NobleGarden
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Happy Noblegarden!
"The great feast of Noblegarden has long been celebrated by the races of the Alliance and recently adopted by those of the Horde. On this joyous day, it is customary for the nobles and lords from each race to hide coins, candy, and the occasional treasures within special eggs painted to look like wildflowers. These eggs are then scattered around the major cities for the citizenry to find. From heroes to commoners, and everyone in between - the feast of Noblegarden is meant to bring communities together to share the joy of life and friendship." -The Official Event Calendar Good morning readers and Happy Noblegarden! If you didn't know yet, today is a pretty neat(if mundane) holiday in the World of Warcraft, which coincides with the real life holiday of Easter. And just like Easter, you're in for a lot of eggs. Most of the actual rewards are just toss away items like candy, but you can also get your hands on neat fashion items like an Elegant Dress or a Tuxedo.This'll be my third year plucking eggs now, and I haven't gotten a dress for my priest yet. Wish me luck, and I hope your luck is better than mine has been!
The egg-hunt is back with new, hopefully expanded Noblegarden
For those not paying attention to their calendars, Easter is nearly upon us (it's early this year!) and that means another year of Noblegarden for the WoW-faithful. Last year's event left a little something to be desired, as Noblegarden wasn't given the same decorative fanfare as some of the more "major" holidays like Halloween or Christmas. It was a one day event and players had to travel all the way back to the starter areas to join in the hunt for multi-colored eggs, and the rewards, usually just a piece of chocolate or a couple copper, were hardly worth the effort. While we've gotten no promises that things have changed substantially this year, Noblegarden is back again and once more we are diving into it hoping that Blizzard has seen the error of their ways and made the event both more festive and rewarding for players. About the only change we noticed in the description on the official page was that eggs would be scattered around the major cities this time around, so it should be interesting to see if foot-traffic picks up. If nothing else, we're hoping we can at least get our hands on one of the holiday costumes (an Easter Dress or pieces of a Tuxedo) without searching through eggs for half the day.
Gamers on the Street: Ready for the Sunwell
Gamers on the Street logs onto U.S. servers to get the word from the front on what's going on in and around the World of Warcraft. Lisa is absent this week, so instead Mike Schramm went to Cenarius to talk directly to ingame players.When I headed into the game this week to do this column, both Krystalle and Lisa (who usually does GotS) warned me that it was rough out there, and that players weren't really into chatting with random people about what they thought about the past week in Warcraft. But I have to say -- the denizens of Cenarius treated me as well as can be expected. I logged in on my level 30 mage Erban, sent out a tell in /Trade (sorry for spamming, Cenarius-ians), and pretty soon I got two nice players to chat with me. We talked mostly about what they'd been up to in game, what they're looking ahead to with patch 2.4, whether Noblegarden sucks (spoiler: it does), and just how much they'd pay (or their guild would charge) for that Zul'aman bear mount.Read on to see our conversations.
Predicting patch 2.4
So it's time for WoW Insider to do you all a favor. It seems like whenever we attempt to predict the timing of a certain patch, Blizzard ignores whatever we say, and drops it right away. With patch 2.2, we predicted in early September that it would take "weeks" longer, maybe even last November, and instead they had it out within the month. And with patch 2.3, we guessed that Blizzard wouldn't drop it before Thanksgiving, and just hours later they proved us wrong, and released it before the holiday.So here you go: with everything we've seen on the forums lately, including the CMs a little giddy with excitement, and all of the news that dropped last week, we're going to officially predict that patch 2.4 will drop on the PTRs this coming Tuesday, and that it will hit the live realms sometime in early March (probably before Noblegarden, which starts on March 23rd).There. Now, Blizzard has plenty of chances to prove us wrong by releasing the PTR sometime this week, and getting the patch out to live realms before March 1st. That's our favor to you-- if Blizzard follows their past pattern, they'll make us completely wrong again, and get you on the PTR and in the patch even sooner than we thought.
Lunar Festival is up to its old tricks
Blizzard has previously told us that they plan to renovate as many of the holidays as possible, but from what we've seen so far, the Lunar Festival hasn't really recieved any of that love-- as Lodran says, players who've done the Lunar Festival quests in the pasts aren't finding anything new to do this year.Not that there's anything really wrong with that-- Omen is still out there to be taken down, and for a lot of people, Omen was the first raid boss they'd seen (in fact, he was the Horseman before there was a Horseman-- a seasonal boss, except that Omen didn't drop epic loot). And lots of people are still having fun running the old Lunar Festival quests and turning those in.But it is too bad there's nothing new yet. Guess we'll have to wait for Love is in the Air and Noblegarden to see if Blizzard's done any more seasonal updating. Love is in the Air and on WoW Insider. Check out our continuing coverage of the event and our guide to earning the achievement. And you better hurry; the holiday only lasts five days!
Blizzard, improve Noblegarden!
