Complete Guide to the 1st Annual Halloween Event 2005

[RTSFirebat]

Complete Guide to the 1st Annual Halloween Event 2005
by RTSFirebat

What started off as a simple guild to the Pumpkin Crowns and other items has expanded to a full guide on the Halloween 2005 Guild Wars event.

Enjoy, comments/feedback is always welcome...

Towns Transformed for the Halloween Event:

Cities changed included Lion's Arch (Primary) and some work in Drokar's Forge and the Tombs of Primal Kings as well. Included:

• Transformed NPCs (Turned into Bone Dragon, the undead and more!)
• Collector Horsemen (For Collector Items info see below)
• Custom Spooky Graphics
• A Giant Skull
• A talking Corpse!
• Lots of Pumpkins
• Ghost Ships
• Flying Ghosts
• Evil Looking Skull moons!
• Giant witches cauldrons
• The Candy Corn Mad King's Guard (Level 12 Necromancer Henchmen)
• Clouds with spooky images on them

The Mad King



Poem:

When the moon rises high over Lion's Arch
And the wind moans through the most hollow of eves

Shutter your homes this holiday
Steer clear of the shadows
For on this night, they say,

A long-addled spirit returns from the grave
Pumpkin upon his head,
A wicked deed within his heart
A pint of witch's brew for all those who misbehave

Heed these words, all ye who dare enter here:
Bind your souls to the mortal realm
For the regent of madness draws near

Info:

The Mad King showed up in Lion's Arch five times (Per Server) starting from 12 noon, 3pm, 6pm, 9pm and midnight, so if you missed him... unlucky. Because he not coming back.

Some people saw him more then four times by going to International district events or by having more then one account. Other means as well, but who needs 20 Pumpkin Crowns anyhow.

Mad King Games:

The name of the King pretty much speaks for itself, he's completely nuts! So what more could you expect from his games. From observation the King went through three phases of games before giving out a Pumpkin Crown and leaving. Phases are:

Phase 1 - Do as the King says, or die...

After some minor introductions from the Mad King he wasted no time to get everyone there to entertain him. At this point he would tell jokes and explain us to /laugh, ask us to play music like the /flute and the ever funny /beg. Those who followed his orders were rewarded with Halloween collectables, those who didn't died!

Phase 2 - Rock, Paper and Scissors

After a few /emote games then Mad King wanted to prove a point by challenging a random member of the crow to a game of Rock, paper and scissors. If you won or draw again the Mad King, you were rewarded with a collector item, losing resulted in... You guess it, death! The Mad King would do about 4-6 rounds of this before going back to phase one games.

Phase 3 - The Mad King says....

After about 20 minutes of phase 1 and 2 the Mad King then moves onto the final phase of the games... a round of Simon Says! Anyone who played this game in real life knows how it works, if the King says "Mad King says Jump!” you have about three seconds to do it, or die. But what was more funny was when he just said "Jump!” anyone doing the /emote would drop death... it was very funny to see so many people not getting it!

Once this game was over, the Mad King gave a Pumpkin Crown to anyone who joined in the games, and was close to him at the time...

Pumpkin Crowns

These fun pumpkin hats (head armour) were given out during the Halloween event in Lion's Arch. Provided by the Mad King for joining in his /emote games, bad jokes and Simon says. Games included using /jump and /drum and rock, paper and scissors when he ordered you to. Those who did has they told got free collectors items (See below for more info), those who didn't died! But the king did resurrect people right away, how nice of him!

Just for being there near the King would get you a Pumpkin Crown from the Mad King. So seeing AFKers was common, as they only wanted the item after all ^_^

Stats:

Basic stats for a Pumpkin Crown when you get one:

• They have zero AL... In fact they provide no armour at all! Headshots are deadly in PvP and PvE. So watch out!

• They come pre-customised.

• They have no other benefits, no bonuses, no extra attribute stats or anything.

Facts:

• Pumpkin Crowns are free items given out on Halloween 31st October 2005 by the Mad King.

• They can be infused!

• They are pre-customised to the character that collected them. And thus should not be traded.

• They cannot be dyed! (Shame! I'd love a Gold Pumpkin - RTS)

• You can add runes to them, for your primary profession

• They cannot be salvaged.

• Lastly they cannot be restored, so don't delete your character or trash the Pumpkin Crown, it’s gone for good. A.net will not restore lost items.

Halloween Collectors:

Halloween items could be collected from a number of Undead Horseman throughout Tyria. Here is a complete screenshot of all the items the collectors required:




Halloween Collectable Items

There were Scary horseman in each of the major cities (Ascalon City, Lion's Arch, Henge of Denravi and Droknar's Forge) giving out the following items in exchange for items dropped by mobs. Gives us a reason to farm now does it!

Information on the four collectable items is as follows:

Witch's Brew:

Collectable item, has only one use. When used it produces the same effect as using Dwarven Ale, basically the screen becomes stranger with it use... you become drunk! In addition to this your character will start to act odd, saying random things and do /emotes without you typing. Good fun.

After some further testing it seems that a single Witch's Brew causes the same effect of taking about 2 or 3 Dwarven Ales.

Squash Serum:

A collectable item has only one use. When used a transparent pumpkin will appear on your characters head. Only lasts a few seconds, but the effect is pretty cool.

