Posts with tag winter-veil

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Winter Veil is probably one of the most profitable game holidays. There are lots of achievements and quests people do, and some of these involve acquiring things that can be sold on the Auction House. The most interesting thing is that none of the things people will be needing require a maximum-level character to get and are, in fact, farmable by just about anyone over level 6 or so.

Small Eggs

Let's start with Small Eggs. Five of these are used to make the five Gingerbread Cookies required for the holiday quest Treats for Greatfather Winter. Small eggs are easily farmed, but the demand for them between Dec. 15 and Jan. 2 is more than can reasonably be farmed by any one person. People in the know have been preparing since last year and have stockpiled these eggs.

That said, the bulk needed to meet the demand generated by just about every single active player doing this quest on all their characters is pretty high, and these eggs don't come up on the Auction House that often for cheap. For the next few days until demand drops off a bit, people will buy these for between 2g and 5g, and if you have a character capable of killing level 6 monsters, you can farm hundreds an hour in Eversong Woods outside Silvermoon.

The WoW Insider Weekly News Update is your source for all the biggest stories from the past week wrapped up in a neat little video package. Mathew McCurley hosts your quick look at this week's biggest news.

If you haven't already subscribed to the WoW Insider YouTube channel, you should!

This week's top stories include:

• Blizzard announces Battle.net Balance.
• Blizzard also announces Battle.net BattleTags.
• Winter Veil is here.
• Blizzard reclassified items for Dragon Soul's Raid Finder difficulty.

Win a Nightsaber Cub loot card from WoWTCGLoot! Here's how to enter: Subscribe to the WoW Insider YouTube channel and comment on the video over on YouTube for a chance to win! We'll contact our winner via YouTube on Friday, Dec. 23.

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Deck the non-religious halls with joy that is totally unrelated to this guy who may or may not have been the savior, depending on your own personal beliefs that we all totally respect. It's time for Winter Veil!

The Feast of Winter Veil is a two-and-a-half-week-long, pine-scented, in-game holiday consisting of dwarves, off-brand orc Santas, and unappealing spiced cookies. And who could forget all the gift-giving, murder, comic mischief, getting this close to regionals, and ... please tell me they're not going to make us go back to Outland again. No, seriously. Please. There are space ghosts there.

But enough about the sheer terror of being haunted by the specters of the dead and feeling their cold essences devour your soul -- this is Winter Veil holiday! So what are your plans for the holiday? Are you going to be saving Metzen the Reindeer this year? Or are you going to be all Scrooge-like and let this holiday pass you by?

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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 Cataclysm reputation factions and achievements.

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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.

Twink Info, a depository of great information and blogs for twinking out your characters at any level, is giving away some great prizes this season including a 7-inch touchscreen tablet. All you have to do to enter into the drawing is create an account for Twink Info's forums and post a minimum of 15 times before the new year. Learn about twinking out a new alt, how to survive in the Battleground brackets, the best transmog sets for your level, and more, while being entered in a cool competition.

Read all about the contest over on Twink Info, and then enter the contest.

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Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, all hell breaks loose.

Hey folks. The Littlest Pet Shop option was the most popular choice in last week's The OverAchiever: Wrapping up Mountain O' Mounts, but that was before all manner of patch 4.3 goodness was datamined on Tuesday night. I spent the subsequent 24 hours in a caffeine-fueled haze running three characters around the PTR investigating the new achievements for you.

I bring tidings of great, albeit currently bugged, joy to you all.

The Feast of Winter Veil ends today at midnight server time. So you have just a few hours left to get a Little Helper from your Friends or Bros. Before Ho Ho Hos or any of the rest of the huge list of achievements you can get during this holiday. We dressed up as gnomish helpers on Friday night to have some some last-minute PvP fun in miniature, but for the most part, we didn't see too many others getting the achievement along with us.

Usually, if you wait until the last day, anything you need cooperation for is hard to get as most people get their achievements done early on. But sometimes, it's easier if you are all fighting for the same greench. What has been your experience?

Winter Veil 2010 runs from Wednesday, Dec. 15 through Sunday, Jan. 2 this year. Unlike November's holiday, Pilgrim's Bounty, the Merrymaker meta is required for What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been. If you've already got a Violet Proto-Drake or just don't care about the meta, 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 snowballs. Of course, if Santa RNG thinks you've been bad, you'll just wind up with Coal.

Though not always. Keep at it! Even Santa RNG has a heart.

Past the cut, I've revised and expanded our 2009 guide for anyone looking to complete the meta (and earn the title) Merrymaker. Cataclysm has almost certainly affected how you'll do this holiday, but unfortunately, there's no hard information yet as to how. I doubt that Blizzard had the time to tinker extensively with Winter Veil in the crush of work surrounding a new expansion, but we'll see. As always, I'll be around as the holiday goes live to check and update the article. For the moment, I've included some commonsense speculation on likely changes (such as when an NPC's probably changed locations due to city/topography upheaval).

