Your opinions on the 2007 Dragon Festival? I wasnt impressed.

freekedoutfish

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jun 2006

E/

Obviously this is just my opinion, but I wasn't too impressed by the Dragon Festival this year.

Last year was quite fun and I enjoyed it, but this year just seemed dry. Alot of it was very similar, but it just didn't hold my interest as much/if at all.

My reasons are these...


1) The hat was an anti-climax.

I saw the hats being warn by the Grasp actors and assumed that was what we got. I then saw photos on guildwiki and my heart just sunk. I got one, but it seems rushed compared to what we could have got.

Anet could have even given us a choice between the varied actor hats, but instead we got the worst one. We got a choice at xmas, so why not here?

2) The missons were too hard, and obviously aimed at more hardcore players.

I could be wrong, but isnt a festival event meant to be fun and exciting. I found the missions to simply be frustrating and agonising. I started one and the minute I warped in with my team, I was dead before I could blink due to starting right in the middle of them.

I expect a challenging mission in a festival, but not something frustrating.

The quests were fine, as they are obviously intended for the newbie players.

3) (I could be wrong about this) Last year Im sure you could start festival missions when ever you wanted, but this year it was limited to set times. Why?

As I say, I might be wrong, but i'm certain it was different last year. It just added to the lag issues occuring at set times.

4) The other items you could exchange for tokens, werent all that exciting.

5) It didnt seem very "Dragon" related. They took a previously good festival and twisted it to incorporate Nightfall in some way. I never quite grasped how.

6) The Dragon arena seemed very rushed and just wasn't fun. There was no tactics to it at all, as you only had 3 skills. It was just pot-luck that you killed someone.

Last year, you actually fought against Dragons didnt you? or is my memory that bad!!

I was shocked when I entered a battle and saw it was completely different. I only played it twice to get 6 tokens and then never touched it again.

7) Something wasn't designed very well, because that event caused A LOT of lag. More lag then I have EVER seen in 2 years!



I just wasn't too impressed and it all seemed to be an anti-climax, after you get excited about festivals.

It would have been fine, had the masks been better and had their been good items to buy or drop.

But thats obvious my opinion. I've loved all the other festivals until now. Anet usually puts alot of work into them.

What did everyone else think?

Jamison0071

Jamison0071

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Feb 2006

Melbourne, Australia

Morporkian Mercenaries

N/Me

I think your memory is that bad, last year the Dragon Arena was the same, the timing of the festival missions was implemented (though I think I remember the Time Frame being different).

Atleast this year there was a use for your spare tickets unlike last year.

All in all, I think we should be grateful that Anet even gave us this event! I've enjoyed it immensly.

Neo Nugget

Neo Nugget

Site Contributor

Join Date: Jan 2006

R/

Im very happy with this years festival. I enjoyed getting tokens instead of orbs for the masks, as i could use the rest for sweets.

Last year i tried the mission, i ddint even bother this year though

My one thing was it kinda felt like to "Demon Festival"

Also sucks we didn't get any of the actors masks

8/10

Despozblehero

Despozblehero

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jan 2006

Me/

I dont particularly dislike the event, i did a few rollerbeetle races and dragon arena fights but im not jumping for joy over it either or even playing right now or all but the hour or so it took to get the tokens for the hat (heinous mask btw) and the mask iteslf. I missed last years event so i cant compare, not like i was actually expecting a lot though, seeing as how i know anet.

JeniM

Desert Nomad

Join Date: May 2007

W/E

Missions were annoying and the fix came after my party had 7/8 closed with non left on map

Biggest dissapointment was the free-for-all for presents
Was that designed to see how many insults players could yell at others? or was it to reward knowlage of spawn points? OR to reward lower Ping players as Lag = Zero presents

Mask was quite poor, would of loved a Torment Claw hat and most of my guild said a Baneshed Raider mask would be cool


Overall it did not live upto the hype
(and this is from someone that loves festivals and defended it before hand against all the "yey an AFK week-end" or "yey a lag weekend")

Wish they had held it till the end of July and given a suprise sneak peak at GWEN . . . the speech has been interupted by an earth quake
OMG Fleshreavers and what are they . . . arrrrgghhhhh their the Krait

You could of done so much more in tribute of last years being a sneak peak at NF

Kha

Kha

Sins FTW!

