love-is-in-the-air
Latest
New seasonal vanity pet, the Toxic Wasteling
Vanity pet collectors, rejoice! The Crown Chemical Co. apothecaries not only drop some pretty nice necklaces, they're also the source of a new vanity pet, the Toxic Wasteling. You may think this looks a lot like the Disgusting Oozeling, but there's a major difference -- rather than a debuff applied to your character, the Wasteling is a hungry little guy. So hungry in fact, that he'll eat random critters, and as he does, he grows in size. Check out the video to see the Toxic Wasteling in action -- and for those pet collectors wondering about the Truesilver Shafted Arrow for the Perma-Peddle achievement, he's now available on holiday vendors for the low price of 40 Love Tokens.
Breakfast Topic: What are your plans for Love Is In the Air?
The yearly holiday Love Is In the Air went live today, and with it a host of new features -- a new boss in Shadowfang Keep, several revamped achievements, and overall a lot of spit-and-polish on a holiday that had been extremely frustrating to many players in 2009. Last year, your ability to get the meta Fool For Love done was entirely dependent on dumb luck over a 5-day period. Blizzard's looking to blunt the impact of RNG this time around by extending the holiday and introducing a much less painful means of getting the achievements. So what are your plans for Love Is In the Air? Does your main already have the meta from last year, or were you among the unlucky souls doomed to keep getting the same candy drops? Are you planning on hitting the new boss in Shadowfang Keep? And are you, like me, just ecstatic that you don't have to spend days hoping for a Peddlefeet pet to drop? Note: A few of us were around as soon as the holiday went live, and our FAQ on Love Is In the Air and OverAchiever on the holiday's achievements have now been updated to reflect the 2010 event. They'll be expanded later today with more information on the holiday questline and the new Shadowfang Keep encounter.
Tough Love: How to kill the Crown Chemical Co. apothecaries
Update: We've added an overhead video to help you understand how the immunities work. Now, back to your regularly scheduled strategy guide. Want to do the Love is in the Air holiday bosses? Short version: don't stand in things. Longer version, you say? Sure, we can do that. First off, while there is a quest chain that leads you to Shadowfang Keep, you do not have to have done any of those quests to engage the evil Crown Chemical Company apothecaries: there's a helpful NPC, Investigator Fezzen Brasstacks who will give you the quest and items necessary for the fight. Like previous holiday bosses, you'll be able to engage the apothecaries once per player so yes, you can chain in alts and keep repeating the fight over and over again. (I believe we killed them roughly eight times before people started getting sleepy.)
Fool for Love just got easier
Love is in the Air on most servers by now, and players should notice a substantial change in the way the event is being run this year. No longer do you have to furtively log on each hour on the hour during the course of the event in the hopes that you'll get that candy bag with that ONE piece of candy you need for the Be Mine! achievement. The candy bag, as well as all other random rewards from previous years are available on vendors in each capital city, and purchased with Love Tokens. How do you get the tokens? Well, you certainly don't have to run around begging people to give you cards and building gifts. This year, the tokens are available through daily quests. Since it's the first day of the event, we may not have seen all of the possible dailies, but here's the rundown on two of them: Remember the Gifts of Adoration? This year, faction leaders are looking for jewelry. You can turn in a Lovely Charm Bracelet to the faction leader of your choice for a Lovely Card that will give you an hour long buff, and 5 Love Tokens. The method used to obtain these bracelets? Kwee will give you a Lovely Charm Collector's Kit with the following flavor text: "Pliers, bone saw, scalpel and sundry other tools allow for the collection of Lovely Charms from worthwhile enemies. Collect 10 charms to make a bracelet!" Yes, you read that correctly. You murder beasts and creatures in your level range, and hack Lovely Charms off of their corpses. I'm thinking I love this event already. Other ways to obtain Love Tokens include the daily quest "A Perfect Puff of Perfume," which requires you to hose down ten players or NPC's with perfume. Vendors and city guards will work just as well as other players, so don't worry about running out of people to spray. This quest will also earn you 5 tokens. The changes so far to the event make it much, much simpler to get that coveted Fool For Love meta achievement, and should provide a welcome change to players used to the same old grind from previous years. Check out the gallery below for the complete list of items available on the vendors, and stay tuned for more Love is in the Air info as it comes in! %Gallery-84863%
Loot is in the air
Love is already in the air on the European realms and MMO Champion has the details on the loot which drops from the three new Love is in the Air bosses. Three apothecaries have taken up shop in Shadowfang Keep: Baxter, Hummel and Frye. They'll be there for the duration of the holiday as daily quest bosses and following is a list of what they drop (mouseover for their stats): Winking Eye of Love Heartbreak Charm Shard of Pirouetting Happiness Sweet Perfume Broach Choker of the Pure Heart Forever-Lovely Rose Vile Fumigator's Mask Toxic Wasteling The Heartbreaker But the drop from Apothecary Hummel that I am most excited about is the Big Love Rocket Mount. It's pink, it has zhevra seats and a naughty, naughty name. Naughty. Stay tuned for more Love is in the Air info as it comes in.
