Massively surveys MMO Easter events
Seasonal events are often the most popular in-game events in many of today's MMOs. But each game's designers have to find a way to slip these real world celebrations into the lore and mechanics of their persistent worlds. Let's look at this year's crop of Easter events transmogrified into online fun.
Some designers do little more than blatantly throw in eggs hidden in the bushes such as World of Warcraft's Noblegarden. You can spend the day in the newbie zones and collect eggs that hold minor items. Not very much to this, especially considering the way Blizzard has been revamping other seasonal events like Hallow's End into something drool worthy.
Fortunately, our friends at WoW Insider have created a gallery of the 25 best Easter Eggs of WoW. Not the kind of Easter eggs mentioned above, but the little hidden in jokes placed in the game by the designers from 'Snakes on a Plane' visual gags to Clint Eastwood nods to 'Firefly' shout-outs.
You can begin your tour of these hidden gems by clicking on the first picture below, check out what little Noblegarden does have to offer in the second gallery or continue to read about Easter events in other MMOs after the jump.
Gallery: Burning Crusade Easter eggs
Gallery: Noblegarden
Final Fantasy XI has been running their annual Easter event for many years now. Like WoW, there is an egg hunt involved, but unlike WoW, it doesn't stop there. Each egg has a letter of the alphabet on it. When you collect the first three letters of your characters name, you can turn those eggs in for a prize. Among the many rewards, is the coveted egg helm. Allakhazam has a write up of the event.
Lineage 2 has been running their Bunny Money event for awhile now. Players can hunt monsters for special drops to turn in for bags of loot or they can be transported to Fantasy Isle. Once there, they can transform into rabbits which will reveal hidden treasure chests that hold various goodies. Those goodies can range for simple buff items to high level and rare pieces.
Next, Lord of the Rings Online has launched its first Spring Festival. With everything from flower picking to an epic tavern crawl that results in a huge keg to put in your guild house, Middle-earth is celebrating the spring in its own way. Massively has created a guide for anyone looking to complete the Spring Festival quests before they end on March 31st.
Finally, Second Life will be teaming with Easter events, from egg hunts to islands full of rabbit people. As always, the trick is to score an invite.
That's it for this year. Not many MMOs do much with this seasonal event as they do others such as Halloween or Christmas. Only time will tell if more will create content to celebrate either the egg gathering or simply the Spring Equinox. %Gallery-18037%
