Kooky, Spooky, Frodo-ky Halloween Event: Thursday 31st 7pm GMT

[Adol]

Posting this on behalf of Frodo, who doesn't use Stratics the strange fellow!

Gating from Luna bank at the above time, he wishes you all to come to his haunted house and be SCARED STIFF by a set of seasonal events; prizes will be awarded, pants will be soiled in terror, or just stolen by Alaster, and there will be rattling of chains and shaking of bones! Maybe. Because he's not entirely sketched out yet what he has in store! But you can find out, by being online for the end of the month...!

 

[Bobar]

Along with others I attended this event and would like to thank Frodo and Aron for their efforts. It was unfortunate that the event was also attended by a mindless moron (who shall remain nameless) which is apt as he also appears to be brainless. This individual promptly started to dismantle Frodo's hard work. The good news is that a short time later he was magically dispensed with and will probably be absent for some time.

The event started with a presentation (by Aron) to Mim Foxglove of a 15th Anniversary Robe in recognition of all she does for new players and making Europa the shard it is. Nobody deserves a reward more.

The other good new is that despite the best efforts of the moron everyone enjoyed the evening and it passed with much good humour and laughter. So as I said my thanks to you both and your time wasn't wasted.
I had fun.

 

[Adol]

Now let the full HORRIFYING TRUTH of the events on this, the eve of all hallows, BE REVEALED!

You see, it was the case that I made out like a bandit on the 16th Stratics Anniversary, although in a strange way; I won both an Anniversary Robe and 1 Month Game Time code on Twitch.tv. Except I already had a robe of my own, and my account is paid up for quite some time! So I wanted to pass on my good fortune, but unfortunately the robe is both highly desirable and non-dividable. And I knew a lot of people who wanted it, and no really fair way to chose who got the single sexy-threads.

Originally then, I had the idea that I could use it as a prize for a global bout of kindness; to continue the community spirit of celebration. So I had drafted up an announcement thread and had the event sketched out, which I've put into a spoiler below...

Spoiler

Greetings one and all; Thanks to the generosity of Stratics celebrating their 16th Anniversary, I made out like a bandit during the live stream... I didn't win my ideal prize, and if you're out there Knight Vellosomething from Twitch.tv, I'm still yours and yours alone (hint hint); but I was more than recompensed with a second 15th Anniversary Robe. Yes, a second. I was also a fiction contest winner too, sorry. But in the spirit of the celebrations, I'm prepared to give it away again to someone else... as long as they too share in the unselfishness somewhat.

AND HERE IS HOW TO WIN AN ANNIVERSARY ROBE.

For the next two weeks, until 8pm Monday the 4th of November UK time, I want people to post here what things they wish they had in Ultima Online. Something good, something desirable. Not just a few arrows, but something with some noticeable worth; An Iolo's Lute maybe. Or even 20 of them. I want you to post specifically;

“Oh how I wish, I wish I had an XXXXX on Shard YYYY!” in this thread.

Then, someone gifts you that thing in game. For free. And you post they've done it! With a screen shot of the trade window and the item changing hands. Make sure to get their Stratics, not in game name too. You edit the post to add “Thank you to ZZZZ here at Stratics for giving it me!” Can you ask for anything? Sure, go ahead; I'll try and cross check values, and for every 1 million in gold you were gifted, the kind soul gets another raffle ticket for the Robe.

A raffle ticket? Yes, at the end of two weeks, everyone who has gifted to another person goes into a big hat and the lucky winner gets the Anniversary Robe! Do you help lots of people with small gifts, or one big ticket item for one luckier than they could have expected person? That's up to you! But to try and at least keep things relatively fair, here are the terms and conditions;

• The Stratics user must have 50 or more posts before this competition was announced.
• Gifting to friends is fine, but to try and avoid obvious dodginess there is a maximum number of reward tickets of 20 per Stratics name, or a 20m Spending Cap
• The robe is on Europa, and if I cannot find a generous and trusty Trader to cross shard it for free, you must pay the transfer fees. Because I'm item rich and money poor!
• The Original Poster's decision is final. I'll try and check prices for the shard, but generosity is a hard thing to quantify, and I just want to encourage gifting above all else.
• I also reserve the right to modify the rules at a later point in case of blatant cheating I've not forseen, or just to sell you all out if one of those Shroud pledge winners comes along. Baby. Honey. Sweetiedoll.

But as many of you will notice, and as the more feedback I got from friends and even Stratics staff that I asked about their own experience running events, there seemed to be huge holes you could cheat it to buggery through. The only solution I could think of was acting as an intermediary on every shard everywhere to make sure people actually were being kind and gifting to each other.

