Events Redone

[Cyr]

The following is a list of ideas related to DDO events (existing and future) to maximize the bang for the development dollar and address various issues with the existing event structure.

a) Elimination of the 'limited time only' item turn in for events. All events should have easily accessible NPC's/barter boxes/whatever that you can use to turn in your items once the main event time has passed. These should never leave the game.

b) Permanent methods of acquiring all event related items should be available in the normal game once a new event is introduced. These should NOT be limited by purchases through the Turbine Store (just like festivault never was). The drop rates of these items should be very rare during non-event times and much much more common during event times.

Examples follow...

Never turn the coins off for festivalt...some mobs hoard coins after all. Just ramp the drop rate down by about 1/1000 when the 'season' is over.

Ice coins should always have a chance of dropping from fire type mobs. Maybe 1/10 normal rate during non 'seasonal' times.

Mabar...motes drop year round from any undead spawn kill at a rate about equal to the current mote rate when you drink the item. Vampire teeth drop from vamps anywhere... Again all rates will be much much lower during non-festival times.

Pirate day (err anniversary) components drop from humanoid mobs and from chests. Again very low rate at non-festival times.

Basically we are talking about an expansion of the loot tables during normal times to allow for year round players to slowly accumulate items to craft something with as well as lots of drops being available during event times in the general game world (so even those who do not want to run the one specific quest/thing that the devs made for the event they still get some special event related stuff).

c) Event specific instances should remain in game year round. However, the map/whatever threshold to open the instance should be increased by say 10 times. This would make the instances open at much slower intervals (also do not forget that event related items drop less often in general game during non-event times). World Broadcasts would of course allow anyone interested to zoom on over to the event quickly to run it if they wished.

d) Event specific events and zone modifications should only occur during the event times. In other words, delera's returns to normal during the rest of the year as Mabar is not in ascension and the skating rinks are not around year round.

e) Epic items should not be in the rewards for these events. These run the risk of reducing incentives to run year round available content. Instead special epic augment crystals should be available only by trading in event related items. These would provide valued rewards while at the same time running little risk of reducing incentives for people to run other year round available content.

f) Less new tech experimentation in events. Both of the most recent events have had lots of new tech being tried out in them. This clearly required lots more dev time being spent on the events and opens up lots of possibility for bugs and lag.