Today was the Scion's annual holiday ball on Order Shard. Now, mind you, it's a roleplay server. You make your character(s) and you play them to be as lifelike as possible. However, that leaves for a lot of leeway on what CAN go on versus what's expected to go on by any developers. This ball happens to be one of those "other" things.

First off, it's an rp-only (roleplay only) event. Nothing to significantly alter the world or change reality or do anything completely out of imagination. It has no effect on the war against the Aegis or the construction of the land, the purification of blight, etc. Instead, it was to brighten the spirits of those in-game. To get together, enjoy some food, dance, party, chat, whatever, to celebrate the holidays as members of the community. And that we did.

Secondly, it's a player-driven event. No devs were bothered to have to redesign, replan, reprogram, or redevelop any part of the world to make this work. In fact, it's nice when they show up to these events to take part because Istaria is as much their world as it is ours. I do love our devs for being part of the community as a whole.

Thirdly, this event draws the crowd. Few things in a standard MMORPG get people to come in from different servers to a single server to join in. The Scions' Ball does. We had people from Order shard (of course), plus several new characters made by normal Blight players, our sweet Cheese Queen included. On top of that, we even had a contingency from Chaos shard show up as well, which rounds out the shards. Somewhat of a feat to get non-RPers to join in a specific RP event.

Now, I admit, I'm not a dancer and the box dance had me a bit at odds with my own feet. The circle dance left everyone spinning in more ways than one. Dizzy dragons in enclosed spaces can be difficult to avoid. The game of hide and seek after the dancing turned out to be a rather memorable highlight. The only restrictions were we had to stay on the island (and a pretty fair sized island with several guild communities at that) and we couldn't hid in dragon lairs. All else was fair game. It's amazing at just how small a dragon will try to get to be UNDER a tree! All in all, a very fun time.

For more information on Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted, or to try one of the trial or demo accounts, please check out http://www.istaria.com.