Winter Event 2009 Sneak Preview on the Live Servers!

My guess is Monday or Tuesday.

Pretty sure that's Tiger Woods.

Lately here (in the past 6 months or more) it seems as though the developers of the game have been doing some serious slacking off as far as announcing when in-game events are coming. The Halloween event wasn't announced till the last second and now the Winter event. If I am not mistaken, the last Double XP weekend was given a much shorter time announced than usual. I can understand with Hero Con going on during the Halloween time and this new expansion being created that things can get a bit crazy but that is still a poor excuse if one is given. I, and I know of several others, have been losing interest in the game do to content being a bit lacking and having events being announced only a few days before they start only adds to the lack of desire for the game. They really should put in other holiday events like for Thanksgiving, Independence Day, Veterans Day, etc. into the mix like I know of at least another game does, but won't mention. Maybe add some Fireworks powers in the invention system, Scavenger Hunts throughout the year, etc. I am sure a lot of players can come up with some outstanding ideas. There really needs to be more content that can get players to want to keep their accounts active more often then just having them active for the 2-4 events that take place per year. I not only speak for myself but several other people that have their accounts currently inactive due to lack of desire to play. Food for thought none the less.

There is actually 2 new badges that I know of. I can't think of both their names off hand. I was able to get both of them during the Winter Event Sneak Peak live test. I hope that helps to somewhat answer your question. As far as any other Badges or new event temp powers/clothing, that I am not sure.

As far as when it is actually going live... well, that is a mystery and may stay that way till it actually starts. I know with the Halloween event, I didn't know it started till after it was already a few days into it due to the fact that there was no announcement till after it started. Well, at least from what I remember that is.

The new badges are Festive (should be the name of it) for logging into the event, and Lord/Lady of Winter for slaying the new Lord of Winter.

As for going live, I'd expect it to be this week unless they have found a major bug.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

I seriously doubt they'd have one set of new badges for the brief test run yet another new one (or yet more new ones) just a couple of weeks later. If you got them for all your alts that want them during the test, you'll just have to hunt candy canes or ski like mad once the event goes live would be my guess.

No word of any other new ones, not expecting any more as the only thing new is the Lord of Winter. We always get a new badge for logging in, so that was expected.

Nice artwork on them too.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Basically this is my plan for the event: obtain ski badges on a couple of alts then gather a few thousand candy canes to split among them and obtain some of the goodies.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

So they should code a game that is available in how many different countries with a bunch of American holidays? Are they only supposed to do this on the North American servers because that wouldn't be fair to those in Europe and Asia. They would need all their holidays covered. That should significantly deplete most of the resources the devs have and make getting new issues out next to impossible. I'd rather a recurring event be a little lacking and a little late being advertised then have to give up quality in our expansions. Also if I remember correctly, the winter event almost always has started on the 15th.

I only stated those holidays because, being from North America, those are the most significant holidays we have... well, we also can not forget about Easter. I am sure they can fit in a few holidays celebrated in other countries, but once again... being from North America like yourself... I am not concerned about the EU Server nor do I have a clue as to what other holidays they celebrate. But an Asian Holiday Event or a European Holiday Event would be cool to play on the NA Server.

As far as them adding content like that and making it "next to impossible" to put out new issues, well... then I guess they would need to expand their Development team to deal with the tasks. With the amount of money they pull in from players, there should be no excuse for lacking recurring events or late announcements. In the business world, you make those mistakes a few times and you start losing money and clients. Without us and our ideas and opinions, this game would not survive. Either do up another yearly calender showing all the events or make announcements of upcoming events at least 3-4 weeks in advance to the starting of the event.

As far as creative new in-game events that they can create, they can put together a list of 4-5 things at least twice a year and people can pick and vote as to what they want most. The winning thing gets developed. If they issue the voting poll in the 1st have of the year, then they can create it to be released in the 2nd half of the year and the other way around.

well thats the answer! lets do it your way. yes that sounds like im being a D$#k, BUT...the amount of FREE stuff they give us that other games would charge $40-$50, we have no reason to complain. so they dont give us the 3-4 week heads up for an event, you know its coming! if your making vacation plans around event then you need to get out more anyway. this is not just directed at you, but whoever wants to complain about the little things. there is a major expansion coming out (only the 2nd paid expansion in 5 years!!!!!) i'd rather they put their time into that and not "101 ways to kill a snoman" for a short event.

There are alot of things i would like see done in game but you wont hear me complain once about this game..except maybe the lack of mission maps, but it wont make me stop playing.

i just feel that too many people complain about silly things instead of being happy we have a very sucessful and overall CHEAP mmo.

feel free to fire back and try to tear me an new one, but i wont get into a message board battle with anyone.

thank you, good night and happy holidays world wide

We can most certainly forget about Easter. I make a habit to ignore it every year. And it would be unwise to make an event based off a day geared towards religious worship (hence the "winter holidays" event rather than any specific holiday)--you'd risk either alienating a part of the playerbase that doesn't celebrate said religious holiday, or insulting those with strong beliefs tied to the holiday.

As far as additional holidays that we "should" be celebrating in game that we're not already, I can think of only two: April Fool's Day and the 4th of July. (Since the game is set in the US, it makes contextual sense.)

I'd like to see the former deal more with our holiday gift-giving friend The Trickster and unravelling his clues and keeping him from playing pranks on the citizens of Paragon and the Rogue Isles. Pie in the Face temporary power (low mag, short duration stun) is a must.

The latter, 4th of July, be nothing more than a temporary "Fireworks" power or a fireworks emote that is only available for the first week of July. Perhaps have a chance at a "Fireworks Show" zone event that occurs randomly in standard zones during the night hours and spawns fireworks exploding in the air. No new missions, no badges, no game-affecting rewards. Just RP stuff. (And this is coming from a non-roleplayer.)

Other events, like Veteran's Day, Memorial Day, etc? Sure, they're important to our culture and for remembering the efforts of those who protect our country, but there's no real "celebration" associated with them. Any in-game event based on them would feel like a non sequitor at worst, or shoe-horned/contrived at best. If they want to schedule a Double XP or a Free Reactivation Weekend (or both together) around those dates, fantastic, that's a great idea! ... but no in-game events for them.

But here's the thing... the game doesn't need these events. As many have said before and will probably continue to say, the development team (which, while much larger than they were this time two years ago) is still pretty small when you consider the size of those from other games like WoW. Paragon Studios' budget is much smaller than WoW's, too. WoW could probably have a different event for every day of the year if they wanted to--they've probably got at least 365 people working development, and several million subscribers at $15 a month gives them enough funding to take over a good-sized country... really, you should be complaing to Blizzard that they don't have enough events given their resources!

Couple the fact that Paragon Studios have fewer developers and less funding with the fact that everybody in the company is working on the new expansion to have it ready to release in Spring 2010, and it's pretty apparent why this year's new holiday additions are comparitively small.

((FYI, the Deadly Apocalypse event for Halloween this year? That was designed by Warwitch, who normally designs zones. She had a little bit of free time, and was able to secure a little bit of help from the graphics and coding teams to set it up. If it wasn't for her, we would have just recycled last year's event.))

And finally, out of the 5+ years the game has been live, only for one year did they announce the start and end dates of all their events. Every other year, they've said, "Hey, there's going to be a holiday event for Halloween and around mid-December. We'll let you know when they're live."

***Super-ultra-omega-finally, it's not the developers' jobs to make announcements. If you have a beef about them not announcing things in a timely manner, take it up with the marketting department.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!