I'll preface this post by stating that I am not a huge fan of the amount of pay to play events that we've had lately while there are struggles with development in other parts of the game that I pay a monthly (premium) subscription for. I have also disliked where certain things are "owned" by particular people so development for it - and our enjoyment of it - winds up suffering because of this mentality. So, I'm not going into this post with great praise about all aspects of the game and that everything is wonderful.

However, I'll admit that most of the paid and 'free' events have been pretty solid all around - except Taisidon, that was pretty bad. There has been plenty to do and interactions both RP wise between players and also GMs offering alteration sessions. Communication has been better in the sense of announcements in game, announcements on twitter, and posts on the forums (and even some e-mails) to try and make sure information can get out to as many people as possible.

And yet, each time an event happens, I see a lengthy post/thread about how bad things are about XYZ event and that you had XYZ expectations. So, I'm genuinely curious.. what would need to happen during an event so that you'd walk away with an overall positive experience?

I understand some of this is difficult considering your timezone and IG profession. Unfortunately you do play a US based product so it's hard to arrange times that are convenient for every timezone in the world, especially when I believe nearly all of staff are based out of the US. The timezone difference is an important one - when I was travelling throughout Europe, all aspects of my life were drastically different - communicating with friends that were once in my same timezone was challenging, and even recently moving from the east coast to the west coast in the US has changed things for me. I find it harder to participate in events because most of them are starting at the time I'm getting off work. It's a struggle, but I make it work and focus on the events that matter to me and schedule accordingly.

Empaths also have it rough most of the time since a fair portion of the events (such as Duskruin) have a combat aspect. Ulf'hara excelled at this for empaths since they actually had the advantage over other professions, but as there has not been further talk about Ulf'hara, I do not necessarily anticipate it returning. Duskruin was partly balanced out for non-combat professions with the maze, but I think for empaths they could have gone a step further. Empaths have had recent development with spells and abilities, one of them notably Absolution. It would have been nice if the arena part of Duskruin spawned only undead for just empaths so that they could participate as equals with the rest of the professions.

However, I believe the last paragraph is more off topic since, AFAIK, your character is not very combat oriented - just many other empaths are so I wanted to address that. Back to the topic at hand though, I really am curious what would need to happen with an event (and let us assume a paid event, since we are both spenders) to make it an enjoyable one for you with limited to no negative criticism?

I understand that it's possible you will not read this post, and most certainly likely that it will be met with a response since we do not really get along, but I figured I'd take a stab at it and try.