Posts with tag winter-veil-2011

The gifts have been unwrapped. The cheese logs have been consumed, the Greench's plans foiled, the eyes shot out. The Winter Veil holiday is drawing to a close today -- you have only a few short hours to get everything you wanted to accomplish done. (If you don't want to miss anything, you should probably check out The Overachiever's Guide to Winter Veil 2011.)

That said, those of us here at WoW Insider want to know: Were you able to achieve all your in-game goals for the Winter Veil holiday? Did you get all the achievements you hoped for? Was Greatfather Winter kind to you? Did you make a fortune selling Small Eggs? Or did you just say "bah, humbug" to the entire holiday?

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We've come to expect our holiday bosses to work a certain way here in World of Warcraft. Once every few months, we get a chance to go queue up for a unique boss that drops some nice loot to provide easy upgrades for casual players, and we get a daily package with a chance at some sort of fun pet or mount, as well as a BoE weapon. This has been a very nice arrangement for all involved.

This year on Winter Veil, Blizzard muddied the waters a bit. Rather than put the boss in a dungeon, Blizzard put him right smack dab in Alterac, uninstanced, and made the daily package come from a daily quest. Now, if you want to kill him, you have to fly out to him and grab a group, then take him down.

Winter Veil 2011 runs from Thursday, Dec. 15 through Monday, Jan. 2 this year. As with most of the WoW holidays, the Merrymaker meta is required for What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been. Those of you who are still on the lookout for your Violet Proto-Drakes (and free 310% flying) will want to keep an eye out for any achievements you still need.

Even if you don't want or don't need any achievements this year, Winter Veil will also give you the opportunity to turn your mount into a reindeer, become a snowman with a unique dance animation, and get noncombat pets and unique holiday items. Interestingly, it looks like the Winter Veil pets no longer require snowballs to summon, which is cool, although they're not going to stick around if the holiday's not on. Seriously, go try pulling out your Father Winter's Helper and see what it does. I'll wait.

There's also a new pet as of 2011 and a sorta-new (well, not really) holiday boss. As always, I'll be up as the holiday goes live to make necessary additions or corrections to the guide.