Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player with limited playtime. Of course, you people with lots of playtime can read this too, but you may get annoyed by the fact that we are unashamed, even proud, of the fact that beating WoW isn't our highest priority. Take solace in the fact that your gear is better than ours, but if that doesn't work, remember that we outnumber you. Not that that's a threat, after all, we don't have time to do anything about it. But if WoW were a democracy, we'd win.

Holidays are for all players, of course, but I think they are particularly appropriate for players with limited playtime. Sure, there are often raiding quests or achievements that we can't complete, but overall, the activities seem to be designed for casual gameplay. For the most part, I think I'm preaching to the choir, here. But every once in a while, I read comments from people who just don't get holidays and avoid them completely. So here is my sales pitch about why every casual player should give each holiday a try.

Oh, Brewfest mount. How much you have taunted me over the ages. I still recall last Brewfest, when a guildy of mine was quite distraught that he was not going to get the mount before the festival ended, only to get it on his very last Direbrew kill (and remember, we used to kill that sad dwarf five times a day). I've never gotten one myself, but that may change this upcoming Brewfest.

Bornakk has just announced that "there is quite a possibility that a change is in the works" for how the mount is acquired, and that "it will most likely be easier to get." A return to a token-based system, perhaps? Just a higher drop rate? A reward for the meta-achievement? I don't know, but we'll be sure to report as soon as we find out.

The token based system might be unlikely, actually, since earlier in the thread he said "I doubt we will make them purchasable with tokens, if we want to make changes to this we will likely go a different route" (comma splice!). How do you think they're going to make the mount easier?

Larisa's got a good rant about something I've considered before in a slightly different context: players aren't very good at anticipating how temporary game changes will work out. We, as a group (not individually necessarily), are quite quick to judgment when we see changes to the game, and the word Larisa uses is "conservatism" -- she notes the examples of the reaction to the zombie outbreak and the Children's Week batleground issues, and says that players "tossed the gift away, like spoiled kids." We (again, in general, not you specifically) have a very short view of how temporary changes will affect the game, lambast Blizzard for changing what didn't need to be changed, and very often, when the dust settles and the zombies are gone or the event is over, we realize that it wasn't so bad after all.

She's not talking about class changes here -- those are more permanent changes that affect the basic rules of the game. But specifically with temporary events (I'd even throw the Brewfest controversies, and the Headless Horseman complaints in the mix), players sometimes have reactions that are way out of proportion to the events themselves. These holidays and world events are temporary: shouldn't we just enjoy them while we can?

It's definitely a valid point, and something to remember for the next time a temporary event throws off your usual routine in-game. The fact is that we players are spoiled -- Blizzard generally does a great job keeping this game fun, and so when even a little issue sneaks into the game during a temporary event. But Larisa promises that next time she gets shaken up by a temporary change, she'll give it another chance. Sounds like a great idea to me.

Crygil wants to know: if you could design a new holiday for the game, what would it be? I don't think I've ever heard the question asked before -- holidays are really just optional fun for more players, and Blizzard has always covered the basics (Christmas, New Year's, Thanksgiving, Halloween, etc.), and even added in some of their own by giving real-world holidays some Azerothian flavor (Midsummer Fire Festival, and of course Brewfest). Are there really any holidays they missed?

I guess Labor Day and Memorial Day are the two biggest ones -- maybe all of the NPCs could take a day off, there could be giant barbeques set up in the capital cities, or players could take a day to remember those fallen in the past wars. Or you could go another route and just make up your own holiday: Grumpyfool of Azjol-Nerub recommends Gnome Appreciation Week (a whole week?), where Azeroth's shortest denizens can get some love of their own. A more recently based holiday might be fun, too -- maybe once a year we could remember Arthas' (it was Arthas, right?) zombie attack on our homeland.

I doubt this is going to be used to determine actual Blizzard policy. Seems more like just a fun thought experiment. But there are definitely some interesting ideas in there -- if Blizzard ever wants to add yet another holiday to the calendar, there are plenty of ideas.

