Festival-Dumplings
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Breakfast Topic: A tiger-rific New Year to all
The Lunar Festival is upon us once again today, and this year the real world inspiration for the in-game event coincidentally falls on the same day as Valentine's Day, which Love is in the Air is based upon (Happy Valentine's Day and Happy Chinese New Year to all, by the way). It's a funny little twist that has most of our metro's best restaurants booked today. We also joke that the only folks who won't be wearing red would be the loveless non-Chinese. This year, the Year of the Tiger, is also going to be pretty special to me and my wife because our second daughter is due in April, so we're about to welcome a tiger in the family. Blizzard will be ushering in new babies this year, too -- two, in fact. StarCraft 2 and Cataclysm are scheduled to come out in 2010. Overall, I think it's going to be pretty exciting. We can also consider this another fresh start, and folks who missed out on completing the whole Long Strange Strip last year can start completing it again this year. What are your plans for the Lunar Festival? I personally think it's one of the coolest in-game holidays and I usually amass enough stacks of Festival Dumplings to open up my own dimsum bar by the time it ends. Are there any achievements you still need? Any elders you still need to visit? Allison's written up an excellent guide to help you complete anything you might have missed. I personally love going around Azeroth to visit all the elders because I enjoy receiving those red envelopes in the mail. Sure, it'll contain some some shiny stone or a bunch of fireworks, but it still reminds me of the real thing. A little later tonight we'll all be lining up in front of our A Ma to get similar red envelopes which contain, well, gold IRL. It's pretty cool. The year is shaping up really well, and I hope everyone else is having a ferocious, tiger-like start to their 2010, too. A lot of things to look forward to, a lot of things to be thankful for. How about you? Anything you're looking forward to or wish to be thankful for in the Year of the Tiger, whether in-game or out?
Breakfast Topic: Good eats
Blizzard has generally done a tremendous job with in-game items. Aside from the mandatory epic gear, of course, they've also given great detail to even the most worthless (or seemingly worthless) items. One aspect of the game that they've put as much effort into are the food and drink. Some foods in game actually make me crave for the real thing, like the Delicious Chocolate Cake. I mean, I know eating it certainly make me very happy.Most of us keep food that serve as raid or utility buffs, usually from Cooking. This is actually one area that Blizzard still needs to polish, with some foods harder to come by than others. That said, I pack some Dragonfin Filet for those dungeon runs, and a stack of Great Feasts for raids. I would love to bring Fish Feasts, but my Fishing is still at a deplorable 1 (I'm too poor to keep buying the fish off the Auction House).However, my current favorite food these days are Blackened Worg Steaks, and I never go around without the tracking on. It's an extremely useful buff, specially on a PvP server, so I hardly get jumped and it's very easy for me to track down nasty gankers. I also keep stacks and stacks of Festival Dumplings for general use and because I just love Chinese food. Lastly, I have stacks of Star's Lament because it's the only drink you can take in Arenas.
Breakfast Topic: Remember your elders
Love is almost in the air, but the Lunar Festival isn't over yet. Have you gotten your Elder title yet? The Lunar Festival is technically the first world event of the year, although I'm pretty sure some of you already have your Hallowed and Merrymaker titles. Some of us got a head start on this latest event, like myself. I found out I'd completed the continents when I did them last year, when I hoarded Festival Dumplings. This made it considerably easier for me to complete this Achievement.Don't forget that the event is about to end, so if you plan on going after that nice mount, you're going to have to complete this Achievement because at 6am server time this Thursday. I always wished that the Outlands had this, too, but I guess alien continents don't celebrate Chinese New Year the Lunar Fesitval. Have you completed the Achievement? Did you even bother? Some of you probably even finished it on multiple characters. Anything interesting happen this year? What did you buy with your coins? I certainly had fun getting the Elders of the Alliance. I'm sure Alliance characters had fun doing Elders of the Horde, too, even if only to visit Thunder Bluff's newest elder. Let's bid the Lunar Festival a fond farewell with our experiences thus far.