Love Is In the Air FAQ
The 2010 Love Is In the Air holiday doesn't much resemble its 2009 version; Blizzard's eliminated much of the frustration surrounding RNG and item drops, and overall things are a lot more fun This FAQ covers all of the questions we think will be most helpful to readers concerning the holiday's mechanics. If you have any questions not answered here or in our OverAchiever guide to the holiday's achievements, please drop a comment below and I'll try to make sure it gets answered! Help! Where do I go to get started? Head for any of your faction's major cities in Azeroth (Stormwind, Ironforge, the Exodar, or Darnassus for Alliance, and Thunder Bluff, Orgrimmar, Undercity, or Silvermoon for Horde). New goblin NPCs (most from the Crown Chemical Company) will have popped up around the more heavily-trafficked areas (read: AH/bank) with quests and information.
The OverAchiever: Guide to Fool for Love achievements
The in-game holiday Love Is In the Air begins Sunday, running February 7th (3:00 am server time) through February 21st (3:00 am server time) this year. Doing most of the achievements related to the holiday will reward you with the meta Fool for Love, the title "the Love Fool," and one more notch in the long trek toward What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been. Love Is In the Air has been markedly changed for 2010; Blizzard's eliminated much of the painful RNG that drove players up a wall in 2009, and right now you can expect a rather cool and fun little holiday that's not entirely unlike Brewfest in its approach to achievements. You can do dailies and other quests for Love Tokens, and buy holiday items from vendors in addition to enjoying some stuff that's just for fun. But you're here for the meta, right? We all know you want that drake. Before we get started, I would advise reading our FAQ article on Love Is In the Air if you're not already familiar with the holiday.
Patch 3.3 PTR: Love is in the Air Valentine's Event may get a new boss
While most of us are probably still downloading the massive PTR files, as usual, some people have had more time than others to download them and root through them for gems and treasures. MMO Champion's database of new spells has revealed something pretty intriguing. Note the following list of spells: Concentrated Irresistible Cologne Spill Alluring Perfume Alluring Perfume Spray Cologne Immune Perfume Immune [ph] Exotic Cologne Perfume and Cologne, as you may recall, are two of the main parts of the Love is in the Air Valentine's Day related world event, wherein players exchange tokens with NPCs for fabulous prizes. Given that we now have a set of spells coming up that put those two substances in the context of damaging abilities that can be protected against, it seems like Kisirani and the world event team are ready to deliver again, and we'll possibly have a very interesting new boss this coming February. Unfortunately, we can't tell much else about it right now, although hopefully we may learn more as the PTR progresses and more data is found. It's worth noting that if the world event design team is creating a new level 80 boss for a February event, they may not be expecting Cataclysm to be out by then.
Breakfast Topic: How's Noblegarden going so far?
