Curse

tummlykins · Nov 02, 2011, 01:14 PM // 13:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rise of Cpu

people may feel differently about the hats than you do, no? just saying I know people who value the hat because it comes only once a year, so it makes it even more special when its part of their collection.

That's an attitude that needs to be stomped out of MMO culture, not catered to at the cost of the masses and good ideas.

Rise of Cpu · Nov 02, 2011, 01:16 PM // 13:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by tummlykins

That's an attitude that needs to be stomped out of MMO culture, not catered to at the cost of the masses and good ideas.

shame its not only MMO culture, its just what human beings are like lol :/

JONO51 · Nov 02, 2011, 01:49 PM // 13:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anakita Snakecharm

Um... no, it's quite the opposite. I think the hats are a great reward for participation.

If the player doesn't even have to bother to show up, and doesn't even have to pretend they're involving themselves in the event to get one... what's the point? They're meaningless if they don't actually reward participants for playing.

I don't want to give people less reason to want to be involved in the game or less incentive to make an effort to show up for a community event.

Lol, seriously? They are a reward for participation, yes. You can participate at any point that suits you over a ~week period. But you can only get the reward during a few finales over one 24hr period. Don't you see the issue with this? Already, people just "participate" by just logging on and afking over the finale, yet someone who actually played during the event is SOL because they had connection issues/RL stuff/whatever. A simple hat trader isn't gonna harm anyone, its just a convenience so people don't have to plan their time around a game & don't have to worry about unforeseen stuff stopping them from getting the hat. The decorations don't have to remain, just an NPC there to give out hat. The end result is people who played can get their hats regardless of what crops up, and afkers aren't gonna be lagging up districts.

Curo · Nov 02, 2011, 02:54 PM // 14:54

I actually agree with the OP. You people are relentless, jeeze. Didn't read past the first page because of all the people bitching at him.

Gli · Nov 02, 2011, 03:18 PM // 15:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by JONO51

They are a reward for participation, yes. You can participate at any point that suits you over a ~week period. But you can only get the reward during a few finales over one 24hr period. Don't you see the issue with this?

I definitely see an issue with this. It's a bit backward to get the hat at the very end. When I do wear festive headgear, it's always last years or older, and the new hats always go right to the bin, with only a short stopover at the hat maker NPC and trying it out on a few characters to see how I like it.

It also seems like really trying to be as unaccommodating as they possibly can, to hold the final on a weekday when there's a perfectly viable sunday the day before. I earned over 1500 gamer points this festival, so it's safe to say I participated, but I had to stretch myself very thin last monday to attend the final in a non-afk way. Also, I was more or less expecting there to be a hat collector NPC after the festival this year. They even added one to Wintersday, so it stood to reason they'd add one for every festival.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cormac ap dunn

On topic a little more, I could see doing a hat trader for 2-3 days after the finale ends. We all know that everyone would then complain about a retroactive hat person for all past hats, then even more butt hurt anger riddled letters to support, followed by more butt-hurt threads on Guru.

Nonsensical slippery slope argument. All other festivals have hat traders now, and the world hasn't ended.

Kharmin · Nov 02, 2011, 04:20 PM // 16:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by tummlykins

Let people who are celebrating Halloween in game do it for the entire duration of the event by linking the hats to content to be completed during the entire course of the festival. This gives people at least one whole week to obtain the hat by actually playing the game. They can then use it to customise their character in a festive way for the rest of the event.

I could get on board with this idea.

Yichi · Nov 02, 2011, 05:04 PM // 17:04

its a hat...

Premium Unleaded · Nov 02, 2011, 05:09 PM // 17:09

Where is the logic in wasting time and effort on these purely aesthetic aspects that are holiday festivals when there is literally a glut of problems with the game itself - bugs, skill balance, pvp activity, etc.?

gremlin · Nov 02, 2011, 05:46 PM // 17:46

For people who have interests outside of guildwars or just a family that expects them to get off the computer at Christmas and so on this is an important point.
The events have got longer and longer which is pretty stupid but the basic problem of on the actual day we have real life stuff to do remains.

Move the Canthan new year by a few days so all of asia can have their celebrations then play the game.

Celebrate wintersday after Christmas as before it we have the winter solstice on the 21st and then Christmas itself so midway between Christmas and new year would seem suitable

Yes there are lots of important things to fix in the game but we all have the right to have our views considered equally and not always have the argument that x y and z badly need fixing so forget this cosmetic stuff.

There will always be something more important than festivals and hats so they would never get worked on by that logic.

Turkey Baster · Nov 02, 2011, 05:52 PM // 17:52

Trust me, you won't care in a week.

Laraja · Nov 02, 2011, 06:13 PM // 18:13

I'm a bit puzzled as to why people people act like it's the end of the world if they miss the hats.

Hats and costumes take up precious space and it's not like they're a handy consumable or provide any buffs.

I like my pink ears from last year. Everything else I put in the wastebin.

Swingline · Nov 02, 2011, 06:35 PM // 18:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Premium Unleaded

Where is the logic in wasting time and effort on these purely aesthetic aspects that are holiday festivals when there is literally a glut of problems with the game itself - bugs, skill balance, pvp activity, etc.?

Yet we get tonics and minipets every year while these problems still persist.

----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Laraja

Hats and costumes take up precious space...

