As a general letter regarding these events,

-- "...but points will also be awarded for piece collection."

I was personally involved in finding 6 labels during the event. I got 3 of
those labels while soloing, and killed one of the barsoomians in the barrels
while in a party.

-- players of all levels can participate.

As a level 52 Ranger, I got up at 3 AM (reboot here) to
"participate". I spent the next 7 hours playing in what amounted to
an exp party. After which I had to leave to do some personal things away from
the game.

When I logged back in 6 hours later, I found that all of the highbies killing
the EQ monster had already gathered their points and no one was interested
anymore. I spent the next 6 hours soloing and in small parties trying to
"participate" before I gave up.

Another friend of mine spent the entire day playing and also got 0 points.
Interestingly that same friend got nothing during last year’s Halloween
event despite playing the entire weekend, though I was able to give bags to his
secondary and he got a rig as a result of my abuse of merchant rig creation.

-- You have earned a total of 0 points, and have spent 0. That means you have 0
left.

I've seen a lot of these events over the past 13 years that I've been playing
BATmud. Every time, highbie eqmakers have benefited incredibly from the events.
There have even been a few events where newbies, people under level 50, without
task points, and without rebirth levels have been rewarded for their efforts.
The only event that I can recall getting anywhere near allowing the middle
range of players to benefit from their efforts was the RedFang and Bloodmoon
events.

On Bloodmoon, I was able to get into a few parties early on and after getting
pkilled several times as we raced to kill the eq mobs and getting no points for
that event either, I gave up. Maybe that was a lesson in persistence, as later
in the day you changed the event sufficiently that newbies and midbies were
able to kill the outworld monsters and gather their points, though I remember a
friends party having to play until reboot to earn their cloak. As for me, I had
to work and missed out on the late game fun.

Redfang wasn't perfect, but I remember newbies and midbies being able to
participate. Everyone was able to collect points, and I helped several people
gather their points to get their necklaces. Not to mention the remnants, which
many newbies and midbies benefited from by either deciding to enhance their eq,
or as was often the case, selling their remnants to a highbie for millions of
gold that they used to buy better eq for themselves.

Somehow, ever since those "successes", it's been downhill. Last
fall’s Halloween event felt like a horrible mistake... during and
after. That isn't to say that I didn't benefit from it. As a level 100
Sabre/Bard/Merchant with decent eq, I was able to get into several of the arena
parties and spent every waking hour otherwise spamming the creation of rigs for
those pouches which I sold for ridiculous prices only to find out the day after
the event that, “oh yeah.. We’re changing the rules on how
these things work.” I suppose everyone saw the change coming, but as
during the event I saw Shinarae staunchly defend the event and say many times
that this was all intended and he was perfectly okay with how it was playing
out, it is easy to see how one might think that it might stay that way. How
wrong we were....

I know Archwizards are historically above the law and not beholden to anyone,
but these events have gotten ridiculous. At no point should any game have
people playing 13 plus hours and get nothing for it. I’ve heard people
suggest that there may have been poor planning or perhaps a lack of testing, at
this point I could really care less what excuses people make.

As a player that has donated money to the game, been an active player over the
past 13 years and has a game age that is nearly 2.5 years, BATmud isn’t
just a game to me anymore. It’s a part of my life, I have many close
friends that play, I’ve gotten people that are important in my real
life to play. I spent time with other players outside of the game and genuinely
like the effect that BATmud has had on my life.

So here it goes, either _stop coding these events_ or _get some help designing
them_. There needs to be some kind of oversight on these events. This has
become a real problem and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. I
like the fact that someone cares to make these one shot events, but
you’re ruining BATmud for people, me included. Don’t tell me
that I can choose not to participate; if you put it in the game, then it is a
part of the game, and it’s something that I will try to participate
in.

Everyone needs to be able to participate and have the ability to get some kind
of reward from it, otherwise don't bother.

