well-read
Latest
Wherefore art thou, Steamy Romance Novel?
There's nothing quite like curling up with a good book, except perhaps curling up with a good book in game. WoW's got plenty of books to offer and even has achievements surrounding the various books in the world. There's Well Read and the far more difficult Higher Learning, which relies on luck and being in the right place at the right time in Dalaran. You can find all kinds of books lying around Azeroth, waiting to be clicked and read -- everything from historical texts to The Fluffy Bunny, a gripping tale of a bunny named Fluffy and his friend Wuffy. There are plenty of players who don't bother reading the books you find around the world, and those players are totally missing out. Sure, there's a lot of what could be called dry lore material, but there are also books filled with jokes, fake news, and romance. Yes, romance -- the steamy kind. The authors of Azeroth don't limit themselves to boring historical recounts; a select few write the kind of bodice-ripping romance novels that usually feature Fabio on the cover and enough flowery language to seem at least somewhat respectable.
The OverAchiever: The 25 most entertaining achievements, part 3
Every so often, I get tired of the self-seriousness that infests some of (OK, most of) the other work I do here and get the urge to write something purely for fun. After our series on evil achievements and the relentless misery of School of Hard Knocks, I'd like to spend some time on achievements that are nothing but an absolute joy from beginning to end. This week we continue our series on World of Warcraft's most entertaining achievements. This is the full series to date, if you're just catching up with us: OverAchiever: Pure Win The 25 most entertaining achievements, #25-21 The 25 most entertaining achievements, #20-16 The 25 most entertaining achievements, #15-11 (today's post)
Getting all the Well Read books
It's the weekend after Thanksgiving, the family has all left, there's nothing but turkey leftovers to eat, and you hit level 80 last week, and you're just waiting for your guild to level up so you can start the endgame. What is there to do on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon? Find all of the Well Read books -- WoWWiki has the guide I've been looking for ever since I first got excited about this achievement. I count 43 in total, and they've got a list of all the books you need and where you can find them for reading.The vast majority of the books can be found in Scholomance and the Scarlet Monastery, so a run through both of those instances (you can easily solo both at 80) will get you many of the books you need. From there it's time to travel the world -- Brill, Southshore, the Eastvale Logging Camp, Duskwood, and Booty Bay, and a few other places, depending on your faction (Alliance seems to have a little bit of an advantage there, as Stormwind and Orgrimmar have nice libraries. There are a few good books in Undercity, but the Orcs and Tauren aren't much for book learning, apparently).Seems totally doable in a quick afternoon, and while you won't really get anything but the 10 achievement points (and probably a nice chance to pick up some more of the old Azeroth explorer achievement), why else would you do this, other than to brag about it. Whenever anyone argues that you don't know your Azeroth lore, you can just point them to your Armory page, and tell them to check the part about you being Well Read.
Happy Harvest Festival!
Can you believe how fast this year is flying by? Yes, it's Harvest Festival time once again in Azeroth, which means it's time to celebrate the coming end of the summer (from now until Saturday) with some tasty eats and sweet drinky treats, and honor the Fallen Heroes of the Horde and Alliance. Outside Orgrimmar and Ironforge, you'll find Harvest tables loaded with food (that give you back 2% of your health or mana per second for 30 seconds each), and there's also quests in each place that will send you off to honor a hero of your faction (Uther or Grom Hellscream).You won't get anything from the quests right away (except a book, which doesn't appear to be on the list of "Well Read" achievements, probably because it's faction-specific), but in a few days, you should get a nice, foodie surprise in the mail that I still use on my Warrior. It's Harvest Festival time again! For the Fallen!And of course, you know what this means. Brewfest is just around the corner!
