Guild Wars 2

This is mainly a question for ANet(if you do have an answer or your own ideas to throw in, feel free).

To put it simply, when holiday events roll around – will this just be some things like banners and pumpkins and snowmen in cities? Or will there be actual dynamic events related to the holiday happening around the game’s world?

I hope there are not real world equivalent events in GW2….

If they want to do Tyria ones fine, but I really hope they dont do xmas events or halloween or easter (an no, just changing the name is not good enough.)

Cameirus.8407:

I hope there are not real world equivalent events in GW2….

If they want to do Tyria ones fine, but I really hope they dont do xmas events or halloween or easter (an no, just changing the name is not good enough.)

Any reason why? If you played Guild Wars 1, you’d know that they actually mix the events into the lore, ends up being a lot of fun.

Aaah yeah, holiday events like in the original would be great, and with DEs and non-instanced area it allows for so much more.

I enjoyed the holiday events in gw1 and I agree that having them mix in with their own DE would be fun. Start the event with an NPC that kicks off a chain of DE’s would be fun. Maybe make it so you have to follow the chain to prevent people from jumping to the end for an easy finish

I would love holiday events they would be really cool! I hope to see them.

Massive snowball fight in Queensdale!

Rollerbeetle racing in the grove!

make holiday specific events that drop holiday specific loot ie..weapons armors and consumables

I’ve been kind of expecting Talk Like a Pirate day now on the 14th (go go LA) though it is probably too soon after the game’s start to actually expect an event like this.. or is it? At least make sure it’s there next year – I think every GW1 player would love to see that one making a comeback.

So the first one I hope we’ll get to see is Halloween (Mad King Thorn anyone?)

It would be ace to see some dynamic events and perhaps a world event, which could notify players from all over the world.

Maybe even an Asura Gate which leads to a theme park style zone as a way of centralising the festivities for each race?

It’d be nice to see holiday-related events!
Maybe an idea to make different events in different places to prevent people all lagging out the same area ^^

And the theme park idea of neon sounds fun! First random thought at it though…
“No sir Asura, you have to be above 1,5m in height to go in the roller coaster!”

I could see an un-dead rising over halloween and the like, but if a DE starts up where you have escort some fat bloke with a white beard in a red suit, I will /vomit and run away …

I would like to see some holiday events (incorperated into lore) where nearly the whole server can work together and especially when it has CONSTANT changes to the game world in some kind of way until the holiday starts next time. Otherwise you usually visit such things only once and thats it.

Imagine the following DE for seasons and holidays:

- During Christmas: Help the “jolly old elf” get his slay through Lorner’s pass to bring his gifts to the children of Afgar’s Steading. All the while being harassed by fog elementals, only to be helped in the final pass by a friendly dolyak with a bright red nose named Rudolf Afgar.

- A thanks giving feast at Ascalon Settlement started

- During the Leonids there could be falling stars all over Tyria

- During Halloween it’d be cool to have a ghost ship sail into Lion’s arch, complete with phantoms that play jokes on people across the city

- The Black citadel could have an honor guard during memorial day

- There could be special recipes for holiday foods that are only available at certain times of year.

- A buff can be given in PvE for players that dress in green and red at certain times.

- Guilds can be given a special upgrade that produces fireworks at new years.

- Easter eggs can be hidden all over Tyria, not just drops but like branches and bottles etc. that we currently see.

- On st. Patricks day the whole world could experience a “green eclipse of the sun” where everything is tinted green. Or leprachans can run around turning people’s skin green until they manage to catch him.

- During the Olypics there could be Tyrian games

This kind of stuff is just cool. I hope they do it. I also have noticed a lot of places in the world already set up for events. The moa race track in Lion’s arch for instance. And the planetarium in Divinity’s Reach (What happens if those swirling planets actually line up some day???)

I would also like to see some huge dynamic events that aren’t related to our calender from time to time but that cover large area of the world. Imagine things like a huge migration of raptors or a traveling circus that goes from city to city. Or how cool it would be it the volcano in Mount Maelstrom actually erupted.

Anyway… to me these things are a special type of DE that makes the world even more vibrant and living. Go for it, I say.

