Posts with tag lunar-festival

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The Lunar Festival started this past Sunday and will be running until March 7th -- but there's no reason not to start on this one right now if you're after achievements, reputation, or have simply run out of other grinds. (Really, I mean "grind" in the nicest way possible here -- but there are a heck of a lot of elders to visit if you're trying to get your achievements.) But if you're interested in getting involved, we've rounded up all the web has to say about the Lunar Festival.

• Start at the source with Blizzard's official Lunar New Years information
• In case you missed it, we have our own write-up of elders and achievements
• Check out WoWWiki's event write-up as well as their list of elder locations
• Wowhead has a guide as well as a comprehensive list of achievements
• Flame Shock wrote up a guide and recommends the Lunar Festival Tour Guide addon for your elder-finding needs
• Letters from Birdfall has some great tips on elder locations inside dungeons
• The Fluid Druid offers some practical advice on what you're likely to encounter in this year's festival -- for my part, I keep getting stuck on the "get lost trying to find elder" stage

The Lunar Festival is upon us once again today, and this year the real world inspiration for the in-game event coincidentally falls on the same day as Valentine's Day, which Love is in the Air is based upon (Happy Valentine's Day and Happy Chinese New Year to all, by the way). It's a funny little twist that has most of our metro's best restaurants booked today. We also joke that the only folks who won't be wearing red would be the loveless non-Chinese. This year, the Year of the Tiger, is also going to be pretty special to me and my wife because our second daughter is due in April, so we're about to welcome a tiger in the family.

Blizzard will be ushering in new babies this year, too -- two, in fact. StarCraft 2 and Cataclysm are scheduled to come out in 2010. Overall, I think it's going to be pretty exciting. We can also consider this another fresh start, and folks who missed out on completing the whole Long Strange Strip last year can start completing it again this year. What are your plans for the Lunar Festival? I personally think it's one of the coolest in-game holidays and I usually amass enough stacks of Festival Dumplings to open up my own dimsum bar by the time it ends. Are there any achievements you still need? Any elders you still need to visit? Allison's written up an excellent guide to help you complete anything you might have missed.

I personally love going around Azeroth to visit all the elders because I enjoy receiving those red envelopes in the mail. Sure, it'll contain some some shiny stone or a bunch of fireworks, but it still reminds me of the real thing. A little later tonight we'll all be lining up in front of our A Ma to get similar red envelopes which contain, well, gold IRL. It's pretty cool. The year is shaping up really well, and I hope everyone else is having a ferocious, tiger-like start to their 2010, too. A lot of things to look forward to, a lot of things to be thankful for. How about you? Anything you're looking forward to or wish to be thankful for in the Year of the Tiger, whether in-game or out?

The Lunar Festival runs this year from Sunday, Feburary 14th at 9:00 am server time through Sunday, March 7th at 9:00 am server time. That's right, folks; you've got three weeks to get everything done. The basics of the holiday involve talking to a number of Elders to honor them, receiving Coins of Ancestry in return, and then using the Coins to purchase fun holiday items. The To Honor One's Elders meta-achievement is also a requirement for What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been. In general, this is not a difficult holiday, but it is time-consuming; you'll need to hunt down a lot of NPCs. Because of the mileage you'll rack up doing this, it'd be a good time to do World Explorer if you haven't already done that, or pick up flight paths that a character doesn't yet have.

We've updated and expanded our 2010 guide to include exact coordinates for every Elder in the game, and I've also arranged them in what I hope to be the most straightforward way to reach them all. Let's get started.

Earlier this week, the World of Warcraft community sites (multi-regional) updated with a gallery from WoW China. Chinese WoW players participated in an event called, "I Love World of Warcraft, I Love Spring Festival" that combined a passion for WoW with the Lunar New Year celebrations. Chinese players submitted pictures of themselves that incorporated both of these things and the community picked their favorites.

This is, by far, one of my favorite galleries that any of the official community teams has ever done. As a blogger here on WoW Insider, I see every day just how much community has been built up around this game, and I know very well that there are faces behind the characters. I've met many of my guildmates in person, and I hear similar stories every single day through WoW Insider's tipline. I love seeing the faces behind the characters, and that is exactly what this gallery does. Sure, they posed for these things and they're not exactly candid, but it still shows that the game is very personal.

We're all players, but we're also people. I much prefer galleries that display that, rather than yet another mount gallery. Mount galleries are cool and all, I just like this better. Go on, check it out!

Love is almost in the air, but the Lunar Festival isn't over yet. Have you gotten your Elder title yet? The Lunar Festival is technically the first world event of the year, although I'm pretty sure some of you already have your Hallowed and Merrymaker titles. Some of us got a head start on this latest event, like myself. I found out I'd completed the continents when I did them last year, when I hoarded Festival Dumplings. This made it considerably easier for me to complete this Achievement.

