Filed under: Events

Vanity pet collectors, rejoice! The Crown Chemical Co. apothecaries not only drop some pretty nice necklaces, they're also the source of a new vanity pet, the Toxic Wasteling. You may think this looks a lot like the Disgusting Oozeling, but there's a major difference -- rather than a debuff applied to your character, the Wasteling is a hungry little guy. So hungry in fact, that he'll eat random critters, and as he does, he grows in size.

Check out the video to see the Toxic Wasteling in action -- and for those pet collectors wondering about the Truesilver Shafted Arrow for the Perma-Peddle achievement, he's now available on holiday vendors for the low price of 40 Love Tokens.

Update: We've added an overhead video to help you understand how the immunities work. Now, back to your regularly scheduled strategy guide.

Want to do the Love is in the Air holiday bosses? Short version: don't stand in things.

Longer version, you say? Sure, we can do that. First off, while there is a quest chain that leads you to Shadowfang Keep, you do not have to have done any of those quests to engage the evil Crown Chemical Company apothecaries: there's a helpful NPC, Investigator Fezzen Brasstacks who will give you the quest and items necessary for the fight. Like previous holiday bosses, you'll be able to engage the apothecaries once per player so yes, you can chain in alts and keep repeating the fight over and over again. (I believe we killed them roughly eight times before people started getting sleepy.)

Love is in the Air on most servers by now, and players should notice a substantial change in the way the event is being run this year. No longer do you have to furtively log on each hour on the hour during the course of the event in the hopes that you'll get that candy bag with that ONE piece of candy you need for the Be Mine! achievement. The candy bag, as well as all other random rewards from previous years are available on vendors in each capital city, and purchased with Love Tokens. How do you get the tokens? Well, you certainly don't have to run around begging people to give you cards and building gifts. This year, the tokens are available through daily quests. Since it's the first day of the event, we may not have seen all of the possible dailies, but here's the rundown on two of them:

Remember the Gifts of Adoration? This year, faction leaders are looking for jewelry. You can turn in a Lovely Charm Bracelet to the faction leader of your choice for a Lovely Card that will give you an hour long buff, and 5 Love Tokens. The method used to obtain these bracelets? Kwee will give you a Lovely Charm Collector's Kit with the following flavor text: "Pliers, bone saw, scalpel and sundry other tools allow for the collection of Lovely Charms from worthwhile enemies. Collect 10 charms to make a bracelet!"

Yes, you read that correctly. You murder beasts and creatures in your level range, and hack Lovely Charms off of their corpses.

I'm thinking I love this event already.

Other ways to obtain Love Tokens include the daily quest "A Perfect Puff of Perfume," which requires you to hose down ten players or NPC's with perfume. Vendors and city guards will work just as well as other players, so don't worry about running out of people to spray. This quest will also earn you 5 tokens.

The changes so far to the event make it much, much simpler to get that coveted Fool For Love meta achievement, and should provide a welcome change to players used to the same old grind from previous years. Check out the gallery below for the complete list of items available on the vendors, and stay tuned for more Love is in the Air info as it comes in!

Love is already in the air on the European realms and MMO Champion has the details on the loot which drops from the three new Love is in the Air bosses. Three apothecaries have taken up shop in Shadowfang Keep: Baxter, Hummel and Frye. They'll be there for the duration of the holiday as daily quest bosses and following is a list of what they drop (mouseover for their stats):

• Winking Eye of Love
• Heartbreak Charm
• Shard of Pirouetting Happiness
• Sweet Perfume Broach
• Choker of the Pure Heart
• Forever-Lovely Rose
• Vile Fumigator's Mask
• Toxic Wasteling
• The Heartbreaker

But the drop from Apothecary Hummel that I am most excited about is the Big Love Rocket Mount. It's pink, it has zhevra seats and a naughty, naughty name. Naughty.

Stay tuned for more Love is in the Air info as it comes in.

