in-game-holidays
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A desire for more holidays and other events
Once upon a time, World of Warcraft's holiday events were one of my favorite parts of the game. Not only did they make the game world feel alive, they changed the standard day-to-day gameplay routine. When those events went live, I didn't even consider spending my time doing the same daily hubs, reputation grinds, or dungeons I'd been doing all along. There were new quests, light-hearted quests, and the holiday bosses asked me to revisit dungeons I may not have run in ages. I didn't even care much for the loot dropped by those bosses, I just liked seeing and fighting them. Before those bosses became something in the dungeon finder, I ran them as much as I could, just because I knew they'd be gone for a year afterwards. The rewards from quests, even when they were light-hearted items that didn't contribute to a character's power level whatsoever, were fun little short-term goals. Unfortunately, these events long ago fell to the wayside, receiving few updates beyond increasing the item level of gear drops from bosses. Patch 5.4 introduced a pandaren brewmaster to Brewfest, Love is in the Air's last update was the addition of the Swift Lovebird in patch 4.3.2, but generally speaking, ilevel increases have been the majority of the changes. The focus has been on the Darkmoon Faire more than anything else, which has, itself, become part of the routine. It's understandable that these events have fallen out of production, it's difficult to justify creating temporary content over something more permanent, but I do miss the temporary, fleeting content. More than updates to old events, I'd love to see new events, holidays pulling from Azerothian culture rather than our own, or even events on a smaller scale. Let's kick around some ideas, shall we?
My holiday discontent
I don't like WoW's in game holiday events. I never really did. In general, I'm not a big pet/mount/special cruft kind of collector, although I'll admit I've always wanted the Great Brewfest Kodo on my Alliance characters, just because I miss kodo. They're one of my favorite mounts. But be it Love is in the Air, Hallow's Eve, the Harvest Festival, or the Lunar Festival I just don't like the in-game holidays. What ends up happening is this: a lot of people do a lot of stuff, then there's a dungeon I can run once a day for special rewards I either don't care about or won't get, and then it's over. Now, you could point out a few things here. First off, that it's okay if I don't like the content as long as I'm not forced to do it and I'll agree with you. The content is eminently avoidable. I do like that. I like not having to do any of this stuff. I don't have to rescue reindeer or go fight the Greench, but for some reason I find the holiday events annoying and I won't even pretend I know why I find them annoying. I just admitted I can avoid them. Why, then, do they bother me so much? And here's another weird but true fact: they annoyed me a lot less when you could chain-farm them. Ever since they put holiday bosses like Coren Direbrew, The Headless Horseman and Ahune on the dungeon finder and made them drop one special bag a day (for your first run) I've found them far, far more terrible and annoying even though it means I can run them less. I actually find myself looking back fondly on the day that I ran the Headless Horseman twenty-seven times, as everyone in our group of five switched to every max level alt they had to get another shot at the fellow. I don't even understand that one myself. I just said I don't like the holidays, and that I like being able to utterly avoid them, and now I'm saying that I don't like that I can run them less now?
Breakfast Topic: What are your Midsummer Fire Festival goals?
The Midsummer Fire Festival begins today. Pyromaniacs, activate! The Fire Festival is a full-featured holiday complete with dailies that mostly involve torches, achievements that mostly involve setting fire to things, and a title that has the word Flame. Ahune The Frost Lord is the boss to kill for this holiday (since he's not so big on fire). You have to ice him if you want to get the meta for the Fire Festival, which is part of What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been. What the Midsummer Fire Festival also involves: traveling, more traveling, world PvP, and traveling. I highly recommend celebrating the holiday with friends, though maybe not quite so many as that one time. My goal is for my druid to finally complete it, to be one step closer to the Violet Proto-Drake. The It came from the Blog family of guilds will also be hosting a Fire Festival event, like we do every year. Stay tuned for an announcement soon™. What are your goals for the Midsummer Fire Festival? Are you going to go for the meta? Is there a particular item you are trying to get? Or are you going to ignore it completely? (Bah, humbug!)
Doll Festival approaching for Final Fantasy XI
It's not one of the most epic holidays in Vana'diel, but you can't forget the Doll Festival. It's a fairly sedate event players can partake in during their time with Final Fantasy XI, a chance to indulge in some treats, acquire some fashionable decorations for their Mog House, and of course have the joy of taking part in a holiday that's pretty unique to the game. Also, you can run around as a little girl. As always, the announcement is accompanied by a piece of fiction, this one detailing the only sort of conflict you can expect to happen on a holiday filled with sweets and dolls. (Here's a hint -- it doesn't involve dragons.) The event starts on February 17th and will run until March 3rd, giving Final Fantasy XI players ample time to acquire their rice cakes and dolls from the event, a nice lull from the more involved holidays surrounding it.
