To start, I think it would be really nice if you collected feedback for events list these using the great survey page used to leave feedback on the forums, that worked really nicely.

• What did you like about Secrets of the Telvanni?
  I really liked that it was a fantastic way to gather motifs, furnishings and their blueprints. It was really nice to be able to get my hands on many of the furnishings and motifs that I hadn't yet collected. It was also really nice to get double rewards from the Sanity's Edge trial, too. I liked the holiday quest introduction that was separate from the daily turn-in. I liked the continuity it maintained even after completing a holiday quest each day. I feel like it was really nicely designed and a great way to celebrate the expansion and dive back in.
  
  I also really appreciated the doubled harvesting nodes throughout the region, and it being a place where boxes and pages could be gathered. I also really liked that pages could be transferred between my characters.
  
• Was there anything that was confusing or frustrating?
  I found that at the very end of the event I was forced to buy an item from the Impresario in order to collect my final ticket reward since I was holding 11 tickets already. I appreciate the system that helps prevent folks from missing out on tickets, but also being unable to collect them unless we spend as much, or more, than the tickets we'll earn that day was frustrating.
  
  The news article listing the Bastion Nymic motif, Kindred's Concord, as available from the boxes when it was not in fact available was probably the worst experience of this event. This is more of a criticism on the way the dev team communicates the availability of these styles in general, but the frustration and confusion was exacerbated by the fact that the item could be previewed in-game, and in-game it listed that Kindred's Concord was available in Bastion Nymics. This absolutely sucked. Bastion Nymics are difficult, and those first few days of the event crossing-fingers that one of the pages would show up in one of my boxes this time was really frustrating, especially after learning when the October showcase finally released that the style was not in fact yet available.
  
  It would be really helpful if the dev team could mark motif styles in that style's in-game tooltip whether or not they're actually available yet.
  
• Was there anything you wish was different?
  Coming up with some item to purchase that only costs a single ticket would alleviate the issue of being forced into spending as many or more tickets than you'd earn that day. It'd be nice if we could purchase furnishings related to Necrom, even if they were ones that also dropped from boxes for 1 ticket, or something similar.
  
  I think it would have been really cool if Kindred's Concord would have already been available during this event. It really feels like the content is being dragged out a little too far: go to the Bastion Nymic for Achievements, then the event, now the motif that's finally available. I enjoy the Bastion Nymics, but this feels like rewards are being withheld instead of being added to bring us back.
  
  It would have been a lot nicer if the dev team wanted to breathe more life into the Bastion Nymics by adding some sort of evergreen reward such as transmute crystals, or maybe a lead containing a furnishing or two that someone might want many of, or something.
  
• How did you feel about the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet, Nightmare Nest body and face markings, and Kelesan’ruhn house as the community event reward?
  I thought they were really nice. I think it would have been cool if Almalexia saw more love in this event, and I feel like one of these community event rewards would have been a great spot to make a nod to her existence. Almalexia got mentioned in the new deck in the area, but virtually (possibly?) no where else. I can't recall hearing her even mentioned at all in dialogue in the region (references to Almalexia and the boys, such as "The Three" don't count as references to Almalexia).
  
• What are your thoughts on the player voting through Tralise (to unlock the music box) or Yensa (to unlock the book furnishing)?
  When first announced, I thought the concept was novel, however in practice I didn't like it at all. There being a default option to placing a vote was not a valid way to conduct a real poll, and I didn't like a furnishing reward being tied to ideologically opposed characters. The default option being the far more reckless sister feels like there wasn't any real choice in the community helping contribute to the Telvanni's horrible reputation (which continues into Elder Scrolls games set in the chronological future). It just feels like a sort of gotcha that, like, "Things could have been different, but the Vestige/Fate's Chosen assisted Yensa!"
  
  I also was pretty dubious of the fact that pages could be sold to players, meaning people with excess gold and accounts could have more of an effect on the vote without investing their own time in gathering pages.
  
• Any additional thoughts?
  Telvanni culture in general is pretty wretched, from their self-importance to their continued slavery, and I appreciated that not having that be something we had to stomach being thrown in our faces during the event, I've definitely had my fill of the Telvanni and their slave-keeping friends.

What did you like about Secrets of the Telvanni?
As a housing fan, I am most excited about anything housing-related at events. It's great when furniture drops with the event boxes and we get a house as the main reward.