It's a new month and the new brew is here! May's Brew of the Month is a very simple Springtime Stout with a familiar side effect. When you drink one of your drinks, you have a chance to proc the buff called 'Flower Child.' The buff only lasts ten seconds or so, and as you run around with the buff, flowers pop up underfoot. Herbalists, you've seen something like this before.

I try to give little factoids on the real life brews some of these are named after (such as the fact that Pilsners shouldn't exist in Azeroth), but stouts aren't very exotic, overall! A stout is a very dark, very strong sort of ale, and seems just like the sort of thing Dwarves would be mailing out regularly. I don't know about that whole 'flower child' thing, though. Seems more like something Night Elves would do to their ale.

EDIT: Bornakk says that the achievement will be replaced in the meta achievement with one that requires you to simply sign up for the Brew of the Month Club. And for those who doubted my psychic powers: Noblegarden achievements are being added to Long, Strange Trip.

Following the pattern of removing achievements that take a while to complete from the holiday meta-achievements, Blizzard yanked Brew of the Year from Brewmaster on the current 3.1 PTR. This means that anyone who was missing it now has yet another fair shake at getting their Violet Proto-Drake for completing all of the other holiday achievements for What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been.

I'm pleased that players who missed that one achievement can still have a shot at the big prize, but man, there seems to be an awful lot of meta-achievement caving lately. It just creates the impression that complaining about something will get it changed, and I don't think that's what Blizzard wants players to believe.

To be fair, it was physically impossible for Death Knights to get this achievement until sometime in 2010. This is a good change for them and I'm okay with that. And no, I'm not against Blizzard removing unfair achievements from reward-bearing metas. This was also the only achievement which was impossible to complete during the event itself.

We'll see if the pattern holds after people miss another impossible-to-miss achievement in the Noblegarden set.

Grats to those for whom this achievement change will make a difference, and early props for your purple dragon.

Elizabeth's wishes have been answered -- in-game Easter holiday Noblegarden has been extended to a full week according to the calendar on the PTR. That's six more days to run around getting eggs, not to mention doing all of the new Noblegarden achievements being included in the holiday. In the past, Noblegarden hasn't meant that much to players -- the rewards were never that great, and the fact that it was on only one day (a day usually reserved by most celebrating for family dinners away from the game) made it much less active than it could have been. But Blizzard has revamped the holiday, apparently, so be on the lookout for some eggs and bunnies starting on Sunday, April 12th.

One quick note for those of you worried about your Violet Proto-drakes: apparently still none of the Nobelgarden quests are included in the meta achievement. So there won't be any Bags of Candy or monthly Brews to get -- just enjoy the festivities.

And we'll give a shout-out to Kisirani here as well -- since she took over World Events on the Blizzard team, we've seen some great changes. Despite the issues with the Zombie launch event for Wrath, it was still a ton of fun, and we're pretty sure that she and her team also been behind the popular Brewfest and Hallow's End holidays as well. Excellent work -- we can't wait to see what the new Noblegarden is like.

ashenmonuments spotted yet another undocumented change that will help you achievement hounds. Apparently Blizzard has updated the Veteran Nanny achievement from Children's Week to include pets you've already learned. So it won't actually take you three years to earn the achievement (since you can only get one pet per year). Any pets you have already should now count towards getting the points.

Unfortunately, this won't help the Violet Proto-Drake seekers, because the Veteran Nanny achievement got removed in 2.4.3 as part of the Children's Week meta-achievements (probably because Blizzard noted that it took so long to get done). And even if it did count, you'll still need the Brewfest achievements... which you'll have to wait until this October to get (since Blizzard dropped the achievements patch after Brewfest ended last year). But Children's Week enthusiasts who have already collected pets in the past will have a little less work to do to pick up the Veteran Nanny achievement.

This month's Brew of the Month is actually pretty cool, which is a nice change from the slight disappointments of the last couple of months. Sure, last month's brew had a great griefability factor, but getting Ice Blocked is pretty boring!

