Warcraft and Other Hooha

Lunar Fest Critique and Dalaran Lanterns - 2009-01-28 17:54:32
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Well, it happens to all of us. Real life (holidays, guests, chaos) intrudes a bit and the gaming takes a secondary spot. In my case it's a nasty virus that's hung me out to dry, so I'm slowly creeping back out from under my rock and into the fun again. When you're recooperating an MMO isn't always the best game choice - you actually have to be alert enough to communicate with people, as well as actually play, and that's not always restful. But now it's time to dust the place and get things back to normal.

And happily I'm in time for another festival - The Lunar Festival. Except things are a bit different this year - it's now primarily an achievement fest. See, once upon a time (look out, she's going to reminisce) part of the Lunar Fest was a sort of scavenger hunt to play Find the Elder. Not only would finding and clicking that npc get you the coins you had to collect for certain items, but your character would receive experience for it. So you'd get to explore a bit, get xp, and by the end of the fest your character would often be a few levels higher, just from the Elder Hunt. Well, no more. The experience is gone this year. That wouldn't bother me so much - if the achievement for the title for this holiday didn't require your character be 70+. The concept of sticking Elders in instances doesn't really bother me, just that some of those instances are high enough to require a level - and that I had to dig around in the achievement to figure that out. Then to find that the level 61 character I was working on that achievement on wasn't getting any experience from those Elders...sooo, suddenly the fun thing I was doing wasn't benefitting me in any way. Hmmm. That doesn't seem quite right. Yes I'm grumbling a bit here - but I often hear a lot about how MMOs are the "easy" game where everything is simplistic enough for children and "stupid people" to play, where everything is handed to us and all that's required is a time sink. Achievements are sort of that way, as far as being a time sink - but they're not always easy - and there's nothing on them that says "YOU MUST BE X LEVEL" - until you read the game equivalent of the fine print. But even Blizz realizes that some of the past achievement requirements have been too difficult/annoying - note the changes we've seen with various patches where the achievements have been edited to make them more attainable. Because the carrot on the stick was beginning to feel a bit too unfair if there was never a chance to grab the damn thing.

So anyway, I've decided I'm not going to bother to become Elder Rootahbaygah the deathknight, no matter how humorous that would be. And so that's a skip for the whole Elder hunt for me. Which I find a bit sad, as I'd enjoyed the perks of this holiday in the past. I'm also looking at the list of holiday achievements that I've not bothered to become involved in since...well, Hallow's End. I'll definitely sing out when there's a world event that I get into enough to finish. So far though - all time sink, no carrot for me.

However....we still have Omen.

Er, not that this is a screenshot of Omen hanging out in Downtown Dalaran. Omen is the boss you'll fight in the quest Elune's Blessing, given to you in Moonglade by Valadar Starsong (also known as "that elf dude that gives you the Lunar Festival Outfit."). However, this is a great time of year for your hunter to grab the Kurken as a corehound pet and take him up against Omen. Those of us old timers (here she goes again) who remember when Omen was an untamable creature that regularly kicked the butts of raiders really like the idea of taking a mini-Omen to the Omen fight.

Meanwhile...I'm really glad that they sent someone around Dalaran to hang decorations for the Lunar Festival. But I do wonder...

Who got to hang the decorations up in the sewer?

Despite my previous grumbling, I must say that any excuse for holiday fireworks is always a good thing in my book. I'm all for the eye candy. And the explosions.

9 Comments

Comments:

Unfortunately, it's even worse than that -- one of the dungeon Elders in is a Heroic dungeon that requires you to be level 80.

So like you, I have decided to pass on the Elder title ... for this year, at least. (Mania the character is level 80, but I don't group willingly so the upper dungeons are out of my league.)

I understand Blizzard's position that not all characters can accomplish all achievements immediately. But if it were me, I think I'd keep fluffy holiday achievements like Lunar Festival accessible to all characters, say, level 20+.

