Alfgar's Event and Imperial Assault - Why did you make them "random" events?

They will be making them happen more often in the future, they have already said this.

They will also likely continue after 2.0's release.

"There are other live events besides "Lamb of Dalamud," but how many and what they are, is a secret.

While there are players that would like to participate yet have not yet been able to, that is tied to the nature of this event."

Ah makes you glad we are now PAYING for content we would like to participate in yet have not been able to cause we either a: dont know about it or b: se is making it so random you have to camp multiple spots all day in hopes u may just find one of these elusive events.

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Originally Posted by Mug

I like the idea of random "live events", but at this point where content is lacking as it is, I don't quite understand the decision behind making them so rare.

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Because they have been repeatedly requested over and over again by poster after poster.

That Dev response is the biggest load of BS i have ever seen in my life.

Players want to participate, Stop making these events so damn exclusionary. It's not fair to anyone.

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Originally Posted by Kiote

That Dev response is the biggest load of BS i have ever seen in my life.

Players want to participate, Stop making these events so damn exclusionary. It's not fair to anyone.

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Should see JP side everyone is mad over that dev's post also lol

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Originally Posted by Kiote

That Dev response is the biggest load of BS i have ever seen in my life.

Players want to participate, Stop making these events so damn exclusionary. It's not fair to anyone.

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Actually its equally fair to everyone. Its as far as possible, as statistically, everyone has an equal chance to randomly participate.

OMG I bought a lottery ticket and didn't win, clearly it is unfair and riged.

I just think with the playerbase as it stands, they don't really need to worry about crowding of content...

All I'm gonna say is... I just spent like 5 hours standing in Ul'dah hoping this NPC would pop. Yes I chose to do this and have no one to blame but myself but I am slightly put out that it did not appear. I think tomorrow I shall remind all my LS that if they see these guys to let me know.

These kind of events should remain random as well imo. That gives to Eorzea the sense of "living world" in continuos change and with surprises here and there. Expecting something i surely know that HAVE to occur in that known date and place is not so fun for me (except the seasonal or common events that everyone in the world know). The only thing i could ask is to make these events less rare but oh well..

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Originally Posted by Yelta_Sumasu

All I'm gonna say is... I just spent like 5 hours standing in Ul'dah hoping this NPC would pop. Yes I chose to do this and have no one to blame but myself but I am slightly put out that it did not appear. I think tomorrow I shall remind all my LS that if they see these guys to let me know.

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The fact you had nothing better to do to wiat 5 hours for a random event to hopefully happen is a sign to me that the other content of the game isn't good enough to attract your attention.

Events like this reinforce the idea of a living, breathing, changing world, instead of everything being canned and served up to you on demand like in most MMos these days. It's more immersive, you can't be in every place at once and experience everything at once, it's more like an alternate reality that way.

Oh no, there was other things I could have done. At least one of my LS was doing Moogle fights and I'm sure I could have rotated in. Others were in spirit bind parties and farming mats and doing GC quests. It was more an experiment than anything. But feel free to interpret my actions in whatever way suits you :P

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Originally Posted by Coglin

Actually its equally fair to everyone. Its as far as possible, as statistically, everyone has an equal chance to randomly participate.

OMG I bought a lottery ticket and didn't win, clearly it is unfair and riged.

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While it may be "equal" to everyone in that sense..it is not practical to folks who have "lives" so to speak. Not everyone has the opportunity to camp at their PC unfortunatley for 24 hours+

If they still wanted it to be random maybe they could at least set a time frame or something say like..npc can spawn from 12PM - 4PM or something..I dunno, just an idea.

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Originally Posted by Murugan

I did see a few people fishing while I was in there.... so what's the point though? The cultists popped and they... continued fishing.

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How do you expect fish bots to take part in an event? ;)

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Originally Posted by Babydoll

While it may be "equal" to everyone in that sense..it is not practical to folks who have "lives" so to speak. Not everyone has the opportunity to camp at their PC unfortunatley for 24 hours+

If they still wanted it to be random maybe they could at least set a time frame or something say like..npc can spawn from 12PM - 4PM or something..I dunno, just an idea.

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Again, this is why they will be upping the frequency of these events- the odds will be better that if you look for these events they will happen, as well as the odds greater that you just happen upon it.

We have stuck by xiv through the good and the massive amount of bad. Everyone is clammering and biting at the bit for more content, esp now that we are paying (albeit minimally) for service.

So they give us more content...but they dont tell us where or when or even what it sounds like in some cases. Now I can see them wanting to give us sudden and lively events but with nothing to do anymore but sit and craft they should really throw us a bone and, like a previous poster said, give us at least a range. We camp nm, wouldnt be much different. But with nm we at least know what weather conditions, or time frames and so on to watch for.

