Having participated in the scavenger hunt on Sonoma (couldn't get my bag in the container in time!) I feel I'm as much an expert as anyone else and I humbly offer the following suggestions:

1) Longer list of items.

The team did a fine job incorporating new items (poetry books) and new/young/poor player-friendly items. Anyone who has played for any length of time should have had no trouble finding the items for Sonoma's Hunt (bacon, bottle of wine, pen and ink, pan of cookies, etc). But it only took a few minutes (seconds, really) to gather up those items. Not much of a hunt.

2) Randomly-spawning NPCs who have the items on the list.

If the list must be short, then randomly place NPCs around the trammel facet (like the cloak of virtue quest) that must be found. Have several NPCs for each item. Make the items unobtainable any other way.

3) Randomly-spawning submission chest.

See above. Instead of having the Dev member invis her little pink self and trot the little pink horse to a tile a few steps away, why not have a garish pink chest spawn. Allow only 1 submission per chest and spawn five of them to prevent partied teams having an advantage.

4) Have the items spawn on the darn rabbits and force players to kill them for the items.

What is the purpose of those bunnies, anyway? I'm sure there's an easter egg (ahem) associated with the bunnies, or why include them? Perhaps it would have made more sense to have items spawn only on the bunnies and only for the event timeframe. This has the side effect of generating souvenirs for attendees. Alternatively, make the spawn of items 'virtual,' akin to the rainbow pearls in the obsidian statue quest.

5) Something for everyone.

Yes, we all got a bag. No, I don't expect a gift at every turn. It would, however, have been nice to have some displayable souvenir. It could have been something as simple as tagging the pink bags with "2008 Scavenger Hunter."

A more complex solution would have been to mimic the anti-virtue spawn drops. Pick an area not otherwise occupied (mushroom caves, underneath buc's den, green acres), create a spawn of bunnies and cupids that are not much tougher than a level 1 spawn, and have people kill them. With each kill, there is a small chance to get a 2008 valentines reward item (again, a shirt/bag/flower - something irrelevant to gameplay) until eventually you have a 100% chance to get it. Hard code a limit to the number of items that will drop per shard or per character. Give them a random color and color rarity, perhaps.

Even better would have been a full-up, temporary trammel champ spawn starting with bunnies and kitties, progressing to cupids and archers, then rainbow hued animals, culminating in the appearance of Eros. No scrolls, no uber rewards, just more engaging content. Heck - re-write the Ilsh Oaks spawn for a single day. Don't replace the hunt with this, just have some additional fun content for the majority of those who couldn't win.

Just my thoughts. Here's hoping the Dev team does better at Easter.

~M

I thought it could be even simpler.

Ok, the prize was a rose in a vase with 2008 scavenger hunt champion on it.

No big deal, I did not expect to win anyway.

But people that wanted to participate should have had some memory of the event.

For example (my idea), leave the turn in box down for 30 minutes after the five winners have been chosen. Then anyone that turns in all the valid items, for the next thirty minutes would receive a vase with 2008 scavenger hunt on it.

Thereby providing a memory for the people there. On Lake Superior there were less than 30 people for the event and a few were from other shards, just to watch and take pictures.


Alittle more thought into these events, would do much for the overall feelings toward EAMythic.