Don't forget that the event is about to end, so if you plan on going after that nice mount, you're going to have to complete this Achievement because at 6am server time this Thursday. I always wished that the Outlands had this, too, but I guess alien continents don't celebrate Chinese New Year the Lunar Fesitval. Have you completed the Achievement? Did you even bother? Some of you probably even finished it on multiple characters. Anything interesting happen this year? What did you buy with your coins? I certainly had fun getting the Elders of the Alliance. I'm sure Alliance characters had fun doing Elders of the Horde, too, even if only to visit Thunder Bluff's newest elder. Let's bid the Lunar Festival a fond farewell with our experiences thus far.

As I'm sure you all have heard by now, one of our favorite comics, Flintlocke vs the Horde, is slated to be set aside. Its creator, Dave "Fargo" Kosak, landed a shiny new job at Blizzard helping to give the game we all love some extra oomph. Fortunately, the storyline won't just be dropped, and you can expect it to wind up sometime in April.

In response to reader Keyra's thoughts on last week's Ding! comic, I would like to offer my own. I would have to bet that almost every single person who has played WoW for any length of time at all does ponder why none of their farmers seem to have skulls, or why you can't get enough blood out of a giant monster to fill even one vial.

We've all joked about it too. I mean gee, if only I could learn to rip off Troll ears without dismembering them into tiny chunks, I'd be in business. The lame jokes crop up on almost every quest with a poor drop rate, and I don't personally feel that the comic took it any further than I ever have, or any of my uninspired friends (no offense guys). It isn't that there isn't a humorous element to it, but that it's been done better in-game while roaming around by ourselves.

I'm thrilled that you liked it, I just wanted to explain why so many of us are bucking it, other than that we miss the old stuff.

Enough rambling, here are the comics:

• Cru the Dwarf: Deserous had better watch out, because someone intends to exact revenge. I don't blame him either, what Deserous did was mean. /sniffles.
• Speaking of sad stories, maybe you ungrateful masses should start treating your Elders better. Dark Legacy Comics knows how they feel.
• Experience Points knows what some of you really pray about (please don't send me hatemail, because I don't know what you pray about. It was all a gimmick to work this comic into a sentence when I haven't had my coffee yet). They also know that not all dogs make good anti-burlar hunter pets.
• Flintlocke and his overzealous ladyfriend are suddenly in a hurry to flee the scene.
• GU Comics: Lucky Red Envelopes. Now this orc isn't as respectful of his elders. Think of the poor elders!
• Shakes and Fidget learn that Two is Better than One (or well, maybe not).
• Check out the latest from LFG.
• Manic Graffiti: Noobcow and Monster Anatomy 101.
• NoObz: Laaag. Coincidentally, if you scroll down to the blurb beneath the comic, there's yet another confirmation that no one listens to their elders.
• I was afraid to look. This week's Ding! is definitely an improvement of sorts. The story is funnier, although not really in the comic format. Maybe if it had been told by a talented comedic writer, or as entertainment on a Podcast? I'd even take it as a guildie tale over Vent in between pulls. Still, I suppose I like pictures of people with their mouths open to show that they are indeed talking.
• Teh Gladiators: The Ten Storms. I love the artwork in this one!
• By saying this, I will totally ruin any of the funny in the note from the author beneath the comic strip, but I totally choked on my water when I read the first part of the second paragraph. In all seriousness though, I'm one of this comic's biggest fans, so you totally have a following. The Adventures of Disgraph T. Dwarf: Lunar LoLs.
• There is less beaver in the latest artwork from World of Warcraft, eh? than there was the comic before, but it is definitely the sexy we were all promised. Go girl power and however you say that nowadays.

Lunar Festival has been ongoing for awhile now, and still has about a week left. It's one of the longer holidays in Azeroth, so there's ample time to complete all of your achievements or just experience the seasonal content. Despite that... well, I haven't done any of it yet. All the time in the world, and I'll probably be running around trying to get it done the night before everything disappears until next year, just for completion's sake.

Achievements are all fine and good, but I'm having a hard time getting up and doing things with this holiday. It's unusual, because it was one of the first holidays that I was genuinely interested in back when they implemented it. It was fun hunting down all of the coins and getting the cool clothes and vanity items, but now? Not really diggin' it. Sure, the first time was fun, but the holiday hasn't really changed since then. There are some new Elders in Northrend, but that doesn't really count, does it?

How is the holiday going for all of you guys, though? I suspect some of you are in the same spot as me, but I know a lot of people are super excited about doing all of it as well. Have you finished your achievements? Working on them slow and steady? Not going to bother?

There's always something going on in the World of Warcraft, and the month of February is no exception. We've got the Lunar Festival in full swing, Love is in the Air on the horizon, and a Chris Metzen signing out in New York.

Take a look after the break for our complete rundown of all the February events. And remember to check your in-game calendar to see what times these events begin on your sever, and then compensate for the time zone you live in.

Of course throughout all this month we'll keep you abreast on the latest news!

