On the evening of the 23rd of November, as I stood in the Ancient Guthix Temple hacking away at Tormented demons with a lootshare clan, a yellow message popped up on my screen saying "System update: 9:59". After some discussion, the clan agreed to meet up at the same spot after the system update, I logged out and checked the "Recent changes" forum to see a Jagex Mod's message of Happy Hunting. I wasn't sure what the update was, but I had the impression it was the Thanksgiving event seeing as it was that time of year again, and during the previous year we had to play Turkey Hide and Seek (aka hunt turkeys).
In any case, I quickly logged back, finished up the trip quickly (incidentally I got a pair of Dragon claws), and headed to the Lumbridge, where I spotted the event icon. Chatted a bit with the Cook's brother, and soon was up to my neck with killing turkeys. After quickly dispatching them, I was whisked back to Lumbridge Kitchen and was told that the event had been completed. I had found the event a little short but fun, and was a little surprised that there was no reward though (excluding the emote which I had already obtained the previous year). I knew Jagex has something else in store though because of the cryptic clue given by the Jagex Mod: All will be revealed soon.
Wishing the players nearby a quick "Happy Thanksgiving!", I hopped over to the "Recent changes" forums for a quick peek and was appalled at what I saw. I see threads titled "Thanks for not giving, Jagex" (hence, the title) and other thread titles being more or less being "Is that all?" and "Fail Reward". Really, what is going on here?
Being perfectly frank here, what are these players doing? This is Thanksgiving, everybody! This is the time to be with loved ones and literally give thanks for what we have! I am shocked and disgusted with these players who ruined the moment with their complaints. So what if we didn't get anything new? For the past years, Jagex has mainly created holiday events for Easter, Halloween, and Christmas. Thanksgiving was introduced only very recently (aka last year).
To be a tad disappointed because of the lack of a reward is fine by me, it's completely reasonable. But to say that the whole event was a complete waste of time, and that the update was rubbish is simply crossing the line. Must all our holiday events have a reward to come with it? Didn't you have fun from just completing the event? I know I did. Do we honestly need something materialistic to make the time we spent on the event worth it? The most pressing question is, what has become of the RuneScape community? All of a sudden, rewards are needed before any activity we do in RuneScape is worthwhile? Is that it?
On the evening of 26 November, they released the second part of the Thanksgiving event. For those who haven't read about it yet, the Forum thread provides your first clue and upon solving it, you will know the NPC you are supposed to talk to as well as the special items that you need to bring in order to get the special event dialog. Seriously, though? I was pretty excited about it. Took me a while to understand the instructions, but it was no sweat to solve the clues and I wrapped it up pretty quickly, and wondered what the clue would be the next day. Had quite a bit of fun figuring it out too, what with the double meanings and all.
Yet again, I hopped to the Forums, expecting the other players to be like me, happy that there indeed was a second part to the event as well as the delighted at the challenge of solving the puzzles. Lo and behold, what did I see? To my surprise, I see ranters still insulting the updates (I remember one being something like "If it wasn't disappointing, it wouldn't be a real Jagex update.") and talking about how easy it was. Yeah, I admit it was. But keep in mind that we do have some very young players in this game, and they should be catered to. They must admit, these puzzles did indeed require some thinking. I even ended up explaining one clue to a level 132 who didn't understand it.
But hey, it's all expected, right? Since when has there been an update without the ranters? As with just about every single update, we have the ranters who firmly believe that Jagex is ruining the game. Yes, I do agree, there were times where Jagex could have fixed problems better (the Wilderness being one notable example), but surely it can be said that Jagex's updates are with the best of intentions and mostly with good judgement?
To digress a bit, there was solid, sound reasoning for the 10 December 2007 changes, and it was to fix a very real, dangerous problem. Do you have the right to be angry that you lost the one activity in the game that you enjoyed the most? Absolutely! But there is a line that we people are crossing when they say that the people at Jagex HQ are fools who don't know how to run the game, and I strongly urge my fellow like-minded players to stand up against these trolls who do nothing but flame the creators of this game that we all play and enjoy.
In closing, let us remember what Thanksgiving is all about. Do rewards and all that really matter? Remember, at the end of the day, we still have this excellent game called RuneScape which has heaps of content for us to play through. Even if you don't celebrate it in your country, so what? I live in Singapore, it doesn't celebrate any of the holiday events in the game, but what really is important is the meaning behind that holiday.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. =)
