Dec 26 2008
Holiday Events on MMOs: Your Opinion
It has become standard fare for MMOs to have some kind of special event around holiday time. Most have something at Christmas and all other major holidays, but some will run special events even for minor stuff (including Hallmark Day… oops, I mean Valentine’s Day.) The current trend is to create some kind of faux-In Character name for the event (All Hallows Eve, Feast of Winter Veil, Keg End, etc.) that dimly creates a lore reason for the event. This is often a very weak excuse, since in-game time rarely relates to real life time.
Before you assume I am down on the idea, I think these events are good and interesting things. I think they are an example of developers giving something fun to their community, and they create a bit of an emotional connection from the game world to the real world. When you are celebrating something special in real life you are also celebrating something special in the game. If anything, the only negative thing I have to say about the idea is the fact that all too often this is the ONLY type of special event developers run. That’s a shame. Events directly related to the game world itself are far more interesting and should be a bigger priority.
What Do Players Think About Holiday MMO Events?
As players (or visiting developers), what do you think about these holiday events? I will get you started with a few specific questions:
1) Are these kinds of events fun?
2) Are they worth the time developers put into them?
3) Do you have a problem with developers trotting out the same event each year, or mostly the same with a few things added?
4) Do events like this break immersion, add to it, or neither?
Feel free to also share examples of good or bad holiday MMO events you have experienced.
Merry Christmas!
1) It depends. Once-a-year events tend to stuff a lot to do in a relatively small timeframe. If you didn’t get to do it all, you feel somewhat guilty. But if you did do it all, the event offers you nothing. Personally I like frequently-recurring events like Darkmoon Faire, where you can gradually work towards your goal(s), and missing one event is not the end of the world.
2) Generally, yes. Of course, sometimes the reason is that the event turns out to be completely different than what the developers intended. For example, the Lunar Festival is known as the “Massacre of Moonglade”.
3) At least they’re adding something to it. 99% of old content is never updated.
4) If it’s rewritten to fit the world setting, it doesn’t break immersion. Snowball launchers in EvE feel out of place, but snowballs in Alterac Valley are completely different. Although I do feel that most event ornaments feel out of place in the Undercity.. except for the Wicker Man.
Thanks for the reply Hirvox. I was surprised there was anyone else reading at this crazy hour. I thought I was the only wacko not worn out from Christmas.
In Navyfield, ships fire christmas baubles instead of shells, and dive bombers look like Santa Claus on a reindeer sled. WoW has a very nice Winter Veil festival, but just like the headless horseman it becomes achievement grind for most players. Do not miss the event, unless you have to wait till next year to get it. In Guild Wars, there are some special items that drop very rarely and randomly during a quest only available during Wintersday. They are cosmetic, but this actually encourages people to grind during christmas.
I would prefer less grind and less rewards, but rather giving people a nice atmosphere and a real in-game festival than the mentioned examples. In Navyfield I used the patch to turn shells back to normal after a few battles anyways.
Especially Guild Wars offers too much beneficial festival grind, often with rare rewards. Many people who prefer to spend time with friends and family did not like that overly much. Nothing wrong with some xmas decoration, I would like even more of that for various holidays. But all those special rewards urge people to log in to their favorite MMO, or else feel like they lost something.
WoW was okay as long as they did not add achievement title grind to the game. Now the creed is “do not miss a holiday achievement grind!”
Yeah, WoW never misses the opportunity to add another grind of some sort.
Christmas? Bah, humbug! I try to avoid being the Grinch, though.
That’s what I also like about the Darkmoon Faire. There is a grind part for the reward, but you don’t have to do it all at once. And if you don’t care about the reward, you’re free to enjoy the festivities themselves.
As for the achievement grinds.. I recommend reading Greedy Goblin’s series about the Theory of Leisure (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), which seems entirely applicable: You do the achievements to show other people that you can afford to “waste” the time and effort.
Hirvox, thanks for the link. I read Veblen, but I would have liked to have Greedy Goblin sum it up for me. Veblen was a really smart guy that could not communicate his ideas, this is how people would (or actually do) describe him nowadays.
