LAGWAR | PC GAMING'S BEST IN TOP NOTCH MEDIOCRITY

…no, wait…roll it back, its not ready yet.

I posted a “first review” of the Keg’s End live event on my guild site, you can read it here if you like.  You can even read others thoughts on the event here or here.  All mostly point towards the same conclusion: Too grindy.

I really thought with what we saw from the Heavy Metal event that Mythic was heading in the right direction with the live events. Most MMO players like fluff right? If not, WoW wouldn’t be at 11.5 million subscribers. But I thought Mythic was going to do WAR different. The team that brought us a game with crafting that was intended to be the equivalent to stamp collecting (interesting to some, but boring for most and will make very few any money). I thought they would leave most of the fluff out of the live events, or make the shiny things so easy to get that anyone could get on one night, get the tasks done, and go back to bustin’ heads in open RvR.

We saw with Witching Night that Mythic seemed to be putting the feelers out. Testing the live event waters if you will. Witching night had the standard WoW type fluff, but it also had rare world drops, and an elite reward that wasn’t worth getting (which is okay because it would take forever to get to). But, as most did, I forgave any indiscretions because it was the first live event, and VERY close after the games initial release.

They follow up with Heavy Metal. BIG improvement. Only problem that would arise would be with being able to complete some tasks due to them requiring you to be in the new “limited time only” scenario that everyone and there mum wants to participate in, even if not just for the live event. Standard fluff included in this event? Yes,….oh wait hang on,..the easily obtainable cape is worth having? Its got stats? Good stats??? Count me in! On top of items that were worth any effort, this live event was actually easy to complete (assuming you could get into Reikland to kill chickens and throw pies). This big difference was in how you accumulated influence. instead of chipping away at the bar like a diamond miner with a plastic spork, you got a large chunk of INF with every completed task. Plus, most of the tasks weren’t kill 100 of something and do this other mindless task for the next hour.

Now we have Keg’s End. When I got on the first night of the event and saw someone already had the the “Drunkard” title, I said to myself, “Hey, this must not be too hard.” Well, that person just had too much free time I suppose because once I witnessed how slow the Influence bar was moving I knew I would never cap it out. Not because it was impossible to do, just not worth my time. This event brings us the usual fluff. We can get a title unlocked at the first level of the Influenceometer. The second level gives you a beer stein trophy. It looks okay, and when they say its a full size beer stein, they mean it. Nothing says holiday depression better than a tankard of brew hanging from your shoulder (except maybe the Saint Bernard Whiskey Keg that the collectors edition dwarves have). Lastly, you can fill up that bar and get a recall item which takes you back to the tavern at the main city. Sounds good until you see that it has a limit of 15 charges. So it turns into a fire extinguisher, “in case of emergency, break glass and use the recall”, forever making you question whether to burn one of the charges or not.

The last available item is the Keg’s End Backpack. Hey! This item has stats! It replaces your cloak, but it looks cool! Oh happy day, Keg’s End is saved! Or not, for I have yet to see it drop, and I’ve only seen 3 people with one. And don’t even get Syp started about the drop rate. He was quoted as saying,

“You want to know how many explosive snotlings I’ve killed? Let’s just say I got a bestial trophy for killing snotlings (that’s 1,000 kills) two days ago. The UN has listed me as a war criminal for my attempts at genocide, that’s how many I’ve killed.”

So, seeing as the drop rate is junk, I don’t foresee myself getting the only worthwhile item from this whole event. I don’t have that kind of patience.

Bottom line, I want more Heavy Metal style events. Fluff is good, but only when its easily obtainable. I mean seriously, this event is called KEGS END, its supposed to be a party, and it makes me feel like restarting a prohibition.