Posts with tag noblegarden

I'm not in a WoW place right now. I tend to move through phases of being a casual or a hardcore player. It depends on the content available (such as a new patch) and my workload. I did most of the Noblegarden achievements but now Children's Week is here I suddenly feel burnt out. Except for a quick romp through Gun'drak with my guildies last night and a pit stop to pick up my orphans, I've been strangely distant from Azeroth.

The thing is, I know precisely why. It's the pressure of achievements and festivals. Let me be clear, no one is making me do these things but me. Last year I enjoyed Children's Week because it was my first time doing the Outland version, I got rep, money and the smug feeling you get from taking a cute Draenei orphan around to see her heritage. Now all my guildies and most of the other people on my sever are frantically going for the achievements and, in some ways, it feels like the holiday has been cheapened a little. Being so close to Noblegarden probably hasn't helped either.

But it makes me wonder if I'm the only one? Right now I'm a casual player, but do you think the point of these holidays has been lost by the desire to get a Violet Proto-Drake?

Here's our podcast from last week -- Lesley Smith joined Turpster, Patrick Beja of How I WoW and I to chat about the Martin Fury controversy, how Children's Week and Noblegarden are going on the live realms, and what we've been up to lately in the World of Warcraft. And as usual we answered your email, including sharing ideas for our upcoming video show (we're planning on doing it on May 23rd, so stay tuned for that), how to transfer away from a guild if you happen to be a guildleader, and both why Blizzard canceled WWI, and when BlizzCon tickets might go on sale.

We also talked about the ongoing Children's Week Charity Auction -- bidding has slowed down a bit over the weekend, so if you're interested in helping out kids in hospitals by donating some money to buy them videogames, go on over to the auction page and find something to bid on. All the money raised goes directly to Child's Play, so get your bids in now while you can.

And as we mentioned on the show, here's the schedule for the next few weeks: we'll have a show as usual next Saturday the 9th, and then we'll have a special midweek show on the 13th of May. And then on the 23rd, we'll be live on camera for the video show. Should be really interesting -- we'll see you then!

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This week's set of comics is actually quite topical, from a recent scandal, to world news to proper feline nutrition. There also aren't as many Noblegarden-themed comics as I expected.

• Cru the Dwarf is making fire. Nifty things are afoot!
  
• Experience Points examines the latest content patch.
• Flintlocke vs the Horde: War Party part 11.
• GU Comics: It Figures. This is related to a recent story that we covered involving hacked accounts, a GM item, and some very naughty players. Read all about the Martin Fury Scandal, and then tell us what you thought in our polls.
• GU Comics also hosted a guest strip by Stormhaven, called Inconsistent Know-How. Don't forget to read the explanation underneath! Before I did, I thought it was about the fact that Mustard Dogs seems to never come up. I have stacks and stacks of the Rhino Dogs, but no dice.
  
• GU Comics also posted a comic about last week's Noblegarden festivities, Rabbits Everywhere.
• This is the second-latest LFG comic, but I thought that it stood better on its own than #248.
• NoObz: Useless.
• NPC: For the Taurine! I love this one. If you don't know what Taurine is, you don't love your cats enough. Yep, I said it.
• Check out the latest from Teh Gladiators.
• The Adventures of Disgraph T. Dwarf has updated, and I have to agree, I Love the Smell of Bacon in the Morning.
• Here is another from It's a 2v2 Life.
• Here's a newbie: KUO, with Eyebeam Irony. I couldn't decide which one to list, so check out a few of them, and I'll go with the latest next week.

Noblegarden has passed for another year and everyone is now running with little orphans in tow. There were lots of changes this year - the biggest being a whole seven days of egg hunting madness rather than just twenty-four hours.

My Noblegarden was spent camping Azure Watch, being chased by purple bunnies and looking for eggs until I went more blind than usual. When I eventually managed to find enough eggs to get me my bunny wabbit (the tuxedo pants, shirt and dress dropped along with the bunch of flowers), I started looking for females in order to do the Shake Your Bunny-Maker achievement.

Now my server isn't one of the largest and I found all the females quite easily -- even a Tauren and a Troll -- but I'll be damned if I could find a single Orc female. There are some on Daggerspine, as many of my guildies had already completed the achievement, but I eventually switched to my Horde account only to experience the mind-numbing chatter from prepubescent players. In the end, I couldn't get the title and now have to wait another year. Hopefully then it won't be as chaotic.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts and experiences post-Noblegarden. Did you achieve everything you wanted?

