Earlier today, I wrote an opinion piece at Pantheon Crafters about social gameplay and how important it is.
So, along with that, I thought I'd ask a question here out of curiousity.
What are some of the most memorable player events that you've participated in or attended in the different games you have played in past?
Can't say I've ever been a part of player events. GM events, sure, but nothing player driven. Would be fun, though. I can see a game of hide and seek starting where newbies have to find a stealthed rogue around their level, but the rogue is grouped with friends/guild mates who can evac/succor after someone finds them. That way, the area where the rogue was found doesn't get saturated. Could give out prizes to those who find them first, then port/evac out and the game goes on!
Nephele said:What are some of the most memorable player events that you've participated in or attended in the different games you have played in past?
Bloody Kithicor
The Froglok takover of the Troll city of Grobb (happened when EQ1 introduced the Froglok as a playable race
The Plague event in The Karanas, a series of events and changes to the zones prior to the release of Planes of Power (Bertoxxulous, God of Disease had made himself known in the zones)
The Lanys T'Vyl-Al'Kabor war in Firiona Vie, Kunark.
Yes, these were GM lead events, but it required a lot of player participation so I see these more as player events. But if you're deadset on player-only events, then it would just be lots of level 1, naked, drunken Gnome races from Ak'Anon to Erudin.
The classic EQ halloween event is the only one that comes to mind. It was a blast. There was the other artifact event with the shield of hatred and that cleric 2hb I think shortly before Kunark came out but I don't recall it being anything special like the kithicor undead one.
I remember watching my brother play when he was invited to an Unrest group - on the way there, Mayong Mistmoore made an appearance in Dagnors Cauldron and everyone starting flocking to the GM event. After about an hour or so of roleplay, he chose a female dark elf necromancer? cleric? as his Chosen, and I remember she recieved a special title. This was during classic time period, so around 1999 to 2000? Kunark wasnt even out yet. It was pretty awesome to witness.
I’ve mentioned it before, but for me the most memorable event was the Saga of the Gresh’Maj on Fennin Ro just prior to Kunark, back in the early days of EQ. Nearly two months of interesting and mysterious role play as a dark cult began kidnapping major guild leaders while following their twisted prophecy of the “coming of scale”. No GM support at all, strictly player organized. I was not on the inside and thus ignorant of major plot twists, but was a member of the bard-only guild that created / publicized the event. My part was to observe, record, and disseminate information in poetry and prose throughout forums and websites until other players began spontaneously following the cultists whenever / wherever they appeared. Trying to figure out the crazy lizard’s motivations, grabbing snippets of their language for clues to upcoming threats / actions (code-breakers unite!), trying to locate & free the missing... good times! The final confrontation drew such a large crowd many clients crashed as well as the zone.
Not sure if modern gamers would take the time to participate, but back then it was simply magical. Twenty years on it still makes me smile.
All of my mmo "Most Memorables" come from raiding. Or in a close second, it was completing quests in the Epic timelines. The things in the games I've played that stay with me the longest are the events that were the hardest to complete. Once I (we) did complete them, the feelings, relief, excitement and joy of completing it with my friends from my guilds who have worked on it with me for months is just amazing.
Player events and excluding GM events I can think of several. But going far back I think of these:
Tinkerfest (not to be confused with the in-game event now run by the same name though I "think" the game event may be based off the player event) FV server, EverQuest. Sorry to say that I can't remember the players/guilds that it was that put it on but I believe they did it once a year in Ak Anon. The folks that did this it seemed ran the event for something that seemed like 24 hours straight. I say this because I attended the event for several hours and this was hours after it had started. I slept for a few hours, went into work for 8, came home and hopped on and the event was still going. They invited the server to come and a load of people did. They had games, prizes, races, raffles, fireworks, scavenging hunts, and an assortment of other things.
Then there was this one time where I played a Cleric of Mithaniel Marr and two of my guildmates and friends at the time got married IRL and then asked me to RP as the priest to marry them at an ingame event. That was kind of fun. Lot of the server showed up for that and we did it atop the North Karana guard tower near the South Karana border. After the wedding we, as is tradition atop towers, had a diving contest. Luckily, there was a cleric on hand to ressurect the participants. lol
In Vanguard my guild, Lux Arcana, once arranged a naked gnome race from Mekalia to The Lighthouse of Ghelgad.
Minutes before the race started everybody rolled a gnome, and on the guild leader's signal we ran in our underwear for our lives. Of course, many died before they were even out of the cave system in Mekalia, effectively sending them back to start. The trick was to let somebody else pull agro and run for it. Another trick, which I knew because I had been rehearsing, was to die in places where the closest graveyard lay closer to the destination. Using such superior tactics, I was in a comfortable lead close to the finish line when I got careless and died one time too many and came in second.
40-50 gnomes running under the blazing sun in their undies with all sorts of beasts chasing them down must have been a sight to behold!
