This week has been all over the place with Canada Day on Tuesday, and then today is Independence Day in the US. That got me thinking about in-game events that in some way attempt to approximate real world holidays, or introduce one altogether unique to a given title’s setting.

For example, leading up to the beginning launch of Living World Season 2 in Guild Wars 2, there was the Festival of the Four Winds. As a side note, it still cracks me up that there are supposed to be four winds, yet players only primarily use three aspect movement skills. Now that the Zephyrites have crashed in Dry Top, I’m guessing none of them will feel much like answering my questions about what the fourth wind is supposed to be.

I suspect it has something to do with one of my favorite quotes from Jory during Season 1:

While there really isn’t an in-game analog to Independence Day celebrations in most MMOGs, there are still a number of events happening this weekend. Vendolyn rounded up some of them in her Top 5 Games to Celebrate the Weekend With. It’s a solid list, and I’d agree that each game listed is worth diving into this weekend provided you haven’t all exploded from firework mishaps, or lapsed into a cookout and beer induced coma.

Then again, according to pop culture and leading scientists in the field of nerdom, we gamers abhor the sun and rarely leave the confines of our homes. If you believe the hype, gamers at cookouts or out watching fireworks are as rare as Bigfoot sightings.

I think we need to establish a real world MMOG holiday. Mind you, we don’t have any martyrs, historical figures, or random political events to pin one on, but that’s totally fine. If Hallmark and the trading card industry can invent holidays to sell products, so can the MMOG industry!

Speaking of holiday stuff, we haven’t necessarily made a massive stink about it (yet), but this year marks the 10^th Anniversary of Ten Ton Hammer. I had originally thought of doing something earlier in the year to begin celebrating our longevity in what is often a volatile industry, but opted to hold off until we had a chance to unveil the newly rebuilt site.

We have some awesome updates to the new site planned for next month, so stay tuned for the full details on what we’ve got up our sleeves. One thing I will note for now is that we’ll be making it even more effortless for our readers to discuss interesting topics, or follow their favorite games.

That’s all I can share for now, but next week I’ll have plenty more to discuss on that front.

Going back to our 10^th Anniversary and the need for a proper MMOG holiday, we’re in the process of cooking up something cool in our secret underground laboratory that we’re on the verge of being able to officially announce. I wish I could say more, but just like MMOG devs that have to sit through boring marketing training sessions to prevent any possibility of actually giving exclusive information to their media partners during interviews, I’ve been sworn to secrecy by our legion of lab assistants.

On that note, enjoy the weekend folks! We’ve been having tornado and flash flood warnings in my neck of the woods, so this weekend should be an interesting one in my little corner of the world.

If you get the chance, be sure to drop a comment and let me know what you think of our new site, or share your thoughts on what would make for a kick-ass MMOG holiday.