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Breakfast Topic: Your Midsummer Fire Festival goals
The Midsummer Fire Festival went live yesterday in Azeroth (but with a few glitches that will hopefully be cleared up soon.) With so much to do during this festival, we here at WoW.com we're wondering what your main goal was for this event.Are you focused on finishing the associated achievements on your way to a proto-drake? Are you using the quests as a way to level an alt or low level character? Farming Ahune for a Scorchling pet? Or perhaps you're enjoying the role-playing aspect of the event or even the thrill of raiding the home cities of the opposition. There's plenty for the casual player, too.Let us know in the poll below and if you don't see the answer you like, leave it in the comments! Also, if you like to learn how to make the Midsummer magnet in the photo above, check out our World of WarCrafts article with detailed instructions.%Poll-31199% %Gallery-25803%
The Midsummer Fire Festival has begun
The Midsummer Fire Festival should now be live on almost all North American realms. If it isn't, it will be shortly! Not much has changed since last year, beyond the addition of the achievements.Speaking of achievements, while we have our guide to the Achievements of Midsummer, you might not be able to make a significant dent in them today if you made rounds with the flames last year. None of the quests seem to have reset from last year, so getting your hands on the holiday currency to buy the items you need is going to be difficult, to say the least. By difficult, I may or may not mean borderline impossible.I don't expect this to be a permanent issue, we'll probably see a hotfix sometime in the near future since the problem is already being checked out. Of course, that's assuming the issue is something that can be hotfixed. If not, I don't doubt we'll see a fix of another flavor down the road. I don't foresee Blizzard keeping What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been out of players' hands because of something like this. In the meantime, at least you can still take a crack at Lord Ahune.%Gallery-25803%
Brew of the Month: Lord of Frost's Private Label
Ah, just the thing we needed in the middle of winter in Northrend! A drink to cool us down! Wait, what? Crap, that's not we need at all! Oh well, I guess we're out of luck. This month's brew from the Brew of the Month club is actually a drink we've seen before. It's the Lord of Frost's Private Label, previously only acquired from Lord Ahune's stash during the Midsummer festivities.What do this month's brew do? Not a whole lot. Like I said, it cools you down. Really. After drinking it, you can see your character's breath for awhile. Which... you probably won't notice in Northrend at all, because almost the entire continent makes you do that anyway. If you prefer getting your drunk on in Ironforge, this drink is perfect and you can pick some up in the usual places in Orgrimmar and Ironforge. If you're looking for a drink to warm you up on a cold Northrend night, go for a Northrend staple: Mead. It's all over the place up there.Edit: Apparently this drink can also proc an iceblock that you get locked in for a little while, but in my experience it must be pretty rare? I've gone through a stack and a half of the stuff and haven't had it happen to me yet, but many of our readers have mentioned seeing it. I think the booze is playing favorites.
Breakfast Topic: Farewell, Midsummer
The Midsummer Fire Festival is just about wrapped up, and all of the quests, lore and drops are going with it. It's sad to see it go, but all good things must come to an end. Daniel asked what you were doing with the time left the other day, but now that it's pretty much done for, have you gotten your hands on all you wanted?My one and only goal for the Fire Festival was to get my hands on Ahune's Frostscythe. I've wanted a scythe on my Priest ever since Warlocks got one as a quest reward back in the day. I probably have pretty much the best guild in the world, because they took turns rotating alts to summon Ahune for me throughout the festival. When the thing finally dropped, we had killed the Frostlord roughly eighty times and we got five Scorched Stones for various people. We have decided my loot luck could not possibly be worse.How about all of you? Did you get the brazier? The dress? Did you say 'forget it' and blow all of your Blossoms on Midsummer Sausage? Most importantly, did you stock up one these sweet new fireworks?
Breakfast Topic: How are you spending the last few days of the Midsummer Fire Festival?
The Midsummer Fire Festival officially ends on July 5th, just a few scant days away. That means no more Lord Ahune, no more chances to get the Deathfrost enchant, no more desecration, no more turning into a crab, no more Torch Tossing... Yeah, I'm a little bummed too. Still, we have a couple days left to make the best of it. Of course, the question is -- what exactly do we do with it? Myself, I'm torn. My enchanter still needs the Deathfrost enchant, so I may want to get a group together and go slay Ahune a few more times. Then again, I still haven't gotten some of the Midsummer loot on a couple of my 70s, so maybe I want to make a push to get the last few blossoms for those. But I'm also thinking that it would be nice to get my shaman to level 30 before Patch 2.4.3, and thus I'm tempted to just go out and slog through the last few levels with her, bolstered by the all the various Fire Festival buffs and the Ribbon Dance buff. I'll have to think about it some more, but in the meantime, do you have a plan for these last few days of the Midsummer Fire Festival? %Gallery-25803% The Midsummer Fire Festival is upon us! Check out WoW Insider's complete quest guide to collect those Burning Blossoms as well as our guide on how to spend them. Also, don't forget to eyeball our screenshot gallery of Midsummer events. Finally, find out how to kill Lord Ahune, and check out our break down of his loot table.