There is some truth about it. I still have problems to relate it to me: I am pretty sure that I did/do the achievements in various to show off to others. At the same time I often did things nobody could see, so could not be showed off, e.g. I had cartographer (explore all spots of the map) in Guild Wars before the fancy title “Explorer” was added. So did I do it for myself or why did I do it…
For example: “The point is to throw away our expensive cloths. The richest people have such an “elaborate sense of beauty” that they don’t wear the same cloths twice.The point is to throw away our expensive cloths. The richest people have such an “elaborate sense of beauty” that they don’t wear the same cloths twice.”
This is very true for stars and starlets. I still cannot swallow or believe that I am mainly driven by the fact to show others that I can waste time for this or that.
OK, the issue is more complex than that…
In Guild Wars, I had already played the game for years. I knew the mechanics, tricks of the trade, had practice at doing anything possible and had some “secret knowledge”. BTW, according to Bartle I am ESA or EAS type.
Explorer-Achiever-Socializer-(Killer). Achievements kept me going, gave me a reason to play. I was already quite done with the game otherwise! Not because it was bad, I just had enough of it and saw the flaws while I did not appreciate the fun aspects as much as before.
But this achievement grind, many of my friends fell victim to it, too, always annoyed me. We were doing often outright silly things to meet the requirements for this or that really useless title, because it added to the maximum titles achieved title track… ouch!
At this point, I asked myself “why am I doing this?” and joined some friends who quit GW earlier and were playing WoW for quite some time by now. I also played EVE for a while, but while I liked it a lot, the immense amount of time involved to really play this game totally put me off!
I guess I still have not totally understood the principles and ideas of Veblen and Greedy Goblin, but some ideas are right on spot. The love-hate-relationship of players for grind elements in a game for example is a fascinating topic.
Long, you just gave me a good idea for my next blog post.
Thanks!
Thanks for dropping a comment in my blog and a link to this post!
I have to say that I’m a real sucker for in-game holiday events. There is absolutely nothing like having that token holiday mask or festive armor or item that you just can’t ever get again. I collect them! Plenty of times I’ll have migrated away from a game only to be hooked back by the “Oh! The holiday festival masks for this year are coming out!”
So, my resounding answer to if they are fun and worth the development is “Yes!…. If done properly.”
As noted above, these events usually have a short period of time to accomplish the rewards. Often, they coincide with real life holidays that require a gamer to choose between attending the event or real life holiday with friends and family. So an event of this type needs to be developed so that there’s wiggle room where gamers can achieve a variety of rewards throughout the event.
I have participated in many events in various games (FFXI, EQ2, Guild Wars, LOTRO, Warhammer, Vanguard to name a few) but the one game that continuously impresses me with their holiday events has to be Guild Wars. The developers really do seem to understand how to make interesting, engaging events that are accessible to even those who can only log in for 15 mins to grab that special holiday hat.
Guild Wars events usually stretch out over a period of time — the Wintersday event has gone on for weeks. There are a variety of rewards based on how much time you have to put into it. Holiday items drop from normal mobs, there are quest chains that reward more items (or items that you can trade for special holiday items/weapons), a snowball arena for those who like holiday PVP and key locations across the land are redecorated from ground up to reflect the holiday.
The event often crowns with a grand finale with an interactive game that requires community involvement to “win” the final prize of the event — usually cosmetic headgear. On top of that, gift boxes are awarded after the headgear is given out, which can net you even more holiday items. These items range from just for fun holiday fireworks to actual stat improving items that can be used in PVE.
However, if you could not make it to the finale, you can still turn in shards/tokens that you collected over the extent of the event to get that headgear for a few days after the event ends. On top of that, you can show the headgear to a festival hat maker and he can make copies of the headgear for all of the characters on your account. Which means you don’t have to go through the event over and over and over and over again just to earn something for each character.
Guild Wars developers have learned through trial and error of past events and I think every year it gets better. Halloween is still my favorite there!
If folks are interested in this year’s Wintersday event in GWs, check out my post:
http://www.wrenwings.com/guild-wars-celebrates-wintersday-2008
Thanks for dropping by to comment, and thanks for linking back to your blog so my readers can learn a little more about GW’s holiday event.
