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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Could you possibly be more excited for the Lunar Festival?
by Fox Van Allen 
Jan 20th 2011 at 8:00AM
To be honest, it took me a while to figure out just exactly what holiday the Lunar Festival was. Most holidays in Azeroth mirror our own, but I don't really celebrate Chinese New Year. So of course, being the uncultured (though handsome) dolt I am, I assumed the holiday was inspired by the canceled CBS drama Ghost Whisperer. Apparently, though, the Chinese New Year is a pretty big thing. Especially in China. Go figure!
For those who don't know, the Lunar Festival is a three-week-long super-holiday that involves running around the world to meet and "honor" all sorts of elders. If the whole thing tingles the same obsessive-compulsive part of your brain as it does mine, you'll find yourself one-manning all sorts of old instances, trying to honor some inconveniently located, long-forgotten spooks for a handful of gold and some holiday-only currency. If you want more information about it, it's all here in The OverAchiever: Guide to Lunar Festival 2011.
It's one of the most brutal travel-heavy holidays out there, but if you're interested in scoring that 310% mount from the What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been achievement, it's required. But is it worth it? Will you be celebrating the Lunar Festival holiday across all your alts? Are you excited about corpse-hopping your way through the opposing faction's capital cities?
I already made my rounds last year, so I think I'll just take it easy myself. Maybe order in some Chinese and catch a Camryn Manheim film festival instead.
Working on achievements? The Overachiever is here to help! Count on us for advice on Azeroth's holidays and special events, including new achievements, how to get 310% flight speed with achievement mounts, and reputation factions and achievements. Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
Chris Jan 20th 2011 10:07AM
I have partially completed World Event Achivements on my main character and I dont see them wiped or reset at all !!
Angeloscuro (Twisting Nether - US (Alliance)
SamLowry Jan 20th 2011 10:27AM
They've been in the habit of wiping partially-complete holiday achieves just before each event rolls around, so if they've stopped doing it then this is a fairly recent development since they certainly did it sometime before last fall.
Telwar Jan 20th 2011 1:03PM
The same happened to my rogue. I missed the elder in Azjol-Nerub, and the next year I had to do all the dungeon elders over again. Boy, I was mad about that.
Zanathos Jan 20th 2011 1:26PM
I believe it's when they change an achievement, it resets it. So if you'd completed it before you get credit for the new version, but if you left it half-finished, they counter gets reset when they tinker with it.
Forreststump Jan 20th 2011 9:54AM
In a word:
NO.
Cyrus Jan 20th 2011 9:57AM
Kind of burned out on in-game holidays. I've seen the storyline behind it more than once, I've collected holiday toys and wound up never using them, there are faster ways to make money in the game, I only have so much time to play and other things are more fun or rewarding than this...
But I don't have 310 riding speed on any alts yet, and getting it through the What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been meta-achievement is a lot cheaper than paying 5,000g. So maybe I'll work on holiday achievements on them to save some money. Most of my alts won't be played too much for a while yet until after my main is well into Cataclysm, and several aren't through BC or even that far, so it's not like I would get any benefit from buying 310-speed flight on them right now anyways.
Amanda A. Jan 20th 2011 10:24AM
I ought to level my engineer to 60 so she can travel more easily and get the Outlands elders....
SpaceGoatPriest Jan 20th 2011 10:10AM
IIRC I think this is the only holiday that is actually worth doing on an alt. The quests give experience (I think) and quite a bit (scaled to your level). They also give a fair amount of rep, so if you care about that it's easy peasy rep (especially since you can now fly in the old world).
I wonder if the gold amount has changed. I think I got like 400-500 gold on a level 80 last for all the visting/desecrating the fires quests.
Another note, I think this is "best designed" holiday now (for the meta achievement). No horrible RNG drops to get, no PVP requirements, etc. If you visit every elder (which is required for the meta), you wil have enough coins to buy everything for the other achievements that are required by the meta.
Noyou Jan 20th 2011 11:01AM
No battleground requirement but there is definitely PvP involved. Even if it is corpse-dragging. The XP used to be pretty good. Midsummer offers both great XP and good gold for honoring the flames as well.
SpaceGoatPriest Jan 20th 2011 11:06AM
Oh yea. I forgot about the elders in the capital cities. So, yea you might to corpse jump a few times, but nothing like the complaints of School of Hard Knocks (which I don't think is that bad, but *shrug*)
And I just realized I was blending holidays together. the fires are mid-sumer, elders are light. Which the elder quest might not give experience. I know one of the holidays do :)
nieboh Jan 20th 2011 10:15AM
What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been burned me out on holidays.
