I've noticed plenty of users have questions regarding the festival.
And I wanted to make a place where, hopefully, all questions will be answered.

Also because the festival chat moves rather quickly there is a posibility that people overlook your questions.


I will have input from other, more experienced or knowledgeable players cause I do not know everything >.<
Also please note that this guide is based on information of previous festivals. Festivals change. So some of the information here may not be applicable to the current festival.

I hope this guide is a bit usefull and that you may catch loads of themed pets!

The Festival Zone
The Themed Pets
The Wheel Pets
The Festival Named and other zone activities
The festival currency and holiday shop
The festival eggling auction
Region Chat

The festival zone

For every festival a special zone is released. During the festival it's all about this zone.
And this zone demands one thing from us - lots, and lots of patience.



Are you lost?
Several users make maps of the festival zone. Personally I always turn to the user called Talyn. She makes wonderful maps that have helped many a user out when lost.
Do you want said map? Easy. Just send Talyn a polite personal message stating that you would love to use their map. Please note that Talyn is also human and cannot have a map out the minute the zone is released. There is a lot of work in the map.


What to expect of the festival zone:
You'll find themed pets here (for more information see next post) and only in the festival zone. You cannot find these, limited to this fest, pets in any of the other zones.

You'll find Named/Bosses here. They can drop regular armor, avatar items, wheel tickets or festival currency.

You'll find crates and chests. Crates can give you a small amount of gold, potions, or amour. Chests can give you larger sums of gold, festival currency, or wheel tickets.

You'll be able to find nests - but note these are RARE to find.

The merchant
In the festival zone there is usually a person near a cart or near the entrance of the zone. This is the merchant. You can buy 3 sorts of traps here, but the merchant does not have unlimited supplies.
But fear not.
The merchant restocks every hour :D

Resetting the zone
If you click leave the zone and you exit the zone entirely you reset all your spawn timers.
This mean that it can take a while for crates/bosses to appear for you.
There are theories that it also resets pet encounter rates, this has neither been confirmed, nor denied as far as I know.

The Themed Pets

With each festival a new set of themed pets are released.
Themed pets?
Yes, we call them themed.

What does this mean?
The themed pets have a special tag, or name. For example Midsummer Night Zolnixi. This is the name that shows if you encounter them in a battle.
Normally all pets are called Wild and then the species of the pet. So Wild Zolnixi. If you see one with a different name it's a themed.

All the Midsummer Night Zolnixi have the same general colour scheme. Why do I say general? Because there are plenty of examples of weird colour swings in themed pets.

For example these two bunnies are both Midnight Firefly Bulbories. The left one is the 'standard' Midnight Firefly, the right one has a bit of a colour swing compared to the others.



How do I recognise themed pets?
As I stated before they have very specific colour schemes. Generally the contrast on themed pets are easier on the eyes. You won't see a themed with bright pink and bright green as base colours.

If you want to recognise them before even entering a battle I suggest keeping in mind that their overall colours look very nice together. Also there is always a thread in the general forums with pictures of all the available themed pets. If you are very early this thread may not have all the available species, but then you can always check via the advanced search.
You go to the search (as in you click on search and it will bring you to the advanced search). Here you can search for pets by species and by themed. That way you can check the colour schemes. But you'll have to know the names of the themed of this festival in order to select them.

EDIT: Our darling admins have made it even easier for us *hugs them*. You can now tell when a pet is themed before entering a battle. In your battle log (the part of the screen right below the exploration area, the part where all the text is) it will say "You have encountered a rare enemy." This is an important message while hunting for themed ;)

For every festival so far there has been a forum threat with the available themed for said fest. You can find these posts on the general discussion forums. This is what a threat with all the themed looks like (with many thanks to Willowdarimn)

Our designs in the zone?
For the last couple of fests the admins have let us design themed as a contest. So watch the official games and contests forum for a threat about it. Please do read the posts by the admins carefully because there may be rules to what you can design. For example, for the winter fest the admins gave us desert themes to design pets for.
Also keep in mind, when designing, that there are species you cannot find in the zone. These species can only be found on the wheel.

