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Halloween 2k7

From: The Gaiapedia, the community encyclopedia about Gaia Online

The Halloween event of 2007 started on October 29, 2007 and ended on November 7.

Contents

[edit] Build-Up

The first instalment of the Halloween storyline arc was July 10, where Edmund and Marie and Anna Corinne Von Helson sent out Private Messages to Gaians as part of The Secret Message. It was unknown as to what would be the result of contributions to the two parties by Gaians. The event page gave three wallpapers, one with Ian, one with Louie Von Helson and one with Vladimir Von Helson. Gaians would remember Vladimir from Johnny K. Gambino mentioning him once upon a time, but Louie was new. A new manga was released entitled Convergence, in which Edmund was shot by the elusive sniper and immediately went to see Johnny, who had been letting Ian stay in his mansion. Rufus came to see Ian for the first time since they had been initially separated, and this revealed the threat of a mysterious Vampire who had followed the cat to the mansion.

During the Summer Festival 2k7, the manga Damian was released. Liam and Gino Gambino were kidnapped by the newly Vampiric Von Helson sisters, and Ian had flashbacks in the underground testing facility about his past, which revealed that Louie was his brother, and his mother was shot by his father, Vladimir. Zhivago chased after the brothers, but only managed to catch Louie. The first part of the MMVII trilogy, White Eclipse, was also released during the festival, in which Louie went to kill Ian but ran into Moira on the way.

With the manga Unveiled released September 27, it was revealed that Liam and Gino were trapped in the Von Helson Manor dungeon, and Edmund found Louie outside the G CORP secret facility, and took him to see Ian. The brothers were reunited, and Ian revealed the night they fled, Zhivago resumed trying to catch Ian, but Edmund fought the man off with a sword, which was when he obtained his mysterious scars. Johnny was outraged to find Louie in his mansion, but Edmund said that they owed it to "her", referring to Johnny's late wife, mother to Gino as well as Ian and Louie.

On October 11, the second part of MMVII, Flower of the Night, was released. In the G CORP testing facility, Edmund managed to create a cure for Vampirism, and outside, Zhivago attacked Ian and Louie, but he ended up falling off the side of the building. Louie went to a fairground for a date with Moira, and a colony of Vampire bats was sent out to attack the Gaian populace by Vladimir.

The first Halloween Costume Contest started October 12, which challenged Gaians to dress up in the best Gaia costumes or original costumes.

[edit] The First Day

Without seeing an official announcement, many Gaians stumbled upon the event by clicking on the Home page tab. They were introduced to the Halloween event[1]:

The Battle for Gaia is underway. Vampires fight against humankind in a battle royale across the Gaia world. Which side are you on?

All Gaians except the admins began the event as humans, making both vampire slaying and vampire conversion extremely difficult. Vampires developed strategies such as deleting all previous posts and staying in the vampire base to heal in order to remain vampires.

Additionally, Gaians were given the opportunity to collect candy from shops and Towns to obtain grab bags.

A new manga entitled Gun Show was released on the first day, which showed Vladimir Von Helson standing at the fairground, talking of his revenge. Meanwhile, in the Von Helson Manor dungeon, Zhivago revealed to Gino Gambino that his mother was the same as Ian and Louie Von Helson's. Zhivago ordered Marie and Anna Corinne Von Helson to kill Liam, but he stopped them by seducing them.

[edit] The Rest of the event

Vladimir Von Helson announced the following day[2] that it was now possible to go to the enemy base to change into a human or vampire every six hours. The number of vampires and humans became markedly more balanced, and all-out warfare began.

The final part of MMVII, Fight or Flight, was released, in which Vampires wreaked havoc in the fairground and one unhinged the Ferris wheel that Louie Von Helson and Moira were on. Louie bit Moira, who was possibly knocked unconscious by the fall, and she awoke immediately, turned into a Vampire herself. Louie, Moira and Ian rushed to Von Helson Manor to put a stop to Vladimir, and after some Vampire fighting, Edmund shot Vladimir with the Vampire cure which caused him to drop Louie, whom he was holding up, and Zhivago accidentally shot Vladimir with his sniper rifle, killing him.

