xD Complete Guide to the 4th Annual Halloween Event 2008 xD

Table of Contents:

Note: Use CTRL+F and search for each topic listed below...

• General Event Information
• Which characters can join in with the Event?
• Towns Transformed for the Halloween Event
• The Mad King Thorn!

Who is Mad King Thorn?
When does he show up?
Mad King's Games

Phase 1 - Do as the Mad King Commands
Phase 2 - Lethal Rock, Paper and Scissors
Phase 3 - The Mad King says....

• Halloween 2008 Masks

Zombie Face Paint - Lion's Arch
Lupine Mask - Kamadan, Jewel of Istan

• The Costume Brawl! 2008 (Mini-Game)

Disguises and Skill Sets
Maps and Strategies
Prize

• Halloween Horseman Collectors
• Halloween Collectable Items

Witch's Brew
Vial of Absinthe
Squash Serum
Ghost-in-the-Box
Transmogrifier Tonic
Trick-or-Treat Bag
Pumpkin Cookie
Candy Apple
Candy Corn

• 4th Annual Guild Wars Halloween Art Contest
• Updates to Guide
• Contributors
• Special Thanks to

General Event Information

The event begins on Thursday 23rd October and runs until 11:59 PM Pacific time on Sunday 2nd November. Primarily in Lion's Arch and Kamadan, Jewel of Istan. Other towns however have also been redecorated.

Time Conversion Tool:
http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc




Which characters can join in with the Event?

Any character can join in this event, providing that they have access to the Prophecies or Nightfall campaigns. As the event doesn't take place anywhere in Factions.

The main event takes place in Lion's Arch and Kamadan, Jewel of Istan.




Towns Transformed for the Halloween Event

Towns that have been changed during this event included Lion's Arch and Kamadan, Jewel of Istan (Primary) and some work in Droknar's Forge and the Tombs of the Primeval Kings as well. Changes include the following:

• Collector Horsemen (For Collectable Items - See section below)
• Custom Spooky Graphics
• Giant Skulls
• Evil Moons
• Lots of Pumpkins of course
• Ghost Ships
• Flying Ghosts
• Evil Looking Skull moons!
• Giant witches cauldrons
• The Candy Corn Mad King's Guard (Necromancer Henchmen)
• Clouds with spooky images on them

The Mad King Thorn!


Who is Mad King Thorn?

The Mad King Thorn will begin showing up in Lion's Arch and Kamadan 5 times a day starting from Friday 31st October, so if you missed him during the whole event... unlucky. Because he's not coming back... till next year.

Mad King Thorn appears in the same mushroom circle area in both Lion's Arch and Kamadan. Undead horsemen "Heralds" routinely warned travellers of their master's impending arrival in both cities.


When does he show up?

Starting from Friday 31st October, Mad King Thorn makes appearances every three hours throughout the day in Lion's Arch and Kamadan. His first appearance will take place at 12:01AM Pacific Time and his final appearance be at on Friday 31st October at 12.01AM Pacific Time. For a total of 9 appearances.



Mad King Thorn's Games

The name of the Mad King pretty much speaks for itself, he's completely insane! So besides really bad jokes, he also beckons players to join in his games. The Mad King will go through three phases of games before giving out a prize and then leaving. Phases are:


Phase 1 - Do as the Mad King Commands, or die...

After some minor introductions from the Mad King, he wastes no time to get everyone there to entertain him.

A number of things will be asked:

• He will tell jokes (Bad ones) and expect everyone within the green circle area to use /laugh
• He will command everyone to play music, so /flute or /drums for example.
• Or he may just ask everyone to /beg.

Those who followed his orders were rewarded with Halloween collectable items (See section later in the guide for more info), but those who don't will be killed on the spot!


Phase 2 - Lethal Rock, Paper and Scissors - win or die...

In this phase, the Mad King will challenging a random member of the crowd to a game of Lethal game of rock, paper and scissors.

Use the command /rock, /paper or /scissors and hope for the best.

If you win, you will be rewarded with a a Trick-or-Treat Bag. Nothing happens if you tie with the King. Losing, however results in... you guessed it, death!

The Mad King will do a few rounds of this game before going to Phase 1 again.


Phase 3 - The Mad King says.... (You may just die...)

After a few rounds of Phase 1 and Phase 2 games, the Mad King will then begin the final phase of the games... a few simple games of Simon Says!

Anyone who played this game in real life knows how it works: if the King says "Mad King says Jump!” you have about three seconds to do it, or die.

During the 2007 event, the Mad King always asked for the emotes in the same order. The below order maybe the same this year, but this section needs verification.

