halloween-2009
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One Shots: The hat needs work
When it comes to Aion, many players love just how highly detailed and cool-looking their armor and weapons are. However, when it comes to the recent holiday hats from the Aion Halloween event, those glowy pumpkin heads just don't really cut it in comparison. Even considering that, they're still fun to see. This recent image comes to us from our long-time One Shots contributor, Johanis, who writes in: Here is Metros...now almost level 25 Templar who just got his Halloween Hat. Lookin' good! One Shots is all about reader contributions. MMOs from big to small are welcome. Just email them to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. We'll post them out here and give you the love for sending 'em in. %Gallery-9798%
One Shots: A toast to your doom
Every year in Guild Wars, the Mad King Thorn invades, demanding that the residents there laugh -- or die. But for all that this may sound incredibly ominous, you can't help but appreciate just how utterly cool the ArenaNet team has made their game look. Today's spooky yet gorgeous screenshot comes to us from Thorband, who captured this image during the recent Guild Wars Halloween events. Add in those especially awesome wings, the grinning moon, and a ghoulish visage, and that's a hard Halloween image to beat! Have you seen something really, really cool but unquestionably evil? We'd be thrilled if you'd share with the rest of us. Just email it to oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. We'll post it out here and give you the credit. (Meanwhile, we'll be turning it into our desktop image for the day!) %Gallery-9798%
Runes of Magic announces screenshot contest winners
Runes of Magic went all out this Halloween with lots of special items, games, decorations, and even some contests. The screenshot decoration contest asked players to decorate their houses, their guild halls, and even themselves in their best Runes of Magic Halloween style to compete for in-game prizes. Players had a great time with the contest, deploying armies of ghosts, witches, pumpkins and candles in their houses and guild halls. They decorated themselves just as thoroughly, with a combination of whimsical and scary Halloween costume pieces. Runes of Magic announced the winners today, with first, second, and third place winners in the house and costume categories, and a single winner in the guild hall category. Each winner will receive their choice of a costume package for their character, with a number of choices for both male and female characters. Congratulations from us to all of the winners, and enjoy your costumes!
Guild Wars announces art contest winners
At the beginning of October, Guild Wars announced that their annual Halloween art contest was open for entries. After sorting through hundreds of submissions, they announced the winners on Friday. As always, fan creativity shone in the form of costumes, lawn decorations, drawings, carved pumpkins, and even a ceramic siege turtle that fires pumpkins instead of jade. ArenaNet seemed very happy with this year's entries: "We were so impressed by both the Halloween spirit and the quality of artistic talent in our community that it was hard to choose only ten winners and ten honorable mentions." Twenty winners were chosen from the submissions for some great prizes. The top three winners scored a signed copy of The Art of Guild Wars 2, the top ten received a signed Guild Wars art print, and all twenty winners won an exclusive Mad King's Guard minipet. Congratulations to all of the winners!
One Shots: From the shadows
While many are enjoying the tail end of the Mad King's Revelry event in Guild Wars, there are still wild, eerie battles to be had at other times as well. Today shows off one such encounter, sent in to us by Bob J. who writes in to explain the scenario: Slavers' Exile is a dungeon with multiple parts. The final part contains boss battle is with Duncan the Black, who is trying to absorb the powers of the Great Destroyer, which was killed at the end of the main Guild Wars: Eye of the North storyline. Duncan is a powerful Ritualist and one of the more annoying bosses in the Guild Wars universe. This screen is of one of my friends taking him down with Sliver Armor and Shadow Form.One Shots relies heavily on great reader screenshot submissions, so if you're playing a game that doesn't get love as much as you might like, please do take a moment and send us some of your favorite screenshots. Just email them in to oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. We'll post them up here and give you the nod for sending them along! %Gallery-9798%
And the winner of the Pumpkin Carving Contest is ...
