Breakfast Topic: Harvest Festival begins today
by Robin Torres 
Sep 16th 2010 at 8:00AM
Today begins the amazing Harvest Festival! This lengthy celebration of the harvest includes one quest and no -- count them -- no achievements.
We still managed to have fun with it last year with the Epic Harvest Brewfestival Kodo Ride. When the holidays were overlapping, we turned our mounts into kodos and rode them to honor Grom Hellscream. The gallery is below. Don't adjust your sets; we were riding drunk. No, this was not a responsible ride on mythical animals in a fantasy world.
So go forth, eat your free food and honor your faction's harvest hero. And if you're into more compelling in-game holidays, don't fret: Pirates' Day and Brewfest are coming up within the week.
What do you think Blizzard should do to make Harvest Festival more interesting?
Disclaimer: This post is subject to change without notice if Blizzard actually implements a full-fledged holiday this year.
We still managed to have fun with it last year with the Epic Harvest Brewfestival Kodo Ride. When the holidays were overlapping, we turned our mounts into kodos and rode them to honor Grom Hellscream. The gallery is below. Don't adjust your sets; we were riding drunk. No, this was not a responsible ride on mythical animals in a fantasy world.
So go forth, eat your free food and honor your faction's harvest hero. And if you're into more compelling in-game holidays, don't fret: Pirates' Day and Brewfest are coming up within the week.
What do you think Blizzard should do to make Harvest Festival more interesting?
Disclaimer: This post is subject to change without notice if Blizzard actually implements a full-fledged holiday this year.
Filed under: Events, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
bui Sep 16th 2010 8:06AM
Wheee fun times. I just simply enjoy the holiday celebrations offered by Blizz. Achievements be damned. Of course I'm still going after what a long strange trip.. But I enjoy doing all this fun stuff, my fav of course being Halloween, cause lets face it, the Headless Horseman is hands down the coolest boss in WoW. And I have most of his stuff set as my ring tones on my phone, good times.
Aaron Sep 16th 2010 8:22AM
Hallow's End rocks so hard it hurts. Doing AV during Halloween and seeing all the decorations is my favorite part. =D
Hoof Sep 16th 2010 8:43AM
I agree with Aaron, decorations are some of my most favorite parts of the holidays.
That being said, I'm kind of bummed that I have nothing to do for this Harvest Festival. I've already done all the achievements and there's no dungeon boss to farm for a cute cosmetic item. I think all the holidays should have some unique dungeon boss around only during that time of year that drops fun cosmetic items and yes, a few pieces of other gear as well. I look forward to Brewfest, at least I'll have something to do.
Zanaji Sep 16th 2010 8:06AM
Why can't people enjoy a holiday without achievements?
Tribunal Sep 16th 2010 8:17AM
Why can't people prefer achievements?
Personally, I did this holiday once to see it, same with all the others.
I did a few of them twice to finish up achievements on my main, most of them twice for any new achievements or to do the achievements on my alts.
(Assuming) This hasn't changed, there's no reason to do it again. Seeing it on my alt isn't going to be any different.
Mr Lee Sep 16th 2010 3:47PM
Exactly. Can you remember when you used to play a game because it was fun, not just to get ticks in checkboxes on a list?
Zanaji Sep 16th 2010 6:02PM
I like achievements too, but it seems like many (not all) players kinda feel like they need to be *paid* with achievements to do anything other than dungeon grind or idle in Dalaran.
slythwolf Sep 16th 2010 8:11PM
Speaking only for myself, of course: the achievements have given me ideas for stuff to do and shown me things that exist in the game that I would never otherwise have known about.
I do them all, like climbing Everest, because they're there.
Zaniac Sep 16th 2010 8:07AM
I don't think a few quests to help out the farmers of Westfall and Durotar to simply bring in the harvest would be a wrong direction to head in. It would be nice to feel like you're still a part of the world - that there's still a need to get your hands dirty, even after you've succesfully slain dragons, killed gods and averted the apocaypse(s)...
Debesun Sep 16th 2010 9:03AM
@Zaniac
Let's spice things up. We're the heroes after all and thus deserve something a tad bit more epic. Only a sprinkle though!
*Cracks knucles and whelps in sudden pain and fright*
Highlight 'CORRUPTION, DRAGONS, OLD GODS, TITANS, WIZARDS.blizstryplot'
Ctrl C
Ctrl V into current story line.
You'll probably get something like this...
