The last night of the Elemental Invasions, and I couldn't be more relieved!
Don't get me wrong- I think that this event was a lot of fun, especially from the perspective of a dilligent RPer! It prompted a lot of RP on my server, and it was truly awe-inspiring to watch so many people from different walks of life (ICly), RP styles, and guilds all come together to fight back the elementals attacking Stormwind.
My paladin's guild, The White Sigil, is a fairly well-known humanitarian organization run by Marius, a character with a long established history first on Argent Dawn, and now on Wyrmrest Accord. For about eight months, now, I've been a part of this guild and my character has worked with other guild members to address issues impacting the people of Stormwind- things such as taking down villains, hunting down kidnapping victims, healing those in need, and providing public services and events.
Of course, the elemental invasions were a perfect event for The Sigil to sink its teeth into- from the start, Heliorn began to organize people to fight back the waves. He led the raids, including sending small forces out to start fighting in different districts and setting Ziichi in charge of the triage center. Things have been running like that ever since, although Heliorn hasn't always run all the waves, and the defenders are becoming IC and OOCly worn out on the event.
A week straight, and now we're lucky if we can muster the forces to clean out the city even during prime play hours.
The Positives
This event sparked a ton of role play between people who don't usually find a chance or reason to interact with one another. Personally, I've been feeling as if I come across as being clique-ish, because my character has become increasingly wary of strangers for very, very legitimate reasons. It's made it difficult to engage in role play with people my character doesn't already know- which is one thing I really hate, because the best thing about Wyrmrest Accord is the sheer number and diversity of role players to encounter.
The pacing of the event itself was very frantic, which made for very compelling battles! Running from district to district in a giant, steam-rolling mob with people throwing out battlecries? - Hell yes, please! Even sallying forth in a small strike force to obtain critical objectives, fighting against odds that seem insurmountable- it felt epic!
Now this one is more credited the people on Wyrmrest Accord and not so much to Blizz itself, but the setup of RP where there was always something to be done to help out during, after, and before the next wave hit. It was easy to log in and become involved in something; I say this as both a person who is actively involved with the people running it, and from the perspective of myself pulling people into RP activities. There was always something that needed to be done; I watched people go around asking if anyone needed help, and they'd usually get stuck doing something with a group of people. I found that I, myself, enjoyed coming up with invasion oriented tasks when people approached me ICly- I had people preparing stew, checking on the wounded, guarding the triage center... my character was assigned to lead a group in breaking down crates to try fortify the barricades, which didn't go so smoothly on account of her not being a carpenter, nor any of those she dragged along. It was immensely fun, and gave the opportunity to RP with so many different RPers- glorious!
The Negatives
... all that being said, this event became rather draining.
Which, honestly, is how a seige on a city ought to be. But after the fourth day or so, it became difficult to really want to log on. We were doing the same thing, over and over, with fewer and fewer people as (OOCly) people lost interest and (ICly) our resources became depleted and the injured/death lists began to grow exponentially.
As the non-RP crowd became bored of the event, even the RPers lost interest as well. Like I said, doing the same thing over and over gets old, even if it was really fun at first. As fewer people attended, the feeling became rather hopeless and despair-y. Which, again, is definitely fitting for the event- things are supposed to feel hopeless and despair-y! But it made it kind of a drag. You can only take high-intensity hopelessness for so long before it start to have an impact on you as a player, not just as a character.
The event made it impossible for those involved with the protection of Stormwind to role play anything other than the invasion. I suppose there could have been a way- but it wouldn't have been true to the character to do so. Maybe that's more of a personal problem, though I have a hard time imagining I was alone in that issue.
It's difficult to find light-hearted moments in which to relax and do friend-things when the city is under constant threat of being overrun by elementals.
The Sundering!
Still, with any luck, the big patch is dropping tomorrow- and I will admit to a little bit of poking around the PTR.
The changes to Stormwind alone make it absolutely amazing. So many little niches to RP in, so much more space to explore- everything is new and shiny! Everything has changed, and I can't wait to explore every nook and cranny!
Plus, there's the whole 'Death Wing revealed himself and took chunks out of our city' aspect, and the cessation of the Invasion to be replaced by the knowledge of imminent war after a long period of respite and peace.
Food for Thought?
How has your character handled the earthquakes?
What about the Invasion itself?
And more importantly-
What is going to happen when the world as we know it comes to an end??
"As fewer people attended, the feeling became rather hopeless and despair-y. Which, again, is definitely fitting for the event- things are supposed to feel hopeless and despair-y!"
ReplyDeleteSo, so true! I wish I'd had that sort of thinking at the time.
On SoE, I only participated in two of the raid groups to put down the invasions in the week it went on. Despite there being little to no RP involved in what we were doing, the sheer size of the groups was overwhelming. WoW has (in my opinion) always done a very good job at making these big events feel BIG, and give you the sense that your world is absolutely in dire need of heroes. And I won't lie - when I was in Ironforge for the very first invasion on our server (Shin and I just happened to come out of a random and right into invading elementals), I got some chills when Magni yelled out, "Don't stop fighting, Tzufit!"
One of my favorite memories is still launch day for Wrath, when I took my character to Borean Tundra and found myself fighting alongside a veritable army of other Alliance toons against the Scourge there. (Quite a different feeling from what it's like to level through the tundra now, I might add.)
All that being said, the elemental invasion DID feel tiring, and DID get old. Perhaps if there had been some additional phases to what was happening in that last week it would have been more interesting and less of a hassle. I found myself hanging around in Darnassus and the Exodar more than I have in ages. Regardless, I think we can at least agree that this event was less of a hassle than the Scourge invasion that preceded Wrath. In this case we had a way to get away from what was going on if we so chose, and weren't put in a situation where zombies were running as far as to Duskwood, Redridge, and other leveling areas to infect questgivers. Fun times. >.>