OOC

It can be pretty easily resumed as "events are mediocre". Not bad, but definitively not good. (only my opinion, shared with most of the fyros rolists, couldn't speak with other nation's rolist)

Why a bold statement like this :

The most important, is lack of implication of the players. There is two main type of event : dialogs between 2/3 NPC where player have (basically) no impact, and it's like watching a movie. There are announcement - like event, where you move & book your evening for something who could have perfectly suited a forum thread - less charge for everyone. Finally, there is some event with a little participation, but it's always slow, no rythm at all, and you lose players (cf fyros event where in 2 hours we asked 10 questions ...)

Another point, it's that the majority of played characters are either super exaggerated (hello Xalis the senator boot-licker of the Karavan who has no other identity - but it's pretty rare), or (mainly) ultra featureless, never trying anything

On the story side, you can feel it too, with either super obvious things (like the whole thulam story), or completely absurd (what, a well that was over 10 years ago, who never gave any water - the only interest of a well ... - and no one ever moved a little finger ? And the tryker engineers lost since 10 years never worried anyone, and by complete randomness we find them completely goo-addict near the goo heads)

In summary, people are completely out of touch with the events, they don't come because it's useless (might as well read a report or a chatlog in 5 minutes, you'll lose less time), and, I quote Naveruss at last event "We are imperially bored shitless"

I'll add that the stark difference between super interesting discussion on the cc pub-event-lore (coeur coeur love to gorias who makes the chan alive) and some private discussion with lorist (coeur coeur love to everyone) where you see the true depth of the lore and higly interesting and colorful characters with beautiful stories (spend 2 hours talking w/ Naveruss about matis/tryker relationship before the exodus with Naveruss because it's an amazing subject) and the event played ingame ... it's sadder

Since a critic without any suggested ameliration is useless and counter-productive, here is what I am suggesting to make things better :

Warn before if traduction is needed. Long story short, if you can be warned beforehand if you need a translator, things will go much smoother - obviously translation is still a pain in the ass for rolists, but at least it's bearable

The EM who was supposed to do the event is not here and no one thinks he's able to convicingly play his character ? You cancel, It's a thousand times better to have a well played, but moved, event than a bad played event who was on time, which is hard to fix and can leave a bitter taste

Too hard to play 4 characters for an EM ? Change the event, do it with one or two characters - a number where you feel comfortable roleplaying. At the last fyros event, there were multiples important NPC (Xinna, Lyandra) who said 3 or 4 lignes ... both of them ... And Aeryx who spoke at the beginning (and who could as well have left after that). If you really want to show some NPC are spectator, use an ARCC script to make themspawn. We don't care if the 5 guards aren't actually guards, or if there is multiples celiakos who says nothing - but if you want to give a "big" impression, it's much better

Before, there was multiple regulars discussions, either during big IG meetings with the event team, or simply individuals (I'm thinking mostly about Beesjy, Vradden, Jauhe, Daulath in some way coming to mind) who asked players about how the event was for them. It allows to allow differents (and fast) opinion, rather than waiting for Glorf to be fed up with it and dropping a brick on IRC :P

If you want some example are more rythmed event, invisible yourself and follow for an evening Zhan (if you like tea), Siela (if you like to travel, even if he's often with Zhan I'm beeing told :p), bai nhori drakani (if you like beer, nice but not ground-breaking stories, and the crazy stories of Jazzy and his 40 wifes), Naveruss (if you like fire), Markanjio (if you like your matis very extremist), Kanzaburo, Ulyron & all the drug addict/dealer (if you like weird and a little violent stories), Ubhal/Peatpom, Leeis, Fleurdetuber & Reshok (if you have some aspirin near you), or Krill (if you are a follower of the Great Glouglou)

Finally, stop playing only during events. At a moment it was a relatively common occurence (coeur coeur love to barmans who starts answering you when you are starting to drink, to Tepsen the crazy homin who smeared unknown people, to storytellers coming in a bar one day ...) And it's a shame it was lost, it's a part of making the bark alive as much as "big" events, while beeing much easier to do (a rename, some title eventually, and some clothes of your choices). I know it was done a little with the tryker storyteller - and it was super awesome that way (and, when it was played at the zorai meeting, it was boring as hell because no participation at all :p)

I feel like we need to make the distinction between two kinds of event, and two targets : event to gather a bunch and people and make them feels like they are doing something together, and here the RP is secondary ; and RP, with adequate events, and there, yes, you need to change the format

For (almost) non-RP players, "movie" events are a good way to see that RP can be something, but you need to be careful when planning it. As you say, it's probably easily scriptable through the ARK. Everything must be written and translated before hand, and dumped on the translations chan during the event

Once a month, is already good. It's perfect for stuff like a crowning, a zorai ritual, a theater piece ... In summary when you go see a politics make his speech on public place

Event who targets RP players : everyone knows the quality of the RP on ryzom.
When I read the last meeting of Zhan with Tao sian (zorai healer), I'm telling that this, it's the good kind of event : The EM is here for few people (Zhan, a crazy man, a couple of friends), but it will give life to a true story, because the discussion can be fluid. And probably in a single language.
It doesn't mean less people will be included, on the contrary
Taking a NPC out, for an hour here and then ... Allows (&ask from the ) players to fill the hole, tell the story themselves. The events with the more involved players are those where each episod is including 4/5 people ; but players will keep on speaking between them after
On this point, I'm agreeing with Glorf (which is quite obviously the best way to act in any given situation) : there will be more RP, and more qualitative RP, with a barman speaking from time to time, than with 4 senators sleeping between two phrases

I really think it's a mistake to spend too much energy on event for a bunch of people, because they are always less satisfactories than little advice, while needing much more preparation (work). Zatalyz is not following event from the game because IRL work is too much, so she's not the most relevant ... But it's true, she loves telling stories, and master them, play them, follow them

to summarize, make the work easy, have fun, everyone will be much better this way

I agree with almmost everything that has been said. And by the way it was the way we did before the merge. But at this time, we were about 20 anims, it was easy. Now, we are way too short-handed (by the way the Event Team is recruiting!) and we are deeply depressed that we cannot offer the same quality for the events than before
We love playing impromptu little events, but if you knew how much time we logged for this with no results because we found no players ready to interact (or at least, not in the good language ;))
We just changed our internal way of working : the lore team is making the big lines of the event stories, to give them depth, but also to make the saga alive again - and make the history go through
It also includes some piece on the forum, btw. EM adds the needed little things to make the whole things playable during events.