If you liked the event, tell us why- what did you like most?
This is the first event I've played on PWO so when I say that I loved it, I don't have any other events to compare it to. But I loved this event for various reasons listed below:
1. The maps: They are all so beautiful and so evil at the same time ;D You can spend hours getting lost in the twist and turns of the landscape and yet I couldn't get too mad at it because it was all so pretty to look at. I liked to hide under the cherry blossom trees or behind the buildings just because I could.
2. The Pokemon: I liked the wild Pokemon spawns chosen since some of them were ones I couldn't find anywhere else. The rarity switch between Ekans and Ponyta later in the event was perfect because at that point it was getting pretty tiring seeing tons of snakes (because for me, it didn't give as much exp as Ponyta did, hehe). I did hear what I think was the story for it- that the Rapidash scared the Ekans away and so the Ponyta later returned- and that also fit perfectly.
3. The timed release: That was perfect, right when we thought we finished the quest, bam! A new segment was released. It kept things interesting and prevented everyone from mowing through the event in 1 day then getting bored the rest of the time.
If you didn't like it, or some part of it, why not?
Having to walk through the bamboo caves over and over.. those constant wild Pokemon encounters were a headache! But I think that was part of the plan
I did like Ziyou City but something about it seemed out of place from the rest of the event. I guess when I originally stumbled upon it I was hoping that there would be a bunch of stuff to do inside the city other than talk to an NPC then leave, because unlike that town at the bottom of the huge forest (Yougi Bai Town?) Ziyou City gave off the feeling that there was something secret about it (mainly due to the hidden rock you had to walk under to find it). There was nothing really there that made you want to explore the entire place, which was a shame because someone took the time to decorate that map with stuff. Maybe the TM seller could have been hiding in Ziyou instead of the top corner of the cave.
How did you like the quests? Is there anything you particularly liked or disliked about any of them?
I liked them overall, they all provided something interesting yet challenging to do and they weren't too easy, yet weren't too difficult.
Element 1: I missed the bamboo above a ledge the first time around so I remember having to keep walking around in circles before I found it. It made me dislike that map for about a day, haha. I also got lost in the huge forest for a very very long time and I eventually constructed myself a map of it so I could navigate back and forth.. But still all that was fun.
Element 2: What I didn't like was that the lady led me to believe that she was keeping track of all the snake skins I gave her over the time I was playing but instead it turned out that if I didn't give her exactly 10 at one time she wouldn't complete the quest. I ended up giving her several piles of Snake Skins wondering why it wouldn't complete until I tried 10 at once. That lady was edited later so that should be good for the other people, but this was one of the reasons why I disliked seeing Ekans after a while and was happy to see the Ponyta spawns take over.
Element 3: I really liked that we had to raise the exact Vulpix we found under the tree, that way no one would be lazy with a pre-caught one that they might have obtained from the grass. This quest made me glad I had completed enough gym challenges to access routes that had good training for fire Pokemon because I'm rather lazy/impatient when it comes to training and went to kill Tangela for their higher exp instead of the Hoppip the event provided in the Bamboo forest
Element 4: Ahhh all that walking and all those wild Pokemon encounters in those caves!! That's what I remember most about this quest. It isn't a bad thing but I did use a couple of Escape Ropes.
Element 5: My first impression of the quest was why a zombie chosen for a Chinese New Year event? I understood the lore/storyline he said but the zombie NPC itself did surprise me. This was a nice quest but the moment he mentioned the bamboo forest the memories from Element 1 drifted back into my mind I went and talked to all the bamboo in the forest, twice, even after I found the fairy because I dreaded walking back through that cave one more time only to be told to look for more. It's actually kind of funny.
And what about the prizes? Vouchers and the pizes given in them are mostly all new, are they as good as you expected? Better, worse?
It was better than I expected. I thought it would only be one item or Pokemon that everyone would have, so finding that we had options was a delightful surprise.
Did you like or dislike having to find out for yourself what pokemon were in the event?
I liked it! I didn't really know what to expect when I started the event and only knew that there were event-findable Pokemon because people in chat kept asking what Pokemon they could find in the event because all the previous events had them. The wild spawns themselves were quite nice. The spawn guide in the Speculation forum also helped a bit because it made me want to stick around a certain map to try and find a Pokemon I didn't know was there.
Unless you meant the Pokemon in the prizes, to which I'll just point to the question above this one.
And what about the spawns? Did you like the pokemon in the event? Were they too hard to get? Too easy? Too many or too few?
The spawns were very nice! I couldn't find all of them due to lack of patience/time, but the fact that it was possible to obtain them is still appreciated. I did get a page or so of new Pokemon in the PC (most of them were duplicates though, I just caught them because I liked them). I accidentally killed a shiny I encountered in the Bamboo forest but that's my fault.
Did you like the story if you actually paid attention to it? Or was it all about the quests/prizes and rare pokemon for you?
I payed attention to about 90% of the storyline. I normally took the time to read through all the NPCs but at Element 4's quest I got so tired of having to walk back through the cave to Ziyou that I mashed the spacebar through the dialogues hoping that he didn't say that I needed to go back one more time. In regard to the storyline parts that I can currently remember, yes I did like them and it made the event interesting. My favorite storyline is the one associated with Element 3 (the Vulpix one).
Also what did you think about having the quests spread out over the festival, instead of having them all available at once? The idea for this came from the fact that the Festival days have different meanings, but if it's preferred to have it this way it could easily be adopted in other events too.
I guess I should have read all the questions before I c/ped them into a reply to answer them one by one since I mentioned this at the top XD
As I said above I absolutely loved how the event was spread out into stages, and it worked really well with what the event was celebrating and it keeps people from clearing the event too quickly. One disadvantage to such an approach I can imagine is that some people may feel that they have less time to complete the overall event. For example, if an event was 5 days long, someone may only be able to play the first 2 of the 5 days and if a portion of the event was released on day 3 then the person would miss out. While playing through this event I have seen people mention the lack of play time available to them in the chat so that is why this came to mind.
And I shouldn't forget the mappers, let us know what you thought of the maps too.
To you mappers, these maps must have taken a crazy amount of time to make! They are all so beautiful and well constructed (and also really large). And I love you and hate you at the same time for making that hidden rock passageway and also for making it take so long to walk from city to city