I dont understand....and maybe a moderator can ask the devs this...why they would add more content for us but not even give a clue where we could calculate, ok we need to be here at this time, it could start right then or within the next few hrs. Kindda like nm pops in xi. You knew tod was 11pm est and it had a 6 hr break til window opened again, so after 5 and a half hrs we will go camp it again. I could pop at 5am as sceduled or at 8am.

It just boggles me why they would do something, lets face it, that stupid.

SE dev to Yoshi P: "oh the players want more content, so lets set up a series of events they can get lodestone achievements for, that are fun, and live and give them something to do other than craft or grind or kill the moogles for the 100th time, BUT lets not tell them when, where or what to expect. Lets make timing completely random with absolutely no identifiable indication its about to happen, lets give the npcs multiple pop spots like one in each nation, THEN to give it a real kick in the pants lets have our mods give them some hints that not only does this one exist but multiples. They MAAAAAAY be able to stumble across these events but its likely they wont so it will only be open to a few of the players we have left. How does that sound?"

Yoshi: "BRILLIANT"

....again makes no sense to me

I'm of two minds on this. As FFXIV has embraced the casual player as well as the hardcore, it's easy to say that these random events are good for the hardcore player with the time to either:

a. Research the random locations as they are discovered. or
b. hunt and camp at all hours until the event pops.

But for those who simply wish to play and receive this exclusive content, (Because let's face it, not everybody is supposed to get everything, that's what separates the hardcore from the rest. But to use the content as "the selling point", and not make it available for everyone is unfair. The equivalent of having an all you can eat buffet, but at the same time hiding the food.)

I would give several suggestions to remedy this situation.

1. Plot leve-quests: show how these events are changing everything. Connect it to the leve evaluation system so people are sent out to do different things at different places, but still get to see the whole story. For example, a person has been doing GC point leves. They get evaluated and they get a special grand company leve, but when they finish the leve instead of a crystal showing up they get a cutscene or an npc that directs them to a secret meeting or the cultist or what not. This is attainable by everyone without causing crowding.

2. Rift like invasions: Actually I imagine these would happen as the world gets closer to changing. Forces could attempt to assault the crystals and if they are not defended the moogles could steal them away for a short time (30mins to an hour tops, or at least until the invasion was repelled)

3. Simply putting out more content and throwing the "extra" content in, hidden in plain sight. I.E have the npc say the raid is in a certain area, but have several encounters set to trigger on the path so you could meet different people, etc.)

Just a thought.

I like the fact that they're implementing live events like this.

It makes it so that you're living in a continuous world where things are going on whether or not you're there. Quests aren't just an NPC waiting for you to come and talk to them.

Yes, it does mean that you might miss some of what's going on but then its going to reward those who play more because they're more likely to see them.

Quests occurring like this are one of the things that interested me in Guild Wars 2, I'm happy to see FFXIV is also implementing a similar system.

Its certainly a nice change from repeating the same leves over and over.

LOL this is what's going to happen.

A GM appears as ANNOUNCED and finds an audience of several dozen players. Let's say at least 4 parties. Immediately he is bombarded by eager players trying to get his attention. Unable to hold a conversation, the GM just starts tossing the items to everyone... before logging off. Wonderful. There's no magic of interaction, no roleplay, nothing. Just some GM passing out candy. As the event goes on, fewer players show up until no one shows up at all because everyone has the achievement.

Nice.

Maybe people should actually think about the event and why it's special, before they suggest the devs and staff remove what makes the event special in the first place.

If you want the achievement so blessedly badly, why don't you find someone with the items, ask for one, have them trade it to you and use it on yourself. Congratulations! You just Cooperated with the Mythril Eye!

Just my feedback about this matter:
It's not fair, it doesn't give all the players the same chances... you should either set a timetable or don't give any history entries at all...

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While there are players that would like to participate yet have not yet been able to, that is tied to the nature of this event.

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this is exactly the kind of nature I wish I'd never find in a mmo event. I'd rather camp for hours a non instanced NM against other groups... at least that's not random.

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Originally Posted by deekapowski

I'm of two minds on this. As FFXIV has embraced the casual player as well as the hardcore, it's easy to say that these random events are good for the hardcore player with the time to either:

a. Research the random locations as they are discovered. or
b. hunt and camp at all hours until the event pops.

But for those who simply wish to play and receive this exclusive content [...]

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Sounds logical, but what you listed is probably the worse way to try to participate in those events (at least, the most frustrating).

