Beefing up the holidays
by Mike Schramm 
Jan 14th 2008 at 3:00PM
Okinos does a little trolling on the forums about holidays supposedly being boring (when actually, with the exception of no new content for Winter's Veil, they have been anything but), but at least something good did come out of the thread: not only does Drysc lay down a huge burn, but we're rewarded with a visit from Kisirani, part of Blizzard's world events team.And she's got great news for those who love holidays-- all of the holiday events are scheduled to get a makeover, Hallow's End style. Darkmoon Faire is getting beefed up, as is "an older holiday" that is getting "a significant amount of punch" added to it. Chinese New Year, aka the Lunar Festival? Valentine's Day? Your guess is as good as ours.
Blizzard's team has to take time off, too, so it's not too surprising that there wasn't too much new content to go through this year (although the Clockwork Bots definitely make up for it, if only they'd work right). But it's definitely awesome to hear that there's more in store for holiday events around the realms.
Filed under: Patches, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Events, Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
SaintStryfe Jan 14th 2008 3:14PM
Holidays are probably my favorite single faciate of game play. They feel unique and fun, and hearing they're going to be made more relevant is excellent.
The Lunar Festival will need to be buffed. The main event is killing a 60 boss in Moonglade. And last year, people tell me, it was very simple for higher-level characters, and the only thing that kept it from being cakewalk is that many people were not yet 70 (but plenty are now).
There'll need to be new content, and I expect Blizz to do it. I think Valentine's day is fine. Children's week I love, and would love to see just more (have each of the major cities have an orphan to take around, plus the big one in primary capitals, one in Shatt, with different awards other then pets.)
Keep it up Blizz, get us more yearly fun!
Narlic Jan 14th 2008 7:45PM
2007 Hallow's End set my bar of expectations for future holiday events pretty darn high.
I was so terribly sad when my Swift Magic Broom finally faded, though I did manage to get fourteen days of game time out of it before the patch's (unnecessary) "fix" changed the expiration to real time. I've still got pumpkins and the cloth helm in my bank, because they look awesome.
The very possibility of a holiday event that would provide rewards I'd be that attached to makes me giddy!
maxbliss Jan 14th 2008 3:48PM
The Clockwork Rocket Bots are not just nerfed. They are broken. They do not shoot rockets at other bots.
The toy went from being my favorite Winter Veil toy ever to being discarded.
I expect some really cool new improved organic pets this coming year to make up for it.
Magnetite2 Jan 14th 2008 3:48PM
Lots of interesting stuff in there from Caydiem, er, Kisirani..
Possible Horde mount for Alliance was one that sprung out at me for instance. Gnome on a Kodo perhaps?
Dave Jan 14th 2008 3:50PM
Huh? How are the holidays NOT boring and how did he get burned? Drysc had a typically backpedalling "nu uh, they're totally great you just don't know what you're talking about" response, same as the World Events guy.
Look at things with some perspective, okay?
Brewfest: Repeatable quest running around in a city, running kegs back and forth. interesting... once. Both using the identical mechanic of whipping a ram to gain speed. You got to do the drunk quest once. After that, grind away every single day for your ram mount!
Boring and repetitive after that, due to a horrible lack of foresight and understanding OF THE GAME YOU'RE DEVELOPING FOR by clustering the events in one very very tiny area (the dark iron invasions) which for TWO YEARS the development team claimed they'd "learned their lesson" from with the AQ gates. Would it have even been fun or interesting with the dark iron events working? I dunno, maybe. It sure would have been MORE interesting if they'd made the events happen in PVP zones all around the world for some world PVP every other hour.
Darkmoon Faire changes? I'm not sure if I missed something significant, but someone will surely correct me if I did... but all they added were rare gems and herbs and such to the vendors. Oooh. I'm sure that took a lot of resources, way to spice it up guys.
Haloween? A single 5-man boss in a single instance in a Horde zone. Yeah it dropped epic loot and that was nice for a change, but hardly something that's taking magnificent amounts of time to produce.
There are TONS of graveyard areas in the game. TONS. Why not an outdoor huge 10 man raid boss that comes out at sundown and will more or less demolish a city while he's up and respawns every couple of hours and drops an interesting trinket or two for people? Nothing amazingly difficult, but something that requires a couple tanks and healers and a decent effort?
I hope the real answer is that the same people on the world event team are the ones revamping content like the Dustwallow revamp. If so, they can have a pass on the fact that yes unfortunately the world events in the entire history of WoW with the exception of the AQ Gates have been fully and wholeheartedly boring. The rewards are getting better, but that does not really equate to "fairly substantial improvements". Drysc also mentions that they're reaching a plateau, but that's total BS. There's absolutely no reason something special can't be happening every single week of the game with something new and potentially interesting happening.
I think it's a pretty thin defense, and definitely doesn't live up to any of their claims. Maybe the Lunar Festival will be awesome, I don't know. I'll wait and see. I have my doubts on it being anything more than a highly repeatable thing at best, or 2-3 low level fedex quests at worst and a bump of Omen up to 70+ instead, but still giving out crap like fireworks.
Scoottie Jan 14th 2008 4:16PM
These holidays are the same rehashed crap that has been there since the game went live. They are boring and useless
Todd Jan 14th 2008 5:17PM
"We plan on revisiting all the holidays, and are currently cooking up something for an older holiday that should bring a significant amount of punch into it. We're always working, my friend, and we plan to bring you a great deal of amusing things."
The word "punch" seems ominous... I wonder what is in store for the players of Azeroth.
Medros Jan 14th 2008 6:32PM
We already know 2 ways Valentine's is being beefed up, the love rockets and the romantic picnic basket!
theRaptor Jan 14th 2008 9:23PM
Why do people think that putting in massive amounts of dev time for a two week event is a good use of resources? Especially when people seem to have the expectation that there will be massive changes every year?
There are so many things that are around all year that they could be improving, like they did with Dustmallow Marsh.
Gessilea Jan 15th 2008 11:40AM
They actually addressed this in the thread - not all devs do the same thing. Blizzard has a large staff, many of whom specialize in different areas. It's not as though having a couple of people working on improving the seasonal events means that PvP or raids or anything else like that is being neglected - there are other teams working on those things at the same time.
ThorinII Jan 15th 2008 11:34AM
Who cares????? I rarely do any of the holiday crap anyway.
Gessilea Jan 15th 2008 11:38AM
Although I rarely take part in the holiday events, I enjoy them being there, if only because it adds a bit of reality to the world. Shattrath (or Stormwind, or Ironforge) look the same most of the time, but having the decorations up adds some real flavor to the world. Actually, another thing I'd love to see is seasonal changes in the landscape. People get so hung up on the end game sometimes (or PvP, or whatever their favorite aspect is) that they forget to look at the game as a whole.
Juliah Jan 21st 2008 2:20PM
Sometimes, I'm not so crazy about the holidays. They're fun, but when we get several almost back to back, it's hard to find people to do regular content because everyone's messing around with the Horseman or something. For those of us trying to progress, the holidays are something of a mixed blessing.