Death of the Destroyer: Feedback Thread

**MxO-PhanthomZtryker**

ZestyO wrote:

The Good:-

   - I enjoyed chasing the Assassin around at a time that was before 3am.

   - Got some awesome screenshots.

The Bad:-

   - Rather unfair to hand the prize to whoever got the last hit, instead of to say.. whoever did the most damage?

   - Spam, oh god the spam.

The Ugly:-

   - As usual, server lag and crashes. I was thrown out of MxO multiple times, sometimes unable to log in for several minutes, and often chased the Assassin down alleyway's only to realise I'd lagged out.

Edit: Why are my lines double-spaced...?

Message Edited by ZestyO on 10-03-2005 03:40 PM

Same here.

Got in some nice hits and chased the one at manssen for some time until i realized i crashed. Signed in again, sprayed him a little and crashed. Kept going like that. missed his death by a second:smileysad:

Still after it was all over I was still kinda happy it wasn't too late. Next ones should be about this time too:smileyhappy:

All in all it was a nice event and besides, to look on the bright side of things, we got rid of the assassin! Now the storyline can move on:smileywink:

Cage

[Wow, wish I'd seen this thread before I posted this elsewhere. Oh well, Walrus, thanks for providing a forum for input.]

I start with a quote from Data Node One:

"That aside, the task at hand remains critical. Those redpills who have gleaned from assembled code fragments where the regular haunts of The Assassin are located must stake them out. And when he appears, they must kill him."

Given these instructions from Niobe, Flood, Merv, Oracle, Walrus, Devs or whoever you prefer to think they come from, I and a lot of other people staked out the Church of The Disciples on Syntax, which was the most apparently blatant clue in the messages. We waited and waited and waited etc, some for hours, but nothing happened except Corrupted (and some fun and chat). Yes, after a while reports starting coming in of sightings at other places, but given that we'd already had broadcasts to indicate The Assassin could be in more than one place, most of us stayed on at the designated location to take our shots at the clone and be a part of the multi organization co-operation to take him down.

Next, a message to report to Jacob's Ladder, where Niobe informs the assembled Zion crowd that The Assassin is no more. I can only report this second hand, as I and most of the people trying to get there crashed out and could only get back in after she'd left, thanks for coming. After some more waiting in the hope there might be some sort of communication for the 90% that didn't get it the first time, a lot of very unhappy players wandered off.

So, let's review. Instructions are given, but then situations are changed for reasons we can only guess at, so that the work of the past 4 days collecting and decoding fragments is invalidated. Then a 'Congratulations' meeting is held, at the same location that crashed a couple of days earlier, in spite of the fact that server traffic must obviously have been higher, given that it was the event's final day and a weekend. (Indeed, this is the first day I've seen server load listed as 'high' on logging in, and that was hours before the end)

Conclusion: Garbage (only the slightest pun intended). While I'm certain that some people had a great event, I ain't one of them, and it seems I'm not alone. In my opinion, parts of the planning and execution of this event have been awful. My feeling up till this point is that it had been improving as the days went on, but this was a huge let down.

Without doubt, I want to thank you for the timing, as a non-US player it worked out great for me, and given the server load it must have been good for a lot of other people too. Thanks for that.

I think in many ways this was a positive event, it was different and new (to me anyway), and shows that efforts are being made. Unfortunately the negatives seem to be a lot more harmful to the overall experience, and frustratingly people will likely remember them more than the high points.

Please, as a final beg, use the problems and mistakes of this Event to improve the next one (if and when). There is a lot of constructive and positive input in these forums, and I hope they are made required reading for the developers, event staff and LESIG.

Cheers!

PS: I've got a slot open in inventory and code library for the event commemorative reward. (I'll drop another post in a moment)

Cage

Firstly, I want some type of commemorative event souvenir. I haven't been able to log in yet to see about this new mission to win a fly (!!wow!!), but I don't really want buffs on it, just something I can wear if I want to show I was there. What good is a trophy if no-one can see you got it?

Along with others, I've previously suggested the unbuffed mask, seeing as all the corrupted had them there must have been plenty of spares. How about a T shirt with the Assassin mask pictured on it? Like the smiley face ones. Hell, I'd even be amused by the "all I got was this lousy T shirt" caption, as it would prove a sense of humor somewhere in the Dev Team (I'm copyrighting that idea, I want something if you use it!). No buffs, just an item to show off. (Reminder to SOE: You've had tons of that kind of give away item in SWG, why not MxO?)