Ghost-in-the-Box:

A collectable item has only one use. When used a cute little ghost pops out, makes a noise and says "Boo!” Interestingly when used in PvE all mobs will attack the ghost, making it a handy decoy. Also once the ghost dies/ends it produces the effect of Soul Reaping which provides energy to all nearby Necromancers.

Ghost-in-the-box cannot be used during PvP, so they aren't useful for the Tombs.

Absinthe:

A collectable item has only one use. Absinthe is an interesting item, if you ever had any in real life, it’s a very strong drink don't you know? When used it makes your character glow green fire for a few moments. Having too many (Five in a row) results in the screen going a green matrix/bullet-time style for a short while.

List of Winners of the 1st Annual Guild Wars Halloween Art Contest:

From the Guild Wars Website:

"A wealth of wonderful Halloween-cantered art poured into the ArenaNet offices over the last several weeks, as Guild Wars players responded to the call to show their Halloween spirit with a Guild Wars theme. The variety, and the exceptional level of creativity, really impressed our team, and everyone from artist to programmer greatly enjoyed serving as judges for the contest. We’re happy to present the winners today, 25 in all. Find them on this page."


Official Halloween Memories 2005 Movies

From the Guild Wars Website:

"We'd like to offer Guild Wars players a little keepsake from the recently-concluded Halloween Event. We have a game play movie for you featuring images from throughout Tyria, along with player festivities, The Mad King's visit, and more. Halloween Memories is available on this link."

[Tarot Ribos]

So, let me get this straight... a Pumpkin Crown allows you to use runes from your secondary profession? Nice.

Could this mean they might be potentially useful for casters in PvP? Obviously, you'd switch to another headpiece once you're targeted (and it won't be long with the big orange melon), but for a short time, it'd be cool to get +3 curses on my mesmer.

[boxterduke]

Originally Posted by Tarot Ribos

So, let me get this straight... a Pumpkin Crown allows you to use runes from your secondary profession? Nice.

Could this mean they might be potentially useful for casters in PvP? Obviously, you'd switch to another headpiece once you're targeted (and it won't be long with the big orange melon), but for a short time, it'd be cool to get +3 curses on my mesmer.

If thats true then my nuking Mesmer would have great benifits from the +3 to fire.

[RTSFirebat]

It's not, that is a typo on my part, you can only use runes from your primary profession, just like any other bit of armor. Sorry

The above screenshot as you can see by the name is not me I'm going to change that image later to one of my own.

* Added correction

[tlr1293]

Mega Question I will try later when I get to the game:

Can Pumpkins be dropped and will they stay?

I know many of my guildmates got multiple pumkins for the same char, so If we could drop the extras, on the ground in the Guild Hall - we would have ourselves a pumkin patch! So if we lost one, we can go and 'pick' our pumpkin out of the patch.

What would have been nice? - pumkins dropped in Guild Hall lose any runes and can be used by any Guild Member, but never sold as it becomes customized for the Guild, when dropped in said Guild Hall. Oh well.

[Sagaris]

You say he showed up four times? I got 5 pumpkin crowns, 3 on my warrior, 2 on my ranger. I do not have 2 accounts, so he definitely was here more than 4 times, I even heard someone had 8 crowns.

[RTSFirebat]

Originally Posted by Sagaris

You say he showed up four times? I got 5 pumpkin crowns, 3 on my warrior, 2 on my ranger. I do not have 2 accounts, so he definitely was here more than 4 times, I even heard someone had 8 crowns.

He showed up 4 times PER server. If you joined in the internation districts to catch the Made king you could have collected more.

I don't say it, I know it

So its possible that people went to ALL 4 on the American servers and then all 4 on the European servers in the International districts.

* Update info to make it clearler for confused people

[Premium Unleaded]

One could just zone into another district where the Mad King was still doing his act once you receive your pumkin crown. The times at which he appeared in each district was staggered, so it was possible to see him finish in one district, but then zone into another only to see him start the act. It's how I managed to get a crown for all three of my characters, since I was only able to be on for his penultimate appearence

Also, how do you know if they are infused or not? I did a run with one of my characters to infuse it (kept it on for the run and getting the essence ), but when I went to check the equipment section once we gave the essence to her and 'infused', the pumpkin crown wasn't listed as infused.

[dustbunny]

Originally Posted by RTSFirebat

He showed up 4 times PER server. If you joined in the internation districts to catch the Made king you could have collected more.

I don't say it, I know it

So its possible that people went to ALL 4 on the American servers and then all 4 on the European servers in the International districts.

* Update info to make it clearler for confused people

He was on American server at least 5 times yesterday. I have a character with 5 pumpkin crowns without having left the America server.

[Savio]

Actually, he appeared 5 times, starting at noon, appearing at 3, 6, 9, and midnight. Still, since there were 182 districts you could have warped into a higher-numbered one to get another Pumpkin Crown.

[RTSFirebat]

Made corrections, added all kinds of additional info, need to take screenshots of other halloween items in use and add them to the list, should take no more then a day, give or take inbetween work and life

[RTSFirebat]

- Updates spelling and grammar. Guide is now complete. Enjoy

[AlphaSt0rm]

Nice guide, is there any basic priceline on the halloween items now you can't obtain them anymore?

[RTSFirebat]

Originally Posted by AlphaSt0rm

Nice guide, is there any basic priceline on the halloween items now you can't obtain them anymore?

Most people sell sets for about 1-5K each, I didn't want to comment on that since its not my place to say, depends on supply and demand, and how much people are willing to pay.