Join Date: Mar 2005

USA

Angel Sharks [AS]

Quote:
Originally Posted by freekedoutfish
6) The Dragon arena seemed very rushed and just wasn't fun. There was no tactics to it at all, as you only had 3 skills. It was just pot-luck that you killed someone.
Anyone that thinks the Dragon Arena has no tactics to it makes me scratch my head out of confusion. Dragon Arena is purely about tactics. Oddly enough, even though I love coming up with unique builds, I really like the idea of an arena telling you what skills you have to use and then you using them to win. The only luck involved in Dragon Arena is the luck involved with everything in the game - will you or will you not have lag during the battle? Dragon Festival = massive lag

Engel the Fallen

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jun 2005

Mo/Me

I liked it. But man seemed so familiar.

bhavv

bhavv

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Sep 2006

The hat was terrible. So i got lots of creme brulees instead

However, the pressent drops should have been assigned.

Dawgboy

Dawgboy

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Dec 2005

Ohio

Antisocial Misfit

I think the finale was lagtastic. I LOVE getting presents dropped at my feet and not even being able to pick them up.

Toutatis

Toutatis

Walking Wiki

Join Date: Nov 2006

Isle of Medication

Visitors from Aranna [VFA]

Me/E

Quote:
Originally Posted by JeniM
Biggest dissapointment was the free-for-all for presents
I agree with that. When they did the present dropping last Wintersday, gifts were reserved for individual players ot make sure that everyone was guaranteed the same number of presents. It would have been nice if they'd implemented the same thing this time, instead of having a mad greed-grab.

Aside from that though, I've been enjoying the festival a lot! The mask looks a bit weird, but I don't intend to wear it to look stylish. And I've got myself enough firewater to last me through to Hallowe'en

Shadis

Shadis

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Oct 2006

I've named it the Laggin' Festival 2007. I think that says more than enough about my opinion on this thing.

I pwnd U

I pwnd U

God of Spammers

Join Date: Oct 2005

in the middle of a burning cornfield...

Scars Meadows [SMS] (Officer)

The lag was horrid! I have problems playing this weekend because it was so laggy. The missions were tough as heck and even worse since I was trying to monk with a laggy connection. Normally my connection is superb, never have any problem with lag except for these kind of weekends. The even tover all was fun, I enjoyed doing quest with guildies. Still would of liked a choice in hats though I do like the one we got.

6/10 though

B E A S T

B E A S T

Banned

Join Date: Apr 2007

Anywhere but Guild Wars now, sadly.

It's a shame, this game had so much potential, but is ruined due to stale gameplay and lame updates

6/10

I did enjoy the free-for-all presents because I have a pretty good connection.
But the missions where horrid, the hats looked like a certain STD, and there was an utter lack of...dragons.

As always tho, the Rollerbettle racing was fun, as was getting lots of firewater =D.

KamikazeChicken

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Aug 2005

Mo/

Quote:
Originally Posted by freekedoutfish
My reasons are these...

1) The hat was an anti-climax.
I can't disagree.

2) The missons were too hard, and obviously aimed at more hardcore players.

They were basically the same quests as last year.

3) (I could be wrong about this) Last year Im sure you could start festival missions when ever you wanted, but this year it was limited to set times. Why?


You are wrong.

4) The other items you could exchange for tokens, werent all that exciting.

Did orbs even have an NPC? (No) Not something you can really complain about.

5) It didnt seem very "Dragon" related.

They weren't intending to have this event again this year. It's as dragon related as the original, except the mask isn't a dragon.

6) The Dragon arena seemed very rushed and just wasn't fun.

Your memory is bad. The dragon arena has always been dodgeball.

7) Something wasn't designed very well, because that event caused A LOT of lag.

Lag isn't always anet's fault. It could just be that there were a LOT more people logged on than normal due to afking rings, and that put strain on the servers. There are more accounts now than the same time last year.
For not actually intending to have his holiday, I can't complain. They threw it together because people wanted it.

Omniclasm

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jan 2007

Guild Hall

A/

The deal with the presents....being unreserved creates an active fun. Running around trying to get them (even though that is the least efficient) as opposed to the Christmas Feeling of just sitting there and having gifts handed to you.

