Holidays in Azeroth - Love 'em or Hate 'em?
by Elizabeth Harper 
Apr 14th 2006 at 1:00PM
Have you noticed the way holidays in Azeroth seem to strangely coincide with holidays in the real world? Noblegarden shows up on Easter, Hallow's End on Halloween, the Feast of Winter Veil on Christmas, and the Lunar Festival on the Chinese New Year. Sure, CM Caydiem would always come up with fascinating reasons why each of these holidays fit properly in to Azeroth's lore, but doesn't it break down the immersiveness of an alternate reality when you see someone who looks suspiciously like Santa Claus sitting in the middle of Ironforge? I enjoy the change of pace provided by Azeroth's holidays as much as anyone else, but I do wonder whether Azeroth has any of its own holidays. So what's your take on Azeroth's holiday schedule - love it or hate it?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Marcus Apr 14th 2006 1:12PM
Holidays are social events, mmos are a social genre. When you find yourself (as I usually do) celebrating the holidays in a state far away from most of your friends (damn college), having in-game celebrations with guildies and RL friends is a nice consellation.
Still, they have far too few holidays in general. User-created events like guild drinking parties (both in and out of game, usually), races around the world, and costume contests are about as good as blizzard's efforts, but more original, although far too few. Having more of these would add a lot to the world.
Mat Apr 14th 2006 1:43PM
I love them as they add to the humor and the fun of the game. I'm not playing it so much for immersiveness and I am for enjoyment so it benefits me that the holidays coincide the our own RL ones.
Mike Apr 14th 2006 2:18PM
Don't forget about the Goblin Fireworks Extravaganza or whatever on July 4th.
Azeroth has Children's Week or something doesn't it? I don't think that has a RL analog.
ObtuseMoose Apr 14th 2006 3:07PM
...ehhhmmm...Santa CLAUS. Spelling FTW. :>
Nanatsusaya Apr 14th 2006 3:18PM
As much as I love the festivals for their socialness etc, they are a great way of making a few gold. I made loads over the Valentine festival by selling city collections I gathered while in the BG queue. And there was the way over-inflated prices of Small Eggs over Christmas...
elizabeth Apr 14th 2006 3:45PM
Claws is a properly spelled word... I'm thinking of the wrong alternate universe, maybe, but a perfectly valid spelling... ;)
Varlynstroud Apr 14th 2006 3:53PM
great idea, poor execution. they should create real holidays from the lore. i play warcraft because it makes me happy, valentine's day depresses me. if i sign on in feb to see hearts everywhere it defeats the purpose. tell us a story of something grand which happened in the past and then make the holiday commerate that. there should be a holiday on each server for the day the AQ gate got opened. then they should do quests and items about the heros who made it happen....for an example.
joey Apr 14th 2006 4:16PM
This game has so many pop culture references in it that 50% of the NPCs and quests and things you see have some kind of modern pop culture reference... The holidays are no different. The idea that this should be an "immersive" game within an RP universe that suspends your disbelief is a nice desire, but unfortunately WoW is just way to far gone for a few holidays to actually make any difference at all.
What does it matter if you see a guy that looks like santa in IF when there are 5000 other modern pop references also in the game. You'd basically have to rename almost all of the content to make the game not have the issue you are bringing up.
elle Apr 14th 2006 5:20PM
WoW sucks for immersion - Auctioneer O'Reely, Steven Segal references, movie plots as quests, "Linken's Sword of Mastery," blah blah blah. The holidays are gimmicks. Go grind up some Un'Goro Soil and stay out of the cities if it bugs you.
Fen Apr 14th 2006 6:57PM
"Azeroth has Children's Week or something doesn't it? I don't think that has a RL analog."
Try Japan's 'Children's Day', which was formerly 'Boy's Day'. While not a "Week" as in Azeroth, I'm sure that it would have been the basis for it.
Mike Apr 15th 2006 4:08PM
10 - Ahhhhh... Thanks for the education! Now that you mention it I do recall hearing about that holiday in Japan, I just wasn't sure when it occurred, so I didn't put two and two together.
Grendalsh Apr 15th 2006 5:05PM
I especially like the idea of player created events. But apparently on Silvermoon, they either just don't happen, don't get announced enough, or folks just don't seem to get them. I offered a bounty on a mob I couldn't find once, as a personal quest. Took 15 abusive "find it yerself" responses before someone actually took me up on the quest. But we'll run back and forth over Azeroth for a stupid book and 15s.
My navy-themed guild once took over the Auberdine Darnassus ferry as a bunch of pirates. Dressed in swabby attire, almost no armor, and crappy weapons. We announced for like a day in advance that we'd be challenging anyone that set foot aboard, and if they played along we'd give them booty. I think we had like two takers out of 50.
We need a better way to announce player content (besides spamming General). Of course there's still the issue of getting people used to the idea of tournaments/races/player quests...
Ahms Apr 15th 2006 7:09PM
I enjoy them
They do sort of have to fall on the real world holiday schedule, so I can have off when the event starts :)
BaboonNL Apr 15th 2006 7:23PM
"We need a better way to announce player content (besides spamming General)."
There should be a bulletin board in every big city or something, maybe one only guild masters can post on.