Posts with tag world-events

WARNING: This post is chock full of spoilers. Spoilers like you would not believe. If you'd like to be surprised about anything involving the Echo Isles and what is contained within, I wouldn't recommend continuing onward. If, however, you are clamoring for more information, read on!

There is a lot of great information about upcoming world events in the current patch 3.3.3 PTR. We've already posted about some of the story inside the Ruby Sanctum as well as what is being referred to as "Operation Gnomeregan". However, the trolls have their own operation underway in trying to take back the Echo Isles from the evil hex master Zalazane. There are lots and lots of spoilers about the quest line and the story behind it. Please note that this is just an assembly of transcripts from all of the sound files put in what appears to be a proper order.

Dere be some dark voodoo inside. Do ye have what it takes?

Whoosh. Well, that went by rather quickly, didn't it? Day of the Dead ends today. Two days is most certainly a short time for a World of Warcraft holiday, but fortunately, there was little to do. Just a visit to Catrina, buying a bread recipe, sharing it with some dead folks, and that's it. It didn't exactly go off without a hitch, either, as there were some known issues with the event. But everything was fixed, eventually, and the short event is now about to finish.

How did everyone find the short holiday? It mirrored the short holiday it was based on in the real world, and even similar holidays all over the world. In the Philippines, we got a non-working holiday for November 2, where most folks are off to the provinces visiting their dead. How did everyone's Day of the Dead go? Were you able to take a gander at the lovely dancing Catrina? Were you able to bake some (presumably stale) bread? What's your take on these short holidays? Personally, I think it's a nice touch. These blink-and-you'll-miss-it events similar to Pirate's Day are nice nods to our real world happenings. Hopefully, all of you got a chance to enjoy this new but brief world event.

• Concentrated Irresistible Cologne Spill
• Alluring Perfume
• Alluring Perfume Spray
• Cologne Immune
• Perfume Immune
• [ph] Exotic Cologne

Perfume and Cologne, as you may recall, are two of the main parts of the Love is in the Air Valentine's Day related world event, wherein players exchange tokens with NPCs for fabulous prizes. Given that we now have a set of spells coming up that put those two substances in the context of damaging abilities that can be protected against, it seems like Kisirani and the world event team are ready to deliver again, and we'll possibly have a very interesting new boss this coming February.

Unfortunately, we can't tell much else about it right now, although hopefully we may learn more as the PTR progresses and more data is found. It's worth noting that if the world event design team is creating a new level 80 boss for a February event, they may not be expecting Cataclysm to be out by then.

The Harvest Festival is kind of the garbage holiday. It's the holiday that all the cooler holidays like Hallow's End and Brewfest make fun of, trip along the hall, and ostracize in the cafeteria. Harvest Festival is the weird kid who doesn't have any friends, smells funny, and whom teachers forget when making a headcount on the school bus. As far as holidays go, it's kind of the nothing holiday. It's there, but nobody really knows what it's all about and very few people bother to participate. I mean, hey, feast table outside of Orgrimmar! Then what?

Then nothing! Well, you see all sorts of ghosts all over the place (which is creepy, but hey, it's almost Hallow's End, anyway), but there's really nothing that stands out. At least the ghosts from the Lunar Festival had those cool moonbeams. No, Harvest Festival is the half-baked holiday that doesn't even have an Achievement. Yep, it's so bad that even a one day event such as Pirates' Day trumps it with an Achievement, and was even cool enough for WoW.com to organize some shenanigans around it. No wonder nobody hangs around that smelly kid!

So today, on the beginning of Harvest Festival, let's dedicate a word or two to World of Warcraft's most unimpressive holiday. What are you planning to do? Without any Achievements, you can even ignore it! If you're Horde, there's that quest to visit Grom Hellscream's monument in Ashenvale, but his son Garrosh has been such an unbearable asshat that even that has lost its charm. Unless Blizzard plans to hotfix the event and dredge it from the murky depths of suck, here's a Breakfast Topic to welcome the holiday that's so uncool that even artwork of a Harvest Golem looks better. And man, Harvest Golems are ugly mothers.