I just got 81 presents from one event without even moving, just hitting the space bar. I am also American on the Euro servers, so I always have atleast 600-700 ping.

william1975

william1975

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Aug 2006

Scotland

Dragons of Torment (DOA)

Me/

well it was very similar to last year, i didnt try the missions as they were too hard last year, did the quests but im sure they had more xp last year, but loved the actors doing it, was fun.

I didnt play dragon arena, as its not very good compared to rollerbeetle, played that lots got very little lag won a lot, jumped up a few hundred points,

I like the end bit with the presents, most of the time getting around 30 a go, but I agree that there should be assigned like the wintersday one.

JeniM

Desert Nomad

Join Date: May 2007

W/E

Just wish they'd taken another couple of weeks to throw it together
But i guess its easy for me to say "this should of happened and this and this" without knowing the pages of code that have to be typed in

Anet please please assign presents next time, people camping the spawns was beyond joke

Imaginos

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jun 2005

I thought they did a decent job, loved the whole "actor" bit. That being said...
  • Demon Mask was ok, Grasp mask would have been better, or allowing us all of them
  • Demon mask is NOT dyeable. WTH?! Lame!
  • First time I got to play rollerbeetle, liked it alot
  • Present grabbing....Anet did learn and changed it for halloween/christmas and THIS needs the same change, Presents into inventory to stop the purile bickering and greed

VitisVinifera

VitisVinifera

Banned

Join Date: Nov 2005

Northern California

HoTR

N/Me

we can debate the relative merits of what was or wasn't up to par, but the number of glitched districts continuing to be a problem is unaccepable. Every event where enemies spawn in towns, this always happens, and there is obviously very little quality going on.

I just did a quick run though about 15 districts and the MAJORITY were bugged, ie, several event spawns worth of grasps running around. How can you guys continue to allow these issues to persist, when you KNOW it will happen? Very unprofessional.

Nemo the Capitalist

Nemo the Capitalist

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Aug 2006

Trust me you dont want to know my Chasms of Despair

Zaishen Brotherhood

N/Me

........event was good for one thing.............LUCKY TITLES

dargon

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: May 2005

The Seraphim Knights [TSK]

R/

JeniM: incase you didn't notice, the spawns are rather uhm, random? Yes there are certain areas that a gift can spawn in, but look at it this way, shing jae is divided into a grid with say 400 squares (maybe more, maybe less) and then numbers for grid locations are picked randomly and each one gets a gift. If someone is comping in one spot, there are still 400 others available to you. Each has exactly the same odds of getting a gift.

Gli

Forge Runner

Join Date: Nov 2005

I wanted to enjoy this festival, but in the end I just ended up standing afk on a circle. Lag was too horrible to do much else. Getting 250 victory tokens was torture. At an average ping of 3,400 and spikes of as much as 25,000 it took me ages to do the 4 quests. It was a real challenge to move around, much less do anything else. Luckily I didn't need to do anything else, my heroes were more than up to the task of spanking those actor/grapsp.

MirandaKali

MirandaKali

Academy Page

Join Date: May 2007

Eastish US

Special Hell

Me/R

I thought it was a wonderful event! (of course, it was my first one so I suppose I don't really have a basis for comparison).
I was hoping that the demon mask would be more of a traditional mask, but hey..it'll look good for Halloween, and it's my first one (yea!)
I must confess, I do agree with many about the present drop. Assigning them would seem to be a better way of doing things.

Evilsod

Evilsod

Banned

Join Date: Mar 2006

England

Lievs Death Squad [LDS]

The Dragon Arena was crap last year and it was this year...
Rollerbeetles were probably too laggy to do anything and are almost entirely luck based.
As said, the Hat was a major dissapointment.
The missions weren't hard... people just walked into them expecting them to be a complete walk in the park and got owned.

Of course it would've been better if the entire thing wasn't overshadowed by the presence of the 9/16 rings of afk. Huge drain on the servers for the rest of the events. Why the hell couldn't these of just been opened mid week randomly after the event? Nobody gives a crap if it doesn't make sense with the festival, i could afk them just as easily mid-week. I've done the quests, had a go at the odd mission, but mostly i've just spent the weekend on a corner ring, the rewards simply weren't good enough (even though the missions may have been a challenge) to make me bother.

