Feedback: Winter Just Begun

[Player2]

Can we stop calling the month of December the "winter" event?  It's obviously a Christmas event with the very subtle decorations and themes that can be found in the ski chalet and winter forest...  But even if you can't (or won't) call it what it really is because you don't want to risk offending someone who doesn't celebrate that holiday, my issue is this:  the event begins a couple of weeks in advance of the actual start of winter and ends the first Tuesday after the new year has begun.  Then it's back to 10 months of tedium of the city looking like a static snapshot but with a month long break from that during October.

But winter has only just begun, and will extend through January and is usually coldest around February.  Why must the snow go away?  If it were a blight on every zone in the game, I could understand some people being sick of it and wanting to be rid of it ASAP... but it's really only in Atlas Park.  Can't we stretch it out a little longer next year?  Maybe don't start it at the beginning of December... maybe wait to the middle of the month with that pre-winter scene change we get in the fall and then let Winter last later into January?

The timing has ALWAYS sucked.  But you have the power to fix it and just keep delivering more of the same.

[Mopery]

If the X-mas season doesn't start on December 26th of the previous year, then there's clearly a war on it. 😁

[Glacier Peak]

5 hours ago, Player2 said:

Can we stop calling the month of December the "winter" event?  It's obviously a Christmas event with the very subtle decorations and themes that can be found in the ski chalet and winter forest...  But even if you can't (or won't) call it what it really is because you don't want to risk offending someone who doesn't celebrate that holiday, my issue is this:  the event begins a couple of weeks in advance of the actual start of winter and ends the first Tuesday after the new year has begun.  Then it's back to 10 months of tedium of the city looking like a static snapshot but with a month long break from that during October.

But winter has only just begun, and will extend through January and is usually coldest around February.  Why must the snow go away?  If it were a blight on every zone in the game, I could understand some people being sick of it and wanting to be rid of it ASAP... but it's really only in Atlas Park.  Can't we stretch it out a little longer next year?  Maybe don't start it at the beginning of December... maybe wait to the middle of the month with that pre-winter scene change we get in the fall and then let Winter last later into January?

The timing has ALWAYS sucked.  But you have the power to fix it and just keep delivering more of the same.

I get that this is more of a gripe about the length of the event, but there is a Menorah in the shop stand in the Winter Forest in addition to its holiday themes and Christmas tree and the zone can be accessed year-round. Holidays are really about spending time with friends and family anyways, which can be done year-round as well. As for other themes, if players are just interested in difference Atlas Park appearances, Null the Gull can send players to different themed versions of the zone. 

[A Cat]

Now that Christmas is over, the rest of the season is just shit. I vote we have a sunny tropical reskin of AP instead for the rest of the winter. 

[Aurora_Girl]

/ParkRanger

[Major_Decoy]

The Winter event doesn't celebrate the entirety of winter, it celebrates the arrival of winter. 

[Player2]

5 hours ago, Major_Decoy said:

The Winter event doesn't celebrate the entirety of winter, it celebrates the arrival of winter. 

Then it started much too soon.  First day of winter was December 21, which was on a Tuesday (the day updates occur).

 

The winter event began on November 30th, three weeks before the start of winter.  If you don't want to change the length of the event and the event is not about the holidays but rather Winter itself, then maybe start it two weeks later and leave it running into January for two weeks longer.

 

Either way, I stand by my original assessment that the timing of this event sucks.

 

[Player2]

10 hours ago, Mopery said:

If the X-mas season doesn't start on December 26th of the previous year, then there's clearly a war on it. 😁

Not even remotely what my feedback was about.

[Faultline]

The gist of your feedback is that you want the seasonal map changes to stick around longer. That is something we can agree on, but the problem is that, at the moment, those map changes are manual, and a fair bit of work to prevent messing the normal version of the zone. There is a wishlist item to automate those changes, and when that happens we can talk about changing the trigger dates and add more seasonal zone changes.

[wjrasmussen]

7 hours ago, Major_Decoy said:

The Winter event doesn't celebrate the entirety of winter, it celebrates the arrival of winter. 

