Posts with tag festival

Blizzard has been getting hit with a few complaints since the Midsummer Fire Festival began -- that the holiday was just a stat-bump for the items and was relatively the same event as last year. Even the highlight item, the Frostscythe of Lord Ahune, was part of the controversy. Bashiok took to the forums to discuss the changes that had to happen for the Midsummer Fire Festival to even happen and gave players a clue to confirm the widely held belief that Hallow's End this year will play into the larger story between the Forsaken and the worgen.

The Midsummer Fire Festival remained largely the same due to the amount of work that had to go into rearranging fire locations due to the cataclysm, changing around all of the decorations, and generally spending a lot of time switching over from the old world. Bashiok does cop to the fact that the event is more or less the same as last year's, but reminds us that the Midsummer Fire Festival has already had its major overhaul back a few years ago.

The more interesting news, however, is that Bashiok says we've got some surprises coming our way with respect to Hallow's End, WoW's take on Halloween. We've been long speculating, based on data-mined items and story cues, that Hallow's End will deal with the continuing story of Sylvanas' march into the kingdom of Gilneas and the worgen's fight to take back their homeland. Plus, who doesn't love the classic Halloween monster movie tropes of zombies and werewolves?

Bashiok confirmed that there are changes in store for Hallow's End. To what extent, we do not know. However, I will be looking forward to surprises because, really, I love surprises. I'm a giant sucker for surprises. Bring on the surprises!

Things are heating up all over Azeroth for the Midsummer Fire Festival. Well, everything except the Frostscythe of Lore Ahune, that is. Blizzard updated the holiday Ahune cloaks to ilevel 353 for players to grab, but Ahune's trademark staff just got the "scale" upgrade -- it's not really ideal for the classes it is intended for. In fact, it's fairly worthless for intellect-reliant classes. Bashiok responded on the official forums that to make Ahune's Frostscythe an ideal weapon stat-wise would be to dissuade players from getting their weapon upgrade in ZA or ZG.

Many players were concerned with the Frostscythe's stats because of its inflated +700 stamina instead of plus intellect, which casters obviously prefer, since stamina has been normalized across gear. To be fair, I think it is completely fine to have this holiday fluff item be a non-ideal, cosmetic item that players can wear for it's on-use effect and prestige-luck. Not every item that drops has to be the ideal, especially during a holiday that is coinciding (potentially) with patch 4.2 dropping. That staff you want to be ideal so badly isn't going to be exactly ideal in week if the patch hits June 28. For now, it was an easier alternative to just scale the item opposed to tinkering around and making something perfect. I'd say just leave it as a fun, unique item.

The Midsummer Fire Festival begins today all across Azeroth. The celebration runs from June 21 through July 2. This year, however, the celebration of all things fire has a somewhat different meaning for players. Soon, the tenuous alliance we all have with fire is set on its head, as the very essence of fire himself launches his final attack on Hyjal and the world tree Nordrassil. This is the last Fire Festival that Ragnaros will exist in -- we will most likely defeat him in the Firelands during this festival.

For me, the Fire Festival is the final holiday achievement I need for the mega meta-achievement What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been on my warrior, who was created around this time last year when I decided to change classes. The warrior went from orc to goblin to blood elf and finally night elf when I moved over to Alliance to raid with a new group. He's had a shaky year, but every challenge has been met with resolve. The Fire Festival represents my new beginning into a different class, and it is interesting to see how much has changed in a year.

But for Ragnaros, King Fire himself, this will be his last. Little fire elementals all across the land who aspire to greatness like Ragnaros will have their hopes dashed and dreams crushed -- the Firelord's end will begin, ironically, while we celebrate fire.

What are you looking forward to most about the Midsummer Fire Festival? Are you going to queue up for Ahune right away when the servers come up?

If you're not sure what you're doing this holiday, check out WoW Insider's guide to the Midsummer Fire Festival achievements.

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This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com.

I've just spent a day being Scottish. My father's family hails from Scotland, and the summer months will find me out and about at a variety of highland games in the Midwest. Sometimes I'm a spectator, and sometimes I run a tent for my clan. There's a general understanding that the highland games were created to prepare men for doing battle with the English. Each part of what has become the athletic portion of the games can be traced back a need for hurling hurl rocks, logs or flaming bales of vegetation at advancing troops or fortified positions. At the games I just attended, a group gave demonstrations on medieval swordplay.

In World of Warcraft, the Argent Tournament springs immediately to mind. We were informed this was a training ground to prepare us for an assault on the LIch King and his forces. The Darkmoon Faire and Brewfest are examples of festivals with games of chance, food and vendors, and tickets you have to procure by participating in events or getting lots of items requested by vendors.

We've heard rumors (or perhaps it was a column of wishful thinking on WoW.com's part) about an upgrade to the Darkmoon Faire. I'd go more often if I could make an attempt to toss a caber, the stone or the sheaf. These are strength and agility events; having purchasable trinkets for both attributes would give everyone a chance to succeed. Rewards could be class-specific buff items of a certain duration. If you can get the caber to twelve o'clock (the prime position for this event; check out the North American Scottish Games Association for the rules), you get a scroll that will give a hunter an additional 50 agility for 10 minutes. It might be something of minor interest to a level 80 -- but you can be sure I'd be at the faire, just to try to toss a caber.

