Annoyed by wintersday finale.

Yeah the ending was obviously slapped together in a few hours before the team went on holiday, but the rest of the event was fantastic.

You have to take the good with the bad. And in this case, there was a lot of good.

I managed to get six gifts of one kind and three of another, though the six just exploded when used. I also had the bad luck of getting two or three antlers and no hat due to the districts I was in when the decision on who won was made. That was a bit of a let-down, and the way they just dropped the gifts for people to pick up kind of sucked also. I mean if you were lagged a little it was nearly impossible to grab one. I just don't think it's fair for some players to have 200+ items and others to have none. I'm happy with my small pile though, which is less than ten.

Amen to that, I got home less than half an hour before the last event ended. I was pretty crushed, but it's a video game. Dunno why they couldn't extend it to 12 hours before and 12 hours after new years. I think everyone could've gotten a chance to get something then.

I find that hard to believe, as I was playing for about an hour around 1600 CET, visiting LA and Ascalon and Draknors several times - and did not see a single hat. Not one.

Nope, like I said, the event as a whole was great, but the finale was teh suck.

This has indeed caused much frustration. I was checking out LA at 3 hours after the last event, and when they realised the event wasn't coming, it was like hell broke lose.
Many curses towards ANet I've seen, curses towards Dwayna, and people upset at their lives (my life sucks). I even saw someone threatening he would kill himself, which was followed by encouragement of other players.

Really, take a deep breath. Shame you missed the event, but it's like that. I agree the times weren't really handy (who goes playing GW on 12PM? A lot of people out to parties), but the rage that followed is not warranted imho. At least, not in the raw unpolished forms I've seen it in-game.

I got a set of antlers and the hat, and had my gf come over and we watched movies all night. I guess i am just lucky to have a gf who does not play GW but is interested in it. i got the antlers at about 2 or 3 pm CTZ (Central Time Zone, Central North America) and then my gf came over and i just switched to a Dwayna district and left my char on by the tree. But my gf wanted to see everything happen so she reminded me when it was time and we went and watched the fireworks together, (kinda romantic), and then i got my hat and we went back to watching movies. Good times, Good times.

only a 16 years old boy will complain when he cant get an ingame item.

Rofl... For the most part, 16-year-old boys without a life were the only ones who did get them this time. I didn't get them (my cable went down). Kind of irrating, but that's life. I've seen some misplaced anger from folks who missed them, but I've seen even more fanboy-ism from players attempting to tear apart any other player who dares give constructive feedback of any kind. GW is getting a bad repution on the MMO boards for having a large element of not-so-great community, and this is a big reason why.

All you had to do was login have a char. stand near the avatar area for the head peice you wanted. Turn off your monitor and come back later viola HAT!!! You did not have to do anything special to aquire one just stand near the avatar.

seems a lot of people are mad over this. I stand by what i said originally, i.e. it shoulda lasted two days (so carried on today) but it is pathetic that some people are so apparently annoyed!

I woulda been disappointed if I didn't get a hat. I admit it But I was darn lucky that I DID get one. I'm an english girl on the american servers. This means that the events were 2pm, 5pm, 8pm, 11pm, 2am, 5am, 8am, 11am.

From 8.45am til 5.45pm I was at work. So the first 2 were out. I was going out for 9 until god knows when, so that meant 11 was out. Even if I'd gotten home, I wouldn't have stayed up just for the 2am/5am ones (i got back at 2.30 ) and I wasn't awake until 12.30. So I got lucky, because I was around at 8pm only.

Now sure, in my case I could have made myself wait up for the 5am one, or gotten up for the 8am/11am ones. Or left my chars AFK. But the point of the event isn't just the hat you get. You're supposed to enjoy it, not just come back to the comp and say "yay i have antlers". You're supposed to go "oooh fireworks" or "yay pressies!" or "aww... I died "

I liked the finale. The fireworks were cool especially with the spiked eggnog!

The 3 hour timing thing could be a little different. I had the same problem at halloween. I just wasn't at the computer when the King dropped in.

It's nothing to get really worked up about though as the pumpkin heads, hats, and antlers don't really do anything. If the items were useful then that would be something to get angry about.

Personally I like how the Lineage team handled Christmas last year. If your account was active (it's monthly fee based) then you got a present on your character. It was a non-unique but very useful item. Everyone got one. It would be cool if we had a present in our inventory like that.

Still the event was pretty fun. I was gone for most of the holiday but had fun crafting candy canes and playing in the snowball fights.

Hey i just left my character by the tree and when i came back, i had my hat. That easy, aint nothing wrong with afk.

yeah thats how the Ultima ONline people do it. Basically for every character you have, on "x day" (this year a couple weeks before christmas) you get a gift in the characters backpack. E.g. this year you had a gift box that inside contained a soulstone fragment (people who play know about these), a lil snowscene ball, a christmas tree deed so you could put the tree in your house, and the same thing but for a reindeer. Stupid things, more for house deco, but fun.

Awe.. :/

I'm disappointed that I didn't get a hat, I was on at just after midnight last night and 3 am. For Halloween the King showed up so many times people were getting sick of it, For Xmas/New Years a much bigger celebration period than Halloween they decide to do a one day session?..I just find it hard to understand, way more people are busy around this time than halloween. I think Anet should really have been more considerate of what time of year it actually is and extended the event a little longer.

but hey, thats the way things happen.

Regarding the OP:

I understand your frustration, but no reason to take it out on the others who did manage to get 1, 2, or even 5 hats. I also wished they could have extended the even to 2 days, since I was far from my computer yesterday as well, and I wasn't about to waste electricity by leaving it on all day for a simple game. Those are just the breaks, dude.

While I think that the timing and duration of the events could have been vastly improved, is there really a need to insult the people who actually turned out for the events?

It just strikes me as funny that people are ticked off in the way they are at how they missed the events because they have a life. If that is true, then why should a silly santa hat affect you so much?

Back when I was younger and would have been out getting drunk on New Year's Eve, I wouldnt have given a crap about missing some silly event on a videogame. Sure, it would have been nice to be able to party AND go play a videogame but I wouldnt have thrown tantrums or insulted people "who have no lives"

Again, I agree that the times of the events sucked, but quit with the hostility people.

So, you're mad about not getting an in-game item that doesn't exist?
...

Anyway, if it WOULD last longer, you'd have the following:
24 hours instead of 12: If it's anything like me, you're still recovering from a hangover by noon Januari first...so people still complain.
2 days: If you really do have a life, you're still not getting it because on New Years itself, you tend to visit relatives you don't see all year and visit friends. Ergo, people still complain.

So, how long would it have to last for people to be happy?

I came home before 9pm and didn't notice they were doing it until I read this forum so I only got an antler. So what if you don't get a hat or antlers, there's always next year and etc.

It doesn't matter what you believe, it's the truth. I went to the first event on European servers, at 12PM GMT, and I know they repeated every three hours until 12AM GMT.

Then on International they followed GW time, PST (GMT -8), and I was at the first event at 12PM PST (8PM GMT). They too followed the same (every three hours for 12 hours) schedule.

You missed out, tough. It'll come back next year. Try to be more observant then, and as always check the forums.