I may be the most casual player around here (played since release and highest level is 32), I still got the chance to participate in those events maybe 1 out of every 5 times times I logged in.

That's the point of randomness, it does not reward persistence, as it's not intended to, it's more like a bonus when you get the chance to enjoy it. As the worse way to make money with lottery would be to persist in buying tickets

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As the event goes on, fewer players show up until no one shows up at all because everyone has the achievement.

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There is no achievement. Just an entry in your history that nobody is ever going to read.

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this is exactly the kind of nature I wish I'd never find in a mmo event. I'd rather camp for hours a non instanced NM against other groups... at least that's not random.

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Uhm... camping an HNM for hours against other groups IS random. Well, unless someone is botting.

At least you can't bot a spontaneous GM event.

Lots of games have events that come and go, and In those that I've played, nobody complains about the fact that they exist (Sure, some might talk about how much an individual event may have sucked/not sucked, but they don't complain that they get the events at all). But in FFXIV, everyone feels entitled to be able to have anything and everything how they want, when they want. Look, if these events don't interest you, then don't do them. You are NOT missing out on anything essential or important. These events are largely for fun only.

I have not seen one of these events yet, and it's no big deal to me. If I see one, yay. If not, oh well.

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Originally Posted by Lionheart

Just my feedback about this matter:
It's not fair, it doesn't give all the players the same chances... you should either set a timetable or don't give any history entries at all... this is exactly the kind of nature I wish I'd never find in a mmo event. I'd rather camp for hours a non instanced NM against other groups... at least that's not random.

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I rather like the spontaneity of these events, it's more the infrequency of them that I think is a problem. Too have a large variety of random events that just happen would be enough to balance out not getting to see all of it. Make it so we can get in on enough of it to get what's up.

Say If there is a big enough pool of events for us players to get into that we can eventually get a feel for what ever content 'set' of events is trying to convey... I could see that being a very interesting way to tell story to us the players. Important stuff could be tied up with main story line quests everyone would get in on.

One player may end up combating cultists and fending off 'roided out rabbits and defending villages from a mysterious beast. Another might help lead a scholar to some ruins, investigate a watchpost that's gone silent, and collect burnt out crystals. Both players would end up getting the idea that something weird is going on with Eorzea, foul play is afoot and it's making monsters and people go nuts.

Both would then go on to follow the related major quest chain and connect the dots from the random events.

If that's where the Devs are trying to take this I'm cool with that then.

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If they still wanted it to be random maybe they could at least set a time frame or something say like..npc can spawn from 12PM - 4PM or something..I dunno, just an idea.

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You mean like they actually are? I've yet to here any info that's contradiction to them spawning between 5-9am pst & 5-9pm pst. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...550#post516550.

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Originally Posted by Babydoll

While it may be "equal" to everyone in that sense..it is not practical to folks who have "lives" so to speak. Not everyone has the opportunity to camp at their PC unfortunatley for 24 hours+

If they still wanted it to be random maybe they could at least set a time frame or something say like..npc can spawn from 12PM - 4PM or something..I dunno, just an idea.

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Did you even try to learn anything first or is your initial reaction to everything to cry and complain?

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Originally Posted by Reabs

You mean like they actually are? I've yet to here any info that's contradiction to them spawning between 6-9am pst & 6-9pm pst. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...550#post516550.

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You know I really dont mind the randomness of events that happen in the game...even the infrequency. What irks the living hell out of me and makes me want to throw a cat out of a window is the fact that NO ONE FREAKING TELLS YOU THERE IS AN EVENT GOING ON!!! I look everywhere and maybe I'm an idiot, but these forums are so crap sometimes.

SE needs to be like "Hey BTW there is something new going on here, you might want to check it out."

Apparently NPCs in the city states give you the achievements of getting interviews for the newspaper, however I was really only ever worried about the alfgar event in the first place...

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Originally Posted by Reinheart

"limited time" with limited number of people that can participate doesn't make this fun for some players that want to actually get those records in the history... which is why it would be nice if the devs the can increase the frequency of at least the system based live events.

As for the GM's roleplaying... been waiting and haven't seen any yet... heard it popped up once on Melmond server in Ul'dah but bunch of noobs threw snowball at it and it left right away....

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No disrespect to Kaiser Sublimen, but I think the rarity of the events is just right. If you never get to experience it, you can read about it or see pictures of it here on the forums. It's like somebody telling you they saw a UFO. You can't expect the chance to see it yourself, although if it happened, you'd be thrilled.

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Originally Posted by Neptune

No disrespect to Kaiser Sublimen, but I think the rarity of the events is just right. If you never get to experience it, you can read about it or see pictures of it here on the forums. It's like somebody telling you they saw a UFO. You can't expect the chance to see it yourself, although if it happened, you'd be thrilled.

