Originally by: Venkul Mul

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Still, supported for future developement.

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Originally by: Esna Pitoojee

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Sounds like pretty epic stuff... pity I missed it.
I'd love to see it come back, but you also have to take CCP's view of it:
With the number of people playing EVE increasing monthly, in-space events have the potential to draw many hundreds, maybe even thousands of players to a single point in a single system. This would create a lag-bomb rivaling the greatest 0.0 alliance fights, which would then lead to all the familiar lag-bomb effects:
- People unable to load the grid / outright crashing.
- People losing ships (which they may very well have out fitted with their best stuff due to the nature of the event) due to above effects.
- Hundreds of petitions being spammed at CCP due to lost stuff.
- The potential of crashing the node, which could ruin the whole event.
- Etc, etc, etc.

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So, you see, creating an in-game event these days could produce a truly incredible headache for CCP. This could be remedied by temporarily instituting a population cap on whatever system the event was to be in, but then people would be complaining about it.
I'd still like them to return, though. Just playing 'devil's advocate' here.

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And I want to see the universe reflect the players again, like it used to.

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Originally by: Kathryn Dougans

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Loot shouldn't be a motivator, it should be about being able to point to news stories and say "I was there!"

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• Wardec from PIE that became a mutual war lasting up until the first day of FW


• Wardec from CVA


• Wardec from VV


• Alliance with Phoenix Wing


• Alliance with CaffCo


• Alliance with Lion's Emporium


• We were already close with NMTZ but they threw decs in support of us and we flew together


• Joint Fleets with Ushra'Khan


• Coordination with Fimbulwinter


• The Chef! (he really likes freedom)


• The Hedaleolfarber Massacre in which CVA, VV, PIE and Aegis Militia basically killed EM


• The Rebirth of EM as a fully RP alliance


• The chain of events that set in motion the return of Gradient to EM and our evolution to an immersionist RP alliance


• Everything else that I have done, or has happened to my character since then.

Originally by: Jade Constantine

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Is anyone going to remember the Jamyl SarumÆs coronation ôeventö in four years time?

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Neu Bastian
Valklear Guard - CEO

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Originally by: Vaal Erit

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*edit* I'm not sure I get Jade's don Quixote reference. Great book, but I don't see how fighting an impossible or imaginary battle has to do with anything. People like live events because they are one-of-a-kind and meaningful and potentially epic. *edit*

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Originally by: RU Sirius

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if the draw of events was the possibility of rare loot. Then don't include rewards unless it's fundamental to the story. This would also partly deal with the temptation of corruption. I would think most players interested in this would be doing it for the roleplaying once loot was removed.

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Originally by: Jade Constantine

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players want the bold, exciting, non-conformist CCP that were prepared to take risks and do things that Sony and Blizzard would never dream of.

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There were no ill-advised player ôassassination attemptsö

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Originally by: fuze

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People will whine favoritism once more. Or simply whine about not being able to join events.
Or simply try to kill them in order to grief the event from happening.

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Originally by: Axel Vindislaga

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So does everyone get told that an "event" is happening. That kind of makes it uneventful. More like prewritten history. I would prefer for these things to remain hidden and uncovered by people who follow the news. I have gone out investigating the news events every now and then. Quite fun. Announcing an "EVENT" is kinda lame IMO. Thumb down.

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Originally by: Cataracts

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Eve is the only MMO where the players can really create the story, and that is how it should be. That and the potential corruption and favoritism that can arise from this suggestion is a very bad thing in the very competitive game that EVE is. Just say no to CCP run events.

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Originally by: kieron

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The Carrier was never intended to be a solo OMGWTF mission-farming PWNmobile.

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Originally by: Jade Constantine

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Edited by: Jade Constantine on 02/11/2008 17:24:47

A couple of weeks ago we had biggest long-running soap opera in Eve PF resolved at last by the coronation of Jamyl Sarum as empress of the Amarr Empire. This is the resolution of a very old plotline û tied into the Eve novel, the Empyrean Age backstory û important to faction warfare and should be of vital interest to anybody roleplaying a character in the game of Eve Online.

Only somehow it wasnÆt

And I donÆt think you need to be a rocket scientist to understand what was missing: the potential for player interaction. The coronation was handled ôoff screenö û it didnÆt happen in space in any kind of event that players could get involved with. There were no ill-advised player ôassassination attemptsö no show of strength from the Amarr Navy. No centre stage for Amarrian PC corps and alliances, no focus point for dissidents and protests or a hundred little stories of actual players trying to involve themselves with this thing.

