Event Suggestions

In another thread talking about the Froggie, the Groggies suggested that event ideas are welcomed and wanted suggestions.
So?

Keeping to a outside holidays but in a fantasy theme:
Halloween: All Saints day? Day of Spirits? or some such name. Undead wander the towns seeking "donations" so that they may leave the wandering of this realm and move on to the next plane of existence. Rewards given out based on donations. OR using the beat weekend examples, towns overrunn by undead at the stroke of Midnight and anyway playing at that time is killed off. Maybe they are under the control of that little pyromaniac Gwen.

Thanksgiving: Fall Festival? Banquet of the Harvest? Dwarven Ale for everyone! Maybe have NPC's prepare and maintain a table spread of various Tyrian foods? Interaction could include a one day quest of (dont hate me vegitarians or animal lovers), killing various normally friendly animals for "pelts" or "meat" or plants and collecting them for the banquet. Bringing in the aquired amount would be rewarded. Maybe even have animals run loose attacking players to get revenge on thier bretheren being used for the festival?

Christmas: Winter Solstice Festival? Ending of Seasons Celebration? Trees in the shverpeak Mtns would have candles for lighting and decorated with various dwarven trinkets. Snowmen in and outside of town. Maybe have evil snowman attack? Random towns having a "Santa " fly over head dropping gifts assigned to each player in town.

New Years: Easy. FIREWORKS! DWARVEN ALE!!

Valentines Day: Hmm. Gwen with an army of floating rangers shooting arrows at people to "smite" them with "love". (I love you..NOW DIE!)

Any other ideas?

I would like to see a PvE event where we have to defend a land from an enemy. Say Charr, or an army of White Mantle. And only a full team of of PCs can get it done. I am talking difficult here, real difficult. Something that if in a weekend, you accomplish it, your team gets named on Guildwars.com! That, and maybe 50k experience. Obviously, only for ascended characters.

I think some social events would be great. I know this isn't supposed to be a full blown MMO, but holidays would make us feel more a part of the game world.

I think that is what they are looking for with suggestions.

Other events:
Scavenger Hunts: Collect items from random areas around the world and bring them in to NPCs who keep track of your stats. Could last over the weekend like the PVP Extreme. Those who collect all the requested items can be rewarded with items and/or given notice on the Guild Wars Website.

I know alot of these are for PVE. But what about PVP events?
More faction weekends would be nice since it went over well last time. That is if a permanent faction increase isnt added.

PvP = 1 v 1 and GvG weekend ranked battle, king of the hill style. Kind of like a hardcore duel to the death as it were. Rewards based on final rankings of the participants, with maybe the winner having an in-game character or object designed by them. These matches would take place in custom maps, unkown to normal PvP. Maps could contain traps, environmental dangers like lava, etc. (Nothing more fun than watching an enemy sidestep a lava pool just to walk into a spike trap, heh.)

PvE = Races. They could setup a quest to see who can kill the most of a set list of enemies in the shortest amount of time. Or to see who could do a deliver the object from A to B quest the fastest (without map insta-zoning for the deliveries), with names and times updated to the GuildWars website in a ladder-style fashion.

Social events like Dwarven Ale drinking contests (I am a firm believer in them programming in ways to not only make your character get drunk, but also pass out completely and suffer hangovers.)

Defend the castle type mini-quests like they mentioned in an above post, where swarms of mobs attack outposts in large waves, and the only way to win is co-ordinated team effort (I.E. make it too hard to solo the end waves).

Hide-n-Seek, AkA Find the Devs: The Devs hide about Tyria in random spots and players go find them for fun and prizes. And who says it has to be easy to reach them ?

There's tons more, like special cutscenes activated at certain times only for the event by certain actions performed, Devs taking over various NPCs and interacting more with the players, etc. Sky and game mechanics are the limit really

I agree, the game needs some "pointless" but fun events.

Yay, Jaythen ^^ your almost reading my mind

but i would sugest....

Feast days and Festivals and Reigonal days, oh my! ^^

each god has a feast day, and a festival.
a feast day is held on some day that the devs choose, though i would sugest a day that has no real world holidays with it.
festival days are connected to the statues, and both are held once a year.

so...

Feast of Grenth.
yup, a little like halloween. the kids dress up as heroes and monsters in the towns. theres a story teller who tells you a story, and theres a priest of Grenth who gives out candies and clothes if you get questons right when he asks (just listen to the storyteller for the answers. the nerco class folks get clothes, everyone else gets candy)
the towns are decked out in green and black pennants.

this event is more of a party feel to it, like a hang out in town ad mess about one, a minor event.

