childrens-week
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WoW Insider Show live on the air today at 3:30pm Eastern
It's a European invasion on the WoW Insider Show today -- somehow we've wrangled me and three folks from the EU. Turpster will be on as usual, Lesley Smith will be joining us again, and the one and only Patrick Beja will be on the air as well live from France. Don't worry, Americans, I'll patriotically represent us as best I can. On the menu, we'll have discussion about the Martin Fury controversy, both Children's Week and Noblegarden (and if Children's Week really is ruining the battlegrounds), and the changes in patch 3.1.2, out on the PTR right now.And of course we'll answer your emails (you can email us at theshow@wow.com) and generally have as good a time as we always do. The show starts up at May 2, 2009 3:30 PM EDT var date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone (GMT"+offset+")"; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); over on our Ustream page, or you can just click below to find the embedded Ustream feed in the second half of this post.And two more things: one, our auction over in Brigwyn's charity drive is heating up already, but if it's worth that much to you to come on the show with us (and oh yeah, help some sick kids, too), get your bid in now! Or just find something over there you like to bid on, it all goes to the same place. And if you have a full afternoon that you want to fill with podcasting, stay tuned after our show today, as I'll be on the Rawrcast. Should be fun -- see you this afternoon!
Children's Week ruins Battlegrounds
I'm sorry Blizzard, but I'm with the whiners on this one. The School of Hard Knocks is so badly designed that it's ruining, instead of enhancing, the Battleground experience. Take, for example, the requirement to return a flag in Warsong Gulch. First of all, the requirement is that the player return the flag personally as opposed to being in the vicinity of a flag return. This means that all ten players on one side are angling to return the flag... which is great in theory but in practice encourages entire teams to wait inside the base hoping to get the Achievement. This results in extended stalemates that don't actually encourage what needs to be done, which is to capture the flag.In Alterac Valley, we have forty players and four capturable towers or bunkers. Sure, the opposing faction can defend the towers/bunkers allowing it to be recaptured, but the whole business of racing to capture one -- again, personally -- turns every Alterac Valley into a race. This means lesser chances of defended towers. Realistically, if players tagged and defended until the objective burned down, only 10% of the team would be able to accomplish the Achievement requirement in every match. I'm sorry to tell all those who are allergic to PvP that you'll actually have to play quite a number of Alterac Valley matches just to get this one. Unfortunately for me, on my Battlegroup, playing Horde-side AV is like pulling teeth.
WRUP: Orphan tours edition
Ah, it's the weekend again. We find ourselves in a unique position this week as Friday sees the close of one yearly event and the beginning of another thanks to Blizzard pushing Noblegarden back a bit. This weekend, Azeroth is going to be overrun by pesky little kids asking to be taken around town, begging for junk food, and even endangering themselves as their respective guardians show them the war part of Warcraft. On the other hand, the PTR is also up for those who want to escape prepubescent peskiness. In order of how quickly they responded, let's see what the WoW Insider team is up to this weekend: Dan O'Halloran - Hitting the PTR to play with premade-80s. Always wanted to noodle around with a level capped Mage and Warlock, but never had the time to level one all the way. Daniel Whitcomb - Being excited for Children's Week, mostly. Not only is it two extra pets for my collection, but it gives me a good excuse to get in some PvP. I do wish School of Hard Knocks didn't require you to be the actual person holding/returning/capturing the flag/node/whatever though Matthew Rossi - Today, I'm playing with rabbits: my bunny Herne and his bunny wife Grimalkin will be getting some out time to celebrate his being over whatever was putting him off his food. (Not eating is very serious forrabbits, they can die in a matter of days once they go into GI Stasis.) I may do a Naxx pug on my shaman and there's Ulduar 10 this weekend. Robin Torres - Orphans and alts. It's all about orphans and alts. Chase Christian - Ulduar 10, which will be even easier with the latest round of nerfs. I'm glad we're killing these bosses pre-nerf, because it makes the guild feel better about itself. Matt Low - Ulduar 10 for Matt also! Eliah Hecht - Naxx on my lock, Ulduar on the priest. Maybe starting to level my Mage, if I have time. Alex Ziebart - Thorim, Freya and Mimiron are on notice on Ulduar 25. I might try to finish leveling my Resto Shaman as well, but that probably won't happen. Adam Holisky - Working on some multiboxing. Jennie Lees - Getting my flatmate and his entire workplace infected with the WoW bug. >:) Michael Sacco - Yogg-Saron on Ulduar 10; Mimiron, Vezax, and Yogg on 25. Zach Yonzon - Arenas even though Blizzard borked the system again, Battlegrounds even though it will be overrun by children and their clueless guardians, and Ulduar even though my guild doesn't need another plate DPS. Enough about us (cheers for those who actually read through that), what about you guys? What are you playing this weekend?