Was there anything that was confusing or frustrating?
I thought that with the event, as more people do Bastion Nymic, it will be easier to meet other players waiting at an entrance. But every time I passed the entrance that I have a quest open for, there was no one there. But maybe I also played at the "unfavorable" times, I don’t know. But here I have to say in general that Bastion Nymic is not content that I like. I don't like forced group play and especially not with random people.

Was there anything you wish was different?
It's always a bit annoying when you only get the event tickets from one source, in this case from a daily. After a week it's already so boring being forced to do the same dailies over and over again. You do them so often that in the end you can't see them anymore...

How did you feel about the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet, Nightmare Nest body and face markings, and Kelesan’ruhn house as the community event reward?
I was extremely happy with the house. In 2021 and 2022 I was really disappointed that there was no house with the chapter event (but the free DLC instead) and also no house from the chapter in 2022 in general. In 2021 we were at least able to collect the Doomchar Plateau from the event tickets, but in 2022 there was no house at all.

What are your thoughts on the player voting through Tralise (to unlock the music box) or Yensa (to unlock the book furnishing)?
It should have been clearer what you were actually voting for when you choose one of the two sisters.

Any additional thoughts?
The event was fun, thank you!

What did you like about Secrets of the Telvanni?
- New land, different environs

Was there anything that was confusing or frustrating?
- The 3-bar Seekers who roam the land. I thought they were world bosses at first, but they roam. (map thing, not really event)
- The voting was off. The player did not really get much choice, not truly.

Was there anything you wish was different?
- At first, the dailies were interesting. Then they simply became monotonous and tedious. It's the same with all the map dailies, to be honest.

How did you feel about the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet, Nightmare Nest body and face markings, and Kelesan’ruhn house as the community event reward?
- The pet is ok, just another pet I won't ever use. The markings are horrible looking. The house is ........ interesting.

What are your thoughts on the player voting through Tralise (to unlock the music box) or Yensa (to unlock the book furnishing)?
- Horrible idea

What did you like about Secrets of the Telvanni?

1. It was actually a pretty good client stress test and, after recently going up to 1440p on a test rig situated in redesigned network and power infrastructure, stress tests were definitely on the cards.
2. I especially liked that you provided an alternative way to obtain herald seeker ichor if you couldn't find a group to hunt for the world boss herald seekers in a timely manner. And those little herald seekers did the job nicely even if you had to hunt quite a few of them for each bottle.
3. Offering a variety of rewards was a nice touch because not everyone wants the same things

_

Was there anything that was confusing or frustrating?

Uhm, the title. I'll deal with that last...

1. It's Always On the Developer to Ensure That Video Game Rules are Defined Solely by the Game's Mechanics
This is the same as the author responsibility for the clarity of his or her expression because it is not the responsibility of the reader to read the author's mind and neither is it the responsibility of the user to guess or even look outside the game to speculate on the developer's intent. People who are not developers or testers who go the extra mile of reading the manual, along with folks like those of us posting here, are a freebie.

User interaction with your site, your forums and social media is a form of charity and not to be expected from the rank & file who've already put in their day's work and deserve to be able to enjoy your game without having to put in yet more work to work around all which you have left unfinished.

The most egregious blunder in the event's design was having to consult the event web page (i.e. OUTSIDE the game environment) to understand what was happening, how many missions were running, which were dailies, etc. All that should have been made clear in the introductory mission (the one brokered at the ritual circle). For someone who is just trying to relax after a long hard day at work, this is a complete waste of time and it is not surprising when your game loses their attention as a consequence of failing to ensure that everything the player needs to know is available in the proper context within the game environment.

2. Never move a daily mission broker from the initial location of contact without a mission that shows the player to the new location of the broker.
Initially positioning the "Mouth" at the ritual circle (when he was given a mission marker) then moving him, unannounced, to the Impressario camp (and he no longer had a mission marker when you went back the next day to find him) made it impossible to find the guy except by complete accident or asking another player. He should have been placed initially at the Impressario camp from the very beginning so that the player would be led, by that initial mission marker (to find him), to the Impressario Camp and subsequently know where to find him.

In demonstration of point #1 (above) I'm going to hazard a guess that the Mouth was placed at the ritual circle to facilitate cheaper in-house alpha testing then the build got promoted from alpha to beta testing before the responsible supervisor had signed off against pre-beta requirements (such as moving assets to the right place and closing all the gates that are supposed to be closed on gated items that needed to be balanced in alpha, etc.). This leads me to my next bit of feedback:

3. You need to run a checklist when moving assets to facilitate cheaper, faster QA
So if my guess doesn't demonstrate my first point by being totally, off the planet, wrong; then my feedback on this is that you may need better internal communication because the responsible supervisor either didn't do his or her job or wasn't consulted before the final alpha build got promoted to beta.