Secondly, I don't really care about the buffs on the mask. I don't agree myself with how it was awarded, but there's a maximum of 5 people per server, it's minimum lvl 45, and half the buffs you can replicate and better with other clothing. The only really useful outstanding ones are the 100% regens, which only means you gain your stats back twice as fast as usual, you're not immortal, you can still get your *CENSORED* kicked just like everyone else, it'll just take longer. Indeed, it will give an advantage in PvP, but there's ONLY 5 people with one, who says they'll even want to PvP? (obviously excluding Vector)

I think there are bigger issues currently with things than what buffs are on a mask.

[Yes, I love the sound of my own text, the Walrus asked for input, I'm providing and venting so I can go back to enjoying the game]

**Pyroclasam**

The Good:

-The Assassin is deeeeeeeeeeeeead

-LOVED the Jigsaw riddle. sitting around with crew of the Swordfish,
Winter Brood and my faction mates in Eternity, pouring over the puzzle
looking at what spots he could be appearing was some great fun. Also
happy to we were 5 for 5 on figuring out those locations.

-The chase on saturday was some great fun. I loved following that bugger around

-Someone pointed out that it kept the servers on edge, I know that on
Syntax we had multi factional teams to help keep tabs on his location
so we could get the info out quicker and the fight on saturday
afternoon was a hoot.

-The messages from the controllers reminding us about flit guns, etc.
This is a bit of a good and bad for me. I like how they were looped so
that NOBODY missed out on the vital info, but next time give us a way
to turn the message off after we've heard if for two or three hours.
Did create some funny RP on Syntax though with a ton of us at a party
all doing a /touchearpiece then screaming "Tyndall, shut the hell up!"
"Flood Shut up!" "Gray if you want me to pay attention have Agent Pace
hand deliver the message!" hehe

The Bad:

-Some notice about the time the event stuff was going to kick off might
have been nice as I know my faction leader and a few other friends
missed out because they were expecting the standard time which was a
few hours after Assassin had shown up.

-The lag at meetings with Niobe. I crashed trying to open the door, got
a character in use message for ten minutes and got back in as Niobe was
walking out. Though I can understand that there may have been a ton
more people than usual since this is our first LE in a long time.

The Ugly:

-We are now faced with a month before our next LE and this normally
wouldn't bother me except that we now have vastly reduced interaction
with the major characters. One of my favorite memories of MxO was back
when we had Assassin logging in nightly and stalking Sobra Shores prior
to Morpheus' death, running in to him one night and taunting him for a
while just to have him run off and come back to attempt to punt me
while I was telling someone else what I had seen and then have him
whoop my butt with Kung Fu, then hang around the hardline, hidden
dropping viral attacks on us for a loooooooong time. While I understand
that you have scaled back your LET I will really miss things like this.

-The inability to add the LET characters to our buddy lists anymore. It
was very helpful to have an idea of if say Niobe or Assassin or
Morpheus was online.

-Last thing I can say about the ugly is the Assassin himself. That guy
had a serious hygene problem what with the flies and the garbage and
the buzzing, blech.

Overall this was a great event and once the wrinkles get ironed out I really look forward to even more.

WyPhy

Even though I only got to play on Sunday during the finale, the concept seemed great.
The execution was... lacking, to say the least.

Even though I hoped it wouldn't happen, I figured there would be crashes.
Method
crashed during some other events and even though the population was
lower, merging created a load at least a big as Method used to be 'back
in the day'.
Some areas are still down, why did you not do a reboot today?

You might take a look at this thread.
There
was someone who mentioned that they didn't like that the Crits and the
Event didn't mesh (maybe this thread too, but I haven't read it all)
but I think it's a nice change.
They may be related but since we don't know the next few chapters of the story, we can't say.
I think it adds more reality to the universe.
In that post I said:

One point in favor of the separate crits and events is that it makes it seem a bit more realistic.

Is there only one thing at a time happening in the real world?
Of course not.
There should be several separate stories happening concurrently.
It would help remove the 'nothing to do' feeling that happens now between events.

