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Shadow of the Mad King 2023 Is Now Live!


Rubi Bayer.8493

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Shadow of the Mad King 2023 Is Now Live!

There's a chill in the air and a bump in the night.
It's the season of ghosts and sensational frights.

Go carve a spooky pumpkin; get lost in a maze.
Ascend into madness–join the Halloween craze!

A clock tower to climb and candy corn to acquire.
When Mad King Thorn says, you'd best heed his desires!

Yes They Are Real.jpg

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3 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Shadow of the Mad King 2023 Is Now Live!

There's a chill in the air and a bump in the night.
It's the season of ghosts and sensational frights.

Go carve a spooky pumpkin; get lost in a maze.
Ascend into madness–join the Halloween craze!

A clock tower to climb and candy corn to acquire.
When Mad King Thorn says, you'd best heed his desires!

Yes They Are Real.jpg

Rubi, could you inquire about the Mad Prince instances from the past and if they'll ever come back? We have many generations of new players who don't really know who he is because those instances were pivotal to the lore. Thanks!

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1 hour ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

Rubi, could you inquire about the Mad Prince instances from the past and if they'll ever come back? We have many generations of new players who don't really know who he is because those instances were pivotal to the lore. Thanks!

So while it's on our minds, there's a bit more to it than just turning it back on. That content was released back in 2013 and similar to Season 1, it needs a fair amount of work to bring it up to where the game is today. There's not a timeline for it (i.e. I am not making a promise here! 😄 ) but it is something we've taken a look at! 

 

P.S. Congrats @Randulf.7614

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The additional stuff for the specials tab in the wizard's vault seems pretty nice. Also timed nicely with the end of the festival being the end of the first cyccle (season) - when the rewards will change. (+ the festival itself is timed well with the next content release for SotO - enough time and not having to focus on playing festival dailies as well)

So ... I can get more than I had expected from that vault. I think ... still going to get the 3 ascended armor chests and then some coints or the other limited amount stuff I did not get cause not really needed.

Paper bag hat item are a nice addition to the usual stuff that follows the previous seasonal events: New weekly achievement chest (weapon skin set), the usual annual skin piece and a mini and some kodan vendor weapon stuff. Luckily I have finished most repeated grind stuff like the 50 doors or so and 200 pumpkins (each repeatable 5 times for the 5 AP until maxed at 25) ... which I did over multiple years - just feels to grindy. Will be a leisure to just get a bit of kils in the labyrinth + a daily clocktower and the races (time trials) ... after I have done the 100 pumkins and don't need to stop anyymore in between while running with the zerg in the lab.

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The Halloween event is overall good but I do have a major grievance I'm very upset about. 

 

The good:

- Most of the update in general

- non timed jp.  Great update there. 

- markers if maps are full with labyrinth on lfg and the queues to get In map. Queues existed before but they made labyrinth so much less painful!

The new skins, content and updates

The bad: 

- the lunatic Inquisition rewards being nerfed to the point of outright removal.

it is unacceptable to remove all rewards from a game mode.  It's unacceptable to force some players to have 0 rewards no matter what they do. It's similarly unacceptable to ry to force a game mode into daily do it one only. (And I'm upset because it's one of my two favorite Halloween activities). 

Lunatics get 0 rewards no matter what they do in game, win, lose. Outside of one bag daily.  Even if a lunatic converts a lot of villagers nothing. Villagers don't get anything either for participating.  Only villagers that survive get rewards.   I don't feel good being a villager because nobody is getting a reward but me. I don't think this game attracts that many people into schadenfreude or whose only pleasure is other's misfortunes. I don't feel good being a lunatic because if I play, I take everyone I convert's rewards away. If I don't play and don't convert , the game becomes boring, pointless and not fun for the other players who are there to play the game, and those of us who like the game find it fun because we play it actively .  There's no point if everyone or the lunatics are all just sitting around not playing.  (Actively here includes hiding,  tag, seeking, chasing for me. Non actively is afking in spawn as a lunatic ). It was unpopular to begin with so why make it even worse? What was even the intention here, kill fun content? 

 

rewards are such a good incentive to make people want to play inquisition actively. If lunatics got rewards for winning for example, or more for converting all the villagers. The incentive here seems to be a negative incentive towards people playing at all! (I did write a thread complaining about this and suggesting a more detailed alternate reward markup)

At least tell me the logic behind this. As it is I'm so upset about my favorite game mode being made into yet another (do something fun for no rewards situation) while everyone around me plays lab and gets all the rewards I'm straight up taking a break from gw for my sanity. No amount of good Halloween update can compensate for this. So upset and disappointed.  I feel punished for liking lunatic Inquisition and I don't understand why. 

And if the logic is 'we listened to those people who think every content that is well loved by some but they  personally don't enjoy should be removed and have all rewards removed because kitten everyone who isn't me' that's unfair and bad design. 

My bias here of beliefs is ideally since the variety of content is such that most people don't enjoy all the content tho they may play or try in moderation, all the content should have similar rewards so people don't feel fomo or forced to play content they hate for extended period of time.  And I think gw's variety is its strength.   With more intense content having a bit more rewards (like lab I guess since it requires a good Internet connection and fightings and it's far more boring), but forcing people to have 0 no matter what they do? This just isn't right. 

 

I was really, really looking forward to Halloween, playing it with my BF and that this happened, that I can't even play without feeling trapped in a catch 22, being forced to kitten over everyone I play against and being kittened over myself  in either rewards or fun, that this was done to my favorite activity, I cant even bear to play anymore.  It's really disappointing.  I really was looking forward to annual Halloween fun in gew and now it's... gone. Why is there a catch 22 forced on us like this? 

Edited by cloudsareyum.8120
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5 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

So while it's on our minds, there's a bit more to it than just turning it back on. That content was released back in 2013 and similar to Season 1, it needs a fair amount of work to bring it up to where the game is today. There's not a timeline for it (i.e. I am not making a promise here! 😄 ) but it is something we've taken a look at! 

 

P.S. Congrats @Randulf.7614

Thank you for the reply, I always wanted to know what was going on and I'm definitely not minimizing the effort it takes to bring it back. I'm just keeping the hope alive like I did for season 1 xD.

heck I'll even take a new instance ;D

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On 10/17/2023 at 2:23 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

There's not a timeline for it (i.e. I am not making a promise here! 😄 ) but it is something we've taken a look at! 

The good news is that you have another 365 days until next years Halloween event to work on it.

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Another thing I liked - did not mention it yet: The hints in the orange festival UI info text. I think they weren't there last year? (Just a generic one to join LA/Labyrinth to participate in the festival.) The first time I saw them ... was at one of the prevous mini events I think? (WvW rush had it.) Nice that it updates once you have done certain stuff. Good for people that might not play that often + also not putting the meta achievement in their watch list.

And you won't forget to talk to Tassi even after deleting the mail and if you do not go there immediately.

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I got an idea: Why not add a bit more to the clocktower? Yes I know ... we got the easier mode and just a second tower on top (similar to the different worlds in the SAB) might be too much. But how about some mini JP on top in the stopped tower version ... scaffolding that leads you on top of the tower from the outside. And then diving google there. 😄 We all love the diving googles and they'd fit there nicely. 😄

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