MMORPGs Celebrating the Holidays By Kyt Dotson
Across the world, come midwinter a series of holidays march across
out calendar from Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, and others—it only
makes sense that the MMO community would take advantage of these
festivities and many of them do. Out of the free-to-play games they
often start offering special prices or items that fit the holiday,
enticing their players to spend gift money on something cute or
seasonal; and as for the pay-to-play games, they often construct
elaborate events that reward achievements and items for taking part
in the merriment.
Dungeons & Dragons Online is running a winter event called Festivult.
While the name is silly, the event itself appears to be quite
elaborate. A merrymaker known as the Festivult Jester has been
having players running all over the realm seeking out treasure
chests to loot coins from to turn in for strange prizes. They’ve
also introduced the Risia Ice Games again that have players beating
up fiery monsters hither-and-fro for special coin that allow them to
buy wintry weapons and enchantments. For those not interested in the
hew-and-hack of fighting monsters and raiding, though, there’s also
skating rinks which award coins for deft skill and grace while
wearing skates.
As a free-to-play game, DDO also makes money by calling upon players
to buy credits in the form of coin, so they’re also offering winter
holiday themed items like hot cocoa and ice skates (needed to play
in the Risia Ice Games)—and as well during the period between
December 20th and January 2nd players will a holiday bonus giving
them 10% additional XP and Guild Renown, and a +1 Loot Boost bonus.
Fiesta Online is ringing in the winter holidays and the New Year
with fresh new items for players to buy. “The holidays are fast
approaching, and all of Isya is preparing for the yuletide
festivities! Soon the streets of Roumen and Elderine will be filled
with holiday cheer (and not to mention giant festive Christmas
trees!), and the air will once again by filled by the gentle falling
of fresh snow.” Unlike other games, the item sales don’t seem to
last much beyond the month of December (ending on the 31st.) Amid
the more interesting and festive item releases there is a
Gingerbread House and a Mini Gingerbread Man several sleigh-like
mounts drawn by various critters like reindeer or an anthro-red-nosed-reindeer.
As well as a multitude of look-changing packs that include winter
gear, “Santa” outfits, and snowmen, and other winter themed items.
Their celebration seems limited to new items, but they’re still
definitely solidly in the spirit.
Guild Wars has been running with Wintersday 2010: “For centuries,
the goddess of life, Dwayna, who welcomes the coming of spring, has
struggled with the god of death, Grenth, for control of Wintersday.
This year, the god of war, Balthazar, has thrown his support behind
Grenth, who vehemently believes that Wintersday should be a somber
time of reflection on the inevitability of death.” The event will
cover much of the landscape with snow, giant presents, candy-canes,
and snowmen. There have also been several repeatable quests
involving the Secret Lair of the Snowmen to either save the snowmen
and Wintersday or let it fall to death in despair.
In the true spirit of the thing, snowball fights and tournaments are
part of the celebration.
Amid the festive spirit, there are also two new costumes that
reflect the pagan roots of the holiday with red-and-green horned-oak
themed costumes with extremely elaborate artwork. Of course, they’re
available for purchase in the NCsoft store for a price.
City of Heroes/Villains once again is running with their now usual
Winter Event—opening up the Ski Chalet off of Pocket D where a
mission to save Baby New Year from evil time bandits and presents
appear across Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. Just for logging in,
players are gifted with a small array of special items: costume
piece fuzzy earmuffs, Holiday Spirit which grants 48hrs of 25% dept
protection, and Holiday Cheer which allows a player to gift another
player with a random present—which can include in-game credits, a
temporary power, or even a winter costume hat.
The mission out of the Ski Chalet involving Baby New Year has been
an annual favorite since the event first appeared—but it hasn’t
changed much at all since then. As it does involve fighting through
abominable snowmen (made of snow) and ice trolls to safe a
surprisingly ugly “baby” it certainly has its entertainment value.
Most players run the mission at least enough times to get all the
rewards available and then spend the rest of their time entertaining
themselves sliding down the ski slopes of the interdimensional
chalet.
Lastly World of Warcraft once again brings us the Feast of Winter
Veil: “The Feast of Winter Veil, also called the feast of
Great-Winter, is an in-game, end-of-year, several week long holiday
event seeming to be the in-game counterpart of Christmas and other
holidays at the end of the year.” In fact, it hasn’t changed very
much since the release of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion in
2008; but it still contains a lot of achievements and amusing quests
for players new and veteran alike to get into.
The achievements especially keep veteran players coming back to the
event. Since they’re only available during the event itself and they
culminate in receiving the special title “Merrymaker” for completing
a majority subset of them, it is somewhat coveted. Other elements
include snowballs, snowmen, Christmas-themed armor pieces (like red
and green Santa hats) and a snowman pet.
This year, the presents under the tree also include a blimp
mini-game/controllable pet. The present drops a remote-control that
allows the player to take control of a tiny blimp that can fly
through the air, drop “air mines”, and fire a tiny cannon. Players
flying blimps can shoot at each other and blow one another other of
the sky in a sort of competition—the blimps themselves are not
connected to an achievement, but dueling can be amusing.
In most of these MMOs the winter events extend slightly into January
with most ending around Jan 2nd or 4th. So if you want to get your
festivities in and take in some holiday cheer and merrymaking you
might want to get to it soon!