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.
The Queue: Zordon, no!
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider'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.A lot of people were confused about the picture I used in The Queue a couple of days ago. You know, the one with the German writing on it. That edition of The Queue was titled Mercenaries, and the person depicted in that picture was Götz von Berlichingen, a German mercenary from the early 1500s. He literally had an Iron Fist. As in, his hand was crafted out of iron. Go read up on him, he rules.idkanything asked..."A question on guild leadership. Our guild leader has decided to stop playing WoW but he didn't transfer the guild to someone else before he left. (It's a long, not very exciting story.) We don't want to just disband and reform under a different name because of the gold in the gbank. Does anyone know the procedure for getting the guild transferred to another person? Is there a certain amount of time that has to pass?"
Daily Chores achievement is no longer a chore
Many people have noticed a change in the Children's Week achievement Daily Chores. The achievement no longer requires you to do the same daily quest five days in a row with your orphan out, but instead requires you to do a total of any five daily quests with your orphan out.Let me rephrase for the hard of hearing:You can just do five daily quests today with your orphan out and you'll get the achievement. You don't need to repeat the same quests for the rest of the week.It should be noted that this is a hotfix applied this morning, and that the achievement text is you'll see via your achievements window is incorrect. This change is likely due to the gigantic failure that was/is A Simple Re-Quest.So this is the first nerf bat to the Children's Week achievements. School of Hard Knocks coming up next?
Breakfast Topic: For the children!
We hope you've gotten the all the necessary Achievements for Noblegarden because a new world event kicks off today. Yep, it's Children's Week once again, and just like all the yearly events this one has a bunch of Achievements you'll need to plow through in order to get the meta, and consequently the Violet Proto-Drake? Did it catch you by surprise? We hope not. The in-game calendar tells you exactly when these things start, anyway, and barring that you've got your friends over here at WoW Insider to remind you.While some players are polarized over the School of Hard Knocks Achievement, which requires players to venture into the Battlegrounds, I'm not looking forward to a token dungeon run to kill King Ymiron or doing five daily quests for five consecutive days. If you're unable to log in mid-week, you're toast. Ugh. That said, it's an extremely easy meta Achievement to obtain. Are you looking forward to the event? Are you rushing Noblegarden so can't be bothered to chaperone some kids all over Azeroth (like you do every year)? What's the first thing you've got planned for Children's Week?
The OverAchiever: Guide to Children's Week achievements
All right, folks, we've got another sub-achievement needed for What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been (and thus the 310% speed Violet Proto-Drake) on our hands here. I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that most of the achievements for Children's Week are fairly straightforward, and should be easy (and even fun) to complete. Appropriately enough for a mini-holiday, most of the achievements are simple, amusing, and not too time-consuming. The bad news is that one of the achievements may be a huge headache to get done, and unlike Noblegarden, your character has to be at least 75 in order to get all of the achievements needed for the year-long meta. Children's Week runs from Friday, May 1st at midnight through Thursday, May 7th at 11:59 PM. Got your kiddo? Let's get cracking.EDIT: This article's been revised and updated to reflect new information and the hotfixes that have gone live since initial publication. All information herein should be accurate as of 11:30 AM EST Saturday May 2nd.
The Queue: Alice's Restaurant
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today. This post is called The Queue, and it's about a queue, and the questions, but question is not the name of the post, that's just the name of the post, and that's why I called the post The Queue. You can get anything answered you want at The Queue,You can get anything answered you want at The Queue,Walk right in it's around the back,Just a half a mile from the railroad track,You can get anything answered you want at The Queue.Gamer am I asked..."Why did Blizzard make the achievement School of Hard Knocks, which requires quite a bit of PvP skill and preparation, required for the meta for Children's Week? It seems as if they only want PvP'ers to be able to get a 310% mount."
