Many of us who witnessed the opening of Ahn'Qiraj would love to see another world event like it, perhaps to kick off the next expansion. But Blizzard poster Bornakk has said that this is unlikely to happen - not just when Wrath of the Lich King opens, but maybe ever again:

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.

Bornakk quoted an earlier post of his, explaining some of the logistics in pulling off something like a live server event, and it becomes clear why they might be keen to avoid something like that again:

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.

On one hand, you can see why Blizzard aren't planning more of these types of events, but on the other - heck, with all that money they make, can't they think of something?? What are your views on this, would you like to see more world events, or is it a big deal over nothing that takes valuable time and resources away from developing new content, or maintaining the old?

Guild Wars  |  Guild Wars gold  |  wow gold  |  buy wow gold  | wow  powerleveling  |  FFXI  |  FFXI Gil  |  EQ2 |  EQ2 Gold  |  RuneSpace  |  RuneSpace Platinum  |Gaia Online | Vanguard SOH  | LOTRO