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!
You may be a Love Fool after all
If you played WoW at all during the Love is in the Air holiday event that ran in early February, then you surely heard the moaning about the meta achievement, Fool For Love, which grants the title, Love Fool. Whether you wanted to celebrate this month or not, anyone seeking to complete their long and strange trip and acquire the coveted Violet Proto-Drake, had to be a Fool For Love.One of the requirements was to complete the achievement, Be Mine, which had players running back to old world capital cities, dousing themselves in smelly concoctions, and begging the guards and citizens not to break their hearts. This gave us one chance per hour at obtaining the elusive Bag of Candies that would allow players ten chances to create, ideally, eight unique candies. The drop rate for the bag was so poor and the holiday so short that people begged Blizzard to improve their chances. While the drop rate for the bag was increased at the last minute, many people who put in a superb effort still did not acquire their title. Blizzard has since crunched the numbers, and some great news was handed down by Zarhym that should put everyone's mind at rest. While the Be Mine achievement is not being removed as a requirement for completion of the meta achievement, instead of needing all eight candies, you will only need to have obtained six!Not only that, but you won't have to wait until next year. As of patch 3.1, all you will need to do is login to be granted your achievement, as well as your title, as long as you had made at least six unique candies. Many players would still like to see that particular achievement removed from the meta entirely, but Blizzard stands firm that the point of What a Long, Strange Trip it's Been and its reward is to be something that only a dedicated few will earn each year. They aren't about to make it too easy.If you missed this requirement, will you be getting your title on patch day, or are you still feeling disgruntled?
WoW Moviewatch: Demachic: Lonely Valentine
Demachic posted Demachic: Lonely Valentine on Warcraftmovies.com yesterday. I would have loved to see it during the Love is in the Air in-game event, but hey -- I'll take what I can get. It is a short, dialogue-less story about a gnome seeking true love, and the artillery she builds to obtain that love.I have to admit that I actually thought to myself, in actual words, "Oh my god, so cute!" This video really is cute. It captures all the bittersweet and totally-saccharin flavors of Valentine's Day. It's got a little hopefulness, a little despair to counter, and a whole lot of wistful, wishful romance. And, it's got a totally adorable gnome to drive home the cute-puppy-love angle.The movie is created without any spoken or subtitled words. I actually really like that, since it encourages the audience to create and interpret their own story for on-screen events. It works great, and the musical selection matches the overall mood of the video. Great job, Demachic!If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.Previously on Moviewatch ..
The best of WoW Insider: February 10-17, 2009
Lots of great news from the World of Warcraft this week -- we learned more about the big patch 3.1 update coming to the game, as well as the dual spec system. And someone (we aren't yet sure who) kept melting something called the Ice Stone, in one of the more hilarious bugs of the Love is in the Air festival. Good times -- learn more by reading these popular posts from Joystiq network site WoW Insider. News The Ice Stone has melted!Confusion reigned over a world event bug this week: what was the Ice Stone and who forgot to put it in the fridge? WoW Insider's guide to patch 3.1Everything you need to know about the game's next content patch, continually updated. Dual spec Q&A with GhostcrawlerOne of the game's devs lets us in on the plans behind the much-awaited dual spec feature. Voidwalker raid tanking going awayWarlock pets tanking? Blizzard is putting the kibosh on that. Jeff Kaplan leaving World of WarcraftThe game's last original top dev heads off to Blizzard's new MMO. Features The Queue: Change we can believe inYou've got questions, The Queue has your answers. Encrypted Text: Why the 3.0.9 Rogue changes were necessaryThe latest bugfix changes get discussed in our Rogue column. WoW Rookie: Level 80 -- now what?You've done it -- you've finally hit level 80, but you're not sure where to go next. Let the WoW Rookie help. Please give me something to grindBlizzard has gone out of their way this expansion to make leveling and questing as varied as possible -- which is why Alex just wants to do some mindless grinding. Officers' Quarters: Dual spec, double loot?How to deal with the dual spec system while dealing out loot to a raid.