One player event I remember is my first guild, Champions of Norrath, were allianced with 3-4 other guilds. One thing we did was gather all the guilds in the Arena in Qeynos and just have a giant pvp brawl. People who wanted to watch would be in the stands sitting and rooting. It was pretty fun. I don't know if that is considered an event, because it was between these 4-5 guilds, but it was fun.
I think the examples of GM events are pretty cool - I have fond memories of GM events in EQ :) But I also think that just because it's hard to scale those out, it's all the more reason to give players the ability to set up and run events for each other. The event Kumu described sounds amazing. I wish I had been on that server when it was going on.
Either way though, loving all the examples! I hope people will post more!
I enjoyed your article Nephele, and really agree with your sentiments. Well said!
I’ve been racking my brain trying to remember details of a really engaging player run event I participated in back in EQ. It was on the E’Ci server and involved a story about a Heartstone gem (I think that was the name, possibly something similar). It took place in the Halas, Everfrost Peaks, and Permafrost dungeon. It was an event that went on for a few weeks and was told in chapters. Long story short, it was a lot of fun.
Lots of fond memories of other player run events I recall include weddings, races from Qeynos to Freeport, and guild PvP tournaments in Vanguard.
Kittik said:All of my mmo "Most Memorables" come from raiding. Or in a close second, it was completing quests in the Epic timelines. The things in the games I've played that stay with me the longest are the events that were the hardest to complete. Once I (we) did complete them, the feelings, relief, excitement and joy of completing it with my friends from my guilds who have worked on it with me for months is just amazing.
This is how I am. I was with the same guild from NToV all the way up to I think Secrets of Faydwer. We conquered every expansion and raid mob between the two. Some brutal, some easy, and did it all with our own strategies. Our guild leader refused to look online for spoilers so it made it that much harder, but better when we won.
As for the topic at hand and not to derail, the only player driven event I was a part of was a raid on the Priest of Discord in Greater Faydark. There was a lot of high levels, and low levels throwing bodies at him. He was angry that day folks! Like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli. The bodies piled up and so did the lag. After hours of dying and zerging we got him down only to find out he dropped a Robe of Discord. Hardly worth the effort but everyone was cheering in /shout and /ooc it was a good time.
I was in the global chat when the Sleeper was first killed. But I wasn't on the server.
Memorable player created events? A guild used to host a "naked canonball run" a race full of naked lvl1 toons from Freeport to Qeynos with a checkpoint in highpass. Another, although not really an event, was a guild named "Vertically Challenged". Only short races were allowed (dwarfs, gnomes, and halflings), they turned off character exp, contributing all gained xp to aa's. what you ended up with was a bunch of roid raged level 20 munchkins zerging lvl 50 content.
GM event... I really liked the eq2 event to build the portals prior to the Kingdom of Sky expansion. People in all level ranges felt like they could contribute, on our server it was an all day event where everyone had a common goal. I wore my "Destroyer of Saevytr" title proudly, now you can buy it on the station store for $1.00, shame.
Ooh..just remember another one: The battle of B-R5RB in EVE Online on January 27 2014. 2,500 players fighting in the same star system for nearly 20 hours straight. Over 7,000 people participated in the fight in one way or another. Over 10 trillion ISK (the EVE Online currency) was lost. Given tha tyou can buy ISK with real money from CCP directly, that equates to about $300,000 USD in lost ships, modules, implants and other materials.
If you really look for player events, nothing beats EVE Online for that. Many fights will go on for hours, involving 200+ pilots. Large scale wars can take weeks.
The most memorable event to me was when they did the Halloween event in EQ around 2001 or 2002. They had a dracoliche and evil army in Rathe Mountains.
The only "event" I ever witnessed was in Kelethin, right about the time Luclin went live...iirc. I'm pretty sure that was the time frame because the druid I constantly grouped with was literally crying because they made her character ugly. I had a headache that day.
So there I was, strolling around on my newly rolled bard. It had to be my bard, I remember my fingers hurting that day as well. Anyway, /OOC was going stupid and there was a circle of bodies just away from the Noob lift. There was also a ring of naked elves standing just outside of the circle trying to figure out what was going on. Yes, I joined the ring of naked elves, sue me.
I later found that a bored GM placed an invisible air elemental there and just watched the mayhem. I hung out long enough to watch a small raid of players come in and kill it for us. That's the day I learned that raids existed, that there are characters worth inspecting, and what it's like to be jealous of someone else's gear. That's also the day I was introduced to the "Eternal Wrath" guild and Brasse the enchanter who I stalked on Magelo from that day on. Enchanter envy is an ugly sight to behold.
Long live the Ayonae Ro server...
On a side note, did it count as an "event" when after a patch, they left a line of vendors up at the main bank in PoK and rolled back every character who bought from them as well as every character who bought from the character who bought from them? just curious because I was in that outter ring as well. =/
The most memorable event was in EQ1 waaaaaaayyyyy back in the day, it was an event titled "Everquest Best of the Best full group tournament" hosted by CastersRealm....
I wasn't able to participate, but several of my guild mates did and had an absolute blast....
Here is a video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5V71P2vFGQ
Rint