Breakfast Topic: Starting the year with fail
by Zach Yonzon 
Jan 4th 2009 at 8:00AM
It's probably not a good sign, but I started the year off with fail. I had wanted to reach Merrymaker but unfortunately, I never got my cooking up to speed and my last minute rush to level my cooking was a bit too last minute and the seasonal event wrapped up before I could learn Hot Apple Cider. With mere minutes to go, actually. It's kind of like how I only needed the Hallowed Helm to complete Hallowed Be Thy Name. My wife had her own share of fail, too, when she her Mysterious Egg hatched into an Aged Yolk for the third time in a row on New Year's Day. Instead of looking at them as bad omens, why not take things like these as some form of catharsis? Start the year right by getting all those bad vibes out the way. It's always best to start with fail than end with it, right? Yeah, positive thinking. So what about you? Have you gotten anything particularly unsavory to start the year? Maybe losing a roll by 1 point to get that weapon? Disconnected during the last match of a 9-0 Hot Streak? Let's get all that bad energy out and hope everything goes well from here.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics, Humor
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Kanuris Jan 4th 2009 8:22AM
Taking over my friends Hunter in Halls of Lightning while he went to make a cuppa. Having not played a Hunter in well over a year, i wasn't too confident.
Sodding healer would just not stand close to Loken. Wipe wipe wipe.
jaxson_bateman Jan 4th 2009 8:28AM
I haven't really done much this year, seeing as it's so new. ^^ I was capped until the 2nd so I guess that's pretty bad.
Oh, actually, today I had a beauty of a mess with the Auction House. I bought a Monarch Topaz for my T7.5 off set ret pants to get made into a str/crit gem - only to learn that it hasn't been implemented in the game yet (way to fail Blizz). So off I went back to the AH to get a Bold Scarlet Ruby - only to accidentally buy a Runed one instead. /sigh
Flec Jan 4th 2009 8:45AM
Well my year hasn't been so bad so far :P
Oh and sorry to hear about the [Aged Yolk],as yesterday my first egg hatched in to a [Proto-Drake Whelp] :)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44721
Yvels Jan 4th 2009 8:45AM
On my ALT level 38; worked hard to complete SAVE THE REINDEER ... freaking 9000 XP or something ... and forgot return it on last day ... FAIL !!!
Mystical Parrot Jan 4th 2009 8:52AM
ive had 3 eggs and 3 aged yolks as well >.<
damn rng
Redcoat Jan 4th 2009 9:03AM
Had a guild member get the proto-drake from his very first egg, and I got a BOE Epic in reg COT Strat. Now I just have to hit 80!
Oh, wait, something bad . . . .
2/2 on world event achievements . . . .
I'm having to farm 12k gold on two characters to get epic flying?
Lym Jan 4th 2009 9:52AM
I have tried to get the chocolate cake recipe now like 40 times and it has still not dropped. It would not be so bad if the quest paid a little gold but the Rokk only pays you 75 silver each time you turn it in and often you have to travel a ways to complete the stupid quests (Mana berries anyone?)
Phaelien Jan 4th 2009 1:07PM
Don't forget that you have a chance to get the chocolate cake recipe from the Small Spice Bag (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44113#contains), rewarded from Dalaran's daily cooking quest.
Grinn Jan 4th 2009 3:50PM
Mine finally dropped from the spice bag. Forget the Rokk, come to Dalaran.
JDM Jan 4th 2009 8:17PM
Doing both, you do get double (well, pseudo-double) chance at getting the recipe, though.
Donaghy Jan 4th 2009 10:04AM
These things are easily avoidable if you plan ahead for holiday achievements.
Zach Jan 4th 2009 12:04PM
Absolutely, perfectly true. Except that I never planned on getting it until I realized that the ONLY thing I lacked was cooking. =p I kind of see-sawed about whether or not to level up cooking from 0.
jonas Jan 4th 2009 5:45PM
Missed my merrymaker by one snowflake... I had terrible luck getting the snowflakes from the revelers, and finally the Monday before the end of the event, I logged on all my alts and kept hitting the revelers until I got enough. Then, on my main, I found every race/class combination except Draeni Priest. I logged out for the night, and found on Tuesday that my internet connection was down - and it stayed down till the festival was over. Unfortunately, even though I had the snowflakes, I got no credit for sprinkling them after the end of the festival :(
Amaxe Jan 4th 2009 7:01PM
Yeah, the cooking was not hard because during TBC I had everything levelled to 375. Several guildmates had to powerlevel very fast ("Where can I farm eggs" was heard a lot on guild chat)
My hard one was Ogri'la because I couldn't solo the 5-man quests and quite frankly I sucked at the "Simon" game for the attumement.