Pumpkins, Jack-O-Lanterns, and candles in towns would be great for Halloween. Maybe even a holiday event where Champions roam about (like the devourer) one-shotting everything in their path.

Would be great to see a large Christmas tree in the center of Divinities Reach.

Edit: Post above me has some great suggestions.

I’d love to see more stuff like you guys did in Guild wars 1, especially the ones with mini games, special quest chains, and special goodies you could only get during the holiday. I really enjoyed doing something a little more light hearted stuff and still get something fun from. I thought you all did a great job threading real world equivalents of holidays into the lore, I’d love to see what else you come up with for the other races. Not to mention I’d love to see the Charr meat festival actually get celebrated as a stand in for octoberfest or something :p

Serindial.8973:

Imagine the following DE for seasons and holidays:

- During the Leonids there could be falling stars all over Tyria

^Oh my god yes this. I would love to see a meteor shower in the new game engine, with some special events and items to find added on as few actually make it down to the surface.

Please go all out for holidays, I love seeing halloween & christmas in-game it just really adds to the immersion of a MMO and with the outstanding a beautiful world full of detailed you have created I Can’t wait to see whats to come for us…

Holiday based loot! i know the game just came out but for the future :P

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

You’ll just have to wait and see!

I’d love to hear what everyone is interested in seeing in the game, though. Keep it coming.

I’d like to see Anet respond to problems concerning structured and tournament PvP.

It would be like a holiday.

Cameirus.8407:

I hope there are not real world equivalent events in GW2….

If they want to do Tyria ones fine, but I really hope they dont do xmas events or halloween or easter (an no, just changing the name is not good enough.)

You realize that it’s entirely conceivable that Tyrian culture would include harvest and/or religious celebrations that could easily involve pumpkins, holly and even bunnies?

I really want my candy cane weaponry back!!

To be fair, I would love “holiday” events on the level of the beta finale events (perhaps excluding the legendary bunny, while it was fun the two others were way more epic).

Haha, like some big green Norn who tries to steal Xmas?

Wow, glad to see that this post got a response from ANet, can’t wait to see what you guys have planned. As for all the community’s suggestions, they’re awesome.

Sardoni.8361:

Rollerbeetle racing in the grove!

Stuff like this should be made into an activity that is always in the game. As a matter of fact, they should make all the old holiday minigames into full on activities in this game.

I definitely hope they do holiday events! I always look forward to those in mmo’s.

I personally cant wait to see what y’all do with holidays. Nothing gets me in the mood more than seeing my favorite game with events , quests, and decorations, To go with the current holiday. People also love buying holiday gear.

Since Halloween is the first I would love to see a zone (like they did with the underworld) maybe in the ring of fire. Where the mad king returns and he sets off a huge DE event chain. Scale everyone up to 80 or something like that. And fight halloween themed monsters and do events like grab the candy. And of course obey the Mad Kings commands. I like the ghost ship idea too. Just make everything spooky in LA.

Yeah, I think that would be pretty cool, wouldn’t mind some holiday events with some cool holiday gear!

I would love to see holiday events in all the home cities and LA, somewhat of how each one would celebrate them. The char giving out prank gifts that explode, just seem them that way sorry or pumkin smashing. Plenty of houses in divinity for trick or treating. A world of box of fun i guess. But also have dynamic events as well, miss the big bunny from beta.

I personally really enjoyed WoW’s holiday events. Let me explain:

They had the achievement system for holiday event completion. You would receive a title and some items for participating.

Assuming there will be a DE chain (which could pop up in multiple zones?)…

I think it would be pretty neat to receive some kind of token/item for participating in each part of the event.

This could be done by spawning a vendor/chest after each fight who gives players a different part of the reward.

Then, lets say, for simplicity sake, you get 4 pieces, which can combine in the mystic forge to yield a holiday themed item.

Currently, the mystic forge and the rare recipes seem to be based on spending gold and farming a CRAP load of items. It would be a REALLY COOL system to use as a dynamic ‘rewarding’ device.

For instance, the items given in the above example could be used to forge a Halloween Helm (pumpkin helm). OR perhaps, for those who held onto the items, they could be combined with the Xmas items to produce an entirely different set of items.

