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Breakfast Topic: Happy Winter's Veil!
Ah, the sights, scents, and sounds of Winter's Veil: the gingerbread cookies, the eggnog, the beautifully-wrapped presents beneath the tree, bestowing cheer unto all in addition to -- coal? I wanted a Clockwork Rocket Bot! Man, screw this holiday. When's the Lunar Festival coming?Ignoring all the usual bah-humbuggish sentiments to which one might be prone during this wonderful and joyous holiday season (hmph), Winter's Veil seems to be one of the ingame events with the most staying power. There's not a single month out of the year where I haven't seen someone rolling around on a reindeer mount courtesy of a Preserved Holly, or a snowman suddenly pop in the middle of a raid while people are waiting for buffs. This year the new Winter's Veil achievements will ensure these items and quests get even more traffic than they have previously, so you can bet that both the 2008 holiday -- and older content, in the form of Fa-la-la-la-Ogri'la -- are going to be well-trod.As for me, well, my shaman wants a rocket bot. My druid hopes for peace on Azeroth and good will towards all men (and cows, and space goats, and dwarves, and...). My warrior would like a new sword. My warlock wants to see the world burn. I'm not entirely certain how to balance these competing desires, but I'll be keeping an eye on the gifts under Orgrimmar's tree.
WWI attendees to get their own pet Archangel Tyrael [Updated with Picture]
The identity of the free pet that Worldwide Invitational Paris attendees received with a code in their goodie bag has been a closely guarded secret, with the identity not known even at the WWI itself. Yesterday, Bornakk broke the silence on the pet and announced that after patch 2.4.3 goes live, WWI attendees will be able to turn in their pet codes for their own miniature version of Diablo's Archangel Tyrael! Tyrael, as you may remember, is an angel that assists the Horadrim -- and later the heroes of Diablo 2 -- in fighting back the Prime Evils as they attempt to assault and take over the world of Sanctuary. He is one of the few angels who will directly assist humanity in fighting Hell, even when he is specifically forbidden from interfering by Heaven itself. He eventually destroys the Worldstone after Baal corrupts it at the end of the Lord of Destruction expansion. So far, his fate after that has not been told, although it seems practically a given that he will appear in Diablo 3 in some capacity, as the official Diablo 3 site features his visage prominently.
A clockwork nerf
Did you grab your Clockwork Robot Bot from under the tree this Winter's Veil? I did, and I was thrilled to find that the little wind-up robot is more or less what we asked for a while back-- when two of these guys are summoned next to each other, they'll battle it out. Now, they only have a few HP, so really, just one hit from one usually takes the other out.Unless you can buff them, that is. A few people found that you could cast Power Word: Shield and Power Word: Fortitude on the bots when they first came out, which meant that you could give them more health and make them invincible for a few seconds. Unfortunately, Max Bliss found out that's not the case any more-- Blizzard has performed a clockwork nerf, and the bots are now unbuffable. Lame.Sure it may be imbalanced that some people can buff their bots and make them live longer, but this is hardly an instance of life or death. Let the bots be buffed, Blizzard!
The Daily Grind: Favorite holiday "gifts" in your MMO
Ah, the day after Christmas. Depending on how you celebrated, you may feel you need another four day weekend to get over it, or you may be well rested and ready to go. Perhaps you're just enjoying some quality time with your coffee, or maybe you're scanning the sales papers trying to figure out what games to pick up next with all those gift cards you got this year. Meanwhile, in whatever worlds you play in, there's likely to be some type of a holiday event still in full swing, no matter what the real world is doing. One of the things we were thrilled to see added to the Winter's Veil event in World of Warcraft this year was the Clockwork Rocket Bot. For WoW, this added a fun new level of "stuff to do while waiting on your raid party to form up." You can now launch a rocket bot with a friend and watch them beat each other to bits. Put some tonks into the mix, and you've got yourself a seriously fun time-sink! We just hope they'll consider making some more dueling pets. I know I'd like to see if the Winter Veil combat pet can beat up the pets from other holidays.But to get back to the point -- What would you say was your #1 in-game holiday item you got this year? We've seen hats, snowballs, useful things like Inspirations and holiday salvage, and just silly things like reindeer mounts and pocket gnomes. Are there any particularly good quests you've been on that were a lot of fun and landed you some interesting items, or was it all pretty well same-old-same-old in your MMO of choice? For that matter, did you land any in-game white elephants?
