Recently in Seasonal Category

I will beg your forgiveness in this, but this will be a post meant for both listeners of All Things Azeroth, my podcast, and From the Abbey to Outlands, my blog. I want to wish you, one and all, a great holiday. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzea, or if your greatest celebration this holiday season is the Feast of Winter Veil, I hope you have a truly amazing, friend and loved ones filled holiday season.

While Greatfather Winter has brought presents for us all, and the Achievement spam is at an all time high, we might begin to lose patience at the constant crashing of rocket cars, but remember, that this is a time of love and peace, and we should all take a few times before we gank our neighbor, to remember this is when we should spare that killing blow, and let our enemies bow in safety and go on their way. Take care of yourselves, /love your neighbor, and spread /cheer throughout the world(of warcraft)!

Hallow's End is long in the past.
The Wrath Day glow just didn't last.
We travel North to continue our tale.
As closer comes the feast of Winter'Veil!

With all that has happened in this game in the last few weeks, it can be forgiven that we might have lost track, forgotten the upcoming holiday. While Winter's Veil has lost some luster as compared to the events with seasonal bosses like Hallow's End, Midsummer, and Brewfest, I still think that Winter's Veil is one of the most exciting times. The cities of Orgrimmar and Ironforge get decked out in lights, and Greatfather Winter sets up in his rightful place on his seat. Holly is passed around and gifts are given. I still recall fondly my first Winter's Veil, when people were desperately trying to figure out where to get their Greench's from, how you became a helper gnome elf, or how you learned to make your very own Snowmaster.

While a part of me hopes Blizzard adds a bit more to this year's event, I chuckle a bit to myself as I notice that a number of my alts still have unopened presents in their bags at this late date, and I know Blizz has more in store for us. We know the Clockwork Rocket Bot was available last year, while a new Achievement this year, Crashin' Thrashin' Racer tells us that we likely have Crashin' Thrashin' Racer Controller coming to us this year. Arita already has one due to an unopened present from '07, and I have to say it looks awesome! What are you looking forward to most from this year's Festival?

The air has grown chilled, the waters stilled. The signs point to the event that has been anticipated with bated breath. Prepare yourselves, for... 3.0.3 is nearly upon us. The downtime is extended right about the same length of a usual patch maintenance, and people are preparing. While it is hard to know what the patch will actually hold, since even WoW Insider is only quoting the PTR notes, which could have changed in the 3 week or so run that the PTRs had.

We know that many Ret changes were hot fixed, which Siha points out were done without PTR testing, and other changes are so small, like the Hallowed Be Thy Name change, that they are unlikely to not make the patch. The Druid talent reset is pretty much a given, along with many of the changes to their talents. Other than that? Well, anything could happen. WoW Insider got something right, though, that Patch 3.0.3 is most likely going to happen, even if we haven't seen the typical 'thanks for testing' message on the PTR forums. 

Note: WoW Insider is using guesses and labeling Test Realm info as confirmed patch info. This should be noted, but isn't. PTR notes at launch can differ wildly from live patch notes.

So a lot has been said lately in the blog world about the Wrath lead up events surrounding the plague and the zombies found all around the world. There seem to be two sides in this debate, the Infected and the Defending. The defenders are annoyed with the infected cause they keep turning the NPCs needed for training, quests, and bartering into Zombies. They recruit the classes who can cure the plague to their side, begging them to eliminate the threat to their game play. Some on RP servers like my own Argent dawn use the reason/excuse 'I am RPing, don't break my RP'. I think that like, while normally acceptable, is being abused and by some who don't use it sincerely.

The Infected are out to convert. Some convert everyone they see, some convert those interested, and some just convert NPCs. The plague can overwhelm any single player or NPC easily, and enough converts to the undead in your group, you can quite quickly overtake a small town, then a bigger town, and perhaps eventually the cities. These players alledge that many of the so called 'defenders' are griefing their attempts to RP the spread of the plague and can often get very vocal in their anger when cleansed or killed mid campaign.

So we have two sides, both angry and hostile toward one another. Some say this world event is poorly timed, a distruption to their game, and claim the right to seek penalties for their goals being hindered by Zombies, plague, and players. So many opinions, so many aggravations, and add to that the fact that we still have Hallow's End going on for a full week, and you have a really volatile mix of opinions, aggravations, and stress. So who is right? Well, All and none. To those who say Blizzard should not have World Events, I say 'there's the door'. Players love world events like Hallow's End, Winter Veil, and more. They also love the lead up events.

