The Winter Bash 2020 has ended. What are your thoughts?

Question

I will share my thoughts first.

I think the hat dash and the Defender of the Unicorn were fun games. Here are some comments of them:

	Hat Dash	Defender of the Unicorn
About	Rules similar to Chrome T-rex game. You have to wear the social distancing hat to unlock the game.	A quiz about Stack Exchange. If you get a wrong answer, you will have to wait a minute before answering again. If you get 10 questions correct, you will get the "Defender of the Unicorn" Hat.
Pros	This idea of game is interesting, and Yaakov tried his best to avoid cheaters in the game.	Makes us know more about Stack Exchange. Also Yaakov implemented a anti-cheating mechanism.
Cons	The unicorn is too big so it is harder than the Chrome T-rex game.	Some questions require a lot of searching which makes the quiz hard.

The hats are also interesting! A hat is called "Social Distancing (Main)", which is the easiest to get. You only have to visit a question on the main page of a site. This hat is actually a mask, which is related to our life in the pandemic.

I hope everyone enjoyed Winter Bash 2020! Anyone is welcome to post his/her thoughts! (I will post more of my thoughts if this question received a lot of attention.

Answer 1

Wow Winter Bash ended, the whole event is so short... a blink of an eye and it's over...

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a much longer bash, like 3 or 4 months.

Maybe from December throughout February...

And have a lot of hats! like 100. And also have 30% of them secret, so we have to really discuss the possible triggers.

It would be a long Winter Bash which would be really fun :-)

If we don't have a longer bash, wouldn't it be nice if we have a Summer Bash as well?

_Reference

Answer 2

It was a great Winter Bash!

I appreciate the large number of hats (and in particular the large number of secret hats). I also appreciate the new hat designs and hat triggers. Some of the recent Winter Bashes recycled too many old hats, and I'm glad that wasn't the case this time.

The Defender of the Unicorn quiz was a great idea, and it was fun searching for the answers. It wasn't too hard.

The Hat Dash game was also fun.

Thanks for all the effort you put into this, Yaakov!

Answer 3

Participating in the Winter Bash for the fifth time, I have no doubt that this has been one of the more enjoyable WBs personally. I attribute this to the refreshed hats designs¹ and the addition of more novel secret hat triggers. (Last year, the lack of new hat designs put me off.)

Similar to the sentiments expressed by others, I'd like to give a special mention to the Defender of the Unicorn hat which was my personal favourite. I enjoyed playing (successfully) cheating at Hat Dash. And, of course, the quest was an interesting one too. I hope there can be more of such mini-activities (knitting in 2018/19 & Hat Dash in 2020) in future Winter Bashes.

Lastly, I want to take this opportunity to express my thanks to the WB team and especially Yaakov for the effort put into this Winter Bash, such as fixing all the bugs, checking in while on vacation and even conceptualising a new hat during Winter Bash. Great work!

Till next time.

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¹I had noticed that even the most familiar hats had their designs updated slightly :) See below for examples:

Answer 4

Despite getting 16 hats I never heard about the Defender of the Unicorn game. It probably should have been more obviously promoted.

Answer 5

Personally my best Winterbash experience so far. Thanks Yaakov Ellis for being such a great host.

I think this year's edition offered a much better equilibrium of answering/asking and moderating posts to get the hats (as well as some luck) than in the previous editions.

In former editions you needed to be active in a high rep tag, like python or java or similar and at least a +10k user to be able to get all hats, this year, most +3k users could have gotten all hats, if skilled.

thanks again for a great time, see you all at wb2021

Answer 6

Winter Bash 2020 was the reason this account's rep blew up (apart from the Logo post) and I actually earned a record of 21 hats, but I wasn't able to screenshot it.

Remember my answer here? I'm already on the works of a library for the main "Social Distancing" hats.

Stack Exchange, thank you for making 2020 better for me and the community, after the hard days of the work.

Answer 7

After five or six years, the holiday hat season has worn a bit thin. It feels "old" or maybe I found the surprises were stale.

I can remember a time when avatars were larger than they are today and it was amusing to see a familiar face wearing a tricorn hat or someone's deadpan face wearing Elton John glasses and a fluffy pink boa (aka the “trend setter”). Instead, you have to visit a user's profile to fully appreciate their new look.

This year, I didn't try to earn any hats–just wearing a facemask immediately earned me a new hat–and I found myself with 14 hats with hardly any effort. Seeing users cheat at Hat Dash, my attempts were utterly pathetic, soured the experience for me.

Suggestions

If avatars were slightly larger and the "hats" sillier, e.g. “Mmmm bacon” I think even more users would join in. All we are asking is a dose of silliness in our lives.

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Answer 8

I really enjoyed Winter Bash and will terribly miss it.

Answer 9

I enjoyed the first few days of looking for hats.

Unfortunately, during the holiday season, I quit work and spend more time with family so I lose out on the SE fun (fun with family is more important (Sorry/Not Sorry!).

So for me, Winter Dash lasted about 4 days.

I don't know how things are for other people - maybe they like SE more than their families.

Answer 10

My personal thoughts - loved the community competition brought by hat dash, and the leaderboard. Having this stay up through the year would be great for those of us that are addicted to clout.