Last month, It came from the Blog ran from Orgrimmar to Elwynn Forest in order to punch Hogger and play at the Darkmoon Faire. We took the zeppelin to Grom'gol and then ran north through Stranglethorn Valley and into Duskwood. Continuing north, bypassing the mountains, we crossed the river into Elwynn Forest. Hogger was downed multiple times and there were hijinx to be had at the Faire.

Of course, it was not all fun and games. Whereas most of the lowbies were protected, the stragglers were eaten by fierce jungle fauna. And we could have done without the Alliance funsuckers who KSed Hogger as well as preyed on flagged and naked lowbies. But overall it was a good time.

Below is the gallery for the Elwynn Extravaganza. Stay tuned for the Winter Veil and Battleground Bonanza II galleries.

It came from the Blog is holding its second Battleground Bonanza today:

• When: Saturday, January 16th, 4:30pm EST (1:30pm PST, 2:30pm Server time)
• Where: The Hall of the Brave (where the Battlemasters are), Orgrimmar, Zangarmarsh U.S.
• Who: Any level 10 or above Horde character.
• How: Ask any It came from the Blog Lurker or Robinator for a guild invite.
• What: Battleground premades

We will be forming groups and hitting as many level/group-size appropriate BGs as we can for an hour or so. If you can't make it to the Hall of the Brave in time for the event, you will miss out on the first screenshot, but will still be able to participate. We will also be doing some BG related quests, so there will be some traveling for certain level ranges.

If you are unfamiliar with Battleground play, please do some homework so that it will be more fun for both you and your teammates. Also, if you have any questions about the WoW.com guild, please read our FAQ.

Come join the fun!

Bornakk hit the forums this evening to announce the second Twitter Developer Chat. It will take place Friday, January 15th at 5:00 PM PST. Like last time, questions will be taken via Twitter and answered on the forums. Senior game producer J. Allen Brack and lead systems designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street will be the ones answering your questions. Instructions on how to submit questions and all of that sort of thing can be found over in the forum thread.

The focus of this Q&A will be patch 3.3, Fall of the Lich King, so don't expect to hear any grand Cataclysm news in this chat. I'm actually very curious if we'll learn anything at all, considering the focus on current content rather than future content. It might be a good chance to get some insight into the development process, rather than trying to squeeze strategy tips out of the devs.

I feel the need... the need for another Battleground Bonanza! This Saturday, join It Came from the Blog for some Battleground fun. Here are the particulars:

• When: Saturday, January 16th, 4:30pm EST (1:30pm PST, 2:30pm Server time)
• Where: The Hall of the Brave (where the Battlemasters are), Orgrimmar, Zangarmarsh U.S.
• Who: Any level 10 or above Horde character.
• How: Ask any It came from the Blog Lurker or Robinator for a guild invite.
• What: Battleground premades

Robinator, my constantly underdressed (they're called trousers, I swear!) level 69 mage, will be playing in the 60's range BGs. We will be forming groups and hitting as many level/group-size appropriate BGs as we can for an hour or so. If you can't make it to the Hall of the Brave in time for the event, you will miss out on the first screenshot, but will still be able to participate. If you are unfamiliar with Battleground play, please do some homework so that it will be more fun for both you and your teammates.

Last time, the groups in the 10s, 20s and 50s seemed to have the most fun. If this is your first character on Zangarmarsh, I highly recommend bringing up a Death Knight before the event. If you have any questions about It came from the Blog, see our FAQ.

Please join us!

Don't forget! We're killing dragonhawks, baking cookies and otherwise enjoying the Feast of Winter Veil festivities tonight in It came from the Blog. As you can see, my mage who does not seem to have pants in any form is waiting patiently for the party to begin. Here are the details:

• When: 11:00pm EST (8pm PST, 9pm Server) December 30, 2009
• Where: In front of Silvermoon on the Zangarmarsh realm (US)
• Who: Any level Horde character (bring your highest level for the most fun)
• What: We will be harvesting eggs, baking cookies, kissing strangers under the mistletoe as well other holiday festivities.
• How: Ask any It came from the Blog Lurker or Robinator for an invite to the guild.