So sadly I scratched out that idea. But whilst talking to many people, one name that came up again and again was "Well if you don't give me the robe, why not give it to Mim Foxglove instead? She does so much to help new players, I can't think of anyone who so unselfishly supports the game and it's community". Now I only know Mim in passing really, but I knew the recommendations weren't just out of friendship; I've seen and heard for years what she, and the RAA Guild in general do for others. So ahah I thought, here's a way to thank not just a person, but to acknowledge and congratulate the sort of player who represents the very best of the UO community.

And coincidentally Frodo, who used to run a lot of Player Events, had come back to the game at just the same; and whilst it might not be considered a positive, I naturally think on multiple sneaky levels at once, so I thought "and here's the way I can encourage another player to re-engage and give something back, whilst also having plausible deniability for getting Mim to an award ceremony, muahah!"

So Frodo and I started sketching out fun events, and I started asking around for when Mim was likely to be online, so we could "co-incidentally" schedule it when she'd be on. And I set up a trial account so I could be a genuine Young player again! But instead of Aron Swordmaster, Nora Spellcaster was born. Obvious in hindsight I hope, but could I pull it off in real time?

Yet on the day... Disaster! Poor old Mss Foxglove suffered a freak erotic washing machine accident (or something, the details are a bit foggy) and broke her hip. I wasn't sure if we'd get to include the award in the Halloween events, but I noticed whilst grinding for my bones (which don't seem to spawn as zombies until 4 hours after I log off, thanks death queue!) that she was online fighting invasions. Just to be sure, I spent half an hour before the event wandering around as Nora in Haven trying the newbie quests again after all this time; Seems I didn't mess up the Dark Knight quest first time around, the rune is genuinely broken? Ahh well, shame.

Now bear this in mind; Mim had a broken hip, wasn't keen on committing to being online for much longer, but still came to help a newbie all the same when they asked. Because she had no idea it was me. And I apologise for everyone listening in on Help at Nora's incompetence, because I do actually know how to change the chat channel and speak in local, but newbies don't ... until an angel with a broken hip helps them, eh? Don't you think THAT is worth so much more than pixel crack? I do.

So remember, whilst I'm a sneaky manipulative bugger behind the scenes, the following is all genuine kindness from someone with a serious zogging injury.

Mim comes to find "Nora", who doesn't seem to know where she is, except "there are zombies". Originally I was using apostrophes, but then I realised it might give me away, so typed slower, and started knowing less and less

Also behold the messy UI of a trial account! Should have copied across my Europa profiles. Doh!

Next up! "We need to go to a public gate" "Is this a gate? It looks like one?" And despite being in no doubt serious discomfort, Mim continues to patiently explain to the completely confused what a moongate in UO means... Actually, I was stalling for time to get closer to 7pm so Frodo could also collect all the people for his event, and give you time to have an audience... sorry, I'm a shameless liar

Death to revealing grammar! "Thank u"... he he! But again; notice the kind explaining of how to use an actual gate. On the way here, I commentated on what nice cow she was riding, a little clue in the innocence of babes for later! I know it's a boura... but admit it, you all WANT rideable cows too. Anyway! Kindness by gate-light;

We arrived at Frodo's, and I genuinely was a dumb newbie here; I didn't notice I was trying to get up the steps where they weren't valid, and thought perhaps it was a trial account limitation to prevent new players getting house trapped or something. This bit wasn't an act at all

Next door you can see the maze he'd made for what would have been a Pumpkin rolling race: Like stool races, but you had to get your own pumpkin out first by placing it on each step you took... Frodo also had placed a new home and spent the week decorating it as a ruined cottage.

Originally we planned to give all the prizes at the end, but knowing about Mim's misfortune we re-arranged the events we had lined up to let her go when she wanted; so Frodo begins to ask her to come back from the seats...

And finally, for years of service to the game, something I'd been told privately Mim Foxglove had desperately wanted; and I think we all agree, clearly deserves;

Unfortunately, this display of rewarded decency seemed to upset one of the resident sociopaths on the server, who'd followed the gates to try and grief it. But not for long, whilst he spent some considerable time picking up the maze outside, a good number of us had Mesanna on ICQ, saw she was on duty, and reported him directly to the Dark Lady. So his attempts quickly turned into our entertainment as we knew the Fist Of Death was incoming. He got locked down, all the items taken back out out his pack and returned, and then he was exiled to who knows where whilst we all laughed heartily.

And a communal effort ensued, where some of the guests put a basic maze back up again; Phineas, Aurelius, I may have missed a few others, thank you for proving the wider worth of Europa.

