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Halloween Massive Gaming News

Posted by Zonk on from the roleplay-a-character-roleplaying-a-character dept.

Holidays are always interesting times in the Massive Gaming market and this weekend is no exception. Spooks, trick or treating, interviews, anniversaries, and conferences are just some of the Halloween weekend news to share. Read on for the details.

City of Heroes is running a Trick or Treat and Zombie invasion event this weekend. Folks in Europe looking to get their cape on can look forward to participating sometime next year.

Anarchy Online is celebrating the season with a holiday ball and costume contest, as well as nanotech transformations and monster sightings.

Final Fantasy Online players and developers have a lot to be happy about this weekend. Today is the one-year anniversary of the North American launch, and they're throwing a party to celebrate. In-game, the annual trick or treating, costuming, and spookery is going on. This year they're also throwing around some glamours to let players take the part of monsters for a while. Square-Enix revised upwards it's earning estimates this week, giving even executives reason to smile.

In non-holiday news, Richard Garriot was interviewed by HomeLAN about the upcoming Tabula Rasa game, and MMORPG.com has some new info on Dungeons and Dragons Online from the lead designer.

Finally, the Second Annual State of Play conference is this weekend, drawing Virtual World academics from all over to celebrate Halloween by lecturing. Nerd on, guys.

Update: 10/28 18:50 GMT by Z : There's a press release going around stating that City of Villians playtesters will be drawn from the ranks of veteran CoH players.

22 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. Halloween spooks ... by YetAnotherName · · Score: 4, Funny

    Read on for the details.

    OK, clicking "Read more..."

    Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

    OK ... um ... eek?

  2. A shame there aren't better player tools for event by thesandtiger · · Score: 4, Interesting
    In CoH, at least, there have been several player-run events that were very interesting, if only because players interested in hosting them took the time to RP things pretty well.

    I would love to see a game that has a system in place for players to do some things that would enhance the events they can do - drop clues and so on.

    I bring this up in this topic because CoH has had a few "invasion" type events that lacked any real flavor beyond "oh, look! A thingy spawned!" and maybe a forum post saying "be on the look out for strangeness."

    Players, however, would take the ability to make mini events and would likely spend more time on them than Cryptic employees who need to focus on other stuff.

    --
    Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
  3. Oh hell... by grub · · Score: 4, Funny


    I forgot it was Halloween this weekend. Have to run out to buy apples and razor blades tonight...

    --
    Trolling is a art,
    1. Re:Oh hell... by eegad · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, OK.... but you don't HAVE to shave your legs to dress up as the evil witch from Snow White.

  4. More layers of separation by happyemoticon · · Score: 5, Interesting
    In-game, the annual trick or treating, costuming, and spookery is going on. This year they're also throwing around some glamours to let players take the part of monsters for a while.

    The practice of going into a game and assuming a different persona only to have that persona assume yet another persona is kind of mind-boggling especially if you're a humanities student. I mean, it was bad enough last year when I dressed up as a vampirate.

    1. Re:More layers of separation by kcornia · · Score: 4, Funny

      This year they're also throwing around some glamours to let players take the part of monsters for a while.

      IIRC, EQ tried this a couple years back and had to quickly shelve it because toons were getting owned by monsters that were manned by actual players with skill and strategery. Strafing, concentrating on spellcasters/healers. Hilarity ensued, and the idea was quickly shelved so as not to alienate the unskilled masses..

      Good luck to whatever game is trying this now.

    2. Re:More layers of separation by kfg · · Score: 4, Funny

      Ah, but what if your persona assumes the additional persona of yet another persona?

      And what if that persona is a professional mimic assuming yet a fourth level persona?

      I smell the burgeoning field of persona therapist to deal with all the personal identity angst.

      KFG

    3. Re:More layers of separation by Palidase · · Score: 3, Interesting
      EQ tried this a couple years back and had to quickly shelve it because toons were getting owned by monsters that were manned by actual players with skill and strategery.
      EQ did do this for a very short time several years ago. It was not publicized widely at all, and was only available on the test server for a very short period of time. By clicking a special button on the character select, the player was spawned as a randomly selected monster, with a max level of 13.

      It was initially intended as a short term concept on Test. Due to the levels involved, the risk wasn't getting wiped by monsters with strong tactics. In fact, it was the opposite. The random monsters still qualified as experience, when killed.

      Player_01 loads 2 accounts. One goes in as a toon able to talk to other players. The second account would go in as a monster. The player would then tell friends, through the toon account, where he/she is located. The strategies from this point split into 2 methods.

      The first method, was that the friends would kill the "player monster" for easy xp, who then cycled through monsters quickly to get another in the same zone.

      My personal favorite tactic was the second. In each zone, some mobs are a significant bit harder than others in the zone. The player would log in and out until getting one of these monsters, and hunt WITH their friends. As none of these mobs are KoS, they were free to roam all over without agroing other monsters, making pulling even easier.

      Personally, I leveled many friends' alts, by tanking as a basilisk in Lavastorm.

      Interesting concept? Yeah. Unbalancing? Absolutely.

  5. Guild Wars for Halloween by Gnasty · · Score: 5, Informative

    Guild Wars is having a free preview event this weekend starting tomorrow, thru Sunday... Hopefully it will be more of a treat than a trick. And hey, just think of all those free costume ideas! :-)

    http://www.guildwars.com/press/pr06-10-27-04.html

  6. SWG event by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny


    You are assaulted by hordes of undead wookies at the starport, which have the power to Force choke and Force lightning you from across the map.