I will give em credit for having a laugh with the Demons been played by fairly dangerous actors though. That was a funny idea.

MrFuzzles

MrFuzzles

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jun 2007

Norway

D/

I wasn't experiencing any lag myself. During gifts I was hovering at 200 ping and about 40-50 fps.

The dragon arena is pretty similar to fps instagib which is always a can of worms. Some say it's just luck, others say it requires tactics.
Personally, I found that it was extremely effective to wait until my opponent fired a shot first, which was easy to dodge and left me able to fire back fairly safely. The touch spell came in use when you ran into other players who had the same idea.

Overall, who cares. It's just silly fun.

I would have preferred it if the gifts didn't contain plats, as people get so incredibly worked up over it it's unreal. I was called a "FKCEN N1G(you work out the rest)" in pm's by some dude because he was running towards the same present I was. Local chat was just *filled* with people claiming others were taking gifts from 'their' spot.


I found the whole event rather amusing. The npc's with masks and over-acted lines cracked me up at times. Rollerbeetle racing fun. Dragon arena was fun. Easy missions were a bit too easy. Hard missions were too hard at times (dervish + shatter enchantment = warrior with mage armor and 3 attacks). Boardwalk games were kinda dull.

Definately one of the better events I've experienced compared to other mmo's. There's currently an event going on in Lineage 2 where monsters randomly drop items that you give to an npc and get fireworks in return. That's it. They've done this event like 3 times in the past.

I can't avoid giving props to anet for rigging these events without asking monthly fees.

Spazzer

Spazzer

Jungle Guide

Join Date: May 2006

USA

Team Asshat [Hat]

Mo/E

This year was pretty fun, and more fun than last year. I'm glad the missions were tuned more towards my style; I was starting to get lazy after getting Legendary Guardian.

[edit] There's nothing wrong with Dragon Arena; what's your problem? :O It forces you to use the most important pvp skills in the game (counting duration times on other people, kiting, pressuring the bad members of the opposing team) and you can do it without having to unlock anything.

And it's random. Hoooooraaaay random.

The "problem" with it is that the rewards are junk. Hooray junk rewards; now the only people who play it are the people who enjoy it. :]

Leonhart

Leonhart

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Dec 2006

Ascalon City

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nemo the Capitalist
........event was good for one thing.............LUCKY TITLES

In the end thats all I did, rank up twice, now I have 6% more chance of not breaking my lockpicks :/

The first mission was too difficult, which caused me not to bother with the other missions.

Omniclasm

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jan 2007

Guild Hall

A/

The spawns are not random, and there are not spawn points. The spawn points are YOU. They spawn around people. Just stand still and they will spawn right beside you. Stand beside more people and more will spawn at your feet.

The missions were too tough to be enjoyable, and the hats could have been much better.

I enjoyed being chased by the grasps though.

darkknightkain

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Mar 2007

P/W

The hat is ok. It's something that my characters can wear without looking too out of place. The only gripe is I can't seem to dye it.

Dragon arena, I like it even more than the actual gw pvp, and I still do.

The missions... are way too hard. I seriously thought the game have just glitched me into hardmode or misloaded the underworld by accident. Sheng Jea is the STARTERS ISLAND for crying out loud. Knocking ~10 levels down from each enemy (under normal mode) would have make these "festival" missions much better.

The quests on the other hand are fun though. One thing I do liked the most is the ability to trade in the 240 victory tokens into 24 red bean cakes/rice wines and then merchant them for 4.8 platinum. As a casual player, this can help me out a bit.

As for Lag? You serious? Compared to Wintersday, this Dragon Festival is at least 20x better.
-Wintersday's Kamadan DvG = ~1 fps
-Dragon Festival's Sheng Jea = 20~25 fps
Even the "normal" Kamadan/Sheng Jea was only 30-ish fps in a normal day. Also I have yet to see my first err7 this time around... *knock wood*... compared to the previous events. It is a superb improvement this time.

Evilsod

Evilsod

Banned

Join Date: Mar 2006

England

Lievs Death Squad [LDS]

Thats because 2/3rds of the district is afk on the rings out of site. Wintersday the players in the district were in the same place as you.

