A+ being the best.  I play/have played across several shards.  Of course there are a few shards I have not played on. If the grade is A+ in my list it is for going beyond that what is needed for a good event.  If the Grade is an A, overall the events are good but there is room for improvement.  And if it's an B, there is need for more.  More?  More planing, more Role Playing, more of the story arch that is current.

A+
Siege, Great Lakes, Balhae, Formosa, Arirang, Baja, Europa, Legends.
A
Atlantic, Catskills, Chesapeake, Lake Austin, Lake Superior, Napa Valley, Oceania, Origin, Pacific, Yamato
B
Sonoma (My home shard)

All the other shards I have yet to travel there for an event, I normally take time to train up and equip characters on shards before joining the games!

I will admit that I have not done a Siege Event in a while, I am waiting for the EM to get off that Saturday 5pm EDT time for all of his events.  All the events before that were outstanding.

Uriah_Heep

No, I have one difference of opinion.   Good catch on getting Erebus an A+, He has the patience of a saint lol.  

But all in all, considering the crowds and rowdiness and rudeness, Roenick should get some slack and get an A+ as well.

Drakelord

Uriah_Heep said:

No, I have one difference of opinion.   Good catch on getting Erebus an A+, He has the patience of a saint lol.  

But all in all, considering the crowds and rowdiness and rudeness, Roenick should get some slack and get an A+ as well.

I can agree there.  He has gone that extra step to treat the children,( the crowds and rowdiness and rudeness ) well.  His training Event was a A+ event and he has learned a lot.

MissE

Irrespective of the EM my main problem with pretty much all EM events is that is it like rinse repeat, rinse repeat, rinse repeat.

By that I mean

• EM gets up a story line be it raging orcs, menacing ophidians, evil mages, poisonous pink ladybugs, some are creative, some not so much, but most of the story you can't follow due to spam and rowdy people.
  
• They cast a gate and you get a bunch of 'MINI' ragers, menacers, evils or poisoners, which are basically reskinned mobs like miasma, gd's, balrons, etc which they dump in differently locations along the plot of their story line which everyone bashes.
• Then the MEGA Rager, Menacer, Evil or Poisoner spawns (ya know the one with the 10-15 drops on it) which is just a reskinned Crismon Dragon and ditto, there is your event.

The only difference is what tiny location they pick to dump 30-50 people in as to how bad the lag is and how many disconnects you get with all the xshard multiboxers.

Gone are the days when we had stuff like fitness races and obstacle courses, scavenger hunts where all completing players got the reward.  Where at the end of the event those who attended would line up to get their sash or book or 'special item'

Gone are the days when they ran archery comps, and bagball events where ALL participants got an item (eg sash or whatever) and the 'winners' got the major item.  ie stuff like blue team, brown team, orange team robes for the 20xx Bagball team.  Instead now the reward for like winning the archery comp or the fishing comp or whatever is that lame item stuck on the wall in a reward hall which no one really gives a toss about.

Gone are the multi part events where you got multiple rewards just for attending, ie a shield if you completed part a, a book once you did part b, the lucky 5-10 that got the main reward having completed the third part while the other participants got a lesser reward etc. Sand miner sashes for collecting the  most sand the week before the event or collecting the most wood or ingots to rebuild the palace or whatever the story was.

All events these days are just vanilla.  The whole script of run what you want but there will ONLY be a drop event once a month and only 10-15 of such 'drops' go to the highest damage givers has turned EM events into a big yawn. 

The ONLY time our shard has people rock up to do events is the 'drop' one where the shard gets inundated with xsharders who stand back and wait for the boss and pound on it with their multiboxed toons so that at least 50% of the drops are off the shard and on a vendor on atlantic within 24 hours.

The only EM that seems to get a lot of leeway is the EM on Siege who can have CD's in whatever skin the story uses spawn for weeks after the scheduled event, evil Easter bunnies etc around Easter, or love bunnies at valentines so you can go and whack on em for days as  you find the for the chance drop of a crimmy etc, or who puts up gates to great locations that last a week or more ie to corgul, doom, or navrey.

I seriously miss the events that 'WERE' events 10 or so yrs ago.  Now, yeah you go on the chance of getting a drop but that is about it.  Most times I don't even bother to attend as it is the same format over and over and over. It is super sad that the stuff UO was running ten years ago was way better than the current 'format'.

No reflection on the EM just a reflection on the stranglehold format they are now forced to adhere to. It also seems to me that certain shards get MUCH better leeway when it comes to what their EM can do so rating them as such is a bit unfair and kind of 'off'.

Garth_Grey

While I haven't attended any of Sieges events this year, your giving of an A+ when there have been more cancellations than actual events, is suspect.

Drakelord

Garth_Grey said:

While I haven't attended any of Sieges events this year, your giving of an A+ when there have been more cancellations than actual events, is suspect.

Again I have yet to attend one of his events since they moved to that 5pm EDT slot on Saturday, all before that were great and a lot of fun

Librarian_Of_Origin

I would love to see an event that lasted a few months that would be held even just once a month to allow you to “build” a suit of armor. Even if it was just for display later with no real effects after the event was done. 

Drakelord

Most of the EMs have/had some sort of reward for attendance where you do get something, of course its is shard bound, (which is ok with me) but when they give a mage/tamer a non spell channel shield don't expect that mage/tamer to carry it.

I love the Legend's clothing ones, they can be worn on your character.  Great Lakes also does this.

But I think a suit where you received pieces over a period of time that can be displayed would be awesome, of course it would be shard bound so only players that have homes there would really wish to collect the entire suit.

Kirthag

Back when EMs first started (I lived in Napa then), I was not very happy with them. Then, one EM made a statement which rings in my head over and over every time I attempt to participate:

"The Event Is The Reward"

There is only one EM I would ever give an A+ rating to (past or present), and that would be Aediwulf.
*raises tankard in salute*

Drakelord

Kirthag said:

Back when EMs first started (I lived in Napa then), I was not very happy with them. Then, one EM made a statement which rings in my head over and over every time I attempt to participate:

"The Event Is The Reward"

There is only one EM I would ever give an A+ rating to (past or present), and that would be Aediwulf.
*raises tankard in salute*

*Where is that LIKE button!*

Deraj

Kirthag said:

Back when EMs first started (I lived in Napa then), I was not very happy with them. Then, one EM made a statement which rings in my head over and over every time I attempt to participate:

"The Event Is The Reward"

There is only one EM I would ever give an A+ rating to (past or present), and that would be Aediwulf.
*raises tankard in salute*

Do you mean Theowulf? Aediwulf was the GM of M^F. Theowulf did put out some great events though, and a few of them were probably among the most memorable moments in UO for me.

Kirthag

yea... Theowulf... 
dammit