A WoW gift bag for Valentine's Day
How great is this? Reader angrypanda a.k.a. Joshua links us to this update on his Livejournal, in which he shows off the awesome set of gifts his wife got him for Valentine's Day. It's a romantic gift basket, with everything, from the chocolates to the Linen Bag itself, marked out with WoW-style tooltips. Everything looks authentic, too -- there's a Bag of Candies, Dark Desire (looks like the hit rating bonus got nerfed for the RL version, though), and even a Moonberry Juice. And there's a "Jox (Horde) Shou" handmade craft in there, too -- those are their character names, Jox and Lykishou.Joshua says he and his wife have been married nearly 15 years, and they weren't planning to do much this year (or so he thought -- here's hoping they had a very nice dinner and movie later that evening). Very awesome. Because the Livejournal seems to be hidden behind a content filter of some kind, we've put all of Joshua's pics in a gallery below so you can see everything all in one place. What a terrific Valentine's Day gift.%Gallery-44901%
WoW Insider Show Episode 77: The Lady Factor
We had a great time on the WoW Insider Show this past weekend -- Turpster and I welcomed back Michael Sacco (formerly known as Belfaire on the official forums and now a blogger here on WoW Insider) and manly man Matthew Rossi to talk about what's coming up in patch 3.0.9, what we thought of the dual spec news we heard last week, and our progress (or lack thereof, apparently) on the Love is in the Air event. We also answered lots of emails from listeners, and speculated on what Blizzard's future release schedule might look like.And a huge thanks to all of our listeners for hitting 4,000 fans on our Facebook page -- Turpster's song is coming soon (hopefully next week), and as a mini-reward this week, by request, here's a downloadable version of Sammy T's great "Meat of the Show" song (just right-click save as, and if you do anything with it, be sure to let us know).Our next goal has to do with our Twitter page -- as we announced on the show, if we can get "over 9000" Twitter followers there, we'll do a video version of our podcast, either with ingame video or Turpster and me on camera ourselves. So tell your friends and Twitter followers to check us out over there. Enjoy the show, and we'll see you as always next week.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[Ustream] Listen to the unedited recording in Ustream.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
Breakfast Topic: Did you accomplish what you wanted during the Love festival?
For better or worse, the Love is in the Air festival is over. Though there was much wringing of hands over the drop rate of the Bags of Candies, the location of Red Roses and enforced hour downtime between Pledge looting, many players managed to procure the title "Love Fool." Others are busily scribbling hate mail to Blizzard about how they are never going to get their Violet proto-drake because of this. (Pro tip: We're not Blizzard so please don't send it to us. Really. No, really.)I managed to snag my title early Sunday evening after finally getting my last candy heart and then shamelessly /shouting in front of the Ironforge Auction House to mend broken hearts. This is the first festival I've achieved a title though I can't tell you why I chose this one. Probably because there was no PvP involved. Which will take me out of the running for the Children's Week achievement that involves no less than 2 PvP activities.Enough about me. Did you get what you wanted out this event?%Poll-26371%
My Buggy Valentine: Problems with Love is in the Air
If you've been following WRUP, you probably know by now that I am pretty big on achievements. They're a lot of fun for me, and a good way to set a goal and have a solid in-game marker of how I'm doing on reaching it. Plus, the titles and tabards and mounts and the like you can get from them are a good way to customize your character. However, if there's one thing that'll get me down and make me reconsider my achievement love, it may just be Love Is In the Air. The whole silly thing is just so full of bugs and quirks and annoyances and so based on random chance that there were a couple points along the way that made me feel like throwing up my hands and quitting.
