"In the mean time, we are doing experiments with a PvP event and so far - despite my request for suggestions to improve the event - I've seen nothing but vitriol or ridiculous assumptions that this event means we are not doing other things."
Personnaly i don't care enough about winning to complain about it being a grindfest. I know i won't grind like crazy and just have fun levelling in a hopefully lively environnement with lots of PvP along the way. Just a one or two week run hopefully out of minis playing exclusively with friends in open-world, more or less casually depending on the fun we have other there. I don't know about you but sounds fun enough to me.
That being here's a few thoughts:
Categories:
I guess it would be nice to have diffrent categories to rate the "winners" to differentiate how they ran this race. For instance the amount of time played, those who leveled up to 80 with the least /played time. Aswell as the one reaching level 80 during the first/second week with the most PvP xp/kills. The one who reach level 80 with the most gold in his pockets. Guild that worked the best. etc.
Anything that would allow players to run the race diffrently.
Mechanics:
I don't know how it is currently on the B&G servers but having XP giving more or less the same amount of PvE xp than mob kill give would be nice. Aswell as kill quests to catch up a glimpse with PvE xp from quests would be a great plus even if it has a relatively high CD.
Pyres and body part looting would be cool to have in every zone.
Disable mini-games. It's an open-world race, hiding in instances shouldn't be allowed for the length of the event.
Disable fast travels. More risky, more enjoyable.
Rewards:
Account wide rewards would be appreciated. Aswell as maybe a character reward so he doesn't arrive on B&G servers completely helpeless (might help retain more players on them).
Something to reward the participants (here i'm thinking vanity cloak or stuff like that more than anything else).
Rankings:
Would be cool to get rankings a la Secret World with the players killed, minis won, quest achieved, monster killed, etc.
Please keep the trolling here and post your suggestions here!
EDITED: Couple more suggestions.