Ecklipze

Ecklipze

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Feb 2006

R/

Let's see:

Rollerbeetle Racing provided something to do while friends were offline

Was able to make quite nice a profit selling and trading Victory Tokens

Oh and stealing presents = Win

As for the hat, didn't bother getting one, useless to me.

Overall 7/10 not bad.

Malice Black

Site Legend

Join Date: Oct 2005

Didn't go to the first and didn't go to this one either. Did try and enter the Dragon Arena but it wouldn't let me in? tried twice then logged out.

chessyang

chessyang

Not far from Elite

Join Date: Apr 2006

Florida

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by bhavv
However, the pressent drops should have been assigned.
Amen to that. didn't they do that for the Halloween event of 06?

oh ya.. about a 6/7 out of 10 in my book

FlameoutAlchemist

FlameoutAlchemist

Hitmonk Extraordinarre!!

Join Date: Jan 2007

Lurking moar on my forums

Starvin Chillin on Lincoln Drive [MAFB]

Mo/Me

7/10 for me too. My guild and I haven't done Tombs/FoW/UW so I was rather shocked at the difficulty of the missions. The best any PuG I was with did was 6/8 posts captured during Haijun Lagoon.

The mask is pretty cool, but it reminds me too much of the Headcrab from Half-life. Now all I need a zombie outfit for my toon for halloween. :P

I agree that the presents should have been assigned to players like they did during Wintersday, though I loved running the orbs while dodging mask-wielding maniacs to avoid total genocide.

Overall, the missions probably could have been toned down some, and an option to choose which mask you wanted would have been awesome too. Dragon Arena and the boardwalk are always FTW with me. GG Anet.

cellardweller

cellardweller

Likes naked dance offs

Join Date: Aug 2005

The Older Gamers [TOG]

I loved this years dragon festival for one reason - Heroes! Last year, with only L4 henchies it was impossible to complete the mission without relying on guildies (which were in short supply once the lackluster rewards were announced).

This year Jin, Dunkuro, Olias and I managed to complete 4/5 of the missions and it was a blast! That last mission was a killer. Kudos to anyone that managed it.

Buster

Buster

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jan 2006

Elona

Clan Eternal Legion

D/W

Pretty cool event. Nothing majorly different but I did enjoy it.

Arren Knez

Arren Knez

Academy Page

Join Date: Feb 2007

south of somewhere

Dominion of Passi [PaSI]

Quote:
Originally Posted by chessyang
Amen to that. didn't they do that for the Halloween event of 06?

oh ya.. about a 6/7 out of 10 in my book
its was on x-mas, but that time presents had random drop spot, this time they dropped in the same place and ppl were camping them.


meh its the same as any other time anet puts the boardwalk up, afk-athon.

Omniclasm

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jan 2007

Guild Hall

A/

96 presents in one go, this is fun and is making me rich

Nomme Moon

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: May 2007

I'm really disappointed. It just seemed like they saved the event from last year, re-loaded it and changed a few skins here and a few lines of text there.

I'll probably get hit with a lot of "wah it was a free event yadda yadda" but in my opinion this event is down there with the Tengu event in terms of overall quality and the final prize. (meaning: they both sucked.)

The lag prevented me from doing any of the games during the event. Not only that, but we didn't get any new games from that of last year, or since the last time the boardwalk opened. The missions and quests were the exact same as last year. At least with events like Halloween and Wintersday, they changed up how the finale worked. This seemed like the "event team" was like "Here, deal with it, we made it in one day - vacation time now."

The whole play act was cute, but I would have much better had a festival called "Demon Festival" if we were just going to be celebrating the victory over battles in Elona. I was hoping we'd get a special change in plans and we'd get invaded by some of the forces from GW:EN, to be honest, as that was one of the things that ended up making the Dragon Festival so good last year (that being that we got a little 'preview' of the whole invasion scene in Nightfall.)

Really disappointed, expected better with less lagging. *steps on demon mask*

Nebulaz

Nebulaz

Academy Page

Join Date: May 2007

Elonia

Mo/D

Tried to bump up my lucky title on 9 rings.
The longest i lasted was 1hour then i got err07 booted..then i was unable to move when i logged back in. I cann't give it a rating as i was unable to participate fully.
I ended up trying out dungeon runners (no comment) and a new PvP beta