I hope that mystic forge recipes come out a lot and utilize many different types of rare items. Keep in mind though, that rare items should be obtainable in many different ways. Through rare spawn vendors, through luck on the ground, through completing dynamic events, etc.

That also brings up the idea of ‘rare-spawn’ DEs, which doesn’t seem to be implemented in the game as of yet.

So many ideas revolving around DEs. I hope you guys have some better ideas in mind, it would be a lot of fun to see these things implemented.

Cheerio.9256:

Since Halloween is the first I would love to see a zone (like they did with the underworld) maybe in the ring of fire. Where the mad king returns and he sets off a huge DE event chain. Scale everyone up to 80 or something like that. And fight halloween themed monsters and do events like grab the candy. And of course obey the Mad Kings commands. I like the ghost ship idea too. Just make everything spooky in LA.

This sounds good. Bring back The Mad King (and his jokes)!!! /laugh

Ellen Ripley.2716:

This sounds good. Bring back The Mad King (and his jokes)!!! /laugh

YES! A thousand times, yes!

Cameirus.8407:

I hope there are not real world equivalent events in GW2….

If they want to do Tyria ones fine, but I really hope they dont do xmas events or halloween or easter (an no, just changing the name is not good enough.)

I agree, Tyria has its own rich lore why should it celebrate some old man dropping gifts into strangers houses or a lamp that burned for 8 nights or whatever kwanza is a celebration of.

I can understand doing stuff around the holidays because that is when people are off of work/school and can enjoy the events the most. But why does it have to be winter in Tyria just because it is winter break in the Northern Hemisphere? I doubt the Tyrian day is on a real world 24 hour cycle, so why should its holidays/events follow the real world cycle?

For that matter, each of the races should have their own holidays/events. As I understand the lore they aren’t some big happy family that have been living as one for so long that their holidays/events should coincide entirely. Heck the Sylvari are such a young race they may not even have any official holidays yet, except maybe the birth of the firstborn. And I highly doubt some Charr is going to give a cog about when that happened.

I would applaud ANet actually having holiday events that made sense for their own lore, and as the quote above says, not just some renaming or slight changes to real world capitalistic holidays that have no meaning.

Findywen.1043:

Cameirus.8407:

I hope there are not real world equivalent events in GW2….

If they want to do Tyria ones fine, but I really hope they dont do xmas events or halloween or easter (an no, just changing the name is not good enough.)

I agree, Tyria has its own rich lore why should it celebrate some old man dropping gifts into strangers houses or a lamp that burned for 8 nights or whatever kwanza is a celebration of.

I can understand doing stuff around the holidays because that is when people are off of work/school and can enjoy the events the most. But why does it have to be winter in Tyria just because it is winter break in the Northern Hemisphere? I doubt the Tyrian day is on a real world 24 hour cycle, so why should its holidays/events follow the real world cycle?

For that matter, each of the races should have their own holidays/events. As I understand the lore they aren’t some big happy family that have been living as one for so long that their holidays/events should coincide entirely. Heck the Sylvari are such a young race they may not even have any official holidays yet, except maybe the birth of the firstborn. And I highly doubt some Charr is going to give a cog about when that happened.

I would applaud ANet actually having holiday events that made sense for their own lore, and as the quote above says, not just some renaming or slight changes to real world capitalistic holidays that have no meaning.

Xmas and Halloween work because they are relatable… How can you not understand that?

I think the best holiday events to this day in any MMO have to be in LOTRO, by far their seasonal events are about the best there is. WoW didn’t even come close. They add atmospher and more to their events and a ton of unique interactivities. Would love to see that sort of thing in this game.

Love this thread.

—
I think my fav season festivals are the ones I experienced in LOTRO. The reason why I need to mention is, is to paint a picture of how they work. My fav so far has been the Yule festival and the last one I did, they made a big separate city in which there was tons to do, from snowball fights, drinking games to collecting ingredients for cooking.

