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Be sure to pick up a Macabre Marionette pet for Day of the Dead
Though this short post-Hallow's End holiday is often forgotten, you should be sure to check out Day of the Dead (which lasts from November 1-3rd) in order to pick up the Macabre Marionette. Previously the Marionette could only be used during the holiday, but this year it's a full-fledged battle pet to add to your collection. To get started, go to your race's home city -- or try neutral cities Shattrath or Dalaran -- and head for the graveyard. There you'll find Catrina offering the quest The Grateful Dead. Follow a short quest chain and you'll wind up with your very own Macabre Marionette for the keeping. For a longer quest walkthrough, check out the Macabre Marionette writeup on WarcraftPets. And good luck -- though for a quest chain this simple, you probably won't need it.
Reminder: Day of the Dead November 1st and 2nd
Hot on the heels of the Hallow's End festivities comes Day of the Dead, which is actually two days, to give you a few extra chances to grab the single achievement available on this holiday. The Day of the Dead is a time to remember and celebrate the spirits of those who have been lost, which must hold a special irony for the Forsaken. Oh well! You can grab a number of fun items during the Day of the Dead, including the seasonal pet Macabre Marionette, the Bread of the Dead recipe, Bouquet of Orange Marigolds, Whimsical Skull Mask, and a Spirit Candle. Check out the Day of the Dead post on the WoW official blog for more information on the holiday.
Lurching into the Day of the Dead tomorrow
With Hallow's End almost over, and that stupid helmet having completely evaded me this year, it's time to shift our focus to the Day of the Dead. Held at the graveyards of all major cities (including Shattrath and Dalaran) this two day holiday (November 1st and 2nd) is a time to remember our dead, even for those of us who happen to be our dead. I'm looking right at you, forsaken. With vanity items like the Whimsical Skull Mask, a holiday achievement earned via dancing with Catrina that also transforms you into a skeleton for a brief time, this is your chance to sit back, unwind from the rigors of Hallow's End and just relax with our less lively denizens of Azeroth. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Day of the Dead has arrived for a limited time
Hot on the heels of Hallow's End is the Day of the Dead. This one-day event features one achievement, Dead Man's Party, that you can pick up for yourself simply by traveling to the nearest graveyard and dancing with Catrina. In addition, the Day of the Dead does have a quest available -- but you have to work a little to find it. Purchase an Orange Marigold from Chapman, the Day of the Dead vendor, and use the item in the graveyard of your race's capital city to reveal a host of ghosts, including one with a quest to complete. The quest itself is simple, and it'll help you out on those achievements, too -- you will be asked to bake a bit of Bread of the Dead, a recipe that can be purchased from Chapman as well. Give the bread to the ghost, and you've got yourself a Macabre Marionette as a thank-you. This item requires Day of the Dead to use; it isn't a pet, just a fun friend to tag along with you on the holiday. For those who may not have been able to do the quest last year, it seems this year those problems have been solved. I was able to complete the quest and get my marionette pal just fine this morning. Go nab your achievements, learn a new recipe and pick up a marionette of your own today ... because tomorrow, it'll all be gone!
Breakfast Topic: Goodbye Hallow's End, hello Day of the Dead
That's it! No more chances to try for the mount you've all been queuing up for until next year. Hallow's End may be over, but the in-game holiday fun is not. For one day only, you can participate in a fun little event that pays homage to Dia de los Muertos, the Latin-American holiday for remembering family members who are no longer with us. The Day of the Dead includes a dancing achievement and a quest to feed the dead, complete with pop culture references. <It came from the Blog> had a lot of fun last year, as you can see in the gallery below. Are you participating in the Day of the Dead today? Also, did you reach your Hallow's End goals? What do you think of the drop rate of the Horseman's reins? What would you change about the holiday? Personally, I would like there to be a way to douse the fires with fewer people toward the end of the holiday. I think it would be nice if an NPC stepped in to help out after so many failed attempts in a row. That way I could still parade my alts through Brill on a daily basis, rather than scheduling an onslaught of guildies to get it done in a few seconds. What do you think? %Gallery-77152%
Get sad on the cheap with Tale of Tales' pay-what-you-want sale
Tale of Tales is celebrating the Day of the Dead this weekend with a sale on its three games, which are all sober, quiet meditations on -- what else -- sugar skulls death. Through November 2, you can pay any price you want, from $3 up, for The Path, The Graveyard and Fatale bundled together. There is some motivation to pay more than the minimum (beyond it being pretty crass to lowball an indie like that) -- there's a "special surprise" in store for anyone who pays more than $50 for the bundle (which is regularly priced at $22). You'll also be motivating Tale of Tales to complete its latest ... tale, The Book of 8, as earnings from this sale will go toward the game's development.
It Came from the Blog: Day of the Dead gallery
It Came from the Blog got together Monday night for a last minute Day of the Dead Dance Party. We danced, we got dead pets and we traveled to all the old world Horde graveyards. Paragus and others made some Bread of the Dead for all to share. Rossor (Matthew Rossi) joined us as well for some dancing and tank discussions. I am still working on the video, but here is a gallery of stills from the dance party: %Gallery-77152% We'll definitely have a PIlgrim's Bounty event and I'm hoping to fit in a DK Battleground party as well. Join us!