4. A title must always accurately sum up the applicable work without exaggerating anything; especially scope.
A title like "Secrets of the Telvanni", for example, is only suitable for a deep, broadly branched mission chain where existing questions about the Telvanni (and your lore team needs to have already done the ground work in the rest of the game regions to pull this off) get some hands-on answers (i.e. in the form of e.g. physical evidence; not just more "trust me" lines from book and scroll authors); and answers which do not always conform with the opinions of in-game experts (e.g. coming via books, scrolls, etc.) in addition to the possibility of raising new questions revolving around the mystery of currently emerging Telvanni shenanigans and culminating in any one of a dozen outcomes; all with predictable consequences and rewards. It communicates the sort of mission chain which would play out over a quarter as part of a significant event which gradually transforms the in-game region over the course of the event. There are also major events (I forget whether it's Eve or Elite Dangerous where these happen) where a war starts in a region and transforms that region, or the theatre of battle moves or expands from one region into and transforming another; possibly with the introduction of a new antagonist+enemy and where it comes down to the players to engage at the new front and push it back over the course of three to six months in a campaign of mission chains offering a variety of activities which make strategic and tactical sense (no mindless, idiotic charge of the light brigade). In the most extreme form, you may see a fighting retreat which bottoms out in asymetric warfare against total regional occupation before a weakness is found (usually logistics but a a clear advantage in communications turnaround will do the trick as well as the knowledge of how to gain the maximum advantage from new weapons technology - so there is room for just a tiny bit of creativity, here) - and congrats! You've just scarred your playerbase for life! Seriously, events like that are unforgettable - even for people who don't play the game and hear about it third or fourth hand. The idea is to only temporarily upend a playspace before allowing players to engage in activities which make them feel like they've played a significant and bespoke role, as themselves, in regaining that space (not just being the 3,194,208th 'Vestige').

This is just to give you an idea of how much potential for scope there is in an MMO event...so you have to be careful of titles with the potential to exaggerate the scope and cause a chunk of your playerbase to become jaded because jaded players are the first to wake up to the sense of gameplay being more like gamework and that's when your game loses their attention and, ultimately, participation.

To sum up, the title "Secrets of the Telvanni" is not appropriate for the kind of stand-alone missions that constitute starters, introductory missions or daily missions - and, given the relatively short duration of the event, there is no room for mission chains, here. The problem with a title like that is that it identifies quite clearly as conforming to mystery genre characteristics which are not possible in a short event. "Curse of the Locked Book" would have been more appropriate because it would have been a lot less confusing because the subject and object are more tangible and limited in scope than things like "secrets" and a generalisation spanning a whole people in the form of the word "Telvanni".

_

Was there anything you wish was different?

This is hard because I've trained myself not to dwell on regrets. However, if I really push hard to break my own rules:

1. More effective in-game notification of the event (not through the crown storefront)
2. Consistent mission broker start locations
3. Title written by someone ranked in the top 0.001% for English vocabulary, 100% English fluency, and sufficient grammar to fully understand the use case difference between the comma, the semicolon and the colon and where they fit in and around the subordinate clause (and who probably has autism) - because you need someone with advanced language skills just to reduce 6000 words to a 250 word abstract - never mind communicate an MMO event in the eight words or less that make up an effective title.

_

How did you feel about the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet, Nightmare Nest body and face markings, and Kelesan’ruhn house as the community event reward?

Well, this stuff's diverse. I'm sure some people liked the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet (neutral for me), and others liked the Nightmare Nest body and face markings (not my thing at this stage) but I definitely liked the Kelesan’ruhn house which I feel was complimented nicely by either of the Yensa/Tralise rewards on offer.

While I like the way that furniture loot drops complimented the Kelesan’ruhn house reward, quite nicely, I did notice the lack of clothing and armour to compliment the work you've put into the Nightmare Nest body markings and it has been observed, in the past, that there are still too few clothing options which really compliment the variety of body markings you've invested in making available to the playerbase.

_

What are your thoughts on the player voting through Tralise (to unlock the music box) or Yensa (to unlock the book furnishing)?

Quite a few, actually.