Frodo lined us up whilst I took over the quiz part of the evening; I didn't have his questions, so I was having to google, and then rephrase slightly fun questions people wouldn't just google... often poorly, sorry about that. Still it was funny watching people trying to guess which animal was similar in weight to the world's largest pumpkin, and exhausting almost the entire animal kingdom before finally having to tell them it was in fact the Leatherback Turtle, at around 900kg. But that was my fault for chosing a silly question I found at CBBC (Children's BBC)'s homepage!

Final points, out of 10 questions were;

Lord Sparrow, 4 correct who won a Terathan Matriarch Statue. Creepy thing it is!
Glenora, 2 Correct
Eddie, Kealy, Petra, Elaiza with 1 each.

Then we did some basic running events through a bagball event; the prize was a Navrey Night Eyes Statues (eek! Spook! spiiiider!) which would have been for the pumpkin race instead. In between rounds, whilst Frodo, helped again by Wanda and Phineas recorded the runners, I sneaked in and re-arranged the paths, and had the wonderful pleasure of watching people using memory to run it stop and get confused in the final he he...

We ran 3 group rounds of 3, and one final round of the 3 winners from each. And the final results were;

Trent Edwards gets a Navrey in his hair OH GOD ITS IN HIS HAIR

Amantala came second, and had to try and calm Trent down.

And Eddie came third, but also didn't have to improve on his sleeping quota of 8 eaten spiders per year, so maybe he actually came out best.

And with that, as it was getting late for some, and we'd lost a little time rebuilding the maze, fun though it had been, we didn't get to the planned Costume Contest. And Mim went home to snuggle her robe. Hopefully all had a good time, and we'll see you for Frodo's next event... lazy bugger needs to use his Stratics account more though!

 

[Aurelius]

And a communal effort ensued, where some of the guests put a basic maze back up again; Phineas, Aurelius, I may have missed a few others, thank you for proving the wider worth of Europa.!

Not me... I am utterly useless at mazes, so I stood around while clever people redid it all....

Fun evening, and a well-deserved reward for Mim Foxglove!

 

[Minerva Foxglove]

What a night! Big thanks to Aron and Frodo! And conspiracing (?) friends like Petra ,Wanda, Phineas, Aurelius and more! The robe is looking sooo good and I bet most people wants one, but I knew from the start I had no skills to get me one so I didnt even try.

This is how the story looked from my side.
I wanted to go to Frodos event..but it also was guild hunt evening..and then my hip ..had two big nails holding it togeather since 4 days and I suspected I would have to give up both. I went to vesper to test some fighting and it didnt go that well.. Petra was there fighting too so I stood with my archer and plonked arrows in her prey.. Then a new player started to call and she seemed completely lost. Normally I had taken her to my place and equipped her..But she wanted to see other players and Frodo started to call in help chat about the event..In Help chat? Maybe all my morphine meds made me extra slow in my head but I felt like it was my own brilliant idea to take her to the event and show her something nice . Petra was also suggesting this and shes a great supporter of what im doing so I thought maybe she could transport Nora Spellcaster back to Trammel if I gave up.. So I swapped to Mim , to be able to gate, and jumped on the boura ..Ladies likes bouras, and Nora wasnt an exeption.."what a pretty cow!"
Made me giggle all the way to Luna and I had no doubts this was a totally new player. I never fail to reveal if anyone even sat between their sibling playing beta in 97. They just cant hide this for 10 seconds! Well done AaroNora!
I was going to turn ower Nora to Petra I hoped, and go back to the couch..but you know what happened. I was totally unaware I was having a role here , I didnt get a thing. Just wondering how to get Nora taken care of. The truth was revealwd and I got this amazing robe! Still I couldnt figure out how to serve Nora best Hopefully it was the painkillers or the fact I was standing on 1 leg infront of the comp by now..or im in bad trouble!
Thanks all kind people, It was heart warming , unexpected ..a memory to save for sure. I felt rude to leave but I had to give up right before the end.

 

[Odin of Europa]

Aww I missed it, forgot all about this - thats what you get for not being at the computer much for a week

Looks like it was good fun, thanks to Frodo and Aron for putting an event together, sorry I missed it guys.

And congrats to Mim on the new robe, noone deserves it more
Very generous of you Aron :bowdown:

 

[AyaraBlue]

Wow, what an amazing read! Well done Aron, Frodo and other conspirators, and congrats on the new robe to Mim. Well-deserved indeed. And I hope your hip gets better asap.

Big to my friends on Europa from a woodelf lost in that weird world called RL

 

[Frodo-Europa]

Thank you All for Enjoying it! Finally Got Myself Stratics Thought i might need it Hehe - But Congrats to Mim for her robe, she deserved it all the way and once again thank you all for coming was a wonderful night!