brewfest
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Brewfest is still a bugfest
Brewfest bugs continue to infest the live servers. Despite a rolling restart of all the realms this morning, the Barker quest is still bugged on many servers. Blizzard is aware and is currently trying to unravel the latest mystery glitch.Blizzard was increasing the ticket reward for the Barker quest to make up for disabling the Dark Iron attack quest. If they can't get the Barker quest to work properly, they are going to have to think of another plan. There is only a limited amount of time to gather tickets for players who want the permanent rewards. CM Aeus on the European servers nixed the idea of the event getting extended. Oceanic realms are also having Brewfest problems of their own. Because the servers are hosted in a different time zone, the Brewfest events didn't go live at midnight, but many hours later. Blizzard is aware of the time discrepancy problem and is looking into ways to avoid it in the future.For players who intend to do the Barker quest when it is working, Blizzard has pointed out that /waving and /yelling are not necessary. You simply need to get close enough to the flags while on the Riding Ram. The quest updates using waypoint triggers, not emotes. One bit of good news: the always excellent WoW Wiki has a page up on Brewfest listing quests, rewards, etc. This may help answer many questions players have such as, can I get the Ram quest before L40? (No.)
More Brewfest brouhaha
While some Brewfest events are hotfixed, others are stubbornly refusing to work without a full server restart. Community Manager Drysc spells it on a late night forum post. The short version, for those whose eyes aren't up to extensive reading after last night's festivities, is this: Dark Iron attacks are disabled for now. The large number of people using the /wave emote during the twice hourly event was causing many to crash repeatedly. Blizzard will reinstate the attacks before Brewfest is over as soon if they figure out a work around to the crashing problem.. Ticket rewards for other Brewfest activities have been increased to compensate for the lack of Dark Iron generated tickets. The Barking quest reward increases from 15 to 40 and the Keg Delivery quest increases each keg to 3 tickets (and can be done every 12 hours.) Until the Dark Iron attacks are brought back, "Complimentary Brewfest Samplers" acquired by /waving are disabled (confirming the /wave emote/crashing problem) Brewfest Goggles which were implemented with a temporary duration, will be permanent. A duration timer will show until the next patch, but can be ignored. No /wave or emote is necessary to complete the Barker quest. Just be on the Riding Ram and pass close enough to the flags. In a separate thread, it was confirmed that the Pink Elekk's quest is NOT a daily quest. Some players were able to do it twice due to a one-time reset. The servers will be getting a rolling restart this morning at 5:00am PST. We'll have to keep an eye on the forums to see what got fixed and what's still bugged.
Brewfest tips, tricks and total tickets
As Blizzard hotfixes the broken Brewfest quests (Pink Elekks is hotfixed already), Community Manager Drysc has been posting with helpful information for holiday participants. Player Rizz wanted to know how many tickets she could acquire in one day. Drysc's estimate:15 tickets from "Bark for the Barleybrews!"Twice a day (every twelve hours) you can do the "There and Back again" repeatable quest, 2 tickets each barrel, you might average 20 tickets? I'm not sure if there's an actual maximum but I do know you can't go forever.Then every hour on the half hour you can get up to 25 tickets with the Dark Iron attacks.So theoretically if you do everything you possibly could in a day and got the ticket amounts listed above: 355This of course doesn't count any of the one-off quests.Then Drysc responded in a separate thread with some helpful tips on finishing certain Brewfest quests:
Brewfest hangover starts early for Blizzard
Players hailed Brewfest with great anticipation, but all is not well in the land of pints and pretzels. Many bugs slipped through the very short Public Testing phase and onto the live servers. From QA Hortus: We are aware of the following issues: Some players can not get the Pink Elekks quest. This is caused by a mismatch with another quest, we are working on a hotfix for this issue. Corben Barleybrew is not spawning in Black Rock Depths This appears to be due to a misconfiguration on the servers and is being investigated. Unable to loot Brewfest Samplers We are aware of this issue a working on a fix. I heard a lot of people complain how long Patch 2.2 was on the PTR. These Brewfest bugs are what happens when new content isn't given enough time in the testing phase.
Brewfest celebrated in World of Warcraft
We're suckers for Bavaria, so if we can't go to Oktoberfest, we're going to enjoy "Brewfest" in World of Warcraft. So grab yourself some Löwenbräu, or Paulaner if you prefer, plop in front of your computer and get ready to eat some virtual pretzels and win some lederhosen.You can check out WoW Insider for suggestions on how to get the most out of your Brewfest holiday. The general information is that the event runs from Oct. 2-16. There will be complimentary mugs to get your avatar nice and sloshed, then you can purchase "Eyesight Enhancing Romance Goggles" to find the perfect mate at the festival. There will also be ram racing, mystery hunts and you can even be hired to advertise the event in major cities. All of the events will net you tickets that you can trade in for the fabulous prizes above. Happy Brewfest to those in Azeroth![Via WoW Insider]
Brewfest: The Movie
Blizzard has beat independent Machinimists to the punch with their very own video commemorating Brewfest. I can't embed it here but you can go to WoW's European Movie page. Once there you can watch it directly from the site or download it to your desktop. It's short and I recommend watching it through to the end.While you're at it, head over to You Tube and check out a short video of what happens when you put on the new Beer Goggles you can buy at Brewfest
Breakfast Topic: What are your Brewfest goals?