Haarits Jan 4th 2009 8:51PM
Oh no... you tried the Simon game? It was completely optional for getting to the Skyguard camp! The questgiver had TWO quests at that point, I think: Simon game, and heading to the camp (or finding something simple & then heading to the camp). Trust me, the Simon game wasn't needed to do the Merrymaker bombing quest.
For my fail: on my DK, still 58, I decided to run around & try to complete a bunch of quests the morning the feast ended, while jumping around on many alts trying to complete as many of the little quests, too. Got on DK, rescued Metzen, ported to Ebon Hold to fly to Chillwind (thinking it'd be faster than flying to SS and riding up... it may have been, by a few seconds). Found the snowman & Greench (Greench was still where my 32 druid had abandoned attempts to solo him, on the north side of the mountains), killed Greench & hearthed to IF at 5:58 server time... and everything was already gone. I was standing, stunned, in the area where the tree was supposed to be, and the IF clock bonged... and the server time only said 5:59.
Not sure if that was more my fail for waiting just a bit too long, or Blizzard's fail for the event NOT ending at 6am like the calendar said. In any case, I've got reindeer dust and Smokywood goods and 2 complete quests in my log that'll be sitting for a year.
Jay in Oregon Jan 5th 2009 12:44PM
Part of the problem is that the holiday achievements are constructed with the assumption that you will be level 80, or darn close to it, when the holidays roll around.
Want to get that last Brother for the Horde version of Bros Before Ho Ho Ho's but don't have Cold Weather Flying? Sucks to be you, unless you're one of the few that jumps through the hoops to die in the right location so you can spirit-fly up to the battleship. Also, forget trying to get a Winter Hat pre-70 unless you have friends who were willing to shepherd you through a Nexus run. (Yes, that's right, not everyone had a level 80 or has even bought Wrath of the Lich King yet.)
Hallow's End was far too dependant on the random number generator favoring you. I never got either the Sinister Squashling or the Hallowed Helm from the (many, many) Horseman runs; I got both from trick-or-treating, and I got the Helm on the very last day. Blizzard obviously understood that because they dropped the mask achievement as a requirement for the title.
Looking ahead to 2009...
Getting the Lunar Festival meta-achievement will require you to be level 80 as you have to run around to all of the Northrend dungeons. Plus, expect lots of world PvP as players are invading each others' capital cities and smaller towns to honor elders. (No Elders of Outland achievement? Really?)
Love Is In the Air seems to depend a bit on the random number generator again; who knows how likely it will be to get a Truesilver Shafted Arrow? There is a rumor that it will be bind-on-use in 2009, so maybe you can farm the AH for one. One of the achievements requires you to survive getting into Wintergrasp (not hard, really, with the portal), Naxxramas, and the Culling of Stratholme, so I guess if you haven't gotten your character to 80 by then and can't find a kindly group to take you, you're out of luck.
Children's Week looks eminently do-able for pre-WotLK players except for Hail To The King Baby, which requires a run into Utgarde Pinnacle.
Interestingly enough, players have already gotten a jump on the Midsummer Festival achievements; since honoring and desecrating the flames were implemented as quests, you probably already have credit for some (or all!) of those. This is probably the only title that might be completely doable by characters in the 60-70 range since the only dungeon run is to the Slave Pens in Outland. (You have to have WotLK, though, as one of the achievements must be done in Dalaran.) However, as with the Lunar Festival, you will have to invade opposing faction's capital cities and towns to desecrate their flames.
Brewfest in 2008 ended before 3.0 came out, but it's possible (and necessary!) to work on some of the achievements now. Brew of the Year required you to sign up for the Brew of the Month club during Brewfest -- if you didn't, have fun waiting a year to finish that one! -- and it is possible to do Disturbing the Peace if you have the Brewfest clothing; I got the achievement on my mage in the middle of November. Here's hoping they improve the droprate on the mounts in 2009...
Lemons Jan 5th 2009 1:29PM
@Amaxe
The Simon game isn't a prereq for the Skygaurd daily...
yeah...
XP
Deadly. Off. Topic. Jan 5th 2009 3:31PM
The easy way to do the simon game is to open your chat box and write the letter for each colour you see. Or get a piece of paper and write it out... either way works.
jayesh Jan 4th 2009 2:01PM
staying with my warlock for pve raiding :/ and developing cramped fingers and tunnel-vision
Anthem Jan 4th 2009 10:42AM
I wanted to get Merrymaker aswell, so the night before it ended I did the Snowman quest, the Ogri'la daily and the Hot Apple Cider, the problem ? I didn't have any idea that the snowman kit needed 24 hours to get to me... I busted my ass 'till 5 am in the morning leveling cooking... so now I can't get my title just because I didn't bloody know that Greatfather Winter takes 24 hours to get his ass up from that chair and put the bloody snowman kit in my mailbox...