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The OverAchiever: Mountain O' Mounts from achievements
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, 10 little points are all that stand between us and a new ... something. Many of the mounts this week be familiar to you if you've read The OverAchiever: Pimp Thy Ride, which I wrote before the Cataclysm content patch with an eye toward the number of people who wanted to slap a 310% mount on their toons before it had to be trained. Sadly, none of the mounts described in that article, barring one, will grant Master Riding for free now. Also read: Combining The Ambassador and Mountain O' Mounts Mountain O' Mounts in Outland Mountain O' Mounts in Northrend Mountain O' Mounts in 5-man dungeons Mountain O' Mounts in raids
Breakfast Topic: Love: Is it actually in the air?
The Environmental Protection Agency is issuing a warning to the Eastern Kingdoms, especially the Greater Gilneas/Sepulcher area: Absolutely toxic levels of love are expected to be in the air from Feb. 6 through Feb. 20. That's right, folks -- it's time for another semi-mandatory in-game holiday! The Azerothian holiday Love is in the Air is based on the real world Valentine's Day holiday. There are some similarities, of course -- in Azeroth as in real life, the holiday involves romantic picnics, eating candies, and making very poor decisions while drunk. The activities are far more rewarding in Azeroth, though: Completing these, along with all the other holiday achievements throughout the year, earns you the 50-point What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been meta achievement, complete with a Violet Proto-Drake and free Master Riding. (For more information about completing the Love meta achievement, take a look at Allison Robert's The Overachiever: Guide to Love is in the Air 2011.) How are you planning on spending the two-week-long holiday? Are you going to spend it working on your holiday meta achievement? Are you looking forward to farming Apothecary Hummel for his new ilevel 346 loot? Or maybe you'll just send your in-game sweetheart a Bouquet of Black Roses? As for yours truly, I'll be spending the bulk of my time receiving gifts from my many suitors (hint, hint), flirting with blood elves, riding Big Love Rockets, and spending some quality time with my one true love -- myself. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
Breakfast Topic: The reason for the seasonal achievements
Thanksgiving (or the United States version thereof) is quickly approaching, and with it comes the in-game Pilgrim's Bounty event. Now, I didn't actually finishing Pilgrim's Bounty last year. This is mostly because I was visiting my family for the entire week of Thanksgiving, so I was only playing on my laptop, and my laptop is sufficiently low-tech that it does not run WoW all that well. Also, I was totally spending most of my time with my family. This month, though, I'm going to be in town with access to my usual gaming rig, so I'll have more than enough time and ability to finish up the achievements. That said, I'm still deciding whether or not I'll actually take the time to do them. After all, none of the Pilgrim's Bounty achievements are needed for What a Long, Strange Trip. I mean, an extra turkey pet is sort of cool, but otherwise, there's not really much of a profit to them. Also, some of the achievements seem downright annoying. Turkey Lurkey? Do I really need to run around looking for all these dumb rogues? Why so arbitrary? And what about the Turkinator? Do I really need to run around a newbie zone like a chicken with my head cut off trying to target critters more quickly than the other 100 people doing it? What does that accomplish? Then I think about some of the other holidays. It's not like I haven't had to run around Dalaran looking for random class and race combinations before, and it's not like I haven't run around the newbie zones doing silly, inconsequential stuff before either. So why is Pilgrim's Bounty bringing out the achievement cynic in me? I like to think I've been doing achievements because they're interesting and fun, but what if they've been about the carrot and stick all along? Now that there's no reward I'm really interested in, am I finally seeing achievements for what they are, or am I just being a grinch a month early? What do you think? Do you do achievements for fun, or are you pretty sure you'd leave them alone if they weren't rewarding you with shiny stuff?
Headless Horseman pumpkin shrine crashes game
When the Hallow's End decorations went up, many people were excited about the possibilities of the rare Headless Horseman mount, finishing up What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been and just generally playing around with one of the favorite holidays in the game. When the first players started doing the Headless Horseman event in hopes of Sinister Squashlings, they quickly noticed a rather harsh bug. There is about a 50/50 chance when mousing over the pumpkin to summon the Headless Horseman that the game client will lock up and/or disconnect you. Ever since patch 4.0.1 hit the live servers, there have been reports that world items that give the gear icon to let you know it is clickable have been causing a similar crash, and this is likely related to that. One of the reasons this bug is especially hurting groups is that the people to usually click on the pumpkin are the tanks, who are then disconnected, leaving the groups to fend for themselves until they get back. As a precaution, have a DPSer be the one to click on the pumpkin and allow time to reconnect afterward so that the tank and healer can keep the rest of the group alive. If the fight is over by the time the DPSer gets back, the loot roll and bag of goodies should be ready and waiting. Update: Orlyia (Blizzard customer service representative) posted a list of known issues and work-arounds for Hallow's End in the customer service forums. They've said that they're aware of the mouse-over issue and the developers are looking into what is causing it.
