darkmoon-faire
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Darkmoon Faire dazzles London
The World of Warcraft TCG Darkmoon Faire has been touring Europe, and most recently stopped in London, England for a small tournament filled with fierce competition. Blizzard in partnership with Upper Deck Entertainment sponsored previous competitions in Frankfurt, Germany and Milan, Italy, and the two winners from those tournaments were on hand to battle it out in London. Victory smiled on the home favorites this time out, and both Frankfurt's champion Pierre Malherbaud and Erik van der Laan winner of the tournament in Milan lost to their UK challengers. In the end Paul Stuart, who had previously swept the UK tournaments, won the day, becoming the DMF London champion.Players got the chance during the event to raid against Blizzard CMs using the Molten Core deck. The CMs are a tough group to beat, seeing as how in their 19 1v1 matches, they only lost 5. Despite valiant efforts, the raids were defeated by Baron Geddon in all his fiery glory. As a TCG fan myself I find it an inspiration to see lovers of the game gather together. Pardon me as I break out my deck to slaughter the next unsuspecting challenger. Any takers?
Shaman awesomeness duplicated in other classes
I love my shaman. She is not my main character, but I have a blast playing her. She is unashamedly almost full restoration spec. I love the flexibility of the class, and I love the fact that even though I'm most commonly an instance healer, I can take a (little bit of a) beating when I have to.The other great thing about being a shaman are all the cool abilities that are unique to the shaman class. Or are they?Baluki has written an excellent post on his blog outlining some of the ways that you can duplicate some of the more unique shaman skills using potions, trinkets, and various other forms of voodoo. Some of them are obvious, like using Goblin Jumper Cables to resurrect another player, which mimics Ancestral Spirit. I didn't know though, that there is a Darkmoon Faire card you can use to give yourself a 10% opportunity to reincarnate when you die, which mimics the shaman Reincarnation ability.You're going to have to read the rest of the article to find the rest of the good stuff, but it's definitely worth a read. Baluki has obviously done a lot of research and presented a very nice resource to us! Thank you, Baluki!
WoW, Casually: Of Arathi Basin, the Faire and patch 2.3
Each week, Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player who has 2 hours or less to play at a time.Those of us who are playtime-challenged usually have more time to play on the weekend than we do during the week, so I will tend to favor weekend activities in this column. This weekend has a lot of fun stuff for the various types of casual player.Are you into farming mobs for drops or leveling your Blacksmithing, Leatherworking or Engineering? Then you'll be happy to know that the Darkmoon Faire is still in Terokkar Forest until Monday. Last week, we talked about what to gather to exchange at the Faire for tickets. If you want the full list, WoWWiki has all the info you need. Of course, the Darkmoon Faire isn't all about the bling bling. You can also shoot yourself out of a cannon or chase a kid around so that he can sell you pet frogs. And there's beer. But if the bling bling is really what you're after, you can also collect the Darkmoon Decks and turn them in for some serious purplez, but I haven't found that too easy as a casual player.
WoW, Casually: Introducing a column for the playtime-challenged
Each week, Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player who has 2 hours or less to play at a time.I've got a lot on my plate. We are currently undergoing the reunion of the two long lost brothers. My toddler just turned into a preschooler. I've got this writing gig (yay!) and yarn to manipulate and all that real life routine stuff to do. I really don't have too much time to get my WoW fix in. So I go out of my way to optimize my WoW minutes and I know there are a lot of you out there like me.This is the first of a new weekly column for those casual players who can only play for an hour or two at a time. I'll be including the parts of the event schedule that are casual-friendly and giving tips on how to squeeze the most fun out of your limited gaming time.
New cards and big tourneys at Darkmoon Faire Philly
We didn't have anyone on hand to head out to the WoW TCG Darkmoon Faire in Philly this past weekend (although I was able to make the Chicago stop earlier this year), but worry not if you didn't make it, because the web guys over at Upper Deck's official site did a bang up job of covering all the activities over the weekend. From player tournaments to all the different decks that were played with, they've got the whole thing online, top to bottom. This was apparently the first event where the Fires of Outland set was playable, so they have a good piece up about that. And they even showed off some new cards, including a Dreamstate card from the March of the Legion set due in November.Upper Deck has also posted a preview of the cards coming in the special Feast of Winter's Veil giftset, and it is kind of funny to see that the (once-)dreaded AV snowball has received a card of its own. And Mistletoe is in the game as well, taking two player heroes out of their turns for a little "let it snow" action (while giving them both a new card to play with). Fun stuff from the TCG, whether you're a diehard collector or not.
