Talk:Halloween 2013

Schedule

• I've altered the schedule to conform to the changes we've made for festival automation. This information is official and based on the current code. If you'd like to format the page, table, or text differently, I'll provide the details here in my comment (so the stuff on the facing page can change without losing the details):

10/18 12:00 Pacific, decorations, all quests

10/31 00:01 Pacific, MKT starts his 24 hours of visits

11/02 00:01 Pacific, all quests stop (except for hat token collectors)

11/08 12:00 Pacific, hat token collectors stop

Enjoy the extra four days of quests, and happy Halloween, everybody! ~ Matthew Moore (talk)

Woot! Great idea Matthew Moore! Now I get can some questing done tomorrow - day off work! Woohoo! Thanks mate, totally stoked once again for this event! DonutxDude (talk) 19:57, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

I have seen it where the hat guys end on the day the entire event ends. I think this happened to the last hat giving event... Made people upset. Did you guys fix that from happening for this event? Rodan (talk) 20:33, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

As Matthew said above, unlike last year the hat makers are leaving a week later than everybody else. -Chieftain Alex 21:43, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I know that, but that was said for the last event of the collectors and they still left earlier than expected and not around until they were suppose to be. People complained on Facebook about it. That is why I am asking, what I am asking. I don't think a repeat would be kind. People would quit playing due to issues still like that and the team not upholding what they say or fixing the issues, much less helping those that were "out of luck" because of the game's fault. Rodan (talk) 20:59, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

huh, I don't recall that, must have been one of numerous events I've missed completely >.> apologies. -Chieftain Alex 21:31, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Do all the Halloween collectors also appear on first day (similar to quest givers this year) instead of some of them having a delayed appearance? --Silver Edge 07:55, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I realize this is a few hours late but I just turned in almost a dozen different kinds of trophies and I was able to find every collector I needed. 96.246.211.129 04:18, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Confirmed, it's day two and all three collectors appear in Lion's Arch already. All three don't usually appear until day three. --Silver Edge 06:11, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, screwed again. Quest givers were already gone as of Nov 1, 9:00 PM PDT. Never mind, seems it was only the Countess. Continue discussion in section below. 76.253.2.43 04:02, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Missing Something

It says at this page that foes start dropping tot bags and the quests are available at the start of Halloween, but tots are not dropping, and The Countess of Hakewood and the Emissary of King Thorn of Kryta is not there in the first hour. Batchie (talk) 19:57, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

it looks like anet made a botch of changing the sequencing. -Chieftain Alex 20:58, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Mad King's Steward and the NPCs that send you to Costume Brawl and Scarred Psyche aren't appearing neither. --Silver Edge 20:59, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

The only differences from last year is that Costume Brawl is not available and (supposedly) Trick-or-Treat Bags are not dropping at the beginning of the event (when the decorations are applied). I don't know if the Guild versus Guild Halloween changes are active or not. --Silver Edge 21:07, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

We are aware of the issue and are investigating. As of right now, decorations are up and the hat-giver quests are active, but the rest of Halloween has not started. I can't confirm at this time when the full event will get under way, except to say that most likely it will not be today. Hang in there. ~ Matthew Moore (talk) 21:58, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Hiya Matthew, glad to hear the team are working on it. Any ETA as of yet? I logged in this morning and sadly found the issue was still there. DonutxDude (talk) 07:58, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

It'll be a bit and an eta on things isn't an easy thing to judge on or do. Don't worry. I'm hopeful the team will tell us here, twitter, or facebook on when it's fixed. Or that we'll find out in the game. Rodan (talk) 18:42, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Quests and ToT bags popped up at 19:00 UTC. -Chieftain Alex 19:09, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

The additional npcs are in the outposts, now we can play! Rodan (talk) 19:17, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

And we're up and running! Well, a one-day delay is better than the four-day delays of years past. Thanks for your patience, everyone. We'll try to ensure everything starts on the same day (the 18th) next year. ~ Matthew Moore (talk) 19:29, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, but we should be compensated for this. Batchie (talk) 21:51, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Compensated? Rofl we've been given all of the quests earlier than normal and you want compensation? ¬.¬ DonutxDude (talk) 19:30, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Lol -Chieftain Alex 21:55, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

