Murkmire Celebration event - more information ("Return to Murkmire")

Thokri

25th I think.

Bit weird timing for event with huge patch middle of it.

DragonRacer

thissocalledflower wrote: »

so when do we d/l the update?

PC's Update 25 is scheduled for Monday, February 24th, so... right smack dab in the middle of this event.

Console's Update 25 is Tuesday, March 10th.

January1171

It bothers me that these events and announcements are becoming much more vague/confusing.

The way that I see it there are two explanations.

1) Whoever is designing these events/writing the articles obviously has knowledge about what the event entails. They are writing the announcements with that prior knowledge, without realizing it's unclear to players without that knowledge. They're not considering what the player might be unsure about and because of that bias the announcement is unclear.

2) They're being intentionally confusing and vague due to a higher up decision.

Either way they're not communicating well, and it's an issue.

Nic727

I find it stupid to make an event where you need to pay to get access to if you have the dlc.

Jenzi

Yet another event description that is confusing. Can ZOS get someone who at least plays the game to write these things? Every event it’s the same thing, the community needs clarification on a number of points.

“ You can gain Murkmire Strongboxes once per day (with a small chance of grabbing additional ones as drops).”

Is that one strongbox per account per day or per character?

“During the event, the zone’s monsters and boss monsters each have a chance to drop Event Tickets. You can earn up to three tickets per day this way—up to 39 tickets total. Don’t forget to loot everything!“

A ‘chance’ to drop? ‘up to’ three tickets? Is it worded this poorly on purpose? Do we get all three tickets at once? Are the event tickets not guaranteed?

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Pyr0xyrecuprotite

Nic727 wrote: »

I find it stupid to make an event where you need to pay to get access to if you have the dlc.

@Nic727 Huh? Edit/reword or clarify your point please? If you already have the Murkmire DLC (or ESO+), you don't need to pay anything extra to access the event. (Note that most players who were playing 15 months ago got the Murkmire DLC for free, as part of November 2018 daily login rewards.) Also, the current history of the ESO special events is that there are ALWAYS a few events each year that require DLC or chapter ownership to participate in. (Some events don't require any DLC, e.g. the upcoming Jester's Festival).

Pyr0xyrecuprotite

@Jenzi I can answer how this will most likely work, based on previous ingame events:

Jenzi wrote: »

Yet another event description that is confusing. Can ZOS get someone who at least plays the game to write these things? Every event it’s the same thing, the community needs clarification on a number of points.

“ You can gain Murkmire Strongboxes once per day (with a small chance of grabbing additional ones as drops).”

Is that one strongbox per account per day or per character?

(My educated guess:) per account, most likely. That is, loot anything in Murkmire and you will immediately get your first strongbox of the day. All other activities (in Murkmire) that same day have a small chance of dropping another strongbox, whether on the same toon or another, with a daily reset at 2am EST. Worth testing when the event comes out though, if you have more than one character. Given that the strongboxes are the primary source of memento fragments, my assumption is that ZoS is making it easy to get ONE per day, but anything further will require a lot more time spent in the zone. There are enough event tickets available that you can trade partial collections of mementos of one type to get a full set of the other, and buy your missing collectible with event tickets.

Jenzi wrote: »

“During the event, the zone’s monsters and boss monsters each have a chance to drop Event Tickets. You can earn up to three tickets per day this way—up to 39 tickets total. Don’t forget to loot everything!“

A ‘chance’ to drop? ‘up to’ three tickets? Is it worded this poorly on purpose? Do we get all three tickets at once? Are the event tickets not guaranteed?

You get up to three tickets, all at once (from looting the first mob killed each day in Murkmire). Here's the reason for the "up to" caveat: if you have 10 or more event tickets in inventory, you will only get as many tickets as you can still acquire, up to the maximum of 12 in inventory. So, if you have 11 in inventory and head into Murkmire, you will get 1 ticket (or zero, if you forget to loot the first mob you kill). So, remember to check your currency tab first, before you head into Murkmire, and visit the Impressario if you have 10 or more tickets.

Jenzi

@Pyr0xyrecuprotite Thats how I think it will be too, it’s just a shame ZOS can’t state it clearly in the first place.

tim99

Budaru wrote: »

It might just be that I came from SWTOR, a bottom of the barrel, money hungry mmo with no good content, but to think that people are actually complaining about events and content being given constantly is.. eye rolling. Be appreciative of them rolling out content and events, because they could easily resort to what SWTOR has done, and made all raids useless, PvP worthless, and access to any sort of basic function of the MMO including Sprint, hidden behind a pay wall. Thank you @ZOS for constantly bringing new things to the table and giving us events that you spent hours out of your collective days to produce.

despite all my ranting, i agree 100%.
some things could be better (a cyro based on skill and not gear), some things could be much better (housing limit ^^) but it's still the best game. For over 6 years now....
And i love events... (just not a really rare drop rate in a limited time motif *wink IC wink*)

January1171

Looks like you get three tickets at once, but it's rng based

ZOS_SarahHecker wrote: »

Hey all, just to clarify a few points on Event Tickets before the start of the event:

All three tickets drop at once (rather than one at a time.) Even though there is only a chance for them to drop, that chance is quite high for basic enemies and even higher for World & Delve Bosses. That being said, you might want to turn on auto loot before the event to make sure you're grabbing everything.

