Christmas 2009

Merry (early) Christmas, everyone! This page will be updated as I learn new info.

The Christmas Update

On December 1st, Mousehunt was treated to this very lovely poster, courtesy of the devs:

1 (Click the picture to read it full size)

A gigantic comet was on its way towards Gnawnia? Well, that wasn’t entirely true- as far as the map showed, the comet had already landed. The question was when do we get to enter?

Thankfully, the devs never make us wait very long for these sorts of things, and so the very next day the Festive Comet location opened!

This update contains a few different things. First, there’s the new area. Second, there is gift-giving. I’m going to cover gift-giving first, before moving on to explain the new area. As it is, gift-giving is kind of required for the new area anyway.
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The Festive Gift Shoppe

During this update, a new feature appears under “Give to Friends.” At the top of the page, you get an option to visit the Festive Gift Shoppe. Alternately, it’s available under the shops tab on the menu.

Once in the shop, you see quite a few different things can be purchased and sent to your friends! This is actually a pretty cool idea from the devs; you can ONLY get these items by having a friend send them to you, so it really encourages you to have a good sense of community with others, and it also allows you to be very charitable to newer hunters, as I’ll explain in a minute.

First, you can buy Swiss, brie and gouda cheese and send it to friends. A cool idea- give your new friends a nice stockpile of cheese. Many people have always wanted to be able to do this- well now you can! It was pointed out to me that it can also be used as a nifty tool going the other way. You know how when you send gold to people of higher points, there’s a tariff? Not when you send it in the form of cheese! Send 1000 Swiss instead of 100k! The cheeses  are sold for: 100 for swiss, 200 for brie and 600 for gouda. Sorry, no profiteering to be had here. You can also send a burroughs laboratory map piece to your friend for 20,000 gold. That’s also a really neat idea. Too bad we can’t send shredded Furoma maps…

And then there are Christmas gifts! There are several of them- greeting cards, mistletoe, even a mouse action figure. They don’t seem to serve any real purpose beyond being cool to have. Still, make sure you get one of each from a friend, just in case. Never know what you’ll need later.

1Then there’s the slightly smaller gift. Now, this is one I can’t figure out. The first one I opened said “you opened your slightly smaller gift and received… a slightly smaller gift.” I couldn’t help but chuckle- it would explain why it causes endless frustration; looks like another teddy bear in the sense that it just keeps giving you back the item.bear_santa
However, I opened it again and got candy… my girlfriend opened her present and got a greeting card. She didn’t even get the gift back once.
So, the gist of this present is that by opening, you can get anything, including another present. For the most part, it’s kind of worthless since the other gifts are worth less (although you can sometimes get a gingerbread plank.) However, there’s one gift that is exclusive to the slightly smaller gift- the Santa Bear. Like the regular bear given out when Ronza came in November, hugging it simply gives you another bear!

The last three items are of interest, though. All three of them are loot drops in this new location, so it seems likely that 11you’ll need them all for something. First, we have the gingerbread planks. At 6,000 apiece, they’re quite expensive. However, try smashing one and you will get… 15 gingerbread cheese! This is our cheese for the festive comet, so finding friends to swap gingerbread planks seems like a good idea.
Having said that, be prepared to use some SB+ to shortcut your way through here. As of yet there are two sets of blueprints available, and both are dropped by a mouse that predominantly prefers SB+ (The worker and christmas tree mouse). While SB+ isn’t required, it’s not a bad idea if you can afford it.

Don’t buy icing or candies yet. You get them as loot drops from the mice on the comet, so you might be able to avoid any at all. See the recipes further down, and once you have the blueprints figure out how much you still need.

THE FESTIVE COMET

OK, we’ve seen the shoppe and have collected some gingerbread cheese. With this new cheese in hand, we can go to the comet! The most cost-effective trip is to head to Gnawnia first. It’s 4,000+ from almost every high-level area, versus the 800 from ToG.  Very quickly, let’s go over trap and base suggestions.

Trap: This location is full of several mid-low level physical mice, as well as having the Gargoyle, Troll and Hydra mouse. So, to have the most success catching everything, pick your best trap, preferably a hydro one. Arcane traps are great for that gargoyle, the centaur becomes a pain in the butt to catch (the dwarf too, to a lesser extent. But even then your catch rate should be above 80%)
The new Ronza traps work great too- I know I’m going in with a Partybot, and the Kraken seems to be working wonders.

Base: Use your best base, basically. Explosive, Dehydration, Aqua… Just don’t use Magma, for your own sake. You’ll waste a bunch of gingerbread that way. The cheese doesn’t have great attraction, and since these mice aren’t worth much, you’ll end up losing quite a bit of money from all that stale cheese.

And with that, let’s get going!