The Burning Crusade lead up event was.. a little boring. There was a big boss, but he rarely spawned. There was stuff at the portal, but it got so bad it killed most servers and made the quest from there nearly impossible to complete. The Defenders and the Infected should both get along, with neither playing God Mode. Even the Paladins of the Silver Hand could not cure all of those plague ridden, or Lordaeron would not have fallen. Not all of the Cult of the Damned got their way, got their wish, and died to be risen as undead. A well played out RP would have a win some, lose some basis, and I think that anyone looking to play either role needs to see that, and accept that in their story. What do you think?

The patch 3.0.2 has been out for about a week now, and I have taken a close look at the trends of what people have been doing since the patch hit. I think I have discovered what the 1 month between 3.0.2 hit and the expansion comes out will be for. I have seen guildie after guildie heasd back to the old world, you know, that content that is dead and gone? Yeah, the Achievements, the Inscriptions, the Hallow's End, and eventually I am sure in a few weeks we will see the Wrath events lead us back to the old world of Azeroth and Kalimdor to face off against the Lich King as has been hinted to in the sound files.

True, the patch did bring us new talents and some new profession abilities, but even those brought us back to the old cities to train. I am really beginning to be convinced that all about this, these events, are a ploy to push us all back into the old world content. Sure, there are Outlands acheivements, but there are more people running pre BC dungeons, for acheivements, for events, for exploration, than I have in the last two years. What do you all think?

Hallow's end, with it's tricks and treats, horsemen and helping little orphans across the world, is finally back in full swing. Last year we saw the introduction of the first ever seasonal boss, the Headless Horseman, who quickly became one of the most farmed bosses in Azeroth. There were a few snags, like the brooms not using their true duration and the forced SM reset to summon the Horseman, but in the end the event went off stunningly, and it's only gotten better this year!

This year each of the major inns of the world has a Trick or Treat pumpkin that, at 70, rewards a sweet 4 gold and change, plus some minor stat food that does not count toward your Well Fed buff. The Horseman is back, and easier to summon this time, which is much like Coren Direbrew and Lord Ahune, and he has even better loot. The rings are still there, decent for their level, but not great, and now the mount drops are infinitetly better. Instead of dropping 4 brooms, the Horseman drops 1 broom which adjusts it's speed to the player's skill level and location, and also now drops a permaneant mount much like his horse. No screens are up yet of the mount, but I am sure we will see some soon.

The biggest new thing this year, for me, is the Hallowed Be Thy Name event achievement. The Horde and Alliance side of the achievement have 12 parts each, and once completed you will be awarded a title '<name> The Hallowed'. The various parts are a lot of work, but they also earn you a lot of gold for the time it takes. Flying around to the various inns, killing the Horseman over and over, all of this is a lot of fun. My one bit of sadness is that now, when Telaan is high enough to get and make use of the Hallowed Helm, there are a lot of people who will be rolling against me for it. What are you looking forward to most from the Hallow's End Festival?

As you likely know by now, Brewfest, the Oktoberfest of World of Warcraft, and the holiday has a fair number of new things that weren't around in 2007. First off, the new holiday boss. Coren Direbrew can be found, when you have the quest at 70, in the Grim Guzzler in Blackrock Depths. He is a fairly hard fight, with different phases. Much like the Lord Ahune fight at midsummer, there are things that pop up out of the ground to knock you in the air, there are adds that make things difficult, and of course awesome loot.

At the last minute Blizzard announced they will allow all races to get both the Kodo and Ram mounts, though they will now be dropped by Coren, not purchased for tokens. While Kisirani just a day before had adamantly argued in this lengthy thread that they would not be allowing Alliance to get Kodos, we did find out due to this post that Blizzard had hotfixed the two mounts into Coren's loot table and all races would be able to win the mounts.

To get to Coren,you pick up a quest in Kharanos, Dun Morogh, though some requisites might be needed, then you head to the Blackrock Depths. When inside the instance, you kill off the level 70 Dark Irons, then use the controller to travel through the Depths to the Grim Guzzler. That's right, no need to clear the way. Once there, you talk to the dwarven spy, admire some demonic tail, and when you are all ready, you go and toss a few 'Yo Mama's at Coren, causing him to attack.

My advice is this: Run away when he disarms, have a healthstone ready, and burn him down as fast as you possibly can. There will be stuns, throws, and adds, and all of those will be dealt with in the proper times, but the big thing is to get him down as fast as you can. The loot is decent, though there is no known pet that he drops. He does have two trinkets that summon mobs to help you, but those are not vanity pets. Our group had 4 summons and killed him twice, which got me Empty Mug of Direbrew on Telaan. Enjoy Brewfest, and be sure to act responsibly and to not drink and ride!

