Celebration Hat I want this hat

I want this hatBut I missed it.I really like this hat.

Can I release this hat again?

anet might re-release it after a while, but you can't

I'd give you mine if I could. I have two for some reason (most likely I was excited and it was free so why not), one still as town clothes and one in the wardrobe and I never use it on any of my characters because it doesn't suit them.

It seems unlikely it will come back, partially because it was a free give-away during the headstart period and the first week so it was seemingly intended to show you were there right at the start, but also because I very rarely see anyone ask for it so it doesn't seem like there's much demand for it. But you never know with Anet. It's possible they could decide to make it available again somehow.

Of course the other problem is how they decide to make it available. It might end up being more trouble than it's worth.

A few hundred laurels or perhaps an AP chest reward would be the least troublesome way to reintroduce it.But due to the nature of what it represents, it is one of the few (perhaps only) items that I am OK with being unobtainable.

I'm torn.I really do prefer that a very tiny list of items should be exclusive to commemorate special occasions, the ol' "you really had to be there" sort of souvenir. I like in other games (including GW1 before GW2 was announced) that I could identify certain veterans based on what they were wearing, even though I'd never have been able to obtain the same skins.

On the other hand, if not handled well, it creates resentment and frustration on the part of newer players. Over time, ANet's evolved their idea of exclusivity somewhat, especially using birthday rewards: anyone who plays long enough gets access to the same skins, but you do have to play long enough. (Or at least, have played once, long ago enough.)

This item was offered for free in the Gem Store from August 25 to September 12 as part of the celebration of the launch of Guild Wars 2.This particular item really does mark a special occasion. And I feel that reintroducing it would devalue the reward given to the millions of folks that started the game then.

A fair compromise could be to offer a similar style of ball cap with a different design.

They might as well release it. They re-released that Dragon Tee Shirt to that was originally only available at launch. Might as well let everyone have the cap as well.

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:They might as well release it. They re-released that Dragon Tee Shirt to that was originally only available at launch. Might as well let everyone have the cap as well.

I think the Dragon Tee was originally offered only at meet & greets, but then became available via the Dragon Tea contest (see what they did there?).It fits ANet's pattern: they release something exclusive to place & time and then later decide that they don't think it's fair. (Although of course, the people making the two decisions are never the same.)

So it won't surprise me when (not if) the Celebration Hat is made available somehow; I just prefer that they don't do it.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:They might as well release it. They re-released that Dragon Tee Shirt to that was originally only available at launch. Might as well let everyone have the cap as well.

Yah. As I remember it, at game conventions before launch and someone had to travel there and get one of the few tickets with a code that they were handing out at the booth. It could be considered even more exclusive than the Celebration Hat since far fewer had one and they had to make a real effort to get one at that time.

If it weren’t for that I’d say keep the Hat exclusive for launch but imo the horse is out of the barn for exclusive gw2 items.

Eh, I'm sure it will be re-released. I'll admit, part of me is bitter about the releasing of the dragon T-Shirt outfits with bubble tea contest a while back since I got mine from a dev signing at a GameStop when the game first came out and it felt like a special thing. However, it's not that big of a deal and I know a lot of people appreciated the chance to get it.

Since hat items remove your character's hair, I've rarely found a situation where I really liked using the hat, but it is a pretty cool item, nonetheless.

I am sorry but you HAT your chance. :P

I agree with them reissuing the hat ... BUT. With a different logo on it! That specific design was billed as a thank you for playing at launch.

To this day I'm surprised they didn't reissue the baseball cap design with each expansion for those playing at expansion launches (preferably regardless of them owning said expansion, just needing a log in during the first week), with the relevant logos affixed. That still wouldn't have helped late adapters, but would have remained in the spirit of the item and opened it up to a lot more people.

I'd also be fine with a set of gem store baseball caps with expansion logos, there's no reason people should be denied that hat shape. But much as I don't care about being an exclusive skin owner in general, I do feel that certain skins and outfits created to commemorate occasions need to stay locked to those occasions. So the dragon head logo should not become generally available, though if they came up with a way to gift duplicate account bound skins to fellow players, I'd take joy in handing out my four extra hats to good homes.

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:I'm torn.I really do prefer that a very tiny list of items should be exclusive to commemorate special occasions, the ol' "you really had to be there" sort of souvenir. I like in other games (including GW1 before GW2 was announced) that I could identify certain veterans based on what they were wearing, even though I'd never have been able to obtain the same skins.

On the other hand, if not handled well, it creates resentment and frustration on the part of newer players. Over time, ANet's evolved their idea of exclusivity somewhat, especially using birthday rewards: anyone who plays long enough gets access to the same skins, but you do have to play long enough. (Or at least, have played once, long ago enough.)

This item was offered for free in the Gem Store from August 25 to September 12 as part of the celebration of the launch of Guild Wars 2.This particular item really does mark a special occasion. And I feel that reintroducing it would devalue the reward given to the millions of folks that started the game then.

I could accept that argument if there was some form of achievement tied to it. For instance, that insanely cool back piece skin you get at 39,000 achievement points. If ANET in the future allowed you to buy that skin with statuettes or something, I could well imagine the anger of those who earned that skin by accumulating the necessary AP. But in your example, the achievement was simply "they were there"...

I like how they handled the Hall of Monument items. Long time GW1 players were rewarded with exclusive items, and people who just bought GW2 today, if they so choose, can go buy GW1 and earn those same items.

There are several items that were only obtainable in S1 content that ANET now makes available for purchase from various NPCs, so the idea of items that "you had to be there to get" becoming available to players who weren't already has a precedent.