The emotes are bolded when you were better off doing as he said:

• Flex
• Yawn
• Flex
• Jump
• Flex
• Jump
• Roar
• Jump
• Roar
• Yawn
• Jump
• Jump
• Roar
• Roar

Halloween 2008 Masks

The following two masks are available during this years Halloween 2008 event:


Zombie Face Pain - Lion's Arch

• This is a free item given out during the Halloween 2008 event by the Mad King in Lion's Arch.
• It has zero AR... Headshots are lethal in PvP and PvE. So watch out!
• It comes pre-customised and thus should not be traded.
• It can be infused!
• It cannot be dyed!
• You can add runes to it, for your primary profession only.
• It cannot be salvaged.

Lupine Mask - Kamadan, Jewel of Istan

• This is a free item given out during the Halloween 2008 event by the Mad King in Kamadan, Jewel of Istan.
• It has zero AR... Headshots are lethal in PvP and PvE. So watch out!
• It comes pre-customised and thus should not be traded.
• It can be infused!
• It cannot be dyed!
• You can add runes to it, for your primary profession only.
• It cannot be salvaged.

The Costume Brawl! 2008 (Mini-Game)

This Costume Brawl! has returned this again this year.

You can fight in the guise of famous characters from the Guild Wars story, using that character's custom set of skills and the equipment!

To enter this special mini-game, speak with a new NPC — Bobby [Costume Brawl] — in the towns of Lion's Arch, Kamadan, and the Great Temple of Balthazar.


Each profession has a corresponding character, so simply change your profession type should you wish to try out different characters.

The following characters are available in this year's Costume Brawl:


After you speak with Bobby [Costume Brawl], you will enter the outpost for the Costume Brawl already dressed in your costume, with your skills pre-selected.

If you forgot a weapon, one will be spawned at your feet.

From there, you will join the combat in one of three brand new arenas or two favourites from the Hero Battle series. Each brawl is free of Death Penalty, and each round will last ten minutes. At the end of a match, every player on the winning team will receive a prize.


Disguises and Skill Sets

The following disguises and skill sets are available in the 2008 Costume Brawl:



Maps and Strategies

Each map has capture points; the objective is to be the first team to score 20 points. Points are accumulated by killing opponents (1 point each kill) and capturing shrines, which fill up the team's "Morale" bar and consequently grants points each time it fills up completely. Holding more capture points increases the rate at which the Morale bar fills up.

Depending on the map, the following shrines may be encountered:

• Battle Cry Shrine: Grants Battle Cry effect, increasing movement, attack and skill recharge speed
• Health Shrine: Gives +140 maximum health
• Energy Shrine: Reduces cost of skills
• Morale Shrine: Increases morale speed

Unlike Alliance Battles, capturing shrines is not the key to victory, as shrines will only add to the morale speed rather than adding points directly. However, the teams that neglect shrines will be faced with a tactical disadvantage, and may not be able to kill faster than the opposing team is gaining points from shrines.

Teams should therefore balance shrine-holding and killing while preventing deaths.


Prize

Battle series. Each brawl is free of Death Penalty, and each round will last ten minutes. At the end of a match, every player on the winning team will receive the following:

• 5 Trick-or-Treat Bag
• 10 Gamer Points + 1 point for each previous win in the streak (so the second consecutive win gives 11, the third 12, and so on)
• 100 Balthazar Faction

Halloween Horseman Collectors

There are scary horseman collectors in each of the major towns of Tyria giving out the following items in exchange for collectable items dropped by monsters.



The collectors and the items they require are as follows:

• Ascalon City

- Horseman Nurmangor collecting 3 Charr Carvings
- Horseman Irimund collecting 2 Ornate Grawl Necklaces

• Lion's Arch

- Horseman Vulgamor collecting 3 Decayed Orr Emblems
- Horseman Malfein collecting 2 Glowing Hearts
- Horseman Sorcien collecting 1 Feathered Caromi Scalp

• Henge of Denravi

- Horseman Saralim collecting 2 Maguuma Manes
- Horseman Darelum collecting 1 White Mantle Emblem

• Kamadan, Jewel of Istan

- Horseman Naramor collecting 2 Mandragor Carapaces
- Horseman Garthim collecting 3 Sentient Roots
- Horseman Aramon collecting 3 Juvenile Termite Legs

• Champion's Dawn

- Horseman Jaysin collecting 3 Copper Shillings
- Horseman Bishma collecting 3 Fledgling Skree Wings

• Kodlonu Hamlet

- Horseman Kronar collecting 3 Silver Bullion Coins
- Horseman Vadir collecting 1 Chunk of Drake Flesh

• Sunspear Great Hall

- Horseman Maxilus collecting 2 Mandragor Carapaces
- Horseman Nuher collecting 3 Sentient Roots

Note: All collectors offer Witch's Brew, Squash Serum, Ghost-in-the-Box and Vials of Absinthe. Transmogrifier Tonic however is currently only available through Horsemen Garthim, Bishma, Vadir, and Nuher in Elona as well as from the Mad King Thorn during his games.

