Do you want to see in-game holidays in EverQuest Next?

That is cultural. Culture can be developed by other races.

I find that logging into an MMORPG to find everyone running around with reindeer mounts and santa hats on really kills the mood. We get bombarded with enough of that crap in the real world, I'd like to be able to escape it during my video game time. Holidays that fit with the game's lore might be alright, as long as they're not too similar to real-world holidays.

Keep it simple. Seasonal change are the best,

Like others have posted just renaming RL events and pumping RL themes is old, done to death, often not wanted. Also realise that the player base is international so a lot of the stuff pumped in current games that emulate RL are often not understood, celebrated or are even lothed by a lot of the player base.

Major events in game via Rally Calls or whatever could be significant enough to warrant yearly celebration.
with each server potentially being different why can't the events of mass celebration or reverence?

Some games did holiday events so well I would keep coming back just for them even a few years after I stopped regularly playing that game.

I like ingame holidays. Especially when you're playing a certain mmo for quite some time. It makes it that more interesting to log back in and check out the festivities.
The better ingame holidays for me are the ones that play into the lore and fit in the world. No immersion breaking pumpkin carving please . Maybe something that celebrates the end of the Age of -blank- or maybe just the birthday of some important NPC .

I don't want any adaptations of real world holidays in an online game, even if the lore and reasons are different. It's Immersion breaking and often sets up expectations which can never be met. Please have celebrations and festivals in Norath based on the game, it gives players more to be happy about and celebrate. Not only will they have holidays and celebrations in real live to get jazzed over, now they have a whole set of celebrations in a virtual world to be happy about!

How awesome would it be to have celebrations and festivals specific to different races, cities, in game beliefs, and recognition of past server specific events. Imagine having a system to generate festivals across cities where you could easily create a semi personalized even for a server where you drove off a large goblin invasion in the past and the city survived, better yet you were a defender and are rewarded even more at such an event/honored.

Your part of the reason the event is happening to begin with so others are appreciative of how cool it was you were there with others to make sure the city is still standing and express some gratitude. Similarly if I owned a trading shop in a city saved by a guild or two I would likely offer discounts and gifts to the involved parties/guilds as a thanks for ensuring the continued survival of my shop.

Lets have some ridiculous celebrations like say a Troll celebration of bloodthirst where participants get inebriated and murder all the cute nearby woodland critters perhaps then chopping up and arranging their carcases into the most creative and horrific sculptures. (If your going to have Trolls then you should really have Trolls) Don't make everything pg, the virtual world will lose it's believability, and players will be more often pulled out of a weaker fictive dream with a greater frequency of interruptions if thier reminded their playing a game made by a studio that is too concerned about not stepping on anyone's toes due to corporate policies.

Also celebrating real world holidays is a bit silly when you think that there will be people from all over the world playing this game that come from very different backgrounds. Why choose one real world holiday over another to put into the game? It will only paint the picture that EQN's worlds are not so diversely filled with people of all backgrounds and nationalities.

Holidays connected only to lore new and old. Decouple from national holidays please.

I would like to see rl world holidays reflected in the game because it generally fits my moods. When it's Christmas in rl, I feel the need to celebrate in game. If it's the end of the November when I'm getting swamped with work, I don't think I will be in a happy and jumpy mood with plenty of game-time to celebrate an in-game holiday.

Then again, if the developers are planning to have some sort of in-game holiday during the Christmas time and name it some Day of a Snowfairy who has build an ice city up north which we can enter and have lots of shiny quests only during the winter, then why not.

I would love to see holiday events and also good ol GM events like in EQ1.

"Oh look! Another completely separate fantasy universe with everything from demons to dragons that SOMEHOW celebrates the passing of spirits to/from this realm with candy corn and pumpkins and oh dear is that dungeon boss headless and on a flying horse? What are the odds!"

Bleh. I'm head and shoulders (pun!) for holiday events, maybe even thematically to some extent (halloween is a spooky time, new year is a festive, celebratory time, etc.) but please stop with the general tropes that we see day to day. I've stomached far too many father/uncle/grandorc winters to count over the years.

I love holiday events from the real world mimiced in my MMO's, so long as they aren't just a passing thought.

When real good game design meets the holidays I get extra excited for the holidays. When done well, I really do look forward for the holidays arrival even moreso than normal, and I love me some seasons to celebrate, cause I love me some life!

I have so many examples of what I grade as "good" holiday design, and even more as mediocre. So long as the game "owns" its own version of the holiday being celebrated in the real world then I'm sure the holiday is on the right track for success.

I love holiday events in games Halloween is always cool Christmas is decent but i think a game needs more than just a few major real world holidays. Give us others some special ones that aren't real world. During real world holidays I tend to be much busier and it would be great if some amazing big holidays in the game were not based on anything other than game lore. So I could have a cool experience during off times of the year when its not already an exciting time in the real world.

Holidays are fine and I think ones that tie in closely with lore is great. But maybe like EQ1 we could have the odd holiday that is similar time to RL ones but just for other reasons. Im not overly bothered if there are holidays or not, but it is a great way to maybe introduce new content that is onlyu available during the holiday. Having them based on diety would then be good as special items imbued and only available to followers would be awesome.

don't know EV and EVII but I would like for holidays not to be spread on all world but to be celebrated in Towns ( that would change town folk) and in minor way in small villages. I would also like for some world events and holidays that are specific to monsters or special races that life in the world. Something like Return of Goblin King from Log Horizon anime.

I said I'd like in world holidays rather than real ones. After all, it's a fictional fantasy world, and so fictional fantasy holidays make sense. It'd also be very interesting if different cultures in the game had completely different holidays. So that one place may have a huge celebration, but another has absolutely nothing and may not even realize it's a holiday to anyone.

That being said, the players live in the real world and are quite aware of real holidays. So doing something for those real holidays is nice. It doesn't have to be an in game holiday. It can be a gift of some little thing in game (fireworks on the 4th of July, or Candy Canes around Christmas), or whatever. Some sort of nice nod to the players, but not necessarily to the characters. And that distinction is why I'd like to see fictional holidays in game.

All that being said, I'm happy with whatever. It's not a huge issue to me whichever way it goes.

Don't want to spoil the mood, and I'm aware that I'm more of an exception in this regard, but:
Let us be able to opt-out of getting gifts that lack any usefulness. For the time being I play swtor (sticking with the guild - at least 'til Next), and every time I get in-game mail from BW, I take a look, recognize that the attached gift has no practical use (in-game'ish), feel offended and just delete it. I know, I'm grumpy. Still I'd appreciate to be able to opt-out.

I think it would be cool to see lore based holidays.

Bring on the Holidays. Lore based is fine and if they have good lore to fit it, I don't see why not substituting them for real world ones should be an issue. Creating those to fit in with the seasons and the months that correspond with real world events is something I would like to see as well.

I personally like the Holidays such as Halloween and Christmass in games, but I can certainly see where that can break the immersion for some. Constumes, masks, festivals, parades, celebrations...it's generally fun little excursions from the day to day grind. Have plenty of them.

Real world holidays take away from the immersing oneself in the experience.

It's like throwing everything into a blender from the refrigerator, a person cant fill themselves with enough crap.

There is such a thing as over looting a game.


A option might be to ask at the beginning of start of game preference on a loot system individually.

Those that don't want holiday bonus, reward them with loot system that matches game experience

Yes on in-game holidays, but only if they are created for the game, not real world versions of holidays.