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I agree with you. Now shorten your sig. :D

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Originally Posted by Reabs

You mean like they actually are? I've yet to here any info that's contradiction to them spawning between 6-9am pst & 6-9pm pst. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...550#post516550.

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nah..i camped it yesterday from 7pm CST and it popped at 7:07am..thats about 12 hrs or so ^_^ had my bf PC camping one city, me one city and his bro PC the last city.

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Originally Posted by Neptune

No disrespect to Kaiser Sublimen, but I think the rarity of the events is just right. If you never get to experience it, you can read about it or see pictures of it here on the forums. It's like somebody telling you they saw a UFO. You can't expect the chance to see it yourself, although if it happened, you'd be thrilled.

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I understand but same time YoshiP and them said that players who stay (subscribe/pay) will get to participate in these live events pretty sure no one was expecting this type. Personally I don't care much just don't feel right for those who really want these.

From JP side

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Originally Posted by shenka

こんなテーマパーク無いわｗ
Never heard of theme park like this lol

ミッキーもドナルドもいるかどうかわらかないのにチケット買うと思う？
少なくとも予定された時間にいけば必ずステージでミッキーに会える、から
ディズニーランドに行くんだＹＯ。
ライブイベントが新生まで課金してもらう人へのサービスの目玉じゃなかったの？
煽って煽って盛り上げるのが普通でしょうよ。何故隠すのｗｗｗｗ
Would you buy a ticket if you don't even know if Mickey or Donald is even there? (This is if you like meeting Disney characters instead of just going through rides, etc... saying this before someone becomes a smart a** lol)
At least at the specific time if you go to the right spot you will get to see Mickey on stage isn't that why you go to Disney Land?
I thought these live events were the main feature for those who subscribe and stay till 2.0
Isn't it normal to gather as much people by making these stand out. Why hide them wwww

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Anyway doesn't really bother me much so I should stop talking about this one (for now)

Thanks Reinheart for sharing.

To be fair, however, the above argument is not better because it's from a random guy from the Japanese side, I personally don't find it convincing at all.

Random events the main feature until 2.0? SE hiding them? Mickey Mouse??? Just discussing the specific argument that you brought, not the relevance of bringing them, please keep it up!

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Originally Posted by Rokien

LOL I go to work/school don't even give that excuse. It makes it more exciting when you can be like, OHSGMDSfh THERE IT IS. instead of, oh, there it is AGAIN....

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You are very persistent with your opinion huh.

Doesn't really change the fact that the majority of people don't want to camp an NPC for something which is basically filler content.

Sure you can argue don't camp the NPC and just be awe inspired when it pops "oh the joy".

It seems a waste of time to make content (even if it is half assed) and then make it so random that only a small minority of players get to experience it.

I agree with the Japanese player post Reinhart quoted.

I really wanted to participate in these, camped them for hours..for days..for weeks.... Spent a lot of wasted time dropping everything I was doing to port to town to town and wait some more because someone said they saw it there and it may pop. Still haven't seen one of the live events except for one newspaper npc that gave me some usless fireworks.

This wasn't what I anticipated when I renewed my subscription, and I don't feel like I am able to participate in what was promised to me if I did renew. It basically made me highly regret paying for this month and convinced me quit after this month's time is up.
Yes, I know more things are coming but the likelyhood of me getting what I paid for out of it is diminishing every day I log on. The random events aren't that big a thing to most people who may not understand my level if disappointment, but the way I see it is there are about as much things to do in the game currently as fingers on my hand. And the fact that there's finally something new and unique going on that I'm being denied just makes me turn off the game and switch to a different one with more instant gratification.

I really hope that the dev team changes their mind and makes these events and future ones more predictable. At the very least make them more frequent with a city wide announcement that it might pop in the next few minutes, maybe even have it pop in all 3 cities at the same time.

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Originally Posted by Reinheart

I understand but same time YoshiP and them said that players who stay (subscribe/pay) will get to participate in these live events pretty sure no one was expecting this type. Personally I don't care much just don't feel right for those who really want these.

From JP side



Anyway doesn't really bother me much so I should stop talking about this one (for now)

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I would agree with the notion that these events should stand out more and get more people involved. They should still be live, unique events, but they need to take greater care to make sure that the people who really want to participate have some opportunities to do so.

SE really need to up their game and make things STAND OUT.