The Daily Quest: Cake is delicious
We here at WoW Insider are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Vodka, currently one of the top raiding guilds in North America, has put out their Ulduar preview video. Give it a watch, then just try and tell me it doesn't excite you Children's Week is quickly approaching, and the Hunting Lodge wants to bring the holiday into the real world. Head on over to the Hunting Lodge and give Child's Play a helping hand! Of Teeth and Claws talks Druid DoTs in Patch 3.1. DoTs of the Feral persuasion, mind. You Moonkin are out of luck on this one. Wonderland has some sweet, sweet baked goods for all of you to salivate over. If you want more cakey goodness, don't forget that we have our own World of Warcraft cake gallery. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
Noblegarden tentatively rescheduled for April 26th
All of you achievement fiends better be prepared for the end of April through early May. It was reported earlier that Noblegarden was being delayed until patch 3.1 was ready, and we have a new date for it according to the latest PTR build. While it could change again, the current date listed for the holiday is April 26th and it will last until May 2nd. I warn you to be prepared because Children's Week begins (May 1st) before Noblegarden even ends (May 2nd), so you're going to be working on two sets of holiday achievements at the same time for that brief overlap period. Since Noblegarden's achievements are a part of What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been now, you'll have your work cut out for you for those two weeks.Make sure you don't get too desperate, though. You could get yourself into some pretty serious trouble. Remember that the gals need to be 18 (levels) to Shake Their Bunny Maker for you. Also, I used that picture of the Paladin in a pink dress again because that guy is a friend of mine and I love making him cry.
Bornakk winks at new Children's Week content
Bornakk, you sneaky little... Over on the forums, when someone brings up the PTR achievements we've seen for the newly revamped Children's Week, he just kind of snickers and avoids the topic. And while that may mean that he's just ignoring the issue, I'll take to mean something a little more exciting: there's more in store for Children's Week than we think this year. Which isn't much of a surprise: we already know that there'll likely be a Gurloc and a Wolvar orphan added to the game (along with pets for each of those groups), and there's no mention of any quests involving those guys on the PTR yet. The original complaint in the forum was about "good" RP characters having to do evil things for achievements (haven't we made it plenty clear that achievements are optional?), so maybe we'll even see some more quests for all kinds of players.At any rate, expect new things to do during this year's Children's Week. We're sure Kisirani and her team are dreaming up all kinds of crazy things for us.
The Queue: Missing out
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider'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.Before we get started today, I just wanted to take a moment and mention that I'm working on a Special Edition (super special!) of The Queue focusing on Dual Specs. It won't interrupt our regular daily doses of The Queue, it'll come seperately. It might take me awhile to piece it together because people have asked a lot of Dual Spec questions, but it's coming! Slowly but surely.jam asked...What happened to the new instance that was supposed to be in Un'Goro crater, accessible only by through the Waygate in Sholazar Basin?
Veteran Nanny fixed, Violet Proto-Drake will still take a year to get
ashenmonuments spotted yet another undocumented change that will help you achievement hounds. Apparently Blizzard has updated the Veteran Nanny achievement from Children's Week to include pets you've already learned. So it won't actually take you three years to earn the achievement (since you can only get one pet per year). Any pets you have already should now count towards getting the points.Unfortunately, this won't help the Violet Proto-Drake seekers, because the Veteran Nanny achievement got removed in 2.4.3 as part of the Children's Week meta-achievements (probably because Blizzard noted that it took so long to get done). And even if it did count, you'll still need the Brewfest achievements... which you'll have to wait until this October to get (since Blizzard dropped the achievements patch after Brewfest ended last year). But Children's Week enthusiasts who have already collected pets in the past will have a little less work to do to pick up the Veteran Nanny achievement.
Jepetto Joybuzz and the Dalaran toy store
Dalaran's local toymaker, Jepetto Joybuzz, has added some new items to his stock in the last few beta patches. Each one just as overpriced as the last! His items have no real use as far as combat and stats and that sort of thing, they're just for fun. They're toys! What did you expect? Let's take a look at what he has to offer. Grindgear Toy Gorilla - This one-use summoned pet will cost you 45 silver. It emulates Egbert from Children's Week, running all over the place like his butt is aflame. He only lasts 20 seconds, then disappears. It almost feels like that's a bug, that the item should disappear because you learned it like other pets, but it doesn't seem like that's the case. The item specifically lists a cooldown, and you can buy multiples. They stack. Trusty Copper Racer - For 30 silver, you can buy this race car that looks like the goblin podracer in the Shimmering Flats. It travels 20 yards, then... disappears. With the item. Hm. This one is kind of lame.