Firstly: whenever you implement a subtle voting system (the choice to give pages to Tralise or Yensa) it's better to keep it to a choice and leave the word "voting" out of it; even in external documentation and discussions such as this. Also, when taking this approach, it's more appropriate to make both rewards available and offer both of them on the basis of what the player chooses most often. So, if player A sends 34 pages to Yensa and 33 pages to Trelise, he or she is awarded the item that comes with the choice of Yensa; meanwhile, player B sends all 79 pages to Tralise and he or she is awarded the item that comes with the choice of Tralise. That way everyone gets what they want.

However, it muddies the waters to make the rewards contingent on expressing a opinion or political view - in this case regarding the control of what are socially perceived to be "dangerous" items or knowledge. It's a real can of worms which runs the gamut from what it means to be an adult to how property ownership underpins technological progress by making the investment of energy in innovation worthwhile for the innovator. Anything that limits this in a small way has rather large consequences (e.g. compare human civilisation with chimpanzee civilisation) and so people who've thought this through will be compelled to express something that isn't necessarily compatible with the reward they actually want otherwise they must sacrifice their in-game expression for the reward they want. Either way, every person in that position is going to feel shortchanged. For this reason, the reward should have been a separate question and not tied to a highly contentious political issue. While I understand the correspondence of reward symbolism with the corresponding political position, the symbolic affirmation of a point of view is not what everyone or even most people will want from a reward. So choice of reward and expression of point of view (i.e. through facilitation of the corresponding sister) should have been kept totally separate.

Secondly: Voting, per se, is for when a major direction in the game's future development is being tailored to your existing customer base (i.e. the current playerbase) where it simply isn't practical or viable to "do both" even in the sense of doing "this" for the players who want "this" and doing "that" for the players who want "that". A good example was when Cloud Imperium Games were testing the water to see if the playerbase actually wanted a space age world completely devoid of sentient AI - and in the game's lore to date, sentient AI had been weighed, measured and banned. However, forum discussion showed that perceptions and interests weren't so cut and dried. So there was a question hanging over the design direction as to whether this direction would really be a better fit for player expectations or if it might contribute constructively to player experience if sentient AI played a slightly more prominent role. Instead of putting it to a vote, outside the game's lore, CIG had their lore team set up a Prime Citizen election with a selection of likely political peacock's in the running - all with different policies and varying views on the subject of reopening research into sentient AI. Although the voting was conducted outside the game-world, it was still well-contextualised within the game's lore framework and able to indicate a change in design direction without having to retcon anything or neglect what players wanted to get out of their in-game experience. And it did all this while yielding reliable information on which design direction would be most engaging for players - which is what voting mechanics are for.

That said, if you want more detail or some links to the specific pages, PM/DM me and I'll dig up the details for you. This is all public material.

Something to keep in mind is that whenever you introduce "voting" into a game, you open the door on politics - which is a bad thing for a game as most of us are trying to get away from politics (which includes religion), when we play a game. So, if you're going to pull off a voting event successfully, you have to have a lore team with good writers who can fill the political space with the right political noises by parodying how the various sides of politics argue referendum question without allowing it to become abusive or coercive beyond what is normally meted out and dealt back in PvE combat....loads of catharsis opportunities there.

As I pointed out, however, voting is a difficult mechanic to pull off, designwise, and the effort required to get it right is ultimately wasted if it's on anything less than a major design question which stands to inform future design and production direction.

_

Any additional thoughts?

Many.

When I notice that one concerns the recent Secrets of Telvanni event, I'll add it here....

I liked it, how busy it was and especially the double harvesting nodes and the reward boxes. I appreciate the house, pet, and markings.

Regarding the music box and the book, that could be improved. Did we get the book because of:

• easy-peasy click-through
• with or without knowledge of the book, players had researched and preferred that sister
• player knew about the book from the off-game announcements and made the selection on purpose.

In other wonderments: How many licks does it take to get to the center of the tootsie pop?

It would have been nice to have the things we were voting for, out beside their names... like Joe (Music box), Dan (Tome). Also would be nice to have a confirmation popup once you selected a option, that we couldn't smash thru, and you had to actually click on, or have the options rotate, so the same option isn't at the top that ppl can smash thu.

