Halloween Live Event 2016 - Saturday October 29th - Start preparing!

[Ming]

Great suggestions.

[Sarsilas]

Now that the event is over!

Firstly, thank all of the massive amounts of people that attended! We peaked out at 67 players on Blight and had 63 players at the end of the event. We hope to see you all again for the next big event we plan! (Gnomekindle, anyone? )

So, let me tackle the feedback. We've gotten a lot of it and most of you seemed to have enjoyed yourselves despite the hiccups and issues I'll get to in a moment. We're definitely glad to hear you all had fun - that was our primary goal, after all.

First -
Clarity and Communication

We've heard a lot on this front. In the future, we will likely avoid using the main channel and say for story line. We understand that it excludes a lot of players who aren't physically there and it caused a lot of you to miss out in the story line that was unraveling. It also caused some to leave from boredom because you didn't see much more than do this and do that. The story line was the main driver of this event so it's unfortunate that so many missed it.

While I'm not excusing the lack of communication by any means, I want to reiterate that we tried our best with what we had at the time. There is currently no way to do a GM-only chat channel where players can only view, even if that would be great. (This is currently being considered for the future if I'm not mistaken if it's possible) All of our dialogue macros were set up to use /say, /shout, or /emote, so swapping mid-event would've caused a huge delay.

After the first phase (Maws of the Earth), we started writing updates and the riddles in the Event channel and/or over Global to make sure people saw them. For the former, people spoke over it sometimes, which was out of our control. For the latter, it can be drowned out by main chat or group chat depending on how player windows are set up.

In the future, we will try to keep you updated more consistently and more clearly. We more or less expected players to relay the riddles and what has or hasn't working among themselves, but with the amount of people who attended, that can be a bit of a challenge.

Client and Server Lag

This, unfortunately, was entirely out of our control the entire event. We did post warnings to lower your graphics settings to try and prevent client lag, but the server lag was both expected and not - we did expect lag, but not something as extreme as we received. (Or at least I didn't expect it.)

The good news is that immediately after this raid, the Blight server got some upgrades to better prepare for future events! The client is also getting some new features to reduce lag induced by the sheer amount of players loading in around you, though this is still under some discussion and not yet released.

Biped Unfriendliness

This point is a rough one to tackle. We had no intentions of aiming the event towards dragons by any means. However, dragons did end up beating bipeds to the various locations that our riddles sent you to and we should have expected that. Travel scrolls were also something I, personally, glossed over. We will try to wait for everyone to catch up before moving on in the future, but we cannot wait a very long time for the slowest stragglers. I will admit that I feel that our delivery of the riddles was a bit too fast. I also want to add that we didn't plan for people to solve them so fast, but you guys were very quick on the uptake. :P

Miscellaneous

To those who were bored about going here and doing that or felt there was no story, I want to say that you likely missed some important details or our say-chat dialogue. It's also not your fault to have missed this, but I just wanted to address it since I saw this brought up here and in the event itself.
The event did have a story line planned out, but it was executed through main chat a lot and spoken from our GMPCs, (GM / NPCs) making it easy to miss. Going here and there had a purpose if you had seen Vraktar's posts and comments, but to anyone who was unaware, it might've looked like busy work.
If I'm not wrong and you honestly felt like there was no story or felt this way of doing things (a riddle and item collecting focus rather than heavy fighting), then please do give us some more feedback in that regard!

I believe someone suggested breaks between phases - fair point. We had four phases in this and we ran through them steadily but a bit quickly. A break would've also helped gather feedback and let us adjust mid-event. We likely will do pauses and breaks in the future.

As for whoever commented about an after party, the 'after party' was us mostly just messing around and was entirely unplanned. We got carried away dressing up as various objects and laughing way too hard at dumb things. Generally, we do stay around after events to listen to what people say, though, so that's one thing to keep in mind!

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If I missed any comments or feedback, do tell me! We appreciate and take all of your thoughts into account as we certainly want to make every event enjoyable for as many people as possible This was our very first big event working as a team and with both servers, so it was a large trial run as well as an event. Our next one will be built off the foundation this one made alongside all of your suggestions!

Again, thank you all so much for showing up. If any of you have screenshots, videos, more feedback, or anything, feel free to post them here! I know I love to see things from your perspective. The other GMs will chime in if they want to add anything or post their own thoughts, but I believe I at least covered the general ones/my own.

The 'Summary of Events' recaps will be posted hopefully soon once we decide how to work it out.

Photon wyvern - cool video. It's neat to see how the final fight looked from a player perspective! That opening shot is very neat - does anyone have that as a screenshot they might want to submit? I'm not in control of the social media accounts, but that would be a lovely picture to feature there if you allow it.

Thanks to everyone who posted screenshots already, too! I'm loving that pile of bodies, Mithent, and who can forget the Great Mighty Poo, Pryzm?

[Pryzm]

And who can forget the Great Mighty Poo, Pryzm?