Larisa over at the Pink Pigtail Inn misunderstood the news we posted the other day about the Darkmoon Faire live event in France being canceled, and instead thought that the actual ingame event had been shut down for good. And that brought up an interesting question to her: so what if it was? The original Faire was an interesting idea, a way to bring the fun of a regular holiday (along with the usual quests, special items, and even a reputation to grind) around every month or so. But just like having Christmas every month would get old after a while, the Faire has sort of worn out its welcome -- players really only go there for following some arcane questline, and when they do get there, they're undoubtedly disappointed by how barren the place is.

So what to do? Larisa suggests that the Cataclysm might just claim the whole thing -- Azeroth gets rocked, and no more Darkmoon Faire. I'd actually like to see the story go the other way: if there's a traveling group of performers with vast magical powers that's allowed to move at will between Horde and Alliance lands, wouldn't it be great if they were actually part of a secret society that had bigger interests rise to the top in a disaster situation? I'm sure Blizzard has more than enough on their plate for the next few content patches, but the Faire itself is due for an update, too, and it'd be nice to see it included in the larger storyline somehow.

Normally, this wouldn't rate too high for us -- lots of people have ideas about how to use World of Warcraft, and many of them never actually come about. But then again, this is in the Wall Street Journal of all places, so we'll give it a look. If you're on Twitter, you've probably heard about what's going on in Iran right now -- there was an election, the "official" results given were judged as rigged by many involved, and the government seems to be cracking down on both news media and citizen journalism, as well as protesting citizens, to very sad results. How does World of Warcraft fit in to all of this? Andrew Lavallee of the WSJ's Digits blog points to this report by Craig Labovitz, which talks about how Internet traffic has been filtered out of the country around the election. At the very end of his analysis, Labovitz points out that channels for videogames, including both Xbox Live and World of Warcraft, have shown very little government manipulation. That suggests that if the government in Iran does continue to shut down certain channels, citizens there might be forced to spread the news through any virtual route they can, including possibly Azeroth.

This is obviously all just analysis and speculation so far -- while there clearly (from those charts) has been interference in the media, no one (as far as we know) has yet had to resort to chatting in World of Warcraft to get their message out, and though what's happening in Iran is made up of some very serious (and seriously unfortunate) situations, the fervor online about using brand new channels like Twitter to share real-time news is often overstated. Personally, I believe that even if Twitter didn't exist, this information would find another way to get out. Still, the interesting thing to take away here is that even our "silly" video games today are actually media on a global level.

Thanks, Cedars!

The last few days I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out why I'm not particularly enjoying Patch 3.1 when I'm doing something besides raiding Ulduar. I should be enjoying it! When I first checked it out on the PTR, I was extremely excited about it. The Argent Tournament especially. The whole jousting deal, the Arthurian themes, the potential for story progression, the whole thing. It looked great! Unfortunately... I'm finding it pretty boring.

The Argent Tournament feels lifeless. Completely and utterly lifeless. I say it all of the time, but patch 2.4 was my favorite patch of World of Warcraft thus far, no contest. Patch 2.4 brought me more joy than even the Wrath launch. Not only did it have content for absolutely every aspect of the game, but it also actually changed the world. Storylines progressed in an in-your-face way. Sure, patch 3.1 moved the Ulduar and Yogg-Saron story forward, but would you know it if you didn't read fansites or watch the patch 3.1 cinematic? What's different? What indicator is there that something new is happening in the Storm Peaks?

Well that'll teach us to assume -- earlier this week when mentioning the upcoming Noblegarden holiday, we pointed out that considering it was being tested on the PTR right now, we'd likely see 3.1 hit the live realms by the time Easter came around in the real world. But Kisirani has appeared on the forums saying, "Not so fast." Blizzard has apparently gained the power to cancel Easter, because they say Noblegarden and 3.1 will start when it's ready, not because there are kids hunting for eggs on the White House lawn.

So basically, if patch 3.1 isn't done by Easter, we won't see the holiday ingame until it is done. And while it'll be a little strange to be looking for eggs in May (if it comes to that), we have to agree that's the right decision: we all know what happens when Blizzard releases a patch that isn't fully tested.

