Breakfast Topic: GM events
by Elizabeth Harper 
Nov 4th 2006 at 10:00AM
Did you play during the initial beta of the game? If so, you may remember the much amusing end of beta event, where GMs shut down the realms with the violent destruction of the capitol cities as the Burning Legion held sway across Azeroth. (No, I don't know what a "Massive Infernal" is either, but it's as tall as the gates of Ogrimmar.) Dangerous bosses of all shapes and sizes were to be found within these ordinarily safe places, and GMs (I imagine gleefully) saw to the destruction of the players under their care. Nothing like this has happened since the original beta ended -- and some players are under the opinion that unexpected events like this are tons of fun and wish to see them happen again. Blizzard, however, claims that at this stage in the game, with as many realms as there are, it would take an impossible amount of resources to run such events -- not to mention the inconvenience it would cause to some players who are just trying to get to the auction house. While I do think Blizzard tries to make the game world more interesting and interactive with more and more in game events, none of them quite match up to the very first end of beta event. So do you want to see more of these massive events, or are you happy with the event system as it is?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Maggot Nov 4th 2006 10:07AM
Something more
What about natural disasters?
Flood a low lying plain, wipe out a town for a week or 2.
Drought and famine, less mobs, less herbs in an area. Vendors pay a bit more for food stuffs
Earthquake, a chance to change the topography of a whole area
Fire: long burning wild fires, destroy a section of stormwind (Important NPCs could set-up temp housing until the rebuild). A quest to find out who started it.
oomu Nov 4th 2006 7:18PM
I _DO_ think people should have some difficulties ONCE in the year or semester to go the damn auction house ! it's very frustrating to read some people just wanting a gigantic disneyland with baby cute pink dragon...
yeah, it"s fantasy, it"s game ? I want fantasy havoc.
and ho please, if ONE DAY you can't validate your quest, it's not SO horrible !. one day in a year where stormwind would not be quiet .. it's not as you waste your entire game.
tss..
(I so miss a real big ugly black dragon attacking Darnassus or Stormwind for _REAL_ havoc and all player and guards defending the city. and yeah, you will get your action house tomorrow.. don't cry)
Poxus Nov 4th 2006 11:09AM
I started that thread just wanting some clarification on why they didn't have even small events. all everyone got was a excuse as to them it just wasn't important.
Savok Nov 4th 2006 11:45AM
People used to spend hours kiting outdoor raid bosses to cities for a reason, and it wasn't griefing.
Also I think players in general would prefer to be ganked by giant dragons crashing into their hometown then a random jackass in STV. It's just more epic.
Elodren Nov 4th 2006 11:46AM
I think events like the one at the end of Beta is wicked fun. The Naxxramas introduction with the Scourge invasions was fun, gave us something to do and talk about while it lasted. It made the world feel alive and dynamic.
There should be more. I am totally for uncalled random events too. A pissed off dragon attacking Stormwind and wreaking havoc until defeated for example. Sounds like fun to me.
Ristic Nov 4th 2006 12:22PM
Events like this are extremely memorable and tons of fun. I can remember the infernal invasion at the end of beta and espicially as a relatively new player to the game, I was awed by it. These types of things give people something to chat about for weeks afterwards, and lets them always look forward to new such events. Because of my first expierence with that event, I always try to participate in world events, holiday festivities and other special things within the world of warcraft. It's stuff like that which brings the WoW community together and sets our game apart from other MMOs.
Druid dude Nov 4th 2006 12:42PM
Wow, thats awesome! WIsh I had been in beta! I would LOVE to see that kind of stuff.
I got WoW on realease day, and a couple weeks later, I remember Timerahn the Dragon running around XR, a twice that I saw actually. It was awesome, watching 40 or 50 people trying to take down this ?? Elite Dragon, getting one shotted. We got him down pretty low after a very very long time, but he suddenly went back to 100% health then despawned. Undoubtedly, a GM having some fun.
The other thing that would absolutely rock would be to have GM vs GM in Boss vs Boss fights, maybe at an Arena or something. How insanely cool would it be to watch a GM controlling Patchwerk fighting a GM controlling say, Huhu.
Deamian Nov 4th 2006 1:35PM
Blizzard posts again and again that it takes to much (manpower) to run events.. blah blah so was the excuse with Everquest, and EQII and it's getting to be a lame excuse no matter how you look at it. How about PROGRAM SOMETHING IN THAT RANDOMLY HAPPENS, can that be so damn hard? to have every few weeks some undead spawn and their AI wants them to go to Stormwind or darkshire or crossroads whatever.. I know they have items and an order of items to impliment but anything to break up the same ol is a great idea and I don't know how they can't see this.
Hiddenmonkey Nov 4th 2006 3:34PM
I think it would be great if they added random events, or atleast have the rivers rise in STV when it rains or something, I think it would make WoW so much more exciting
casualplayer Nov 4th 2006 8:40PM
If you want to look at it story-wise, I think it will give an epic feel to the whole game. World of Warcraft does not really feel like Warcraft until you have some massive dragon/elemental/undead/etc. attack your base. And it sure will get rid of the monotony for players who hit 60 or already raid/PVP too much.
Hinde Nov 4th 2006 9:02PM
Frankly, I don't want them to focus on world events. I want them to have 1 or two people in each battlegroup just come up with and execute random shit in the game.
Make the king of ironforge get smashed one day and walk around pinching the butts of the night elves and bitch about how his daughter is having the illegitimate child of a dark iron. Have Ragnaros weild dual thunderfuries instead of the usual hand of rag. Transform all the murlocs for deep ocean vast sea into 60 elite ocean wanderer giants. Have Jaina Proudmoore get pregnant and have people try and discover who the father is.
I really don't think that it is that big of a deal or will be too taxing on the servers.
SwiftBlue Nov 5th 2006 2:34AM
You know, as a smaller games GM/Host (Not a private WoW, mind you.), I can tell you they are not kidding when they say that these things need alot of resources. I would do the random scripted spawns. (Number randomizer. When it hit specfic numbers, and a certain amount of guys would spawn and hit a city/place) It hit the system hard, every time. The program would be running at about 40% resources, and when it hit, more people would jump on, more deaths/respawns, and the program would suddenly hit 80-90%. This was with a few hundred people. Imagine trying to host this kind of event with 4900 players (Sentinels' population). Yes, yes, they have more powerful computers than me, but they also run at probably 80-90% resources on a REGULAR BASIS. Running random spawns/scripts would down the servers so often, you would be complaining about that instead.
SwiftBlue
Tazebrax Nov 5th 2006 5:42PM
Man, random events take me back to Ultima Online, on an awesome server called Defiance, the GM's at least once a month would have awesome events like this. Crap like giant blobs would come out of nowhere into places like Delucia and wreak havoc. That would just be godlike if they could do this with WoW.
Rumda Nov 8th 2006 7:42PM
moo