It was in short, a canned show-and-tell snowglobe style happening that doesnÆt really deserve to be called an ôeventö since there was literally nothing that any player in the universe of Eve could do to affect it. And it doesnÆt matter how beautiful and glorious the canned video imagery is û and it doesnÆt matter how many times weÆre told that the speech was ôinspiringö û unless weÆre there in space to see it, to hear it, to experience it û this is just uninspiring fluff and deeply below the standards weÆve come to expect from the Eve online.

Now a little history.

I remember an event almost 4 years ago that I attended that came to be called ôthe Elarel Massacreö by those players present and who heard about the things that happened there second hand and in the news reverberating in the days afterwards.

The premise of the event was pretty simple û it was the launch of the ôQuafe Ultraö product range by Quafe Corporation û and they were hosting a huge party for the best and brightest of the Federation celebrity set alongside screenings of some racy holodrama with semi naked brutor girls cavorting in tribal costumes. Quafe had deployed a prototype ôoutpostö for the proceedings û a pleasure garden station.

IÆd been contacted by storyline people role-playing Quafe executives a week or so before and asked to a) organise a player party around the events and b) provide a security detail for the event to ensure ônothing untoward would happen.ö

So, I did what I was asked really, invited pretty much everyone in my address book and ensured that Elarel was going to have every famous/infamous/acclaimed and notorious player that I could nail down. And meanwhile Jericho Fraction decided to do the security duty with some style and we all flew the brand spanking new Interceptor class ships (30 or so) that we considered back then were simply better than battleships  (remember that crows used to be able to fire cruise missiles!)

Anyways û the night of the event rolled around and everybody came. Elarel was packed out û the pleasure gardens station was in place (none of us had ever seen a capturable outpost back then). Local was full of chat and repartee, and the events team had provided what seemed like dozens of fully briefed npc characters û Quafe organizers, celebrities, holoactresses and musicians, politicians and security liasons û the whole shebang.

And these celebs sure turned up in style û flashy ships, escorts, Opus Luxury yachts, real opulence and atmospheric decadence. So we had our show and tell moments sure, but it was all IN SPACE. We were there, we could lock onto the ships, we could settle our own scores and feuds while the event was going on. Players tried ganking celebs, players got counter ganked and podded, curses and brutality û but the event rolled on.

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Originally by: Jade Constantine

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Edited by: Jade Constantine on 27/10/2008 11:23:57

Then all hell broke lose. The plotline had provided an entire attack wing of right-wing zealot lunatics called UDI û who turned up in waves of cruisers and heavier ships and attacked à well everyone! It was carnage and chaos. Streams of missile bombardments and gunfire, celebÆs going up in flames, the player guests joining in the adhoc defense, our heavily outgunned interceptors dog-fighting, event team characters pleading and begging to be spared in local while the pleasure gardenÆs station begin to take heavy damage and everyone was warned to get to minimum safe distance.

This was epic stuff. Some of the best couple of hours gaming IÆve ever had with Mmorgs. The players took heavy losses, but some of them made out like absolute bandits û I took part in the ôrescueö of one celeb from UDI attack guiding another player in with a Tempest to pick up the celebÆs crew (okay cargo can) under heavy fire and meanwhile another guy was convincing some other celebÆs to eject from their opus yacht to save their skins. (Opus was subsequently stolen and sold onto the private market).

Eventually the Gallente navy turned up with President Fouritan in personal attendance and the event turned into a Q/A speechifying session and plenty of conspiracy theories were in wild attendance. (It was certainly the case that fundamentalist UDI murders did wonders for FouritanÆs eventual re-election campaign.).

But you see the point?

This is an event I still remember 4 years after it happened. Hell, this is an event that a great many old players still remember fondly. It had a huge impact at the time. It was exciting, it was bold, it was something IÆd never seen before in online computer games and it was closer to full on interactive storytelling with player action really counting. Hell, if weÆd come with battleships weÆd probably have aced the UDI and routed the buggers û but our choice to be gung-ho flashy so-and-soÆs in our brand spanking new interceptors meant we couldnÆt effective counter the multiple waves of UDI ships and the pleasure gardens blew up! But so many smaller tales û the guy that go away with the opus û the victims that got assassinated during the party û the nationalists that got to rant at the president in real time. The pure chaos and conflict environment û it seemed real, it was all about suspension of disbelief and it was absolutely a perfect slice of eve.

Is anyone going to remember the Jamyl SarumÆs coronation ôeventö in four years time?

