Well, I was present at the inauguration event for the Dark Rot. I have to say, it was well planned (or at least seemed like it) and well executed. A lot of this negativity doesn't come from the event itself, or even the disease itself. I'd be willing to wager that a lot comes from the undefined amount of time we now have to live with it. A lot could be avoided in future events by planning for a way to inform people when the next stage of the event will occur, and being sure that the last stage is ready to be pushed out the door before the first stage is ran.
I'm really trying hard not to step on the toes of the Devs who obviously put significant work into setting this scenario up, so please take this as constructive criticism. This is not saying your work was flawed, or that I don't appreciate it. Once again, I enjoyed the event as it was running. I'm simply suggesting a way it might be improved on.
Obviously someone started kicking this idea around, about the event and plague and all, and the Dev's developed it in a general way. They worked out the details of the first event, and implemented them. When they had enough people available to control the event, they ran it. They know what the next step is, and right now are scrambling to write it, detail it, debug it, and set up a time to play it out. Perhaps things would have been smoother and much negativity avoided if the Hierophant and the new zones that I assume come with him were the first things developed. Then comes the way to get there. Then plan the events backwards from completion to start. This way the next event is ready to fire as soon as the previous event is done. Atm we're all just kind of sitting on our hands, staring at the disease Icon.
A difficulty that immediately comes to mind with this approach is the time required from the GMs to monitor the event's progress and respond accordingly when interactivity is required. I propose implementing everything from start to finish in one patch, but requiring GM action to 'open the door' to the next stage of the event. For example, at the end of the event that started this, Healer Vogir could have been immediately activated, giving the players some time (and reason) to scramble the resources together to try to contain the disease before it got out of control. Activating the healer after a vast majority of players got infected was pointless for containing the disease in a RP sense. It did however stop the disease-hate that was springing up all over the place for a while, causing people who were at the event to not be able to group. (I got the feeling this was a band-aid, other people probably did too).
At this time, the portal and a helpful wizard NPC who noticed it appear, would be waiting to be discovered somewhere. When he is discovered, he tells the players (pre-scripted, not GM interactive) that he believes it could be opened with a key that requires 8 parts to be retrieved for him. Each part is in a different dungeon, as a ground spawn. The players can then go raid these dungeons to retrieve these parts. During all this player-action time, the GMs can be sleeping, or playing different games, otherwise getting some R&R. When all the pieces are retrieved, the wizard guy replies with the prescripted comment, "All the parts of the key are gathered, I'll get to work on re-assembling them." The GMs periodically check to see if the wizard is working on the key. If the key is being assembled the GMs get the actors required for stage 2 brought up to speed on whats happening in the next event. That night, the wizard announces he has successfully opened the portal, and the next player interaction event begins. Each 'Stage' should be limited to 3 - 5 hours of gm time, with 1 - 2 days of player-gather-quest time in between. This way players are never left with nothing to do, and the "What can I DO about this" never sets in.
It's all about the Illusion of control being in the players hands. They FEEL like the are in complete control over when the next event occurs, when in fact the time required has been carefully balanced before hand, and all the events are scripted.
I think at this point in the story, with everything thats already happened, there isn't a whole lot to do but go with the flow. Whether as a Dev, GM, or Player. Devs can't plan the whole event and leave the players waiting all that time with the disease, it needs to be brought to a closing point. Players can't do anything till the Devs push out the next step, and GMs can't do anything but try to keep the peace. This thread was inevitable as soon as the disease was unleashed, but no one saw it till it was already happening.