Using city gift collections for extra Love is in the Air supplies
When I originally posted the Love Is In The Air achievement guide, I left out the city collection quest Gift Giving (A/H) because they didn't lead to an achievement. But they do provide more supplies for you to complete the achievements if you need them, so they are worth looking into. Each time you complete this quest you have a choice of the following rewards: Handful of Rose Petals Love Rocket Silver Shafted Arrow These will help you complete: A Fistful of Love The Rocket's Pink Glare Shafted Plus, you will always get a Box of Chocolates which will help you with the Sweet Tooth achievement. After the jump, how to put the collections together.
Sunday Morning Funnies: Alts-heimer's
This isn't any ordinary Sunday. This is the last day to mend some hearts and kill some guys for some flowers, so you'd better take advantage of it! In the meantime, don't forget indulge in your weekly dose of comic goodness: Everyone likes web comics about cats (and WoW)! Thanks for the tip about Ebenezer and Snooch, Berry and Keyra! Scrolling back a few, this one reminds me of my cats. Although, I'd like to think that they think nicer things about me in general. This last one, while perhaps not technically game-related, certainly reminds me of random encounters with friends at the Bank after they'd been hacking up trolls. Now that I've covered what's new to the list, it's time to see what's up with Cru! He's met up with Chromie, which is awesome because she's one of my favorites. The wee little shapeshifted thing seems to crop up everywhere. Check out Crush from Dark Legacy Comics. Barrens chat isn't just for Chuck Norris jokes in Flintlocke vs. the Horde. Shakes and Fidget need a better Plan B, like their hunter buddy. Check out the latest from LFG. The latest from Massive Pwnage is simple and to the point. NoObz talks about a Title. I especially enjoyed the crack at the bottom about family photos. There is no Ding! this week, for better or for worse. You can always count on Teh Gladiators to have updated though! According to The Adventures of Disgraph T. Dwarf, Peddlefeet Never Blinks. Of course, I wouldn't know, because I still don't have one. /QQ World of Warcraft, eh? has some filler! I love filler, I really do. The label means that people can assume that you didn't really try, and drew up something in a hurry, just for them, and a lot of personality tends to show through. P.S. No, I'm not making fun of Alzheimer's, and I doubt that the cat was either. Still, I'd like to let you all know that I'm here for you, even if you want to claim that I was. I'm good like that.
Breakfast Topic: Who do you adore?
So as Love is in the Air winds down, hopefully those of us who care have managed to get another title and/or all the candy, dresses, and perma-peddles we could wish for. Some of us, though, I still going through that hourly ritual of finding someone to love. For me, when it's time to hand out the cards, I head over to Stormwind. Once there, I either look for Grand Admiral Jes-Tereth or Elsharin, the High Elf Mage trainer. I like to think that I have a special relationship with both girls. Jes-tereth was always there by my side when I spent those long hours queueing for PvP, and among my group of friends, we always agreed she was one of the hottest women in all of WoW. Maybe I just like a girl in uniform. As for Elsharin, I'm a pretty big High Elf fan, so seeing that there's still High Elves loyal to the Alliance is nice, plus she's always there to greet me whenever I teleport to Stormwind, so I think I owe her something in return. What about you? Do you just shove a token into the hands of the first NPC who thinks you smell nice, or do you have your own go-to people for your adoration needs?
Happy Valentine's Day from WoW Insider
Just in time for Valentine's Day, Ataraxaven and Alastriona of Azuremyst sent us this picture of their "soulbound" wedding rings -- just like the other wedding rings we've posted before, the couple says that "soulbound" works well for them. It has a nice gamer reference (they're both WoW players, obviously, and they've been playing together for two years now), and even people who've never picked up a BoP item at least get the meaning.Very cool. Being as it is Valentine's Day today, don't forget to check out our guide to the Love Fool achievements, and be sure to get your sweetie something nice, ingame and/or out. Happy Valentine's Day to Ataraxaven and Alastriona and all of the lovers out there this weekend, hope you have a good one. Love is in the Air and on WoW Insider. Check out our continuing coverage of the event and our guide to earning the achievement. And you better hurry; the holiday only lasts five days!
