Posts with tag childrens-week

We had a terrific time (as always) on the live podcast last Saturday afternoon, as Zach Yonzon, Mike "Belfaire" Sacco, and Turpster and I sat down to talk about the most popular stories in the World of Warcraft. Of course patch 3.2 was at the forefront of our minds, and we chatted about what each of us was most interested in, from the new BG to the 5-man Trial instance. And we got a little bit of discussion in about the various classes and roles they play in instances.

Of course we answered your emails as well -- we talked with Michael Sacco about the "Additional instances can't be launched" issue that's going around (that I got hit with for the first time yesterday, actually), and a reader emailed us about BRK's gun -- so awesome to see our friend get recognized, and deservedly so. It was an excellent show, in my humble opinion, and a great way to squeeze a week's worth of WoW news into just one hour.

This week, the podcast will be at a special time -- we'll be going live on Thursday at 1pm Eastern. That's a little earlier than we usually do it, but it should give our friends overseas a chance to tune in when they might not have been able to before (and if you can't make it live, don't worry, the recording will be in iTunes soon after). See you then!

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If you've been hiding under a rock these past few months (and who doesn't do that every now and then, really?) you might have only just noticed that Patch 3.2 recently went live. For some of you, it's as good an excuse as any to log back into the game while for others, it might've been a surprise to find yourself suddenly downloading upwards of 300Mb of content. If you fall under the category of surprised, lost, or surprised and lost, have no fear! WoW.com is here to hold your hand and guide you through the wild and wacky wonders of the Call of the Crusade. Let's take a look at what the latest patch holds for you - and there's something for you no matter what kind of player you are - after the jump.

One of the small blessings of patch 3.2 is the brief addendum to Children's Week. You'll recieve a note in the mail (if you're of the appropriate level to recieve such mail) to go help the orphans of Northrend.

Note: While this guide is obviously focused on Roo the Oracle, if you choose to help out Kekek the Wolvar, it will still work. It just means you'll get a taste of the Wolvar flavor instead of the Oracle speech.

After you've gotten the announcement in the mail that you need to talk to the Orphan Matron of Dalaran, you simply walk to her and turn in the quest. You can find her near the Eventide. Be sure to talk to her again, as that satisfies the requirements to get your little orphan Roo.

The remaining quests all come from little Roo. He simply gives you three quests to visit three locations. Like the previous Orphan quests, little interactions at each location will help you understand your orphan's life a little better. (My beloved Draenei fiancee spent about the whole time 'dead from cute!')

-- Playmates!: No, not like that. Your Oracle Orphan wants to visit Winterfin Retreat, where he heard some brave chap rescued a bunch of murloc tadpoles. As soon as you get there (at location 43, 13), a baby murloc will run up to your Oracle. And they'll play together! Be sure to pay attention to the interaction between Roo and his new murloc friend, because oh my god it's cute.

-- The Bronze Dragonshrine: Roo is familiar with the "great rain stone" back home in Sholazar Basin. So, like any good, curious orphan, he wants to go check out the draconic equivalent. He'll get a glimpse of the future, when you see High Oracle Soo-roo come bounding up to you!

-- The Biggest Tree Ever!: Soo-say has told Roo the tale of Grizzlemaw, the Biggest Tree Ever! C'mon now, if you heard there was a "biggest tree ever," wouldn't you want to see it? (You can get the turn in at 51, 42)

Once you've completed these three simple steps (I started at Winterfin, then did Dragonshine, then jumped over to Grizzlemaw), you'll get two more quests.

-- Meeting a Great One: Remember the Etymidian? Return to it, so that Roo can meet the Great One. You'll need to go through the waygate portal in southern Sholazar, which is located at 40, 82.

-- The Dragon Queen: Roo's so much fun, you need to share the love. Take him back around to the Wyrmrest Temple so that he can meet Alexstrasza. I was never so big a fan of the Dragon Queen as I was when she showed some affection to my mini-Gorloc buddy.

After you've knocked these two quests off, there's one more place to go. You're carting around an orphan child. If you were a kid, with a big brother or sister, where would you want to go? The toystore!

-- A Trip to the Wonderworks: In case you've never been there because you're roleplaying a dour, un-fun Death Knight, the Wonderworks toy store is found in the north-west of Dalaran. For the quest, buy a special Small Paper Zepplin, which you throw to your orphan. Don't worry, he shares. Roo will immediately throw it back to you.

After that, you get a quest to return little Orphan Roo to the Orphan Matron.

If there is anything but a dark, cold, dead lump of coal serving as your heart, you will immediately start missing your orphan buddy. No fear! Check your mail.

Roo totally mailed himself to you, and is ready to adventure in Azeroth with you as your non-combat companion. It's a little creepy that he went through the Azeroth Postal Service, sure, but now you never have to be without him. As a warning, it does sometimes take a few moments for the mail containing your little buddy to show up.

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Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!

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Over the course of the Patch 3.2 PTR's lifetime, the WoW.com team probably spent a rather unhealthy amount of time there. Sure, it makes us wonder what the heck is wrong with us, but it pays off for you guys. You've seen the fruits of our labor pretty much all day long, and will continue to. That said, there are a lot of simple things that we haven't put in front of you guys since we originally discussed them. Primarily, our image galleries.

