For the main part I wasent playing WoW during AQ but watched my brother par take in it. I must say that world events are by far the most intresting idea that blizzard has come up with.

Something along the lines of the Dark portal opening but that was really dumb IMO. Kill X amount of demons and get a tabar. I mean something epic and heroic like the AQ quest to open the portal. Anything being talked about for 2.4 and Sunwell?

---

Signature Removed

World Events can be a double edged sword. I definitely took part in the opening of Ahn'Qiraj and had a great time, but it took a lot of development work and now that is lost to the winds. There is also the problem of forcing an entire server into one location and we prefer to avoid that.

I am not saying that they won't happen ever again, these epic one-time events are a lot of fun for the people who are there, but they are something we have to consider carefully before implementing.

---

Q u o t e:
...but at least consider the request that your customers are doing, cuz without customers there wont be a game to design

---

Consider it? Oh don't worry about that, this is not the first time we have heard of a desire for more World Events as we enjoyed them a great deal too.

I don't want you to get the impression that they are ruled out and never happening again, they just have to be planned very carefully.

With Brewfest and Hallow's End as examples I think our holiday events are getting better and better. With the past world events we have done we have learned a lot and I think if we do one again, it will only be a bigger blast for us and all of our players.

---

Q u o t e:
I remember back when I played EQOA, and marveled at the GM run events that would pop up.

This was on the PS2.

Yes , Blizzard has stated time and again that they do not have the "resources" necessary to do such a thing, but lets get realistic here. If a console game can do it...

---

...it has absolutely no bearing on whether or not we can. Smaller-scale games are actually far easier to use with live actors; the signal to noise ratio is far better. There are several games that utilize live actors in their events, and I have personally been behind a few, so please understand that I'm speaking from experience, here. I know several ways in how it can conceptually be accomplished in a project. However, in a game like World of Warcraft, having live actors simply isn't feasible, and the scope of the game is a large factor in that.

But I haven't come today to launch into that old argument; it's out there to read if you want to. ;)

What I've come to talk about is my own field of design here on the team, which is, of course, World Events.

Now, some people want story development, and I think you'll see a bit of that in 2.4...

In terms of broad world events, though, know that we're certainly still working on making events that the playerbase as a whole will enjoy. While my team's primary drive right now is in holiday content, that isn't to say that it's our only focus, and we certainly have plans for other things as well. Details, unfortunately, cannot be revealed just yet -- I'm afraid you'll have to wait for those.

Will there be any more one-time events? I won't say no; it's absolutely within the realm of possibility. If we do go that route with a future event, you can bet we'll take the lessons from the Scarab Gate event well in hand.

To be brief: yes, we're still working on world events. It's certainly possible that we'll create more one-time events or holiday events that aren't quite as recognizable as real world holidays. The world event team is here, thriving, and busy working on content for you folks. We want the world to feel alive just as much. You'll see the fruits of our labor in good time. :)

---

Your friendly neighborhood World Designer.
"Whoso pulleth this linoleum knife from this milkman is rightwise king born of England!"

---

Q u o t e:
So instead of the misdirection as it pertains to "story" why not give the real reason to the customer base, as to why such small things are not feasible,.

---

I have, time and again. The short of it is: what you are asking for is not small.

Here is a bit of one of my posts from approximately a year and a half ago explaining the situation:

---

Q u o t e:
Now, I'd like to state that it's a conscious design choice that we do not have live events in our game. There are a number of factors that brought us to this decision, and I'll do my best to clarify some of them for you. It's very easy to look at another game and say, "But X game did this," without fully realizing the mechanics of each individual situation.

Manpower is the first consideration. In order to execute these events, you need to have an adequate number of properly-trained employees to do what is required. In a small MMO environment with relatively few players, this can be easily done; it becomes more difficult with a larger population. We have over 150 realms in the North American service region alone -- our playerbase worldwide is quite significant. We'd want to keep these events up to the quality standards of Blizzard, which would require excellent typists and role players, able to think on their feet, with a working grasp of Warcraft lore (not to mention the language requirements). The numbers would be rather large to cover that many servers adequately. We choose not to use volunteers, as there are a number of other complications that come with such a program; as such, these individuals would have to be employees, and that's a weighty price indeed for something that, in the end, wouldn't garner much return.

This is assuming that one would have teams to cover groups of servers. Ideally, you want to execute live events fairly close to one another across all realms. This eliminates spoilers and also prevents overcrowding if the event is advertised or leaked ahead of time. (Those who were present for the very first opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj have an idea of how potentially problematic said overcrowding can be for a realm.) One could potentially operate with a very small, roaming team of actors doing occasional events -- but then the impact on the playerbase is lowered to practically nil.

There are technical considerations to be made, as well. Live actors playing NPCs tend to gather a large crowd in a small area, and that leads to latency and potential technical problems. It's difficult for a player to experience and enjoy a live event in such a situation. Now, crowds can be alleviated if more people are acting at the same time, thus spreading out the population... but this returns to the manpower issue.

If that was too longwinded, then here's the summary: live events, while certainly engaging, require high and constant maintenance to ensure high quality, and do not impact the playerbase enough for the large investment required.

---

Since this post, our population and server numbers have only increased.

If that was not explicit enough for you, I'll see if I can find one of my other posts on the matter, Sunstarr, but let's not say that we've never given reason beyond it not being feasible, because that simply isn't true.

You might disagree with this assessment, and it's perfectly within your right; but I do understand the inner workings of many live event teams intimately, and thus have a fairly realistic idea of what is and is not possible, as well as potential return from such a program.

---

Your friendly neighborhood World Designer.
"Whoso pulleth this linoleum knife from this milkman is rightwise king born of England!"

---

Q u o t e:
Funny how your GM's can put on an event on the Tournament Test Realm though...need proof?

http://s247.photobucket.com/albums/gg158/SilentLight02/

Point of this is, it can be done, Blizzard just chooses not to.

---

Having only one Tournament Test Realm makes it easier to have several of us on there to have fun with players. ;-)