IcftB Reminder: More Midsummer fun tonight
Don't forget to join It came from the Blog tonight at 6PM Pacific time for some more Midsummer festivities. When: Today! Wednesday, July 2nd at 6PM Pacific (7PM server time, 9PM Eastern) Where: Undercity (Ruins of Lordaeron), Zangarmarsh Realm (U.S.) Who: Any Horde character, any level How: Just send a tell to Robiness or anyone in the guild for an invite to the guild and the raid We will be starting in the Undercity and then touring the flames of the Eastern Kingdoms. I do have some shards for summoning, but if you can get there on your own power, please be at the flame in the Ruins of Lordaeron at the start time. We are guaranteed to have lots of fun, dings and deaths -- but fun deaths. Mike Schramm and a few other bloggers will be there. Will you?
Reminder: IcftB Midsummer event today!
Are you overwhelmed by all of the awesome info from the Worldwide Invitational? Do you need a break from earning your Season 4 gear? Does the news of Diablo 3 make you want to participate in more fire-related activities? Then come join us today for the It came from the Blog Midsummer Fire Festival event! When: Today at 4PM Pacific (5PM Server, 7PM Eastern) Where: Orgrimmar, Zangarmarsh U.S. Server Who: Any Horde character, any level How: Send a tell to Robiness or any guild member to get an invite to the guild and the raid I'm currently farming shards on Robiness for summoning purposes, so don't worry if you can't get to Orgrimmar easily. And the quests we'll be doing can be done by any level and in a raid, so make a new character if you don't have a Horde character on Zangarmarsh already.We hope to see you there!
WoW, Casually: A casual Midsummer
Each week or so, Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player who has 2 hours or less to play at a time.If you haven't bought into the whole Midsummer hype yet, allow me to try to convince you. This year's Midsummer Fire Festival is possibly the most casual-friendly WoW event. Still you may ask, to paraphrase a guildie, "What's so great except for a useless pet?" This holiday is not about the loot.Sure, I got myself a Brazier of Dancing Flames, but I had the blossoms burning a hole in my pocket anyway, so why not? Midsummer is really about every other reason we play the game: progressing our characters, seeing the world, supporting our faction and, most importantly, fun.
World of WarCrafts: Midsummer magnet
Every Thursday, Shelbi Roach of The Bronze Kettle guides you in creating WoW-inspired crafts using real world mats with World of WarCrafts.Celebrate Midsummer with this one-of-a-kind novelty. Whether you're wanting to post your grocery list on the fridge or hang a picture of your latest crush in your locker, now you can do it with style. Here is what you will need: Polymer Clay (premo! turquoise and gold) Circle Clay Cutters Xacto Knife Adhesive Magnet Scissors Click on the images below to view a gallery of step-by-step instructions. %Gallery-26162%
Midsummer fire festival sparks world PvP
When I read through the forums, I see numerous threads lamenting over the lack of world PvP. The Burning Crusade added a handful of PvP objectives that often go unnoticed and the towers in the Eastern Plaguelands seem pretty lonely since everyone moved on to Outland. Since the beginning of the Midsummer Fire Festival I've seen at least a temporary resurgence in actual PvP. Of course the ganking is still going on, but I've seen many more fair fights.The way it works is you try to keep your own fires burning while putting the flames of your opponents out. I've seen numerous mini raids on major cities and massive skirmishes near the small-town fires. Like many players, I've got to give props to Blizzard for adding this mechanic to the festival. The buffs are pretty awesome too. I've enjoyed this celebration more than any WoW holiday in the past. Have you been joining in the desecrating fun? Remember to check out the "It Came From the Blog" event this Sunday, June 29 at 7Pm Eastern.
More signs of cold on official sites
It's Monday morning and new hints of cold have appeared around Blizzard's official web sites. If you visit the Blizzard corporate site, or the front page of the community sites, you got a crystallized image of ... something. It's pretty hard to tell what you're looking at, except that it's icy and maybe cavernous. While this is pretty obviously a teaser graphic of some kind, there is no text or other graphics detailing what Blizzard's hinting at. It's a safe bet that the graphic is related to Wrath of the Lich King. Some speculation posits that we might be about to see the actual release date. Of course, it could be related to Ahune and the Midsummer festivities -- but I don't think so. I also don't think this is a mistake that's going to be reverted -- since it's on the corporate site and the official sites, it seems purposeful. We'll let you know more as it happens.
