Live Events Discussion

This was one of the questions asked at the round table at Fanfest. One of the key issues was accessibility due to the nature of wormholes. It's something they are interested in, it's just a matter of how they'll do it in a way that people can get there, without breaking everything.

It would be really cool to have live events in wormholes, but accessibility would be an issue.
Anyone who has ever done a move can tell you how much trouble it is getting to a SPECIFIC system through wormholes. I suppose some of that could be alleviated if WH paths were broadcast publicly, but that would likely lead to them being camped horribly, and interesting things might happen regarding any locals in the transit systems.

We need more live events.

In some of the hisec Sansha events, there was some sort of WH or jump technology employed in which the storyline reports that capsuleers are somehow probing through to the other side. I forget the details now, but I'm sure you guys have it all written down. Well, just open that WH/gate. Start the event in hisec, port people through. I guess there would be some questions about people camping the WH side or something similar.

Or maybe two starting points, one for each side of a battle that takes place in the WH. Each side has a CCP person running it. Then they can coordinate putting everyone into the WH at the same time to eliminate the initial barrier of people camping the entry point.

Just some thoughts.

there are far more "normal" WH systems than systems with effects.

If the paths were broadcast then it also on some level defeats the purpose of holding an event in W-space. The biggest thing that sets it apart from anywhere else was that it was difficult to navigate through, after all.

I think the best way to make a w-space event is to create something that doesn't take too much overhead, and last for a longer period of time (1week - 1month) and just let people who are interested to figure out how to get there. It could serve as a motivator for people to check it out, and also drive activity for people who are already in.

Its seems the only way to do it would be to let people know which w-system an event will happen in and give them enough time to move assets there in preparation. Wormholes by definition are limiting factors since they are hard to find and you can only fit so many ships through one.

After reading the new chronicle today I had an idea that perhaps Real Jamyl opens up about her 'condition' to someone like Artico or someone else and they secretly task a few trusted loyalist corps and alliances with going into a certain W-space system to find a device that can purge the Other from her head. The Other catches wind of this and sends others to hunt them down and stop them. It would be less of a event than a dev-promoted plotline that the players carry out, but there might be a confrontation in said W-space system that the devs have actors in. Could be interesting?

You make a really staggering amount of assumptions about the tools we have at our disposal, and how easy or difficult stuff is. Seriously, I love your enthusiasm, but I'm also asking for a bit of trust here - I have nothing to gain by telling you we can't do something when we can't and I don't want to go into full blown technical detail every time I say this. I will make an exception this time and go into some high level detail.

"Place an LCO with a "jump" icon somewhere in k-space." - this doesn't exist so would have to be coded and authored. Also it would need a "dungeon" authored.

"Place an LCO with a "jump" icon in that same system in w-space." - you can't jump to W-space from K-space, so this is more coding (pretty advanced)

"Don't use an already existing mechanic. Go build a new one" - so now we're designing, coding, authoring and megatesting a new variant of the dungeon distribution system? That's easily 1.5 releases, probably more than 2.

" It should be as simple as... (list of 6 things)" is like saying "It should be as simple as getting a bill through government."

Sorry Faulx, I know you're super keen and you get frustrated, but you're asking for waaaaay more than you think you are.

I honestly think going for the least amount of dev magic is the preferable solution. It helps to keep everything from getting out of hand, not just development/time/effort wise, but also story wise. It also allows them to put more effort into the events themselves.

Instead of doing a single "big" event in wormhole space, it might be better to make it so that there are "breadcrumbs" spread over lots of wormhole systems for people to find (like a number of abandoned Helios someone found as part of A'J). The event arc would be about finding and combining these clues to work out something (e.g. a final location for an event in known space after all/majority of the clues are found); a distributed event if you will, drawn out over a longer period of time as explorers find small nuggets of information as they travel. However if you decide to go this direction, it might be smart to mention that there is something to find out there so people don't just skim over them and discard them (with the abandoned Helios, the person that found it thought it belonged to an enemy and destroyed it and the plot item it was carrying - whoops).

I mentioned that known space would be the final location we'll end up at in my example The reason for this is because then we don't come back around to the "logistics problem" of getting people to the final destination in a wormhole. Not the greatest solution, and wormhole residents might feel a little cheated, but I honestly don't see a clean way to squeeze lots of people into a wormhole quickly (which is what you would need to run a big event). However to find where to go, you'll still need people combing unknown space for clues, so it still relies on WH space; without their clues, we can't find anything.

Then it just becomes a question of where in known space it would be, but I guess that answer might become clearer when a "group" involved is selected.

Food for thought.

Sansha nations attempts a stable wormhole in their search of creating a route to Jove space. Launching several titans in a highsec system, all focus their super weapons and tear a rift into wormhole space (shows up as a warpin point), causing a invasion of sleepers into eve. Gallente forces launch a fleet to stop the multiple titans but find that a massive wormhole has appeared and sleepers are everywhere. Unexpectedly the sleepers have latched onto the titans and reinforced and refocused their weapons to keep the wormhole open. Sleeper motherships on the otherside of the wormhole is in control of the titans, remote repairing them.

Destroy the motherships, then destroy the titans.

5 hours of utter crazyness. 2 systems (wormhole and k-space). Help stop a invasion.