holiday-events
Latest
The Daily Grind: Last chance at presents
The celebrations are over, the dinner is eaten, and the underside of the tree is cleared. It's the end of the holiday season, and if you want to be morbid it's also the furthest possible point until more Christmas. But the day after the event is usually all but an extension of the holiday -- we return unwanted gifts, meet up with more distant relations, and start using our various gift cards. In a way, the holiday doesn't end until the day after, and you've got one last shot at getting all the things you want. So what's your last-minute addition to your stash? Most holiday events in MMOs last for a little longer than the day itself, which gives us an extra chance at picking up any holiday rewards. Of course, you might have your eyes on a new game entirely, maybe with a gift certificate or two. Or you might just be working on crafting a difficult item and can justify the price of buying some of the materials, or perhaps you just want a new rig to explore your favorite games on. Whatever it is, what's your last-minute addition to your overall gift basket?
The Daily Grind: Do you like holiday events?
We've only been done with Halloween for about a month, and we just finished Thanksgiving. There's still some other holiday coming up this year, followed by New Year's Day, followed by Valentine's Day, and so on and so forth. And all of these holidays are usually accompanied by events in the middle of your game of choice -- usually with a different name or a slightly different backstory, but with the ultimate effect of more holiday experience being shoved directly into your retinas. On the one hand, this is fun. It gives you a chance to break up the flow of the year a bit better within the game, it lets everyone kick back and relax a little more, and the best events give every player something new to do for a little while. On the other hand, they can distract from the game's actual focus, the rewards can sometimes be disproportionate, and for some people they get enough holiday coverage anyway. Work retail around Christmas, for instance, and you don't want more Christmas decorations in your favorite MMO. (You might want more Hanukkah, but that's a different discussion.) Today we ask: do you like having holiday events in your games of choice? If so, what are your favorite sorts and best examples? If not, what's your personal reason?
MapleStory celebrating Valentine's Day with in-game event
Love is in the air in MapleStory, as they're joining other massively multiplayer online games in celebrating Valentine's Day. The festivities will run through February 24th, and will include a mix of unique in-game items and quests for the lovey-dovey crowd. On that note, players who want to tie the knot in-game also receive 15% off on their wedding tickets. Nexon provided the run-down of what's in store for MapleStory players with this extended Valentine's Day event. You can check out the details after the jump:
Valentine's Day event in Hello Kitty Online open to everyone
The day will eventually come when the world burns itself out and society as we know it collapses. In the final days, tin foil hat theorists will suggest many reasons for humanity's demise, ranging from Skynet to MMO addiction and everything in between. Regardless of how or why it happens, once we're gone, the cockroaches will evolve into a global hivemind and inherit the earth as nature always intended. All they will know of their simian Mountain Dew-guzzling predecessors of the ancient world is one thing: they apparently worshipped a cute little animal with an off-kilter pink bow, the cat-goddess Hello Kitty. The day they encounter her is the day they will know their new master, and labor to rebuild the world in her image.It's true -- well, not the apocalypse bit -- Hello Kitty will remain an enduring aspect of our times, if the past 35 years of her reign as a cultural symbol is any indicator. The world's ultimate iconic character from Sanrio has adorned 'all our stuff' since 1974. Perhaps more than ever, kids (and quite a few adults) are absolutely in love with Hello Kitty. The estimated USD 1 billion per year she's worth confirms she's hardwired into our pop culture consciousness, a fact which isn't lost on the game industry. We've already seen a legacy of Hello Kitty games spanning multiple iterations of consoles and handhelds, as well as PC releases. Hello Kitty's involvement with gaming is about to enter a whole new era though, with her introduction to the world of massively multiplayer online games through Hello Kitty Online.