Please see our FAQ if you have any questions.

You're all invited to join us -- hope to see you there!

The Feast of Winter Veil ends on Saturday, but we still haven't had our It came from the Blog event. Let's remedy that tomorrow:

• When: 11:00pm EST (8pm PST, 9pm Server) December 30, 2009
• Where: In front of Silvermoon on the Zangarmarsh realm (US)
• Who: Any level Horde character (bring your highest level for the most fun)
• What: We will be harvesting eggs, baking cookies, kissing strangers under the mistletoe as well other holiday festivities.
• How: Ask any It came from the Blog Lurker or Robinator for an invite to the guild

We will have extra eggs. So if you miss the bird-bashing in Silvermoon, we'll meet you in Orgrimmar for the bribing of Greatfather Winter.

Questions? We answer most of them in our FAQ.

See ya there!

There's been some interesting chatter going on around the internet lately about mysterious in-game earthquakes happening throughout Azeroth. Seemingly at random the screen will shake back and forth for a few moments. There are no visible mobs or other occurrences that would cause this. However, these earthquakes are being reported by more and more people.

We know that Deathwing is going to tear Azeroth up in a big way. Take a look at the Cataclysm trailer for how destroyed the land is going to be. Barrens ripped in half, parts of Azeroth's climate will change, and general hell will come forth unto the plentiful lands. We also know that the world event ushering in the Cataclysm is going to be big, really big. The event itself is not in the patch files yet.

Or is it?

There are invisible mobs called Shakers in the game right now. There are two types of these mobs. The first is just called [DND] Shaker that was potentially in the game as early as patch 3.2.2, based on comments left on the live version of WoWHead. There was also another mob added in patch 3.3 called [DND] Shaker - Small.

In a nod to the holiday classic A Christmas Story, this year's WoW in-game Christmas gift is your very own Red Rider Air Rifle. You get it from the Winter Veil Gift underneath the Winter Veil Tree.

You use it to cast the spell Pelted! which expands one of the 200 charges the Red Rider Air Rifle has. You'll want to fire off the gun to the faction leaders first to get your BB King achievement (Alliance version, Horde version). You can miss with the gun, so do the achievement before blowing the rest of the charges.

For additional information on all the Winter Veil achievements, check out our Over Achiever's Guide to Winter Veil. This gift is active on the EU servers, and as of 8:00 a.m. EST, the gift now appears active on the US/North American servers as well.

Most everyone was a bit perturbed when we discovered that it would be 28 whole days before the new wing of Icecrown opens up (though we've since learned it's just going to open whenever Blizzard flips the switch.) Even the explanation from Blizzard that only the first gate will be this long of a wait due to the holidays didn't calm everyone down. Raiders have been waiting a long time for this! We weathered Trial of the (Grand) Crusader for long enough, right? And this showdown has been a decade in the making! You can't just give us the first wing and cut us off like that. You're a tease of the worst sort, Blizzard!

Personally, it wasn't until I noticed there was an in-game, story-based reason for this extra long delay that I came to accept it. At least, there's justification if you play Alliance. Admittedly, I don't know the Horde side of this. But regardless, if you've beaten Deathbringer Saurfang or read the linked post above, you might remember this line from Muradin: "I've brought in the best gnomes we've got to get those doors open."

Now, you might be expecting a "teehee gnomes" joke out of me here, but no. This goes far deeper than that. If you stick around long enough to see the Alliance take command over the Deathbringer's Rise, you might notice that there's actually only one gnome that shows up. Yes, it's that determined grimace up above, wearing a stylish vest and wielding an oddly shaped frying pan with two dimensional fried eggs glued to it. That is, apparently, Muradin's best gnome. It is his only gnome. He only brought one. It is up to frying pan man to get us through that huge saronite door.

I think the ol' dwarf is being optimistic when he says 28 days, which might be why the counter hasn't gone down since the day patch 3.3 launched.