That doesn’t sound special to any mmporg, but they also added a theater in which you had to be/could be part of the cast to tell the story to the audience. You had to time your emoticons when it was your turn (Dance, Angry, laugh) if you completed it without failing or by failing it you got tokens and a title. Here is the catch. You could also be in the audience and whenever the person on stage made a mistake you could throw rotten tomatoes or flowers when they did it right. The best part was that on one of the balconies they had 2 old hobbits who where yelling things at you, just like the Muppets.
—
The reason why I explain this part of the event is that I would think it is fun to conclude more npc’s inside those events (which you all do such a great job with as in DEs). Stay away from a lot of fighting but keep people inside a big themed area with amazing scenery, good music and lots of fun for players with each others and npc’s.
—
1: Nice scenery & Fun things to discover
2: Discover recipes & Craft themed things
3: Great DEs (Could even be a Norn vs charr all you can eat/drink competition)
4: Have a competition for us to design something (let’s say a festivale banner), the winner will have his design shown in the game
5: Have a (flickr) photo/snapshot competition (fun for us, good free marketing for you guys
6: Be part of a festival music choir/band since you can play some instruments inside the game
7: Have a long scripted play with just npc’s we can all look at, and maybe interact as a crowd
8: Stick to the lore. Maybe you can click on something to see cut
scenes of nice lore things regarding that holiday)

Anyway thank you Anet, and I am super looking forward to the upcoming holidays.

I think real-world holiday events would somehow tie into the lore of each of the races, as well as universal ones. Christmas and Halloween are very recognizable, and would probably end up being celebrated by all races (as Wintersday and Mad King Thorn Day , respectively). However, there should be some race-specific ones. Here are my suggestions below:

Sylvari:

• a holiday based on Earth Day, April 22: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day

Norn

• holidays based on Norse festivals: http://www.wizardrealm.com/norse/holidays.html
• holidays based on their animal spirits

Asura

• a holiday based on National Science Day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Day

Charr

• a holiday based on patriotic days such as Memorial Day, Independence Day, and 9/11. Or maybe … Ascalon! Charr Yeah!

I would love to see a return of some of the holidays from GW1, like Wintersday Events . Those events were always fun to partake in. These events could correspond lorewise between the two games. We could see how the culture has evolved over the past 250 years.

Could someone give us—users unfamiliar with the Holidays of the GW Universe—a rundown on the holidays, and what sort of things Anet did for GW1 Holiday Events?

Sniderbl.5916:

Could someone give us—users unfamiliar with the Holidays of the GW Universe—a rundown on the holidays, and what sort of things Anet did for GW1 Holiday Events?

i believe they’ve had a live team working on halloween since before release (don’t quote me). in gw1 that was about the mad king (i forget the lore involved but i expect to see him again). the next holiday is generally wintersday (they had some dwayna vs grenth snowball fights for that). without cantha i’m not sure if there will be a dragon-based celebration (pretty much a carnival in gw1). those are the main ones that i remember…i wasn’t that into them.

@Sniderbl

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Special_event

Those were the special events that occurred in GW1. I’d imagine some of those might make it over to GW2, more specifically the ones that aren’t exclusive to Cantha. Though, the Birthday Celebration would probably be in August (the month of release of GW2) instead of April (the month of release of GW1).

I really like a lot of those ideas for events and I agree that the more you can actually tie them into the game’s lore, the better. One thing I would urge you to avoid, though, is the adaptation of national holidays in contrast to international holidays.

Already there is talk of Independance Day, Memorial Day and the likes. I know these days are dear to some of you, but they are US specific and thus not really good for adaptation. Of course there is a possibility for having celebrations (or mournings) with a similar theme, but those shouldn’t match the exact same date of national holidays.

For Halloween, it would be pretty cool to have masks like we had in Asheron’s Call. You get a head from a mob, turn it in for a mask.

Will these Holiday DE’s be hit by the same Diminishing Returns as the normal ones then? >.>

I’d like to see Dynamic Events not just outside of cities, but inside of cities as well. It would also be interesting if they can add season changes if possible, would love to see winter and some/most of Tyria covered in snow and able to do snowball fights with players or events where you build a snowman, or fall where the leaves are yellow/orange and an animation where the leaves fall or some trees without leaves and some of the grass is dead, and to see like Holloween events where you go to npcs for candy or in cities like in Divinity’s Reach where you knock on door to get candy.

Morgoth.4573:

Will these Holiday DE’s be hit by the same Diminishing Returns as the normal ones then? >.>

you bet. people might get too much rewards.