24 Hours - Where is the logic?

This is from a support ticket which I just sent in, I did my best to describe the rather poor design and scheduling of the Halloween and New Year's finales, which leave many people with no choice but to miss the hats.

It's f***ing Tyria, the least they could do is offset the DAY of the event by one! Why does Tyria need to celebrate Halloween on the same day we do?

Anyway...

This is the last time I miss the holiday event for reasons completely out of my hands and try to stay quiet about it. The Live Team needs to re-evaluate their tradition of when and how Holiday Hatwear is distributed, because it is counter-intuitive to everyone's lives and everyone's attempt to have fun!

First of all, 24 hours is an extremely narrow window for a ONCE IN A LIFE TIME opportunity in a video game. This is compounded by the fact that, for whatever reason, these 24 hours HAVE to be programmed to occur during the REAL LIFE HOLIDAY. Why?! Understand that people have lives outside of this game, and halloween / new year's are probably the two days out of the entire year when people are going to be INCREDIBLY busy. Parents take their kids trick'or'treating - and there are lots of parents playing this game, believe me. Young folk GO OUT, some have school during the day, even! People visit relatives and family and may not even have access to the internet for more than the 24 hour period of New Year's Eve.

Second, these two holidays (Halloween and Wintersday) are still the ONLY two holidays without any recourse for people who missed the hats. Canthan New Year and the Dragon Festival have NPCs who will take tokens for a hat after the event has passed. Where are these NPCs for Wintersday and Halloween? Where is the logic here? The two busiest holidays for people are the holidays with no mercy when it comes to that small fleeting day when hats are given out.

Further still, these holidays are within the season best known for inclement weather (SNOW), power outages and other problems. The snow makes it even harder for these problems to be fixed in a timely fashion. In my own personal case - although I am positive there are enough people out there who can share a similar frustration - we had a freak snow storm last week, and on Oct. 30th 8PM our cable and internet connectivity went down due to a weather related outage. Yes, an outage hours before the damned festival started, and guess when the outages were finally fixed? NOVEMBER 1ST, THIS MORNING. There goes everything! What am I supposed to do, commune with the gods and ask them nicely not to give us snow in October? I was not going to be busy last night because I have no children and had no parties to go to, and I STILL miss out.

Arena Net is capable of making smart scheduling decisions for their in-game events, so what explanation is there for their failure to do the same for these two extremely BUSY, chaotic days of the year?

I apologize for the harsh tone of this e-mail but I am extremely angry right now. I hope the support team has at least enough consideration to send a non-automated response at some point soon.

I would like to open a discussion on this 24 hour finale format, starting with the fact that the two other major holidays do have a recourse for people who miss the day-long window. And yet the holidays which really need it do not.

You couldn't leave a toon idling in LA or Kamadan before heading out to your Halloween festivities?

No I can't leave a toon idling in LA or Kamadan in the middle of a cable/internet outage.

for most people I would say that would be possible (I did mine before I went to bed).

however, for the east coast--the big pre-winter snow storm that happened this last week, there are still TONS of people without power...so no power=no internet/computer.

I would hope that anet would extend the event for this (since they have done it for others for just about the same reasons).

HOWEVER,
for the most part, everyone knows when these finales are going to happen--this is the what 7th? halloween? and you know you can leave a character afk in either la or kamadan and get the headgear ....if you arent going to be near your computer for 24 hours.

What ajaxfetish said.

Maybe if people wouldn't send in support tickets regarding something so stupid, ANet would be faster at responding to real issues.

They don't need to extend the events or put the finales on "more convenient" days (since that's wholly subjective). Add a hat trader for 3 days after every major festival trading for a stack of the drop du mois. Problem solved.

It really doesn't make any sense that they don't already.

But then, hat trader is somewhat new as a response to some of the hat bugs that have crept up in recent years.

ETA: Actually, looking at the wiki, it seems Halloween is the only "hat festival" that so far hasn't had a trader afterwards (I'm not counting CNY, since that mask is always the same). Come on, ANet.

Unlike these above me, I agree with you at NPC that sells hats up from the last finale to the event end.

I understand your frustration, but i dont think your ticket is going to solve anything... in most Eurpean countries (all?) halloween isnt even a holiday, so players like me have to goto school or work. I managed to get my hats, but i had to go afk to get them (1x return to switch town) and therefor missed the Mad King's Fan finale effect...

And there have been seven Dragon Festivals but that holiday still gets a head-gear NPC, cosyfiep.

Even without freak accidents or storms, why should people have to leave their clients running for days and pray that there is not a brown-out, a server-side glitch, or a client crash, a PC crash, etc.

Leaving your PC on for 24 hours unattended in the middle of winter while you're hours away at a relatives house, sounds fool-proof...

I mean, it's definitely better than nothing and improves your chances of escaping Holiday Hell with your hats, but it's still out of your hands.

Not to mention that Halloween and New Year's (again... why is it these two holidays that have to have the most demanding features) have two hats, and I believe there was one Wintersday with four hats even. So if you're AFK through all of it, you only get one.

GODh, people in the US have to go to school and work as well.

Please read the ticket at least before commenting.

It's not once in a lifetime, it's annual. Major key difference there.

Seems like OP is just raging, I had school all day and party after school just plan better i picked up my first hat first chance setting my alarm to wake me and my second just before school. Not Anets fault you have other stuff to do plan better if you want something don't expect the world to come to you.

Wintersday, Halloween, and Dragon Festival masks are different every year. While the opportunity to get a mask is annual, the opportunity to get a specific mask only happens once.

I'd be more worried about not having power than hats.

Yay priorities!

....are we really doing this? This thread was actually made? AGAIN?

1. Hats from holiday events do not provide any advantage
2. They are "rewards" for players who are present during the finale of the event

While its unfortunate that you didn't get the hats, you did not miss out on something that will affect the game for you. It may seem unfair, but the hats mean absolutely nothing and no one is gonna care whether you have it or not.

Amen!

Leave your char idle, or man-up and get over it.

Sorry but all I read is 'QQ poor me QQ'.

It's a fact of life that what's convenient for one isn't for another person. If it wasn't for snow storms/power outages, then you would have been able to get the hat. It's hardly Anet's fault that there are snowstorms.

So many people think that GW should revolve around them...

^Also this lol.

Is there anything in this entire thread that suggests what should or could be done about it?

Oh yeah, more complaining.

/thread

This just reminds me of post about elite areas
"being to easy" or "to hard " or "too long"

They are rare festival items! 24hr window = rare.

Might as well complain you can't get the "coke " items.
or that its too hard for new players to get 7th birthday gifts...

Put in an NPC that can make the festival hats for people who missed the event. In fact, do it for every festival hat ever introduced.

Well I didn't get the fourth year hats... they should let me have those too by your logic.

/sarcasm


Missed by a day or missed by a few years it is still the same. You missed out, get over it.