Hey that's me! MUM I'M ON TV!
No but seriously, I stand by what I said and will further the point here: I believe that big events can be a thing, and i'm sure like you say, you have stuff set up and in the works that just requires a lot of commitment and trust and likely a lot of backup plans. It's hard work, and I think we do, or at least should, appreciate that.
Whilst personally I loved the concept of the war between the two factions, it simply made no IC sense for my character to go for it either way, and on an OOC level I wasn't too bothered about a PVP Event to a point where I didn't want to make another character just to play for it, because it wouldn't develop my story lines. I think the key to getting people interested, dedicated and involved in big lore events is always to give an incentive, dangle a reward or a prize in front of our faces. Now obviously that is going to be difficult, you don't want to be just doing events for a few guns or whatever, and you don't want to take it OOC. I know that with the development a little while ago and the reports of large hoards making their way over from the NE, there is an incentive to have the upper hand in that battle, or sway that battle. Let's be honest as well, everyone just wants to be seen, to be remembered, to be acknowledged and have a name for themselves. Maybe some of these things can be taken and used.
I think it all boils down to a simple formula;
Issue -> 1 or more resolutions leading to different results -> Reward or consequence.
This works for anything negative, for example the hordes, if maybe radio broadcasts go out and it is organised that certain things need to be accomplished in order to slow the horde, and if the horde is slowed then maybe supplies etc. can be dropped for the people that clearly slowed them etc. ACTION = REWARD. The RP along the way built from this should be gently guided and as long as the people participating in said event / action have any sense about them should be building their own RP from the gentle push given by the event.
I don't want to write too much more before I just start building ideas for Lore events etc etc. However I think that the overall issue at the minute is this: Everything feels hunky dory. This is the apocalypse, and yet it feels like we can all walk around without too much of a worry because we've all hunkered down into our own spots. The events need to bring a gritty, desperate feeling in my eyes, things need to get notably worse if something is failed, something that people can be miserable about, something that can keep people talking.
I don't know the answers, I'll continue to brainstorm some stuff to try and develop further on these little points, let's move things forward and make the events something progressive in terms of the grit and overall atmosphere of the server.