Every Thursday, Shelbi Roach of The Bronze Kettle guides you in creating WoW-inspired crafts using real world mats with World of WarCrafts.

Celebrate Midsummer with this one-of-a-kind novelty. Whether you're wanting to post your grocery list on the fridge or hang a picture of your latest crush in your locker, now you can do it with style.

Here is what you will need:

• Polymer Clay (premo! turquoise and gold)
  
• Circle Clay Cutters
  
• Xacto Knife
  
• Adhesive Magnet
  
• Scissors

Click on the images below to view a gallery of step-by-step instructions.

Here's a great tip from Darthkurai on LJ: doing the Midsummer Fire quests as a lowbie will net you a ton of nice XP. He grabbed almost two levels' worth of XP at level 40, just for running around to all the different bonfires throughout Azeroth. Bewarned that some of the quests have various level requirements on them (Undercity and all of the capital flames, as he finds out, are level 50 and above only, and of course Lord Ahune is only for level 70s), but doing all of the quests at low levels will net you a good 6-7k XP, which around level 40 will give you at least a ding or two.

Pretty good for just running around the world once or twice. Everyone's excited about Ahune and what you can get from him, but don't forget your old alts, either -- logging them on during the festival and showing them the world (while killing on the way with those buffs) can grab you a nice chunk of free XP for them as well.

So by now, you've done some of the Midsummer quests, desecrated a few flames, and you have a bunch of Burning Blossoms burning a hole in your pocket. The question now is: What are you going to do with all of those? Sure, you can throw them in the nearest Festival Bonfire for the sweet buffs, but you can also spend them at the Midsummer Merchants and Midsummer Suppliers located next to every Capital City's fire.

After the break, we'll look at exactly what you can buy and what they do.

Don't forget, if you don't happen to already be out and about and looking at real fireworks this evening, the celebration will be happening in Azeroth as well. This evening, I believe every hour on the hour, firework displays can be seen over all the major cities in Azeroth (Booty Bay has been my favorite place to watch in the past, but I'm interested in seeing what happens in Shattrath this year as well). Additionally, there will be free booze outside the city gates, so get drunk and party!

And if you haven't done the Midsummer quests yet, don't forget that IcftB will be running all over the world this evening also-- that will kick off around 8:00 pm EST. No matter what you're up to today in-game or out, have a great and safe time, and happy Fourth of July from all of us here at WoW Insider!

Yup, the festival of flame is appearing in Azeroth starting today through July 5th. There will be bonfires in the cities, new quests to be run, and new rewards to be had (Toasted Smorc is some tasty stuff, and that +44 healing is nice, too). And of course, coming next week around July 4th, the fireworks will fly over Azeroth's cities yet again.

I'm kind of excited to see what new stuff there will be to find in Outland-- I especially enjoyed the new Children's Week stuff this year (even though it took long enough to show up), and so I wonder how they celebrate Midsummer Fire in Nagrand or Shattrath. Can you imagine what fireworks would be like in Netherstorm, if they indeed have exhibits up there? Should be cool-- or in this case, hot.

Enjoy the Midsummer Fire Festival-- I'll see you out by the bonfires.

If you checked the calendar in advance (it was updated today), it informed you that the Lunar Festival was scheduled to end on the 8th of March -- that would be this Friday. However, if you've bothered to log on to the game at all, you'll notice that all of the decorations are gone and the elders have vanished. Whyso? Apparently, the calendar was in error -- according to Blizzard poster Ommra, the festival was supposed to last 19 days. So if you were waiting for the last day to turn things in, or the last minute to run around hunting elders (like I was -- I know, I'm a slacker), you're stuck waiting for next year.

Well, the festival of Midsummer Fire has been going on for a while now, and I have to admit, I basically forgot about it after about a day...

Oh, I took the quests to seek out the fires throughout the lands, and I did get that really nifty Cinder Elemental that saved my butt a couple of times, and some nice experience, but all in all, my opinion on the event so far has been...blah.

For one thing, I'm tired of Stormwind looking all dingy & smoky. This is one of the reasons I stopped spending so much time in Orgrimmar; the air is almost thicker in the game than in my room...and that's saying something.

What about you folks? Have you enjoyed the event so far? Should Blizzard make this an annual occurrence? Chime in...

Well, it's about time for another holiday...and no, that Children's Week crap didn't cut it. As reported on XGPGaming, starting tomorrow, June 21st, the festival of Midsummer Fire will kick off in Azeroth, with dancing, quests, and a huge fireworks display to close it all off. The report states:

* Bonfires have been lit across Azeroth in festival camps to rekindle the spirits of its celebrants and ward off ancient evils. These sacred flames are guarded by flamekeepers and it's rumoured that the myriad powers of the flames includes both cleansing and blessing.
* Dancing around ribbon poles is a popular activity amongst friends and fellow celebrants in the many festival camps. Although traditionally a focus for the joyous celebrations, all participants will without doubt appreciate the resulting resistance to heat!
* Fire Festival quest givers can be found in the capital cities. As the celebration of the flame is spread throughout the land of Azeroth there will be many new perilous journeys to embark on with exciting seasonal rewards to match those heroic enough.

There is no announcement of the event on the official Blizzard page as of yet, and the patch notes don't make mention of it, either, but it sounds legit to me, so I guess we'll see if it appears tomorrow. If so, remember you heard it here first....or, second, rather.