It was a hard fought battle with 120 contenders, but the grand prize winner of Joystiq's Annual-ish Pumpkin Carving Contest 2009 is ... Antonio F.! His conceptualization of the Worgen starting zone from the upcoming WoW: Cataclysm expansion is one of the most impressive gourd-based works of art we've ever seen. We imagine you guys feel the same way -- this pumpkin placed first in the poll by a huge margin, garnering 3,303 votes! The first prize winner, with 2,309 votes, is Dennis C.'s equally well-rendered rendition of the Borderlands box art, which we've posted after the jump. Congratulations, you two -- and a heartfelt thanks to everyone who took the time to send in their lovingly crafted Jack O' Masterpieces! We'll be emailing the winners shortly to inform them about receiving their bounty; for the rest of you, have an unbelievably happy Halloween! %Gallery-76540%
Massively wishes you a happy Halloween
Halloween is probably second only to Christmas in terms of holiday popularity. Ask just about anybody what their favorite holiday is, and they'll probably list one of those two (if it fits the culture). Naturally, as MMO players, we have fun celebrating it in our virtual worlds just like we do in the real world. And boy, this year, do we ever celebrate. Just about every active MMO out there had (or has) something going on. The 2009 lineup included: Final Fantasy XI - Harvest Festival City of Heroes - The Deadly Apocalypse EverQuest II - Nights of the Dead Fallen Earth - Days of the Dead Warhammer Online - Daemon Moon Rising Aion - Harvest Revel Guild Wars - The Mad King's Revelry Runes of Magic - Pumpkin Festival Lineage - Cavern of Chaos Lineage II - Spooks and Scarecrows Age of Conan - Nights of Lost Souls EverQuest - The Haunting of Norrath Legends of Norrath - Brraaaaaainss! Star Wars Galaxies - Galactic Moon Festival Exteel - Hey, sweet! Paint! Free Realms - Super Spooktacular Champions Online - Blood Moon Most of these events last a few days into November, so if there's any one in particular you're dying to experience, you might still have a chance if you have a subscription laying around. If you're not able to visit any of these in person, we have screenshots from many of these events in the gallery below. Enjoy! %Gallery-76860%
The Daily Grind: Happy Halloween!
While not everyone in the world celebrates it, today is Halloween for many of us! Time for tricks and treats, spooks and silliness. It's also a fantastic time to catch up on the holiday events in our favorite games. From going after the Sinister Squashling in World of Warcraft (again) to smacking down hordes of the Infected in Fallen Earth, there's tons and tons of content to be had for the holiday. This morning, we thought we'd ask you what Halloween event you liked the most - and which have you come to hate? Personally, I loved Trick-or-Treating in City of Heroes, racing up and down the street triggering doors, pounding bad guys with friends, and trying to land all the temporary costumes. The one that drove me nuts was trying to get the aforementioned Squashling in World of Warcraft, as the drop never seemed to happen when I was around. (I did dig the broom mount, though.) Let's hear from you on which you thought were best and worst! Drop your tricks and treats in MMO merriment into our commenty space below!
Vote: May the best pumpkin win [update]
Finalist #1 Finalist #2 Finalist #3 Finalist #4 Finalist #5 Finalist #6 Finalist #7 Finalist #8 Finalist #9 Finalist #10 Update: And the winner is ... First, thank you to everyone who submitted a pumpkin carving for this year's contest -- you rock! Brilliant work. Now, after making many difficult cuts, the Joystiq staff has narrowed down the entries to the ten finalists you see above. (Note: Each thumbnail is linked to a larger image and description of the finalist posted after the break; when clicked, these larger images link to the even larger, full-size versions in our gallery.) The finalist with the most votes after a 24-hour period will be selected to win our grand prize. The finalist with the second-most votes will take first prize. Thanks for voting! [Note: Poll has expired.]
Subscribe to Fallen Earth by tonight and get an exclusive Trooper gas mask
If you picked up a Fallen Earth trial key in the recent batch and found yourself falling in love with the barren wastelands of the post-apocalyptic Grand Canyon, then you'll want to listen up. For those of you who decide to make the jump and subscribe to the game by tonight (10/30) at midnight Eastern, you can land yourself a swanky, special-edition Trooper gas mask, as seen to the right. (For those of you who are already subscribed, you'll get this in the mail tomorrow!) Why is this so cool, you ask? Well dustbowlers, this is the absolute must-have fashion accessory of the season - especially when you live in an irradiated, disease-ridden desert. This mask will give you a plethora of bonuses to armor against everything from acid to sonic attacks. In addition to that, it also adds +5 to your Charisma with its rubbery good looks and +6 to a body save since it's such a pain in the arse to hack through this thing and splatter your brains everywhere. So if you've been thinking about subscribing, now is a great time to join those of us who call the barren wastes of Fallen Earth home!
Naughty Dog teases spooky Uncharted 2 image
We figured that Naughty Dog would tire of its propensity to tease us once Uncharted 2: Among Thieves had finally hit store shelves. However, if the developer's recent late-night tweet is any indication, its still got a few surprises up its sleeve. The aforementioned tweet simply read, "working late tonight, got a ton of things that need to get done," and included a link to the unsettling image above. If we were to wager a guess as to what those ... things are, our early analysis would be Helghast skeletons. Now, with Halloween coming up, the skeletons thing makes sense. Helghast, though? That's just garishly non-canonical.