Embedded below are almost all of the galleries we put together for Patch 3.2. Tier set stats, the Isle of Conquest, Children's Week quests, the new Heirlooms, badge gear, and more. Please note, however, that the screenshots were taken on the PTR, so any of the stats you see in the pictures may differ slightly from what went live. Only slightly, however. Enjoy, and don't forget to click through the cut below for the rest of the galleries.

We can't believe it either – Turpster has been let loose on WoW.com to bring you videos from in and around the World of Warcraft! You've heard him on the WoW Insider Show, and now see him on TurpsterVision right here on WoW.com.

First up a bit of housekeeping; thanks to all of you who took part in last week's contest -- over 500 of you! A winner has been chosen via the highly technical method of a /random in-game roll. Sorry to the others of you who didn't win this time, but who knows, maybe in the future we'll have another giveaway on TurpsterVision!

This week we take a trip on the PTR and experience the new Northrend Children's Week, doing the impossible and completing both sides of the event to show you what is on offer. Lesley Smith posted about the event before and we even put up a handy gallery if you would like to take a closer look at some of the quest text.

Bornakk hinted about this awhile back and we knew what the reward pets were going to be but when this years Children's Week came and went with no new content, a lot of players were a tad disappointed. Well now that the PTR is up in order to test patch 3.2, testers can find the Northrend incarnation of Children's Week in full swing and that means lots of shiny new quests.

The new quests see you taking around a Wolvar orphan named Kekek or little Roo of the Oracles to meet certain famous people or visit various landmarks in Northend like Wrymrest Temple, Vordrassil, Dalaran and the Bronze Dragonshrine.

You then have to take them to a toy shop in Dalaran and buy them each a gift. If you've ever done the classic or Outland Children's Week quests then you'll know the drill and it still looks like a lot of fun. Check out our gallery below to find out more about what the quests involve.

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Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!

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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.

So, Children's Week came and went, and for the most part I think it went by largely unnoticed. Aside from the first few days where Battlegrounds were overrun with orphans -- a truly disturbing thought if you stop to think about it -- most people pretty much completed the Children's Week meta-Achievement on the first day. In theory, this was one of those holidays that had the potential to screw players over with Daily Chores, which required players to complete a daily quest every day for five consecutive days. That would've meant that anyone unable to log on for 24 hours would have to wait until the next year to complete the Achievement. Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly), the Achievement bugged out and players were able to complete it in one day.

Admittedly, as much as I disliked the design principle of the School of Hard Knocks -- I still think it didn't give a good impression of the Battlegrounds to new players -- a lot of people got the Achievement within a day or two. By mid-week, it was back to normal again. Which meant that in my Battlegroup, Horde weren't playing Alterac Valley again. If there was anything good about the School of Hard Knocks, virtually every Battleground started with even numbers every time. Never mind that most of them were recklessly endangering their wards and couldn't care less about winning, but even numbers are always a good start!

Anyway, how did Children's Week go for you guys? Did you get everything you wanted? Pets? Items? Did you complete the Achievement? Was it difficult, easy, or not even worth bothering with? Share your thoughts on what is arguably the most lackluster yearly event yet. I mean, where were the orphans in Northrend? Surely it wouldn't have been too hard to make quests for little Wolvar or maybe Frenzyheart and Oracle children, would it? Maybe next year?

Time is running out on our friend Brigwyn's Children's Week auction to benefit the Child's Play charity. Most of the auctions have about a day left on them, and while Brigwyn has already met a few goals, and some of the auction pieces have reached some very nice bids (Cadistra's WoW Eh? print is bringing in some great money for the kids, and our own guest host spot on the podcast is doing better than I ever expected), there's still a ton of great stuff to bid on. You can still pick up an official BRK t-shirt for pretty cheap, and the infamous autographed Hooter's shirt still hasn't been bid on yet. Surely someone wants that, right? Tell you what -- if you buy the Hooter's shirt and wear it to BlizzCon, we'll have everyone there from the WoW Insider staff sign it for you as well. Now that is a prize you can't pass up!

Huge thanks to everyone who's bid so far, and of course to Brigwyn for putting all of this together (if you haven't read why he's personally involved in this yet, please do). There's just over a day left, so make sure to get your bids in ASAP, and help get some kids in hospitals some videogames of their own to play while there.

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

The last few editions of The Queue had a lot about tanking, and deciding which Heroic is the best Heroic to tank your first time around. Adam said Utgarde Pinnacle was a good training ground, and his opinion was thoroughly stomped upon for being wrong. I have to say, though... Utgarde Pinnacle was my first Wrath heroic as a tank and it worked pretty well. I did a lot of tanking in The Burning Crusade so maybe I'm a little different since I already knew what I was doing, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it's made out to be. Mobs in Utgarde Pinnacle hit really hard, and it taught me to get back into the habit of using my cooldowns properly and not relying completely on my healer to keep me standing.