Festival of Souls -Grenths Festival.

its dark in the towns.Ghosts wander about, and the normal folks other than the merchants n quest givers are all inside. its even a little foggy..ooh my, spooky.
theres a priest of Grenth dressed up as Himself (grenth) who tells you to go seek a statue of Grenth.
any statue of Grenth, other than the one in the Temple of Ages will let you click on its plaque and get 2 choises.
1...donate gold to Grenth
2...travel to the Hall of Souls.

the Hall of Souls is a once a year map (as are all the festival maps) there is a Hall, which has 1 merchant-priest, 1 collector-priest, and the Avatar of Grenth.
there is an outside area, the Realm of Lost Souls. thats where you have to go and collect the Lost Souls and return them to Grenth.
its a maze-like map, with lots of ghosts that you have to talk to and collect the Sleeping Soul item they drop (which is them as it were) once you have lots of them, you take them back to the Hall and give them to Grenth, and He gives you something nice in return.
(wepons, off hand items and ether a bone Circlet or Crown as a special item. they look cool but their stats are normal-ish.)
the collector-priest is there with a special colection item, a fancy shield that anyone can hold, that has the symbol of Grenth on it. he collects Lost Wrathe Souls. these Lost Wrathes hang about in the middle of the maze, and you go kill them and pick up the Wrathe souls for him (if you want to kill something on that festival)

will post the next feast and festival when i can work it out...but as i said, the feast are like partys in the towns, while the festivals are more a go-out-and-kill-stuff, collect-their-drops-and-trade-them-in things....and there will be special days that happen only in sertain areas, once i get them wotked out i will post them too

ooh, yeah..

The Shattering.....Ascalon feastival only. only seen in Ascalon City.

aniversary day of the Searing. Large bonfires are lit, with Charr straw figures burned on top. children are given sugar glass sweets resembling the Charr crystals that rained down from the sky. (which you can buy from a merchant, btw)
out in Old Ascalon, there is a Charr Hunt. 5 captured Charr are released and you must hunt each of them down. each Charr is a boss, so as to be recogniseable against any other Charr in the area. each of them carries one item. 5 in total.
take out 3 henchies and collect them all
1...a Charr hide hat
2...Charr skin gloves
3...hardened Charr-hide curass
4...Cured Charr skin greaves
5...Softened Charr hide boots.

only bonus these give are that they are a +10% defence against Charr....and they look good ^^

The idea has been mentioned before of a place in which endless amounts of enemies just continue to assault you. As you defeat them, the next wave becomes increasingly stronger. Something like that is a true testament of player skill and cooperative play.

I think it would be really neat if one time you're just sitting around in camp, and all of a sudden you see the countdown for a mission about to begin. You would be allied with everyone in the town, but divided up naturally so it would be easier for the monks' sake. And we're given... a war naturally, huge swarm of charr, dragons, undead... just true bedlam. Although it would probably cause an excessive amount of lag so it may not work.

I liked presearing, and the ability to be limited to one other ally. Same when doing two man smite runs, it was a lot of fun knowing that they've got your back and you have theirs. Reincorperate that idea of partnership, be it in PvE or heck PvP. 2 on 2 matches... let the games begin.

Three words: Ranger Pet Fights! Spider against bear, moa bird against stalker. Although some would probably see a strong connection between it and Pokemon so lets not go there.

Urgent message from Prince Rurik.... (yes i know, but who else? )

My dear fellow Ascalonians, it has been brought to my attention that Sir Tydus has been kidnapped by those foul Charr and have demanded a heavy ransom of 10 million gold for his return.
It is not our intention to let the Charr profit from this beastial act of aggression and so i call upon you Hero's of Tyria to help us return our great warmaster back where he belongs.
Be warned, these charr are unlike any we have known before. They seem stronger than the charr we have grown used to over the years. They must not be underestimated.
The last sighting of Tydus was in a Charr convoy, heavily guarded and heading towards Dragon's gullet.
May Dwayna protect you on your mission.

Task: Rescue Warmaster Tydus from the Charr.
Reward: 5 skill points

EDIT.
This mission would be a three day event or something and would mean that anyone wishing to finish a quest involving Tydus, wouldn't be able to until he was returned.
Therefore, they can either get involved with the rescue or wait until the "event" is finished so they can finish their outstanding quests.

OR, just throw in a John Doe NPC as your objective but that's no fun at all is it? lol
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EDIT again.
Trade caravans that need protecting.