At midnight last night the goblins and dwarves finished setting up the Brewfest tents outside Ironforge and Ogrimmar. Also the beer gardens outside Stormwind, Darnassus, the Exodar, Undercity, Thunder Bluff and even Shattrath. You now have 13 days to collect enough tickets to walk away with a souvenir from your fortnight of drunken revelry. Is it going to be the Brewfest Pony Keg? The Riding Ram? Or the authentic Brewfest Regalia?What quests interest you the most? Hitting every location in search of the elusive Pink Elekks? Racing Rams through Ironforge and/or Ogrimmar? Fighting off invading Dark Iron Dwarves with nothing but a decorative stein and a fresh-from-the-oven schnitzel? Let us know!
Brewfest Issues [Updated]
Brewfest is currently live in Oceania and the U.S. and so far there have been some issues:Brewfest didn't start on time.The setup crew appeared when patch 2.2.2 went live, but the event didn't go live until midnight. Unfortunately for some servers, it didn't go live then as well. It seems that if your realm time is different from the timezone where the server resides, your Brewfest will go live according to the server location time and not the realm time. For example, U.S. East Coast servers that are located on the West Coast had their Brewfests begin at 3am.The ticket rewards were too high.Drysc explains: It appears that quite a few of the hotfixes originally intended to go out with 2.2.2 were not applied properly as the patch went out with the maintenance today. Many of these hotfixes are now being pushed out. You should now get 2 tickets for each keg you return for the keg delivery quest. "Bark for the Barleybrews!" quest reward should be 15 tickets. "There and Back Again" quest reward should be 10 tickets. "Pink Elekks on Parade" quest reward should be 40 tickets. You should be limited to 25 "keg protector" buffs.
Brewfest starts at midnight server time!
Trouble is brewing in the forums. Sorry. Couldn't resist. Apparently there has been some miscommunication about the in-game Brewfest event. Even the oft-infallible WoW Insider team has been an accessory to this crime, and for that we humbly apologize. There's been more than a little bit of chatter about it on the forums as well, and Drysc dutifully stepped to the plate and addressed the angry alcohol-deprived mob. (Thankfully, he survived a lynching. This time.)In my opinion Drysc took more of the blame on Blizzard's behalf than he needed to. The misunderstanding, from my perspective, has all been about verbage. The promotional material I've seen indicated that Brewfest would "go live" today, it didn't say the festival would actually start today. Like the Darkmoon Faire, Blizzard has opted to put a day of setup and teardown at each end of the event to add to roleplay realism. Personally, I think it's a nice touch.The good news is that the festival actually starts tonight at midnight server time. Be sure to check out Dan's guide to Brewfest festivities and make your way to your faction's Brewfest location!
Patch 2.2.2 is live
Patch 2.2.2 goes live on the servers today as the Test server shuts down in anticipation of the Zul'Aman Patch 2.3. Included in today's patch is the new world event, Brewfest, which begins when the servers come back up and extends for two weeks until October 16. Two days after that, on the 18th, Hallow's End kicks into high gear with the new Headless Horseman event that drops some nice loot for those able to battle this new menace as well as the new flying broomstick mount. Hallow's End will also run for two weeks, ending on November 1st.The notes for the patch are pretty short, just the two events and a list of new graveyards. You can read them after the jump.
Patch 2.2.2 and you: Brewfest tomorrow
It looks like we'll be getting another patch tomorrow, according to Nethaera -- Brewfest is coming! That'll be two consecutive patch weeks, for the first time in my memory. We've seen Dan's Brewfest preview, as well as some info from Blizzard, and all of it looks like it's going to be pretty fun.The irony for me is that I don't drink any alcohol in real life. This may sound odd, but I usually try to avoid it in the game too, if for no other reason than I don't know exactly how my characters should act when they're drunk out of their minds. I've tried roleplaying it before, though, at the Darkmoon Faire, and I guess I was believable enough! It's not that hard to just be uninhibited. Still, something tells me that Brewfest isn't actually about getting drunk. What's the significance of this holiday for you?