Granted, it isn't easily or quickly implemented, but would add a huge fun factor to the game.
Maybe separate 'mini-events' for each Org. Some interrelated, some not.

The
Dev's have a lot of work to do, bugs, rebalancing, etc, and I know the
'story' is basically set for the first year but I think it could be
added without affecting these things.
We don't necessarily need huge
in-depth stories, maybe something like 'floating contacts' that stay in
one place for a week or two then move to a different district.

I know we have the neighborhood contacts now and it would just be a similar system.
Actually,
I kind of think that the current neighborhood contacts should move
around their districts. Makes it a bit more work to find them, but I
think it would give a better sense of accomplishment when you do find
them.

Something to think about as a future goal.

**Shouki**

S0kar wrote:

Shouki wrote:

Richland is generally a fair and equal place for the events to happen so players of all levels can enjoy it without worrying about Agents or purple mobs ruining it.

And so the entire population is running around on the Richland/Westview server(s) ?

Just read about the chasing the Assassin that happened, and most mention the lag of having large crowds around... And the Assassin never went to International & Richland.

And you really think a level 20 or below had a chance to hit the Assassin really ? or that only low levels are involved in the LE ?

I'm just really sick of people defending this bearly there effort of an event when we know that much better HAS been run before.

That's funny I'm level 12 and I was hitting the Assassin just fine.....

I am not saying the events are low levels are the only ones involved in the LE, i'm saying it is not fair to try and exculde them from the event simply because you could not handle the lag. Oh trust me darling I was there chasing the assassin, I was there with the lag around him, but it was nothing turning my graphics down and turning all effects of didn't cure.

Message Edited by Shouki on 10-03-2005 09:35 AM
Message edited by Shouki on 10/03/2005 08:35:00.

Twaggy

Well I say it was fun, but it really got on my nervs when I was working
with certain people to kill corrupts and get information that they
would gank me to hell. Now I know you couldn't do anything about that,
also I don't know why but I was fighting a corrupted and I was winning
when suddenly I died, no one attacked me and the corrupted didn't win
either I tried to read who took my down but couldn't find a name.

what
was
that
about??????????????

But the night was good, however I was far too tired and had to go before the assassin showed his *CENSORED* at Uriah.

I so wanted to even take just one shot....but it was not mean't to be.

Zimb

well i couldn't be at the event friday-saturday-sunday, but i ninja looted the corrupted on thursday :smileytongue: and got some of the stuff. Anyway i'm curious about the buffs of the assassin mask, i've heard a high price is set for them.

So that was the event for me. Looting dead corrupted. And if i would
have been there at the meetings and final fight, i wouldn't probably
have had a chance, as i'm lvl37 and the lag.

Sykin

The Good-

-Fighting off Corrupted that spawned during interesting times. There
were a couple occasions when I'd be with Pyro doing some missions and
then upon walking outside a building we'd have no rest--We were
attacked by the fly clouds.

-Fighting off Corrupted en mass at Tabor Park West. Made me think about Samurai holding the Huns at bay.

-Flit guns!

-Running after an Assassin with a brand new bag of tricks through the
Watcher hideout, shouting 'Die!' at him, and then getting special
attention while he personally murdered you after hitting him 20 times
with the flit gun.

-Roleplaying with others about clues and the conspiracy behind the Assassin's real purpose in the Church of Disciples.

-Having the ability to shout 'YOU GONNA GET CHAOS CLOUDED' in OOC
times, really amusing if only to myself and other people that visit
ytmnd.com

The Bad-

-Jobi wasn't able to jack in.

-Uncaring Hackers doing way too much damage to the Corrupted.

-A generally unresponsive Niobe.

-Crash during a meeting and it still going on even though it should
have been apparent to the LET that half of the server bombed.

-Apparently 2 Assassin clones being killed when there was supposedly 5 out there...?

-The Ugly

-While turning into Corrupted at one point was interesting, it was
hard to see where your character was and it generally caused a huge
amount of lag in my eyes. Perhaps we could see something like this in
the future but more purposeful...?

-Being the only one to see the Assassin, running over to him as he was
a millimeter of health away from dying, then having him stun you, go
invisible, and then crash once you die. It was the biggest bummer for
me as I thought the Assassin had something for Sykin, hahaha...