Move over, BigRedKitty. For January, BigRedPriestess is the new hotness with Wild Winter Pilsner. When you take a swig of the brew, you will sometimes get a buff: The Beast Within. It doesn't have the crazy powerful effect of the actual Hunter ability, but it does turn you big and red, and the buff lasts 5 minutes. When the buff wears off (or you click it off yourself), you'll Unleash the Beast. You roar, and give everyone's screen a little shake. Yes, everyone nearby, not just your screen.

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Hitting level 30 is a major milestone in today's World of Warcraft: the level at which you get your mount. Up to this point, you've spent plenty of time hoofing it, getting to know the lay of the land. On the back of your trusty steed, you'll be able to zip across increasingly larger zones and quest areas in style. You'll start off on a standard ground mount, such as a Horse, Wolf or Kodo. Later, you can upgrade to faster versions of those creatures and eventually to mounts that can fly (in Burning Crusade and Wrath content).

Mounts used to become available at level 40. Now that the game extends to level 80 and early character progression has been sped up, you get to speed up at an earlier level, too.

It's November 1st, the start of a new month, which means all of WoW's monthly events and quests have turned over. This includes the Brew of the Month club from Brewfest, and this month's brew is Bartlett's Bitter Brew.

After September's Binary Brew and October's Acorn Ale, this month is a little underwhelming. Drinking a bottle of Bitter Brew gives you a debuff called Nauseous. Once the debuff has run its course (or you click it off) your character will spew, and you get the Girded Gut debuff, preventing further barf for 60 seconds. Oh, and you can barf on other people. Um... gross. I think I prefer the squirrels.

At least drinking the Brew of the Month still gives you Empty Brew Bottles to smash over your friends' heads. I think that alone was worth the price of subscription.

The Feast of Winter Veil is nice and Brewfest is fun (though a disappointment over last year's), but my favorite holiday this year in Azeroth is Hallow's End. The Midsummer Fire Festival is a close second, mind you. It was fun and profitable. But Hallow's End has better lore and better accessories.

Sure, I love my dancing flames chickie, but my Rickety Magic Broom is the best thing ever -- and it's only temporary. The masks, the candy, the pumpkin heads -- it's just fun.

Apparently that 200 tokens I spent on the Brew of the Month club was well spent -- I got my second Brew in the mail this week, and it's a good one. Autumnal Acorn Ale is not only tasty, but it'll make you smell like Autumn Acorns, too. Drinking it will get you drunk and call Woodland Squirrels up to show you a little critter love (or hate). I sipped it for the first time last night during a Slave Pens run, and at one point I had three cute little squirrels showing their affection. Apparently they'll also throw acorns at you, though I missed that in the chaos of the instance last night.

Plus, it's an unlimited use item after 3.0.2 (14 day duration, though BotM members can buy more in Ironforge), which means you get as much alcohol as you want, and every time you drink one, you get an "empty brew bottle" to throw with a glassbreak bang. Very fun.

If you didn't round up enough tokens to become a BotM member, you're unfortunately out of luck -- I originally thought you could buy the brews in Ironforge even if you weren't subscribed, but no dice, and the brews you get sent are soulbound. You'll have to wait until next Brewfest to sign up for your monthly beer. Can't wait to see what shows up next month!

A lot of folks found the article on planning for the Brewmaster title helpful, so we thought we'd put one together for the upcoming Hallow's End holiday as well. Getting all of the sub-Achievements for the Hallowed Be Thy Name Achievement will reward the title "The Hallowed," but frankly I think this one is going to be a little tougher than the Brewfest one. As with Brewfest, part of the Achievement is going to depend on getting very lucky with a drop, but it's also going to depend on getting lucky with a few other things.

This, however, is going to be the first holiday after patch 3.02 hits with the Achievement system firmly in place, so you'll be able to track Achievements ingame for the first time (by the way, "Y" is the default hotkey for pulling up your Achievement screen).

Even if you're not interested in the Achievement, you have another reason to participate, at least for the Headless Horseman kills: we're pretty sure his loot table's been updated and expanded, and you'll have a chance at a permanent mount drop (his horse, not the temporary broomsticks from last year).

But if you want to be (Your Name Here) The Hallowed?