Encounter rate
Running into themed takes time, LOTS of it. There are people who say beating everything increases encounter rates, and there are those who argue against that. It has been confirmed that the encounter rate is entirely random. So have bad luck? Kick the Random Number Generator (RNG).
So there will be times you go hours on end without meeting any themed. While the next minute you run into 3.
However, as Eimell pointed out to me, running from non-themed does give you more time to hunt themed.


Are there always 2 sets of themed?
No, not always. 2 sets of themed mean that for the first week of the festival 1 set was available and for the second week of the festival a second set was added. So you can still find themed of the first set, as well as themed for the second set. We have also had a second set of themed that was available only during a set stage of the zone. For example, during the Fall Festival there was an in zone event in which we could defeat zombies. During that same stage we were able to find Zombified pets.

What do the stars and colours mean?
Now. When battling pets in general you'll see that all pets have stars next to their names. The amount of stars tells you something about the stats of the pet.
It's the colour of said stars that really matters.
If they are white a pet does not carry any genes - for breeding purposes it is useless. These pets are called common.

If the stars are green it means a pet has 1 gene point (GP) somewhere. 1 GP equals a carried gene. These pets are called uncommon.

If the stars are blue it means a pet has 2 GP somewhere. 2 GP means either 2 carried genes or 1 visible gene. These pets are called rare.

If the stars are purple it means a pet has 4 GP. Either 4 carries , 2 visibles, or 1 vis and 2 carries. These are the epic pets.

If the stars are yellow/orange you are looking at a Legendary pet (6 GP). Those are very rare to run into. Now if it has both yellow stars and it is a themed and you do not have the Masterful Snare trap shout out in the Region Chat box. It would be an absolute waste if you could not catch it just because you do not have the appropriate trap. Do note these are Diamond traps so expensive, some users gift them others would like the pet in return or a Masterful Snare trap in return.

Should the occasion arise that you run into a red star pet you are looking at a MYTHICAL pet try not to faint (8GP). These are the rarest there are on Sylestia. Proceed as above if you do not own a Masterful Snare.

To much text - or is my brain too fuzzy for you? Flute has made an excellent drawing of it to explain. Which you can check out here.

Are you curious as to how the previous themed looked?
The book of taggeds

The wheel pets

The first wheel was introduced during the 2013 Winter Festival.
In order to spin the wheel you'll need wheel tickets - you can get those from the diamond shop, from chests in the festival zone, from beating bosses and/or from the festival zone activity.

For example during the Easter festivities we could go on an egg hunt. Completing the hunt awarded you with a wheel ticket.

The prizes on the wheel differ greatly in value.

The 2- and 3-vis wheel pets are without a doubt the most valuable. They are also the hardest to get! Getting one takes, either a lot of money, or a lot of luck.

Chances are you'll end up with philters or traps instead of wheel pets. Therefore we have lovingly called it "The Wheel of Misfortune, The Wheel of Crushed Hopes, The Wheel of Philters, The Wheel of Dispair" etc.

Generally the Wheel pets are fabled species, making them even rarer. (How do you recognise fabled species? Their eggs look different from the 'normal' eggs). With the exception of the Puffadore, which technically isn't a fabled species, but it is a species you cannot catch in the wild.

Examples of wheel pets:
(Summer Festival)


EDIT: as of the Love Fest 2015 we are waving goodbye to the wheel for now. Our admins have acknowledged that the value of the items the wheel produces have lowered so much. The site is literally flooded with them. Not to mention the reactions of some players to not getting a pet were less than friendly.

The Festival Named and other zone activities

In the festival zone you can not only hunt for themed pets, but you can also beat some bosses up if you are up to the challenge.

Let me warn you: Boss fights take long because they have lots of health. Sometimes there is a method to beating a boss (like taking down their guards first, or leaving the guards till after the boss), sometimes it's just grinding down their health.

Are you loosing the boss battles? There are some very good guides out there on how to divide proficiency points, level up points and gear. I'll link some.
Flute's Guide to Pet Speccing and Gearing
Dimitri's guide for team building, battling...
Shadowphyr's Effective Builds for Effective Parties

How do you recognise a boss/named?
Bosses, or also called named, are never sylesti (pets) and are almost always human, or an animal/tree that you cannot have as a pet. The confusing part is that not all people in the zone are automatically bosses.