Yes and no, Turkeyspit. Commemorative items are meant to, well, commemorate. The cap was a thank you for being there for launch. As Illconceived notes and I have also said, another nearly identical cap would be fine. I'm also fine with the re-release of the Dragon T shirt, though thanks to all the bad marketing and app failure surrounding it I did not get it myself -- that wasn't a thank you to players originally, that was a limited promo for people that could physically get to a specific convention and then manage the RNG. Not everyone playing at the time could get it.

The cap, though, that was "hey, you helped us have a great launch, thanks!" Much like the Royal Guard Outfit that was "you paid for the game before there was a free version, thanks!" So an identically shaped cap with an alternate logo would do the same thing that people want -- give them a baseball cap for making armor fashions -- without giving them false thanks for something they didn't do.

It's just qualitatively different from the LS1 stuff. It makes sense to bring all that back, because that was more a window of opportunity thing than a commemoration and it's not fair to freeze out newer players from full creative expression in character design. But when you say "I am making a special thing to mark this occasion" then it really needs to stay as a special marker. Repeating, as I can't drive this point home hard enough -- I am not against people having baseball caps, or heavy armor looking outfits. I am against them having the specific ones designed as specific thank-yous.

Everything that @"Donari.5237" said and I'll add... I'm not against people getting access to this very cap. But I would prefer that ANet handle it differently. Since ANet themselves chose to create a souvenir for "I was there," then I don't like them choosing later to offer it for something else. I'm also consistent about this: I started GW1 long after EotN launched, so I wasn't around for what I considered to be the best (by far) of the memorial festival caps. And I was sad to see them offered later to anyone. (John Stumme had very good reasons for changing the acquisition methods; I just didn't agree.)

In the end, of all the things ANet decides, this is one of the least important to me. Except for the principle.

I would love to see this again too, plus that dragon t-shirt outfit in another promo. both of these should still be rare, like free for one day randomly out of the year or something.

So take the thing that was given out for 2 weeks at the launch of the game, and give it to everyone 6 1/2 years later. Yeah, I can't imagine why that would annoy the loyal fan base that has stuck with the game all this time. /s

The Celebration Hat was for that 1 purpose.....Celebrating the release of GW2. I for 1 hope its never released again and stays exclusive. As Legion stated you "HAT your chance" and I say "you HAT to be there". Hopefully ANET will leave it alone.

They could have simply updated the hat to have the current logo and re-released it every expansion / season. It would have been such a trivial thing to pad the rewards with.

@Healix.5819 said:They could have simply updated the hat to have the current logo and re-released it every expansion / season. It would have been such a trivial thing to pad the rewards with.

I like this idea a lot. A new cap with each expac. (Possibly with each new Living World.)

@Calsie.2501 said:So take the thing that was given out for 2 weeks at the launch of the game, and give it to everyone 6 1/2 years later. Yeah, I can't imagine why that would annoy the loyal fan base that has stuck with the game all this time. /s

I can't speak for anyone else, but I certainly didn't stick with this game for 6 and a 1/2 years because they gave me a free hat in the first week. The important thing about the headstart period for me is the memories I have of playing the game when it was all new to everyone (both good and bad - people spamming chat with WTS and WTB because they hadn't gotten used to using the trading post, or it wasn't working, wasn't exactly fun but it seems so strange now it's fun to remember it happened) and actually getting to play through every incarnation of the game so far.

Sure the hat can be used to prove I was there, but I can't imagine any reason I'd want to prove that to anyone. If they choose not to believe it that's not my problem.

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:They might as well release it. They re-released that Dragon Tee Shirt to that was originally only available at launch. Might as well let everyone have the cap as well.

The dragon emblem outfit was not a release celebration thing everyone could obtain at the time. It was only obtainable by people who went to a certain convention in the U.S. You couldn't expect everyone from around the world to fly to the U.S. only to get that item code (besides, it was a surprise gift anyway). So, re-releasing that was okay IMO, because a ton of people didn't have the chance to get it, even when they had pre-ordered the game.

The baseball cap, on the other hand, was not bound to some RL event that 99.99% of the playerbase was not able to attend, but to the time you started playing the game. Therefore, it is different when you keep something like that exclusive to veterans.

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:They might as well release it. They re-released that Dragon Tee Shirt to that was originally only available at launch. Might as well let everyone have the cap as well.

I agree.The outfit was never available to anyone, only to a fraction of players. In contrast, the celebration hat was available to everyone logging in during the launch period.

edited per @Raknar.4735's comment below

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:They might as well release it. They re-released that Dragon Tee Shirt to that was originally only available at launch. Might as well let everyone have the cap as well.

I actually won the shirt through a online community event from a fansite during release, so i didn't have to be someplace in real time. I wasn't bothered when they re-released them through the tea-event and i wouldn't really care if they do something similiar with the cap.

@Raknar.4735 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:They might as well release it. They re-released that Dragon Tee Shirt to that was originally only available at launch. Might as well let everyone have the cap as well.

Ah, good to know. I'll edit accordingly.(Doesn't invalidate the point that it was originally only available to a subset of people.)

I have the hat, i like it and I use it on my main. Imho this nice item should be available for everyone. This is my opinion but is not why i posted today. I want to share with you guys a little story : Yesterday somebody started a conversation in /s chat about my Celebration Hat and how my Asura looks like a little scared boy. Other players got involved, I played along making my asura bigger, greener, was fun. At some moment i said that i never bought a glider or an outfit because i'm cheap(which is true lol), second after i've say it a mail come from Anet with a pair of Wintersday Earmuffs attached and a message : please don't be cheap. The email got himself deleted once i take the item, so i don't have a screenshot. Yesterday my Celebration Hat made my day.