Dear Michizure and anyone else who may be interested,
Here's GridStream's annual list of Halloween ideas for Anarchy Online and Secret World Legends. As usual, the ideas were collected over the course of two weeks of GSP shows, as well as whatever I made note of since last year. This time, the shiny new FC forums also had some input. The GridStream DJs, crew, and dancers helped put them in order so I could put a little more detail into our favorites, but the whole list of suggestions is included here, because brainstorming.
1) [AO] the Story of Uncle Pumpkinhead
We've found the abandoned facility they contained the original specimen in to experiment on him, but I'm not sure that answered any more questions than it raised.
- Why is there a zombie chicken in there with a doctor's nametag?
- Where did they actually find the original specimen?
- How is he still trapped in that lab when all the other specimens and monsters doing his bidding are free to roam around?
- What's the relationship between the herds of Uncles aboveground and the one specimen belowground? Are they clones of him, produced in that lab, that escape once a year to get revenge on the surface? Are they aliens that land on the surface as we pass by the asteroid they come from once a year to try to rescue their captive clone brother? Or is he more than a brother, maybe someone important to their society, like a high priest of the Great Pumpking?
- Is he actually the original immortal Jack O'Lantern brought all the way from Solomon Island on Old Earth? If that's it, I just don't want to be the one to tell Ms. Geary.
We still want the rest of the story, even fragments of the story, like readable versions of those books we assembled in the Shadowlands. Logs left behind by the researchers, like the way the story of System Shock was told before the audiolog expansion on the CD version. AO has tradeskill instruction manuals about how to construct nanocrystals and weapons and vehicles and so on, so there's clearly room for some good chunks of text in book-type items.
2) [both] kitty ears
SWL has kitty ear headphones and AO has a whole catgirl morph with ears, but neither has a separate kitty ears item that looks like the AO kitty ears, but fit like the bunny ears, as a hat item. Both games finally have bunny ears like that, but not kitty ears.
And of course, once we have that, we'll want other shapes, like squirrel ears, or various foxes (fennec foxes are the super cute ones with the giant ears), wolves... I guess we already have the leet one.
3) [AO] a poster from the world tour of Trash King and the Techscavengers
Rubi-Ka's premier junkyard industrial band. It would have been cool to make a band out of the named droids that are part of his questline, but they're all bucketheads, so I don't know how we'd tell which is which on a poster or t-shirt. There should definitely be a Buzzsaw Techscavenger in the band, too, maybe on bass. And a helper/cargo droid on the drums. Maybe Best in Brass with a couple different horns. A Waste Disposer hovering over three keyboards. I imagine they'd sound kinda like Einstürzende Neubauten, but with even more of the chainsaws-on-steel sound, and that's the vocals.
4) [both] More variations of torn fishnets, without a toolbelt
Are we holding off on that in SWL until you can find time to make a lingerie / tattoos / piercings layer? I'm just going to keep assuming you want to do that if / when you have the time / resources. Could we maybe get a Halloween outfit with a miniskirt and torn fishnets in the meantime?
And AO could use something like that, too. Maybe something like the Bunny Longs of GridStream Productions or the Entertainer Longs of Tiger Claw, but torn up a little. And maybe it matches a tattered tube top torn from Uncle Pumpkinhead's haunted rags. A bit of his sleeve would be about right for some of us.
5) [AO] A leet under a sheet that has way too many holes chewed in it
Like Charlie Brown's costume, but little. When summoned, it announces its arrival with "i haz a rok?".
6) [both] Halloween Bikini
AO could use some variations in Halloween bikinis. There's been only one for all these years, and now that Uncle's so easy to find and generous with drops, anyone who's had time to play at Halloween in the past few years already has it. SWL, on the other hand, has none and could really use one. The same cut as the Midnight Pumpkin should be fine, although I wouldn't mind something a little different for a change. We really just need something other than the same old orange and black jack-o-lantern print.
- like the Midnight Phantom one I suggest every year - dark purple, the same color as the Mysterious Cloak, with a pale grin that fades in cycles, perhaps cycling from dark purple to lavender. Or if the color cycling is too much work, just a little grin like the one on several of the Halloween t-shirts.
- or a blood red bikini with white fang prints
- or a jet black bikini with white skulls, maybe even changing to different species of skulls when you Use it
7) [both] bunny and kitty tails
We finally have bunny ears in both games, and thanks for that! There are also kitty ears, sort of (see above), but the only kitty tail is the AO one that's a full body morph. And the only bunny tail is a SWL bodysuit that some folks either don't like the cut of the bottom or don't like the shape of the top. Is there any way both games could get back items for kitty and bunny tails without a whole morph/outfit? Both games have costume wings, which must have an attachment point related to the back. Is there no attachment point relative to the hips?
