I haven’t been the biggest fan of the Warhammer Online live events. The event for the new tank classes was pretty good because it offered the new scenario to play in but other than that it was more of a trial run for how the rest would play out and it sorely lacked any quality objectives. The Halloween live event introduced the renown into RvR lakes in its first incarnation but again suffered from poor objectives. The holiday event was probably the worst of all because the objectives were tedious, boring, and not worth the rewards at all. When I logged in today to give the Valentine’s-esque event a try I wasn’t expecting much at all. Surprisingly, the event is actually pretty good.
The “Mark” that players get over their heads has created quite the interesting effect. Players with the red mark above their heads are targeted and focus fired – or rather simply zerged – by everyone because they are the objective of a “kill 5 marked players” repetable quest. This has had an effect two-fold. In open-rvr it’s actually getting some groups to fight each other, and in scenarios it’s causing people to focus fire like never before. The funny part is when the mark gets onto a tank…okay, it wasn’t funny at all actually.  In this one Serpent’s Passage today we had 3 level 40 Black Orcs with shields marked and our entire team spent the whole 15 minutes trying to kill these B’Orcs, leaving their healers to sit back to die from nothing but laughter. Chalk that up to horrible players, but overall the mechanic is an interesting one in RvR and it’s made an impact, however slight, on how fights are playing out.
The objectives for these event are pretty good too. In less than an hour of RvR my log looked like this:
You’ll see that I’m well over halfway through the event influence bar and I’ve completed several of the objectives. After this screenshot was taken I completed the officer kills, class kills, and Shrine of Khain buff.  The objectives have been easy enough to do while doing my regular RvR which was really nice, because it didn’t add anything that would sidetrack me from doing what I wanted to do, rather it rewarded me further for it. I also liked how this event, like the Halloween event, added a mechanic to the game that made fighting interesting. Maybe Mythic can expand upon the “marked” mechanic and add it to the game like they did with the RvR influence. If anything, this event has shown that changes to the RvR system are welcome and helpful to liven things up.
If Mythic can do the next few live events like this then they should be pretty fantastic.
Aye, this event is the best one so far, its quick but fun.
Im not very keen on the ‘kill a guild leader’ one as its almost impossible to do t1-t3, and very much rare or pot luck in t4 [at least on the servers i play on]
The rest is fun and the rewards are decent
So far this is my favorite event as well. The rewards aren’t anything to brag about, but as you said the event doesn’t require you to do much outside of what many already like doing.
I hope in future events they have better rewards (like the Heralds cloak) that are useful if you earn them, but you’re not left out to dry if you don’t finish the event (I never got the Heralds cloak).
The one thing that bothers me about the rewards is the part about people being left out of the good items. The Heralds cloak is very, very good and can actually make a difference in RvR. I would like to see some really fantastic items for cosmetic and fluff, but not so much for practical application in gameplay. Something I would love to see is an “outfit” system in WAR, like EQ2 and LOTRO have, where players can wear one thing but look like another.
As I understand it the outfit thing in LOTRO turns off in the ‘Moors due to obvious exploitation in pvp. I’m not too sure something like that would work out in a game like WAR.
There has been a lot more ORvR on Dark Crag than usual (in T2 at least) since the event started but will it stay that way after the event is over? It somewhat saddens me that a carrot is needed to get people to do these things.
And yes, as an engineer I’m pretty annoyed I can never get the Herald’s Cloak.
I had a lot of fun playing this week end and almost got the title Master Assassin in less than two days ! yay
Awesome event overall and good analysis as usual by keen
As a SH, I use the Herald’s Cloak often. Unfortunately, I’m usually dead before the GCD timer expires if it was a WH, WL, or melee SW that had CC’d me. 😛
Something like this works best as a temporary event. It tips the balance of gameplay, but that’s fine for awhile and it may actually get a lot of players to think more about skirmishing.
I had the same experience as keen. 1,5 hours of play – and most of the tasks are done.
The talisman – i will see where to place it… 🙁
The talisman is just nice for the %5 renown gain. The stats are decent enough, but nothing overpowering. Luckily WAR has 4 jewel slots, so adding the new item won’t gimp your character too hard anyway.
Fun event though, and I agree that all of these events thus far have been more ‘test’ events than full-blown stuff. Mythic learned from DAoC and is taking baby-steps in how they add certain things to the game. Smart move.
I had my head mailed back to me, now I carry it around in my pocket.
I will say, the best thing about the Night of Murder event is the skulls. Kill and enemy, pick up his skull, then toss it like a ball back and forth with a friend.
Afterward, you can mail it to an enemy character complete with built in smack talk letter.
I think the idea of using events to test new mechanics is a fantastic one. If the mechanic is a disaster they just turn around and say “hey its only an event, it will be over soon and you don’t HAVE to do it” If the mechanic turns out to be something players love (ORvR influence) they will work it into the game down the road.
I REALLY hope that we see the marked players mechanic added to ORvR. my suggestion has been to replace the BO/Keep quests with it (up it to 10 kills) and give 200 renown for completing it. At the same time cut the renown from capping BOs by 50%. This will make the best way of earning renown come from killing players. It will also offer a real incentive to defend a keep and even a BO.
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