It's not really a matter of it being time-consuming. I suppose what it comes down to is that, there's plenty of other things already working against me, like the fact that I have a day job so I log off just when everyone else is getting active, and how Serenwilde and the Mayflowers are both suffering from low activity and lower morale, and how the things I do don't interest many people. So I can just barely get five people to stand in one spot for an hour under the best of circumstances no matter how many gold or credit prizes I wave in front of them. Even the slimmest other drag on people encouraging them to do anything else is enough to tip things over the "impossible" line.

I wasn't entirely serious. It could be interesting though, and if anything, I'd prefer a lowbie getting the price to a highbie. The "rich get richer type of events" have been complained about each time Greathunts are brought up.

you people never cease to amaze me.

you complain when there aren't events to pique your interest, and now you're complaining about too many? make up your damned mind. first off, i'm somewhat sure estarra didn't come up with this, jeremy did. IRE is a company like any other, and he's trying to keep us interested.
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secondly, if you don't like it, don't log on during these times, or just ignore the hunt. hell, afk in a manse, but don't ruin it for those who enjoy these kinds of things, and don't insult those who work to give you such a wonderful place.

That wasn't me.


I think calling it "complaining" is a bit of an overreaction, actually. I could hardly have worded it more provisionally or gently.


Relevance?


The point, to the extent I had one, is that they're all "those times" for a long, long while now.

I'm kind of surprised to get this kind of overreacting screed from you on this point. I expected to get one, sure; you couldn't say "cookies are tasty" on this forum without getting one, but I didn't expect it from you.

Well, to be honest, I've found most of them to be rather low-key (excluding this one). Having to log in 21 days of the month (to get vial or pipe runes), having to be here for 100 minutes (for the lessons) etc. can really only promote activity without "forcing" them to do anything specific. Perhaps not when you're around, certainly, but promote it nontheless. There are the critical hit/favor/double-XP tuesdays/wednesdays/thursdays (have either been on monday or friday?) that does promote activity in a certain field, sure, but they're generally just one day out of the entire week.

Personally I kinda like these things, even though I don't hunt or influence much nowadays; just getting the free lessons or runes are enough for me.

Bottom line is, this really only promotes activity (or at least the ones up until now; this one just promotes a limited bash-athlon).

I didn't call any names, but if the shoe fits....


and I'm not sure about screed, but if you really, really dont think I would be mildly irritated at the utter lack of appreciation, the fact that more of you bitch about how things "should be" than realize that it could be much, much worse ( and much less lively), and the general feeling of apathy, then you don't know me at all.

You just need to find the people like me who don't do anything for events.

tl;dr?



crying about this is like giving a fat kid a free piece of cake, and they complain that it isn't the colour they wanted.

I solve my 'whaah, too many events' problems by simply not participating in them.

(got 5cr in last great hunt 'cause I group astralbashed for reserves some... good old regular activity).

I kind of agree with Lendren really. (Not about the cookies though. Wtf, have you ever had specific brand of cookies? They are gross. Please stop making blanket, uninformed statements.) Though I think the idea is neat, it seems like a bit of overkill in itself, on top of the fact that yes, for the past many months now, it's always -something-. 4 weeks of back to back marathon bashing contests? Heh. No thank you! Luckily though, since this is the new trend, people can contentedly sit them out, knowing that there'll inevitably be something else down the line that they can participate in when they have nothing better to do. I think that's the point really, it's meant to draw people who aren't already busily entrenched in Lusternia to come and play. For those who already are, it can just be (srs) business as usual.

I personally dislike events that encourage people to stay logged in for days at a time, just to keep their activity high and/or hunt a lot. The free lessons for time spent online doing whatever isn't so bad, but Great Hunts and XP competitions like this are only good from a marketing perspective, doing very little for the game itself.

Well, but honestly, these events are events that you can ignore. Unlike say, if there was a month-long conflict event, where you technically can ignore the event, but by virtue of being a member of the org, you have to take part. This, well, if you don't care for it, not partake in it. I don't have the time/resources/skills/credits/race-guild combination to pull it off, so I don't bother about it.

Although, free lessons is always nice, especially when all you have to do is, well, log in and do whatever you normally do.

Yes, but what Lendren is saying is that OTHERS ignore YOU in favor of the event.

Ah, I see, didn't think of it that way. That's a tough one.

No, I'm with Lendren. This isn't like giving a fat kid cake and having him complain about it being the wrong colour. It is giving a fat kid cake after he already ate 10 slices and doesn't want any more of it.

Lendren is in the minority as far as his reasons for playing but these sort of things negatively impact him. It can't be argued that events like this always have an overly high number of people off in aetherspace 24/7 while almost everything else falls on the back burner a bit.

Sadly, my advice is that Lendren might be inclined to find something else to satisfy why he plays. I think IRE, though not Estarra, has taken games like WoW as their model and we are going to keep up with monthly events, bash-a-thons, and all the free goodies so that they can try and attract people and keep people interested.

Not at all. I believe these events are what gives many players hope on a source of credit income. People can choose not to participate in it, and I like the fact that is one more option for us when we log in and say, " what do i feel like doing today?"

But i definitely see your point of view. Everyone runs after something every month, giving little time for other RP. But i`m all pro-events.

Though i said i was pro-events, Lendren has a point. I think what Ssaliss said sums it all. Events like these would promote activity for being in the realms, and thus would give us time to do other things while participating in city events.

I don't mind the events (even if double exp events usually don't help too much because the good bashing is taken), but I doubt and hope they will do them this next year. The year after that? Sure. But not next year. Or maybe every other month next year. IRE needs some time to see how much these events were helping it. I would expect the monthly events, mostly the free lessons, are drawing in newer players (and alts, which are important too). However, they have less reason to buy credits with everything being given to them.

I never wanted not to have them, I just was hoping to get one little break between them now and then, that's all. I'm all for having them, have participated in several, and very much support how they help draw people to the game.

And yeah, it's probably true that they're a very minor factor, if at all, in the ongoing story of "can't get enough people to do my play/someone's festival/an order ritual/etc." so I'm sorry to have stirred any of this up over that.

It'll be a nice change of pace when the promos stop. At some level, they are probably productive for retaining new players who just want to level. But for anyone interested in other things, or for players that have begun playing while these back-to-back promos/events have been continuing, they get a much different impression of the game. City/commune/guild logs are significantly more barren than they once were - sometimes, the only thing mentioned in them is the creation of new characters, if anything at all. It really feels like nothing is happening day in and day out, apart from people engaging in their daily exp grinds. CT and GT everywhere is much, much quieter than it was a year ago.

Yes, it's nice and all, and I love my grinding a fair bit, but uh... it'd be nice to stop some time soon too.