And if you can figure out a way to do this, we'd also like fox, wolf, leet, demon, and other assorted tail options, even if they're not articulated.
8) [AO] make the Abandoned Facility accessible to lowbie / social alts
The level 90 Shades wandering about U-Turn Forest make it very difficult to get lowbies into the new Halloween dungeon. It's a level-matched instance full of social loot and no XP. Why should social alts have to level up and gear up that much to get their bunny ears? Warping there just isn't an option everyone has readily available.
A fun and effective way to get lowbies into the facility would be to make the Halloween leets' Shade morph function as camouflage, so the Shades in U-Turn Forest won't attack. Then lowbies can just sneak past, as long as they remember to cancel the morph as soon as they're inside so they can fight again. They'll also have to avoid the few other threats along the way, like the carnivorous plants and the occasional giant cat, so there's still some excitement to that trip.
It should work the same as sneaking into the Cyborg barracks with a Cyborg costume or scanning Scorpiods safely by wearing Scorpiod scent.
9) [SW] more witch and warlock costumes
For a contemporary game with magic, I find it surprisingly difficult to assemble witchy costumes in SWL. I guess maybe the point is that now witches could look like anybody, but Halloween time is when you go for the tropes and stereotypes. A slightly less enormous pointy hat would be a good start. Maybe a skimpy little black dress with fringes and shiny bits, like a thin gold belt, or a little jeweled ritual belt dagger. You know, something Elvira would wear. Just saying "Elvira" should be as good as posting a reference image for this one.
And I guess something with short, dark robes covered in "mystical" symbols woudl work for the warlocks. Nothing really that specific was suggested for them.
10) [both] Angelwitch costume
Wings and horns, silvery toga shredded a bit, glowing eyes and black claws. Lots of juxtaposition.
Like this:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/H0a3KTCOpIM/maxresdefault.jpg11) [both] spiderweb bikini or bodysuit or minidress
I've been asking for variations of this for years, and any one of them would be great. All the options would be best, of course. The basic idea is a skimpy little number made of black or silver strategically interwoven threads, patterned like a spider web. And by "skimpy" I mean suitable for a 90's comic book villainess, or a Korean MMO sorceress in endgame "armor". Barely covering only what's necessary and only succeeding at that because it's all glued in place.
I couldn't find adequate reference images, so I drew some myself and posted them on the GridStream forums.
silver minidress - front view:
download/file.php?id=5181&mode=viewsilver minidress - back view:
download/file.php?id=5182&mode=viewblack teddy - front view:
download/file.php?id=6347&mode=viewblack teddy - back view:
download/file.php?id=6346&mode=viewThe bikini version would be just like the teddy, minus the middle. Not pictured: matching black pumps that come with a spider ankle tattoo.
12) [AO] costumes for non-social pets
This one would be more work than most of the ideas here, especially if you made one for each type of combat pet, but it would be pretty fun, if you could make it happen. It doesn't do anything for the folks who aren't into pet professions, but then again, some folks just don't care about social stuff either. These all involve new meshes and textures, but I think you could hang them on the same rigs and use the same old animations.
- Spaghetti Monster morph for MP mezz pets
- flying monkey form for cacodemons
- Frankenstein's monster costume for bureaucrat androids
- a Giger-style biomechanical texture for gladiator bots
- widowmaker drone chicken costume (the one everyone calls "chickenbot" already)
- toaster head for lowbie engineer cargo droids
13) [SW] haunt up Agartha with some harmless ghosts
There could be some non-interactive ones hanging around in Axel's, waiting for their loved ones to join them. Possibly a little less evil and distorted and tormented than the ones haunting the Innsmouth Academy grounds. Maybe just some nearly transparent NPCs? Or are the NPCs in Agartha ghosts already? Wait.... Is that why Randy the Random Drunk NPC Chick has no sense of personal space? She just keeps repeating the same actions because she's a ghost? And she never needs to drink any more to stay drunk because she has no liver because she's a ghost? Wow. If you don't throw some translucent folks in there to delineate the difference, I might have to conclude The Rooted Groove is already haunted by more than that one ghost dog.
Maybe some bored ghosts could be just floating about in Agartha, out in the air, not on platforms, wailing and groaning and throwing random harmless sparks at nearby players and/or pets. Not a threat, but just a harmless surprise. It would have to be rare, though, or it would just be annoying instead of surprising.
