Posts with tag what-a-long-strange-trip-its-been

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If getting mail from dead people is your idea of a good time, then good news: The Lunar Festival starts today! Lasting until Feb. 11, the in-game holiday pays homage to the real-world Chinese New Year celebration.

If you're interested in participating, there's a lot to do during the Lunar Festival. You can set off a bunch of fireworks (don't blow your fingers off), grind out a lot of easy experience by visiting elders, and the perennial WoW holiday favorite activity, killing stuff. Check out Allison Robert's Guide to Lunar Festival 2012 for more details.

What are your goals this Lunar Festival holiday? Are you going to be making the rounds to try and finish off your What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been achievement? Try to level some alts with the aid of that sweet, free experience? Or are you going to just sleep your way through the holiday because "been there, done that"?

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Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, 10 little points are all that stand between us and a new ... something.

Many of the mounts this week be familiar to you if you've read The OverAchiever: Pimp Thy Ride, which I wrote before the Cataclysm content patch with an eye toward the number of people who wanted to slap a 310% mount on their toons before it had to be trained. Sadly, none of the mounts described in that article, barring one, will grant Master Riding for free now.

Also read:

• Combining The Ambassador and Mountain O' Mounts
• Mountain O' Mounts in Outland
• Mountain O' Mounts in Northrend
• Mountain O' Mounts in 5-man dungeons
• Mountain O' Mounts in raids

The Environmental Protection Agency is issuing a warning to the Eastern Kingdoms, especially the Greater Gilneas/Sepulcher area: Absolutely toxic levels of love are expected to be in the air from Feb. 6 through Feb. 20. That's right, folks -- it's time for another semi-mandatory in-game holiday!

The Azerothian holiday Love is in the Air is based on the real world Valentine's Day holiday. There are some similarities, of course -- in Azeroth as in real life, the holiday involves romantic picnics, eating candies, and making very poor decisions while drunk. The activities are far more rewarding in Azeroth, though: Completing these, along with all the other holiday achievements throughout the year, earns you the 50-point What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been meta achievement, complete with a Violet Proto-Drake and free Master Riding. (For more information about completing the Love meta achievement, take a look at Allison Robert's The Overachiever: Guide to Love is in the Air 2011.)

How are you planning on spending the two-week-long holiday? Are you going to spend it working on your holiday meta achievement? Are you looking forward to farming Apothecary Hummel for his new ilevel 346 loot? Or maybe you'll just send your in-game sweetheart a Bouquet of Black Roses?

As for yours truly, I'll be spending the bulk of my time receiving gifts from my many suitors (hint, hint), flirting with blood elves, riding Big Love Rockets, and spending some quality time with my one true love -- myself.

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.

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Thanksgiving (or the United States version thereof) is quickly approaching, and with it comes the in-game Pilgrim's Bounty event. Now, I didn't actually finishing Pilgrim's Bounty last year. This is mostly because I was visiting my family for the entire week of Thanksgiving, so I was only playing on my laptop, and my laptop is sufficiently low-tech that it does not run WoW all that well. Also, I was totally spending most of my time with my family. This month, though, I'm going to be in town with access to my usual gaming rig, so I'll have more than enough time and ability to finish up the achievements.

That said, I'm still deciding whether or not I'll actually take the time to do them. After all, none of the Pilgrim's Bounty achievements are needed for What a Long, Strange Trip. I mean, an extra turkey pet is sort of cool, but otherwise, there's not really much of a profit to them. Also, some of the achievements seem downright annoying. Turkey Lurkey? Do I really need to run around looking for all these dumb rogues? Why so arbitrary? And what about the Turkinator? Do I really need to run around a newbie zone like a chicken with my head cut off trying to target critters more quickly than the other 100 people doing it? What does that accomplish?

Then I think about some of the other holidays. It's not like I haven't had to run around Dalaran looking for random class and race combinations before, and it's not like I haven't run around the newbie zones doing silly, inconsequential stuff before either. So why is Pilgrim's Bounty bringing out the achievement cynic in me? I like to think I've been doing achievements because they're interesting and fun, but what if they've been about the carrot and stick all along? Now that there's no reward I'm really interested in, am I finally seeing achievements for what they are, or am I just being a grinch a month early?

What do you think? Do you do achievements for fun, or are you pretty sure you'd leave them alone if they weren't rewarding you with shiny stuff?

When the Hallow's End decorations went up, many people were excited about the possibilities of the rare Headless Horseman mount, finishing up What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been and just generally playing around with one of the favorite holidays in the game.

When the first players started doing the Headless Horseman event in hopes of Sinister Squashlings, they quickly noticed a rather harsh bug. There is about a 50/50 chance when mousing over the pumpkin to summon the Headless Horseman that the game client will lock up and/or disconnect you. Ever since patch 4.0.1 hit the live servers, there have been reports that world items that give the gear icon to let you know it is clickable have been causing a similar crash, and this is likely related to that.

One of the reasons this bug is especially hurting groups is that the people to usually click on the pumpkin are the tanks, who are then disconnected, leaving the groups to fend for themselves until they get back. As a precaution, have a DPSer be the one to click on the pumpkin and allow time to reconnect afterward so that the tank and healer can keep the rest of the group alive. If the fight is over by the time the DPSer gets back, the loot roll and bag of goodies should be ready and waiting.

