Super hopeful that survival doesn't start while I'm at black panther on the 15th! I like being a part of the first waves of unknowns and not being spoiled for whats going to happen

Oh I for sure can't wait for Survival/Pandemic easily one of my favourite holidays on here. Morositide is extremely close with it though! I can't wait to see the strains and how they progress and what all new items we get. I love this holiday! <3

time for hints and hype 😝

i'm very excited to see all the new stuff, and the new skins especially! i've made my peace with never finishing my skin collection (... ick), and there's only a few i want (clusterflux, doom bloom, maybe bindi bite), so hopefully i'll be able to get those and maybe a new one along with a day or two of biting squished in between everything.

(i just wish the lockheart meds were wearable! amoricide's overlay looks like it'd be fun to work with.)

2018 is a new year and a new me NO TROLLIN'

noo but it's the best thing before an event!!

Also, in terms of strain development times, there are also the vials from 2014, which each have only four stages, so are pretty useful for getting in more strains within the event time-frame.

Those are available as skins in the wardrobe now? Where have I been? Love to get bulbous back, maybe even try for sticky if there's time. Are these only redeemable during survival, or any time you decide to use a vial?

I think they only brought them back last year. You can get then either through VIP (which would take ages since not a lot of people have them and so can't bite you to speed it up), or just by drinking one of the vials (instant infection!). I'm not entirely sure about using them to get skins outside of Survival, but I have a feeling you have to take them during the event for it to work. I have no idea what happens is you drink at any other time.

Hmm alright. You used to be able to drink them outside of survival and they'd progress normally, but then go away afterwards and you couldn't save them.

I'll think about it, I've got some vials left over so maybe if I have time for a fourth strain I'll use one! Either way, thanks for letting me know they're redeemable now. Just gotta go for the "random new strain no-wait" option when survival starts to save time in the queue.

A thought occurred to me. For the temporary vials, they can only be converted to skins during Survival. But what if we drank a vial early? Tried to time it so we get to the final stage around Friday, when theoretically Survival starts? Would we be granted a skin that might've been limited by timing before?

The problems I see is timing it wrong - Survival starts really late, and you're stuck. Or them having coding in place to prevent early starts - and then you're stuck with a strain that isn't actually counting toward a skin and you can't get a new strain. (Or, we're not even doing VIP this year, and the scheming is for naught.)

@ Amber See above. Thinking about this more, I think it's worth potentially looking into as to whether or not this is an intended feature, or a potential area for abuse. You don't have to confirm if we're getting VIP this year, or the start of the event, or anything like that - but if we were to time things correctly, could we potentially unlock a 2014 skin on the first day of Survival? (Or is this all null, and the vials were changed to only progress during Survival?)

[edit] Nevermind! You can't actually drink the vials anymore!

Yeah, the vials used to let you drink them when it wasn't Survival and it would progress through a temporary skin that would go away after a few days or so. However, now you can no longer drink them when it isn't Survival, you have to wait and drink them during the event and it will progress through the phases and then unlock in the wardrobe after.

Yeah, I just tried to drink one to confirm because I saw someone mention before that we couldn't drink them outside of Survival anymore. And it gave me an error when I tried to drink it (kept the item though), so they are only drinkable/redeemable during the event now.

Every time the news updates, I think it's Survival lol.

Got it, thanks for the confirmation! Weird they'd restrict when you could utilize it, but I understand for the most part.

I can't wait to see what items we get this year :D

I'm planning on going for caterkiller first this year. I always prefer to sit back and let everyone else do the experimenting with the new strains, just in case I get stuck with something I really don't like. I still watch the strain progression thread like a hawk, though.

Lol I'm the same. I love watching the new strain thread and seeing them progress, guessing with everyone else what they will be and coming up with the names. I just prefer to get an old strain first myself while I wait to see if I want any of the new ones.

I'm starting to run out of older strains that I really like though so who knows, maybe next year or something I'll get a new strain first as an experiment.

I always go for a random new strain because I love the surpise; in most cases I seem to randomly get the most gruesome one haha.

I am really excited to see the new strains and I hope Survival won't start too late this year, I only have a couple of days off left.

I reasoned I'll jump on the random new strain train once I run out of skins I want, too, but there's still quite a few left that I don't hate, so that won't be for a few years yet.

I've also been trying to theorise about the strain theme this year (but not getting very far because I'm rubbish) (assuming that they're even doing a theme again). We've had sea beasties, fungus/plants, and insects. What's in store this year?!