The spirits could be those of various people and animals that have died in Orochi experiments. Maybe they're using the gateway between spirit world and real world, that is said to appear at Halloween, to seek revenge on the Orochi. That could tie in some lore with event. Maybe leading them to a pile of dead Orochi somewhere would appease them?
14) [SW] broomstick mount
This would go well with the "more witch costumes" idea. Of course we would prefer if it could *fly*, but I think we can come to terms with a "slightly magic" broom that barely hovers. It really should be able to hover over water, though. And small gaps. There's really no reason a flying broomstick should be as susceptible to gravity as a moped, but that would be cheating in a jumping puzzle, so maybe it would have to be disabled where jumping puzzles are really a necessary element. ("Necessary" is a different conversation - many of us would pay Aurum to hover past those.) And then if jumping puzzle areas had an effect to prevent hovering, hoverboards could *hover* too, everywhere else. Or at least fall slower.
AO technically already has broomsticks, the Phasefront Besom - Sky Sweeper, but very few of them were ever given out. Making these generally available would be nice, too.
15) [AO] The Ariya poster from outside The Grind, for placing in apartments
16) [SW] SWL still needs the Midnight Pumpkin Bikini
Actually, SWL needs *any* thong-back bikinis like AO's, but this would be a good start. The top could just be a reskin of the basic triangle top bikini we already have several colors of, and the bottom is basically the default "nude" thong with orange panels added, so I figure this has to be one of the easiest ones on this list.
17) [SW] Add some music from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society to the radios and shops
They're a small group in LA who count among their goals, according to their website, "... to collaborate with talented scholars, artists, writers and composers, and to spread and support fandom for H. P. Lovecraft and appreciation of his works and worlds, his life and times." Their works may not be public domain, like the old radio shows, even if they're based on Lovecraft's, and they are now a for-profit business, but they do look small enough that I suspect they'd be amenable to donating a song or three in exchange for a link or in-game flyer or poster or some such. You know, like Ariya's song in The Grind in AO with the posters outside.
18) [SW] Halloween kilt - black and orange tartan with jack-o-lanterns
For both men and women, please, not as the alternate to the Midnight Pumpkin Bikini. And please, if you're going to make Midnight Pumpkin Boxers again, make those for both men and women, too. If you really need to keep the event clothing separate but balanced, what's wrong with black and orange speedos and a jack-o-lantern muscle shirt? Boxers and kilts should be for anyone.
19) [SW] bring back the costume wings, and maybe different styles of them, not just different colors
AO has angel wings that are a taller, more hawk-like shape. Maybe something like those.
A costume version of the ultimate wings effect has been requested many times, but that might be a bit much. That effect really stands out, so lots of people running around like that all the time would be super distracting and a bit stressful for older video cards. Maybe something that style, but smaller and less ... shiny?
20) [SW] Draug pets in Droog costumes
White blouse, light grey pants and suspenders, black bowler hat, and boots. Google "A Clockwork Orange" for reference images, but I'm sure you guys are all familiar. Make several different ones, maybe even all the common Draug models. Make the rarest / hardest to get one their leader, the Cthulhu-esque one with a cane and too much mascara on just the right eye: the Ur-Droog.
21) [SW] wiener dogs in halloween costumes
- like hot dog costumes, shark costumes, etc.
22) [SW] pet Western-style dragons, like AO pit lizards
23) [SW] Weapon skins of horrible ancient mythic artifacts that certain iconic horror and slasher movie weapons were based on
- a machete that punishes the abandonment of innocence (Jason's)
- a butcher knife that terminates youthful rebellion (Michael's)
- a bladed glove stitched with threads pulled from the veil of dreams so that truly malevolent wielders can shred the barrier between reality and nightmare (Freddy's)
- a meat hook that catches on guilty secrets and twists them into tragic revelations (Hook Killer / I Know What You Did Last Summer)
- a puzzle cube that can be shifted into different configurations as a blood, chaos, or elemental focus, but doesn't shift itself into the Lament Configuration without some ritual sacrifice (Hellraiser)
24) [SW] add seasonal effects to the Agartha jump pads
- dark clouds
- bats
- creepy sounds
- flying through occasional strands of spiderweb
- flying by ghosts like on the roller coaster
25) [both] disembodied hand pet
- maybe not a human hand, maybe one that moves more like a Zix
26) [AO] neon leet raver dolls
27) [both] RollerLeets
- a leet in pumpkin armor that can only roll like a rollerrat, so it has rollerrat animation and leet sounds
28) [both] pet land shark
29) [AO] jaded middle-aged leets being immune and going "Get lost, I'm not in the mood for any of this" when you attack them - a reference to "Stan against Evil"
30) [AO] easier to get social version of the red and white Xan lightsabers from Pande, possibly in different colors
31) [SW] a pet shelter to bring all the excess cats to that nobody wants to adopt, with a big playroom full of mousie toys and climbing platforms and big bowls of catfood and webcams to stream live cat video
32) [both] scary clown costume, like the clean costume AO already has, but smeared and stained with blood and a creepy clown mask, like the Santa one reskinned
33) [both] Black and orange jack-o-lantern print tuxedo with lots of different jack-o-lantern faces, not just the same one over and over.
