A Renaissance Christmas Event - Dark Magic Awakens!

Beginning on December 18th and running through January 5th players will be able to take part in a special Christmas Event.
Note: Event dates can be subject to small changes

How the holiday events work

• Players must hunt the world high and low to find the various event monsters that spawn. In Dungeons, The Lost Lands and the far corners of Britannia.
• Each of these monsters ranges in difficulty from easy (elf archer) moderate (reindeer) to very difficulty (dark elf knight).
• Each monster has a chance to drop holiday coins and a specific event scroll (see below)
  Note: To learn about how to use these scrolls, check below.
• These challenges will vary from performing a specific task, killing specific monsters, or killing a certain amount of monsters.
• Once these conditions are met additional areas will open up for you to explore.
• Once these tasks are complete you will be faced with one of 4 fearsome bosses that defend each event.
• If you manage to defeat the boss in the time allotted you will be given a key to their treasure chests.
• The player who owns the scroll that started the event will be provided with the key.
• In this chest players can find normal treasure style loot, holiday coins, holiday rares, and possibly a scroll to another holiday event.

2017 Event Update
This year we are proud to announce the addition of two new challenging holiday dungeon events. The scrolls to these events can be found about 20% of the time when completing one of the existing Christmas scrolls. They will lead to the Lair of Krampus or to the Lair of the White Witch. These are massive expansions to the holiday event and will pose an extreme challenge for even our most grizzled players. Each dungeon has 2 stages each with their unique set of challenges. To counter this increase in difficulty players will be able to obtain, very rarely, exceptionally valuable items within.

• 30+ New creatures.
• 30+ New rare drops.
• 2 New hand designed bosses to challenge our players.
• 4 new massive dungeon levels.

Note: For our Ironman fanatics there are rewards for managing to complete these new dungeons by yourself. However they were designed with a group of 4-6 players in mind. It is entirely possible that they cannot be completed by a solo player. I am sure you will manage it, but it was not our design for it to be possible.

How to Prepare to Tackle the Events

• These events were designed with the following difficulty in mind.
  
  
  1 Player - Near Impossible
  2 Players - Very Challenging
  3 Players - Moderate Challenge
  4 Players - Medium Challenge
  5+ Players - Easy
  ​
• A good sample grouping would be 3 friends. A Hybrid Mage, A Tamer, and a Fighter, One of which has bardic skills.
• It is HIGHLY recommended you take friends with you on your first attempt on any event to learn proper strategy, where to resurrect and aggro management.
• All of the creatures in these events will provide a variety of challenges.
• Make sure you have enough supplies to last the duration of the event. A variety vendor is provided in each event area for emergency supplies.
• You will not have access to a bank, stable master during the event.
• Should you leave the event area you will not be allowed to return.

Christmas Scrolls / Tips

• The scrolls open a portal to a special holiday dungeon and will remain open for 60 seconds.
• Anyone can enter the scroll gate so make sure to only use it in a safe location.
• The staff cannot assist you with adding people to an event in progress so plan accordingly.
• Once the gate closes you are on your own until you complete or fail the event.
• Each event will allow you 60-115 minutes to complete the challenge present within.

Leaderboards
Players who complete the Christmas events will have their event attempt scored by the following values.
At the end of the event players who have scored at the top of the leaderboards or accomplished other features during the event will earn a special reward
Note: Much like Halloween these will be special named/colored trophies awarded for a variety of accomplishments.

• Player Count
• Follower Slots / Pets
• Boss Kills
• Mini Boss Kills
• Minion Kills
• Completion Time

2016 Holiday Event Leaderboard (Will Reset for 2017 As the event goes live)

The Ironman System

• Should you feel that your skills are greater than all your peers you are welcome to attempt the holiday ironman challenge for additional rewards and infamy.
• By using only 1 character to complete any instance in the 60 minute time window you will earn an ironman award depending on the amount of follower slots you used.
  
  Ironman Award, Awarded for using 2 or less followers. (6 Platinum Value)
  
  Ironman Award, Awarded for using 5 or less followers. (4 Platinum Value)
  
  Ironman Award, Awarded for using 8 or less followers. (2 Platinum Value)
  Note: The hue of the Ironman statue will match the event.
• Should you manage to complete all 4 holiday ironman challenges with a single character you will be awarded with the following statue in your choice of event color (hue 1194,1193,1151,1153)
  
• Note: To qualify for the ironman challenge you must defeat the events boss and loot the holiday coins from their chests.

Inevitable Failure / Practiced Success

• Should you fail to complete the event in the time allotted or due to overall difficulty/team makeup all is not lost.
• Simply take your completed scroll to the nearest holiday vendor found in most banks and drag the scroll onto him.
• He will reward you with some bonus holiday coins and a holiday gift bag.
  
• The player who completed the scroll does not have to be the one who turns it in.
• The good or naughty bags can contain 10 holiday coins and a few classic holiday items.

Event Instances

Additional information for each instance can be found in the compendium.
Santa's Lair
Hidden Village
Frozen Continent
Ice Fortress​

Christmas Reward Shop


This post is still work in progress, details/info can change.

For anything previous to this patch yes. It was a bad design decision to allow them to be effective against holiday creatures at all. But years ago when that decision was made we did not realize certain things could be changed. So while we will not change what is there already. There will be a new class of slayers to properly match the sheer amount of holiday creatures available with this event. (Almost 70 at this point)

And given the competitive nature of the holiday events and the scoring leaderboard, etc. It did not make sense to put this much effort into these new changes and just allow the same old weapons to be effective. For this system to last 5 years in this new form, we needed to make some changes.

This will also only affect the holiday systems. This is an area where we will excersise design freedom to test things outside the norms of the existing world/mechanics. This allows us to have some fun, see what works and what does not work. Ergo Ridable polar bears. Not quite applicable for the live server but a very enjoyable aspect of this seasonal event.

Patch testing should be complete today and after a quick restart the christmas instances will open again. The two new instances will open about 24 hours after this.

Elves, Dark Elves and Reindeer spawn all over the world, dungeons and t2a.

Over the course of the event we will have a few staff run events that will give you a chance to try them out with a group of other players

Some pictures from our player tour of the Krampus' Lair dungeon.