Here's an idea I had about how to make CF a little more interesting.

Have special days once a week, where there is an event planned. The event will feature two cabals squaring off for something of value. For example:

Event: The Emperor has contracted with Tulpebb the forest burner to raze the Holy Grove to make room for an Imperial outpost. Work begins on Sunday at 7PM.

Now, a note will be sent out to both involved cabals a week before to let them know the day and time that this event will be taking place. In this example, Outlanders would come and defend, and maybe they would call on the Fortress as well. If Tulpebb survives for 30 minutes, then it is considered a win for the Imperials and maybe the entire area will be set on fire for the next week with the next reboot. If Outlanders win then next time they get to go on the attack, and Imperials will be defending in a couple weeks.

Prizes could be given out to the winning side and maybe the MVP of the event. Also, it works well in that whichever side the pendulum is swinging away from will be on defense, which will grant them significant advantages. For example Outlanders defending a forest, Tribunals defending a city, Battle near the village, etc.

Example event 2: An elven dignitary is visiting Galadon to decide if his King wishes to donate money to the city, as tax money has been running low and the mayor is desperate for aid. The Outlanders have to kill him before he leaves the city. If he does, Galadon will lose their cityguards for a week due to low funding. If he lives, then Galadon will get more money and the cityguards will have higher average weapons and there will be more of them.

This will create a lot of interesting dynamics and possibly get 60+ people online during these times, as well as a little more interaction. What do you think?

I'm not sure you realize how much work it takes to do these sorts of things. I was involved in a couple larger-scale quests when I was an imm, and making one that doesn't flop is both hard and extremely time-consuming.

Not that it isn't a good idea. It just may not be the most practical.

Aarn

And that's that it lets an underdog cabal (at the time in question, as in, time of day) get forced into direct conflict.

So you are not unlikely to see a few people get ganked down by 10.

nt

nt

It will encourage team work and recruitment instead of griefing each other in cabal

Let's say that the event planned for that week is that Scions have found that the Shadow Plane will align perfectly to create a semi-permanent rift on Mount Calendryl. If the day of the event shows up and there are 7 Villagers, 8 Fortress, 4 Outlanders all waiting to rape the 4 Scions, then they can get NPC assistance from IMM controlled mobs, a couple greater Ccul'gra that start maledicting everything in sight, maybe a dark-robed wizard of unknown origins that mystically appears and starts throwing rune magic left and right, etc.

The events should be hard to win for the side that has more to gain, and IMM discretion can be used when planning them in the first place. On a given day in prime time it's not that hard to predict about how many will show up from each side and construct a scenario that isn't going to end in a slaughter from one side.

But then, I've played a few characters who had to deal with crazy gangs a lot. This was only possible by (a) fighting at the inners, or (b) not being where the gang was.

I appreciate that having imm controlled mobs is potentially as good as being at the inners, but then equally, imm assistance (especially from mobs) is difficult to predict & count on. Also, if the underdogs won because of imm assistance, I can see a lot of bitching.

Not to mention that imms would have to resist letting people die if they didn't like them, or ganging up on people they didn't like themselves.

But yeah, it probably could be doable.

I guess my other concern is people with multiple characters logging on a lowbie (say), seeing what the sides look like, and then logging on the hero best placed to take advantage.

Though they aren't always advertised. It's been a while since they've had a really retardedly intricate quest. The last one was Thror's reawakening. But those are by far much much much much more interesting. It's probably about time they weave another one of those tales.

But if you haven't noticed, since the PWipe they've had several mini-quests. The warrior thing. Twist's magic duel out. Grobbak's arena fun.

Pick a time, put it on the event board, and let's go at it. I don't play 15+ hours a week to be around at random hours for involvement in quests. I have to juggle real life or give up on other things as it is just to play.