VMK Holiday and Special Events

2005

May 2005

• VMK Opened for public Beta Testing with a full compliment of Beta Furniture

24 May 2005: Opening "Parade"

• The weekend after opening, players were told to gather on Main Street and "parade" along its length. Some parade "leaders" were awarded the Dancing Inferno magic pin. Then a few staff members "hid" themselves in some rooms in the game, and the first people to find each of them were awarded prizes.

June 2005

• Official End of Beta Testing. The Day One badges were given to all players subscribed before that time. First Insider Tour offered.

July 2005

• Players were told to decorate their rooms to be judged. On Saturday was the judging of the Celebration theme; players whose rooms were found to best commemorate Disneyland's 50th anniversary won prizes. Sunday featured judging of the Space theme, letting players decorate their interpretation of what "space" meant to them. Prizes were also given for answering trivia questions. (Some players did not receive a visit from judges; a number of these players were given an Invisibility magic pin as a consolation prize.)

August 2005

• Players decorated their rooms based on a pin-trading theme and judges looked for rooms that best captured this theme. Prizes were awarded to room decorating winners. The Lounging Lion pin along with many other pins were traded to players by staff members wearing Goofy hats who visited the trading rooms.

October 2005

• An easy maze, a medium maze, and a difficult maze were available for players to try finding their way through, and successfully completing the maze would award a prize. (Respectively: 100 credits, a Haunted Mansion Master Gracey pin, and a Candy Cauldron.) However, the event was plagued by server problems, resulting in queues of half an hour or more to get into the mazes, and some players were not able to enter the mazes at all or were bumped offline in the middle of them. Halloween decorations appear on Main Street.

19-28 October 2005: Epitaph Event

• Announced in the 19 October 2005 Newsletter, players were invited to send in a Imaginary Epitaph through the Contact Us Page. On 31 October 2005 Winners from the Epitaph Event were announced.

Halloween Week 2005: VMK Halloween Event

• Several special costumes (new as well as previously seen) were made available for purchase in the game. On October 30th, there was a special event to celebrate Halloween. Players who waited in the Castle Forecourt area would occasionally be visited by a staff member, who would award a Candy Cauldron, a grey Haunted Mansion suit, a Mickey Ear Pumpkin, or a Dancing Inferno magic pin to the players with the best costume. Free prizes were given out in a VMK Prize Machine room based on spins of a Random Number Generator. However, long lines to get into the Castle Forecourt and the VMK Prize Machine rooms prevented some players from being able to participate.

November 2005

• There was an event to commemorate mid-November voting days across the United States. Players could purchase and wear special shirts to publicly show their opinions on certain issues. On the 11th the question was "who is your favorite character?" (According to the VMK newsletter the winner was "The Dragon" with 30% of the vote); on the 12th it was "what is your favorite VMK game?" (Pirates of the Caribbean, 27%), and on the 13th it was "when is your next trip to a Disney park?" For the following two weeks, as a result of having "won" the poll, the Dragon gave out 100 credits per visit, instead of the usual 20 credits.

24-27 November 2005: Thanksgiving Quest

• Players could visit designated rooms to find photos; by stringing together the first letter of each pictured item, they could spell the names of two Thanksgiving foods and submit their answers for prizes. Everyone who sent in a correct answer won a hyena pin, and a few winners were randomly selected for additional prizes.

28 November- 23 December 2005: VMK iPod Sweepstakes

• This event encouraged players to recruit more people to play VMK by offering them a chance to win an iPod Nano when people joined VMK and listed them as the referrer.

December 2005

• Players were told that they could purchase a gift for a fellow player of their choosing at a cost of 500 credits. The gift was to be delivered in game on December 24th. The gift requests were processed through the "Contact Us" section of the VMK home page. Players who gave gifts had 500 credits per gift automatically deducted from their accounts. The mystery gift was revealed to be the Decorative Holiday Wreath Green on December 24th.

16 December 2005: Mountains Of Fun Event begins

• Staff show their river ride to players.

31 December 2005 - 2 January 2006: Cute or Boot the Bear Rug

• Guests could purchase either the Bear Rug - CUTE or Bear Rug - BOOT shirts to vote for their support for public release of the Bear Rug. Players thought the rug was "cute" and these results were announced in the 3 January 2006 Newsletter.

2006

January 2006

• New Years 06 Pin given to all registered members at that time.

• VMK Monster Maze Event held

February 2006

• Capture the Yeti Quest held.

• First ride competition, based on the everest theme. Players would join a team, and build the best ride they could. HOST_ and VMK_ staff judged the rides, and gave out prizes to the best rides.