Midsummer Fun: The Midsummer Merchant
So by now, you've done some of the Midsummer quests, desecrated a few flames, and you have a bunch of Burning Blossoms burning a hole in your pocket. The question now is: What are you going to do with all of those? Sure, you can throw them in the nearest Festival Bonfire for the sweet buffs, but you can also spend them at the Midsummer Merchants and Midsummer Suppliers located next to every Capital City's fire. After the break, we'll look at exactly what you can buy and what they do.
Lord Ahune strategy and walkthrough
The Lord Ahune encounter is very easily one of the most enjoyable 5-man encounters we've seen in a very long time. The Burning Crusade added some elements we had never seen in the pre-expansion days, and I feel that this boss takes it much further than that.Ahune is found within the Slave Pens, and while he's fairly close to the beginning of the instance, you'll need to do a little bit of clearing before you fight him. Since Slave Pens is one of the easier dungeons in The Burning Crusade (both Normal and Heroic versions), you shouldn't have much trouble with this step. Once you've reached the area where you summon Lord Ahune (and you will know when you get there), buff up, drink up, and make sure your party is ready. While not the most difficult encounter in the world, this alternating two phase boss fight can drag on a really long time if you're not ready.
Midsummer quest guides updated
Some of our quest guides have been updated since yesterday with a few bits of missing information. It should be a little more friendly to players completely new to the holiday, as well as those that have only played one of the two factions. Not only are there more details throughout, but the zones are listed beside the cities in our Desecrate the Flames list, which was one of our most requested additions to our guide.Hopefully our guides are helping you all in your Midsummer questing. Make sure you keep an eye on WoW Insider as well, because later today we have a Lord Ahune walkthrough coming your way! The Midsummer Fire Festival is upon us! Check out WoW Insider's complete quest guide to collect those Burning Blossoms as well as our guide on how to spend them. Also, don't forget to eyeball our screenshot gallery of Midsummer events. Finally, find out how to kill Lord Ahune, and check out our break down of his loot table.
Breakfast Topic: The Midsummer Fire Festival so far
So by now, hopefully a lot of you have had time to check out some of the new stuff that's shown up at the Midsummer Fire Festival this year. With the help of our walkthroughs, it's a piece of cake to get right into the thick of things. My impressions so far have been pretty favorable. I very much enjoyed being a crab (and asking everybody for "maybe little pinch"), and while it took me a while to master Torch Catching (It became easier once I turned spell effects up to high so I could see the shadow of the torch on the ground), I've gotten pretty good at that already. If there's one thing I'd complain about a little, it's probably the fact everything seems a bit expensive. With 3 level 70s and a couple level 60+ types who might like Braziers, Robes, and Sandals, it'll be a bit of a pain to get all the stuff for them, and it should take quite a few hours to desecrate or honor enough fires for all that. Still, at least you get good gold for all that desecrating, so it's not a complete waste. How's your experience been so far? Is Torch Catching a challenge? Are you a thief yet? What about Lord Ahune, have you seen him fall yet? Share your experiences in the comments. Keep watching WoW Insider while you're at it. We're hard at work writing more guides that will tell you everything you need to know about Lord Ahune and the rest of the Midsummer Fire Festival, and they should appear on the site today and tomorrow. The Midsummer Fire Festival is upon us! Check out WoW Insider's complete quest guide to collect those Burning Blossoms as well as our guide on how to spend them. Also, don't forget to eyeball our screenshot gallery of Midsummer events. Finally, find out how to kill Lord Ahune, and check out our break down of his loot table.
Midsummer Fun: Incense for the Summer Scorchlings
Incense for the Summer Scorchlings' Horde equivalent is Incense for the Festival Scorchlings. I arbitrarily decided Summer sounds better than Festival, so that is what I've used as this guide's title.This quest is about as straightforward as quests can get. The first step is to head over to a capital city that belongs to your faction, and find the Festival Talespinner (Horde) or the Festival Loremaster (Alliance). You are informed that there are emissaries of the elemental plane, spirits of fire, near each of the bonfires around the world. If you wish, you can take some Summer Incense to one of these emissaries to honor them.There are bonfires in just about every zone in Azeroth, including the newbie zones near whichever capital you've found yourself in. However, before you run out and finish this quest there, you might want to pick up your other Midsummer quests first and plot a more efficient route. You can probably hit a bonfire while you're passing through another zone for a separate quest. In this case, your best choice may be to do it in Ashenvale while completing Unusual Activity. Be careful on PvP servers, as many of these bonfires will be a warzone since there are prizes to be gained for desecrating the other faction's flames.Once you've spoken to the Scorchling and given him your incense, you'll be treated to a fun little scene and, of course, your reward: A single Burning Blossom.