The caravan sets off from Ascalon city and it's destination is lions arch. You must form a party and protect the caravan at all costs.
The caravan will have it's own unit of guards as well as a contingent of veteran ascalonian soldiers.
If any of the caravan wagons get destroyed before reaching the end of it's huge journey, the party will fail and must restart the mission.

The reward for completing the mission and getting the caravan safely to Lions arch would be a trade bonanza! The caravan would sell unique max items, fireworks, one-off weapons that can only be used once but are like a nuclear bomb (not literally but you get the idea). Perhaps rockets that can be fired and do class specific things upon exploding.

A monk rocket would send out a healing or a smiting shockwave, a ranger rocket would rain a hundred arrows upon the enemies, an elementalist rocket would immolate the enemies for 10 seconds....
They would all be "one-off" weapons that would make your party scream "OMG What the hell was that?!!"
"Oh, that was one of the reward items i bought after that PvE caravan event two weeks ago. "

--------------------
An ancient seer decends upon Augury rock and speaks of a lost icon. The icon is somewhere in Tyria but nobody knows where.
It appears randomly and never in the same place twice. A player may find it while trying to get gargoyle skulls in old ascalon or it may appear in hells precipice while your party leader is screaming to "get winter down OMGNOOBS!!!11".
The icon is rare (obviously the story says there is only 1 but that would be too rare). What would be the reward for finding the icon and returning it to the seer?
I don't know. Perhaps a unique bow or sword (especially created for the event). Each bow would be different in looks and even colour and everyone would know that "you" are the person who found one of the icons during the weekend event.
To stop immense profiteering from these items, they would have to be customised (unless the devs saw this as not being a problem).

--------------------------
Isn't Ascalon dull and boring? You'd think that two years since the devastating searing and four months since release, that Ascalon, in reality, would start to recover by now.

Let's have a tree planting event!! You can buy saplings from a merchant for a large sum of gold and plant your tree in any pre-designated area of old ascalon.
This tree would get the community involved with the rebuilding of Ascalon and you'd be able to say to friends "I planted that tree".

It's possible isn't it? I mean, the box said something along the lines of "a world created for you that changes while you play".
I can't think of a more suitable event for the rebuilding of ascalon.

Since every instance in old ascalon can only have four players maximum, it's not like there would be hundreds of trees everywhere. Just a maximum of four which the players would have "planted".
OK, the main problem would be "how to do this" but i'm sure this could inspire some thought.

If trees are not the soloution, perhaps plaques are? Imagine getting your character name on a plaque on the wall of a new building...sweet. Your name is forever on the walls for all to see.
-----------------------

The return of the army of Orr!!

The undead army of Orr was thought to have been annihilated but they have returned.
The last remnants took shelter on an as yet undiscovered continent and replenished their numbers. They now invade all of Tyria!!
Protect our continent from the undead Orr armies!

During the event, each town would have an "event district" and you could defend them with any of your characters.

What would the invasion be about? Level 20-30 undead monsters and new kinds too. In each event district, you would have many players all defending against the masses of mobs.
The enemies would be immense and the invasion would be continuous.
During that time, you would not get a death penalty, no matter how many times you die.
There would be small (30 minutes) periods of calm while you clear inventories, take a pee break in reality etc but the undead hordes never stop.
NPC soldiers in Ascalon would join the fray and be slain, only to respawn a few minutes later.
Xunlai storage agents would grab a starter sword and fall by your side should they be threatened (again, respawning later).
There wouldn't be a need for party formation, just a case of everyone helping everyone and monks constantly at 0 energy, lol.

If a district falls to the enemy during the event, a server-wide message is displayed so that reinforcements can be arranged to take back the settlement.
If during one of these periods of a settlement being overrun, a portal wraith enters the town, the town runs the risk of an undead portal being opened...thus increasing the influx of enemies and making the recapture harder.

ah..i remember the day when the Lich tried to take out the Thousand Year town, back in the pre pay2play days of Soma..^^

it was wonderfull..*dreamy expresion* first of all, a DM came in with a NPC player and said that the Lich King was headeing towards the town...then he died from his wounds.
next, they had word (in all speak,the cross server shout that only the dms couls realy use..like the yellow talk the Frog does) that the Mountain Keepers Hut was under attack. that was fine, the PK players spawned there or hung out there back then, but everyone grabbed their wepons and headed out there to look....

