Blizzard, improve Noblegarden!
by Elizabeth Harper 
Apr 9th 2007 at 4:25PM
Some of the best times i've had in World of Warcraft have been participating in Blizzard's entertaining holiday events. Large portions of the world are revamped with decorations, new quests, and of course, prizes! And, while the prizes may not be that important (food, Halloween costumes, etc), participating in the holiday events is always a fun change of pace from the norm. However, I have to say Noblegarden -- Blizzard's Easter event -- pales in comparison to their other holidays. Why?
- No decorations or changes in any of the cities... not even a lone NPC to inform players that they can hunt for eggs.
- A one-day holiday as opposed to the week(s) of festivities for Halloween, Winter's Veil, etc.
- Noblegarden eggs are quite rare... and the prizes are sub-par at best.
- No holiday quests. Not a single one!
So what could Blizzard do to make this event fun and worthwhile for its players? Read on for speculation!
- Decorate! Celebrate the coming spring with garlands and wreathes of brightly colored flowers on every building! Line countertops, bannisters, and windowsills with rows of eggs and the occasional chocolate bunny. Let us know it's a holiday!
- Improve the prizes! Change the candy rewards to add a percentage of total health rather than a fixed amount -- like all of the other holiday food in the game. This way, the candy is useful for players of all levels.
- Add more prizes! Unique Noblegarden bunny pets. Noblegarden baskets (bags). A wider variety of themed candy -- chocolate eggs and bunnies. Held in off-hand spring flowers. There are plenty of in-theme items that could be added to make this event more interesting.
- Make it more practical to get some of these prizes. With the rarity of eggs and the short length of the event, it's difficult to find enough eggs to have a chance at getting anything. Increase the number of eggs per zone and put them in more zones -- so players of every level have a chance to run across eggs and collect them wherever they happen to be questing or leveling. And/or increase the length of the event to give players more time to collect them.
- Add some holiday quests! Some ideas: escort an orphan child around to collect eggs, collect X number of eggs which can be turned in for specific prizes, help hide eggs for the egg hunt. Blizzard's got a creative team, why not put a bit of their time into bringing this event up to par?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Todd Apr 9th 2007 4:46PM
Here's an idea. Allow guild masters to hide x amount of eggs which can only be looted by guild members. Then the guild leader can give hints as to where to go "farm" for these eggs.
I'm still waiting for Blizzard to allow for guild scavenger hunt options, dammit.
10pound Apr 9th 2007 4:47PM
I ran around for hours looking for eggs (I found none) and although I should have started sooner than 8am PST, I came to the conclusion that the eggs were very rare to spawn.
And that made me sad because my BE pally is so f*ckin cute and would be even better with a pretty pink dress!!
Chris Apr 9th 2007 4:48PM
I found the Elegant Dress in my second egg XD
But yes, they do need to improve this event. Maybe a reward for opening 10 eggs (and increasing the respawn rate).
BoBoTheChimp Apr 9th 2007 4:53PM
I didn't even realize it was Noblegarden. I could have sworn I saw it on Bliz's site as April 12. That must have been an out of date calendar I was reading. I was too busy questing in the Badlands yesterday. I wish there would have been an egg to get the damn Black Drake Heart I was after in it!
Pudie Apr 10th 2007 5:35AM
I looked for an hour and found 4 eggs, one of which had the dress. And it doesn't look that good an a male human warlock.
Jeff Apr 9th 2007 5:16PM
The noblegarden event really is lackluster. There really should be scaling food, eggs in all zones, decorations, NPCs, and maybe rare profession recipes in eggs ala winter's veil or a quest or 2....maybe save a couple bunnies from those evil wolves or something like that.
Nails Apr 9th 2007 5:33PM
I think your suggestions are good. Making it a bigger holiday would definitely be more fun, with the decorations and prizes and stuff. As far as everything being "low-level" (meaning the contents of the eggs and also where they are found), I think that just reflects real life: an Easter egg hunt being for kids, mainly. Comparing level 8's to children isn't that big of a stretch, is it? :P I was casually leveling an alt yesterday from around level 5-10 and I found close to 15 eggs without trying.