For years, the Harvest Golems have fulfilled their duties of being a general nuisance to the inhabitants of Westfall. Standing in the numerous wheat fields that are scattered around Westfall they prevent the local farmers from being able to complete their tasks, aswell as being a deadly trap for those heroic adventurers with bags full of murloc eyes who may toggle their ability to run non-stop in a forward direction while their minds may be elsewhere and ignoring the occasional Fleshripper Vulture that may attempt to stop them.
With the Cataclysm drawing closer, the Harvest Golems have chosen this holiday to show their true allegiance! Having been CORRUPTED by the DARK WHISPERS from BELOW, their plan has been revealed that they were not in the employ of the Defias, but were working alongside DEATHWING all this time to prevent food from reaching Stormwind and hindering its ability to feed its vast war machine and thus weakening any resistance they may muster when DEATHWING comes and destroys (Spoiler Alert! the least visited part, the Park area of) Stormwind.
As a noble adventurer fresh from your quest to slay the dreaded Lich King, you must return and assist those that cannot fight their own way out of a wet paper bag, and bring an end to this diabolical scheme!
Quest: "This doesn't count to loremaster"
Objective: 0 / 35 Harvest Watcher X3-REEM heads
Reward: [Bounty of the Harvest] http://www.wowhead.com/item=19697 (Yep! Same one as last year!)
Horde don't get their own unique event. They just get sent to Westfall with the text being altered to say Orgrimmar, and other more specific, contradictory parts removed. The fact that it's in a low level, faction controlled zone was overlooked but I hope you don't mind a little bit of Sentry Hill griefing! It's part of the essence that makes WoW PVP and levelling enjoyable!
Am I doin it right?
kvanje Sep 16th 2010 9:03AM
That would require some phasing and year-to-year changes in post-Cata Westfall, so Elwynn would probably be a better setting. Also more level-equivalent with Durotar, of course.
MoodyDrood Sep 16th 2010 8:17AM
Harvest Fest was AWOL at 6:00 am server time on Durotan-US. :(
Odiamh Sep 16th 2010 8:20AM
More is always nice, but I would be happy just for them to leave this in the game as is. When I had moved from DAoC over to WoW this was the first holiday I countered those many years ago and I had a blast on my lvl 10 Night Elf warrior. There was dueling and drinking and it was a pleasant experience to hang out and meet people on the server and do stupid and fun stuff without the worry of having to farm a boss or get an achievement done. (Not that i hate my violet proto-drake or anything its freakin' sweet!)
Xeton Sep 16th 2010 8:26AM
I personally love the firework vendor, though a new chain to go help out farmers or something would be nice.
relmatos Sep 16th 2010 3:22PM
Yes. That and some NPCs in the major cities remembering people that there's an event. If I didnt open my calendar to check if ZG had reset I wouldnt have noticed it and I've have missed out on free food until the next event
RavenJet Sep 16th 2010 8:31AM
Harvest festival has one major advantage - it's a huge opportunity to level cooking easily. If you're like me and have never bothered to do so - then this is a chance to get up to max skill for almost no gold cost in a very short period.
In fact I started thinking I really SHOULD level it a while ago and the advice I got was "don't bother, wait for harvest festival and powerlevel fast and cheap".
So here it is.
Zable Sep 16th 2010 8:37AM
I'm fairly certain that's the Pilgrim's Bounty holiday. Which, you're right, totally rocks for leveling cooking. I hadn't even intended to have cooking on some of my alts, and that was a very cost-effective and fast way to do it.
Tribunal Sep 16th 2010 8:39AM
It is indeed Pilgrim's Bounty that has the cheap cooking, and the cheap cooking has an added bonus:
You need some cooking skill for the Christmas achievements.
So especially if you're, say going for Long Strange Trip on alts: don't skip Piglrim's Bounty.
RavenJet Sep 16th 2010 8:45AM
Okay - based my information on what I was told by a close friend (the one who got me into the game in the first place in fact). I suppose she could have confused them. I'll check it out when I get home tonight anyway, since this is my first harvest festival.
Side note: seeing as there are no achievements - I take it this doesn't count toward "What a long strange trip it's been ?"
Neyssa Sep 16th 2010 9:10AM
LOL, I started to write a comment similar to yours, but I realized in time that I am mixing it with Pilgrim's Bounty and deleted it before posting.
Are you also not from the United States? I think for Europeans it is easier to mix these two game holidays, since we do not have Thanksgiving, and looking from far away, both of them is about eating a lot of food.
Pilgrim's Bounty is = Thanksgiving, which, according to Wikipedia, a "harvest festival celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Traditionally, it is a time to give thanks for the harvest and express gratitude in general."