Fallen Earth costume contest winners announced
The apocalypse: place of beat up armor and scavenged and repurposed items galore. While this means you're in great luck for making an outfit in-game, it makes things a bit more difficult when it comes to making a Fallen Earth costume in the real world. Do you stay true to the game and only use things that look the same as existing gear? Or do you get creative in your costume scavenging and let your imagination run wild? Well, this year it would appear that the entries for the second annual Fallen Earth costume contest did both.The three categories awarded for this year's contest winners were Most Original Setting, Most Accurate Game Costume, and Best Inside Joke on Scavenging, which went to Sinoth, blackenedlegions, and spookdi respectively. There were also four honorable mentions (faust, Schipperke, Beorend, jac428) and a shout out to one of our staffers who sent in a costume too. Be sure to go check out the gallery of winners for some pretty cool post-apocalyptic costumes!
Team Fortress 2 knocked to $2.49 ... for the next two hours [update: it's over]
Update: The sale is over. We hope you managed to grab TF2 -- for yourself or a friend -- while the getting was good. Original: Actually, it's less than two hours now, so what are you waiting for? It's two dollars and fifty cents! It's usually twenty whole dollars. Go buy it. Now. Go! If you grab it now (or if you already have it), you can enjoy the first annual Team Fortress Haunted Halloween Special, which will bring new haunted maps, exploding pumpkins and update-specific Steam Achievements. We'd write more, but that would only waste more time. Time you could spend buying Team Fortress 2. [Via TF2 Official Blog]
The Guild Halloween special
The Guild is on holiday vacation this week -- instead of the latest episode in the series (which is episode 9, and will come out next week, we're told), they've posted a Halloween special video, which you can watch over on MSN or right past the break below. It's more than just a chance to don their actual guildie costumes, too -- they go on a "socially acceptable real-world looting" run, with each guildie terrorizing one unlucky couple in their own special way. What's scarier than a Tuesday with all the servers down for maintenance? Vork showing up at your door. And while we're on the subject of The Guild, our good friends at Massively got a chance to speak with a few of the cast members at GameX earlier this week -- Jeff Lewis, Robin Thorsen, and Sandeep Parikh got cornered by Massively's cameras, and talked with them about Wil Wheaton, MMOs, and Sandeep's famous backflip. Have a happy Halloween, Guild fans, and we'll be back next week with the third-to-last episode of season 3. Like The Guild? We do, too! We chatted with all of the folks at BlizzCon, including Felicia Day, Sandeep Parikh, and Jeff Lewis and Michele Boyd. We also saw their panel, and the guys were nice enough to stop by our meetup as well. Stay tuned here every Tuesday for a brand new episode of season 3!
Reminder: Carve pumpkins, win video games
Entry #27 by Brian W. Update: The entry period has closed.It's a shame the CDC shut down our plans for a giant bobbing for games contest. It was going to be epic. In its place, however, we launched a totally rad pumpkin carving contest. Not only do we get to enjoy the skilled craftwork of the Joystiq Biomass, we also get to keep the prizes nice and dry, and reduce the spread of waterborne illness bred in the saliva of icky gamers. That goes down as a win-win-win situation in our book.Reminder: You have until 12:00PM ET Friday, October 30, (two days!) to submit images of your game-related pumpkin carvings to: contest@joystiq.com. Click here for the basic guidelines for entry. (Official rules.)Have a look at the competition and keep the entries coming:%Gallery-76540%
Joyswag: Carve a pumpkin, win a pile-o'-games
Image credit: Takayoshi Sugawara; 2007 contestant Update: The entry period has closed.It's that time of the year again -- when it's OK to show some video game spirit. Like, a lot of spirit. In between sewing your man-sized Peach dress and gluing together that Spartan Laser, why not take a break to do some carving?That's right, welcome to The 2009 Joystiq Pumpkin Carving Contest! Submit pictures of your video game-themed pumpkin carvings for a chance to win a pile of games. Just follow the 8 simple rules after the break.Update: We're posting entries in the gallery below (note: finalists will be selected and featured in a separate gallery). Peep the competition:%Gallery-76540%
Aion celebrates Harvest Revel
Server issues are resolved and gold spammers have been (mostly) crushed, and Aion's ready to party. Harvest Revel is coming, heralded by a tale of a yearly eclipse that darkens the skies of Atreia for days.This looks to be a great time of year for Asmodians. They'll celebrate the dark days, chasing the Wild Kurthanir hunt leader during the Wild Hunt, and preparing festive traditional dishes in between hunting sprees.The Elyos don't seem quite as happy about all of this, probably due to the undead wandering around Elysea and invading the villages. The eclipse causes undead creatures to rise from graves every few hours, leaving Elyos little time for hunting and feasting. Their time will be spent joining Dark Knight bands to battle the undead back into their graves.Whether Asmodian or Elyos, it doesn't look like you'll be bored during the Harvest Revel. Aion promises new lore and treats each day in addition to the rest of the celebration, so be sure you log in to enjoy the first ever celebration in Aion.
