Halloween and Christmas are huge holidays in real life. Both of these are seaonal events that people really look forward to celebrating. As MMORPGs progressed, the concept of holidays was introduced. During the month of October, EverQuest players see a speciallHalloween themed character select screen. During the month of December, we see a Christmas themed screen. So far so good! But when players log into Norrath, that's where the seasonal celebrations seem to stop. For TLP players, there are no holidays or holiday quests availble for about 2 years when the Depths of Darkhollow expansion unlocks. I don't think I've ever seen a pumpkin in Norrath. Live players don't have to wait, they get a few Day of the Dead and Frostfell quests. Better, but not great. Go into any town and city in Norrath and you find no evidence that the denizens are celebrating Nights of the Dead and Frostfell. There no pumpkins, no haystacks, no Christmas trees, no snowmen, no holly, no bobbing apple barrels, no decorations to be seen anywhere. Why is this? How hard would it be to for the devs to place a few pumpkins, haystacks, scarecrows, and Christmass trees and snowmen in cities like Rivervale, Freeport, Qeynos, Felwithe and any other cities for their respective holidays? I am speculating here but this might be achieved in two ways: 1. Creating alternate data sets with the appropriate seasonal decorations that are activated at the appropriate time. 2. Having a dev or GM, physically visit each server and decorate each town and city by placing items that are currently available for player housing. EverQuest is the MMOPRG that started it all. Twenty years ago, I remember with fondness Halloween GM events and alternate data sets that introduced new mobs, cool loot, and used spooky colors for the skies. EQ was special because you never knew what was going to happen in the world. In 2022, holidays are a standard feature of most major MMOs and as a result, these are times of great fun and anticipation for the players, but for some reason not EverQuest. We get a few quest NPCs if we are lucky, and that's it. During the holidays the character select screens brim with seasonal fare but upon entering Norrath, the player sees none of it in the world only in player housing lots. Daybreak promotes these seasonal events on the forums and social media. I'm just concerned that when new players arrive in Norrath, they are not getting the celebrations they were promised or that they expect. When you over-promise and under-deliver, it's a letdown. I think having towns and cities fully decorated during holidays would really help make Norrath more of a living, breathing, immersive world. It would give more players a reason to visit their starting cities too. Maybe in the years to come this will be addressed and both players and NPCs can celebrate the holidays in all their seasonal glory. Thanks for listening.
Because it's not WoW and was never coded into the game from the start like WoW was, which makes it harder to implement . Think about it; the various races might need different holiday decor, etc. Besides, Norath doesn't know anything about Santy Claws, or any guy who loses his sandal in the desert and gains a following.
To me it was a bad idea to implement (local) RL holidays into Norrath at all because it did collide with the fantasy world immersion and it's lore. It is a common gaming fashion that is mostly based on marketing and revenue.That some holidays received different names like Frostfell (Frostfall, Juloffenblotten in other games) has not helped much. It's stupid because Norrath has its own yearly cycle that does not match with the mundane calendars. Instead Norrath could have had its own (local) holidays, events and seasons but missed that opportunity many years ago. Instead of reinforcing the unique lore of Norrath and going big, that opportunity got sacrificed for a short-lived mainstream fashion.
More relevant, EQ is not EQ2 which is coded to have in-game decorations for every Event/Holiday in addition to a monthly 'fair' in a rotating city. The holidays and events have special collectibles, quests and activities from the cities or other locations associated with the holiday/event. EQ2 has a special zone for Frostfell and a few other holidays/events including another monthly event with several special zones that open for 2 days every month. The number of quests or special activities is also incredibly small on EQ vs EQ2 which adds to theirs every year. In EQ, even in the zones which have been revamped or refreshed since the launch of EQ2 were not made flexible for holidays/events. Other than the extremely lack lustre Overseer "quests" added this year, I don't think any holiday/event quests have been added to EQ for several years. It's sad that not even a quarter of the effort given to EQ2 would be given to EQ. There are a few Norrath only holidays, possibly with more celebration/attention in EQ2 than EQ including Tinkerfest which was a 'holiday' that started as a yearly player-made event on Firiona Vie long before EQ2 was launched. It was made into a game event in EQ2. Another thing that is missed for EQ.
Tinkerfest and rotating city fairies do sound interesting. For EQ they could be placed in the newbie zones and areas right next to the starting cities as there is not much open space inside most of the cities. It would also solve faction problems. Gfay, BB, Steamfont, Nektulos, Everfrost, WFP, CR, North Qeynos, Misty Thicket, Tox. Some cities could be excluded for being to far away or hostile.