1

Since this will inevitably be asked- no, there is no secret to getting the scrooge or ornament mouse. Like every rare mouse before it, you just need to sit down, take a deep breath, and be PATIENT. Changing your setup is not going to help you catch a mouse that you’re never seeing. Goodness, we see more “How to catch the scrooge mouse” topics than I care to count… As for the Christmas Tree Mouse, this seems to be one of those “SB+ only” mice. So if you’re looking to bag one of those cute looking mice, you will unfortunately have to drop the gingerbread cheese for SB+.

Once you collect all the festive mice, there IS a point to all of this hunting. We have a new, holiday trap and base combo- the Gingerbread House Surprise and the Gingerbread Base. To get them, we need two sets of blueprints. The set that allows you create the trap comes from the Worker Mouse, while the base blueprints are dropped by the Ornament Mouse and Christmas Tree Mouse. As with many sets of blueprints, the drop rate isn’t 100%, so this task may take you a while!

The recipes for the trap and the base are:

Gingerbread House Surprise
- 1 Gingerbread House Plans
- 10 Candies
- 5 Icing Sugar
- 7 Plank of Gingerbread

Gingerbread Base
- 1 Gingerbread Base Blueprints
- 5 Candies
- 1 Icing Sugar
- 1 Plank of Gingerbread

As traps and bases go, the Gingerbread house is a solid tactical trap. It’s comparable with both Zugzwang’s Last Move1 15550_190814217241_10337532241_3540956_3827728_sand the Mutated Venus Mouse Trap and is great for any grandmaster. However, put up against the Ambush, Giant Speaker or the thorned/horrific VMT, you’ll find it lacking.
As for the gingerbread base, the wiki says it best- it’s nearly identical to the polar base. Which means that it fills the same niche as the polar base; better than the explosive base, but not comparable with the magma, aqua or tribal bases.

The Twelve Days until Christmas

Starting December 12th and going through December 24th, items were released every day. Each item was collectible for an unidentified amount of time after the day they were dropped. According to the devs, they would be combined together to make something. I’ll list them off, day by day, for you.

  • December 12- The Candy Cane Mouse and White Mouse dropped One Droid Action Figure
  • December 13- The Present Mouse and Dwarf Mouse dropped Two Festive Mitts
  • December 14- The Christmas Tree Mouse and Abominable Snow Mouse dropped Three Santa Hats
  • December 15- The Stocking Mouse and Troll Mouse dropped Four Festive Stockings
  • December 16- The Ornament Mouse and Treant Mouse dropped Five Ornaments
  • December 17- The Nutcracker Mouse and Abominable Snow Mouse dropped Six Snowballs
  • December 18- The Present Mouse and Bear Mouse dropped Seven Gingerbread Mice
  • December 19- The Elf Mouse (newly released) and Dwarf Mouse dropped Eight Elf Shoes
  • December 20- The Present Mouse and Centaur Mouse dropped Nine Antlers
  • December 21- The Candy Cane Mouse and Hydra Mouse dropped Ten Candy Canes
  • December 22- The Christmas Tree Mouse and Frozen Mouse (newly released) dropped Eleven Coloured Lights
  • December 23- The Christmas Tree Mouse, Scrooge Mouse, Gargoyle Mouse and Toy Mouse dropped Twelve Liters of Eggnog

If you got all twelve gifts (well done if you did!), you could give them all to Larry in exchange for one of two things:

  1. 110 Super|Brie+
  2. A 3,000 power physical trap called the Christmas Cracker Trap

weapon_xmas_cracker_thumb_invTake a look at the stats on that trap. 3,000 power and 24 luck should stick out to you. This is a GREAT trap. Easily on par with the partybot and better than the Rhinobot. And the cost? Nothing, really! Technically the cost of 110 Super|Brie+, but what’s that worth, really? 350k, tops? Yeah, pick the trap.

And with that, the update should be mostly done! Ronza arrived on that last day, so check the Ronza page for info on that!

IN REGARDS TO SKIPPING THE CHRISTMAS CRACKER TRAP
I’ve heard many people ask this question- “If I’m buying the Chrome Drillbot anyway, should I bother with the Christmas Cracker, or just take 110 SB+ to help fund my Drillbot?”

That’s up to you. If you don’t have the Rhinobot yet, the Christmas Cracker will earn you an extra 500 gold/hunt over the Drillbot or Hitgrab Rockin’ Horse in the Derr Dunes (which is the best place to hunt for gold). Given that SB+ is about 1000 gold apiece right now and most likely will remain that way until Ronza leaves, it will only take about 220 hunts to make up for the SB+ that you could have sold.

Verdict: If you don’t have a rhinobot or partybot, get it anyway because it will bring in gold faster. If you have either of those traps, feel free to skip the cracker and just take the SB+ and then consequently sell it.