MEBengalsFan2001

This is the type of info that should be in game that pops up when you log into the game when the event start. That notice should have a do not sow me again feature and is applied by account and not character.

Pyr0xyrecuprotite

Other than the announcements, ESO website, and the link on the launcher, you can usually also find information about current special events ingame:

• by speaking to the impressario's assistant (general overview of the event only)
• from the ingame help - press F1 if you are on PC, and navigate down to events. The details provided there might not match up exactly with the main website announcement though, there can be small changes between the original event design and when it goes live.

These ingame sources are not always very GOOD, but many people don't know about them at all - it's worth checking them out.

Jenzi

January1171 wrote: »

Looks like you get three tickets at once, but it's rng based

ZOS_SarahHecker wrote: »

Hey all, just to clarify a few points on Event Tickets before the start of the event:

All three tickets drop at once (rather than one at a time.) Even though there is only a chance for them to drop, that chance is quite high for basic enemies and even higher for World & Delve Bosses. That being said, you might want to turn on auto loot before the event to make sure you're grabbing everything.

So for the first time the tickets are now rng based instead of a guaranteed drop. What could be the reason for this change except to sell more tickets to people with little time. Pathetic.

ZOS_GregoryV

Greetings all,

After removing and editing a few posts, we would like to remind everyone that Baiting is a violation of the rules that we have in place. Bashing is defined by our rules as such:

Bashing and Slanderous Comments: We do not permit the bashing of individuals (including ZeniMax employees), groups, or other companies on our forums. We believe that doing so is neither constructive nor in spirit of our game and community.

When making posts/threads, we ask that they be kept within the guidelines of the rules. If there may be any questions in regards to the rules, please feel free to take a few moments to review them here.

Thank you for your understanding,
-Greg-

bossonova420

Thanks for the guide guys I learned a lot from it.

virtus753

Pyr0xyrecuprotite wrote: »

@Jenzi I can answer how this will most likely work, based on previous ingame events:

Jenzi wrote: »

Yet another event description that is confusing. Can ZOS get someone who at least plays the game to write these things? Every event it’s the same thing, the community needs clarification on a number of points.

“ You can gain Murkmire Strongboxes once per day (with a small chance of grabbing additional ones as drops).”

Is that one strongbox per account per day or per character?

(My educated guess:) per account, most likely. That is, loot anything in Murkmire and you will immediately get your first strongbox of the day. All other activities (in Murkmire) that same day have a small chance of dropping another strongbox, whether on the same toon or another, with a daily reset at 2am EST. Worth testing when the event comes out though, if you have more than one character. Given that the strongboxes are the primary source of memento fragments, my assumption is that ZoS is making it easy to get ONE per day, but anything further will require a lot more time spent in the zone. There are enough event tickets available that you can trade partial collections of mementos of one type to get a full set of the other, and buy your missing collectible with event tickets.

Jenzi wrote: »

“During the event, the zone’s monsters and boss monsters each have a chance to drop Event Tickets. You can earn up to three tickets per day this way—up to 39 tickets total. Don’t forget to loot everything!“

A ‘chance’ to drop? ‘up to’ three tickets? Is it worded this poorly on purpose? Do we get all three tickets at once? Are the event tickets not guaranteed?

You get up to three tickets, all at once (from looting the first mob killed each day in Murkmire). Here's the reason for the "up to" caveat: if you have 10 or more event tickets in inventory, you will only get as many tickets as you can still acquire, up to the maximum of 12 in inventory. So, if you have 11 in inventory and head into Murkmire, you will get 1 ticket (or zero, if you forget to loot the first mob you kill). So, remember to check your currency tab first, before you head into Murkmire, and visit the Impressario if you have 10 or more tickets.

If ZOS meant to say the tickets are meant to drop from the first mob or boss killed, as has been the case in some past events, they not only said it inaccurately but said it so inaccurately they in fact said the opposite of what they meant. I agree that “up to” is there to cover for people who lose tickets because they’re near or at cap, but there is nothing in the text to suggest the first mob/boss of the day will definitely drop tickets if you’re not at cap.

I understand that we are used to “drops on first [insert qualification here] of the day,” but there is — for the first time — no guarantee of this in the text on the event page. Given what’s there, I don’t believe it’s safe to assume they misspoke (miswrote?). They really need to fix their text if they didn’t mean it as written.

