Holidays

The seasonal events of the schedule that come with content. Staff switches one with .event; the dates are in data/schedule.toml.

Event	Dates	What it does
halloween	October 24 to November 15	Trick or treat
christmas	December 24 to January 1	Snowballs and gifts

Halloween: trick or treat

While halloween is on, a player who says trick or treat within 4 tiles of a shopkeeper gets an answer from it:

• Nine times out of ten the shopkeeper says a line, puts a candy in the backpack of the player (one of lollipops, wrapped candy, jelly beans, taffy, nougat swirl) and the player reads You receive some candy.
• One time out of ten it shouts TRICK! and blood splashes around the player.
• When several shopkeepers hear the same saying, only the first answers.
• After answering, a shopkeeper rests for 5 to 10 minutes. Asked sooner, it does not answer, and the player reads That doesn't appear to have any more candy. Each shopkeeper rests on its own.

The candies are food: double clicking one eats it. They are not sold. When the event starts and ends, everybody is told.

The words are English whatever the language of the server; the lines and messages are in the language of the server. Outside the event nothing happens.

Files

File	Content
templates/items/misc/halloween.toml	The candy templates (lollipop1 to lollipop3, wrappedcandy, jellybeans, taffy, nougatswirl), converted from UOX3.
scripts/common/trick_or_treat.lua	The game; shopkeeper.lua calls it from on_speech.
scripts/events/halloween.lua	The on_start and on_end hooks: the announcements.
data/schedule.toml	The [[event]] with the dates; change from and to to move the season.

Ideas from ModernUO that are not here

The special treats for a begging master, the solid colour and the naughty twin tricks, the pumpkin patch, the player zombies and the masks.

Christmas: snowballs and gifts

The gift. A character that logs in while christmas is on finds in its backpack a pile of snow, a pile of glacial snow, a holiday candle and one decoration (a decorative topiary 60 times out of 100, a festive cactus 24, a snowy tree 16), and reads Happy Holidays! Gift items have been placed in your backpack. The gift comes once a season: a character that got one less than 200 days ago gets none, and so does one whose backpack cannot take the piles (it is asked again at the next login). The start and the end of the season are announced to everybody.

The snowball. Double clicking a pile that is in the backpack packs a snowball and opens a cursor. The target must be a mobile within 10 tiles that carries a pile of snow too (it can throw one back). The snowball flies to it with the sound and the gesture of the throw; both read the client’s own text, You have just been hit by a snowball! and You throw the snowball and hit the target!. A player waits 5 seconds between two snowballs and cannot throw one while mounted, at itself, or at something that carries no snow.

File	Content
templates/items/misc/winter_gifts.toml	snow_pile and glacial_snow, the two piles with the snow script.
scripts/items/snow_pile.lua	The snowball.
scripts/events/christmas.lua	on_start, on_end and on_login: the announcements and the gift.

The decorations of the gift come from templates/items/misc/christmas.toml. The mistletoe deed, the other winter 2010 pieces and the snow of the safe zones are not here.

The decorations of the towns

When an event starts the towns are decorated, and when it ends or staff switches it off the decorations are taken away, whatever the reason the event stops: .event off, the end date, or a server that was off on that day (the hook runs at the next startup).

• Where. Around the centre of Britain, Trinsic, Vesper, Minoc, Yew, Skara Brae and Moonglow (the places of the category Factions/Towns of locations.toml), on Felucca and on Trammel: up to 8 spots a town and map, 3 to 6 tiles from the centre. A spot is skipped when a creature or an item stands there, when there is no floor, or when the floor is more than 8 levels away from the centre.
• What. Halloween: jack o’ lanterns, pumpkins, skulls on a pike, a pumpkin scarecrow, a black cat statue, a ghoul statue, a leering jack o’ lantern (hw_leering_jack_o_lantern). Christmas: snowy trees, topiaries, festive cacti, poinsettias. The pieces are the templates of templates/items/misc/holiday_decorations.toml, which cannot be lifted and never decay.
• How it is remembered. The serials are kept in the world prop holiday.<event>.items, so a restart in the middle of the event does not place them twice, and the end removes them even after a restart. The server makes only a few items at a time: a long run is finished a few seconds later. If the event ends first, the work stops.

File	Content
scripts/common/holiday_decor.lua	place and remove.
templates/items/misc/holiday_decorations.toml	The decoration templates.

A new event gets decorations by calling holiday_decor.place(id, templates) in its on_start and holiday_decor.remove(id) in its on_end.