    IF you manage to kill one, you will loot a pair of equippable pink hotpants or a locked container.

    1. Re:SWG event by goodhell · · Score: 3, Funny

      If you are killed by an undead wookie you will respawn in the Cantina on Tatooine forced to watch over and over as GREEDO SHOOTS FIRST until you finally succumb to George Lucas's 'vision' of Star Wars.

      Then you will be forced to watch Jar Jar strip tease a Naboo audience. Oh the horror!!!

  7. Re:Lineage II by dfiguero · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've been in Dion twice when those announcements came. In one of those times I had a store set up in one of the town's entrances and 1 or 2 mins after the announcement a couple of skeletons came and started hitting me.

    The other time I also had a store but this time I had learned my lesson and set the store away from the entrances. I saw 3 or 4 mobs running into town targeting the guy with the shop closest to the entrance.

    Not sure if it has to do with Halloween or C2 coming out.

    --
    My penguin ate my sig
  8. This halloween... by GillBates0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm adding a shortcut to ghostview on my desktop.

    --
    An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
  9. Pumpkin Pie by hattig · · Score: 4, Informative

    Take 1 Pumpkin, hollow it out as you would normally because you want to make it into a scary face. Keep the seeds for roasting (wash them, roast on tray for 90 minutes, have with salt). Throw away the guts. Cut out lots of the flesh until the pumpkin is around 1cm thick all around, or less. Spoons are good for scraping. Most of you should have well developed wrists so you shouldn't get too tired by scraping repetitively.

    Boil the pumpkin flesh for half an hour, drain and mash.

    Heat oven to 200C/400F. Put shortcrust pastry into pie dish (9" or more, if you got lots of pumpkin flesh).

    Beat pumpkin with can of evaporated milk, 2 eggs, 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt. Mix well.

    Pour mixture into pastry lined pie dish. Cook 40 minutes or until knife comes out of pie clean when inserted. Serve hot with cream.

    Alternatively search Google for Pumpkin Pie recipes. But don't waste that pumpkin flesh! You can also make pumpkin soup.

    1. Re:Pumpkin Pie by Umbro2 · · Score: 5, Funny
      Beat pumpkin with can of evaporated milk

      Ok, now my pumpkin is black and blue and the cops are after me for pumpkin abuse. What next?

  10. Re:Get in the spirit! by kfg · · Score: 5, Funny

    What better way to do so by regressing back to your childhood. . .

    Ah yes, Halloween, or, as I generally refer to it, 'amateur night.'

    KFG

  11. Re:Scary HTML by wowbagger · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just use the CTRL+Mousewheel zoom - click up one, click down one.

    The resulting forced redraw will correct the page.

    --
    www.eFax.com are spammers
  12. Puzzle Pirates by diagonti · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Puzzle Pirates (puzzlepirates.com, clients for mac/linux/win) has changed all the hat designs to have very spooky masks and changed all the map graphics to have appropriate themed island maps.

  13. Re:More interesting *after* Halloween by sakshale · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The most interesting things happening to the MMORPG world will happen in November. Everquest 2 is set to launch on November 8th, while a large majority of the Beta testers have said that it is not ready for release. Of course, that didn't stop SOE from releasing Star Wars: Galaxies well before it was stable, so why should it stop them for Everquest 2?

    I beg to disagree. This is the third or fourth time I've participated in a MMORPG beta and EverQuest2 is better prepared than any of the others were, especially SWG and Horizons. Most of the beta testers are busy playing, while a small collection of whiners are busy complaining.

    Agreed, there are issues that still need to be addressed, but nothing like those still present in SQG. EQ2, based on character balance, zone construction, mob AI, the questing system and simply great playability, is game is definately ready for release.

    I want my, I want my, I want my EQ2!

    --
    For every problem there is a solution that is simple, obvious and wrong.
  14. Re:A shame there aren't better player tools for ev by fleck_99_99 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Among all the weaknesses (and as a player since launch, trust me -- there are MANY) of SWG, this is probably what kept me hooked the longest. With a rich player-crafting environment, I've seen all sorts of creative uses of in-game vendors, well-named items, "actors" to roleplay key characters, and some out-of-game (typically Web) content to create mini "adventures." Of course, a lot of that was simply the minds behind them -- I've had the pleasure of working with some really creative folks (even professional game designers in their off time) to build these sorts of events.

    Then of course, there's Second Life -- nobody can say that lacks tools!

    --
    seven two six five
    seven four six one seven
    two six four two e
  15. Re:A shame there aren't better player tools for ev by Valegor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I tend to think that the previous events have just been tests for something big when they release City of Villians.

    I took part in the test of the halloween thing on the test Sever Tuesday, and it was certainly fun. You don't know when you click on a door if you are going to get a treat(insp, enhancement, temp power, etc) or a trick(Zombie, ghost, witch, etc attacking you). They said that it was only a small part of the event, but that alone was far more fun then I had anticipated. I for one can't wait until this weekend to see what they have cooked up.

  16. Re:Get in the spirit! by Tenebrious1 · · Score: 3, Funny

    What better way to do so by regressing back to your childhood...

    Because now I can be charged as an adult.

    --
    -- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.