Overall, this has been one of the best events for me. I wanted to catch
Nightfall when it was out but I didn't get the game in time. Hopefully
the LET will become more active, I know it's possible Mr. Devs.

Message Edited by Sykin on 10-03-2005 10:00 AM
Message edited by Sykin on 10/03/2005 09:00:50.

bonobi

here's some pics that I took, feel free to use them if you want

Message Edited by bonopi on 10-03-2005 10:09 AM

Message Edited by Walrus on 11-04-2005 10:26 AM
Message edited by bonobi on 11/04/2005 10:26:13.

Culann

Take into account this is from a new player's point of view Walrus who just recently came into the MxO community.

My wife and I (Patcher & Virologist respectively) were essentially
glad the event was done..came as a huge relief. My wife made it
VERY clear she was entirely tired of running through practically
abandoned areas only to have level 35+ Corrupted hanging out and
killing her in one shot. I am forced to agree..the event for us
consisted of mostly sneaking about so we didn't get killed while we
tried to get to missions...and not succeeding at the sneaking part too
well. Other than that..the event was mostly just a lag fest on
Sunday for us...could not do much and I think me and my wife lost about
4-5 points of faction due to this faction bug thing or whatever as
well. Overall...neither my wife or I felt part, we mostly ran
from the corrupted because we couldn't kill them in MANY cases...and in
conclusion it was a "Hey you wanna play the Mystic and Paladin while we
wait for this to get over with?" scenario...that's not good, especially
if you have true newbies coming to play the game.

Lastly, knowing SOE from prior experience, I will also add this.
I play a 51 Paladin in EQ2..and have seen SOE walk all over players in
the past...quite honestly I believe SOE just does not care about
anything but the money they can get out of a player's pocket.
Moorgard over on the SOE forums is the community rep, and it's almost
painfully obvious he's a wordsmith, and a outright liar in many
places. I ask of you, on behalf of the entire MxO community..for
all those people out there who enjoy the game, and have enjoyed it up
to this point..to not turn into another Moorgard..stand up to SOE and
if they are changing your beliefs on what should be done in the game,
give 'em hell. Don't let the entire game become absolutely
wrecked like they are busily doing to EQ2.

Foxtrot001

While there are many criticisms and positives I could add here. Only two are worth mentioning.

Recursion:

1. "Area Closed. Local Code Recompiling". If this is going to occur due to overpopulation of the area, then there really should have been 7 copies or 9 copies or 50 copies of the Assassin. I tried 3 different "known" locations he was to appear in only to be rubberbanded like a rag doll when trying to walk into the general locale.

2. Assassin Health - This has bugged me with any of the major events. The abilities of the LET should be expanded beyond the average player, however I notice time and again that the LET regen their health almost at will. When the LET gets low on health, he/she tends to simply disappear. No hyperjump, no teleport, just disappear OR they magically rejen 3/4 of their health bar. Either give them a massive amount of health to overcome this issue or simply force an area kill to avoid death. Either of those options is preferable to what appears (and obviously is since we shouldn't be able to kill em till a certain time) to be a magic trick.

**Harpalos-mxo**

Good :

- The return of LET actors (and some non-scripted parts)

- Interresting enigma

- A very nice reward to the lucky few

- End of a story that was stretching for a bit too long

- interresting mix of a critical mission to help for the live event (flit gun)

Bad :

- 4 days of corrupted collecting was too long

- New players that started the game were constantly menaced by too many high level corrupted

- Confusion between the parts in the cinematics/critical missions and the live event

Ugly :

- The reward is too good and doesn't reward the most worthy

**Denkis55**

Walrus Quote: "The game servers will be restarted shortly in order to perform post-event cleanup. Servers will return to service within 15-20 minutes. We appreciate your understanding"

Now, i've been in this game going on a year now. The cleanup from the database corruption, i would assume would take HOURS! I'm surprised we didn't all see a rollback like we did the last time. This was extremely ugly!

Other than that I agree with the post made by Hapalos. :smileyhappy:

Nice to see live events in any form at this point.

**P0ET**

I really enjoyed the event and got to see most of it and participate in it even with living in the UK. Chasing the Assassin around the city was great fun with faction tells asking where he was and giving directions to his last known location. Was so pleased that the final act was played out at a resonable time on Syntax and got to see it. Congrats to those who won the masks