Unofficial Patch 2.3 notes
With the avalanche of information from Blizzard in the last week about Patch 2.3 it's been hard to keep track of it all. Fortunately, two sites have done just that. MMO-Champion and World of Raids have both compiled all the blue notes into a theoretical Test Realm Patch 2.3 Notes list. Most of the notes listed have links leading to the official source of the information.There will be a great deal more in the patch than what the blues have revealed so far, so take these as only partial lists. Also, a few items Blizzard hoped to get into the patch may not make it. This is the unfortunate truth in the development process.World of Warcraft Lead Developer Jeff Kaplan, aka Tigole, mentioned that Patch 2.3 may hit the Test server this week. This seems very likely since the current patch on the PTRs, 2.2.2, must move off for Brewfest to go live on Tuesday.
Brewfest information from Blizzard
While our own Dan O'Halloran has given us a sneak peak at this new holiday as it exists on the test realm, and now Blizzard jumped in and provide us with an overview of the holiday. Blizzard tells us that this event, celebrated by Alliance and Horde alike, is a time in which the World of Warcraft's three competing breweries show off their wares in front of the major cities. Everyone will be able enjoy plenty of booze as well as ram racing (remember, everyone, don't drink and ride!), mystery hunts, and even fighting off Dark Iron Dwarves. You get tickets for participating in events and turn them in for fabulous prizes. Brewfest officially scheduled to begin on October 2nd and run through October 16th, so we can expect the 2.2.2 holiday mini-patch to hit the live realms soon.
New graveyards in 2.2.2
Hot on the heels of tomorrow's expected 2.2 release, Neth has posted the short-but-sweet 2.2.2 patch notes, which include Brewfest and Hallow's End, featuring lots of new seasonal rewards and quests. As we've said before, the fact that both of these holidays are coming up quick means we can't be more than one or two weeks away from this patch's release.And the other interesting feature of this patch is the addition of quite a few new graveyards all over Old Azeroth. Southern Barrens, Western Plaguelands, Alterac Mountains, Searing Gorge and the Badlands are all getting extra graveyards (there's no indication whether they're Horde or Alliance specific or otherwise), and Tanaris, Winterspring, Stonetalon and Un'Goro are all getting two.Wow. That should significantly speed things up in Un'Goro, Tanaris, and the Southern Barrens especially, since I have less-than-fond memories of super-long corpse runs there. Badlands, too, was pretty maddening, and while the long corpse run wasn't the only reason most players aren't big fans of Uldaman, it was definitely a reason for that. This is no doubt part of Blizzard's aim to speed up levels 1-60 for players. This alone, of course, doesn't exactly make me want to go back and run another alt through (only new content would do that), but at least when we do run another alt through, it'll be a little easier.
An early look at Brewfest
Blizzards nod to the German beer festival, Oktoberfest, has hit the Test server as the new Azerothian holiday event, Brewfest. Festival grounds have sprung up outside all the starter cities including Silvermoon and Exodar. Each one has a steinload of new quests. Here's a quick overview of what's in store for the drunken celebrants.Complimentary SteinAt the entrance to each festival ground is a greeter. He gives you a choice of Brewfest Steins. Each stein corresponds to a large keg that you can draw an unlimited supply of booze from. And believe me, you'll need it. He also gives you a rundown of all the activities you can participate in.Food and DrinkIn addition to the giant keggers, you can purchase holiday themed pretzels, cheeses, booze and sausages from vendors on the festival grounds.Read on for Ram Racing, Souvenirs, Quests and Dark Iron Attacks!
New patch coming to the PTRs and it's not what you think
Patch 2.2.2 is coming to the Public Test Realm later today according to Hortus. Instead of Zul'Aman or more Voice Chat testing, Blizzard is putting their October Holiday content up. The first event, Brewfest, is a new holiday for Azeroth. Early reports hint at attack kegs, signalling Dark Iron dwarves, racing rams, and even sausage eating. Sounds suspiciously like the annual German event, Oktoberfest.After Brewfest, Blizzard will test the Hallows End festivities. Considering this long held event is on the Test server hints that Blizzard may have some new tricks or treats in store for us. Mountable flying brooms have already been spotted in the Test files. Hallows End is scheduled to start October 18th on the Live servers.
PTR Notes: Brewfest is coming
MMO Champion has a tip on a brand new festival that is probably coming to Azeroth (and Outland) in October. It's called Brewfest, and already in the 2.2 PTR patch files, they've found the ability to attack kegs, signal Dark Iron dwarves, race rams, and even eat sausages. Of course we're not sure that it's coming in October, but considering the similarity to the very famous Oktoberfest, the guess is probably not that far off. And of course whenever you mention brewing in World of Warcraft, you've got to mention the Pandaren-- could Chen and the gang, hope against hope, finally be making an appearance in Azeroth?Boubouille also points out that the flying broom mount spells are in the game as well-- because they mention only giving one ride per mount, it's very likely that these too will be used on a temporary holiday, most likely Hallow's End. So sounds like lots of fun events coming this October-- I'm sure we'll learn more at Blizzcon.