Ask a Lore Nerd: Babies babies babies
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, the column that answers your questions about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe. Click the Comments link below (or e-mail us!), ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer you in a future installment!Let's jump right in with Tom's trio of questions... We know what happens when a human and orc cross-breed, but what about elf/human intermingling? Is it possible for the other races on Azeroth to breed and are there any such results of that union? Elf/Human crossbreeds are definitely supported by lore, as well as a whole mess of other combinations. Arator the Redeemer in Hellfire Peninsula is a Human/Elf Hybrid, for example, and there are plenty more around. Other combinations are valid as well. Rexxar is an Orc/Ogre Hybrid. Gross, I know, but oh well. There are a lot more examples you can add to those that are scattered around the world(s). There are no hard rules in place dictating who can and cannot interbreed, but it's pretty safe to assume the races similar to one another are compatible. I would bet Dwarves and Gnomes can shack up and spawn, for example, but probably not a Gnome and a Tauren. That's just me talking, though. I could be wrong. Let's pray very, very hard that I'm not wrong.
Barrens Chat: Dibs
Hello again! This week's strip has been done in memory of Children's Week. That wonderful and joyous celebration that gets you a cute little tag along to play with, all in exchange for running everywhere in the entire world.I have somehow managed to miss out on Children's Week every year, but knowing my luck, it's for the better! It would likely lead to a catastrophe not unlike what is featured in this comic.Want to know what kind of catastrophe I'm talking about? Check out the Barrens Chat gallery for this and other comics!%Gallery-22361%
Stormwind City Children's Week gallery walkthrough
Today is the last day of Children's Week and here is a Gallery Walkthrough of the Stormwind City quest chain. This completes our Children's Week set of galleries: Dornaa's Quests (Shattrath Children's Week quests, Alliance-side) Salandria's Quests (Shattrath quests, Horde-side) Grunth's Quests (Orgrimmar Children's Week quests) Randis's Quests (Stormwind quests) Having done all of the quests, I am very disappointed in the Stormwind quest chain. It involves much more traveling and much less lore than the Horde equivalent. My favorite pet is still Sleepy Willy, but I think they are all pretty cute.Who was your favorite orphan and what was your favorite reward?%Gallery-22336%
Breakfast Topic: Where have you taken your orphan?
Ok, admit it. Dornaa and Salandria are pretty cute. They say the darndest things and they are so tiny and they are like little bundles of irrepressible energy and now I want kids of my own, damn it. But seriously, If you're like me, you've probably kept your orphan whistle a little longer than you had to and took your orphan around a few extra places. Auchindoun? The Dark Portal? Pff, c'mon kid. I'll show you some real fun. How about Karazhan? That was actually a lot of fun, although fighting Prince Malchezaar was sort of creepy, since Dornaa was staring at me through the whole fight as I stood with my back against the wall, tanking him. She looked sort of accusing. You don't suppose Mal was her dear uncle before the whole Eredar corruption thing, maybe? Unfortunately, I don't think you're allowed to take your orphan into the arenas, but I may have to take her for a tour of scenic Alterac Valley before the whistle disappears. Seriously, I don't care how awesome Willy is, I just want to adopt Dornaa and keep her forever. She can keep Archmage Vargoth company on all my boss kills. I know I'm not the only one who's done this. Orphan tours are probably some of the most random fun you can have in World of Warcraft with an annual event, I think. Where have you taken your orphan?
The Darkmoon Faire is in town
Here's a friendly reminder for everyone: The Darkmoon Faire starts today in Terrokar Forest, just to the southeast of Shattrath City in Outland. Be sure to check out our guides to the ticket system and the card decks, as well as Alex Ziebart's gallery of a day at the faire, as well as all our other Faire news and information, then start planning your trip there. If you're lucky, Thaddeus Paleo and Lhara will have some rare items that'll catch your eye, or Sayge might give you a quest in your written fortune as well. And since Children's Week is still going on, if you haven't sent your Orphan back to the orphanage yet, why not give them a treat? Show them around the faire and buy them an Iced Berry Slush (and get yourself a Darkmoon Special Reserve at the same time)! Also, if you're not level 58 yet, don't despair, you can still join in the fun. A Mage can teleport you to Shattrath City any time, so if you can bribe or convince them to open a portal for you, you can still make it over. %Gallery-20398%