Duane E Apr 9th 2007 5:29PM
Shows how much I know...I played for about 4 hours yesterday and didn't even realize there was an event going on. *shakes head*
brian Apr 9th 2007 7:54PM
im glad it sucked.. cuz i missed it
Josh Apr 9th 2007 6:02PM
I WANT A GIANT BUNNY SUIT.
ehf Apr 9th 2007 6:22PM
I think they should just do away with the Noblegarden so people like you can find something else to bitch at. It's not like they HAVE to run the holiday event, and it's not like they don't have enough on their hands already with Pallys and Priests bitching at each other, and guilds complaining that T4 gear sucks. It's a one day holiday event with some rare spawn eggs. I'd rather see them improve the parts of the game that are here year-round, than "fix" a one day egg hunt.
Mouth, meet gift horse...
Aurendar Apr 9th 2007 8:00PM
YES!!!!!!!!!!!! A giant Bunny Suit Ala- A Christmas Story! That would be sooo cool and even better if it had epic level stats!
Seriously though, There really does need to be more festivities around Nobelgarden. I actually had the most fun with Nobelgarden out of all the holiday events. Imagine if Blizz were to trump up the holiday with roaming bunny NPC's quests and decor?
C'mon Blizz, we want a grand Nobelgarden next year!
Michel Apr 10th 2007 2:21AM
>9. I think they should just do away with the Noblegarden so people like you can find something else to bitch at. It's not like
NO
>they HAVE to run the holiday event, and it's not like they don't >have enough on their hands already with Pallys and Priests >bitching at each other, and guilds complaining that T4 gear
I totally DON'T CARE About pally and priest issus and bitching about TIER 4 !
>sucks. It's a one day holiday event with some rare spawn
>eggs. I'd rather see them improve the parts of the game that
>are here year-round, than "fix" a one day egg hunt.
I exactly want the opposite
more fun holiday quests. the "other" part of the game is ONLY ONE PART of the game and not the best.
so NO. I vote the contrary. "raid" and "pally bitching" is nice too but special events and nice quests is very fun too so NO blizzard HAVE TO continue !
JLBorghead Apr 10th 2007 9:21AM
For the first time ever I actually remembered it was Noblegarden. I managed to farm 60 eggs - probably the best place to do it is in Durotar's Valley of Trials (blue eggs stand out quite nicely).
No dress, though. *sob*
Looks like I'll have to get it from the AH.
I'm not sure why this is only a day-long holiday. It's not like there are other holidays in April. The next one is Children's Week in May. Bliz could easily just leave the egg spawns on for a week instead of a day, and festive decorations would be nice, too.
HiWay Apr 10th 2007 11:26AM
Since most holiday's are religious in nature, why not drop copying american holidays and make new ones for say the day WoW went gold, or some other innane days the dev's want to come up with. I mean heck, every holiday other than something like July 4th and various others like is just a random day we assigned for some B.S. event (memorial and labor day are not B.S., those are pretty cool). Not downplaying holiday's.. I love them, but I think Blizz can make their own and make them better. That also gives free reign for the designers imagination.
braydn Apr 10th 2007 10:38AM
i agree, i think noblegarden should be longer than one day. i missed it the lst two years, and this year as well because i wasn't able to play that day at all. they really need to start it on Good Friday and make it last till the monday following the second weekend, so the even would be a week and a half (including two weekends).
i like all the ideas so far...candy that scales as a percent (just like all the Valentines and Summer Festival candy), add some costume options like a head item (bunny ears), foot item (like bunny feet) and there could be a throwable item (like a rotten egg that casts a spell to give you a bunny tail, which is similar to the hallows eve wands). also, i love the idea of a rare egg that would give you a 24 slot bag or something (could only have one per toon of course).
yes, decorations are needed as well. no one can tell it is easter in the game at all.
and most of all, i think there needs to be a quest chain. it could be sort of like the moonglad thing with Omen the two-headed dog, but for Easter it should be a quest to kill a giant monster rabbit and a chicken that spawn from medivh's tower (and other evil points of interest) and they roam around the land killing everything in their path as they head toward the major cities (sort of like how they did for pre-expansion).
come on blizzard, get to it!
rgoff31 Apr 10th 2007 5:16PM
I was surprised there was not decorations or people announcing it. I found like 6 eggs, nothing special in them. I didn't hear about the dresses until later.
I'd much rather see time spent on events and special quests than 25man raid dungeons.
Birdfall Apr 12th 2007 5:31PM
Definitely need to make prizes better, especially if it's so short! An Easter weekend event -- 3 or 4 days -- would be nice and would still keep it short.