A comprehensive look at WoW's Lunar Festival achievements
Holiday festivals in MMOs aren't limited to Christmas events. The Lunar Festival in World of Warcraft began this weekend, and is timed to coincide with the real world Chinese Lunar New Year (January 26th). WoW celebrates the holiday with quests to find Elders, unique items like season clothing, fireworks, and seasonal decor splashed all around WoW's major cities, Booty Bay, and Moonglade. Our sister site WoW Insider has put together a comprehensive guide to all of the Lunar Festival achievements, and explains how to complete the meta-achievement "To Honor One's Elders." The WoW Insider guide is well worth a look if you want to get the most out of the annual event, this year being the fourth time around for WoW's Lunar Festival. The event runs from January 24th to February 12th, so there's still plenty of time to get in on the fun. One of Azeroth's millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft, and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs!
A holiday gift from Age of Conan
Massively has mentioned that Age of Conan is giving away in-game items all month as part of a seasonal contest they're running. But the latest Age of Conan newsletter let us know that everyone's received a free gift automatically, as of December 18th. Funcom's given all players a new virtual item -- the Kosalan talisman of clarity. It boosts stamina and mana for its wearer, with a faster rate of regeneration for those traits. While it's not as über as the items obtainable at higher levels, it's not bad for a freebie. Age of Conan players can claim the Kosalan talisman by simply typing "/claim" in-game. Having fun in Conan's homeland? Make sure to check out all of our previous Age of Conan coverage, and stick with Massively for more news from the Hyborian Age!
Celebrating the holidays with Lineage II's Saving Santa event
The holidays are in full swing across several of the games we've been covering at Massively. In fact, a number of massively multiplayer online games now have holiday-themed quests, items, and unique winter settings, and NCsoft is getting in on the action as well. The latest holiday event announcement we've gotten word of is happening in Lineage II with its Saving Santa Event, which will run from December 16th through December 30th.The holiday event pits you against one "Thomas D. Turkey" who holds Santa Claus captive. If Santa is freed, he will visit random players throughout the world, placing presents into their inventories. Some of the rewards include specialized buff scrolls for your occupation, weapon exchange tickets, a year-round Christmas tree, and for a rare few -- a Rudolph Agathion (pet).If celebrating the holidays in Lineage II sounds like your thing, you'll want to check out the full announcement for the Saving Santa Event.
Winter arrives in City of Heroes on December 15th
Beginning on December 15th, 2008 and running until January 4th, 2009, City of Heroes and City of Villains will be celebrating their Winter Event as only your favorite superhero MMO could. All across Paragon City and the Rogue Isles there will be new special powers, a new winter-themed mission, the return of the Ski Challenge, special good or evil auras, candy canes, Gamester pranks and much more.Check out the complete run-down of the new goodies at the main website, as well as a new gallery of Winter Event 2008 images, straight from the screens of NCsoft. Happy Holidays!
Celebrating the holidays in EverQuest II
Fantasy MMO gamers playing EverQuest II will be able to ring in the New Year with some holiday fun, including gift giving and snowball fights. "Frostfell" is the EverQuest II flavor of a Christmas celebration, which kicks off on December 11th and lasts through January 6th of 2009. This holiday celebration in EQ II's setting of Norrath will gift players with a number of new quests within Frostfell Wonderland Village, including the chance to fight an ice dragon and receive some new rewards upon success. If you'd like to see a bit of how the holidays are celebrated in an MMO firsthand, have a click through our EverQuest II Frostfell gallery, with its text descriptions of the festivities from the official announcement page.%Gallery-38733%
Age of Conan's 31 days of Christmas
'Two-handed axes' and 'Christmas' used in the same context generally conjures up images of Silent Night, Deadly Night, but there's an Age of Conan contest running throughout December that's equally festive. Funcom is giving away in-game items for Age of Conan every day this month, in the spirit of Christmas gore.All you need to do to enter is fire off an email to: contest AT ageofconan DOT com, with "Season Give-away" as your subject. You'll need to provide them with your name, address, phone number and Age of Conan account name. Once that's done, you're in the running for this set of in-game items:
