Sorry for the delay in updating the news… but real life, who needs it? hehe.

Just this past month or so, we FINALLY got Spring Cleaning 2011!!!

About time!! The program was included with the start of the Halloween festivities for 2011. New to the lands are “Pumpkin Monsters”, that first show themselves as being last year’s jack-o-lanterns. Dusty was nearly killed by this surprise attack the first time. You go to pick the Jack up… and it wont budge. It turns into a large pumpkin, that’s resting… that is, in fact, the pumpkin monster. It's very nasty, but really cool in graphics. There are two designs, one is a daemon face with orange fire and the other is a clown face with blue fire. These are 2 of the 3 masks that may spawn as your reward. Daemon, Clown, or Plague masks. These masks are only for decoration! Nothing more. They are named for all our wonderful staff… that includes the designers, game-masters, and event moderators. And let me tell you all, this list is massive. Some people are collecting full sets, the same name on each of the 3 masks… or looking for people they know from the game. Goodness knows if this was our own names, it would be worse then last year. Never found a Frany Flame’s jack.

Spring Cleaning wise… the list of trade in items is massive. Even more then last time. What’s changed from last time is that you gain points by throwing these items in trash bins. I prefer using bins at the public banks, so the results are quick… at home, you wait forever. You can also single click on the bin and get the option to evaluate the item in question. Also a change from last year, many of the items like shipwrecked goods, stealables… their worth is a lot less. It takes a lot more to get the points you want. But… if you wish to throw your gold away, you have that option as well. Gems, leather, ingots… all at extremely unfair values are on the list. There are many items you can get right now that will give small point values that don’t have to be old gift items… but the older the gift item… the more points, so check those old containers well. Also beware that the published list has changed in the last 4 weeks, to some degree. Consistency… now that’s the challenge.

As we were waiting for this publish, we had a little 10th anniversary event for the good ole Red & Purple. A 30 million gold give-away, presented as a scavenger hunt… of sorts. A book or “golden ticket” representing each of the single million checks was joined by 20 books that were called “stinker tickets”. Each of the 50 books were hidden all over the cities of Tram. Thanks to EM Bennu, who provided not 1, but 2 moongates so everyone could find the mall and location of the event easier. Also thanks to Moon Star and Alesia, who helped place the books. So much preparation… so many people turned out… and an explosion of searchers found all but 1 of the books in no time flat. 1 golden ticket was never recovered… or found by someone not understanding the directions, thus it was never turned in. A fast paced success, however I would have loved to have more to the event.

Last item for now… We are thinking about doing a Christmas event for this year. The reason we could not do it last year was we couldn’t find enough helpers to pull the event off, unlike these Santa events of years past. With the success of the 10th year Anniversary… I would like to explore if it's possible to bring together a few different groups, establishments… and have a more public sponsored event. This could very well include better prizes, without aide of our game staff… as normal. I’ve already put the word out and we will see what response we get. For now, it's just an idea… we will see come the end of November if there’s enough potential. I just can't help stress that this very simple event is far harder to manage then visitors see when they come. So, I hope to have some news... yes or no, soon enough.