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?
Around Azeroth: I can fly!
One of my favorite games at the Darkmoon Faire is the cannon that you can shoot yourself from. When you launch from the cannon, you will have a lovely set of wings (as seen above) which come with a quite handy slow fall effect. However, this is the first time I've seen the cannon launch cats into the air... or perhaps this shot, sent in by reader Donna, is a preview of the upcoming Druid Gryphon form? Only time will tell!Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
Changes to the events calendar
It would appear that the appearance of L70ETC at the Darkmoon Faire heralded a couple of changes to the overall in-game events calendar. One fairly cool, and another that stands to cause some questions. It would appear the schedule for the Darkmoon Faire has changed so that once every three months, it will now cycle through Terokkar Forest, ostensibly in the location it is in now. For those collecting the new cards this is a useful change, as it saves you from having to portal back to Azeroth, and then hearth back to Shattrath just to get your item. For everyone else who isn't collecting cards, it gives you a chance to blow your fellow players to bits in a game of Tonks. It also marks the first permanent location with the Darkmoon Faire in neutral territory, which will probably lead to some fairly decent World PvP.The other thing that is different with the in-game events calendar is that the Halloween holiday, Hallow's End is missing. Now, we don't know if this is simply an oversight on Blizzard's part since the Hallow's End page is still there (after all, they did just get finished with an awesome weekend full of Blizzcon festivities!) or if this is an intentional removal from the calendar. I do know that if it was an intentional removal, I'm going to miss getting those silly costume wands that you could use on other folks in your party. Sure, the wisp forms got annoying as they removed just about all chance of fighting. But it was fun to flap around as a bat, or try to make your Skeletal form jump -- and watch it fail miserably, thus just making it hop-levitate without moving its feet. And what about throwing rotten eggs at the opposite faction? There again, Blizzard may have something even spookier up their sleeves to start ramping up for Wrath of the Lich King... Perhaps another Scourge invasion? I guess we'll have to wait and see. [thanks RogueJedi86!]
WoW Moviewatch: Learn to fly
It wasn't that long ago that I was talking about the super nifty cannon at the Darkmoon Faire. And while players from either faction can visit this cannon when the Faire is set up in Elwynn Forest, it's a bit more challenging for an alliance player to visit the cannon when the Faire is in Mulgore -- you see, it's stationed inside Thunder Bluff itself. Of course, the enterprising alliance player can still have loads of fun shooting themselves out of the cannon and plummeting to their deaths -- it's just a bit riskier, as seen in the video.
Around Azeroth: Darkmoon wings
Even if you've visited the Darkmoon Faire on its passes through Elywnn Forest or Mulgore, you might have missed this little toy. There's a cannon (hint: the cannon in Mulgore is actually hiding in Thunder Bluff) that you can hop into and fly half-way across the zone. Usually doing so leads to your untimely death, but sometimes you'll manage to hit the target landing zone -- in deep water where you take no fall damage. (Personally, I haven't figured out the trick to it -- unless I use a second skill, like levitate, to slow my final fall.) This shot shows Flux sailing off to probable demise over Elwynn forest... poor guy.Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! You can attach a picture file or send us a link to one -- and don't worry about formatting, we'll take care of that part. If yours isn't posted immediately, don't fret! Shots are posted (more or less) in the order received, and yours will come up eventually.
Darkmoon Faire Back in Town
I don't know if it's happening WoW-wide, but on my server, at least, the Darkmoon Faire is back in town this week. Those enterprising little goblins have set up camp outside of Goldshire with the usual host of games & prizes.Personally, I love the Faire, especially the human cannonball...I can never resist giving it a whirl. I always enjoy stopping by the fortune teller, as well, even though I usually wind up with a buff that I can't really use. Last time they came through town, I also got a nice 2-handed sword out of a prize box that I ended up using for several levels...much more useful than that silkscreened Def Leppard mirror that I won at the last real-life fair I went too.What about you guys? Does the Faire live up to the hype? Do you actually go collect the items for the various ticket booths, or do you just buy them on the AH? Have you collected any card decks? Gotten any good prizes? Let us know....
WoW Moviewatch: The Darkmoon Faire trailer from E3
This is the first part of a series of press release videos from E3; this one spotlighting the events at the Darkmoon Faire. It probably doesn't contain anything that most of us haven't seen, but it's a nice little video, in any case...although it could really use one of those carnival barkers yelling "Sunday, SUNday, SUNDAY!". Enjoy...
