I am one of those people who doesn’t notice the change of holidays until my online game patches for it. One day I’ll log into my World of Warcraft character and see Christmas trees decorated with weapons and know that Christmas is coming soon. Nothing perks my game up more than logging into a virtual winter wonderland. Seeing as I am an Internet junkie, I have seen my fair share of holiday themed events in different online games including the responses, not only from other players, but the game developers regarding them.

Several MMORPG’s have their own holiday themed events and I wanted to share the diversity between them with the rest of you.

The first game on my list is Star Wars Galaxies. Fitting with the Star Wars theme, their holiday event is for Wookie Life Day. While this is one of the least liked aspects of the Star Wars universe, players can still feel festive as they participate in the activities. It’s not overly complex like other events. You are given a gift and one that you have to give to another player of the game. It’s celebrated yearly now and the decorations are often red and green, the primary colors of the holiday season in reality. Like most MMORPG’s, they don’t elaborate too well on the holiday’s lore.

Everquest II is a bit more in-depth where characters celebrate Frostfell in celebration of the Winter Solstice. It’s been in game since winter 2005 and the quests have changed each year, along with additional quests being added. The quests range for different levels and incorporate several themes for the winter holidays. One specific quest line introduces you to three ghosts of Frostfell past, present, and future.

Another popular MMORPG choice, Final Fantasy XI, celebrates the winter holidays in its own unique way with the Starlight Celebration. The three minor cities are decorated for the season and the focus of the event is to give gifts to people. You bring enough smiles to children throughout the world and you are rewarded. In the end, this event rewards trivial items but rather provides cute novelty things, like special outfits and unique items for your home.

A few years ago I played International Ragnarok Online which was my first introduction to a holiday themed event in-game. It was a simple little quest - kill X amount of monsters and return their drops for something cute and pointless. It was only recently that the game introduced the thing everyone is crazy for - cute sprites! They released adorable outfits in red and white fluff for characters, although temporarily, and players were ecstatic. In a game where sprites mean everything (what you wore on your head was your social status), the players became fully active in this event.

The only game I have much experience with for holiday events though, is World of Warcraft. Therefore, that is going to be the focus of this entry. I was first introduced to the Feast of Winter Veil shortly after release (the game had been live for a month or so). There are plenty of quests that hint strongly at Christmas tales, several novelty items, recipes for different professions, and the game seems to change completely. There’s several lights strung out on buildings in the capital cities and there’s always a large tree present. Oh, and don’t forget Greatfather Winter who comes to visit every year. Personally, I have always lived in places where decorations for the holidays was a rarity, so to see the game change really set the mood for me.

It was also the first time I ever heard complaints about a holiday in-game. I mean, you expect to hear whining in MMORPG’s about anything but the amount of people complaining in all the chat channels was tremendous. World of Warcraft is also the first online game where I have seen items change due to them being considered offensive to those of different religions (For example, the Easter Dress becoming the Elegant Dress the next year). One item I specifically recall was the snowball which use to have a funny knockback debuff. Random chance you get hit with a snowball, it’d throw your character onto its back. Very fun and festive! Of course, like most things, it was considered a buggy nuisance. One thing you could do was throw a snowball at someone getting on a flight path and it’d ‘knock’ them to their destination without ever flying. Another was you could knock people off bridges in battlegrounds and even through portals (Perfect for dealing with AFK’ers). They now split up the snowballs and added the knock-back ones specifically in a battleground for players.

Players are first randomly given a profession-related item that isn’t soulbound, most often at times it’s one of a profession they don’t have. I am led to believe this was to encourage trading and gifts among players, but it very rarely works out that way. There are a lot of non-combat pets you can acquire including a snowman, a reindeer, and Winter’s Little Helpers. The quests are more focused on the fairy tales of Christmas, like rescuing a reindeer named Metzen and fighting the Greench. You can even catch a glimpse of some of the scariest beings in Azeroth (And the Outlands now) wearing green and red hats, which are dropped for players. With this year, they released new outfits for players to craft (Horde get the green version, Alliance get the red version) for other players. There are several different random things about the event, like kissing a Winter Reveler in any inn under the mistletoe will result in an item and kiss in return. The thing I really enjoy the most is the change of the official forums. The festive look seals the deal.

Several players will remain outraged at the resemblance of these quests and items to real life in every MMORPG out there, but that’s just the way games roll these days. I’ve always enjoyed seeing the game turn festive, as it’s the developers own special way to treat their players for the holidays. There’s several other MMORPG’s that implement holiday themed items differently; some sell costumes for your characters for real cash and others just do something that has nothing to do at all with Christmas. I’m proud to play on US servers and see the things I celebrate in real life in my virtual game. I’ve just learned to ignore all the scrooges and play the game for myself. So happy Wookie Life Day / Starlight Celebration / Winter Veil to you all!

This entry was posted on Monday, December 24th, 2007 at 3:18 am and is filed under MMORPGs, Holiday Themed. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.