Obviously, one would like everything earned for free, so there is no question about the rewards. They are all great and welcome. The drop rates also felt decent for just about anything during the event - pages for the new quest included ( also available and outside the quest - but then one ought to play the game a little in order to figure that out - so hit and goers would end up on the whining side of things). I adored that there were so many furniture drops through the boxes, but none of them listed at the impressario - made the surprise all the more sweeter! And of course great help towards the new house (which was the big highlight of the rewards! Keep that up!) - and of course, the pet and the markings felt a bit like a monthly reward but still nice and welcome, a bit like two months in a go for that matter! I also liked the choice - hard one!

But talking about new things, the entire choice was utterly confusing in the beginning, and I found myself re-reading the quest multiple times and trying to find hints about the sisters, as to which one's giving what exactly? Sure there was this beautiful backstory depicting each sister's personality type, but I did not find that much hinting on their rewards. I mean for all I care I almost voted for Tralise, although I knew from the start that I wanted the book, only and only because I thought - well she is more introverted, guess she's gonna be the one into reading more!? So perhaps adding obvious words like "book" or "music" even as hints into these short stories would help. The fact that although checking the event page on the first day despite what was stated on the first page upon clicking on each picture their names were inverted did not help a single bit. Also the npc's change of place after the first delivery was nowhere hinted at, and I found myself going to the original event quest giver and looking for the guy in vain, thus loosing actually one day of voting - and I have only found him by the impressario tent in Necrom because I needed to grow my horse on my new arcanist, but of a truth I stick to base-game impressario tents, and if it weren't for that instance I would have never found him as I never go in newer zones setups of this sort. Nothing warned me that it'll be a change of scene.

Overall the choice in itself was of course very different from other years, and wonderfully intriguing, seeing that both are highly desirable rewards and the fact that it leaves a sweet-bitter taste afterwards I also liked. Very much unlike ordinary events! (sweet for the earned book in this case, bitter for the music-box loss). I confess I like this level of intrigue much much more than a benevolent surprise of "Here have it all and be happy everyone!" in the end. I daresay if such a surprise would have come at the end I'd have been much less impressed by it all. So KEEP the hard choices!

Now if I were to have any additional thoughts on it all - I will start with the actual rewards-collecting moment. I missed this year the whole opening of box within box within box thing. And of a truth, this is the beauty ( for me) of any such things - opening boxes! I also missed the extra attuning crafting stations given each year at such events among the rewards - and even the "trash" mats and bits and rests of ordinary things, when piled up in boxes like that have an extra appeal about them, so don't loose that in the future, please. Also if possible in the future please make it more clear about npc changes of location (perhaps plant them at every impressario tent in game!?) and add some more obvious hints on potential reward choices. I also agree with what someone wrote about the choices - swap them some time so the ones just clicking around and always choosing 1st will mingle with those truly voting. Should make things more interesting in the future! I do not agree with the idea of a third choice- neutral. I figure most will just choose that, cause it's easiest, and we'll up getting nothing if we were to be left to our own devices. So not that, ty. Other than that, I think it was a successful event crowning a successful chapter, for which the whole team deserves genuine congratulations - and may the future be equally inviting!

[*] What did you like about Secrets of the Telvanni?

It was nice to see the area crowded with other players for a change. I like the furnishing and furnishing recipes that I got. Increased resources from nodes was good too. I was also able to fill out my sticker book for the zone sets because of the extra drops.

[*] Was there anything that was confusing or frustrating?

Yes, the initial quest was confusing, with two tasks, one of which, the BN, proved to be ignorable, although it took me a while to figure that out (I play solo, and trying to solo the BN didn’t go so well!). It was also frustrating on day 1 when absolutely nothing I did resulted in any gold pages for the daily quest. On day 2, I figured out that resource nodes were the best source of these…but everybody else figured that out too, so the node battle got a bit brutal out there.

I did a world boss quest every day for the tickets (on 3 accounts) and gathered resources for pages for the daily. I did a few delve quests, too, but killing WBs was much faster. Never did the group BN thing.

[*] Was there anything you wish was different?

Sure. I wish everything in this game were soloable. Or that we had useful AI companions with whom to construct our own teams for harder content.

[*] How did you feel about the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet, Nightmare Nest body and face markings, and Kelesan’ruhn house as the community event reward?

Don’t care about the pet or the markings, but love the house. Thank you for that!

[*] What are your thoughts on the player voting through Tralise (to unlock the music box) or Yensa (to unlock the book furnishing)?

Given that one third of the players, at least, were disappointed with the outcome, I thought it was a bad idea that shouldn’t be repeated unless you give out both rewards at the end.


I generally like events, and this one turned out to be pretty good.