According to the MOTD:

I guess that loot table change was not intended!

The Allakhazam team would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas today, as well as a safe and happy holiday season. We hope you're all able to spend some time with your family and friends. Also, if you get some time to log in to your game of choice today, we hope you get the chance to participate in its holiday festivities. After all, the grind never stops, but in-game events like these don't happen very often.

Holiday cheer is also being spread in most of our forums, so feel free to visit them and continue in the discussions. For Final Fantasy XI fans, members of the Allakhazam community have written "The 12 Days of Vana'diel." As I mentioned in a previous news post, the World of Warcraft community wrote "The 12 Days of Winter Veil." I'm sure somebody out there must have a decent singing voice and a microphone...

For you Star Wars Galaxies fans, Instigator has posted the official Allakhazam SWG holiday picture. If you have any festive in-game screenshots, we'd love to see them. Also, let us know if you got any good loot, both in-game and out.

Happy holidays everyone!

Brett "timetravelling" Scheiner, Associate Game Designer, Everquest II, dropped this holiday note on the official forums:

As a New Year’s Resolution (a few days early, admittedly), we pledge to create within a few months (aka GU52):

• A brand new two-group instance with 9 bosses—over half of whom drop Void Shards—balanced for players in legendary gear
• A very challenging brand new four-group raid instance
• Brand new tradeskill instance in the Void
• A Lavastorm revamp
• Brand new areas added to Lavastorm with level 80 solo content
• A new faction with gear to gather from the new Lavastorm content
• 12 new armor sets
• All of them with brand new armor appearances
• Including a brand new robe model in which the Helm and Shoulders and Legs are all visible, separate pieces from the Chest
  • And it looks rad *cough* See also: Varsoon *cough*

We have SO MUCH cool stuff planned for y’all, and can’t wait to show it to you!

Enjoy the holidays!!

We have a ton of links to share with you in this week's recap of our exclusive content and noteworthy news items (which can be found after the jump). With the holiday season upon us, most MMOs are celebrating with numerous events. Some, such as World of Warcraft's Feast of Winter Veil, are listed below. Whichever game you play, take some time to enjoy the festivities. Also, feel free to browse our news archive to check out everything that couldn't fit in this weekly recap.

Allakhazam Features

Dangers of Sanrio Town : Hello Kitty Online features an in-depth social network. While it's a good tool for meeting other players, it could be dangerous for the game's younger fans.

Ten Years of Lineage II : Sam Han, Lineage II Producer for NCsoft West, and Young Park, the original Lineage Production Assistant for NCsoft West, talk with us about the Lineage franchise.

Jumpgate Evolution Media #3 : These exclusive screenshots showcase fighters class ships and factories that are used in crafting.

Swordsman Screenshots : We take an in-depth look at this class from IGG's free-to-play Zu Online.

Station Crap : Allakhazam Editor-in-Chief Andrew "Tamat" Beegle has a less than favorable personal opinion on SOE's new Station Cash microtransaction service. What do you think about it? Let us know in the comments section.

There will be some nice little game tweaks coming to EQII players just before Christmas!  An SOE press release sent us over to EQII Players, where we saw a tidy bunch of player-requested changes to the game.  These include:

• Quest Journal: The mechanics and sorting options of the collection tab are being improved, making it easier to sort and find collections.
• Harvesting Depots: The guild halls harvesting depots have been increased by 50%, leading to more storage space.
• Raised Spell Drop Rates: Players level 50-60 in Desert of Flames will notice an increase in master spell drops.
• Home Addresses: No need to worry about finding your way home anymore. Your Persona window will now display your full house address and zone name. This will require visiting your home once before it will display your full address.
• Increased number of icons displayed in the Spell Effects and Detriments window by 50%.

For more details, see EQII Players!

The introduction of Station Cash, a pay-for-stuff micrortransaction service offered by SOE for EverQuest and EverQuestII, caused less bruhaha than one might expect.  At first glance the program looks quite controversial, but the first week has been successful enough for new items for EQII to be added to the Station Marketplace!

See all the EQII Marketplace items on the EQII Station Cash page.

See the announcement of these new items at EQII Players.

Do you have what it takes to defeat Mr. McScroogle? Well, you'll get the chance to find out in the new Saving Frosfell holiday scenario in Legends of Norrath .

Legends of Norrath is offering a new scenario this holiday season with great gifts for players who can defeat the nasty Mr. McScroogle! The Saving Frostfell scenario will be offered in Legends of Norrath from Dec. 15 through Jan. 10 at 2PM PT. The first time you rescue Queen Bunny and defeat McScroogle, you'll win the Frostfell Showglobe (5P19) promo card AND either the Discordian Great Mace Ornament (5EQP13) loot card for EverQuest or the Tapestry of the Di'Zok (5EQIIP13) loot card for EverQuest II, depending on your in-game settings.

You can receive additional copies of the Frostfell Snowglobe promo card each time you defeat McScroogle with a different avatar archetype (limit 4).

Craig "Grimwell" Dalrymple, SOE Senior Community Relations Manager, posted on the official forums :

The initial response to Station Cash has been a success for SOE and we are looking forward to new offerings for both EverQuest and EverQuest II in the not too distant future.

In fact, the response has been so strong that game teams are adding new employees dedicated to Station Cash, to allow us to continue to add new and exciting items to the marketplace, without having to pull from the core development.

In addition to strengthening our development teams with new staff; we want to be very open to you and your ideas for future items in the marketplace. Which is the purpose of this thread, what would you like to see in the marketplace next?

Please share your ideas for things you would like to see that fit within the spirit of the marketplace (please don’t ask for Epic’s…). I’ll be tracking this thread and reporting internally on the things that you guys ask for. While I can’t guarantee that every single requested item will make it in the games, and can’t set a schedule from your idea to delivery as a game asset, I want you to know that we are quite serious about not only hearing your input, but putting it to work if it’s viable.

Jennifer "Kirstie" Gerull, EQII Associate Producer, commented in the December 11 Allakhazam EQ2 Developer's Chat that real life posters of your characters are already in the works.  What else would you like?

EverQuestII players can comment here on the EQII Official Forums. 

EverQuest players can comment in this thread on the EQ Official Forums.

Ever wanted to work on Allakhazam? Are you a strong writer with knowledge about what makes the gaming industry tick? We're hiring!

The Editorial team is hiring two part-time editors to help improve the overall quality of our content. If you're interested in finding out more about the requirements, check our job opening page.

It's Frostfell in Norrath again, and Allakhazam has the inofz!  This annual winter holiday event will run from December 11 through January 5, and includes all your old Frostfell favorites and tons of new stuff!

Check out our Frostfell page !

Read the rest of this article to see the SOE Frostfell video!