Elsonso

virtus753 wrote: »

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Quoted post has been removed.

It's generally 24-to-48 hours before the event, yeah. And there's nothing "lately" about it; that's how it's been for quite a long time.

How anyone is even capable of thinking that's a reasonable amount of notice completely eludes me, but there it is.

I liked the part where they told us in advance all the dates for the four events in Q4 2018. Can we go back to that? Much better than the typical 1-2 day routine they did before and have now picked up again.

I wish they would schedule the entire year in January and publish it. I want to know when all of the events start for the entire year. On a calendar.

virtus753

Elsonso wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Quoted post has been removed.

It's generally 24-to-48 hours before the event, yeah. And there's nothing "lately" about it; that's how it's been for quite a long time.

How anyone is even capable of thinking that's a reasonable amount of notice completely eludes me, but there it is.

I liked the part where they told us in advance all the dates for the four events in Q4 2018. Can we go back to that? Much better than the typical 1-2 day routine they did before and have now picked up again.

I wish they would schedule the entire year in January and publish it. I want to know when all of the events start for the entire year. On a calendar.

That would be great. The realist in me says they don't want to commit or tip their hand that far in advance...

Pyr0xyrecuprotite

virtus753 wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Quoted post has been removed.

It's generally 24-to-48 hours before the event, yeah. And there's nothing "lately" about it; that's how it's been for quite a long time.

How anyone is even capable of thinking that's a reasonable amount of notice completely eludes me, but there it is.

I liked the part where they told us in advance all the dates for the four events in Q4 2018. Can we go back to that? Much better than the typical 1-2 day routine they did before and have now picked up again.

I wish they would schedule the entire year in January and publish it. I want to know when all of the events start for the entire year. On a calendar.

That would be great. The realist in me says they don't want to commit or tip their hand that far in advance...

I'm pretty sure that ZoS have a rough plan of which events are going to happen when. The big problem is that it's very easy for schedules to be thrown off by other events, e.g. the Groupfinder problems (most of last year), so there's no point in publishing a calendar of events which is going to change several times along the way. Update 25 and to some extent 26 are major overhauls of the game client, and it's easy to imagine a LOT of new issues arising, which might force events to be rescheduled or cancelled. Likewise, software development is an inherently risky/challenging environment for project management. ZoS is trying to keep the player base engaged by adding new content every quarter. Special events are also part of that strategy, but we don't know their priority vs new content and bug fixing - events are probably fairly low down the priority list. Since we have several sources of change (i.e. potential for new bugs) on the ZoS side, event scheduling is probably kinda like trying to nail jello to the wall. I'm sure those internal meetings are "interesting", to say the least.

Mr_Walker

A chance to drop event tix eh.

These events have officially jumped the shark.

SeaGtGruff

I think people are overreacting to the wording, picking it apart and interpreting it in ways that weren't intended. But then, that's based on my interpretation, and I might be wrong, so what do I know?

virtus753

Pyr0xyrecuprotite wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Quoted post has been removed.

It's generally 24-to-48 hours before the event, yeah. And there's nothing "lately" about it; that's how it's been for quite a long time.

How anyone is even capable of thinking that's a reasonable amount of notice completely eludes me, but there it is.

I liked the part where they told us in advance all the dates for the four events in Q4 2018. Can we go back to that? Much better than the typical 1-2 day routine they did before and have now picked up again.

I wish they would schedule the entire year in January and publish it. I want to know when all of the events start for the entire year. On a calendar.

That would be great. The realist in me says they don't want to commit or tip their hand that far in advance...

I'm pretty sure that ZoS have a rough plan of which events are going to happen when. The big problem is that it's very easy for schedules to be thrown off by other events, e.g. the Groupfinder problems (most of last year), so there's no point in publishing a calendar of events which is going to change several times along the way. Update 25 and to some extent 26 are major overhauls of the game client, and it's easy to imagine a LOT of new issues arising, which might force events to be rescheduled or cancelled. Likewise, software development is an inherently risky/challenging environment for project management. ZoS is trying to keep the player base engaged by adding new content every quarter. Special events are also part of that strategy, but we don't know their priority vs new content and bug fixing - events are probably fairly low down the priority list. Since we have several sources of change (i.e. potential for new bugs) on the ZoS side, event scheduling is probably kinda like trying to nail jello to the wall. I'm sure those internal meetings are "interesting", to say the least.

I would give quite a bit to be a fly on the wall of those meetings, especially the triage ones. (Though a fly could not carry all the popcorn required.)