The Darkmoon Faire departs until May
Today, the 13th of April, is the final day to check out the Darkmoon Faire this month over in beautiful Mulgore. Remember, if you're planning on getting some material rewards out of your trip there, you may want to check out our guides to find out how. I really do recommend stopping in, even if you're not after any fancy loot. Standing around and drinking fake beer and eating fake food can be a lot more fun than it sounds!If you weren't able to visit the Faire this time around, don't worry! For one, it'll be back on May 5th. For two, we've immortalized the Darkmoon Faire in the gallery below! Peek inside for thrills, chills, and really drunk Tauren.%Gallery-20398%
The Daily Grind: Favorite holiday "gifts" in your MMO
Ah, the day after Christmas. Depending on how you celebrated, you may feel you need another four day weekend to get over it, or you may be well rested and ready to go. Perhaps you're just enjoying some quality time with your coffee, or maybe you're scanning the sales papers trying to figure out what games to pick up next with all those gift cards you got this year. Meanwhile, in whatever worlds you play in, there's likely to be some type of a holiday event still in full swing, no matter what the real world is doing. One of the things we were thrilled to see added to the Winter's Veil event in World of Warcraft this year was the Clockwork Rocket Bot. For WoW, this added a fun new level of "stuff to do while waiting on your raid party to form up." You can now launch a rocket bot with a friend and watch them beat each other to bits. Put some tonks into the mix, and you've got yourself a seriously fun time-sink! We just hope they'll consider making some more dueling pets. I know I'd like to see if the Winter Veil combat pet can beat up the pets from other holidays.But to get back to the point -- What would you say was your #1 in-game holiday item you got this year? We've seen hats, snowballs, useful things like Inspirations and holiday salvage, and just silly things like reindeer mounts and pocket gnomes. Are there any particularly good quests you've been on that were a lot of fun and landed you some interesting items, or was it all pretty well same-old-same-old in your MMO of choice? For that matter, did you land any in-game white elephants?
Trick or treating in CoX
I have been having an unhealthy amount of fun Trick-or-Treating in CoX these days. Admittedly, this might be because it's the first time I actually have every participated in this Halloween ritual. In any case I spent several hours the other day knocking on doors and awaiting my fate. I got a treat about one fifth of the time, so the ratio is pretty high. I currently have seven different temporary costumes, ranging from the Goldbricker to my favorite the Freak Zapper. These last a few minutes, and enable me to get a taste of what it must be like to play a hoodlum. I also got two costume salvage rewards, but when I went to Croatoa to turn them in, not only was I not able to find Annah, the place was infested with armies of Streng so I thought better of my attempt and figured I might just keep them in my inventory as mementos of all the fun I had.
Hallow's End is here
To anyone who plays World of Warcraft the mention the month of October brings up images of trick-or-treating and bats circling above. That's right, the annual Hallow's End event has begun, and this year it is proving to not only be the best Hallow's End since they started the holiday, it's also the best holiday event of all. I'm not implying that saving Metzen the Reindeer from the pirates in Tanaris wasn't a blast, but there is just something about having both the Wickernan burning and the Headless Horseman riding through the villages of Azeroth that just screams "fun."As I mentioned, the newest incarnation of WoW's Hallow's End holiday event includes a 5-man encounter featuring the Headless Horseman. The fight is fairly challenging, and you can only tackle it once a day, but the items dropped from this fight are pretty amazing. My current favorite is the Sinister Squashling pet, although the paladin tank in our guild is oh so happy to have his Horseman's helm, and cackles madly whenever he gets the chance. The shiny loots dropped in the encounter have raised some bad blood on the part of certain raiders, but I personally hope that we have more bosses in holiday encounters in the future. Anything that brings out sense of humor already so evident in the game is a plus in my book. I just wonder, who will we be fighting in November, an angry pilgrim with an axe to grind?