- Like
https://discourse-cdn-sjc1.com/business ... 2f3620.jpg34) [SW] spider costume with articulated legs
- wishful thinking: separately animated articulated legs, like
https://iq.intel.com/smart-spider-dress ... wipprecht/35) [SW] social instances of Incognito's Stonehenge-like encounter area and the Deep Agartha pumpkin patch for screenshots and parties, accessed through separate altars or something so they don't interfere with people looking to rescue kitties and get loot
35) [AO] Statuesque weapons, like tridents and gladius and round shield and bunch of grapes and pitcher, to go with the Statuesque costume
37) [AO] bee-themed outfits and sorceress and barbarian costumes for everyone who wants to role-play that they just arrived through that Agartha portal that connects to the Grid
38) [both] Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse costumes and mounts, like the Flaming Nightmare Steed and three more variations of it, with matching Rider costumes/glamours
- maybe something like a Rift Martyr for War, a Mummy for Famine, Arbeh or a Pestilence Talos for Pestilence, and a Grim Reaper costume (elsewhere on this list separately) for Death (see also: bring back The Rider Cometh)
39) [SW] more varieties of witch familiars, like toads, owls, rats
40) [SW] more Spandex and Lycra outfits
- if people in Kingsmouth are gonna keep calling us superheroes, maybe we should dress the part
41) [SW] decorate Agartha with spider webs and dripping blood
- walking through the pools of it makes you leave tracks
42) [AO] bikini, loincloth, teddy, or whatever you want to call a skimpy little outfit made from the haunted rags left behind by one of Uncle Pumpkinhead's many clones after being cut down by one of his own scythes
43) [SW] Make the "Spooky Sweat Suit" skeleton costumes available again, perhaps in new colors, like glow-in-the-dark versions
44) [both] bloody, battered gift box decoration with a hand in it that lifts the top and waves once in a while
45) [AO] pet bronto burger on wheels, like Mr. Wheelie, but with huge monster truck style wheels
46) [SW] nun's habit
- yes, it's okay if it looks ridiculous in most of the combat animations, that's kinda the point
47) [both] giant leet mount with a saddle and stirrups, or a palanquin strapped on like the barleet's tray, or a "flying" carpet carried by a herd of leets
48) [AO] placeable decoration versions of some of the holdable prop "weapon" items
- stakes
- Uncle Pumpkinhead dolls
- bottles of Mr. Pointy's "Not Fake" Blood
- Bronto Mama Helmet
- Beacon of the Harvester
49) [SW] pitchfork weapon skins
- short one-handed one for swords and long two-handed one for hammers
50) [SW] more orange options of all the casual clothes
- especially shoes and sneakers in shades of orange that match at least some of the clothes
51) [SW] little pet versions of Incognito and Jack O'Lantern
52) [SW] Maybe some social type of side mission in Agartha where a group of bees get together in monster costumes (Revenant, Werewolf, Locust, Kongamato, etc) that unlocks a new Halloween themed costume
- Like Happy Feet, but with players dancing instead of shems.
53) [both] A t-shirt that says "I'm Invisible" on it. "S.E.P." on the back, or in the description, for "Somebody Else's Problem"
- And make it a terrible color, so the viewer's brain just blocks it out in self defense. Like neon pink, cream, and puce green paisley
54) [SW] bat and spider mounts (animal mounts, not themed bikes)
55) [SW] Museum pedestals for Irusan and The Rider in the oddities wing to accompany their Saturnalia/Christmas counterparts.
