Event: Fire Fest-E.V.I.L.
First Ran: July 2019
Summary: Dalaran has crashed into Blackrock Mountain and crashed Ragnaros’ Fire Festival! Play tons of new content for big rewards!
Components:
- Introduction of Dungeon Runs in Tavern Brawls. “Blackrock Crash,” a remix of Blackrock Mountain bosses with new mechanics.
- New Tavern Brawl “The Burndown” where decks are generated and spread virally
- New Fireside Brawl “Big Bad Rag Raid” a new Raid brawl where you take on a Ragnaros with a huge health pool
- New Quests and Rewards
- Community Engagement events tied to Expansion Card Reveals
Background: This was far and away the largest event we had ever taken on. We had been working on Tavern Brawl dungeon runs for a moment and we started working closely with our publishing team to really elevate the event. The whole idea really took off from a very simple photoshop I did:
The idea of Dalaran crashing into Blackrock Mountain became this rallying image and helped drive much of the events development. We also had this idea for a brawl where decks would spread, basically if you lose you get a copy of the deck that beat you. We felt it was big and interesting enough that we gave it a bit of a Ragnaros wrapper and brought it into the event.
We also tied some card reveals to progress through the Blackrock Crash dungeon run, the goals we set were pretty conservative and the players burned through them quickly!
Successes:
+ Probably our most successful event, increased every conceivable metric
+ Dungeon Run brawls were a success and are now a whole new format for us to generate content with
+ Community Event was a lot of fun, nice to have players feel like they were all contributing to something bigger
+ The trailer really helped make the event seem more real. I was so excited to see my goofy photoshop be used for the inspiration for the great shot of Dalaran buried deep into Blackrock.
Lessons Learned:
- The Rag Raid could have been improved or done something more new.
- The structure of the Burndown made it so a couple incredibly overpowered decks became dominant quickly. Led to some fun conversations on reddit, though definitely some frustration.
- We did a thing where the brawl lasts 2 weeks. The second week was only marginally different than the first and was less popular. For future similar events we’ve made a point for the weeks to feel distinct.