I greatly appreciate that you guys worked on a Sat to fix this, but I also agree that the event should be extended a day to compensate for the lost time. 96.246.211.129 04:18, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Nope looks like they took things away early instead. The stuff should not have gone away for another ~3.5 hours (it is 8:37pm November 1st pacific time and it's supposed to end 1 minute into November 2nd pacific time) but when I logged in I see they took away all my halloween quests that were in my quest log, countess of hakewood is totally gone, etc. Mad king steward is still there but he won't give any quests. I didn't get the chance to check anything earlier than right now to know when exactly it all went away today (instead of tomorrow), but still....Wtf man :/ Undead minion (talk) 03:38, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Differences from 2012

I strongly feel that the delayed appearance of quests/Scarred Psyche and collectors should go under the bug section instead of being listed separately because this makes it sound like it was by design instead of a mistake. 96.246.211.129 10:02, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Is this better? --Silver Edge 20:28, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. ^^;; 96.246.211.129 22:33, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Countess of Hakewood

The Countess of Hakewood disappeared early. The Emissary of King Thorn of Kryta is still in Kamadan (along with all of the other quest guys), and LA still has The Sorceress of Kessex and Mad King's Steward. I took the quests from her a bit ago, but just completed them and went to turn them in. Halloween still has several hours to go, but now I don't have anyone to turn them in to. What's going on? Ailina (talk) 02:01, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure it's just another oversight. I figured something like this would happen so I turned in quests on all but 2 characters last night (was planning to do more quests with them today, but screw that now). So I missed out on a couple rewards but not nearly as bad as it might have been. My sympathies for those affected. When you roll dice with Anet, always bet on bug. 76.253.2.43 04:14, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't know if it's good or bad that I'm not the only one. Strength in numbers? For me at least it was just the repeatable zombie quest with crappy rewards anyway. (And I didn't realize waiting until after the finales was rolling any dice.) Do the quests get erased from your quest log after the event ends or can you hold on to them until next year? 96.246.211.129 05:27, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Seriously, they (ANET) needs to replant her and keep her there like the token guys - since this is a recurring error on their part. Jut hope this is fixed.MystiLefemEle (talk) 06:35, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

It's already past the scheduled end time, 12:01 AM PDT (07:01 UTC) on 2 November 2013, ToTs are still dropping and all other Halloween NPCs are still there except for Countess of Hakewood. --Silver Edge 07:29, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

An hour later, all Halloween quests are removed from your quest log. Emissary of King Thorn of Kryta offers all its quests and Mad King's Steward offers Something Wicked This Way Comes (even if the character has completed those quests already this year), but those Halloween quests are removed from your quest log once you leave the town or change districts after acquiring them. The Ghoulish Accessory Token quests aren't removed and accounts that haven't completed them already this year can still acquire and complete them now. The Countess of Hakewood still doesn't appear. Bobby no longer appears. The Sorceress of Kessex and The Harbinger of King Thorn still appear, but when they send you to Scarred Psyche (outpost), you appear in that outpost for a few seconds before being sent to an outpost or town in your character's originating campaign; Prophecies characters are sent to Ascalon City, Factions characters are sent to Shing Jea Monastery, and Nightfall characters are sent to Chahbek Village (outpost). Trick-or-Treat Bags have stopped dropping according to my alliance chat. Halloween collectors and the Ghoulish Accessory Token-related NPCs still appear. So the Halloween event actually ended at 1:01 AM PDT (08:01 UTC) on 2 November 2013, not 12:01 AM PDT (07:01 UTC) as mentioned above. --Silver Edge 08:55, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Silver Edge for the testing, so would this be part of the bug that delayed the npc's arrival? or a seperate bug altogether? MystiLefemEle (talk) 07:03, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

We appreciate you looking into this and documenting the findings. Because of the number of changes to Halloween over the years, the code is somewhat convoluted. When we attempted to change the timing to match other events (all quests start the same day as decorations, hat quest givers and collectors stay one week after), it introduced some unforeseen bugs with timing. Personally, I blame the Mad King.

With today's update, we've cleaned up everyone from Halloween who wasn't supposed to stick around, leaving only Gul Terror, Malavaka, Aahtan, and Erulis, as we expect. We will do what we can to address this for future years. ~ Matthew Moore (talk) 23:10, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Also one quick note about the event end time. It is scheduled for 08:01 UTC so that, during years when DST hits on Nov 1st, it's midnight Pacific. During years when DST hits after Nov 1st (like this year), it looks like people have an extra hour. Clocks are fun. ~ Matthew Moore (talk) 23:25, 5 November 2013 (UTC)