But if you 'speak' to a boss the buttons Battle and Run Away pop up. If it's not a boss the Battle button will not be click-able.

We also have a merchant in the zone, here you can restock on traps if you run out.
If there is an activity in the zone, for example the seashell hunt, there is a person in the zone you will need to talk to before you can find the shells. Or for the reindeer hunt you'd have to talk to this person to hand in the reindeer and make them count.

Examples of named
Sirilla Eight-Arms (Summer Fest 2014) and Katana the Queen of Hearts (Love Fest 2015)


Why would you beat a named?
Bosses can drop avatar items. The items differ per boss.
For example Sirilla, from the picture above, could drop her dress, different coloured staffs, her crown, and her back item called Creatures of the Dephts.
But on occasion named also drops wheel tickets or the festival currency.
Next to that they also drop pet armor. If you don't need the armor sell it - a good way to earn a bit of money during the festival.

Other zone activities
Next to beating bosses there is usually an event in the zone. This can be beating waves of zombies, or collecting 'items' such as reindeer, pumpkins en seashells.
In the past we have had dynamic events, where we would have to wait for the event to start before we could beat up zombies in order to get to the boss, or we have had hunts.
For some of the hunts you would have to talk to a person in the zone before you can start collecting whatever it is they want you to collect.

You have probably seen the 'zone progression' box on the right side of the exploration window. If there is a dynamic event this is where you will see at what stage it is. As far as I recall there are either 2 or 3 stages before the boss will appear. There is always a bit of time in between stages (on average between 10 and 15 minutes).

There is always a cooldown between zone activities. So far for the hunts there has been a cooldown of 2 hours before you can try again. For the dynamic event it differs.

The festival currency and holiday shop

Each festival has a specially currency. With this currency you can buy items in the holiday shop.
The items in the shop are mainly the festival's specific avatar items, which you will not be able to get anymore once the festival ends. Or you can buy wheel tickets with the festival tokens.

These are some examples of festival currency.
Summer Tokens, Valentines and Easter Eggs.



How do you get these tokens?
You can get them from chests in the festival zone, or from beating bosses, or from completing the event in the zone. During a couple of festivals you've also been able to get tokens from nurturing eggs, but it hasn't been like that for all the festivals.
Of course there is also the possibility of buying tokens from other players. You can find them in the broker. Tokens are generally more expensive on the first days of the festival.

The festival eggling auction

During the festival there is generally 1 eggling auction, sometimes there are 2.
These auctions are always announced by an admin - mostly Krinadon - via the forums.

There are two general rules for the festival eggling auction(s):
Rule 1: Be extremely rich, especially if you are going for a tagged/wheel pet egg.

Rule 2: Snatch/snipe at the last minute for an egg you truly want. In the last couple of seconds of an auction prices can go up millions and you could be outbid by a second. (It's happened to quite a few of us)
(Thanks to Vulpie for the rules)

I could explain the entire process, but I feel I would be stealing Flute's words.
Flute has made a very extensive guide to eggling auctions that I recommend you read if you want to participate in one.

Should you want to buy a wheel pet during the auction, bring millions of gold. Their prices range from 4 million gold to 19 million gold. (I am not kidding)

Region Chat
The chat box you see in the festival zone is called Region Chat.
It's quite hectic during the festivals, afterwards it dies down.

So there is a huge chance something you said gets overlooked. Don't worry we are not ignoring you, chat just moves too fast for our brains to comprehend.

There are rules regarding language and the use of the chat options. Please read the Sylestian Terms of Service and stick to these rules. It will make chat enjoyable for all.


Language[size]

We are a lazy bunch while in chat. So we abbreviate most everything.

Themed species are abbreviated by the first letters of their names.
For example: Night Flight Nytekrie becomes NF Nyte - Sand Castle Draeyl becomes SC Drae etc. etc.

Trick or Treating / Carolling

These are out of zone events where you can collect festival tokens (currency).

Huh?
In the past we were able to visit the pages of other users and trick or treat them (Halloween) or sing them a carol (Christmas).
It's quite simple really.

[under construction]

Thanks for doing this! I was wondering, is there somewhere that lists all of the prizes from the advent calendar? I missed a few and wonder what they were....