Massive improvements to the Hide and Seek events

[Epitap]

After participating in today's event, I couldn't help but notice a few weaknesses that make the event less fun,

Firstly, the event proceeds way too slowly. Instead of doing 5 locations / 2 hours due to what i can only assume is not planning the hiding spots / hints beforehand, I propose to speed things up by planning ahead. The event is scheduled, and taking an hour beforehand to find spots and take notes will allow for a much fuller experience. Having to wait 15 minutes after the first hint for the second one with hints such as "I'm underwater" is just silly. If the intent of this pacing is to make people commit to a guess, rather than waiting to see, basically removes any element of knowledge or strategy and promotes winning by sheer luck. To underline this point, I am writing this entire post in the timespan between one round and the start of the next.

Secondly, it's very dissatisfying when a round is over to not get to know where the location was. Taking 5 seconds to type out the location in the announcement would certainly make the event feel more rewarding, as you can compare it with your other guesses that you didn't have the time to check. Akin to checking with classmates or an answer sheet after an important test in school, not knowing how close you were can be frustrating, especially with the long waiting inbetween rounds.

And finally, I propose a more thorough change to the structure of the event. Rather than choosing a single spot on the four continents (Eastern Kingdoms/Kalimdor/Outland/Northrend), either specify a continent or zone beforehand, so that events are more competitive, as more people are on the right track, rather than only 3 people being even close.

All in all, the big improvements I would suggest are increasing the pace, else other people will feel as I do, and ultimately make a post about it or something. Waiting 30 minutes for a vague hint that some lucky person correctly guesses is no fun if the next round is 30 minutes away. Narrowing down the actual area to search, and giving away the answer after each round would improve the fun aspect as well.

Thanks

[Proterean]

Thank you for your constructive criticism, it's how we usually conduct events. The community manager in question prioritized quantity over quality yesterday in order to get a lot of people participating in the event but forgot to finalize it with the actual locations.

The actual practice is to list all of the hints whenever there's a new one and also after it finished, the location and the name of the hiding character should be disclosed. Vague hints are sometimes intentional though.

Either way, thank you for the post, we'll take it up to the CM team to make sure they take your words to heart. If anything, feel free to PM me here on the forums.