Halloween Collectable Items

The following collectable items are available during the Halloween 2008 event:


Trick-or-Treat Bag





Collectable item, has only one use. When opened it will give one of the following items:

This is a list of the items you may get from a Trick-Or-Treat Bag:

• Witch's Brew
• Vial of Absinthe
• Squash Serum
• Ghost-in-the-Box
• Transmogrifier Tonic
• Pumpkin Cookie
• Candy Apple
• Candy Corn

Witch's Brew



Collectable item, has only one use. It causes a blurry "drunken" sensation for a short period of time. Drinking multiple batches of witch's brew may cause unpredictable drunken behaviour such as random emotes or text bubbles above the drunken character's head. The screen will also turn more orange the more you drink. This item provides 1 Level / Point of drunkenness for the Drunkard title track.


Vial of Absinthe



Collectable item, has only one use. It causes a green flame to flare at your feet for a second, then gives a blurry "drunken" effect that compounds with multiple uses within a short period. Having too many (Five typically) results in the screen going green bullet-time style for a short while. This item provides 1 Level / Point of drunkenness for the Drunkard title track.


Squash Serum



Collectable item, has only one use. When used a translucent Jack-o'-lantern with a sparkling stem to appear around your character's head for a brief time.

If you drink a bunch of Serums in a row, the Jack-o'-lantern and sparkling stem become less and less translucent. This item provides 1 point towards the Party Animal title track.


Ghost-in-the-Box



Collectable item, has only one use. It causes a miniature Wraith to appear in front of you with a slightly startling noise and the word "Boo!" above its head. It stays for a brief time, then disappear in a puff of smoke with another yell.

Interestingly, when used during PvE, monsters will attack the ghost, making it a handy decoy. Also, the ghost's "death" produces the effect of Soul Reaping for Necromancers. The Ghost-in-the-box item cannot be used during PvP matches. This item provides 1 point towards the Party Animal title track.


Transmogrifier Tonic



Collectable item, has only one use. This item cannot be used in PvP. When used you will gain an effect that causes you to take on the appearance of a slimmer Mad King's Guard. The emotes shown by this Avatar of Sweetness are identical to the female necromancer emotes. The effect lasts for 50 minutes. This item provides 2 point towards the Party Animal title track.


Pumpkin Cookie



Collectable item, has only one use. You gain a 10% morale boost. This morale boost does not cause skills to instantly recharge. This item provides 1 point towards Sweet Tooth title track.


Candy Apple



Collectable item, has only one use. Provides +100 maximum health and +10 maximum energy for 10 minutes. This item provides 1 point towards Sweet Tooth title track. The effect of this item will stack with the effect of EotN consumables


Candy Corn



Collectable item, has only one use. Raises all your attributes by 1 for 10 minutes. This item provides 1 point towards Sweet Tooth title track.





4th Annual Guild Wars Halloween Art Contest

You are invite you to put your imagination and creative talents to work by crafting Halloween art with a Guild Wars theme.

This is the fourth annual opportunity to celebrate the autumn season with the entire Guild Wars community. Dream up your own way to bring a Halloween twist to Guild Wars, and enter the contest before 12:00 Noon PDT, October 27, 2008!

For more information check out the Guild Wars website: http://www.guildwars.com/events/contests/halloween2008/

Updates to Guide:

Note: Updates at the bottom of the list are most recent...

• Guide uploaded - made numerous changes and improvements to the text and layout when compared to last years event guide. (PM me directly if you find any mistakes - thank you)
• Removed some typos
• Remove line regarding to the Teller of Tales who hasn't been included for the past couple of years and therefore unlikely to show up this time.
• Corrected minor grammar, punctuation, and location errors - Thanks MisterB
• Added information regarding items that add towards the Party Animal.
• Changed skill set table of the Costume Brawl section to the 2008 version.
• Correct minor error in the number of Gamer Points you win in the Costume Brawl! 2008
• Added new Halloween Masks to the guide.

Contributors:

RTSFirebat, Kook~NBK~, caballo_oscuro, MisterB, shadguy, BlueNovember, afmart


Special Thanks to:

Guildwiki, ImageShack.us and the Official Guild Wars Wiki

It’s going to be a event and of course I want to get some event game play in myself, so as always I'm requesting the public to officially help out!

What is needed?

You can help me by sending a forum Private Message with any of the following:

• Pictures and information about new items
• Information and pictures of any in-game bugs found during the event
• Any pictures of interesting locations such as towns, NPCs etc... If I like them I'll add it into the guide
• Information, pictures and better yet how-to guides for any of the mini games
• Information on quests or missions during the event.

