Christmas in September! I know, I know. It's not even Halloween yet, but this is how long it takes to get ideas, vote on them, write them up, and send them in before FC actually gets down to planning the hard work that goes into this stuff. It takes a while to train all those Elfleets to push buttons with their noses, you know.
I'm going to be collecting ideas for both TSW and AO, since it's the same team that will be making them anyway, and some of the ideas overlap, and an idea meant for one might inspire a related idea for the other. So whichever game you prefer, go ahead and make your suggestion.
The rules:
1) Don't infringe anyone else's Intellectual Property. There are Fair Use exceptions for parody and such, and oblique references are fine, but a direct copy of someone else's IP isn't going to happen. Grey areas are not worth the trouble of having a court decide.
2) Keep it within the game's rating and rules. Items should be social in nature rather than providing any gameplay advantage. Clothing can be pretty skimpy, like the various bikinis we already have, but remember, only monsters go to "clothing optional" beaches. Ingesting drugs or alcohol, including tobacco, is similarly prohibited. I don't recall anyone suggesting anything patently offensive in the past, but if even suggesting it would be against he EULA, it's probably not very Christmassy anyway. Then again... Krampus. So, you know. "Christmassy" is relative.
3) New ideas are preferred. If you want to go back to last year's thread and copy one or two favorites, because they're still your favorite ideas, go ahead. I'll probably be doing that myself toward the end. Don't just paste the whole thread here, though. Similarly, please look over this thread before you add to it, to make sure someone else hasn't already said the same thing. If they have, adding some details and/or options to it is fine.
If you want to refer to the lists from previous years for old favorites, or to pick up some inspiration for new ideas:
Christmas 2013Christmas 2012Christmas 2011Christmas 2010The schedule:
Sep. 09 - Sep. 22 - (two weeks) I'll be collecting Christmas ideas at all the GSP shows I can get to and posting them in this thread. If you think of something in between shows, just post it here or PM it to me. You can also tell any of the other Dancers if I'm not at the show when you think of something.
Sep. 23 - Sep. 30 - (one week) GSP DJs, Staff, and Dancers vote on their favorite ideas.
Oct. 1 - Oct. 10 - (ten days) I'll write up the top 20 ideas in a big, detailed suggestion list with links to reference art. attach the remainder as additional brainstorming, and mail it to FunCom with a link back to this thread, in case they want to see any additional discussion we have about it here.
some time mid-October - FC normally starts planning the event two months ahead to have time to plan, design, create, implement, test, and debug the new items and events.
some time around Dec 12-19 - the AO Christmas event starts shortly before Christmas. How shortly depends on whether they're doing a "12 Days" event. It's been a few years since they did that, so maybe it's time to do that again. TSW has added new stuff each year so far, so who knows what might be in store this year. "Leetzilla vs. Santa Leet trashing Tokyo" was a joke I made last year, but this year there's actually a Tokyo for it to happen in. We'll have to wait and see. Or suggest something crazy enough and then wait and see.