Things do change, and their reluctance to commit a year in advance is realistic. What’s not so realistic is keeping announcements within the 24-48 hour mark from the debut of an event. We did get slightly more notice than that this time (although we can certain question the wisdom of scheduling an event over the complete redownload for all PC/Mac users). I do think a quarter plan should not be too much to ask for, though. They did it for Q4 2018, after all, and they kind of half did it with Q4 last year. Based on the way they were phrasing things, it sounded like they had intentionally kept some events quiet so they could allude to an “as yet unannounced event in November” to generate some buzz when in the end it just turned out to be confusing. At this point it’s anyone’s guess when notice will be coming - 24 hours? A quarter? I sure don’t know.

Michae

Heh, I got surprised yesterday. I didn't catch the date the event starts and since they usually make post only a day before the event I went to Murkmire yesterday to kill a boss. ZOS, are you sure you want to give people a week of advance? What about using FOMO? ;P

Elsonso

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I think people are overreacting to the wording, picking it apart and interpreting it in ways that weren't intended. But then, that's based on my interpretation, and I might be wrong, so what do I know?

I think that people are correct with remarks about how the event tickets are RNG-based, now. I know that the percentages are going to be so high as to make no difference, most of the time, but there really is no worthy reason to put this behind an RNG. Just drop the event tickets and call it a day. Why complicate things?

zaria

One tips on PC-EU Monday the 24 is if you can do one kill in Murkmire for the tickets in the morning after daily quest reset but before server shutdown, this let you until next day to get up again.

virtus753

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I think people are overreacting to the wording, picking it apart and interpreting it in ways that weren't intended. But then, that's based on my interpretation, and I might be wrong, so what do I know?

Sarah Hecker has confirmed the wording is correct. There is only a chance of getting tickets from a mob or boss, no guarantees whether that’s your first or tenth or whatever. But chances are good from a mob, she said, and even higher from a boss.

Which raises the points Elsonso made.

I really can’t see the wisdom in it.

SeaGtGruff

Whether it's wise or unwise, if there truly are no guaranteed drops, then I imagine part of the intention might be to get people to play Murkmire more. I mean, during how many of these events did you go to the event zone, do the least amount of work as possible to earn your guaranteed tickets, and then leave the event zone rather than sticking around to continue playing in it?

virtus753

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Whether it's wise or unwise, if there truly are no guaranteed drops, then I imagine part of the intention might be to get people to play Murkmire more. I mean, during how many of these events did you go to the event zone, do the least amount of work as possible to earn your guaranteed tickets, and then leave the event zone rather than sticking around to continue playing in it?

If they do want to encourage more participation, this is not an efficient solution: the remedy is worse than the disease. As long as you micromanage carefully, guaranteed tickets are not usually an issue. If you are not at cap and you do the thing prescribed, you will know whether your tickets bug out and when to contact Support. So far that number has been relatively contained.

Now we have a situation where we don’t even know if we’re supposed to have gotten our tickets yet. That pushes the careful, systemic micromanaging based on guarantees into a paranoid constant checking of currently held tickets against yesterday’s total. If we don’t see them drop after a while, we will start to wonder if they dropped somewhere that we missed or if we just haven’t rolled for them yet.

Since it’s RNG-based, when should we be contacting Support if we don’t get them? I’m sure that answer will range depending on the person. As this is a new way of doing things, I imagine a lot of players will submit a ticket straightaway if they don’t get it from their first boss as they’re used to. Others might go the whole day until finally submitting one. Plenty will do so at some point in between.

I’ve seen some of Support’s answers about RNG-based things in this game. If it’s up to RNG rather than a guarantee, they’re entitled to use the excuse that it’s RNG and they’re not obligated to help. With a guarantee we can say we did the thing they told us to do, and no tickets dropped. Now we have to argue that we killed what seemed to be enough monsters but didn’t get tickets, and they can just as easily reply “it’s RNG-based, so keep playing and better luck next time!” I seriously hope this is not an excuse for that kind of response, but their track record is worrying.

Either way, this is going to lead to more (and purely needless) stress for us, not to mention more (needless) work for Support. When all that is eminently avoidable it seems like a terrible idea. Surely there are other, better ways to encourage more participation. If that’s their goal, putting former guarantees behind RNG says a ton about their ability to generate exciting content that serves as a carrot rather than a stick.

SeaGtGruff

Well, I said "I imagine" and "might be." Definitely totally speculative on my part.

Elsonso

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Whether it's wise or unwise, if there truly are no guaranteed drops, then I imagine part of the intention might be to get people to play Murkmire more. I mean, during how many of these events did you go to the event zone, do the least amount of work as possible to earn your guaranteed tickets, and then leave the event zone rather than sticking around to continue playing in it?

Since Murkmire does not have a lot of content, this makes it easier than standing with 50 people in one of the few delves. Overland mobs are more accessible, but are super easy. No, I am fairly sure that the RNG is just the knee-jerk reaction that game developers have against giving away rewards easy and free.