Your favorite pre-event??

I bet this thread will be entirely "OH AHN'QIRAJ WAS GREAT" or "WRATH OMG WE WERE ZOMBIES <-- rehashed Naxx opening with extras".

I remember these events quite vividly, and I am personally very glad that I got to experience them, but I also remember that not everyone liked them.

The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj was an absolutely massive event, and it was tremendously awesome if you got to see it. It is totally understandable why so many have fond memories of this event, but it is important to remember that it wasn't peachy for everyone. This was a one-time event that was triggered by the player who held the Scepter of the Shifting Sands, so it was easy to miss out on it if you were not online when it triggered, or if you did not have a character of sufficient high level to go to Silithus. There were quite a few players who voiced their unhappiness about not getting to witness this event after having spent all that time gathering war supplies.

Furthermore, as you can maybe get from this video, an absolutely enormous number of players gathered in Silithus to witness the event. This unfortunately resulted in heavy lag for many players, and even realm crashes on some realms, which was obviously very frustrating to many as these things interrupted the fun.

The Zombie Infestation event was much more widely available to players as it was not restricted to high level players only. Since it was also spread out throughout the world of Azeroth over an extended period of time, the chance of missing out on this event was slim to none, which was appreciated by many for sure. This event is remembered fondly, but again it wasn't peachy for everyone.

Many people were very annoyed that they frequently got interrupted while being in the middle of doing things, and those people who did not have much time to play in general found that they had a hard time completing their usual daily routines within their established and regular time frames, so they were extra frustrated that they could not opt out of the event.

18/09/2012 07:31Posted by Mertie

The Demon invasion prior to The Burning Crusade was best. Demon's laying siege to the city? Holding the line against invaders? Now that was an event. I didn't even know it was coming, and when Kruul turned up at stormwind?

That one was my personal favourite as well... although I also really liked the Cataclysm pre-launch events :-)

18/09/2012 08:59Posted by Undercroft

Pre-wrath zombie plague, hands down. It was so damn fun on an RP server. Pity an event like that will never happen again due to all the QQ it caused. The event was like marmite. Either loved it or hated it.

Nobody says that such an event can't happen again in the future, especially if there is a good reason lore-wise to do it, but it would most likely not happen in the exact same format as the Zombie infestation. There would need to be a way to minimise the griefing, which could for an example be done through safe zones, or some sort of immunity buff, or maybe even a way to opt out of the event altogether for those who are simply not interested in it, etc.