Update: Orlyia (Blizzard customer service representative) posted a list of known issues and work-arounds for Hallow's End in the customer service forums. They've said that they're aware of the mouse-over issue and the developers are looking into what is causing it.

Zarhym

I provided an update in the lengthy thread about Master riding, so in case it gets missed I'm throwing it up in its own non-sticky thread for now.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=27187849344&sid=1&pageNo=28

I have a slight update to spread to the masses. We are going to be adding a hotfix for the achievement What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been. This hotfix will make it so that obtaining the Reins of the Violet Proto-Drake will award players Master riding.

The way in which 310% will be awarded is going to be a little quirky at first, but we plan to make it a more smooth process in a future patch. For now, you will need 280% flying in order to learn to use the Violet Proto-Drake. Once you mount the drake for the first time it will teach Master riding. The only catch is that you have to dismount and mount the drake again in order for 310% speed to take effect.

source

For those working on the achievement -- don't stop now! Master riding can be yours for free once the achievement is complete!

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

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As you've probably already read, players will be able to purchase 310 percent flying speed from trainers in Cataclysm. While this is good news for people who hate raiding, think arena was shat into existence by the most sociopathic among the development team, or spent School of Hard Knocks trying to drown themselves in the nearest body of water, the bad news is that buying your way to super-fast flying will run you a cool 5,000 gold.

Outrageous, says this dyed-in-the-wool cheapskate. For anyone else who'd rather die than part with a centavo of hard-earned gold, the good news is that having even a single 310 percent flyer in your stable is enough to get you the skill free. Fortunately, there's plenty of time to snag yourself one of these coveted mounts before Cataclysm hits, and just as fortunately, each mount is the reward (or subject) of an achievement.

Strategy guides for obtaining each of the remaining 310 percent mounts is definitely beyond the scope of this article (although I'll probably devote an edition of OverAchiever to nabbing the Rusted Proto-Drake, above) but we can take a visual tour of the fast flyers that any hard-working player can still get in Wrath of the Lich King.

EDITOR'S NOTE: If you are looking for the updated 2011 guide, you can find it here.

This year, the Midsummer Fire Festival will go live at 3:00 am server time Monday, June 21st and will run through 3:00 am Sunday, July 4th. While it doesn't outwardly appear to be a very time-intensive holiday -- the meta, awarding the Flame Warden title to Alliance players and Flame Keeper title to Horde players, consists of only six achievements -- three of them will have you trekking all over the world.

We don't believe that the holiday has changed significantly from its 2009 incarnation (if it has, the information hasn't become available yet), but there have been a few changes to how you'll do some of the achievements, and the holiday's boss, Lord Ahune, also has an updated loot table. Consequently, I've updated and expanded our 2009 guide to reflect the changes we're aware of.

Ah, Winter Veil -- the sights, the sounds, the jingling bells from the reindeer mounts, the curses emanating from players trying to tag the Abominable Greench mob, and the massively inflated prices for Small Eggs on the auction house. While this may not rank on the level of Great Auntie Marge's annual fruitcake for the family party, WoW has its own set of holiday traditions -- some more respected than others -- and all of them were out in full force over Winter Veil. Moreover, this is only the second year that the achievement system has been active for the holiday, and lots of people are still putting time in on What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been for both mains and alts. This year, a new achievement popped up to take advantage of the 2009 Winter Veil gift (a genuine Red Rider Air Rifle!), although players seemed unenthusiastic about the rifle's inaccuracy and cast time.

So how did the holiday go for you? Did you finish the Merrymaker meta if you still needed it? Were you suicidally foolish enough to go for BB King? Did you shoot your eye out, kid?

Pilgrim's Bounty, WoW's brand-new holiday, has gone live on all servers by now, and players worldwide are busy inhaling huge quantities of cranberries and stuffing in pursuit of the Pilgrim title and the uber-adorable turkey pet. I have to admit -- I was kind of worried that the first day of the holiday would be a nightmare along the lines of Noblegarden's egg-camping hell, but was pleasantly surprised by the fast respawn rate of the Wild Turkey mobs and the sheer number of them. I'm also optimistic that the holiday will encourage more people to level cooking, because once you're got the requisite cooking skill for the achievements, the Pilgrim title and turkey pet are fast, easy, and fun (or they would be, if I could just find the ever-elusive Dwarf rogue).

But Pilgrim's Bounty isn't part of the meta-achievement What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, so I'm wondering if anyone's just going to ignore it as a result. Are you planning on going for the Pilgrim title, enjoying the holiday in a more casual way, or not planning to participate at all? If you are participating in the holiday, how is it going on your server so far?

Hot off the forums comes word from Bornaak that Brewfest, that celebration of things like drinking, throwing mugs at invaders, and killing an unwashed Dark Iron Dwarf in hopes that he drops a kodo has been extended two days to October 5th. If, like me, you've been farming him for days only to pass the Kodo to your wife because, well, you love her and want her to be happy (and also you know you're doomed if you don't) then you'll celebrate additional chances to whack him in hopes of Kodo. Or deadly beer stein. Or maybe you just like doing Ram Riding, or got a late start on your tickets. Whatever the reason we can all celebrate the extension of this, our yearly excuse to go back to BRD and kill a dwarf to steal his lucky cha... er, I mean trinkets.

Now get cracking, make every second of those two extra days count. Complete your Achievements, get your loots, whatever you need you have more time.