(Actually I'd have a whole tiered system of multiple titles for each level break to help replay value over multiple years, plus mounts and pets .. but that's a whole essay. *grin*)

Posted by Mania at 11:46 PM EST on Jan 28th, '09

Ok I had NO idea that a heroic dungeon was required. Geez. Though I'm lucky to be in a guild with folk that'd help - I'm way behind everyone in getting to 80, and then tend to poke far behind the gang in instancing as well. I can still count on one hand the number of heroics I've been on in the first place. So if I'd figured that bit out I'd have known this was a "Not To Bother With" thing early on.

And I totally agree - I really wish Blizz would keep some of the achievement/holiday fun possible for a larger population than "everyone who's reached the max level." Frankly I'm surprised at the heroic requirement after they made such a big deal of "we're keeping the game accessible for solo players." Meanwhile there are a good section of gamers that enjoy the challenge of trying something that might end up being a death run for a lower lvl character - part of the humor of it - and all the more reason to let the lower levels in, whether they die or not. The way Blizz had always described achievements (or what they intended for them to be) was a sort of fun thing within the game, but nothing that would benefit you in terms of your dps or gear. But always in that description was the emphasis on the word FUN. But having each holiday be something I have to carefully parse through each achievement to be able to see if I can manage it - less and less fun there.

I REALLY like the idea of multiple tiers of titles. Silly ones for the "what the heck" crowd and the more serious ones for the folks who desire that. I mean, I've never been after completing this world event stuff for that purple dragon mount (tho I'll be enjoying watching others ride them!), and I'd understand them wanting to make that prize a bit more difficult. But really, making a silly title hang on doing a heroic lvl 80 instance and then at the same time insisting that achievements are all in fun....er, not so much. Not with the long LONG list of elders required for this title - that's a lengthy amount of travel just to get to all of them. Add to that the time and planning to get those instance runs in - and then all that without the happy xp bonus - just, ouch.

Thing is, they don't need to invent new things to get us to spend time playing - many of us can happily while away hours in here. But when they manage to make it LESS fun while claiming to be trying to add fun?
*much headshaking*

Thanks for making me feel a lot less like the sick grumbly person! Here I was thinking that I was sounding a bit irrational, or that it was all the joys of post-virus crankiness!

And on a happy note - I'll have pet post to come - I finally got that blighthound!

Posted by batgrl at 4:54 AM EST on Jan 29th, '09

I agree with wanting different ranks. I know that the reason they made these difficult was because of the meta achievement (the mount). But seriously. I'm not doing all of the achievements for the end result, I'm doing specific ones for specific titles. So for me, some of them are ridiculous requirements, i.e. PvP. I'm not a willing PvP-er, so those are exceptionally painful. And, of course, I do the PvP groups no favors by joining their matches because I don't think like a PvPer, I don't know the maps, etc. I'm considering skipping much of Children's week because of the PvP.

Posted by bunny at 4:15 PM EST on Feb 12th, '09

Oh yeah, the PvP parts also bring a whole new level into it - have you seen how much you'll have to do with the Children's Week orphans? PvP and raiding groups both necessary for that one. Not to mention a character who's done past Children's Week quests as it requires you to have all three of the Outlands pets.

Thing is, just one holiday quest with specifics like that is going to REALLY limit the amount of people who can get the purple dragon mount - so why are they bothering to make ALL the holiday requirements such a downer?
No idea.

Posted by batgrl at 5:23 PM EST on Feb 12th, '09

Totally agree about the achievements. I seem to remember Blizz promoting the achievements as a way for *cough* less competitive players to "achieve" stuff, without having to be really into pvp and be in a raiding guild. Although I like it that there are achievements with groovy rewards for those folks, I just don't get why the cooking achievements has a pvp requirement!

Posted by noro at 7:34 PM EST on Mar 17th, '09

That's right, I totally forgot about that pvp cooking thing! I understand what they're trying to do - they want to reward people for trying all aspects of the game. But I sure wish they would try to do it in ways that feel less like something you have to do like take nasty tasting medicine.
Having said that - I now kind of look forward to doing that cooking pvp thing. I may change my mind after I talk to some other people who've already done it.

Posted by batgrl at 2:39 AM EST on Mar 25th, '09

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