Wacky times on the podcast this past week -- along with BRK and Turpster, we were able to welcome our good friends Shawn Coons and Patrick Beja of the How I WoW podcast. They talked with us about themselves, including Shawn's recent move, and Patrick's ongoing campaign to get his parents to play videogames, and we talked a whole lot of World of Warcraft, too. We answered emails about the correct pronounciation of "Fah-jord", how Blizzard can get more players on the PTR, and what to do to get into a good guild, and during the show we broke down the latest bugfix patch, talked about the Lunar Festival (and why we weren't interested in it), a little bit about group management and how best to do it, and we ran down exactly how we WoW, too.

Also, we've got some great fan audio in the show as well -- an excellent intro, and perhaps the best thing we've ever played on the song ever: a "Meat of the Show" intro by listener Sammy T. Seriously, give this thing a listen -- we played part of it during the show, but you can hear the whole thing afterwards, and it's great. If you'd like to send us an intro or just a note about something you've heard on the show or want us to answer, the email address is theshow@wow.com -- just drop an mp3 attachment in there or speak your mind, and you might hear it on next week's show.

Remember, we do this live every Saturday at 3:30pm Eastern over on the Ustream page, so if you're around next Saturday, be sure to stop by and say hi. We'll see you next week -- enjoy the show.

Get the podcast:
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[Ustream] Listen to the unedited recording in Ustream.
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Listen here on the page:

Leveling, questing, PvPing, raiding, Lunar Festival achievements... that's what the WoW Insider team is doing this weekend: a little bit of everything. And if you aren't up to anything Saturday afternoon, you could join us for some fun with our guild, It Came from the Blog, on Zangarmarsh (US), Horde-side, to hang out, collect some festival coins, and chat. But some of us, apparently, have been skipping Wrathgate, a quest-chain which is without question one of the most impressive in the game. Why would anyone do that to themselves?

Michael Gray explains it for us: Fishing up Old Crafty, so I can complete my Warthgate quest series. I really want to finish levelling my Paladin, but Old Crafty mocks me. In my sleep. In nightmares. Like some drooling, fanged monster.

And apparently Michael isn't the only one. Daniel chimed in to say "I leveled from 1 to 270 fishing in Instance Ogrimmar before finally giving up and finishing Wrathgate. Then I came back later and got Crafty on the second cast. Old Ironjaw in Ironforge still eludes me though." But, sadly, not all of us thought up this strategy in advance. Matt Rossi joined in with, "Wait, you're not finishing Wrathgate so you can go to the Org that's phased for Martial Law? Sneaky, I like it."

For the rest of the team -- and to add your own thoughts on skipping Wrathgate -- read on!

Reader comments – ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.

(Baby) Spice, spice, baby Readers seem to have cooked up a satisfying solution to the problem of thoughtless creeps who park their mounts atop summoning stones, flight masters and other necessities, blocking them from use. "LOL, whenever I see a giant Tauren on his Humongous Impressive War Mammoth parked on the Dalaran flight master, it's Baby Spice to the rescue," giggles Euphronius. "Nothing more hilarious than seeing him reduced to the size of a Great Dane." Woof.

Did you know that WoW Insider has a guild? It is an event-oriented, excruciatingly casual guild called It Came from the Blog and it resides on Zangarmarsh, US, Horde-side. . We haven't done anything since Hallow's End, but it's time to dust off the cobwebs and go visit some Elders.

That's right, this Saturday, ICftB will be celebrating the Lunar Festival by honoring our Elders and collecting Ancient Coins. Here are the details:

• When: Saturday, January 31st, 6PM Eastern (3PM Pacific, 4PM Server time)
• Where: Bank in Orgrimmar on Zangarmarsh, U.S.
• Who: Any Horde character with at least 3 silver and not in the service of the Lich King. (Death Knights are fine as long as they have finished their initial quests and have been accepted by Thrall.)
• How: Just send a tell to Robiness or any It Came from the Blog member to get an invite to the raid and the guild

Last weekend's podcast was an excellent one: Turpster and BRK were on with me, and we had a great time chatting with chatters, answering your emails, and covering the most popular posts of the past week. We answered some emails about the best Rogue spec to choose at level 35, the People in Chicago who Drink and WoW group (and don't forget to join the official WoW Insider page), and we talked about the 3.0.8 bugs and what's up with the Lunar Festival, going on all this week.

And we have a great time throughout. Don't forget that we do the show live every Saturday afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern, so if you're around next Saturday, be sure to join us for the live show (and when you do, you get a free aftershow with us at no extra charge). In the meantime, you can hear this past week's show by clicking any of the links below, and listening in on the media of your choice. If you have any comments or questions or want to send us an intro to play, drop us a note at theshow@wow.com.

Thanks for listening as always, have a great week. Oh, and I almost forgot. Listener Traenall made this video after hearing Turpster's plans for gaining rep from the Timbermaw this week. Very funny.

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

Listen here on the page:

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.

When I did my recap for last year, I listed events as the 4th top casual improvement for 2008. Some commenters didn't understand why events are good for casual players. I think that most of the in-game holidays are, in fact, great opportunities for casuals to enhance their characters and see the world. The Lunar Festival is a very useful event, particularly if you are an altaholic, like me. Following are some tips for getting the most out of the Lunar Festival.