Guidelines:

Take the following into account before sending me a Private Message:

• I won't accept screenshots with user interface stuff like health bars and skills bars blocking things.
• Don't send massive 1024 x 1280 (or along those lines) images, please resize them to 640 x 480 if possible.
• All information must be accurate and clear. Nothing made up or speculation.

All submissions will be of course credited in the Contributors section. The important thing is to PM (Private Message) me the information, as I won't have the time to read tons of posts in the guide thread looking for it.

Excellent and informative, RTS. ty
its gonna be fun fun fun!

Friday is the 24th I do believe. oO But otherwise great guide.

Corrected but really must insist people send me PMs not post here, much easier for me to manage that way.

Question: have the holiday drops already started happening from killing foes?

Can't say from anything in-game testing, but I'd assume that since they called for the event to start today, they'll stop dropping at noon Pacific time.

the decorations are not yet up, so I dont know if the drops have started,

rts you might want to also add that the ghost in box and squash serums count towards the party animal title (only cause you do mention the sweet tooth one).

Dunno about the rest but imo the best thing is the custom brawl,^_^ it's like playing in someone else's shoes and while the skill set is not the best(which is actually good, since everything now is so-meta), it's pretty fun to watch you/others mess up with the new order to skills.
The drops are Ok......not too excited about that.

Time to go Raptor hunting!

Meh, nothing from raptors

There isnt a collector in Ascalon for charr carvings yet either.

the costrume brawl guises are the same?

i was looking forward to something new in there.

I've made a little table of stuff you can collect for items, so you can determine how to spend them, or what to farm.
"punten" means points in Dutch and "stuk" means piece.

I have a list of all the festival collectors items on a piece of paper next to my computer for reference. Regardless, that's really handy, thank you Sjeng

Thanks! np
I'm thinking about adding these to my Collector Finder tool, though I might just put them all together in 1 table as it is now under "festival collectors".
I'll have to research if there are more besides halloween and wintersday.

So no juvenile termite leg collectors or sentient root collectors like last year. Keep on failing Anet.

Only 1 horseman collector per outpost apparently.

Too bad, was saving up some emblems and grawl necklaces.

it would appear that only the top collector of each outpost has appeared. hoping this is just bugged....but we will see.

had over 1000 caromi scalps too lol.

Collectors always appear over the days leading up to Halloween. There is not just one collector per outpost - collectors and NPCs appear one by one.

Costume Brawl skills have been updated to 2008 ones now.

thank the merciful heavens lol

I see ppl already trying to sell ToT bags for 300-400/ea, is this reasonable considering if you buy the individual items that are possible to get from the bags none of them are worth over 200g/ea and several worth less!?!? Also why do so many people trade in items to the collectors that require a 3:1 trade instead of the 1:1 or 2:1?

- Totally agreed. I was about to lose my mind with all that I've been farming

Lion's Arch
- Horseman Vulgamor collecting 3 Decayed Orr Emblems
^yeah hes the only 1 there :\

- Horseman Malfein collecting 2 Glowing Hearts
- Horseman Sorcien collecting 1 Feathered Caromi Scalp

Not to be picky but u left out the Necro skillz

Not really a collector, but the Canthan New Year events have items to be collected for the finale. You could add that to the list I suppose.

Edit:
@ above: New Greens? O.o Too bad you didn't take a pic of the "You got a Mad King's Slicer from a Trick-or-Treat Bag" to futher support it not being photoshop :P

When more get it, I'll believe. But if it is true, I hope for some non-warrior greens too. Or else the question of what profession Thorn is will be fully answered.

You are being And it was missing due to it missing on the Guildwiki page, been updated now.

you win 5 t-o-t bags per costume brawl win

party animal can be gotten in pre-searing now for the really really keen players

Correction: (not sure if it's been noted) You get 5 trick or treat backs after a costume brawl not just 1.

First of all, thank you RTSFirebat for the guide, been very helpful, found out singed gargoyale skulls are useless during this festivity, guess I have to keep it for something else later, lucky I switch to farming Orr Emblem.

Thanks Sjeng for the collector finder tool, it is indeed very useful.

Here's LA's mask:

http://img529.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gw160fe9.jpg

EDIT: Better:

http://img522.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gw164vw5.jpg

they're also in the Mask topic, so the screens can be added to the guide now ^^
I like em!

Masks have been added to the guide... yay

Love this festival, and the new hats are really great. But there's been one major problem with this years event.. Every time I've attended there have been massive Golems who purposefully stand in the way of the Mad King. The last one I attended in Kamadan there were six of them completely blocking the whole thing.

Obviously you don't really need to be able to see him, but it's very annoying and kind of ruins the event. Hopefully they can do something to prevent this for the next festival.

There's also a ridiculous amount of people shouting abuse at the Mad King, but that's nothing new.. And it's been fun reporting them all.