Christmas Event Over-populated

[hmtourniquet]

Warning: if you haven't played the Christmas Event of 2009, there are spoilers for it ahead.

 

I play Runescape on my lunch hour at work. I used to play it during free time and some late nights in college, but the latest I stay up anymore is around 10 pm. So, I have a small window with which to do whatever it is I feel like doing in Runescape each day. I pretty much have to do holiday events as soon as they come out, because I want to be sure to finish them before they expire. Also, I'm F2P, and always have been.

 

That being said, why the heck was the Christmas event filled with other people??? I went through the entire thing today, though just barely finished it in time to get back to work. I had a little bit of a problem with lag; that I can understand, though it was most certainly caused by the large amount of people all doing it at once. But the thing that annoyed me most was just trying to get started in the first place. I was supposed to talk to a snow imp. Well, guess what, there were at least 300 snow imps wandering around who were too busy to talk to me.

 

I wandered around the new area for a bit, and talked to the camel and the goblin generals. I was curious why the tent was empty aside from people and their imps. I finally got annoyed enough to try to ask people what to do, but no one offered advice to people asking for help in the feast area. Finally, someone who wasn't talking to me said something about the tent, so I investigated the tent again. I found Benny only by right-clicking on different places and talking to each snow imp that was there. My frustration was finally somewhat relieved.

 

Then, I went to Scourge's house. I talked to Santa, was warned about doing a bunch of stuff, and made my way around the bottom floor twice before I decided to check out the room with the couch and chairs a bit more. Again, someone randomly said to right-click in front of the couch, and I finally found Scourge buried under snow imps, and was able to advance the quest a bit. I found the items that Benny suggested rather easily, and wisely decided to keep everything I found.

 

Then, after doing the ghost thing, I went and talked to everyone around the edges of the feast tables. I found two partygoers, Tiny Thom, the goblins, the cook, and was stuck again. So, I decided to check out the tent again, and found the Snow Queen, again only by right-clicking the piles of people and imps. Quest is advanced again.

 

I figured out the rest of the quest on my own without too much trouble. I really want to say: why wasn't the entire quest open for me only? Jagex has made other holiday events which show only you on the map; thousands of other people may be in the same area as you are, but they each have their own "instance" of that area. If that had been the case, I would have only had frustration trying to figure out who to dump ice water on. As it was, I was very lucky to be able to guess or be told where to right-click to find the right people to talk to. I didn't even get to enjoy seeing the avatars of the snow queen or Scourge, since they were always covered by people and imps.

 

To be perfectly honest, it was one of the most frustrating holiday events I've played because of it. And I've played just about all events since September of 2005. Other events had more difficult puzzles, or more to do, but this one was frustrating because of something that I had no control over, and could not figure out based on logic.

 

The hordes of people and imps that blocked the people you need to talk to simply took the fun out of it.

[angel13]

I know how you feel, it took me at least 30 mins to find my imp and then scourge.

 

Although, I was on a p2p world. I can't imagine what it looked like on f2p. :ohnoes:

[Andariel]

Holiday events are getting more and more crowded as the runescape population is increasing and more and more are thirsty for the events.

Almost everyone was assigned with an imp , doubling the lag rate.

 

I was first on world 141 , many people used that world because of the clan wars minigame , so when the event was released , many

of them rushed to try out the event. I was like , omg , this place is flooded! . I then tried hopping to world 109 , one of the least populated servers.

But the event was still packed with players. So I had no choice but do deal with it.

 

What jagex should do is to add "smaller worlds" on every world , so instead of having only 1 place to do the event , we will have like 2 or 3 identical

places but at different areas , this way , it will cut the lag down and makes our life easier.

 

TBH , this event is far better than the rest of the other events , everyone used to rant alot about the events in 2006 - 2008 , now ,

a few of them are even giving good remarks about it.

[Peronix]

Yeah I would really have appreciated it if Jagex made some kind of instance system where players aren't totally alone but aren't thrusted into a crowd either. I've seen it with MMOs like city of heroes, where if one zone gets crowded another instance of that zone is created to reduce lag. Actually I wasn't lagging at all even with all the people, it was as you mentioned the piles and piles of imps and people that made finding out what to do difficult.

[Draconic]

Pros do it on PvP worlds, and smart pros do it on foreign ones.

[Kalafai]

Just be glad you didn't do it on F2P. I actually had to wait 12 mintues for there to just be few enough snow imps on him that I could right click my way to talking to him.

 

Was about to look up how to rotate my display so I could stretch the game the entire length of the wide screen monitor to get enough right click options to find him.

 

They could have at the very least instanced the imps themselves.

[Me_Hate_Libs]

The main issue was imp followers. We're used to lots of people. Not used to imps making clicking impossible.

[slickmovedud]

What i find funny is how people feel that they have to do the event the instance it comes out. You don't! I wait for about 2/3 days and then go do it. This way all the masses are gone and only you and a few other players (imagine cutting the Varrock Castle Yews on a f2p world). Less laggy and more fun to work with. Just what i do. :thumbup:

[Saunamajuri]

How convenient: It`s night now. :smile:

[skate_ilkley]

Yeah, I had the same problems...

 

Jagex has fixed the NPCs so that they appear over any imps now.

You should use your minimap to locate the NPCs to talk to.

Use the Ice amulet from last year to summon your imp or walk to an open space to talk to it.

When I did the event, I had 3 friends in the same world online doing it at the same time so we could help each other, plus I was in a cc where further help could be found.

 

Still bloody frustrating though, the glitch with the reward is way more fun than the entire event lol.

[Dirkmetal]

All those hordes in this event made me wish I had a Pipe Bomb, or a Bile bomb with a G launcher. (no this post is not about terrorism)

[Omali]

All those hordes in this event made me wish I had a Pipe Bomb, or a Bile bomb with a G launcher. (no this post is not about terrorism)

 

Too late, already forwarded to the FBI

[Dirkmetal]

All those hordes in this event made me wish I had a Pipe Bomb, or a Bile bomb with a G launcher. (no this post is not about terrorism)

 

Too late, already forwarded to the FBI

It's going to be a helluva time explaining what a bile bomb is. :(

[Youmu]

That's why you do the event on an unpopulated world, or a PvP world.

 

@ slickmovedud: People do the events as soon as they are out, so that they can get it over with.

[Hedgehog]

I personally got lucky with my clicking, but I can see where you are coming from. I still lagged quite a bit, but it was manageable. And even though I fared well, it would have been a lot more enjoyable had it been instanced. So I have to say that you're right. Maybe we'll have more luck next year.

 

Merry Christmas

[wcingisbad]

Today the event area was actually pretty empty.

 

Obviously the majority of 'scapers rushed to do the event during the first couple days. Some of them were out for the christmas eve.

[Salvette]

I figured out the rest of the quest on my own without too much trouble. I really want to say: why wasn't the entire quest open for me only? Jagex has made other holiday events which show only you on the map; thousands of other people may be in the same area as you are, but they each have their own "instance" of that area. If that had been the case, I would have only had frustration trying to figure out who to dump ice water on. As it was, I was very lucky to be able to guess or be told where to right-click to find the right people to talk to. I didn't even get to enjoy seeing the avatars of the snow queen or Scourge, since they were always covered by people and imps.

Really? I don't recall any other instanced events, though I missed a few older ones.