- Instead of having event gates that take you to trammel-world where you sign up for teams and what-not, just have the gates take you to one side of a board (area where you can't mark a rune), where everybody is assigned to a team (unless it's some kind of FFA event)--teamates flag green (or blue--read on), enemies flag orange (ALL IN FELUCCA, OF COURSE) (assignment is random, but where the teams are close to even). Also, the gate boots you off your horse and leaves the horse behind.
- The two halves of the boards have some kind of wall between them for about 2 minutes. Then, when 2 minutes is up, the wall goes down, and everybody can have a good time killing each other off or doing whatever they want to do--either in a team FFA or a CTF or a survival setting or a king of the hill or a "whoever holds onto the ball the longest wins FFA" or a "harvest the other team's ore" or any of the aforementioned ideas + MONSTERS or (insert great idea here) setting.
- FULL LOOT! When you use a potion, it's gone. When you swing your magic hally, it gets worn. When you die, your loot is fair game.
- I would argue that there should be NO auto-ressing, although there could be an invulnerable healer at either end of the board, as well as a banker so you can restock (assuming you don't get res-killed before you have the chance, which is certainly possible)--although it actually might be more interesting without a banker ; You would have to rely on your teammates/loot bodies to restock (or maybe each team has a small house to which they are automatically friended or a team-specific secure container where they can store stuff they brought with them through the gate (at the peril of it being looted by a griefer--even a teammate, of course... but yet you could kill said griefer ). Perhaps, in order to prevent people from constantly ressing, dying could flag you a criminal for 30 seconds assuming that's possible (or a full 2 minutes if the timer can't be adjusted). Furthermore, there could be some type of reprecussion for attacking your own team members (maybe your team members should be blue to you instead of green?--a possibility, but that might be more difficult to implement, and could make it more difficult to stop a griefer (really only if there is that whole secure chest thing going on though, or if they are doing some kind of non-flagging action like blocking or something))
- Prizes? Personally, I would participate without them--but I'm sure that there'd be plenty of loot to go around. Besides, if there isn't a silver motivation for winning, people might be less likely to exploit the system to win (although trying to figure out how to exploit the system / stop others from exploiting the system can be a lot of fun in its own right). ALTERNATIVELY, you could have there be an entrance fee (e.g. hand 5k to an NPC after saying "doofushead join", which results in you teleporting into the game), and then use that amount of money as a prize to be shared by the winners (this would, I believe, reduce multiclienting afk noobs onto the other team (of course, making the teams truly random would make it so you might accidently drag your own team down with your afk noobs)).
... or yet another prize alternative (which is kind of a game unto itself): have everybody spawn with a single token (or something else small--something difficult to find and loot), and then have it so you can trade those tokens in for gold or something else of value (to reward you for either getting kills or being sneaky)... I believe it is possible to make it so the tokens say "you cannot pick that up" when you try to drag it after it's in your own pack (or maybe you just can't throw it in your bank, assuming you have access to the bank on the field). It could be a team-specific token, so you can't get anything from looting your teammates (or physically can't pick up a token off of a teammate).
These are just some suggestions, I don't know how technically feasible they are from a scripting point of view.
- It's not trammie... you risk as much coming to play as you do running around on the field.
- No restriction on spells (you can summon deamons if you want, paralyze, whatever).
- No restriction on who you can attack--assuming greens and oranges (you can kill your teamates--this opens the door to griefers, but also opens the door to dealing with griefers). Making teammates blue would mean murder counts would be the penalty for teamkilling.
- No restriction on skills you can use.
- One team can completely wipe out the other team--which ends the game.
- Grief... yes, there almost certainly will be plenty of grief going around (people joining with multiple characters? People on opposing teams helping each other? Suicide bombers(my favorite)? People killing teammates as they pop in the gate (of course, you can make the gate pop you in at a random location on a given side of the board)? BUT, this can make it interesting, and also motivates people to try to figure out ways to overcome the grief (or deal it out more efficiently, depending on what you like to do).
- If staff decided to participate in the automated event in any way, you can imagine the possibilities (since it's the regular ruleset, there are really no hard constraints for any given "match")--GM's could spawn monster teammates to help a losing team... they could add obstacles / structures to the map.... or whatever else they think is best. AND BEST OF ALL even if they aren't available / interested in intervening, the felucca event can still run itself.
FAQ
How is this similar to a player-run event?
- For most PvP player run events, people are put on a guildstone so that you can freely attack each other. Whether you attack your own team is up to you.
- Still in Felucca--same ruleset as would be applied in any player run event
- It can happen in a semi-controlled environment that can be achieved by players (as in twin towers or a castle)
- They are griefable.
- enemy teams are in different "guilds" (flagged green or orange, unless its possible to make teammates blue to each other so that there is penalty for killing each other)--the green and orange COULD be accomplished by player-run events, but usually isn't (at least in those I've attended): usually it's just all green. Also, these events would be automated to save time and effort (in player-run events it can take ~10 minutes to get everybody on the same stone, wasting everybody's time (and also making it so you have to get back in the guild you were orginally in).)
- (This comment only applies to player-run events that occur inside of a blocked off castle or twin towers... it is a moot point for the vast majority of player-run events): Less control over who participates means more griefers might get in (which could--depending on who you are--make things more interesting). This makes it difficult to control the outcome of the event; since castle-enclosed player-run events can exclude people, those who do participate are more apt to "play by the rules".
- For a player (or players) to run this kind of event, it takes a TON of organization and work (providing gates, res stations, facilities, etc) and a lot of that could be automated. I've hosted a few events, and it's a LOT of work. I know Flea organized a CTF, and I'm sure he'd agree that it'd be nice if a lot of the details were automated.
- I must defer to the experts, but I can only imagine that the fundamentals of these non-trammie events would not be very difficult to put together / automate (especially in comparison to the trammel events that formerly inhabited (infested, according to some) the shard). The players would create the challenge for each other.
- Probably because of the grief potential, but I must defer this question to the staff. I don't think grief potential is a good reason NOT to have these kinds of events (because in general, it would mean that all player run events should also not occur).
- Don't player run events take away from field PvP?... OH NOES! Must... stop... all player run... events immediately! (don't worry, explosives will be used en masse)
- If these automated events take place in a field (e.g. "green acres"), then this will almost certainly INCREASE field PvP... hah! You get it? I thought it was kind of punny...