I love Jepetto Joybuzz. He doesn't sell anything terribly useful, just silly ol' toys that you can goof around with. Dolls to place in creepy locations, trains to piss off your raid, paper airplanes, that whole deal. I love when he gets new toys on the PTR, so his latest additions made my heart soar. His new offerings are:

• Tiny Blue Ragdoll
• Blue Clockwork Rocket Bot
• Blue Crashin' Thrashin' Racer Controller

Are you noticing a trend? None of these toys are 100% new, they're azure (because I said blue too many times) recolors of previous toys. Toys that are inaccessible now. The green ragdoll is still around, but the Rocket Bot and the Racer Controller are both re-released toys that were only available during Winters Veil in 2007 and 2008. Players that acquired them the year they were released get to keep their Feats of Strength, but now everyone can join in on the fun and play with them. It's probably strange that I'm so excited about these, but come on. They're toys! Toys within a bigger toy, even!

At the very end of last year, It came from the Blog got together to celebrate the Feast of Winter Veil. We slaughtered dragonhawks for their young in order to bake cookies. We bribed Greatfather Winter. We pretended we cared about what the real message behind the holiday was. And we threw snowballs at Cairne. But mostly, we had fun!

Upcoming for It came from the Blog:

• Battleground Bonanza II snapshots
• Lunar Festival event
• Maybe a Love is in the Air event. Maybe.

Questions about WoW.com's guild? Please see our FAQ. Enjoy the holiday snapshots below!

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?

Don't forget! We're killing dragonhawks, baking cookies and otherwise enjoying the Feast of Winter Veil festivities tonight in It came from the Blog. As you can see, my mage who does not seem to have pants in any form is waiting patiently for the party to begin. Here are the details:

• When: 11:00pm EST (8pm PST, 9pm Server) December 30, 2009
• Where: In front of Silvermoon on the Zangarmarsh realm (US)
• Who: Any level Horde character (bring your highest level for the most fun)
• What: We will be harvesting eggs, baking cookies, kissing strangers under the mistletoe as well other holiday festivities.
• How: Ask any It came from the Blog Lurker or Robinator for an invite to the guild.

Please see our FAQ if you have any questions.

You're all invited to join us -- hope to see you there!

The Feast of Winter Veil ends on Saturday, but we still haven't had our It came from the Blog event. Let's remedy that tomorrow:

• When: 11:00pm EST (8pm PST, 9pm Server) December 30, 2009
• Where: In front of Silvermoon on the Zangarmarsh realm (US)
• Who: Any level Horde character (bring your highest level for the most fun)
• What: We will be harvesting eggs, baking cookies, kissing strangers under the mistletoe as well other holiday festivities.
• How: Ask any It came from the Blog Lurker or Robinator for an invite to the guild

We will have extra eggs. So if you miss the bird-bashing in Silvermoon, we'll meet you in Orgrimmar for the bribing of Greatfather Winter.

Questions? We answer most of them in our FAQ.

See ya there!

The WoW Insider Show returns to the airwaves today at 3:30 PM Eastern time, bringing you a hot, steaming plate of holiday leftovers. Well, if the latest WoW news and views are what you ate for Christmas dinner, anyway. Michael Sacco will be your jolly host, likely getting his halls decked by co-host Matthew "Burly Ives" Rossi, with a possible appearance by venerable editor Adam Ho-Ho-Holisky. We'll be discussing the part of Winter Veil to which everyone really looks forward: the presents, as well as the team's and our favorite articles of 2009 and the wait for more Icecrown bosses. Maybe we'll even talk about Christmas.

And as usual, of course, we'll answer your emails and talk live with the denizens of our seedy chatroom. You can email us any time of night or day at theshow@wow.com, and you'll be able to listen in to the show on the feed on our Ustream site, or after the jump.

In a nod to the holiday classic A Christmas Story, this year's WoW in-game Christmas gift is your very own Red Rider Air Rifle. You get it from the Winter Veil Gift underneath the Winter Veil Tree.

You use it to cast the spell Pelted! which expands one of the 200 charges the Red Rider Air Rifle has. You'll want to fire off the gun to the faction leaders first to get your BB King achievement (Alliance version, Horde version). You can miss with the gun, so do the achievement before blowing the rest of the charges.

For additional information on all the Winter Veil achievements, check out our Over Achiever's Guide to Winter Veil. This gift is active on the EU servers, and as of 8:00 a.m. EST, the gift now appears active on the US/North American servers as well.