[edit] Event Conclusion and Confusion

The developers stated that the Halloween event would end at midnight on November 7. While it ended at approximately 1 in the afternoon on November 7, mild controversy erupted over the fact that several Gaians had construed midnight to mean the conclusion of November 7.

[edit] Event Items

During the event, as one's score increased, prizes were awarded. Different prizes were awarded for humans and Vampires, and one Gaian could collect items from both sides.

Human items:

  • Image:Black Spider Tattoo.png Black Spider Back Tattoo: Whether you're a defender of the light or agent of darkness, this tattoo screams "dangerous".
  • Image:Vampire Bite Marks.png Vampire Bite Marks: Just tell your friends it's a hickey.
  • Image:Wooden Stake.png Wooden Stake: The good ol' way of vanquishing those blood-sucking villains.
  • Image:Used Chainsaw.png Used Chainsaw: This chainsaw was made for a specific use, but then it got used for something else...
  • Image:Ghost Cape.png Ghost Cape: This ghastly, tattered cape belonged to a famous Slayer.

Vampire items:

As always, Gaians were able to trick-or-treat in shops or in Gaia Towns to earn candy to give to Jack in return for grab-bags which contained his set of items for the year.

[edit] Comparison to 2005

When the event first began developers began biting random users at their request to be turned into a vampire. (The developers were apparently told to do so, in order for more vampires to be created, as they were the only vampires at the time) As the first day progressed into the night, many started comparing the event to 2k5 in the fact many users (particularly vampires or those wishing to become vampires) were acting as elitists and were paying amounts of gold as high as 50K - 100K or offering art in exchange to being bitten and transformed to a vampire. Several users who created such threads made threatening warnings to add any user that was not a vampire or anyone that attacked their vampire to their ignore list, which would prevent them from viewing the thread. Many vampire users were scammed and never received the gold/art they were promised, which led to the vampire users using their human mules and 'stake stalking'. The term 'stake stalking' was used frequently as a human user that stalks through a vampire user's post history (particulary posts made in the war forums) and staked them to the point where the vampire returns to their human form. As the night progressed further, more and more vampires were being innocently 'stake stalked'. Because of the fear of being 'stake stalked', many vampire users deleted their posts, which led to human users complaining that this was unfair to them as the vampires were trying to become invincible.

[edit] Glitches & Problems

As no event on Gaia has ever gone on without glitches, the 2k7 Halloween event was no exception.

[edit] Site & Forum Glitches

  • Due to the massive influx of users within a small amount of time, Gaia crashed numerous times, from seconds to minutes. During these crashes many users were logged out several times, which led to fear of being targeted by a fake-login page. Several scammers took advantage of the consistent downtime over several hours throughout the first day of the event, which led to Gaia later adding a new leaving Gaia page. (Was added after the Halloween event had ended)
  • Trick or treating in the shops had a glitch in which the NPCs would not reward users the seventh trick or treat bag. The user would be able to collect bags 1-6, but then would be given 8 without receiving 7. (Was later resolved the following day)
  • Though not an actual glitch, signatures were removed from user posts in the event forum to prevent lag, which had greatly contributed to the consistent downtime.
  • At the peak of the event more than 137,800 users had logged in, though three days later the 'most users online' feature was changed to just 108K users online. No explanation has been released as to why this was done, although it may have been related to the prevalence of mules.

[edit] Glitches in towns

  • On the first night of the event, Jack in towns was not functioning properly, and when a user had collected 100 candies, Jack would take the candy but not give the user a trick or treat bag. (This was later fixed, though more than 24 hours later)
  • On Halloween night Towns had crashed for about 30 minutes due to more than many users simultaneously trying to access acre 1000. (There were posts of more than 4,700 users being at that specific acre)
  • Many acres were so over-populated that whenever anyone regardless of internet connection tried to enter the acre towns would lock up. (Many reported being kicked out of towns whenever an acre became too overpopulated) This was somewhat fixed on November 2nd when acre 1053 became accessible to the point where more than 6,000 users checked in at acre 1053-03, particularly due to the fact an '04 CB prommie was holding a giveaway.

[edit] External Links


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