I start to lose the holiday spirit the day after Halloween, when stores magically empty of all that orange and black stuff, and are immediately filled with red and green stuff, mired in hideously rendered muzak versions of Christmas carols that I used to love.

By the time Frostfell or Winterfell or SnowFest or Midwinter or whatever non-demominational "fantasy" event lands in our beloved online games, the LAST thing I want is what we get. Christmas in all but name.

I know people love to get their presents every... single... day... and on all of their alts as well. Log into any game that offers the daily free loot gig and you'll see the alt rotation queue as people log in each one, in turn, for five seconds or however long it takes to collect the present. Then they log off. They never meant to actually PLAY the game.

As much as I recognize that everyone wants their chance at something special, surely these events don't need to go on for a MONTH, like the giant Holiday Savings Deals at WalMart.

I do like the holiday quests, where you have to actually do something cool to get rewards. EQII's Frostfell had a good new quest line this year which made good use of the existing Permafrost zone assets. After I helped a few friends run it in succession, I had enough tokens to buy a bunch of neat things from the Frostfell merchant that I actually wanted.

I didn't even bother getting into the free gift queue.

Now, if only we can increase limits on items for housing. I have some nifty icy thingamajigs that I have no room for!

It was only yesterday, January 6th, that Frostfell ended in EQII. Don't anyone DARE comment on my own Christmas greenery still being up (darn you, Wren!) - I've been BUSY.

Not like the... well, ok, the Devs have been busy too.
After all, they are human and have family and stuff, just like us. Funny thing, that!

Hope you ALL had a great holiday season.
Now get to work.
;-)#
Brasse