Welll... It wasn`t from me i SWEAR! XD

[Pryzm]

Ok i got some screenies for those who wanna see

[Pryzm]

Dralk Dragon Train:

[lightning claw]

-Any rewards given out at the end of the main event will be written down and handed out to the respective players of Chaos and Order, contact your server's Event GM in case they forget you.

Think we might have been forgotten here at least epi dint get any treats . cept for some fun death points ... Hey can i get gold Nova ?

[Sarsilas]

I don't think it was properly announced, but rewards should have been given out by now. Check your vault and inventory for any extra epic tokens or crates If you don't have anything new, would you mind writing down your character's name and sending a message to either me or Liseth? It's possible we could have missed you

As for Gold Nova, sorry, but that's going to remain in the greedy claws of Burnbones

Pryzm - awesome screenshots! I love the second to last one's view of the Burnbones fight

[Sindala]

Slayvite got his goodies thanks.....one little "problem" though...
One of my other old chars Burnbones don't seem to have his copy of Gold Nova like you said.......?
.
.
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[lightning claw]

Did Epi got nothing

could i at-least get a hachie pet I don't have an ally pet yet .

[Liseth]

Did Epi got nothing

could i at-least get a hachie pet I don't have an ally pet yet .

The only thing awarded for this event are Epic tokens and crates, you might see different rewards in future raids, but this is still heavily in the works.

As an added note, people for the reruns were missed during the initial distribution, they are now pending or have been given rewards.

Any blight characters are not given additional rewards due to the amount of rewards already given throughout the event.

[lightning claw]

Ok ill check back later if i have not gotten them as of right now Im still missing them .

[Sarsilas]

All participation rewards should have been passed out by now for attendees of both the main event and the re-runs. Please contact your respective server's event manager if you were at the event but received nothing. The rewards should have appeared in your vault.
Main event - 1 Large Epic Crate and 25 Epic Tokens.
Reruns - 5-10 Tokens per run attended.
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Lore & Summary of Events (Vraktar)

Vraktar was a normal hatchling. He laughed, he played, he hoarded the tiny dented bells that creatures he hunted sometimes held onto… he was a very normal hatchling.
That is, of course, until his friends convinced him to play the Burnbones game.
Vraktar was terrified. He could fight the weaker skeletons and bring down some tough grulets, but facing a monster who was drowned in his own hoard chamber in lava for his deeds? That was not something he could handle! But, of course, peer pressure and hatchling stupidity…
He had followed his friends to one of the great lava pits of Dralk. He had offered his hoard at the edge and chanted the name thrice.
But he, unlike his friends, did not return from that lava pool.


The great ghostly beast had risen from the depths and claimed not only the hoard in front of him, but the mind of the young hatchling. Gone were the simple crystals from his claw sockets; gone was the innocent mind behind those orange eyes. In went Burnbones’ mind-controlling obsidian sphere and in went Burnbones’ conscience.
Vraktar was no more.


A puppet, the hatchling was brought to Dralk, where Gifted lay gathered. He rattled off nonsense about researching a spell in a voice that was his own but words thought by another. The Gifted had no clue; they quickly took off in all directions to solve his riddles. The ancient beast lurking in the hatchling’s mind roared in victorious might, awaiting the return.
After some failed offerings, the hatchling that was once Vraktar received what he asked for. He combined parts of creatures from the four maws of the earth - Katja, Drakul’s Heart, Fire Island; Obsidian Boulder Golem Chip, Flame Essence, Fire Opal Golem Chip, Ravager Heart, and Flame Essence… all were mixed and brought together to form a strange faceted gem. Stage one was complete. Burnbones was laughing in delight in the hatchling’s conquered mind. Fools!
Vraktar then called upon a Ritual Spirit to move to the next part of this strange spell. At the base of each Tower in Istaria set a Spirit conjured and brought to this realm by Vraktar’s - or truly Burnbones’ - calls. Once appeased, this Spirit appeared in front of the vessel of Burnbones, demanding one final offering. Receiving it, the Spirit was finally pleased and shaped the faceted gem into a crystalline skeleton key.
There was only one last thing to do.
Vraktar inquired about the Hidden Flame, sending the Gifted off to find Karane the Historian or, rather, her assistant. The controlled hatchling sat silently in Dralk, waiting. It took the Gifted not ten minutes before they returned with Lanithai, Karane’s Assistant, who informed him of the Dragons whose names made up the Hidden Flame. Indeed, the Hidden Flame was an order of Dragons who bound Burnbones to his lava-filled tomb. She listed off their names, the idiotic Dragon!
Vraktar slipped away, vanishing through the portal nearby, his owner wishing for his mind to return. It took no time at all for Aberrant Azulars to… “appear” by the mentioned dragons, slaughtering them and breaking the last seal on Burnbones’ tomb.
Zombie-like, the hatchling whisked away all normality and marched to Burnbones’ planned exit, where the giant fiery Dragon reclaimed his mind, leaving the young hatchling nothing but an empty corpse on the floor, robbed of a long, fulfilling life...

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[Pryzm]

Say is Burnbones familiar with Esh the mind-lasher? Mind controlling sounds like something Esh would try