Ah, it's the weekend again. We find ourselves in a unique position this week as Friday sees the close of one yearly event and the beginning of another thanks to Blizzard pushing Noblegarden back a bit. This weekend, Azeroth is going to be overrun by pesky little kids asking to be taken around town, begging for junk food, and even endangering themselves as their respective guardians show them the war part of Warcraft. On the other hand, the PTR is also up for those who want to escape prepubescent peskiness. In order of how quickly they responded, let's see what the WoW Insider team is up to this weekend:

• Dan O'Halloran - Hitting the PTR to play with premade-80s. Always wanted to noodle around with a level capped Mage and Warlock, but never had the time to level one all the way.
• Daniel Whitcomb - Being excited for Children's Week, mostly. Not only is it two extra pets for my collection, but it gives me a good excuse to get in some PvP. I do wish School of Hard Knocks didn't require you to be the actual person holding/returning/capturing the flag/node/whatever though
• Matthew Rossi - Today, I'm playing with rabbits: my bunny Herne and his bunny wife Grimalkin will be getting some out time to celebrate his being over whatever was putting him off his food. (Not eating is very serious for
  rabbits, they can die in a matter of days once they go into GI Stasis.) I may do a Naxx pug on my shaman and there's Ulduar 10 this weekend.
• Robin Torres - Orphans and alts. It's all about orphans and alts.
• Chase Christian - Ulduar 10, which will be even easier with the latest round of nerfs. I'm glad we're killing these bosses pre-nerf, because it makes the guild feel better about itself.
• Matt Low - Ulduar 10 for Matt also!
• Eliah Hecht - Naxx on my lock, Ulduar on the priest. Maybe starting to level my Mage, if I have time.
• Alex Ziebart - Thorim, Freya and Mimiron are on notice on Ulduar 25. I might try to finish leveling my Resto Shaman as well, but that probably won't happen.
• Adam Holisky - Working on some multiboxing.
• Jennie Lees - Getting my flatmate and his entire workplace infected with the WoW bug. >:)
• Michael Sacco - Yogg-Saron on Ulduar 10; Mimiron, Vezax, and Yogg on 25.
• Zach Yonzon - Arenas even though Blizzard borked the system again, Battlegrounds even though it will be overrun by children and their clueless guardians, and Ulduar even though my guild doesn't need another plate DPS.
  

Enough about us (cheers for those who actually read through that), what about you guys? What are you playing this weekend?

We hope you've gotten the all the necessary Achievements for Noblegarden because a new world event kicks off today. Yep, it's Children's Week once again, and just like all the yearly events this one has a bunch of Achievements you'll need to plow through in order to get the meta, and consequently the Violet Proto-Drake? Did it catch you by surprise? We hope not. The in-game calendar tells you exactly when these things start, anyway, and barring that you've got your friends over here at WoW Insider to remind you.

While some players are polarized over the School of Hard Knocks Achievement, which requires players to venture into the Battlegrounds, I'm not looking forward to a token dungeon run to kill King Ymiron or doing five daily quests for five consecutive days. If you're unable to log in mid-week, you're toast. Ugh. That said, it's an extremely easy meta Achievement to obtain. Are you looking forward to the event? Are you rushing Noblegarden so can't be bothered to chaperone some kids all over Azeroth (like you do every year)? What's the first thing you've got planned for Children's Week?

Last night I was flying down to Un'Goro to do the Hard Boiled Noblegarden achievement. Long flights get me thinking, at least they did until I installed the Bejeweled addon. World of Warcraft has changed so much since I started playing and 3.1 has brought some of the most interesting changes: dual specs, the hearthstone timer nerf.

Now as I was flying, my guild whispered me asking for my aid in Naxx 10. Fortunately they could summon me but it reminded me of one of the biggest problems with flying in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, you can't get off a bird. Yes I know you can log out and then log back in to be deposited at the next flight point but it's hardly ideal if you need to get off right now.

Since I first started playing, I've wondered why Blizzard don't implement a handy eject button that you could use when on long flights. You could be thrown from the back of your gryphon or wind rider and gently parachute to the ground. Alternatively they could just allow you to hearthstone while flying. But I digress. Readers, I want to know if you could add one mechanic to the game what would it be?