56) [both] proper dirndl and lederhosen
57) [SW] haunt up deadside with gaki / preta / hungry ghosts
- spectres like on Savage Coast would probably look close enough
- have them follow us around begging for some of those shards of anima we carry around, since that's probably the only thing they can eat
57) [SW] "covered in blood" visual effect that lasts a while like the aftereffects of candies, but it's hard to imagine calling something that does that "candy"
59) [AO] summon a shop terminal pet
- not animated, not interactive, just following you around. Only useful for confusing people who didn't know they were a thing
- bonus points if it stands up on robotic legs to follow you and then settles back down to look like a normal kiosk again
* [AO] banana costume, fruit of the loom style
* [SW] scarier monsters in the main playfields
- make wraiths appear and chase us down like bounty hunters, but more often, so we might actually see more than one during the event, and they drop epic or better loot bags - maybe we have to do something to provoke them, like the End of Days, where we had to trigger Mayan Remains to be chased by Xibalban warriors
- re-purpose the Bounty Hunter system to spawn random monsters, like the Kaidan Key Container critters. If they succeed in killing a player, they would immediately despawn. If the player it was summoned to attack fled, it would despawn as soon as they left Agro range. It would make for genuine frights and maybe even a climate where, at least for a night, new characters (the closest we have to children in this game) were actually afraid to go out except in groups.
- you could have the powerful Zone Boss type uniques from Kaidan and up, the ones meant for several players, show up for a brief rampage in lower Zones (or even buffed versions of their current uniques). These would be treated as open world mini-raids. (Like TSW's Guardians of Gaia.) Just post a heads up in chat when one is about to show up, along with a clue or two, and let us track it down!
* [SW] Predator-style Wrist blades
* [SW] bring back the Kitties of Ulthar and chasing Incognito
* [both] bra hat like Little Nicky
-
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAzbzZDV0AA6LLG.jpg* [SW] Grim Reaper costume
- a skeletal mask and a robe like the Ragged Robe, but with skeletal gloves instead of the black gloves that are part of the Ragged Robe "uniform", and a "reaper scythe" hammer skin
- or a Grim Reaper glamour that makes you look like an otherworldly black cloak over an invisible or shadowy/smoky figure, with optional bleached white skull and skeletal hands and feet, compatible with face items like glowing eyes and assorted masks
* [AO] alternate statuesque pants with a fig leaf
* [AO] tortoise shell tank armor
- shaped like a tortoise shell, not just painted like one
- may turn you into an old perv with an aerobics fetish (Dragonball's Master Roshi)
* [AO] Giger-esque costume, like a darker, scarier version of the alien costume, maybe with a long barbed tail instead of the centaur-butt part, with a head like a shiny black version of "Bronto Mama Helmet"
* [SW] place the sigil to summon Jack at the tree in Kingsmouth and have it open a portal to Deep Agartha when completed, sounding a gong ringing through Agartha and opening that one too
- and if you "haunt up Agartha with some ghosts" as suggested above, draw all the ghosts to the Deep Agartha portal
* [SW] special seasonal monsters to hunt, like minions of Jack or Incognito (mini-Jack with a scythe?), or maybe something new, scattered about the normal playfields like Krampus was
* [AO] different spider backpacks with the legs sticking out to the sides, to look more like spider costumes
* [AO] a big black fire damage / smoke stain nanospray to put on your wall with a transparent part in the shape of a ninja
- like there was someone there and their smoke bomb went horribly wrong - they pressed the wrong button and nuked themselves instead
* [AO] nanospray of a shadow of a Shade, or a Shadowleet
- or something else that should be invisible, but for some reason is casting a shadow
* [AO] pet Leetzilla
* [both] an expressionless porcelain mask of "William Meyers" or someone equally obviously not famous
- especially not a Shatner mask like the one preferred by Michael
* [SW] bring back all of the old TSW Samhain events
- The Broadcast and The Rider Cometh as well as Spooky Stories of Solomon Island
(I'm guessing those are queued up for one a year, but some folks are impatient, or at least want confirmation that that's the plan.)
* [AO] put Droog costumes on all the tentacle mutants for the duration of the event
- their gait would be particularly funny in that getup
* [SW] revenant pet
* [AO] change the Balloon Pet nano to sometimes summon Infector / Devourer of Life mobs, just during the Halloween event
* [AO] Mini-Beast pet nano and mini Hecklers that run around flailing and pounding the ground instead of just sitting still or following you around
* [AO] a wig of cyber-dreadlocks
- Dreadloch Wig, a Medusa hat of wires to plug into your weapons, scopes, utilities and deflectors for faster, more reliable wired networked targeting and reaction time
Thanks again for reading all this and letting us contribute to the brainstorming. Keep up the great work, and we're looking forward to seeing what Uncle Pumpkinhead and Jack bring us this year!
- Jezebelle