So how was the Halloween Event this year?

I'd been putting off getting into the Halloween Event, and then this week a friend of mine went into the hospital with pneumonia, so I ended up missing it altogether. Was it any better this time around? I was disappointed I didn't get to go on the haunted house mission -- sounded pretty cool. Oh, well, maybe next year.

The new Haunted House trial was very cool and fun.

I was only able to get on one successful banner event but that one was fun. It's just hard to get any interest to do it this year.

I haven't been around enough to get in on any GM take-downs unfortunately. I just haven't seen any which is polar opposite of last year where they seemed to be everywhere.

Trick or Treating was as fun as always although I didn't get to do as much on as many characters as I usually do.

The haunted house was really cool, sorry you missed it.

Although, earlier this year the devs reopened the halloween event for a while in... I think it was April. I forget the reasons, but it shows that they're not opposed to bringing things back "out of season" here and there. So you might get your chance before next year! (Stress the "might" part, of course ).

I really liked the trial, though the "four and only four" player restriction irked me.

The Halloween Event's still live; the official end is tonight, midnight Pacific. So if you want to jump on a House of Horrors trial, there's still time.

Nah, can't, have errands to do tonight. I'll just have to catch it next year. No big deal, since it's available to F2P'ers (which is what I'll be once my sub expires).

The new trial was neat. Zombie attacks suck, and they suck more when the frequency increases.

Did not care for any of it, personally. A lot of people liked it, though.

the trial was fun, the super giant 200 ft tall EB zombies were awesome

i ran one successful banner event and was GM hunting when bored or ToTing some

i think the only event thats really badly designed is the banner event because you basically have 5 min to get 8+ poeple together, make banners vulnerable, and kill the banners within the next 15 min

Doc Kane's trial was a lot of fun and I enjoyed the design of the haunted mansion. It doesn't take long to complete and you get to battle 2 different monsters in addition to a host of ghouls along the way.

I remember wondering how the new league system would affect ToTing and was amazed to see 48 man leagues in PI. They usually set up at the motel right across the street from the hospital which was an excellent location.. Lots of doors and with the hosp so close.. die and don't wait for rez just reappear acrosss the street. Not to mention being able to resupply inspiration thru the combat nurse!

Zombie invasions and Banner events were back but then we see those year round now but they tended to occur much more frequently over the past 2 weeks. Eochia and Jack were back roaming although I really can't say how often Jack spawned.. most of my characters had those badges and my new SJ/WP Brute got extremely lucky .. got invited to battle Eochia in PI and within seconds after the team defeated him... Jack appeared. Moments after Jack went down Eochia spawned again and I had the badge for the unseely court. Apparently that one spot of Monket Island was "the" designated spawn point.

And of course the Halloween tip mission from last year was back as well giving anyone that wanted a chance at 6 badges and acostume piece. It seems like this event is a Dev's favorite.. they just keep adding to it year after year and making it bigger and bigger. I had a great time

Wasn't too bad, the new trial was quite good fun.

For Banners, I firmly hold the position that there should be a consequence for not doing them. As an RPer, I attend one of the regular nightly meets on Union, and when the Banner event triggers in our zone, the majority of people (including me) do absolutely nothing. Why? Because in 20 minutes, the event will end, and nothing happens.

I think that not dealing with the Banners should trigger a guaranteed Zombie Apocalypse, which would give people a judgement call to make: try to deal with the banners, or face the consequences.

I had a good time. The new Haunted House is great, but I wish there was more flexibility on the team size. I normally play with a group of friends, and there are five of us. That was awkward.

Trick or treating is always fun. It's a nice casual thing that you can do while waiting for someone to get a drink of water or whatever. How did it interact with the iTrial LFG tool? I seemed to have mixed results on that. Sometimes I could trick or treat while in the queue and sometimes I couldn't. I'm not sure what was up with that. When it worked it was great, because otherwise waiting in the queue is pretty lame. I like finding odd locations to trick or treat, like the helicopter in the front yard of the Vanguard base (but not the one on the roof for some reason).

I only ever saw the GMs when I was solo in the Shadow Shard. Just odd luck, I guess.

I also like the zombie invasions. Again, it's something you can do while waiting in the LFG queue, and it's pretty easy to get people together spontaneously, and it scales based on participants just fine. I did get killed while AFK once, but that's no big deal. And the xp seems pretty miserable. I loved the huge zombies, though I can see how that was just a bug and won't be repeated. I'm still glad I got to see it. It seems to me the event works better in some zones than others. Talos is perfect because of that hill. It's a natural gathering spot that's close to the T but not close to the police drones. In other zones it's hard to get together a big enough group to spawn the bigger baddies. That hill is my favorite thing about Talos and I think every zone should have a similar spot.

I didn't do the Banner event this year. I'm sure the leagues did help, but I wasn't on all that much during the event and I just didn't have an opportunity. I like the design of the event, but I think the problem is the spontaneity. It really does require some coordination and a decent volume of players. In a way, I think this sort of mechanic would be much better in an iTrial. Since you have multiple teams, you ought to be giving them multiple jobs, or simultaneous jobs in different spots. That's a great use of the league mechanic. It hardly matters that you have three teams working together if every player is zerging BAB. I wonder if for next year the Banner event could be tweaked to be less spontaneous. Maybe players could choose to enter it the same way they can queue up and choose to enter the haunted house or the iTrials. Give players control over when the event happens instead of having it be random. Just a thought.

I kind of dislike the banner event because it requires a large number of people to be successful and it despawns everything else in the zone. Friend and I were doing his missions for the Level 30 cape and aura unlocks, we got hit with banner events in Brickstown and Talos. We cleaned up what we needed in Crey's Folley and Founder's Falls but it was still kind of a pain ;9

I think my entire time playing I saw 1 guy in the chat channels ask about a banner team. Otherwise, Victory just seemed to ignore them. I think they're kind of neat, but yeah the event needs to be reworked a bit.

The zombies weren't so bad, though I kind of wish there was a way to get a Nightmare to spawn without being on a big team, aside from the "Kill X zombies" badges you just wind up killing time or scurrying to the next zone or somewhere safe if there's a hospital or other secured area.

I really liked the House of Horrors trial though, it was pretty fun. It offered up a nice run through, the setting was fantastic, the fights aren't bad and it offers up a badge challenge. It's worth playing through at least once, if not 2-3 times if you want to get all the badges. Though, the rewards table could've been expanded with another item or two, I bought the halloween pack so I had the bat aura for everyone and the 5 trick or treats were pretty worthless the couple times I had to pick though. Loved the new murder of crows emote though, the trial was worth running once just for that. Though now that the trial is over, I hope they offer up another way to unlock it for those that missed out.

I really enjoyed the new trial, in fact I had to make a video for it, and also make a point to talk about the video any time I get the chance.