We here at WoW Insider are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

Everyone has something to say about this lovely little world event going on, and we've selected some of the best blog entries from around the net for you to enjoy today:

• Mend Pet has some good egg spots for Horde.
• BlizzPlanet has a nice Noblegarden guide. Be sure to check out ours too.
• Wobin writes over at WoW LJ about a great add-on to get your attention when finding an egg.
• Biker Bunny.
• And for the non-noblegarden related post today, Matticus knows why you're Frustrated by Ulduar.

Noblegarden - Love it or hate it, either way it's here to stay for the rest of the week. And if you want that 310% mount then you're going to have to put up with it. But hopefully I've got a tip for you all that'll make things a little easier.

There is a spot, the perfect spot if you will, where you can get upwards of 30 eggs in 15 minutes. More if you're not bothered by others attempting to rain on your egg parade.

The spot exists in Azure Watch outside of Exodar, and I've gotten a few pictures you can see after the break to make it easy for you to sit there and farm away for a bit. While this trick won't necessarily work in the early evening when everyone and their mother's uncle is on farming eggs, it works great during off hours.

The title seems self-explanatory; are you enjoying Noblegarden? How many people are participating on your server? Do you already have the achievements done, or are they a work-in-progress?

I have to admit I'm writing this expecting a lot of comments to come back noting that it's pretty hard to get this holiday done when spawn points on the eggs are camped 24/7. For my part, I vastly underestimated how much of a nuisance that was going to be on the live realms. That aside, Noblegarden does seem to be one of the more efficient holidays, particularly if you get lucky with item drops, and I think this is also the first time Blizzard's made it possible to get all the achievement items you need as purchases in the event that Lady Luck spends the week being an indifferent mistress. The ability to buy achievement items certainly settles what was by far the biggest complaint concerning Love Is In the Air. For that holiday, your ability to complete the meta-achievement was ultimately determined by the RNG, to the point where Blizzard hotfixed the drop rate on a key achievement item after the forums went kaboom.

This time around, you don't need to worry about that as long as you can get enough Noblegarden Chocolate. Time to knuckle down, plunk a frosty beverage at your side, and tell that jerk who's camping your spawn to go find his own friggin' eggs. Ahhhh, the holiday spirit!

I've been looking at the Noblegarden items for awhile now, since they first showed up on the PTR. For some reason, it never hit me until I saw it on live realms how cool one item in particular actually is. For five chocolates you can buy your own Noblegarden Egg, which allows you to lay a Brightly Colored Egg. Yes, that's five eggs for one egg of your own, which is a pretty horrible exchange rate.

What's so cool about it? They're the exact same eggs you've been picking up that whole time, except that you can set them out. You can loot them right away for an added chance of whatever loot may be in them, but I'm not sure why you'd do that, except for possibly completing Dressed for the Occasion/Sunday's Finest. What makes it better is that other people can loot them.

What makes that so great? If you can get an organized crew (and their alts) together, you can set up your own Noblegarden Hunt for your guild or your friends and family. Laying an egg has a 1 hour cooldown, so each of you will only be able to set out one egg each, but with a sizable group that might not be too terrible. A brief hunt, but you can make it exciting! Feralas, perhaps? Icecrown? The interior of a cleared Ulduar? Just take it far, far away from busy cities or hubs. You don't want to lay an egg out in the Stormwind Trade District. Joe McMullet will loot that thing in a flash, and that's no good.

Noblegarden is finally here and, boy, is it addictive! Knowing how everyone would be swarming all over Kharanos and Goldshire, I headed for the most isolated, least visited starter town I could think of: Azure Watch. On my low-population server, there were only about another five people after eggs and once you start spotting them hunting becomes insanely addictive. There are already people with their Spring Rabbit's Foot and the rest have just been turned into purple bunnies. I'm not sure if the latter is cute or just weird.

Personally, I'm just ambling along and doing what achievements I can, there's no hope of me getting the Violet Proto-Drake this year. But, I want to know which part of Noblegarden are you folks are most looking forward to?

It's 12:01 AM Pacific, which means that Noblegarden should now be live on all North American realms. Despite the fact that it's the middle of the night, people are absolutely packed into the starting zones on my home realm, so don't expect things will be easy just because it's late!

Keep an eye on WoW Insider throughout the day, because we're going to be covering the holiday as much as we can. Our own Allison Robert started that already yesterday evening with a special edition of The Overachiever, covering the achievements of Noblegarden. She also has a basic FAQ of the holiday up, should you need it.

A note to all of you bloggers out there, I plan to do a Noblegarden-themed special edition of The Daily Quest today as well. If you've written about the holiday and think our readers may be interested in what you have to say, send your link our way and we'll take a look!