I won't say Adam was right, but I also won't say he was wrong. Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle and Heroic CoT: Stratholme are the two dungeons that taught me the most about tanking. Teaching myself to remember to use my own cooldowns and mitigation abilities, learning how to pace a group and keep them moving, relearning how to handle different types of mobs. They were a challenge, oh yes, but that's why I learned so much from them. Easier heroics like Violet Hold didn't teach me to do much because you basically nap through the thing. Then again, I am sort of a 'trial by fire' kind of guy. I need to die a few times to figure out whether I'm capable of something or not.

CallMeIrd asked..

"Are they going to change or remove the School of Hard Knocks achievements? It's pretty much impossible for a lot of players to achieve."

There's some fun to be had out there with everyone's new Patron and Matron titles. And by fun I clearly mean instituting a level of confusion and raised eyebrows that only a transformative romp through the wilds of Storms Peaks can give you.

First, you want to get your title from Children's Week. And with the exception of School of Hard Knocks the title shouldn't be hard to get.

Secondly, display the title and fly out to Brunnhildar Village. You want to head towards the area where you change forms into a Hyldnir Frost Vrykul. You know, the big blue women.

As you form goes "poof," so will your title. If you were a man and are now a woman, you gain the Matron title. Don't you feel special now? Of course as soon as you fly out from the area and shapeshift automagically back to your original form, your title will change back as well.

There are reports in which people have experienced similar behavior being sheeped in PvP. Apparently all sheep are male? Who knows...

Have fun with this, but not too much fun.

I'm not in a WoW place right now. I tend to move through phases of being a casual or a hardcore player. It depends on the content available (such as a new patch) and my workload. I did most of the Noblegarden achievements but now Children's Week is here I suddenly feel burnt out. Except for a quick romp through Gun'drak with my guildies last night and a pit stop to pick up my orphans, I've been strangely distant from Azeroth.

The thing is, I know precisely why. It's the pressure of achievements and festivals. Let me be clear, no one is making me do these things but me. Last year I enjoyed Children's Week because it was my first time doing the Outland version, I got rep, money and the smug feeling you get from taking a cute Draenei orphan around to see her heritage. Now all my guildies and most of the other people on my sever are frantically going for the achievements and, in some ways, it feels like the holiday has been cheapened a little. Being so close to Noblegarden probably hasn't helped either.

But it makes me wonder if I'm the only one? Right now I'm a casual player, but do you think the point of these holidays has been lost by the desire to get a Violet Proto-Drake?

We here at WoW Insider are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

• Our sister site Massively asks, "What's in a name?"
• You have a few days left to get your Children's Week achievements taken care of, and Herding Cats has a few tips for everyone's bane: School of Hard Knocks.
• Less QQ, More Pewpew has continued their Ulduar video series with their latest addition, Mimiron. You can watch it at the top of this post, or over on their site!
• World of Matticus's Lodur takes a very close look at the transition into becoming a raid leader.

Here's our podcast from last week -- Lesley Smith joined Turpster, Patrick Beja of How I WoW and I to chat about the Martin Fury controversy, how Children's Week and Noblegarden are going on the live realms, and what we've been up to lately in the World of Warcraft. And as usual we answered your email, including sharing ideas for our upcoming video show (we're planning on doing it on May 23rd, so stay tuned for that), how to transfer away from a guild if you happen to be a guildleader, and both why Blizzard canceled WWI, and when BlizzCon tickets might go on sale.

We also talked about the ongoing Children's Week Charity Auction -- bidding has slowed down a bit over the weekend, so if you're interested in helping out kids in hospitals by donating some money to buy them videogames, go on over to the auction page and find something to bid on. All the money raised goes directly to Child's Play, so get your bids in now while you can.

And as we mentioned on the show, here's the schedule for the next few weeks: we'll have a show as usual next Saturday the 9th, and then we'll have a special midweek show on the 13th of May. And then on the 23rd, we'll be live on camera for the video show. Should be really interesting -- we'll see you then!

Get the podcast:
[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.
[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.
[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.

Listen here on the page:

It's Monday morning at eight o'clock in the ae-em. Do you know where your kids are?

Mine is safely wrapped up next to me sitting at the inn off the bank in Dalaran.

How's the whole Children's Week thing going for you? I've gotten all the achievements done with the exception of School of Hard Knocks. It seems that no matter what battleground I go in there is always someone willing to not play by the rules the rest of the team agreed to and jump in front of folks to get the achievements, or the battleground resemble what Jon Stewart might call a "cluster of fun to the flag."

I'm hopeful that this is just the behavior of less mature folks unable to follow rule #1, and that these things get better during the day time hours of WoW. Usually I find that the people who are on at eleven in the morning are more mature than the average player, and that means a better experience for myself and everyone.

The other interesting thing I've encountered is Home Alone stacking. Each time they'd use their Hearthstone, they'd get the achievement and the points again. When they logged off however the misbegotten points were gone. There was some talk briefly of having some fun with this and raising their achievement score to something ungodly like 10,000 points – but we figured they'd just be banned for exploitation (unlike some folks).

So how about it WoW Insiders? What's your little pipsqueak up to?