In-Game Event Calendar, Event Notifications, and Consistent Communication About Events

@timedsatyr79799 Exactly. Every other live service game that I have played informs players in the game itself about upcoming events in the game, with all the details about those events. I don't get how telling people on the menu that legends week is happening with a URL that you can't click on is helpful.

The News video mentioned there were other things happening during the celebration and that those will be made known via other channels.

@pleythru

Agree, it feels weird to me how they have a lack of communication in-game.

@lem0n-curry

They already posted the schedule actually, but I can't find it anymore.

@pleythru
I couldn't agree more. This is really a great game, but is not without some really frustrating components. And one of those is definitely communication or even accuracy at times. In my opinion, Rare should give far greater notice of events happening and be consistent with how that is communicated. Too often it is less than a day and most have been left out of this or unable to plan for it. I think there is a disconnect internally within their public affairs team and the devs potentially.

The time zone discrepancies also drive me batty. It's so confusing bouncing between UTC, BST, GMT, PST, etc. Not to mention, and for those who didn't know, there is no adjustment to this for time zones that recognize daylight savings time. As an example, the Gold Rush hour posted in the events tab is correct right now for PST. But come late Autumn it will be off by 1-hour. And it always stays that away until the following Spring. It's never updated in the Events tab, so you need to keep that mental note in the back of your head based on whatever season it is.

I agree with this. There already is some news/links on the main menu, so updating it with things like this could be good.

That being said, please make the links actually open a browser window when you click them :)

Edit: Turns out it is mentioned under the what's new tab! Still doesn't link though :(

@wsurftvveeds It's strange that the what's new tab doesn't include that information right there, and instead is an unclickable link.

@sumunumbastage I never put that together about Gold Rush and Daylight Savings Time lol. An in-game audio cue of when gold rush was starting and ending would be huge. Even a timer that's counting down to the next Gold Rush on the events tab would be helpful.

@sshteeve When it's actually happening, yes. But that doesn't increase player engagement with the community events, because unless you were already planning to play the game you likely wouldn't know. I'd like to see some advance notice in-game, with the full details, and would love a calendar of all the events that are going to happen in the next couple weeks. Every other live service game I've ever played at least gives an in-game heads up, and doesn't show URL that you can't click on which has the actual details of the event that's about to happen.

@lem0n-curry Why not have a message pop up with the same information when the game launches? And in the events tab?

@lem0n-curry It's also strange that if you only followed SoT on YouTube, which gets more engagement than their twitter, you would have no idea that Gold & Glory is happening this weekend. That doesn't make sense to me. "Other social channels" really means "a reply to a tweet with a link to news.xbox.com"

@pleythru said in In-Game Event Calendar, Event Notifications, and Consistent Communication About Events:

@lem0n-curry Why not have a message pop up with the same information when the game launches? And in the events tab?

That's a lot of information - which probably will never be read.
Also, when it's in the game files and for some reason they change it, they won't be able to change the in-game announcement.

@lem0n-curry They already put the in-game notice in the game files because on the day the event starts we get the updated message on the tavern table when we sign in, right? So I don't see it being an issue to add "Gold and Glory Weekend! 4/8 - 4/11!" in the events tab or at the start of the game.

@pleythru They did at it to the events tab today but not to the main menu screen. If any devs read this, I want you to know that I understand that game dev is way more complicated than players often realize, and that a lot of work goes into each and every update. This post is 100% intended to provide feedback for changes that I believe would help players engage more with the content you spend so much time making.