We can wait. Noblegarden might not match up with the real-life holiday this year (if the patch does come late -- Kisirani still says this is a plan, so maybe the patch will be done by April 12th), but hopefully when it does appear, it won't be broken.

Once again, those funny little circus guys are coming to town. They'll be right outside Shattrath this week, so the ghost town which used to be bustling with activity will see a few visitors swing by if only to claim their new Darkmoon Cards. After that, Shattrath will be empty once again, echoing only with the hooves of Deathchargers and the synthesized laughter of Death Knights. The traveling circus will sell drinks, frogs, and have some amusing games for about a week and then merrily pack up and disappear again. Anyway, so, the Darkmoon Faire is coming around.

Does anybody else feel like these guys deserve something a little more than being just a stopover for epic trinket turn-ins? I mean, there aren't even any Achievements for them. Shouldn't getting shot out of the cannon without dying be an Achievement? How about sampling all the crazy food and drink they offer? That should be an Achievement, too, right along with owning a frog or a Darkmoon Card. These guys have entertained us, stuck with us for years, and they don't get so much as a welcome or a thank you whenever they roll into town.

Considering it's a monthly event, what else do you think can be added to the Darkmoon Faire to make it more of a stop? I think Achievements are in order, at least. Professor Thaddeus Paleo receives more visitors than anyone in the faire, but nobody ever remembers him. Silas Darkmoon may be a gnome, but he's everybody's circus gnome. Who doesn't know Jubjub? Let's give these hard-working guys some love. What's your best memory about the Darkmoon Faire? What would you like to see? Would it be cool if they visited Northrend, too?

Last Saturday on the WoW Insider Show (which you can hear right here, with an embedded mp3 post coming in just a bit), we voiced an opinion about the Scourge Invasion world event that's getting a little lost in the mix: not everyone is having lots of fun with zombies. While I personally love zombies in all their forms (and am thrilled by all the content the event is bringing us, even if it is moving really fast), lots of players out there are logging in to play World of Warcraft, and finding themselves in the middle of World War Z.

As we said on the show, Blizzard is making sure that this is an event that everyone feels -- in the past, you could avoid most of the world events just by staying out of certain areas or certain zones. But at the same time, that made some players feel it wasn't immersive enough -- why have a world event if it doesn't affect the whole world? And so this one does -- no matter what level you are or where you play, whether you got eaten by a zombie or downed Tenris Mirkblood, you know that the Lich King is coming. And some folks, who play the game casually or at a low level, just don't care.

Update: Well that's timely. In between the time this post was written and planned to go live, Blizzard has decided to cure the plague. Considering that things moved so fast this weekend, that seems premature, but we'll have to see how the event plays out -- Blizzard is of course saying that it's not because of the vocal minority speaking out against the zombie gameplay, but we'll have to see what happens next.

This just in... you now become a zombie after only one minute.

After you kill a zombie infect player, creature, or NPC you'll become infected the plague that turns you into zombie. This plague now only takes one minute to increase your brain eating needs to epic levels.

Does this mean phase five is about to being? Update: Yes, it appears phase 5 is beginning.

We can't tell just yet, but we're all on the lookout for it. Phase 4 has brought lots of new rewards, events, and other fun things. Keep your eyes peeled, and if you see anything drop us a tip on our tip line!

Update: Almost all Argent Dawn Healers are gone. The only ones in IF I was able to find were near the flight path and the King's room.

WoW Insider likes us some braaaains!

Thanks to the many people who sent this in!

Like many of you, I've been heading into the Scarlet Monastery to fight the Headless Horseman every day since Hallow's End started. It's a fun fight, I like the Magic Broom, and I've gotten some decent rings for my off-specs, but the main attraction, at least for me, is a chance at some rare drops: the pet, the hat, and the mount. The first two of these, in addition to being pretty cool on their own, are required for the Sinister Calling achievement, which is in turn required for the Hallowed Be Thy Name meta-achievement.

I've taken him down a couple dozen times at this point. I've seen the hat twice (didn't get it either time), I've never seen the pet drop, and I don't think anyone on my server has gotten the mount. Some people in the forums are a bit upset about the drop rates on the pet and the hat, given that they're required for the achievement - they don't like the fact that the meta-achievement requires a chance-based event.

