She stumbles into town—drags herself, really. With each exhausted heave, she reaches forward once more; buries her claws in the ground and manages to make a little more progress. Behind her is a trail of dust and crumbled flecks of stone, and with each movement, a little more flakes from her fur.

Mycenians are quick to gather around her—help her to her feet; support her unnaturally heavy frame as stone licks up her chest and closes in on her face. “Griselda!” They yelp, alarmed by the state she’s in. “Griselda, what’s happening? How can we help you?”

“Beware,” she says. Her voice is hoarse; shakes with exhaustion. “They walk; they come.” The stone crawls higher, and she tips her chin back as if fending off rising water. As it crackles over her maw, sealing it shut, she manages to exhale, “The cursed—”

The townsfolk recoil in horror. Murmurs break out amongst the crowd; a hushed chorus of What curse? and Is she Lost? Fear hangs in the air like a heavy fog.

Finally, from somewhere in the crowd, a timid voice: “We have to find a cure.” There’s a quiet mumble of agreement—and then a loud CRACK cuts through the air.

All eyes turn to Griselda’s stony form as she begins to move. Any momentary feeling of relief is soon replaced by panic, however, as an unnatural glow alights in her eyes. Faster than stone has any right to move, a crackling, heavy paw strikes out at the Mycenian closest to her, raking across their cheek and leaving a trail of stone in its wake.

Her victim stumbles back; brings a paw to their face… and lets out a shriek as they feel the stony flesh begin to spread across their fur. Slowly, a hollow sense of aggression begins to cloud their mind, and as they, too, succumb to the curse, the rest of the townsfolk scatter.

• This event runs from November 10th at 13:00 ST through November 24th at 13:00 ST.
• We’re trying something a little new with this event. Instead of our typical fall word-building fun, this is essentially going to be a site-wide game of humans vs. zombies.
• There are two sides to the event, each with a different role - the Uninfected and the Cursed. Your existence on either team is temporary, and you will likely be swapped back and forth between them several times throughout the duration.
  • The Cursed are slowly consumed by the Stoneskin Curse. Their goal is to inflict the curse upon as many Mycenians as possible. When an infected Mycenian curses another, it will either be a Stage 1, Stage 2, or Stage 3 curse:
    • Stage 1: This Cursed individual may infect 1 Uninfected every 15 minutes. It can be cured with a Healing Salve.
    • Stage 2 Stage 2 infections happen more rarely than Stage 1. This Cursed individual may infect 1 Uninfected every 15 minutes. It can be cured with a Greater Healing Salve.
    • Stage 3 This is the rarest of the stages. This Cursed individual may infect 1 Uninfected every 15 minutes. It can be cured with a Superior Healing Salve.
  • The Uninfected shoulder the task of curing as many Cursed Mycenians as possible. Their experience is similar to previous gather-and-combine-parts events. Every 15 minutes, they will gather a component with the goal of creating Healing Salves. There are three total components to be found.
    • Little Brown Mushrooms are the base component for all Healing Salves. Used alone, they create a basic salve capable of healing one Stage 1 Cursed.
    • Grave Water is an ancillary component. Combining it with Little Brown Mushrooms creates a Greater Healing Salve, which is capable of healing one Stage 2 Cursed
    • Glowing Moss is another ancillary component. Combining it with Little Brown Mushrooms + Grave Water creates a Superior Healing Salve, which is the only salve capable of healing a Stage 3 Cursed.
    • Once a Cursed individual is healed, they switch onto the Uninfected team, and are unable to be cursed again for 2 hours while the Salve’s effects linger.

• Upon activating the event, you will be asked to choose a Mycenian representative, who will represent you throughout the event.
• You will also be assigned a starting team at random - either you will begin the event as an Uninfected, or as a Cursed individual.
• Every 15 minutes you may either collect ingredients or curse a Mycenian, depending on which team you’re on
• Becoming cursed will prevent you from mixing salves or from using salves that you’ve already mixed, but you will not lose what you’ve got! They will be available to you again once you are healed from your curse.

We are trying something a little new by introducing an event achievement system. Both the Cursed and the Uninfected will have their own list of achievements to work on throughout the event, and points will be awarded based upon how many achievements are completed. You will likely be moving between the Cursed and the Uninfected throughout the event, but never fear… your achievement progress for either team will be saved as you go. Once you switch back to a team, you’ll resume where you last left off!

Achievements stack off of each other, and the greater the achievement completed, the more points you will be awarded as a result. You can view your progress, and the equivalent point value of each achievement, at any time on the event page.

As this is a new event style, we will be closely monitoring participation and progress throughout the event. Our goal is to ensure a fun and productive time for our players, and as such, we may make adjustments as needed. The prize shop will open one week into the event, which will give us the needed time to assess event data and make final determinations on prize values relevant to player activity and achievements! Any changes made will be effective retroactively, so if the points awarded for a given achievement that you’ve already received are increased, you’ll still get those extra points.