Midsummer Fun: Torch Tossing
If you've been in Shattrath or one of your faction's capital cities, you've likely been directed to the Master Fire Eater by one NPC or another to learn something from him. When you meet the fellow, he decides you need some practice and a bit of a test before you become a Master Juggler yourself!Torch Tossing is his first test out of two. It is far, far easier than the one that follows it, so don't get cocky if you dominate this one! If you look around the area where you find this quest, you will probably see a set of braziers forming a W shape. These will be your targets. Your ammunition will be a set of Practice Torches. Keep in mind that as soon as you accept the quest, your timer will begin. Before you accept, try to get your camera and yourself pointed in the right direction, and stay near the bonfire or you won't be able to toss your torches.A Hunter's Mark-esque arrow will appear above one brazier at a time. That's the brazier that you should be aiming for, and every few seconds this mark will move to a new one. Use your torches, target that brazier with the targeting circle, and throw! The targeting circle is small and might take some getting used to, so don't worry if you fail the first (or even the second) time. Another really good tip is to hotkey these torches; place them on your action bar. Being able to push 2 and target the brazier is much easier than clicking on the torches each time. It'll save you precious seconds needed to complete this quest in the allotted time frame.You only need to hit 8 braziers, so if you've hit a good rhythm, you've probably sealed a safe victory. The reward for your excellent tossing ability is five Burning Blossoms and access to your next test.
Midsummer Fun: Ribbon dancing
We've already covered the buffs you can get from the bonfires scattered around Azeroth during the Midsummer Fire Festival, but how about trying a little pole dancing too before you head out? You may remember the Ribbon Poles from past years' Midsummer Fire Festivals. They're still there, and you can still "dance" at them by right clicking on the pole. However, instead of the +30 fire resistance buff of previous years, you'll get a new Ribbon Dance buff that will give you an extra 10% experience bonus from killing monsters. It starts at only a 3 minute duration, but if you dance longer, the duration of the buff will gradually rise to 60 minutes. If you're under level 70, it's well worth the trouble, especially if you combine it with the new buffs from the bonfires. The bonfire buffs will help you kill mobs faster, and the Ribbon Dance buff will get you more experience for each kill. Like I said before, I'm suddenly not sure if I should be saving up Burning Blossoms to buy new treats with my level 70s, or just using all these amazing buffs to level my alts. I may just have to set aside enough time to do both.
Meet Lord Ahune
First off, I'd like to warn everyone that this post contains fairly detailed spoilers for the upcoming holiday, the Midsummer Fire Festival. If you'd like the details of the new boss to remain a surprise, this post probably isn't for you! But I know quite well that most WoW players can't stand not knowing what's what, so I'm sure many of you will continue.As mentioned in Daniel's post a few days ago, this Festival will bring us another Headless Horseman-esque boss, complete with phat lewts. You can check it all out on the PTR right now. Found within the Slave Pens, this boss, named Lord Ahune, is another Ragnaros look-alike. As you can probably guess from his appearance alone, Ahune is another lieutenant of the Elemental Lords, like Prince Thunderaaan. Ahune is serving one of the Lords in particular: Neptulon. Is this another bit of the story of Skar'this? Time will tell!The Lord Ahune encounter is an alternating two phase battle, again similar to the Headless Horseman. Without giving away too many details, be prepared to fight a number of adds in one of the two phases and have some burst damage queued up for the other. Most any group worth their salt should be able to put away Ahune relatively easily.While the battle is fun, the loot is funner. More fun? Funnerer.
An Epic Journey of Epic Proportions
Last night, my raid leader was looking for fools -- ahem, volunteers -- to undergo an "Epic Journey of Epic Proportions", as he called it. I love the random and offbeat things that one ends up doing in WoW (from random Molten Core pick-up groups to helping out guildies with crazy quests), so I signed up. The epic journey in question? Infiltrating four dark, dastardly dungeons in order to "Steal fire! Become men! Obtain red (absolutely not pink at all) wisp minions!". With the Midsummer quests ending soon, and a sudden desire for rare pets, an adventure was on the cards.
