I wanted to give an overall feedback on the stage PG is in (my thoughts but also conversations with other players) and start a suggestions for live events thread.
From what I understand at actual release Citan aims to have everything out, level 100+, all races and skillsets ready. It's common practice in MMOs to raise the level cap post release. Idk if this interferes with his plans for development stages but my suggestion (discussed with others too) would be to rather keep these things for post-release updates. Again just a suggestion, it would be much better (in order to increase and maintain a decent playerbase) to focus on the following:
-further fixing and balancing skillsets (especially the summoner type ones)
-new UI working smoothly
-improving the group content experience
Don't get these suggestions the wrong way (@Citan and the rest of the staff) your work is appreciated a lot, they are just thoughts meant to keep people playing more consistently and not have 3 weeks of playing then 4 months break (which is the case right now). Players are racing to unlock more and more skillsets (solo ventures and not everyone's cup of tea cause let's be honest only a small percentage of us enjoy "make cash, unlock, max, rinse, repeat") and group dungeon runs are not happening much so many players go on very long breaks (many of my high level game friends have 4-5 months breaks if they ever come back). Imo they need to have fun in order to play regularly.
As overall suggestion on the development stages (and touching on the frequent wipe threads) I think for release it's more important to have balanced skills even if these skills are at level 70, not 125, than to have everyone level 100 upon launch and everyone playing the same 5-6 skillsets that are actually decent to use. Very few will be willing to level necro, AH, hammer, knife etc (the underwhelming skillsets). So new players will be hit in the face with a game community already max level and playing the same "classes" which they will probably follow. There are already multiple Global chat discussions in which new players are advised not to start certain skillsets cause they're "rubbish".
Now onto the second part-live events, I have a few suggestions (which might not work from a technical point of view but I think they would up the fun factor)
-animal tournaments: for example a "pvp" event with just bunnies or deer in which players will be awarded special prizes for categories like "cuteness" "sneakiness" "best dressed" "best at playing dead" "scariest bunny". The prizes would be some cosmetic items like hats or tiny knitted tops for rabbits or even fur dyes (I wanna be a purple rabbit please)
-country fair: this is what I wanted to do but w/o a GM present we might have the items wiped within minutes. We're planning to try using one of the rooms in Serbule Citadel and using player stalls to dispense food. It won't be as fun though as if we were to do it in an open area with free food dispensers, picnic blankets etc. If we ever do a country fair live event we could have srand keeping items from despawning and handing out cake (Yes, I've never had cake in PG so I'd like a piece too, it looks very festive)
-actual PvP tournaments, maybe team vs team type. The GMs would manually lower our damage output to say 10% to make the fights last longer and the team rewards could be only special permanent badges (ofc you could hand item prizes too but idk if they're needed).
-curse events-Citan did this before when everyone was turned into bats.
-music and dance festivals-maybe an ornate harp or lute as reward for the bands, maybe a pair of dancing shoes for the attending dancers
-survival races-a race through Gazluk or Kur, prizes being permanent campfires or a fur coat (something silly along those lines)
As I said I'm not sure how many of these are doable but if we make a lot of suggestions maybe Citan can sift through them and find a couple that are easier to organize. I have more ideas but I thought these would be enough for now, note I tried to keep the "rewards" part to fun prizes and not overwhelming, gamebreaking items.
So shoot some more suggestions, not exclusively for live events but what would be fun for you and not take a lot of actual development time (achievable stuff)
edit-I didn't read before I posted, I realize the first part might come across as "telling devs what to do" and I wanted to underline that it was not my intention. English is not my 1st language so the tone might be misinterpreted. I only posted development stages suggestions based on observing the general chats and the forum posts (many complaints about pets, necromancy, skills not being viable) and noticing the lack of dungeons runs lately, at least the high level ones.