first was a few stragling undead...then lots and lots of undead...then one of the generals turned up...another dm controling that guy...he taunted us in shout chanel somewhat, and answerd us back when we used shout in a RP fasheon
after the genreral went down, more undead...and the lag, whoa, it was terrible at times...too many spells going off all in the same area^^
then the realy hard undead and deamons turned up...devil guards and wraiths cleared out some of the edges of the group...and finaly, in the confusion of the wraiths spawining BEHIND the hero edges....the Lich King arrived!....and it was chaos! wonderfull, laggy, funny chaos ^^
rings, 3 players deep, of warrior types hacking at him with long reach wepons...behind them came the magic user types, all blasting the frell out of him with magic...cries of 'dont use black spells!' and 'black magics healing him! quit using them!' went up from the front...those of us who were not strong (ie, under 25th lvl, back then, that was around max befor they made you pay to play) and had run out of mana resorted to training bows and waiting..others stayed at the edges and healed players who died and ressed....the lich king was wonderfully played, he was evil and nasty, there was the mountain keepers wife, who had been kidnapped and lich-ified the week befor, who spoke to us part the way throuh...the king had made her an undead general, but she told us that she still loved her husband *awww* and if anyone managed to kill her, would they take her body up and make sure the lich didnt get it, cause he could ress her up again and again if he got her corpse...a group if heardy adventurers went off looking, amidst the chaoss and lull of one general leaving and another ariving... it was spectacular, and even though it was hard, (i was lvl 6 that day, but after i lost all my freebe exp, i went all the way back to my starting stats, i died so much lol) and the graphcs were 2d, it was the most fun i have ever had at an event.

so..guys..hows about that? the waves n waves of critters, but with a human player (dm) controler who will step in and get whooped at the end ^^ something/one extra hard, that needs loads and loads of players hurting them to actually go down, so we feel like we acomplished something wonderfull^^

i like rayea's idea, i LOVE this idea, i have seen it around a few times. i woud like it even more that when this happens, they open 20-40 brand new intl districts to do it in! that way i can play side-by-side with people in europe and korea and vice versa (of course we have the time zone constriction) but they will probably have to open a bunch of districts to keep the lag to a minimum. why not make them international?

I like the invasion.

Brings back good memories of what Ryzom could have been.

And, honestly, some more stuff to do with Ascalon might be nice. =( I miss my charr-hunting days of yore.

Besides, that'd be a way to, you know, actually tie things up there so I know what happens to my home nation. =(

ooh yeah, sidepocket..the Int districts..i forget about them, a tweek here, a nudge there for a week, and bobs your uncle!

sure, we cant have the hundreds of players in the same area thing, but theres possibilites in the Int districts
in fact, why not put the fighting type events soley in the Int areas, then if you want to take part, you pop into the Int area of the place your in, to see if theres anything going on?

and if its all just too RP for you, or you hate events in any shape or form...stick to the normal districts, and stay away from Int districts...
(though, they would have to pop a reminder in the chat window, unblocked by filter that reminded you of events that were going on, just so you knew and couldnt whine that you mised it cause you were never in the riht place. s'ok to whine cause it happend when your in bed/work/school ect though ^^)

got another one or two...

Festival of Truths....(Lyssa festival)

Everyone is trying not to lie. each person must tell someone a truth..not a silly little one, ether, but a truth that matters to them...(NPC guards say silly things, like...'Man, i hate the way my armour makes my arse look big!....mumble, mumble' or...'Did you know, once, on a Tavern Crawl, Prince Rurik got wasted so badly, he climbed Lady Altheas home's wall, and swung from her balcony, singing love songs?...Badly?' heheh)
a mesmer-priest is telling all the hero types (thats us, btw) to go seek an audiaence with the Avatar of Lyssa.
(so its a statue thing again....look at any statue thats not in the ToA)
1...donate gold to Lyssa.
2...Travel to the Hall of Truths.

Hall of truths is connected to the Vale of Illusions.
hall has....the Avatar of Lyssa/ mesmer-collector/ mesmer-merchent
Lyssa's avvie asks you to go out and help get back somethng that has been not only stolen, but broken also.

