Dear players. I think each of you have heard a lot about a very popular game event which has a dark name Ghost Town. Since this is a very unusual, interesting and atmospheric event, I’ve decided that the story of its creation is no less interesting. Desiring to learn all the nuances of the Ghost Town development I addressed Reservil, the creator of this event for him to tell me everything from the beginning to the present moment. I’ve decided to share this interesting conversation with you, since a lot of players asked such questions.
{VictimsNiNo}: Hello, Sergey. The game event Ghost Town is very popular at the Wrath of the Lich King realms now. Please, tell us how you got the idea to create it?
{Resevil}: Hi, Alexey. It all started with the moment, when my wife and i decided to watch Silent Hill one more time (The 100th time I suppose. Yes, I really like Silent Hill and Resident Evil). The next day, my wife gave to listen to song «Климбатика – не плачь, Алесса». I really liked it and started to listen to it repeatedly while I was playing as a GM. 2 days later I decided to create the same town, with the same atmosphere but in WoW.
{V}: A very unusual story for an event =). From what and how you began to build this event?
{R}: It all started with the choice of location. I found a proper location and started to build there. I even put a fog in 128 phase everywhere (there were 2 phases and the planes were grand). I didn’t think about the bosses and just set usual npcs and the event was for one player of course. Everything seemed ready but unfortunately the location turned out to be instance. I had to give up on everything + few days later everything disappeared since Black uploaded fixes. Then, I found Azshara Crater and gave rein to my imagination. It started flicker before eyes because of the very first variant because I did my best. Later, I asked Agil to have a look and to help with the walls (in textures), he came and…yes I had to remove 70% of decorations)
{V}: I am intrigued…what happened next? What had you done before players saw the first variant? And tell me also how it looked like, because as I understand the instance had a lot of changes.
{R}: I deleted 70% of decorations and started to think what should be there except for «beauty». And then I got an idea of bosses. To tell the truth, I wanted to see there the leaders, such as Lich, Illidan etc. But again, we abandoned the whole idea since we wanted something new with a prehistory. So, we have a patch 1.0 (I separated the versions of event for myself). What did it contain? 4 bosses (bosses roles were played by representatives of x1 administration), 4 doors (which could be opened easily) and not a single additional NPC (trash). The bosses had everything randomly, starting from HP and ending with abilities. It was fun, everybody liked it, but to catch every administrator online was difficult. We decide to abandon this idea. Eva (x115 representative) hired me for the post of x115 GM and it was, perhaps, the most important point for the event since staff there turned out to be very responsive and cheery.
I almost forgot that the last battle against the boss had to take place in the air. In the 3rd phase it ported everyone on the platform that was hanging above the town
Patch 2.0. Thanks a lot to Olya, Stas and Vlad (they were x115 administrators). The bosses had concrete HP level and definite variety of abilities. The last point was a serious trial since the rate reduction spoiled us everything. It seemed that everything was OK but some spells didn’t work properly and either have huge damage or low damage. We started to experiment. We chose 40 more or less functioning spells but they still had a lack of damage. Suddenly, one of us (I don’t remember who exactly) got an idea of the berserk mode to increase damage. And it helped…started to test. After I got out of the platform for the second time, I abandoned the idea to fight in the air (every building has no textures since there are no them in the core and that’s why it’s easy to fall through them). Oh, how fun it was! Olya was glad especially when she killed players of the guild « Ђonjour Ђeau†iful Ђaby ». Yes, the result was very strictly influenced by the human factor and it was I who decided whether one or another guild would pass or not (judging by the players equip and skills). So, we kept the event 10-15 times until moderators started to leave the administration for some personal reasons. Everything «died» temporarily.
Patch 3.0. I became x30 administrator. Thanks a lot to my favorite moderators for their huge efforts. At this stage spells CD, phases and the rest were introduced. I changed decorations: I don’t remember what exactly. By the way, I played the role of Jaina (the main instance guide), and moreover she had to turn into the last boss (it was so until the patch 4.0.)
So, we came to what we have now...
{V}: Well, tell us what represents the event now and how the last stage was created?
{R}: The last stage is the patch 4.0. It all started with you, Alexey and our «father» Blackmanos. Blackmanos gave us realm for tests and so on. And, as you remember, we started to write scripts for the bosses from the very beginning. Abilities, hp, events, lady Jiana and quests had to work without participating of people and also it had to suit x1, x30 and x115 realms. The problem was that it was very difficult to make players help with the test that’s why I would like to thank one more time the guild « Ђonjour Ђeau†iful Ђaby » from x115 and especially Tima and Nadya for testing the event.
After some attempts to test the event I realized that it was impossible to predict everything and we decided to upload the event at realms. And here it all started…for about 30 times I asked Black to upload the patches and every time I thought that he would refuse me. There were some difficulties with abilities, reductions of rates and berserk mode. 2 weeks later it all was stabilized. The prizes…there were a lot of argues and fixes. By the way, the idea of prizes and chests is yours, Alexey. At the moment, the event is fully autonomous, but you still need to see after the ending since there are a lot of cheaters who loot the chests with the help of cheat.
By the way, I worked with the «shell» i.e. with what should be, how it should work, phrases of the npc etc. And you worked with the inner part i.e. scripts.
Special thanks to Agis, Blackmanos, the guild «"•Ђonjour Ђeau†iful Ђaby•», my helper (GM) Edelle and you, Alexey (VictimsNiNo), you did your best.
{V}: Well, what can you say about the history of this Ghost Town, as a part of wow? How would you describe the events of this instance in the Warcraft reality?
{R}: The story itself has been rewritten many times. Well, you now…I am the player of the Lich King realm. I inserted this event before the moment when the Lich King wanted to revive Kel'Thuzad. I won’t tell you detailed story of the event since it’s already described here, I would like to tell you one interesting fact about the names of the kings. They were named in honor of those who took part in the creation of the event.
{V}: And finally, will you gladden the players with the future plans?
{R}: Plans… Immediately after the patch 2.0. I realized that this is only one of the events I would like to create (that’s why the last boss doesn’t die). That’s why I’m planning three more events. However, I still don’t know how and where they will be introduced and whether I should create them at x1/x30/x115 or share the events between them.
I hope, that I answered all your questions about the event and how it was developing. Now you know that the event is the result of big and painstaking job, a lot of changes and innovations.
Related Links:
The Аnnouncement of the Event "Ghost Town"
«From a Player to an Uwow.biz Administrator» or Who is Responsible for What?
History of the Creation of WoW. Part 5