EQ2 Events: http://eq2.eqtraders.com/articles/article_page.php?article=q64&menustr=080000000000 EQ2's city fairs are in the adjoining zone for the non-neutral-ish cities. Each of them also have themed rewards, too: appearance garb (there is a -free- appearance tab for outfits vs a paid unlock), appearane weapons, house items, food/drink, etc. It's been awhile since I played EQ2 at the beginning of the month (I always log in at the wrong time *laugh*). It's the first week of each month if you want to check it out. EQ2's Moonlight Enchantments is 2 days (20/21) every month with the 'fairy rings' opening in several non-city locations around Norrath that even a level 1 character can get to. Rewards are mostly themed to the mini-zones, also garb, house items, food/drink, potions, etc. Every event/holiday in EQ2 gets updates with new items added. For the monthly ones, the new stuff is added every couple years for all the others, new stuff including new quests are added every year. In EQ, the only new stuff added in the last several years is related to expansion with only a tiny percentage of that for stuff that's not specifically and entirely related to the combat related adventuring in that new expansion. There is barely a nod to any game play outside of that. Some of this, I am sure, is because of backlash when they did try to add more into the game (especially from "end game" players). For EQ2 there is a lot more development time given to activities that aren't 100% combat-related adventuring with a similar amount of development time for combat-related activities as EQ (or possibly even more). I actually do prefer playing in EQ again (outside of friends I have in EQ, I'm not sure why, but I do) I just wish there was still some development on the non-combat parts of the game, too. I keep finding nuggets of what was added while I was gone and some are obviously abandoned projects, like the housing system.
This is not WoW? I had no idea. If I had a Krono for every time someone says that on the forums I could buy epics for all of my toons. I'm not asking Darkpaw to celebrate Halloween and Christmas per se. I used those examples to show why both holidays are cleverly leveraged into unique holidays in fantasy MMOs and that today's players have certain expectations. Holidays and events help relieve the monotony of Ground Hog Day type MMOs (i.e. EverQuest) where nothing ever changes. A few simple holiday decorations that already exist for player housing, placed in all of the towns is not a big ask. All I'm asking for is a smidgeon of effort put into EQ holidays decor by the developers. Times change, technology changes. Holidays in MMORPGs are ubiquitous now. Players have reasonable expectations that holidays will be celebrated. They have the tech to put that anniversary gnome race NPC in Steamfont to Unrest. Why can't they put a few simple stationary decorative holiday props in all of the cities? Why has EverQuest not kept pace?
eh, with that argument, why are the cardinal directions named 'North', 'South', 'East' and 'West' instead of something like Coldward, Warmward, Feyward and Odusward. Why have 24 hours in a day?, why not 8 or 16? Why not 'Drink' 'Food' and 'Eat' 'Liquids'?
A Norrathian day is most definitely not 24 hours. I think it's something like 72 minutes? I forget exactly, but you can see the Norrath time by typing /time. There are a few quests linked to a Norrathian day or where an NPC is only in game around a certain time of the Norrathian day. Kithikor changes the NPCs based on the time in the Norrathian day.
This was astounding. To reply to someone pointing out the tired cliche with the even more tired cliche of some snobby elitist too self involved to keep up wtih the context of the post and just look down their nose at someone assuming they are too lazy to "put in the work" - well my hat's off to you.
Which reminds me, I thought that EQ2 was 500 years ahead of EQ, at 24 times pace, after 22 plus years, we should be seeing EQ2 now.
Indeed it is 24*3 = 72 min. If the norrathian year does also follow the pattern of 365 days, it would have a lenght of just 18.25 mundane days. From the EQ II forums: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/days-in-the-norrathian-year.604554/
EQ2 is an alternate dimension that split during the PoP events EQ Next was also going to be an alternate dimension, around CotF, the Ethernere realm itself was the common shared realm for all EQ Dimensions (how entities from EQ1 and EQ2 crossed into each other)
I am shocked that my memory of 72 mins was spot on. I don't remember when last I read it. I forgot to comment earlier, the games follow the Earth calendar for holidays and events because the players are from earth. If we cycled through the year in just over 18 earth days, then most of the holidays and events (including XP boosts, etc/) would last at most an earth day or two and/or would occur at times not conducive to the majority of players schedules. If you think there is a ruckus about the once a month (earth month) bug fix release downtime and or not so scheduled downtime occurring in the middle of someone's prime time, can you imagine the ruckus for a blink and you miss it event/holiday which would, of course, occur during someone's sleep or work time (i.e. non-game time). I'm a bit irritated the "first phase" of Frostfell which was over the span of several earth days at the beginning of the month occurred when I was in limited game time due to work.
The norrathian calendar was obviously not constructed with foresight. Think about an event like Frostfell that is going on for about 30 mundane days. That is a 600 day long party (factor 20) in Norrath ! If the norrathian year would have 7300.25 days (365*20+0.25) it could be synchronized with the gregorian calendar (from A. D. 1582).
I think some player on Bristlebane gave some attention to this. Brewmaster Berina, on small bank platform, has been dressed in red. Looks good!
If we do ever see Norrathian cities decorated for holidays, could we perhaps see a Festivus pole in town squares? Festivus, A holiday for the rest of us.
The first year MMO do these festivities it's fun. But many just automate the process the following years and you see the exact same thing, and it feels fake. Kind of like someone put a raindeer on his roof one day, and everyone loved it when he turned on the lights. But now he can't be bothered to take off the raindeer and he installed a clock that makes it light up each year, even when he's on vacation. No one cares anymore.
