Winter Event
This article pertains to an event which is no longer active, but is kept for historical purposes.
The Winter Event[1] was a special event which began January 11, 2008 and ran until February 1, 2008 for the PC/PS2 servers and February 8, 2008 for the Xbox 360 servers[2]. Presented to the GUARDIANS as thanks for all of their hard work over the past year, this event featured two missions, both set in VR simulations based around popular missions from past events such as Operation Firebreak and the 1Up Platinum Cup as well as a variety of free, party and story missions. As an added bonus, item drop rates were increased by 250% while EXP payout was boosted throughout the missions based on performance, with a maximum boost of 350%! Furthermore, rare enemy encounter rates were increased and the number of boxes that appeared after a boss fight were doubled.
Event missions
Mission overview
During the first week of the Winter Event, only The Protectors α was available, only to be replaced by The Protectors β in the second week. The third week reintroduced the initial mission to run alongside the second for the remainder of the event.
The missions are VR simulations created from popular areas of PSU up to September 2007, including areas from Operation Firebreak and the 1Up Platinum Cup events, as well as blocks from Story Missions, Free Missions and Party Missions. Some of the blocks have been slightly changed to add more monsters or buttons to unlock chips, and monster levels are based solely on the rank of the Festa mission and not on the mission they were taken from! Because this event took place on the Japanese servers just before the Japanese release of Ambition of the Illuminus, it contains no content that is not accessible using the regular version of PSU.
The objective of the Festa missions is to collect chips (in a similar manner to the 1UP missions) scattered throughout the levels. Both missions have a choice of two routes to take, and each route has 10 possible chips. The chip score you get directly affects your rank. In addition, there will be a notice on the right of the screen with up to five stars depending on the area you are in. This is the EXP boost of that area.
| ★★☆☆☆ | 200% EXP |
| ★★★☆☆ | 250% EXP |
| ★★★★☆ | 300% EXP |
| ★★★★★ | 350% EXP |
Missions start off with 200% EXP. The highest EXP boosts can only be found if you get a rare map.
As an additional twist somewhat similar to Phantasy Star Online's VR mission Towards the Future, all Festa missions have two bosses in quick succession, with double boss drops at the end of the second boss. Note that if you get a rare map, you will fight both forms of Dulk Fakis, which are considered separate bosses.
External links
Reference notes
- ↑ The Winter Event was based around the Japanese PC/PS2 servers' 1st Anniversary Thanks Festa.
- ↑ The Winter Event lasted one extra week on the Xbox 360 servers due to a delay in update 038 which was caused by a necessary title update not being certified by Microsoft in time.