Participation in this event will also earn you the following sticker!

11/10:

• Added the bell to the timer
• Reduced the amount of Little Brown Mushrooms the Healing Salve required from 2 to 1 (we did this very shortly after the event started)
• Adjusted the curse/forage timer several times. We ended up with the curse timer at 15 minutes and the forage timer at 14 minutes
• Created a 15 minute period of time after a pet is are cursed or healed in which they cannot be targeted
• Automated mass cure/mass infect if the population gets too close to being all cured or all infected

11/11:

• Updated infection stage mechanics (full update can be read here)
  • Note that this was a major update that caused a few bugs
  • Event was taken down while the bugs were addressed—downtime didn’t last very long (~15 mins)
• Increased odds for collecting glowing moss and grave water
• Rebalanced mass cure/infect so that more time goes by before the population falls toward all being infected or cured

11/12:

• Adjusted odds of stage 2/3 infections
• Reduced instances of invalid selection to just when someone has cured/healed your target pet before you
• Added in random selection choice in even in instances there are only a few options available

11/13:

• Adjusted odds of stage 2/3 infections

11/14:

• Worked out cap system
• Adjusted achievement system (read more here)

11/15, 11/16:
No changes
11/17:

• Adjusted odds of stage 2/3 infections

This sounds really fun! I’m excited ^^

So is it kind of random on when/if you get cursed? Or rather, maybe I should ask how you end up cursed? Will it be like the other side of this, where I assume you click a button to gather your components? So like you’d click a button to curse a Mycenian at random (unless you get to choose, in which case how do we know who isn’t cursed and ready to be infected?)

Sorry, so many questions!

Starting out, you’ll be placed on a random side - if you’re cursed at that point, it’ll be by chance. If/when you become cursed after being on the Uncursed side, it’ll be because another player cursed you. The mechanics in that regard will be similar to previous collect/send events - you’ll be able to type in a Mycenian’s name and curse them, and only Mycenians who are currently not cursed should appear in that list.

That said, we’re still working on the ins and outs of how a few of the mechanics will work, so we’ll provide more in depth instructions at event launch. :D

This is pretty neat. My brain is awhirr with possibilities

(ps anyone up for a game of Pandemic? ;) )

I love that game, Jacq!

This sounds like so much fun!  Certain factors in my life right now will result in not a lot of free time, so I’ll be more casual, but I’m definitely going to play!

This sounds like it will be really frustrating trying to get achievements done, to get any points, while having people randomly cure/infect you and changing what side you’re on all the time. In general, I’m not a fan at all of competitive games like this. Hopefully there’ll be some kind of benefit to having people force you to change sides, otherwise I could see this becoming tedious very quickly.

Lala

I can’t 100% speak to Myla’s intentions here, but I assume the backgrounds are slightly different between the poses for composition’s sake - ie, so the gate isn’t almost fully blocked out by the active ineki’s body; so the drasilli are standing on solid ground instead of hovering over a pit.

I can pretty confidently say, though, that while there might be minor differences in the placement of the background, such as in this case, there are no plans going forward to make backgrounds hugely different between species and poses.

*cracks knuckles*
Let’s cure some zombies!

In the week since the first appearance of the Stoneskin Curse, things have grown dire. More and more Mycenians have been afflicted by the curse, and while a cure has been found, its effects seem to be temporary at best. A grim game of tug of war has descended upon the cavern, with those unaffected and those who have been cured rushing to save others from their affliction—and the crumbling Stoneturned infecting anyone they can get their claws on.

A small party has been sent out in the hopes of finding a Mycenian capable of cleansing the cavern fully, but that errand is expected to take a couple of weeks at best. Until then, the cavern is under quarantine—few may enter; none may leave.

Since you’re here, you figure you may as well help out. Time to roll up your sleeves and get your paws dirty—even if that means spending at least some of your time here under the influence of this mysterious curse.

We are trying something a little new by introducing an event achievement system. Both the Cursed and the Uninfected will have their own list of achievements to work on throughout the event, and points will be awarded based upon how many achievements are completed. You will likely be moving between the Cursed and the Uninfected throughout the event, but never fear… your achievement progress for either team will be saved as you go. Once you switch back to a team, you’ll resume where you last left off!

Achievements stack off of each other, and the greater the achievement completed, the more points you will be awarded as a result. You can view your progress, and the equivalent point value of each achievement, at any time on the event page.

As this is a new event style, we will be closely monitoring participation and progress throughout the event. Our goal is to ensure a fun and productive time for our players, and as such, we may make adjustments as needed. The prize shop will open one week into the event, which will give us the needed time to assess event data and make final determinations on prize values relevant to player activity and achievements! Any changes made will be effective retroactively, so if the points awarded for a given achievement that you’ve already received are increased, you’ll still get those extra points.