Must be the arrival, not hearing too many people cheering the departure.

[Greycat]

Dear lord, these things don't need to be longer. Some of us get enough *real* winter, blizzards, ice and all...

 

15 hours ago, Player2 said:

  But even if you can't (or won't) call it what it really is because you don't want to risk offending someone who doesn't celebrate that holiday,

 

And ... seriously? You went to that first?  *sigh*

 

There's absolutely nothing wrong with calling it a "winter" event. No great conspiracy. No sneaking around trying to "not offend" people. It's an event celebrating winter during a time most people are calling it winter, whether it agrees with the calendar or not, and it's taking place in a game, not a scientifically accurate model of the universe. It's been done in COH since 2004, at around the same time, only the very first one completely falling into your "actually winter" definition.

 

Hell, there are "Winter storm watches/warnings/advisories" before that, too.  (Example: Notice the date of December 8th.) Not "Fall storm warnings" when a blizzard's about to hit on Dec. 15th, or "Fall storm warning turning into winter storm warning overnight" on the equinox. And they're not calling them that to "not offend" people, either.

 

Next time just say you'd like the event to be longer and skip the other stuff, ok?

[Player2]

1 minute ago, Greycat said:

It's an event celebrating winter during a time most people are calling it winter, whether it agrees with the calendar or not, and it's taking place in a game, not a scientifically accurate model of the universe. It's been done in COH since 2004, at around the same time, only the very first one completely falling into your "actually winter" definition.

 

If I were asking for a scientifically accurate model, I'd be asking for them to stretch it out until the beginning of March.

 

  

1 minute ago, Greycat said:

Next time just say you'd like the event to be longer and skip the other stuff, ok?

 

 

Next time don't read more into what I'm saying than what I'm actually saying.

Also, don't tell me how to express myself.  You complain about things your way and I'll complain my way.

 

[Player2]

35 minutes ago, Faultline said:

The gist of your feedback is that you want the seasonal map changes to stick around longer. That is something we can agree on, but the problem is that, at the moment, those map changes are manual, and a fair bit of work to prevent messing the normal version of the zone. There is a wishlist item to automate those changes, and when that happens we can talk about changing the trigger dates and add more seasonal zone changes.

Not necessarily longer... but start at a different time, maybe.  I'm saying longer into January, but if the event started later it could still maintain a roughly one month duration.

[Major_Decoy]

The naughty and nice bits, fine, that's a Christmas thing. The trees, fine. Have your shrubbery. The elves apparently too? I don't know, Christianity is weird.

 

But the missions are "Defeat Winter" which is a winter solstice thing and "Save the New Year" which is weird because none of the four new years is in Tevet.

 

The gifts that you run around opening: Aren't those part of Lord Winter's Scheme, tying back to "defeat winter" then?

 

[Faultline]

5 hours ago, Player2 said:

Not necessarily longer... but start at a different time, maybe.

 

Developers take an enforced break in December, so no patches happen during that month unless it's an emergency bugfix. Unless/until there is a way to automatically swap the maps without a patch, it'll continue to be the last thing we patch before taking a break, which means late November/first days of December.

[SeraphimKensai]

The winter patch looks nothing like my winter. For Christmas and New Years I was swimming in the ocean and it was around 85°. Yeah I know Florida first world problems and that the Paragon City is technically in Rhode Island.

 

But here's hoping that my new Technology Corruptor Dr. Cruise Control will finish it's geographic destabilization and transportation module to beam all of Paragon City to about a mile off the Space Coast, so we can have decorated palm trees and such for the winter patch.

 

 

[Player2]

4 hours ago, Faultline said:

 

Developers take an enforced break in December, so no patches happen during that month unless it's an emergency bugfix. Unless/until there is a way to automatically swap the maps without a patch, it'll continue to be the last thing we patch before taking a break, which means late November/first days of December.

Well, as I said... the timing of the event sucks.  If it has to start at the end of November, then maybe it should be longer.

 

[Player2]

3 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

so we can have decorated palm trees and such for the winter patch.

 

That sounds like something that should be a goal for the Rogue Isles.