So enough reminiscence, lets get down to some practicalities.

The reason we donÆt have events like these any more is partially down to the maturing of Eve online as a game (and ccp as a company) they have become more risk adverse over time and as the game has become ôserious businessö we see less and less of this kind of crazy Icelandic thinking (lets run an event where all the devs get to play murderous fanatics shooting celebs at a quafe party and any player that brings a ship to get in the way) û and more and more routine boring workaday hands off canned event mediocrity.

And itÆs partly down to fiascos and disasters of the past û make no mistake. Aurora (the old events team) was very far from perfect û it made some terrible events alongside its great events, it did sometimes have a stink of corruption in some of the things it got involved in. Free motherships for 0.0 alliances? Massive event rewards for following scripts? God-modding/ ôprivate eventsö volunteer actors using aurora to benefit their friends and allies in game. Who knows how much of this stuff is true, how much its urban myth, jealousy or just simple confusions and mistakes. But Aurora did end up with a bad reputation at the end of it that led to its virtual dissolution in the wake and continuing fallout from the t20 scandal.

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Originally by: Jade Constantine

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Edited by: Jade Constantine on 27/10/2008 19:16:36

And of course we the players need to take some blame too. EventÆs team was always plagued with a player ôevents crewö that spent their whole lives camping IRC/RP channels and jumping on the merest suggestion of an event with all the firepower at their fingertips to score those epic ôevent dropsö by shooting anything that needed protecting, by exploiting the aurora rules of engagement and generally acting like hungry hippos rather than roleplaying with Aurora.

But it comes down to this.

Have we lost too much? Has CCPÆs (understandable) reaction to the accusations of bias, cheating, stuff spawning, corrupt events and whatnot actually denied a huge number of honest and decent players from access to an ongoing and active events team? Has the baby been thrown out with the bathwater here?

Now, IÆve been to CCPÆs HQ. IÆve met the guys and girls there. IÆm convinced these are decent, passionate, committed people who love the game of Eve, love the mythology and have a lot of time and energy to commit to the player base and community. IÆve also met Internal Affairs and been briefed on the scarily efficient procedures that now exist to ensure we arenÆt going to get another T20 scandal in a hurry. IÆve been shown around; IÆve been given unrestricted access to employees of this company, IÆve asked hard questions and IÆve come away convinced that CCPÆs house is ôin order.ö So now IÆve got to ask myself (and anybody reading this thread):

Given the improvements that CCP have made to the accountability of developer/employee behaviour and the checks and balances that have been implemented, why should live events of the kind that used to enliven and promote this game immensely, still be sacrificed on the pyre of last years developer misconduct?

Screw T20 to be quite honest. That stuff happened, itÆs been addressed. CCP have moved on and so I think, have we. But lets not cheat ourselves out of all the great things that we could have from a dynamic and exciting live events team by dwelling on the misdeeds of one set of virtual sticky-fingers a couple of years ago.

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So, IÆd like to propose quite simply that CCP fund and implement a new live events team that works as a combination of old (Aurora) and new (Mercury) and unites the best bits of actual in-game event running, player-involvement, dynamic plotlines with conflict and explosions, and the current excellent storytelling and news publication we are seeing around Empyrean age and related player actions.

In order to make sure it avoids the pitfalls of the past this new live events team will need to have its events properly audited û it will need to list the ôpropsö and justify them û itÆll need to fill out a record of what happens at events and where the good stuff went of course. But that shouldnÆt be considered a huge onerous burden so much as just ôgood practiseö when running a vast interactive roleplaying game of the sort that Eve Online can truly be.

Now, sure, this is expensive in terms of manpower û CCP would need to spend money to make this happen, but then again û everything takes money. Development of the tiniest code alteration takes loads of it! Ultimately part of the role of the CSM was to advise CCP on what the players wanted to see from them û which priorities were most pressing, where people wanted to see the game going in the future. And I feel quite confident in saying at this point that a substantial number of players want the bold, exciting, non-conformist CCP that were prepared to take risks and do things that Sony and Blizzard would never dream of. This is a single server with a united history and the greatest community that any game of this kind is ever likely to get.

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Originally by: Jade Constantine

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Fundamentally, Eve needs live in-game events that weÆll be talking about in 2012. To get these we need a live-events team and we need to CCP to stop panicking about corruption scandals and bad press and have the faith in the procedures theyÆve established and actions theyÆve taken and restore the functionality that Aurora once had in an improved form with the accountability and trust required to take events forward and keep Eve as the unique and exciting game it truly can be.

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