I have some good news for those people, via Wow_Ladies: it seems that the Sinister Squashling and the Hallowed Helm both have a chance to come out of the Treat Bags that you can get from trick-or-treating once an hour. This doesn't make it less chance-based, but it does raise your chances, although I imagine the chance to get either of those items from trick-or-treating is very low. Still, if you're interested in getting these items, stay on top of those one-hour cooldowns.

[thanks, Flairy]

It seems the jury is out on this year's Hallow's End celebration. Chakras of Cenarius is loving the event. She's excited about the holiday achievements. In her thread she was met with agreement from many posters. Ritsuka of the Thorium Brotherhood agreed that it's been fun to farm decent gear off an easy boss with her friends. Halloween is a favorite holiday amongst many WoW players, and it's a good addition to the game.

Not everyone is entirely thrilled with their experiences so far. Some folks are frustrated that they've not yet gotten the Sinister Squashling or the Horseman's helm despite many attempts. Some like Crexia of Hyjal have made better than twenty-five attempts today without seeing either of those items drop all. Her attitude is to try again tomorrow since Blizzard has stated that there will not be a change to the event. (EDIT: though now it appears you can get these items from trick or treating and Blizzard has stated the drop rates of the pet are significantly higher than last year.) On the other hand Orcshock of Archimonde reported seeing two drops out of five attempts today. Such is our fate when using Random Number Generators (RNG).

I have to admit, since the patch I've had other goals in mind so I've turned down most invites for holiday groups. So how has your Hallow's End been?

Tipster Graffias pointed out an exciting find in the latest leaked Alpha files for WoTLK: An Icon for a Brewfest Kodo. You may recall that last year's Brewfest included a Ram mount that was purchasable with tickets by both sides, allowing the Horde very easy access to an Alliance mount with a few days of grinding for Brewfest Prize Tickets. Many Alliance weren't happy with this, annoyed that the Horde got such easy access to an Alliance mount without having to kill Baron Rivendare or a Troll a couple hundred times. Bornakk decided that the best way to answer this criticism would be by promising the Alliance that the Horde would be getting access to yet another previously alliance-only mount skin in the Cenarion War Hippogryph. Of course, Kisirani, being as awesome as she is, later said that we should have patience and things would work out in the end.

Listening to the words of the world designer seem to have paid off, as it looks like the Dwarves are going to turn the tables on the Goblins this year and steal some Kodos from them. I can finally fulfill my dream of owning my very own Kodo. My Night Elf Druid is from Kalimdor after all, and you would think there would be some Night Elves who decided to domesticate Kodos as beasts of burden too.

But really, as much as I am looking forward to grabbing myself a Kodo (and seeing a tiny Gnome riding around on a huge beast of burden), what's really exciting is this thought: If the Brewfest is in late September to early October, does that mean Blizzard is planning to give us WoTLK by September, Brewfest Kodo and all?

Many of those who were waiting to turn in their decks at the Darkmoon Faire may have to wait another month. It's been changed now, but the official events calendar for the faire showed it as coming from March 10th-16th this month, when it actually showed up in game from March 3rd-9th. When one of the people who was counting on that March 10th date posted a thread wondering what had happened, world events designer Kisirani posted. She admitted that, yes, the calendar was in error, and the faire has come and gone for the month.

Unfortunately, she also went on to say that there's not really a way to get people their decks, and it's looking likely that they'll have to wait for April. She's gone over future dates to make sure they're correct, but spawning a turn-in NPC or allowing people to petition a GM for a deck turn in would be, she says, a logistical nightmare. It looks like the only option Kisirani and her team are willing to consider is respawning the faire for the week, but even that is still up in the air.

Hopefully, if you had a deck waiting to turn in, or just wanted to stock up on Spiced Beef Jerky, you thought to check last week. If not, we'll have to see if the dev team decides that the calendar error deserves allowing everyone a second chance to experience the faire this month.

UPDATE: It looks like Kisirani came through for us. The Darkmoon Faire will be up after tomorrow's maintenance!