Guild Wars 2

I’ve been poking around the GW1 Wiki, but a lot of info is presented assuming a greater familiarity with the first game. I was only ever a dabbler in GW1, and if any of my play coincided with special events, I didn’t notice.

So…

What was the story?
How did that story play out in events?
How did the events compare to GW2 Halloween?
How about the loot? Any specific items you wish they’d brought forward?
What GW1 Questions have been answered by this update?
What questions still linger?
Any aspects of the original that you miss, that didn’t make it in?
Any aspects that you’re glad got scrapped?

I never cared all that much for the GW1 holiday events, and can’t remember them all that well, but I’ll try to answer…
There was some sort of story for Halloween, which played out over the course of several different quests. I remember for one you had to go to the Underworld and go around the whole place without getting killed, pretty intense.

On Halloween day the Mad King would appear in Lion’s Arch every 3 hours, and play Mad King says with the players. If he told a joke players had to /laugh and received trick or treat bags. If they didn’t they’d get killed and revived some seconds later. He also did some other word games that players had to answer to using different emotes.
At the end of each event he would disappear and reward all players with a unique Halloween event (different item each year).

Compared to GW2, the GW1 event was much simpler, although still pretty decent.

IIRC, the last I heard of the lunatic court (last year, I didn’t join the one this year in gw1) they were trying to find a way to keep Mad King Thorn permanently in this realm instead of only allowed one day per year. They have enlisted players to help them with rituals and stuff, and that’s basically the halloween event.

It looks like we haven’t been formally introduced to the lunatic court in GW2 yet, so it’d be interesting if they finally showed themselves.

From what I remember of the lore in GW1 (& it’s repeated in GW2 as well) Thorn was a former king of Tyria who was murderously insane. He had eight wives & I think killed most of them off & he had a long standing rivalry with Palawa Joko, the Undead King in Elona. He was overthrown by the Krytans, who hacked his body to pieces & burned his palace & courtiers. He was locked away in the underworld & the Lunatic Court has worked since to free him.

Events-wise, he used to show up at the Halloween finale & play ‘Mad King Says’, killing people who didn’t follow his instruction & rewarding those who did. He used to give out a different Halloween hat every year.

There was a mission in the Mists that revolved around the rivalry between Mad King Thorn & Palawa Joko.

The event in GW1 was a lot simpler. GW2’s Halloween is much more ‘fun’, especially with groups of friends. I’m still hoping that the Grand Finale might be a special Halloween Hat item.

All events in gw1 were made of the same boring mold, when it started, players can get seasonal bags drop from
-a mini-game version of the costume brawl(different then todays)
-from mobs or 1 time only quests, there was
-snowball fight between a player and npcs(instanced in wintersday ie.xmas)
-mini dungeon run (instanced )

the seasonal bags only gave candies/beverage for achievement which consisted of gaining points by eating candy/drinking and at the end of the holiday for one entire day, the themed avatar(mad king, dwayna, grenth etc etc) would appear and do a mini game for every 3 hours or so where they gave more bags and when they left they would give a hat

GW2 holiday has been much more fun and I look forward to more

Something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJU-sAA5fqM

Costume Brawl was really good in GW1, though. GW2’s version is pretty simple and lame.

Well first off all the Halloween items dropped off all the mobs in the game so you could just farm whatever you liked and get all the goodies you wanted.

Second, you didn’t fight the Mad King, and he wasn’t as cartoonishly evil as he is in GW2. He showed up, told bad jokes, and played Mad King Says with everyone in Lion’s Arch. Only in the GW1 version if you didn’t do what he said, he straight up killed you. Then ressed you a couple seconds later, cause as I said earlier he was more crazy than evil. The encounter was more about watching other people fail and having a good time.