Lyssa's Holy Relic....the Mirror of True Reflections. monsters in the Vale have taken the Shards and are hiding. the Shards need to be gotten back for Lyssa.
2 out of 3 monsters are illusiory, however, and you will not find out which ones are till you have killed them but still, they should give exp

you get illusion style items, they are slightly fuzzy looking, like they are not real. and the special item is a Circlet or diadem of illusions.
collector want you to get them 'Illusiary Matter' which is dropped by Mesmer-wraiths.
will give you a shield that has Lyssa's image on it


Feast of Balthazar....(a warrior-a-thon ^^)

yellow and white pennants decorate the towns. kids dress up as warriors and run about waving axes and swords. they get gingerbread Hero's to eat.
hugely mucled warrior types are standing about the town, bending bars and flexing thier mucles.
a warrior-priest of Balthazar is doing the question asking, and the storyteller is waffling on about the exploits of Balthazar and his warrior-peeps.

fighter class who get the answers right get clothes, everyone else gets a gingerbread Hero (gingerbread man with icing armour)

Some very thought out ideas. Keep em coming!
Feast of Grenth..GREAT NAME Rayea! Much better than what I suggested.

This may be a controversial one here, but hear me out.
For PVP players:
UAS weekends.
Especially with new skills for chapter 2 or current skills, this could be done. Having tests days for PVP players to try out new builds, new skills, not only lets them have what many are clamoring for (UAS), it allows regualr players and hardcore players test out skills and builds with new skills or skills they have yet to aquire. Tests the field with newer players and players who have been here a while to see if a UAS will work properly with the current changes in the game.

Theme Maps for the holidays in PVP. Misty graveyard with Undead and spirits passing through the battlefield while PVP'ers fight for a Halloween theme.

EDIT:
For valentines day, have the dead Rurik and Althea wander through towns blessing people that they may find true love. Hey, it is the closest thing we have to a love story in this game currently.

I would like to see an week long event along the lines of an "easter egg hunt". Starting on a Friday evening, have a DM character in 5 or 6 cities scattered across the world. Those characters would have lists of NEW items to find, different for each city and DM. Then as a full group of human palyers, no hench/solo, you quest to find those items and return them to DM. Should be timed (no limit), and there should be a posting board near each DM char listing those who have accomplished the tasks from first to accomplish to last. You get rewards for each item, for completing each list, and a super bonus for getting all of it done.

I think this would be a great guild event, team names could be scrolled just like HoH winners, for all to see. It would also make exploring some of the other maps again real fun, and might even take you to places you have never been.

thanks

i remember last time someone suggested saints days, that someone else got a bit...hot under the colar, so to speak, cause that OP was using real world names ect, so feast and festival dont realy have real world connotations other that their names...

Festival of Chalenges (blathazars festival)

the local performers come to town, and theres a shiney armoured warrior-priest of Balthazar, banging on about all the dead heroes of the past. he sugests going to a statue of Balthazar, if you fancy your chances in a fight...

same as usuall...in fact, all Festivals have a deity that you need to click on their non Temple of Ages statues and choose 'travel to<place name>'

the area this time is the Hall of Chalenges....same old-same old...Avatar of Balthazar explains that, due to being cooped up in the Tyrian equivelent of Vallhalla, and having nothing to do but get drunk, throw axes at the poor big-breasted serving wenches (its true, you cant realy be a *proper* serving wench unless you have an ample suplly of up-top bounce lol) and generally have an after-life beer fest, the Heroic Dead are chewing up the walls, and Balthazar dosent want to have to redecorate for at least another millenium ^^
so...he asks that we, the still living heroes, go out into the Halls of the Dead and give these bored boys some fun....in the open up a can of whup-ass variety.

each dead hero will give you a badge of Victory when they reach 0 ghostly HP, this to say that you have defeated them.
there is also 5 special angry Wenches.....they have had one too many axe in the head, and now need to find some way to get a new job....give them an honerable death, IE, die in battle, and they can join in the drinking and axe-throwing for a few hundred years....they drop 'tattered apron' items, which you exchange for a Balthazars Shield (just a normal anyone -equip shield, with the icon of Balthazar on it)
there is also, a hat....it is ether a circlet with a pair of Serving wench pigtails attatched, or a helm with a beer flagon atop it....

or a battle arena type where 8 players will fight 5 levl 20 Charr Bosses. And evryone can see it the tournament. It will be like at the colosseum watching a gladiatorial fight.

meh....lvl 20 char bosses, they would last 3.2.1. poof these days ^^

although....captured monsters in an arena, and you paye a fee to take part and kill stuff....they dont drop stuff, but they give nice exp...hm......
(and isnt that like observer mode?, thought we were getting that in the next chapter or something like that?)

I personally love the idea of the invasion.
Although, I don't think random parties would work, mainly due to, even in the weekends people can't always commit large amounts of time to these things. Which is why PvPx worked.
Anyway, maybe even have the possiblity of guild halls also being attacked in the invasion, with the possibility of losing them (maybe even for a period of time, to signify the fight to get it back, the worse you were beaten the longer it takes) .