2009 Christmas event



The 2009 Christmas event, also known as A Christmas Warble, is a Holiday Event released by Jagex on 21 December 2009.

Walkthrough

 * You can start the event by either going to your imp straightaway, or talking to the Queen of Snow. She is located in north, west of Jack Frost, and your imp is near the ice sculptures. Choosing either option will always end in having to speak to your imp anyway, so it is best to just skip ahead.


 * Go East into Ebenezer Scourge's house. He is in the western room, you must speak to him to continue or he will yell when you touch anything.


 * Search the cupboard for Bedsheets, head to the dining room in the eastern section of the house and find in another cupboard a needle and some thread. You will find chains in a barrel in the scullery in the northern section of the house. Next, use the needle, thread, and the chains on the bed sheet and you will have a set of Christmas ghost Armour. Put on the three pieces of the Christmas ghost Armour and then your snow imp will pop up a dialog. Now you must go and talk to the Queen of Snow at her tent and ask about Scourge. Then, you will be able to head upstairs in Scourge's house.


 * If you find a bucket while searching through the house, keep the bucket. It will be useful to have later on. You can drop any cabbage that you find.


 * You will now have to return and speak with the Queen. She tells the player that she used to be in love with Ebenezer. Your Imp will say you can return to the house and go upstairs.


 * Talk to the Ice Queen to go upstairs.


 * Walk up the stairs to scare Ebenezer. The player will have a rather brief conversation in an attempt to convey him, but will fail to do so. Ebeneze Scourge will then be annoyed and will cast a curse of magical fire on the partygoers. In the cutscene, the victims cursed will each glow in red fire in a specific order. You must go and help free them. Before you leave the house, search around some of the barrels for buckets. The most buckets you can get from a container is 3, so search in more than one barrel. When you get back, fill the buckets at the large fountain to the South and use one on any guest. Every player has their own random order of freeing the guests. There is a specific order to unfreeze the guests, and it is always the opposite of the order in the cutscene. The order is different for everyone who participates in the event, but the final person you should unfreeze is always Tiny Thom.

Go back to Ebenezer. The player will consult him of ruining someone's Christmas. After the Snow imp summons Tiny Thom, Ebenezer will show more resent towards the player, leaving no choice but for the player to return downstairs once again.

Have a chat with your snow imp and go back upstairs. You must say nothing to Ebenezer and do the Angry emote, Scare emote, and lastly, the Dramatic Point emote to terrify him into releasing Santa. Head back to the feast and talk with Santa in front of the tent. Then head south-east towards the Christmas Tree. Open the green present with the red ribbons in front of the Christmas Tree to claim your reward.

Congratulations, you've finished the event!

Reward

 * Christmas ghost hood
 * Christmas ghost top
 * Christmas ghost bottoms
 * Candy cane, which when wielded has the option to "Spin". When spun, your character will throw it into the air, it will rotate 360 degrees and then be caught.
 * You also get the Dramatic Point emote.
 * You can get food of the table: Turkey drumstick, Roast potatoes, Yule log and Mulled Wine. You can't take the food out of the land of snow, but you can fight guards and quickly go into the Land of Snow to use it as a healing method.
 * If you have not already, you will unlock the Freeze and Snowman Dance emotes you got it when completing.



Music
Music tracks unlocked:
 * Silent Knight
 * Ghost of Christmas Presents
 * Smorgasbord

Development
The event was developed mainly in September and October of 2009 and is the first project developed by Mod Edam. Mod Ajd has said that the Christmas event will be better than last year's, but Jagex will "leave the players to decide that one." A new particles graphics effect will be added with the event in the form of snow. It will be the first time that players will see this in RuneScape.

Many users on the RuneScape Forums have commented on the delay of the release of the event. The 2006, 2007, and 2008 Christmas events were all released on either the 16th or the 18th of December, but the 2009 Christmas event was released on 21 December.

History
The 2009 Christmas event was first announced in the news item "Christmas Cards and Blog". It linked to a developer blog written by the developer of the event, Mod Edam. In the developer blog, titled "Holiday Event: A Christmas Warble", Mod Edam gave a few details about what the event would be like.

Mod Edam wanted the graphics of the event to have a "Christmassy" atmosphere, and said that he was "really pleased with what was produced." To add to the "Christmassy" atmosphere, Jagex will be releasing a new particle system in RuneScape that will include a more realistic look of snow. Players will see it coming out of a wardrobe, a possible reference to the novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. At least some of the event will take place in the Land of Snow, where a "surprise" will be seen. This year, the entrance to the Land of Snow will be in the wardrobe mentioned above.

New characters will be released with the event, but Jack Frost and snow imps, characters seen in a previous Christmas event, will have small cameos. Santa Claus will presumably appear, based on Christmas cards that represent the event. The event's plot will be based on a traditional Christmas story, but will have some changes.

Mod Edam has confirmed that the rewards of the event will not be the same as the rewards from previous events, and they will not be tradeable. He has also said that the new rewards of the event will not give any player any notable advantage over another, but will still be fun and somewhat useful.