Before that achievement came out I used to take all of my toons out to rescue Metzen, kill the Greench, juggle torches, drag orphans around wherever they wanted to go, etc, etc.
Then I did What a Long Strange Trip It's Been on my mage, got my violet protodrake, and...I'm done. Ever since then, I just can't bring myself to give a rats ass about any of the holidays. The only one I think I'll be doing any time in the future is the spring festival stuff on my second mage so I can learn Polymorph: Rabbit for her. That's it.
Fully a dozen or more unused Halloween wands sit unused in the banks across my various toons, along with all the preserved holly and other assorted junk. I don't know why I feel so jaded about the holidays now, except that the achievement was a grind forcing me into behavior I didn't appreciate or enjoy (cough* School of Hard Knocks* cough) and turned them from fun into work. And I'm here to get away from work.
Noyou Jan 20th 2011 11:09AM
I agree with you to a point and can sympathize fully. I almost ragequit during my attempt at school of hard knocks. EotS is one of my least fav BGs. My problem is I have 4 85s 2 83s and 2 more toons I want to bring to max level. I still don't really know who my main is. At the moment is is my Prot/Holy Paladin. He's got the Violet proto. I make sure he gets anything new first. But playing my shaman (lvl 33) just feels more natural. Anyways, that is my dilemma. So I am trying to calculate which out of my remaining 85s I think I might settle in with. I have a fondness towards my hunter (who was actually my first toon to 55) then there is my rogue. Anyways you get the picture. So yeah. One benefit is it gets easier each time around :p /sigh.
Ilya Jan 20th 2011 10:22AM
Merh... I'll probably visit a few elders as I'm traveling around, 'just because I'm there anyway'. I'm not planning on going everywhere just to find a bunch of NPCs - ESPECIALLY in the opposing faction's major cities.
It's probably this holiday alone (all the run time to find these elders) that turns me off to the idea of completing my What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been achievement. Hell, even Hallow's End (despite my horrid luck with the RNG) is more entertaining. (I've NEVER, not once, seen the Hallowed Helm - and I've been through about 3 years of Hallow's End by now)
Starsmore Jan 20th 2011 5:50PM
Trade you my spot in the RNG? I lost track of how many Hallowed Helms I had to delete last year alone...
the.other.one.66 Jan 21st 2011 10:11AM
This isn't a holiday specifically celebrating the Chinese new year, but rather the Lunar new year. The Chinese calendar is a lunar calendar, yes, but this event is to "honor" the lunar new year, that several of the races of Azeroth are likely to follow.
Zal Jan 20th 2011 11:13AM
There are a few holidays that I look forward to in WoW. They are All Hallows Eve, Winter Veil, Brewfest, and Pilgrim's Bounty. Partially in that they are around the time I do not want additional human interaction due to the RL holiday grouping of HalloGivingsMass. As well they tend to be fun and one just has to do them for an hour or two a day and be done. I don't really like Fire Festival as you have to sit down and concentrate for a long time to do it and I find myself with less capabilities to do so.
As for Lunar Festival, it was my least favorite in the past as you had to either be at the computer, traveling to the elders or AFK fly to the next collection of them. With old world flying, I will see how it becomes but I still do not expect it to be all that much fun. I will just be doing this on my "main" to get free 310% and an awesome proto-drake. Out of all the dragon mounts in the game, the Violet Proto-Drake I consider one of the best designed and coloured. They are gorgeous followed by the Twilight Drake, Drakes of the Winds in Cat and the Nether Drakes.
Koleckai Jan 20th 2011 11:15AM
Same old holiday that we have had for years... What is there to get excited about? Not even the prospect of a violet protodrake is enough to get me excited to get the achievements. Hell, I would have the achievements if they existed when the game was released.
Prelimar Jan 20th 2011 11:54AM
to be fair, we don't know if they've changed it yet or not.
Bronwyn Jan 20th 2011 11:38AM
I'm not particularly looking forward to it, but I'll probably try to get it done on the alts I have who are still working toward their VPDs and then I'll likely make the rounds to get clothing for my new alts who don't have the pieces- and also make sure my bank alts have all the gear, which I think they already do, but I'll double check.
Nawaf Jan 20th 2011 11:49AM
No! My favorite holiday of the year and my prepaid card finished!