It came from the Blog: Day of the Dead Dance Party
Stop the presses! Hold your Hawkstriders! It came from the Blog is having a last minute Day of the Dead Dance Party tonight! And everyone is invited: Where: Falconwing Square on Zangarmarsh (US) realm When: Midnight EST (10pm Server time, 9pm PST) Who: Any level Horde character How: Ask Robinella or any It came from the Blog Lurker for an invite to the guild What: We'll be making a video of dancing with Catrina and transforming (so don't do the achievement before the rest of us) as well as completing The Grateful Dead quest. If you have time to log on before the event and make some pocket money, learn cooking and bake some bread, please do. But we'll have extra cash and bread for those who don't. Of course, you'll only be able to complete The Grateful Dead quest outside of Silvermoon if you are a Blood Elf, but we will travel to other graveyards for other races, time permitting. Or you could just make a baby Blood Elf for this event only -- for those of you not dead set against it. (See what I did there?) Most questions about It came from the Blog are answered in our FAQ. If you have others, please ask in the comments. Hope to see you there!
Breakfast Topic: Day of the Dead ends today
Whoosh. Well, that went by rather quickly, didn't it? Day of the Dead ends today. Two days is most certainly a short time for a World of Warcraft holiday, but fortunately, there was little to do. Just a visit to Catrina, buying a bread recipe, sharing it with some dead folks, and that's it. It didn't exactly go off without a hitch, either, as there were some known issues with the event. But everything was fixed, eventually, and the short event is now about to finish. How did everyone find the short holiday? It mirrored the short holiday it was based on in the real world, and even similar holidays all over the world. In the Philippines, we got a non-working holiday for November 2, where most folks are off to the provinces visiting their dead. How did everyone's Day of the Dead go? Were you able to take a gander at the lovely dancing Catrina? Were you able to bake some (presumably stale) bread? What's your take on these short holidays? Personally, I think it's a nice touch. These blink-and-you'll-miss-it events similar to Pirate's Day are nice nods to our real world happenings. Hopefully, all of you got a chance to enjoy this new but brief world event.
Day of the Dead known issues
Feeling a little disconnected with Day of the Dead? Is your head not fitting on your neck exactly right? No, it's not because of my lame attempts at two puns right there, but it is because of a series of known issues being acknowledged by Blizzard today. The major ones are as follows: Macabre Marionette disappearing when changing zones (Fixed!) Players being disconnected when retrieving Bread of the Dead or Candy Skulls from the mail, auction house, and guild banks (Fixed!) The Day of the Dead costume may not last the full 12 hour duration Blizzard doesn't want you to contact them about these issues, since the GMs can't help you with them. And while the disconnection issues, if it happens to you, could hinder your ability to complete the quests associated with the one day event -- it will not stop you from dancing with Catrina to get the achievement. The full announcement from Blizzard after the break. Update from the blues: "Update: Novermber 1, 2009 - 9:15 AM PST - A hotfix has been applied which will prevent various Day of the Dead items from disappearing while changing zones or retrieving items from the mail."
Day of the Dead begins
Because we're such nice guys, we over here at WoW.com would like to remind everyone that while the Hallow's End festivities have come to a much-too-soon end (who doesn't enjoy all of Azeroth feeling a little bit like the Undercity?), a new, very short holiday kicks off, too. Day of the Dead, literally the English translation of Dia de los Muertos, the Mexican holiday celebrated to remember those who have moved on, begins right when Hallow's End ends. The short, two-day holiday happens on November 1 and 2, coinciding with the Catholic holidays of All Saints' Day and All Soul's Day, which are celebrated elsewhere in the world. During the event, players will have to /dance with an NPC named Catrina in order to get the Dead Man's Party Achievement, a reference to the Catrina dolls of Mexico, those skeletons in fabulously fashionable dresses and hats. There's also a recipe in-game for Bread of the Dead, another translation of the holiday's Pan de Muerto. This is required for The Grateful Dead, which appear to be a collection of quests requiring players to bring the bread to various ghosts in graveyards all over the game world. We hear the bread also goes very well with some Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia. %Gallery-76955%
The Queue: Full of it
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Since today's first question in Maelstrom-themed, we've decided today's edition of The Queue was a good time to link the supposed leaked trailer of the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, to be announced at BlizzCon '09. We haven't embedded the video to try and dodge waking up to a DMCA tomorrow, so just check it out on YouTube. We'll let Google deal with the mess, eh?Revan asked... "What instances would you suggest for a Maelstrom expansion?" All of the things you suggested yesterday would work pretty well. Nazjatar and the Tomb of Sargeras would definitely be raid zones in a future expansion. I suspect we would also have a hella fun time in The Eye of the Maelstrom, which is the center of the whole storm there. Maybe we'd even visit Mak'aru, which is where all the gross crab people live. It probably wouldn't be a raid, but I could see a 5-man there. That is, if we don't ally with the gross crabfolk. Did I mention they're gross? Gross. I'd also lay down money that we'll get an Onyxia/Gruul/Malygos-style raid with a sea monster of some sort. The Lurker Below v2.0, now with eye lasers?