The title of the first blog by Edam is "A Christmas Warble", "warble" being a variation of the word carol (i.e. A Christmas Carol). The caption for one of the pictures posted on Edam's blog stated, "Beware of the Humbug", "humbug" being a well-known word that Ebenezer Scrooge, A Christmas Carol's main character, often says in the book. One of the Christmas cards released at the same time as the "Christmas Cards and Blog" news post is titled "A Christmas Warble" and captioned, "Santa brings a Hint of Christmas Future in this festive card." The picture is of Santa Claus, an old man (speculated to be Scrooge) and a young boy (speculated to be Tiny Tim, hinted by the crutch under his right arm). Furthermore, "Christmas Cards and Blog" makes a reference to the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, who is one of the four ghosts that visits Scrooge in the novel: "Like the Ghost of Christmas Future we're here to offer a hint of what's to come this Christmas, in the form of a new Christmas card and developer blog."

Based on a screenshot from the event, it may also involve Jack Frost freezing living things into what look like ice sculptures like he did last year. This idea is also supported by the fact that if you summon your snow imp after the event, it talks about Jack still creating ice sculptures, but this time, he is making the real ones instead of freezing them.

Trivia

 * If a player uses the Explorer's Ring Cabbage-port in the Land of Snow, the player will kneel down and be teleported, but the rotating cabbage will not appear around the player.
 * Tiny Thom and Ebenezer Scourge are also in the Land of Snow. Tiny Tim and Ebenezer Scrooge were characters in the novel A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, which most of the event is based on.
 * You say "I'm the Ghost of the past.", "I'm Ghost of Christmas Present" when you wake him, also a reference from the carol. Also Ebenezer guesses you are the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. You say nothing, like the carol.
 * The idea of going through a wardrobe to the Land of Snow is similar to the concept from The Chronicles of Narnia.
 * When you log in the queen of snow tells the feast is a Yuletide feast. Yuletide is similar to the swedish word "Juletid" which means "Chrismas time".
 * You can talk to the camel with a camulet for humorous conversations throughout the event and after.
 * The bottom of Scourge's bedsheet is black.
 * The music Smorgasbord (actually spelled smörgåsbord) is Swedish for dining table full of food
 * While doing the Freeze emote, if you flip your candy cane, you appear fliping the cane while the emote goes on.


 * At the time of this event, the penguins from Penguin Hide and Seek had a new costume, like during the Hallowe'en events, only this time they're dressed as snowmen instead of Jack 'o Lanterns.
 * The Candy Cane was an option for a reward in the Christmas Guaranteed Content Poll (July 2008), though it lost to the Santa Suit. It was known as 'Candy Cane Cane', suggesting that it was a cane (like the Treasure Trail rewards) and it was of a Candy Cane.
 * There is a glitch where a player can spin any item using the Candy cane if the player right clicks it while wielding it, clicks "Spin" and quickly switches to another weapon. Some weapons experience texture glitches while doing this, such as bows, while others do not, but reveal a gap in the weapon's sprite where the player's hand would normally be.
 * There is another glitch where a player, whilst doing the Freeze emote, operates the candy cane. In doing so, you stop the emote and spin the candy cane, but the ice in the emote continues its action.
 * You can switch weapons while performing the Dramatic Point emote.
 * This is the first update which uses the new and upcoming graphical feature; Particles. (As mentioned in the Developer's Blog: Particles by Mod Woody dated 18 December 2009)
 * If you had started 'Recipe For Disaster', your character would have mentioned that the fire spell that Ebenezer Scourge had casted was similar to what the Culiomancer did to the people at the feast in Lumbridge.
 * Many players consider the candy cane a fun weapon even though it has positive stats.
 * If you use a snowball on your Snow imp it eats it and says "Yum, snow, my favourite!"
 * Sir Amik Varze seems to be wearing a gold-trimmed green cape at the party which does not exist.
 * When asked about what the name of the person you want to summon, Louis the Camel is incorrectly spelled as Lois the Camel.
 * After you come out of The Land of Snow and have a bucket of icy water in your inventory, the ice melts and turns into normal bucket of water.
 * Scrooge sleeps wearing his glasses.
 * Ice dragon sculpture looks like a frozen version of dragon from Unstable Foundations quest.
 * There are piles of snow that can be used to create snowballs, that can be wielded and pelted at people. This is similar to the snowballs gained from the snowglobe of the 2007 Christmas event.
 * Although food is not allowed to be taken out from The Land of Snow, some players have found a glitch which allows them to take it out regardless.
 * You don't need any crafting skills to create the Christmas Ghost Costume.
 * It is unknown how the player just "knows" how to make the Ghost costume.
 * While talking to Scourge upstairs, a tree can be partly visible outside. However, when exploring the back of his house on the ground floor, there is no tree to be had.
 * Only the Queen of Snow and Santa Claus really fall for the Ghost costume at all. Scourge doesn't really seem fazed at first, and everyone else in and outside that area is able to recognize you straightaway.


 * When passing the barrier or logging in with the Ghost costume on in Port Phasmatys, you get a message saying, "The ghosts eye you suspiciously and recognise that you are masquerading as one of them."
 * If you will summon ice imp at the place from "myths of white lands" there will be different dialogue then usual.
 * The ghost costume bears a slight resemblance to the protagonist in the game assassin's creed.