I have to say, every time I read about something GW does it sounds excellent. I wish I had enjoyed the game a little more when I first bought it. I had trouble getting over the lack of a JUMP ability, and there was an unresponsive and sluggish feel to the interface for me. Maybe they improved that, or more importantly, I hope that will be resolved in GW2.
I love their business model and it sounds like they are very creative, original people that make great games.
Yeah, the lack of JUMP is annoying sometimes (heard it would be in GW2, though). I also miss crafting systems that you can find in other games. There’s been upgrades to the interface since it was first released (not sure when you tried it?). And overall, the GWs team really does look at what would make their game more accessible to their players, even if that means making changes that are quite vast. I’ve been playing from retail release so I’ve seen how this game has developed over time.
Overall, it’s probably the longest-played game for me seeing that I can put it down and pick it back up again without penalty. So if I feel like playing something else, I don’t have to worry about whether or not I’m paying for GWs, too. This makes it easier to jump back in the game when my guildies and I are in the mood.
There’s grind for people who want grind, casual for people who want casual and skill/tactical playing for those who enjoy that. I’ve introduce a lot of non-MMORPG playing folks to it over the years and I feel like it’s a game that has a lot to offer a wide variety of players.
If you ever get some time to try it out again, I do suggest it.
I absolutely adore Guild Wars, too. Right now I do not play it anymore, I got bored. I have played it from start till a few months after the release of Eye of the North. Now that my system can run it in gazillion x gazillion pixels with 128x AA and whatever, I do not play it anymore… this is just wrong…!
ArenaNet always has cool new ideas. I think the flaw is that the implementation often backfires. I hope they learnt something for Guild Wars 2. Sometimes I think they used the game as a testbed for new ideas from start to finish, and that it is really a wonder and speaking for the core game design that they ran it subscription free up to now.
I have high hopes for GW2, at the same time I always fear they miss to introduce this hard to define appeal of Guild Wars 1 that kept me playing for years.
If you start out in GW from scratch, you are either in the fast level up “chapters”, stand alone expansions (not more than a day to max level, then you have only max level content for the rest of the game) like Factions or Nightfall, or you start out in Tyria as low level where levelling takes much more time. And nobody will be there to play and group with you, but rather quickly level you up so that you can trivialize the low level “missions” and areas before you.
I am not sure if I would have played Guild Wars if I had started later. The coolest thing they ever introduced was hard mode and vanquishing IMO.
And then they added those dreaded cheat items and uber skills! 
This is HUGE right here. This is why, in my opinion, the subscription model has to die. Games that do not have a subscription have NO BARRIER TO RE-ENTRY for former players, and less barrier to entry for new players. This is so incredibly valuable. You should check out my blog post:
Players Are Content.
http://muckbeast.today.com/2008/08/13/players-are-content/
Not to derail too much from the GW love, but as I just picked up the game (and love it), this has been my first “Wintersday” event. I have also played through several holiday events in Puzzle Pirates, which were always great fun. Without further ado, then:
1) I certainly have fun with holiday events. Perhaps it has much to do with the overlap between my “available gaming time” and the holidays, but I appreciate the effort that devs put into making things special and interesting, above and beyond the baseline.
2) I believe they are worth the time. I’ve seen them increase traffic in PP (and doubloon purchases), but above and beyond that, they are good fun for the players. If it doesn’t pay off immediately, it’s good will in the bank, and that tends to pay off down the road.
3) I don’t mind repeats of events. PP has done something a bit different each year I’ve played, but they maintain old things sometimes as well. I suppose that the idea of “all of the old, with new layered on top” is my ideal… but I don’t mind repeated content if it’s fun. If it’s lame, I’ll just ignore it, but then, repeats of old content aren’t exactly draining the overhead, either.
4) Regarding immersion, I think that it can cut both ways. In games where the world takes itself seriously, complete with alternate calendars and such, celebrating real world holidays can bend immersion. I don’t mind, though, as we really are playing with other people, not a world completely populated by NPCs with their own calendars and rituals. In other games, like WoW, where there are already plenty of pop references and silliness, holidays aren’t trouble at all. At least, not conceptually. They can still be bothersome like the recent Zombie invasion event, but I had mechanical complaints about that, not a complaint about the holiday itself.