I have four 70s now, and all but one has epic flying, which he will no doubt have by the time Wrath hits until it hits in the next five weeks or so. While yes, there are quests that can be done, I am honestly almost out of quests to do on those four 70s. It is therefore a really nice thing when Blizzard gives me something to spend a bit of my time on other than dailies and other gold building pass times.

Late last night WoW Insider posted that European and Chinese servers had reportedly received a special Olympics based PvP reward set. It seems that when you participate in a Battleground you get a Competitor's Tabard. Yes, that's right, the item is so new and so undiscovered in the many data mines, that I had to link to the WoW Armory for it, instead of WoW Head. If you win the battleground, you have a chance, seems about 50%, to get a Gold Medallion. The medallion summons a really neat Spirit of Competition, which is a little Chinese dragon looking vanity pet.

As soon as I saw this news, I knew I had to have it. Well, on a hop over to my mule to buy the last few Mark of Sargeras I needed to take Telaan to Exalted(yay!), I saw Ciarda, an old and dear friend, who had both the tabard and the pet. I made arrangements to go do some PvP with her group when she had gotten some food, and went back to Medros to wait. I must say, the few minutes I waited were more than worth it!.

I joined her, Silvarius, and a couple of their friends, though I failed to grab screen shots or the names, and we headed to the shortest of winnable BGs, Warsong Gulch. This was a night of firsts. I cannot recall the last time I won back to back Battlegrounds. I also do not recall any time when all four of the BGs were in the 1000+ range of open matches. PvP was smoking! The first win netted me a tabard, a few deaths, and some good times. The second netted me the Medallion, and it almost felt like a blow out, as the other side seemed to almost give up around the final flag cap, barely defending and using poor strategy.

The other side had little chance, with a concerted and well played offense, mixed with defense at just the right times. I can't say that me and my Kara level gear did a whole lot to contribute, but sometimes all you need is a well placed stun, AoE, or Hammer of Wrath. I want to thank Ciarda, Silvarius and their friends for helping make the BGs seem fun again. Now, who wants to help me other three 70s get their own tabards and pets??

I am extremely happy to announce that I now have a 4th 70, Telaan the Draenei. The plan with Telaan was to spend two levels in each Outlands zone with a mixture of instances, questing, and some rep grinding. There were a few times when I left a zone with an unfinished quest, but never without my 2 levels dinged. I saw Ramparts, Blood Furnace, Underbog and Slave Pens. As I planned, I spent time in Hellfire, Zangar, Terrokar, Nagrand, and finally dinged in Blade's Edge Mountain.

As I mentioned a few hours ago, a great deal of level 68 was spent on the holiday fires, so I cannot take full credit for my plan working completely, but I am fairly confident I would have still dinged in Blade's Edge Mountain, though it may have been a last remnant of the quests, not in the middle of them like I did. I wanted to thank the many guild mates who helped me out along the way to this level. I can't name you all, but my thanks go out to you none the less. I began my 4 days off hoping to hit 70 by the end of them, and my guildies made it possible to hit it halfway through. Now, to the Isle!

I set forth a goal for myself. My Draenei Paladin Telaan was at about 67.3 at the start of my 4 days off. For those who don't know, I work long shifts(10-12 hours) and therefore have a 4 on, 4 off rotation. Well, on the first day of my 4, I dinged 68. No big, just finished up quests in Nagrand including a bunch of painfully hard to solo group quests and even helped some finish quests I had already completed. I guess that's why they call them group quests.

As I was riding back to Telaar from around the space ship that Durn pats around, I decided to stop and take care of the fire stuff just outside. I had already dinged, which brought me in line with my 2 levels a zone plan, so I wasn't concerned with spoiling it. 6,000 experience later, I was running over to WoW Insider to see if they had a list of how many of these xp rich fires there were to hit up for a good solid chunk of XP.

I ran over to the one at Garadar, and hit up for a grintastic 12.000 experience. It was hovering around 7 or 8 PM, and I decided to see how many I could hit. By the time I logged off at 5 AM, I had hit all of the old world fires, including the well camped ones in the major horder cities to get the Crown of the Fire Festival(45,000 xp from those turned in) and I dragged myself tiredly to bed.

I cleaned up the ones in Outlands except the 2 I am saving for when I ding(Netherstorm and Shadowmoon) and now sit a mere 2 bubbles(or 80,000 xp) from leveling and I have yet to turn in any quests in Blade's Edge Mountains. A couple in my guild dinged twice of the fires bringing their warlocks both up to 58, without doing any other quests for their levels. They got about 1 and a half levels from the Fire Festival. Have you used the new format of the Fire Festival to push a lower level character significantly higher in their leveling? Do you like when they bring such experience heavy quests intot he game? Let me know in the comments!