You think they take up much needed space now? Apparently you didn't play back in 2005. 1 Storage pane and 4 character slots was all you got with no weapon packs. I had held on to my first year hats for a long time but had to make a choice. I needed the inventory space desperately so I deleted my precious pumpkin hat and santa hat only to have them come out with a hat vendor shortly after. The vendor was something that should have been in game since the first festival and because the developers lacked foresight for the longest time I am screwed. Oh and hats go into their own equipment slot now.

shinta_himura · Nov 02, 2011, 07:37 PM // 19:37

The changes would be for the benefit of all players. The hats and events would not be any less special than they already are. The hats would still be once-in-a-lifetime rewards for festival participation but it would be more accessible for more of the fanbase, how is that wrong?

Instead of coming here and raging like a lunatic I actually put in the time to think of solutions and express them to Anet, but I'm still berated by people who don't really want to talk about it and just want to boast how they don't care about the hat they missed or how it's just a hat and that other people shouldn't care so much either.

There are lots of things in this world beyond video games that are "just things" that people care a lot about, maybe it's not practical but that's the way it is, that's reality. If only the people boasting their apathy could put that aside for a moment and participate meaningfully in a dialogue between the fanbase and Arenanet, maybe that would be enough to see a change.

They're already willing to help people deal with unfortunate circumstances surrounding the holiday events, there is a step further that we could go, but they won't see it unless the community speaks up about it.

This isn't about devaluing the hats or rewarding people who don't participate, it's about making sure people who participate are rewarded, or opening up an already week-long festival to those who would participate, but have no choice but to miss the current 24-hour hat period.

In response to "But them bugs and glitches!": There are only six people on the live team, but even so it doesn't take all six of them to do something about this. I think the most drastic change would be to create a new halloween token - just copy paste an existing image icon, like candy corns or something, maybe recolor it - and then spawn two new NPCs, one in LA and one in Kamadan. Whoever would be in charge of doing that probably wouldn't be in charge of handling bug reports or fixes.

Alvarez · Nov 02, 2011, 07:54 PM // 19:54

I missed the hats, too, since the finale fell on a Monday. I didn't get home from work until after 9 PM EST and couldn't stay up till midnight for the final showing of Mad King but... I don't feel like I have to write a complaint to the company for it.
They let us know a week (or more?) a head of time when the finale was to take place and seeing how important this is to you, you could have made arrangements to stay home and get said hat(s).

At least it sounds important to you from what extreme you went to.

shinta_himura · Nov 02, 2011, 07:58 PM // 19:58

I made all the necessary arrangements... and then my internet connection died on October 30th 8pm, it wasn't restored until the morning of November 1st.

Alvarez · Nov 02, 2011, 08:03 PM // 20:03

Ah, didn't see that part. Apologies. I think you should be irate with your ISP more than the game.

Sounds like a bad stroke of luck. Sorry to hear.

shinta_himura · Nov 02, 2011, 08:05 PM // 20:05

Unfortunately it's not even the ISPs fault.

My area was hit with snow storms, their technicians were out on the morning of the 31st recovering power outages but cable and internet outages were not fixed until the 1st.

Star_Jewel · Nov 02, 2011, 08:09 PM // 20:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by shinta_himura

In response to "But them bugs and glitches!": There are only six people on the live team, but even so it doesn't take all six of them to do something about this. I think the most drastic change would be to create a new halloween token - just copy paste an existing image icon, like candy corns or something, maybe recolor it - and then spawn two new NPCs, one in LA and one in Kamadan. Whoever would be in charge of doing that probably wouldn't be in charge of handling bug reports or fixes.

The NPC-who-takes-a-number-of-an-item-in-exchange-for-that-festival's-hat code is already written. It's just a matter of tweaking it and placing it. Honestly, I don't see the point in creating a "Halloween Token" for this purpose.

Candy-Cane Shards are traded for gifts/consumables (or crappy weapons) -> used to get a hat.
Victory Tokens are traded for consumables -> used to get a hat.
Trick or Treat Bags are used to get consumables -> why not use to get a hat?

Because the consumables come out of them directly? Pff.

The only issue would be that ToT bags are so plentiful, it really wouldn't hurt most players much to fork over a stack of them for a hat. I guess those who "participate" in the finale might find that unfair, but I think asking for more than a stack could potentially cause some coding problems.
Also, a stack is rewarded for doing a particular quest line -- similar to Dragon Festival Victory Tokens.

shinta_himura · Nov 02, 2011, 08:18 PM // 20:18

Good point, Anet has basically covered Tyria in a coating of 5 layers of ToT bags since 2009, I don't see a problem in having the hat collector take them.

cormac ap dunn · Nov 02, 2011, 08:24 PM // 20:24

Regardless of the desire to add a Halloween NPC or not, this idea has one flaw, the hats for this year will most likely elude you, as the event is already over, better luck next year. Redux events in the past were for botches on Anets part, this year, there was no mistake, therefore, no Redux event. Keeping this topic going, though it may feel therapeutic for the OP is a bit unnecessary. There are really only 2 schools of thought here and they have been expressed multiple times, to which the OP only responds to the ones in favor of his ideas and the rest he/she dismisses as people complaining. Here's the deal with forums, If you post the topic, people will respond honestly. Whether you like it or not you open yourself to all those opinions positive or negative by deciding to post your ideas.