A Clockwork Door-hinge: Event Review

[Promises]

- So my only con is one that I'm not sure actually has a solution, so if any players can help me I'd be glad of it. While I know all these events keep having both combat and puzzle based mods, it's super hard to figure out which one I'm getting myself into as a new player. As someone who's still very squishy and avoiding direct combat, I end up stuck hiding in the background of those ones, and I think I've missed every purely puzzle mod completely. Obviously the shapers can't warn us, but I'm not sure if anyone has tricks to help them figure out which it might be?

The only thing I can recommend is to ask the NPC hooking the plot what kind of skills might be required. Sometimes it's vague on purpose. That's about all I've got, though.

[Lilith Caia]

I generally don't like Highwinter, but I had a great time at this one. My only cons have been mentioned, so I'll - OH WAIT I HAVE ONE.

Con:
- There is no hand sanitiser. Please take mercy on us
- Just, uh, why was there a dragon? Maybe I just missed how that made sense? It was beautifully repped, though

Pros:
- The spider cave mod, of course
- Romantic date in the spider cave
- Melody and Roland being disgusting
- Bake sale!!!
- The charm room! Endless amusement
- 50 Scales of Grey. Fuck that was hysterical
- Magnar chasing Cora
- Wandering around trolling people with Damon. Leon and Maddox (I think that's his name?) and Barley and Jabba's and everyone's reactions were hysterical. I especially loved how a ton of random people joined in
- Charming Damon. That fuck
- Charming Leon. Poor man only wanted to take a piss
- Everybody having to sing
- Being turned into a toy and being EXTREMELY ANGRY about it
- Ego whipping myself by accident
- Getting to meet Brian and Matt and Anthony and Morgaine and Simon and Constantine and Jess and so on in character all at once! Woah!
- Goat knight
- The beautiful reps; the door, the toy soldier hat, etc., etc. Ralinwood has always been (in my experience) and continues to be fantastic for reps
- Being dumb enough to mistake the fire alarm for an in game thing
- Tossing a charm into a crowd. Nova was a real sweetheart about it and the poor thing's friends just completely let her get stolen. xD
- "Aren't you supposed to be in hell?" "We don't celebrate highwinter there"
- Having Carrion around! Dear god, he's good
- Doing business/diplomacy with Ancel and the Unnamed Merchant. It felt so businessy, which I loved
- The weird dark cabin party
- "Did you just sacrifice a gnome to a yeti?" "Uh, I have no idea. Did I?"
- The event title
- Actually everything with Leon
- Broing out with Tel over various things
- Ego Whipping people who didn't call me Lady Caia

Specific plot shoutout:

Ramsey's Billy plot. Lilith is not a nice character, but I couldn't bear to be mean to that poor kid. That whole thing was so heartwrenchingly bittersweet. ;.; Fuck.

My only regret is that I was nice sometimes. And that Alex is now a season NPC.

[Marek]

So happy someone knew who Billy was

[Viv]

Personally, I'm a little let down that I couldn't play Viv as aggressively or outraged as I want to, as the cold sapped a lot of my energy.

Pros:

+ omg Gnome plot. I normally don't get involved in plot because the grand majority of the time it has to do with magic, which Viv avoids, but damn Gnomish slavery how could you now I have to care. I had to be engaged and try to understand what was going on (even if I still don't understand the full story, and I was digging for a while).
+ the ornaments were super cute! In general, outstanding props.
+ the Curse of Jolly was hilarious! Great idea for a holiday game!

Mids:

o Gnome lore. For the last two years Wizwik and I have been playing with a certain mindset of Gnomish culture, which works when there are an extremely limited number of Gnomes in UW. A lot of that hasn't made it to the wiki (for reasons beyond our control) so certain things the enslaved Gnomes did seemed off compared to what we normally do. I handwaved a lot of this as "magic".

I do hope the remaining Gnome lore gets published soon, because it would be nice to have all of us (Shapers and PCs) on the same baseline on WTF we actually are.

o I hope everyone was busy. I was because of the Gnome thing, but I worried that there might not be enough for everyone else to do (or my actions were taking Shaper attention away from other people). I did come back from my food break to find out a bunch of items had been found, so probably not a concern.

o In hindsight, having the PC Gnomes help build the device would've been cool. Someone asked why we weren't building it, and y'know, it would've probably been faster if the slaves had some fresh minds involved in it. I wouldn't have minded a half hour out of game to eat and take a short break, and come back saying "yeah we totally helped out".

o Instead of a standard "wave battle/defend the MacGuffin for X minutes", having people participate in its creation in non-combat ways would've been nice - locksmiths or trapsmiths holding out wires, etc.

Cons:

- Cold. Not normally an issue worth mentioning, but at some points we weren't moving around much and that drained us.
- A designated meal break would've been nice. I disappeared for a bit because I wanted to eat, and came back to find out some things had been done in the meantime. I'm wondering if people had gunned on through that. Maybe have some cute RP opportunities during the eating time to keep people entertained or moving (maybe a worker trying to buy or trade for parts for more devices? I know something like that circulated).
- Yes, I'm that person who frowns when you use "cool" as its modern adjective. It immediately throws off my immersion and I wish new slang would circulate. (Viv's been pushing "fizzling" for a while.)

