Greetings Legends!
We're here with today's Friday Feature once again and we've decided to take a dive into the in-game Live Events a little bit. These events are always conducted by the Events & Social Media team of the project and those events can be as diverse as the galaxy we reside in itself! While we can certainly get lost in the different types of events and processes we go through to put those events together, we're going to focus on strictly our Beast Master (BM) Events this week.
Below we'll talk a bit about the events in general, as well as a brief rundown of the different BM oriented (Beast Featured) events we like to bring the community together to participate in, talk about some of setting those events up, delve into the rewards one can normally find with these events, hopefully get some feedback from you about the next (or future events), and to cap things off - we have an all new YouTube video that we are happy to unveil to you here today thanks to the help of our friend and project contributor DerHutmacher (Iverson)!
Let's jump right in shall we?
What types of Beast Master events do we run?
Well here on SWG:Legends, our Events Team tries to make it a priority (barring any silly RL intervening) to make sure we can bring a Beast Master event to the community on a quarterly basis. Sometimes we'll run one sooner, sometimes one might have to be pushed depending not only the schedules of our real lives, but also the schedule for the project itself. We might be boggled down with other events, festivals, and other important project work that can definitely be a source for delays. Because we run these events on a quarterly basis. All of our BM events are scheduled ahead of time and made aware to the community at a minimum of approximately one week prior to the event start time.
Listed below are 3 different types of BM related activities we have brought to you all to join us in:
The BM dueling contests:
- This event brings beast and master together to compete against fellow community members and their pets in typically a single round elimination series of matches where winners (at the end of the event are rewarded a tradeable version of the coveted Beast Muzzle).
- This event requires players to submit entries ahead of a deadline shortly before the events start to be eligible to participate. This is done to minimize confusion for us (and protect us from having to conduct too long of an event), allow us to develop our randomized bracket of matchups, and gives you the opportunity to confirm you've read over our rules for the competition so we can all play and enjoy a fair contest.
- These events can receive an excess of 40+ player sign ups in the time leading up to it, so we do admittedly avoid reminders unless sign ups are lacking (they never do).
- These events can typically last (depending on sign ups) between 1.5 hours to 2 hours. As mentioned above, we take the steps we take so we can always find a balance of making sure people know the event is happening and keeping it from being too laggy of an affair once you all show up. We've had BM events in the past that lasted 3-5 hours before and we hope to never have those happen again! (lol)
- Up to the moment we formally start the event, our team is live at the venue and we're ready to reference to our list of entries to see who's there and who's absent all throughout the event (that's why it's so important to make clear on your entries who you're showing up on for character names).
- As entries come in on the forum thread, we transfer those names and relevant info to a separate sheet. There will be times that due to human error, we might accidentally miss your name on the thread. Luckily we've been able to avoid crisis but should it happen, you're free to reach out to a member of our team standing by.
The Beast Master racing contest:
- This type of event brings our Creature Handlers together for a test of speed and agility as we toss contestants at a lengthy track of twists and turns (and hopefully some good scenery to admire) to see who has the fastest of the fast for beast mounts.
- We utilize the Storyteller functions to conduct this race and do our very best to make sure we always keep participants on the same page so we have a clear understanding when we make the racing droid visible or when we initiate the countdowns to start the race.
- These events vary depending on the rules and the type of race.
- Make sure to read any of our announcements to make sure to sign up if you need to sign up! Otherwise, bring your fastest friend!
- These events can typically run between 30-45 minutes. Most of our work is ensuring there's a clear understanding of what you need to do (and lots of repetitive messages for those who might show up late) as we do our best to ensure as close to everyone is ready when we ask you to line up and await our countdown.
- Rewards for the racing events can include a variety of prizes, including a collection item of choice, bonus tokens of gratification, and xp bonus/random collection items.
- Team members are ALWAYS watching the race participants, watching the finish lines, and staying on top of the communication before, during, and after the event.
The Beast Master charisma contest:
- This contest is all about STYLE! We'll ask our community members who enter in to show up with their strongest design theme that shows a certain harmony and theme between you and your faithful companion. Do you have that certain "panache" over the competition?
- Each entry is given the opportunity (and a set amount of time) to dazzle us with your outfit, your beast, and wow the crowd with a winning theme.
- Members of the Events Team (and potential guest judges) will make up a panel to convene and decide who our favorite entries are.
- We will always look at outfits, colors, themes, and extra flair you bring whether that's any effects or pet tricks that add that little bit of showmanship to impress!
- Rewards for this contest can include a tradeable beast muzzle and extra tokens of gratification!
When/Where do these events usually happen?
BM Events can happen ANYWHERE! We've built a small arena on the beaches outside of Kadaara that we frequently use and our most recent BM event happened up in the highest points of Cloud City on Bespin! We've used Yavin, raced throughout Theed on Naboo, and the fun doesn't have to stop there!
These events happen QUARTERLY within the year, so we do aim for at least 4 BM events in the year. We also try our very best to make sure these events happen on Saturday or Sunday at times that make it convenient for as much of the community to come together as possible.
We understand that lack of reminders for those who might miss initial announcements made here on the forums and on social media aren't necessarily ideal. We also understand that the people who show up to the event hoping to participate can be disappointed to find out they're late to sign up for the event.
Compromise doesn't make everyone happy and we hate for people to have a negative experience at our events (or not being able to attend the events for whatever the reason), but our hope with this article is to maybe provide some insight as to why we might do (or not do) certain things in regards to our reminders and some of our timing. If you want to make sure you don't miss out on the next event, please be sure to stay on top of your Discord announcements, keep checking the pinned messages in the Community News section of the forums, and don't forget to follow us on Social Media where we might be more likely to drop a reminder!
We would love to hear back from you!
We're always ready to hear what the community has to say. If you have a suggestion/question you want to send here or to any of our Event Staff via PM or DM or want to reach out on social media, we're always happy to hear back!
Do you have any ideas for an interesting BM event?
Do you have suggestions you want to make to some of our usual rules at our BM events?
Are there any neat locations in game that you might think would be nice for us to host our next BM event?
Should we think about including a new Beast Master live event badge?
To wrap things up... And reveal our video recap of the last BM event!
The BM events like many of our other events always require planning, coordination, and timing. From the moment we start planning, to the announcements, all the way up to the very end. We want to thank the community for being overwhelmingly supportive of our BM events and always providing such a wonderful turnout. We hope to see you at the next BM event soon. Until then, we would now like to wrap this Friday Feature up with a video that our contributor DerHutmacher (Iverson) helped bring to life that features our recent Bespin Beast Bash event that was hosted in Cloud City!
May the Force be with you,
The SWG:Legends Team
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