Thanks,

Sparhawk

(Apparently posting from the web fouls up in game somehow.... trying again...)

As a general letter regarding these events,

-- "...but points will also be awarded for piece collection."

I was personally involved in finding 6 labels during the event. I got 3 of
those labels while soloing, and killed one of the barsoomians in the barrels
while in a party.

-- players of all levels can participate.

As a level 52 Ranger, I got up at 3 AM (reboot here) to "participate". I spent
the next 7 hours playing in what amounted to an exp party. After which I had to
leave to do some personal things away from the game.

When I logged back in 6 hours later, I found that all of the highbies killing
the EQ monster had already gathered their points and no one was interested
anymore. I spent the next 6 hours soloing and in small parties trying to
"participate" before I gave up.

Another friend of mine spent the entire day playing and also got 0 points.
Interestingly that same friend got nothing during last year’s Halloween event
despite playing the entire weekend, though I was able to give bags to his
secondary and he got a rig as a result of my abuse of merchant rig creation.

-- You have earned a total of 0 points, and have spent 0. That means you have 0
left.

I've seen a lot of these events over the past 13 years that I've been playing
BATmud. Every time, highbie eqmakers have benefited incredibly from the events.
There have even been a few events where newbies, people under level 50, without
task points, and without rebirth levels have been rewarded for their efforts.
The only event that I can recall getting anywhere near allowing the middle
range of players to benefit from their efforts was the RedFang and Bloodmoon?
events.

On Bloodmoon, I was able to get into a few parties early on and after getting
pkilled several times as we raced to kill the eq mobs and getting no points for
that event either, I gave up. Maybe that was a lesson in persistence, as later
in the day you changed the event sufficiently that newbies and midbies were
able to kill the outworld monsters and gather their points, though I remember a
friends party having to play until reboot to earn their cloak. As for me, I had
to work and missed out on the late game fun.

Redfang wasn't perfect, but I remember newbies and midbies being able to
participate. Everyone was able to collect points, and I helped several people
gather their points to get their necklaces. Not to mention the remnants, which
many newbies and midbies benefited from by either deciding to enhance their eq,
or as was often the case, selling their remnants to a highbie for millions of
gold that they used to buy better eq for themselves.

Somehow, ever since those "successes", it's been downhill. Last fall’s
Halloween event felt like a horrible mistake... during and after. That isn't to
say that I didn't benefit from it. As a level 100 Sabre/Bard/Merchant with
decent eq, I was able to get into several of the arena parties and spent every
waking hour otherwise spamming the creation of rigs for those pouches which I
sold for ridiculous prices only to find out the day after the event that, “oh
yeah.. We’re changing the rules on how these things work.” I suppose
everyone saw the change coming, but as during the event I saw Shinarae
staunchly defend the event and say many times that this was all intended and he
was perfectly okay with how it was playing out.

I know Archwizards are historically above the law and not beholden to anyone,
but these events have gotten ridiculous. At no point should any game have
people playing 13 plus hours and get nothing for it. I’ve heard people
suggest that there may have been poor planning or perhaps a lack of testing, at
this point I could really care less what excuses people make.

As a player that has donated money to the game, been an active player over the
past 13 years and has a game age that is nearly 2.5 years, BATmud isn’t just
a game to me anymore. It’s a part of my life, I have many close friends that
play, I’ve gotten people that are important in my real life to play. I spent
time with other players outside of the game and genuinely like the effect that
BATmud has had on my life.

So here it goes, either _stop coding these events_ or _get some help designing
them_. There needs to be some kind of oversight on these events. This has
become a real problem and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. I like
the fact that someone cares to make these one shot events, but you’re ruining
BATmud for people, me included. Don’t tell me that I can choose not to
participate; if you put it in the game, then it is a part of the game, and
it’s something that I will try to participate in.

Everyone needs to be able to participate and have the ability to get some kind
of reward from it, otherwise don't bother.

Thanks,

Sparhawk