Any event in this game should literally take over the buzz of the city/area when they occur, not just be static. This should apply to all events (seasons, 7th umbral, newspaper, et al)

For example,

a) when its a Seasonal event, say Summer, there should be ginormous parades through the city like in the opening of Uldah's mission 1 cutscene, not just an npc standing static and a few cosmetic decorations.

b) when theres an Invasion, the cities npc army/cavalry should be seen making their way leaving the city and marching to the besieged camp, then make the whole semi-region where that camp is one massive warzone!

c) when theres Cultists, there should be a legion of cultists spawning in the city laying waste to everyone and everything, the city should be visibly in flames, and then after that we go down the purple aehryte (the npc does mention after all his daughter was kidnapped in the city), then once in mistbeard cove or sildiq aqueducts there should be mountains of mobs, traps, fighting our way through to a boss (not just standing still and the mobs spawning on us x 3 til the lolboss spawns) should be like a mini dynamis.

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Originally Posted by Altanas

SE really need to up their game and make things STAND OUT.

Any event in this game should literally take over the buzz of the city/area when they occur, not just be static. This should apply to all events (seasons, 7th umbral, newspaper, et al)

For example,

a) when its a Seasonal event, say Summer, there should be ginormous parades through the city like in the opening of Uldah's mission 1 cutscene, not just an npc standing static and a few cosmetic decorations.

b) when theres an Invasion, the cities npc army/cavalry should be seen making their way leaving the city and marching to the besieged camp, then make the whole semi-region where that camp is one massive warzone!

c) when theres Cultists, there should be a legion of cultists spawning in the city laying waste to everyone and everything, the city should be visibly in flames, and then after that we go down the purple aehryte (the npc does mention after all his daughter was kidnapped in the city), then once in mistbeard cove or sildiq aqueducts there should be mountains of mobs, traps, fighting our way through to a boss (not just standing still and the mobs spawning on us x 3 til the lolboss spawns) should be like a mini dynamis.

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cool with all those but I think with current server software this isn't possible reason why all the NPC's don't even walk but stand in one spot and doing few motions... hopfully something like what you mention happens in 2.0

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Originally Posted by Answa

I agree with you. Now shorten your sig. :D

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lol. What quote should I knock off there? It's all so good. lol. Worked better before the portraits were added.

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Originally Posted by Reinheart

I understand but same time YoshiP and them said that players who stay (subscribe/pay) will get to participate in these live events pretty sure no one was expecting this type. Personally I don't care much just don't feel right for those who really want these.

From JP side



Anyway doesn't really bother me much so I should stop talking about this one (for now)

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So you don't mind if I start calling you Kaiser Sublimen? lol

Thanks for sharing that from the JP side. Interesting turn of events. So some people feel shortchanged. Big surprise, there is barely any content in the game. This is indeed a big problem for the dev team, although I think Yoshi-P meant more than these rare events when he was selling us a year of FFXIV-beta. lol. I think he was referring to more Grand Companies storylines. I think these rare events are something they are going to do throughout the game's life, and I think it's a brilliant idea to keep them rare. The only thing that makes them special is the fact that they are rare. If it popped every 30 mins or whatever it would be just another random event.

I am bummed that I missed out on some, but it only made the one I did experience all the more cool. I really can't see how increasing the frequency or certainty of experiencing them would make it better. JP side has a point that people should get something in return for their ticket, but I'd say they should get a lot more than rare events for that ticket. Would you buy a ticket to Disney land just to see Mickey Mouse appear for 5 minutes? lol

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Originally Posted by Neptune

So you don't mind if I start calling you Kaiser Sublimen? lol

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Sounds like leader of power rangers so I'm cool with it lol.

Anyways yeah if you don't get to participate it's not much of a big deal so it really doesn't mean much at least to me it doesn't if I get in one of them cool, if not too bad but for some this isn't the case for them reason why we got threads up both in JP and EN, JP side is much asking just to increase the frequency they don't mind the randomness if it's more frequent.

Last night was sad on Melmond server Alfgar was up in Limsa and me and my wife just got back from exping our CON and was about to get new guild leve when Alfgar popped we went inside the warp took us to Mist Beard told 3 LS's we have with about 10 people each to see if they are interested to come since it's only us 2 so far. Some guys were getting on there way but they missed it... ended up with just me and wife in this live event lol.

Just another example of the great use of "Random" by SE which is pissing off people yet again. Why this love for random? It basically always rewards a select few and screws over the rest of the population. It's just lazy game development imo.

Except it's not that random as people believe it is... it's a pretty trivial event with the only reward being an entry in the lodestone history which doesn't affect anything... not a +20 to all stats item, so why the complains?

It's the same as with GM reporters, SE replaced them with static npcs now, 3 mole meat and you get it for free. RPing was way more fun, so was figuring out the spawn times (they even been posted here on the forums).