[LilithAngel]

New Year's Greetings! (01/01/2009)

Best wishes for a happy New Year to adventurers around the world!

It is due in no small part to your dedication and valor that the citizens of the war-torn three nations of Vana'diel can continue to live in safety and peace. Why, even the moogles' latest enterprise, the Buffalo Bonanza Ranch, is off to a rip-roaring success of a start!
Or is it?

For all the details on the 2009 New Year's event, read on!

The New Year's event is scheduled to run from Wednesday, December 31st at 7:00 am (PST) until midnight (24:00) on Monday, January 12th.


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Greetings and salutations, adventurers!
First, please allow all of us on the development team to take this opportunity to wish you the happiest of New Years!

The past year has been yet another eventful chapter in Vana'dielian history, but thanks to your steadfast dedication and understanding, we stand ready to enter another year of prosperity and success.

For this, we offer our sincerest gratitude, and our best wishes that 2009 will hold yet more epic adventures for one and all!


Illustration: Mitsuhiro Arita

Buffaloes Blitz Back!?
It was but a few short months ago that the bravery and peerless wrangling skills of adventurers like you played a vital role in allowing the hapless moogles of the MHMU to defuse a most frightening buffalo stampede and successfully hold the grand opening of their Buffalo Bonanza Ranch.
Little did they know, however, what troubles lay ahead...

What the poor, unsuspecting moogles didn't realize was that the daily diet of your average Vana'dielian buffalo consists of a mountainous heaping of hay, two sackfuls of rye, forty San d'Orian carrots, thirty frost turnips, thirty La Theine cabbages, twenty ears of millioncorn, twenty clumps of batagreens, one dozen popotoes, ten bunches of pamamas, six bone chips, three faerie apples...and that's not counting dessert! And needless to say, it doesn't take them long to lose their temper when they can't eat their fill.

And so it was that to keep their precious pet bovines in good spirits, thereby preventing another stampede the likes of which would throw the three nations into chaos once more, our hard-working moogle friends have been forced to labor through day and cold winter's night with nary a moment's respite to celebrate the festival season.

As you look around town, you too might see the hardworking herdsmen standing on street corners, braving the blustery winter gales to distribute fresh buffalo milk and an assortment of other scrumptious dairy goods to one and all. So if you come across them, feel free to join in the festivities!
After all, what better way to ring in the Year of the Ox than with a bovine bonanza?

Event Schedule
The New Year's event is scheduled to run from Wednesday, December 31st at 7:00 am (PST) until midnight (24:00) on Monday, January 12th.

[GreatMno]

So they are just going to give this stuff away? There's nothing we have to do, nothing we have to hunt down, no delivering messages?

[ruffrydasean]

i just want the snowmen

[Malacite]

Well I just kicked off the new year by losing 100 marbles and a rune to paralyze....




Right here SE, right here.

[Ellipses]

Originally Posted by GreatMno

So they are just going to give this stuff away? There's nothing we have to do, nothing we have to hunt down, no delivering messages?

No, you still have to run around trading items to NPCs, etc. Obligatory link to wiki guide.

[GreatMno]

Thanks for the info.

[Aksannyi]

Originally Posted by Malacite

Well I just kicked off the new year by losing 100 marbles and a rune to paralyze....

We kicked off the new year with Tiamat popping about two hours into the year, watching a resident fail ls claim with a PLD and 3 RDMs and still wipe, getting it from them, and getting gaiters! So ... na na na na na nah, I win.

[Malacite]

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Originally Posted by Malacite

Well I just kicked off the new year by losing 100 marbles and a rune to paralyze....

Right here SE, right here.

Do you always blame SE for things you screw up on? Sad to say, but its an intended function of paralyze and ... well... how would you be paralyzed when you're in town building mazes anyway?

Also, they're using buffalo to reflect "Year of the Ox" from the Zodiac, so its not just them being lazy with planning events. Buffalos most closely resemble the Ox. More specifically, its the Year of the Earth Ox. The Chinese Zodiac overlays five elements (Wood, Metal, Water, Fire, Earth) which overlap the twelve animals of the Zodiac. The last Year of the Earth Ox was in 1949

"The most reliable and diligent Oxen belong to this collection of Oxen. The Earth element balances many of their negative characteristics. These Oxen show good judgment, a good characteristic for successful financial dealings. Other people tend to look up to Earth Oxen because of their reliability, sincerity and their modest ambitions. They are willing to tackle the workload when it become overbearing for others and are loyal and compassionate with family and friends."

Link

I'm a Fire Snake, apparently.

[TheGrandMom]

Ya, I'm on Ox according to the Chinese calendar. I remember when I was young and out to eat with my dad at a Chinese restuarant. My parents were regular customers and the owner did my zodiac. I was so upset! I wanted to be a Dragon so badly and here my dad and I were oxen! I just remember him laughing at me and saying "Well at least we aren't pigs!"

[Tickmeoff]

Originally Posted by Omgwtfbbqkitten

Do you always blame SE for things you screw up on? Sad to say, but its an intended function of paralyze and ... well... how would you be paralyzed when you're in town building mazes anyway?

If you can give a valid explanation as to why failing to use an item while paralyzed causes the item to be consumed anyway I would like to hear it. There isn't any logic behind this happening, it's just bad game design.

[hexx]

LOL im a water pig, and my wife is a fire rabbit, our daughter is a fire pig.........I'm surprised we all get along LMAO.

On topic: the even looks aight, never been one to really do any events save for the xmas and halloween events so meh, guess Ill try this one out.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Originally Posted by Tickmeoff

If you can give a valid explanation as to why failing to use an item while paralyzed causes the item to be consumed anyway I would like to hear it. There isn't any logic behind this happening, it's just bad game design.

That isn't what happened, Paralyze procs on any action taken with the exception of weaponskills. If you don't make an action, Paralyze can't do anything.

Malacite tried to use the rune to put it in his tabulae, but he did this with Paralyze active. I don't care what you're holding, but if I can lose 99 pieces of ammo or tools to Paralyze, you damn well should lose any consumable item you tried to use while it was active. Why should runes be an exception to the rule when I can lose part of my damage output? Ammo is like MP to RNGs and CORs, without it, they can't do their spike damage.

A Rune, a spell scroll and Ammo are all consumable items, Paralyze should affect all of them, not one of the other. If it was bad design, it would have been changed years ago and probably one of the first things to be changed. The fact that it continues is more likely evidence it was intended to function that way by design.

At least you don't lose your sword for swinging it. Its a frustrating part of the game, but I'd take losing time over losing gil. I'm fortunate to have only lost one pouch of ammo and one pouch of shehei in my career, but I didn't like it either. Just because I don't like it doesn't automatically make it bad design.

[Vyuru]

Whether it's poor game design or not, we all know about it by now. We've all heard the sob stories of some poor Whm who just lost his 500k scroll of Erase due to Paralyze, or some other similar disaster. Sorry Mal, but that gets a WTF were you thinking and why are you complaining? If you thought you could get away without Paralyze activating then just take the hit, shrug it off, and spend another day or two getting 100 marbles.

It IS only one of the 100 marble items after all, it's not like you lost one of the 500 marble or hoard box dropped runes.

[Malacite]

Go F yourself.

Yes I'm aware it was my own stupid fault, that doesn't make it suck any less. I'd just wrapped up a Dragon maze with my friend and had forgotten all about the stupid paralyze until I'd used the item at which point I frantically ran around hoping to cancel it but it got used up anyway.