Some of the best times i've had in World of Warcraft have been participating in Blizzard's entertaining holiday events. Large portions of the world are revamped with decorations, new quests, and of course, prizes! And, while the prizes may not be that important (food, Halloween costumes, etc), participating in the holiday events is always a fun change of pace from the norm. However, I have to say Noblegarden -- Blizzard's Easter event -- pales in comparison to their other holidays. Why? No decorations or changes in any of the cities... not even a lone NPC to inform players that they can hunt for eggs. A one-day holiday as opposed to the week(s) of festivities for Halloween, Winter's Veil, etc. Noblegarden eggs are quite rare... and the prizes are sub-par at best. No holiday quests. Not a single one! If you didn't participate in Noblegarden this year, I'll give you the rundown. In the secondary newbie zones (not the starting zones, but the zones after that), eggs were hidden. You could loot the eggs to get a few copper coins, assorted candy (61 health over 18 seconds), and a chance at an Easter dress or pieces of a tuxedo. Yesterday I spent four hours (can you tell that I really wanted an Easter dress?) scouring Elwynn Forest for eggs. During this time, I managed to locate 26 eggs (which comes out to about one egg every 9 minutes). While I got plenty of candy and perhaps a whole silver worth of coin, I didn't get any of the holiday clothes that were the only appeal of the event -- but after spending 4 hours at the hunt, I couldn't bring myself to keep going. (And I imagine most sane people would have stopped sooner than that.)So what could Blizzard do to make this event fun and worthwhile for its players? Read on for speculation!
Remember! Noblegarden tomorrow! [Updated]
Don't forget, tomorrow, April 8th, is Noblegarden in the land of Azeroth. What does that mean to adventerous players like us? That there are colorful eggs to collect -- and some of them might contain unique prizes. (I'm still hunting for that Noblegarden dress!) For those interested in egg hunting this year, they're found in the lowbie zones around major cities. So hunt in Mulgore, Tirisfal Glades, Dun Morogh, Elwynn Forest, Teldrassil, and Durotar Eversong Woods, and Azuremyst Isles -- at least presuming they've updated the event to include these new zones. The screenshot above (Blizzard's official Noblegarden shot) is deceptive -- last year, at least, the eggs were half that size at best.Happy hunting, everyone!Update: Fixed two errors in my initial post, adding Teldrassil and Tirisfal Glades as locations, and removing Silverpine Forest. Also, according to reports, there seem to be no eggs spawning in the new Burning Crusade zones, Eversong Woods and Azuremyst Isles. Thanks to commenters Auriea and Rob!
Noblegarden Contest Winners Announced
Blizzard Europe has announced the winners of their Noblegarden egg-painting contest. The results include a lot of clever art I wouldn't have expected to find on an egg. There aren't any other contests going on in the EU right now, but if you're artistically inclined, US players can always submit to the comic contest.
Noblegarden ultimately disappointing
The quality of the various ingame events seems to vary a lot. Some cause a lot of excitement and make their presence well known by infiltrating the capital cities -- Greatfather Winter and the Lunar festivities (a well known Azerothian rock band) are examples. However, some tend to just quietly happen, without barkers or much fanfare at all.I went egg hunting for a couple of hours yesterday; I missed Noblegarden last year, so I had little idea what to expect. After a few false starts looking in the capital cities (as the official website implied) I ended up running around Elwynn and Teldrassil on a couple of characters. In all my searching I found about ten eggs, and ended up with a bagful of lollipops and chocolate squares giving 61 health; I managed to find a pair of Black Tuxedo Pants, identical to a craftable item, though I was angling for the formal attire.I didn't run into any other egg hunters, and most of my guild didn't know the event was running, despite the EU launcher promoting it. Although I'm reasonably pleased I had the trousers drop, meaning I got something for all my effort, I spent a lot of time looking for eggs and finding none at all. Perhaps my time would have been better spent at the regular ingame events taking place yesterday, getting a pet chicken or painting an egg; how was your Easter Sunday?
Shouldn't they be called Noblegarden Bunnies?
Well, the latest holiday event from Blizzard proved to be considerably less...eventful than the rest. In fact, aside from a few scattered eggs about Ellwyn Forest, I didn't even really notice an even going on at all.Then again, I wasn't lucky enough to find one of these little guys...a real live Easter Bunny! Ok, it's not real or live, but it's still pretty cool. But still, my question stands...why aren't they called Noblegarden Bunnies?
Holidays in Azeroth - Love 'em or Hate 'em?
Have you noticed the way holidays in Azeroth seem to strangely coincide with holidays in the real world? Noblegarden shows up on Easter, Hallow's End on Halloween, the Feast of Winter Veil on Christmas, and the Lunar Festival on the Chinese New Year. Sure, CM Caydiem would always come up with fascinating reasons why each of these holidays fit properly in to Azeroth's lore, but doesn't it break down the immersiveness of an alternate reality when you see someone who looks suspiciously like Santa Claus sitting in the middle of Ironforge? I enjoy the change of pace provided by Azeroth's holidays as much as anyone else, but I do wonder whether Azeroth has any of its own holidays. So what's your take on Azeroth's holiday schedule - love it or hate it?
Noblegarden comes to Azeroth on Sunday
If real-life chocolate eggs aren't enough for you, you'll be able to find some in Azeroth on Sunday thanks to the feast of Noblegarden. Themed as "bringing communities together", there will be an egg hunt across the major cities with festival attire and goodies to find.Of course, the regular world events are still going on: the Darkmoon Faire is in Elwynn until Sunday (if you haven't been lately, mini tank races are a fun minigame), the Gurubashi Arena Booty Run goes on daily and there should also be the weekly Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza this Sunday. It's also an Alterac Valley "Call to Arms" weekend; more reasons to log in this Easter!