Long, Strange Trip achievement will award Master Flying
The recent changes with Patch 4.0.1 introduced the Master Riding skill, which allows players to purchase 310 percent riding speed for all flying mounts, for a cost. The upsides to this are nice -- instead of mount speed being assigned per mount, mount speed is now being assigned by riding skill, and mounts will go faster according to your riding skill. In other words, all those 60 percent speed ground mounts you have in your bags will now move at 100 percent speed when you learn Journeyman riding at level 40. The downside to this, however, is that achievement drakes have been changed as a result and will no longer fly at 310 percent speed. Instead, they will fly at your highest riding skill level, and you will have to purchase Master Riding to fly faster. This was all well and good for the Ulduar and Icecrown drakes, which will be progressively easier to get as we level to 85 and beyond. But for those people just one or two steps away from completing the achievement What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, an achievement that takes a full year to complete regardless of what level you happen to be, this was a crushing blow. Guess what guys? You can breathe a sigh of relief -- it's been fixed! Zarhym I provided an update in the lengthy thread about Master riding, so in case it gets missed I'm throwing it up in its own non-sticky thread for now. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=27187849344&sid=1&pageNo=28 I have a slight update to spread to the masses. We are going to be adding a hotfix for the achievement What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been. This hotfix will make it so that obtaining the Reins of the Violet Proto-Drake will award players Master riding. The way in which 310% will be awarded is going to be a little quirky at first, but we plan to make it a more smooth process in a future patch. For now, you will need 280% flying in order to learn to use the Violet Proto-Drake. Once you mount the drake for the first time it will teach Master riding. The only catch is that you have to dismount and mount the drake again in order for 310% speed to take effect. source For those working on the achievement -- don't stop now! Master riding can be yours for free once the achievement is complete! World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.
The OverAchiever: Pimp thy ride
As you've probably already read, players will be able to purchase 310 percent flying speed from trainers in Cataclysm. While this is good news for people who hate raiding, think arena was shat into existence by the most sociopathic among the development team, or spent School of Hard Knocks trying to drown themselves in the nearest body of water, the bad news is that buying your way to super-fast flying will run you a cool 5,000 gold. Outrageous, says this dyed-in-the-wool cheapskate. For anyone else who'd rather die than part with a centavo of hard-earned gold, the good news is that having even a single 310 percent flyer in your stable is enough to get you the skill free. Fortunately, there's plenty of time to snag yourself one of these coveted mounts before Cataclysm hits, and just as fortunately, each mount is the reward (or subject) of an achievement. Strategy guides for obtaining each of the remaining 310 percent mounts is definitely beyond the scope of this article (although I'll probably devote an edition of OverAchiever to nabbing the Rusted Proto-Drake, above) but we can take a visual tour of the fast flyers that any hard-working player can still get in Wrath of the Lich King.
Breakfast Topic: How did Winter Veil 2009 go for you?
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?
The Queue: Roasting a pig on a MacBook Pro
Welcome to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Allison Robert is your hostess today.Random article picture is random. Today, we field questions on account transfers, how to keep a Mac cool, why the blood elves are in the Horde, and whether What A Long, Strange Trip will be BoA!Endless asks...Regarding the namechange... what about transferring your char from one account to other? Does that remove you from friendlists?Yep. Moving a character between accounts will remove you from other players' friends lists, and it'll also unguild you. One of our guildies switched his main between his two accounts this past week and we wound up having to reguild him.
Breakfast Topic: It's Brewfest Time
Good Morning, and welcome to Brewfest, everyone! All aspiring Brewmasters, brush off your Ram riding skills and prepare for some fun. If you need a refresher on how to race those Rams, check out our Ram racing tips from last year. This will be one of your main sources of tokens, so you'll want to make sure you're good at it. For a quick rundown of how to get each achievement, you can read up on our Overachiever's guide to the 2009 Brewfest.
A closer look at the School of Hard Knocks
Let's take a look at the Children's Week PvP achievement School of Hard Knocks and the resources you'll need to accomplish it.If you want to get your Violet Proto-Drake and fly around at 310% speed, you're going to need to do this achievement. Reports are mixed on how easy or hard this achievement is. Some folks are saying it's done quickly and easily with a good group, others are banging their heads against the desk and spewing curse words at Blizzard.But just like everything, if you research and take an educated look at these achievements, they become more understandable and easier. That's not to say the achievement will become trivial, but it'll at least become more manageable.The achievement is broken down, complete with tips, after the break.
Noblegarden will apply to What a Long, Strange Trip
So remember last week, when we reported that, to the tune of relieved sighs from Violet Proto-drake seekers everywhere, the Noblegarden achievements wouldn't apply to the What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been meta-holiday achievement? Not so fast, says Bornakk. While the achievements didn't appear in the meta one on the PTR, they will eventually apply. If you want your Violet Proto-drake, you better start getting your egg-searching eyes ready.Sacco actually posted about this in an update on Saturday, but it was overshadowed by the news about the Brewmaster achievement changes, and it's a pretty big deal: we thought we were getting a break on this one, but apparently not. Though it makes sense that all the holidays should be in there (and this explains, of course, why the holiday was extended to a full week), it still is kind of a bummer that we've suddenly got a whole other holiday to do.But Violet Proto-drakes should be tough to get anyway, and we're sure that, as usual, Blizzard will end up removing any achievements that they figure are unfair (or at least that people whine about until Blizzard doesn't want to hear it any more). And there's one more thought to take away from this: considering that all of this Noblegarden talk is going along with the 3.1 PTR, does that mean we'll see Ulduar on the live realms by Easter?