Memorable Moments:

* Viv getting knifed up twice in the opening mod. Thirshran (Avian, played by my husband) called her out on carelessness before we realized they were deliberately targetting Gnomes.
* People asking Viv if they could cast magic on her. It's a huge deal for Viv IG.
* Gnome-Avian full lunch set-up in a box. We could've burned to death in that workshop and I wouldn't have cared.
* Working with Wizwik to activate a device. I will absolutely seize on any opportunity to roleplay the hell out of Gnomish technology.
* Talking with Ferdouz. It was a pleasure to have conversations with a mage that didn't devolve into a "your side is stupid" screaming match or obnoxious noses in the air.
* The awkward look on von Fleet's face when she said she needed parts for her device and I started handing her Gnomish device parts.
* "I need that nose to get us out of here." Cue six people running down a panicked faun.
* People making sure Viv and Wizwik didn't get eaten. So much love.
* Shamus using Viv as bait. THANKS, COUSIN.
* making Jada cry.
* need to rebuild one of my devices, it's the fourth time it hasn't worked the way I wanted T.T

[Granyte the Ogre]

Wow, what an event!

No actual cons to speak about other in IG things and those are not in anyway the fault of the game or the NPCs/Shapers!

So PROS!

- Being turned into a Toy was a trip. Lamalas hated it with a fiery passion but I loved it. It gave me a chance to RP instead of fight and search for things to do that were outside of my norm, really good growing chance. Thanks all!
- Being a Baking Contest Judge was fun, getting to taste all the baking before anyone else and then judging you fools muhahaha. Knew on an OOG level who baked certain items and wanted so badly to not have Lamalas pick them due to IG dislike but dammit Brent those davis cookies rocked our mouths. Congrats, you had 3 guys craving your white covered balls.
- LEON! I have a new hobby and that is winning all the raffle prizes! Hearing the loud chorus of groans as Lamalas wins 4 of the 10 prizes after only buying 7 tickets, and then having Dehclan win 2 more lol Valdr blessed our tickets, suck it!
- Vincent. Angela you are evil and I love you more then you realize. Enough said. Want more info? FOIG
- Books for days! I got excited learning a new book was coming to town, but then ended up buying TWO books for the Library! Yay!
- Finally this is more a personal pro, but seeing a really good long time friend show up out of the blue to surprise the family was amazing.


I dont think there was a thing about this game that I did not enjoy, and if this is an example of what next year is going to be then I am stoked!

[Lilith Caia]

Oh! Two more pros:

- Being friendly with Lamalas
- And Vincent. I didn't know the backstory as Lilith, but I do as Lark. Fuck was that amazing

[Granyte the Ogre]

Being thanked by Lilith, seeing how traumatized she was that she was being nice so trading to cheesecake so it wasn't niceness, it was a business transaction lmao

[Lilith Caia]

That was the cutest thing.

[Zia Sashana]

This was my first Highwinter, so I wasn't 100% sure what to expect, but I had a really great time! I am proud of myself for gauging clothing needs appropriately! Thank you to everyone who help put on the event. As others have said, the props and costuming were really fantastic - I was especially impressed to see how all the parts we collected actually came together in the final device that was created.

Other Pros involved getting to meet and talk to lots of new people in game, being able to mostly keep up with the plot as things were happening, not needing to get into combat but still feeling relatively useful, and of course the general interest and reaction to my public reading of 50 Scales of Grey. I hope it becomes a treasured part of the Ralinwood library ;p

I think I was over all a fan of everyone being stuck together in town center and the tavern for the most part, as I think I had a better chance to meet and interact with a lot more people that way than I might have otherwise. I think it did contribute at times to the feeling like there wasn't much we could do, especially towards the end when the pacing felt like it slowed down, but I think that's been mentioned enough, and I just tried to use the time for more roleplaying (yay!)

Any real cons are mostly on a personal level, and come down to things like my inability to remember names/put them to faces reliably in and out of game, and feeling like socially awkward penguin out of game.

[Dioghi]

Wow just wow to this event. 

I am actually blown away by the level of costuming, with the way the mods played out. I had an absolutely fantastic time spending my birthday at game and enjoying all the high winter festivities. Story was fun it was engaging, the two players that my family helped bring this game have said that they're both coming back. 

Thank you just, thank you for a fantastic season I am so glad that I made the decision to switch guild houses. Angela I love you, you are absolutely cruel and twisted in such a wonderful way. Ivanna and Dan I tip my hat to you both, Ralinwood feels to me the way Underworld was when I first started playing years ago. 

Anybody who had anything to do with that Vincent plot oh my God total punch right in the feels. This is a high winter and a birthday I am not going to forget for a very long time. Thank you for the fantastic job, and thank you to all the NPCs, Shapers plot team everybody who worked their butts off to make this happen this was a phenomenal event. 

I am definitely going to be a Rallinwood lifer.

I have so many positive moments this event. From the chilly frost giant hugs,(totally one sided) to curvy snow woman.  Even Ivanas creepy risen( want another sheild wall hug).

Thank you is all I can say for the whole event.