Around 6 months ago, I created a poll in the Poll & Surveys section which entailed me asking users still did the various holiday events on RuneScape. The result of this was around fifty-five percent voting yes, while twenty-five percent voted no, and the remaining twenty percent went with "depends." The aim of this poll was to find out if other players had similar feelings about holiday events to my own: boring, and complete waste of time.

Of course, I have not always felt this way. There was a time when I, like many, used to actually find them mildly entertaining because Jagex used to have fun by making them silly and therefore engaging. Jagex did a good job making them silly and fun for players, and we clearly enjoyed it. Before rares had value, many players did these events as a welcomed change from the game. But, it has become apparent that many feel obliged to do these events solely for the reward. Not even that, players do not actually want the reward, they just do not want to miss out on something others players get. What reward? An emote/item that will only be used for a very brief period of time before it becomes a distant memory? As of recent years, it continues to surprise me why players still flock in their masses to these events.

It is true that old items such as the Scythe and Rubber Chicken have developed huge sentimental value these days, players are doing seasonals in the hope that their more recent rewards will reach a similar standing in good time. However, this is unlikely to happen due to the frequent rates at which holiday events are released. Prior to 2008 there were (on average) around 3 per year - however from 2010 onwards, there have been a staggering 7. It is no wonder why the quality of the events has plummeted; JaGEx are unable to produce enough good ideas at the current rate. This was evident in the way the Thanksgiving event for 2010 was recycled from 2009, for example.

The reason for such an increase lies in the fact that Jagex are trying to abuse the way they give the community a 'boost'. "Oktoberfest", "Start of May", and "Thanksgiving" should have no place in the game. In fact prior to its appearance in RuneScape, I had never even heard of Oktoberfest as it is primarily celebrated in Germany. Likewise Thanksgiving is primarily celebrated in USA/Canada, so why are things like this pushed upon players from all over the world? Trying to continually incorporate more and more traditions from across the world is not practical..

What Jagex should actually do is revert to focusing on what worked best for everyone in the first place: the three traditional Western celebrations of Christmas, Halloween, and Easter - which are more than enough in themselves. Releasing just a handful instalments for them, whilst emphasising the very highest in gameplay quality as a trade-off, is far more desirable than flooding us with tributes to dozens of other festivals which quickly turn out to have been poorly designed and/or thought through in a hurry.