I hate all holidays, but I do not hate them equally. Hallows End was nearly the end of me, with raw luck almost thwarting my quest for a faster mount. On the very last day I *finally* got my last item for the achievements.
The valentine’s day one was great, as these things go — only took a couple hours over a couple days.
Lunar Festival was godawful. No RNG to worry about, just constant, endless drudging work. Crossing continents end to end on a frickin’ slow land mount, of all things, to find crazy out of the way elders. I think one of the things that made the holiday so horrible was that you had to spend so much time doing nothing at all — the vast majority of the holiday was spend traveling, but you had to be there. It would be different if I could just go flight point to flight point.
Here’s approximately what my time commitment looked like.
Now I certainly didn’t go the most efficient way I could have. I wanted to do things in bite-sized chunks so, for example, I did all of the Kalmdor elders first, but didn’t stop at the dungeons along the way. I did those in a separate chunk. So certainly I could have saved some time — but not a whole lot, because once again the elders were mostly deep within the dungeons (oh, god, and Maradon? Christ!).
I was suddenly vividly reminded just how vast those old world dungeons really were. When doing a dungeon run at level 20, or level 40, was a 3-5 hour affair if you were all actually an appropriate level.
Also things weren’t helped any by the fact that the goblins still hate me. I had to massacre my way into Ratchet, Booty Bay, Everlook, and Gadgetzan. And several flight paths were essentially unavailable to me, so that added to the pain.
Right, so a measure of my life lost to the Lunar Festival:
- Elders of the Eastern Kingdoms: 1 hour 31 minutes
- Elders of Kalimdor: 1 hour 53 minutes
- Elders of Northrend: 29 minutes
- Elders of the Dungeons: 3 hours 02 minutes
- Elders of the Alliance: N/A did while doing others
- Elders of the Horde: 30 minutes
Total life devoured: 5 hours 55 minutes.
Almost 6 hours of sitting in front of my computer and riding around. I’m not likely to do any holiday again if I don’t have to, but this is at the bottom of my list. My new most hated holiday ever.
So true…hate this running around almost as much as I have holidays with PvP quests in them.. I choose once to play on an PvE realm for a reason and now for blizz to force me in pvp combat is just stupid.
Thx for a great site.
Some aspects of the game will test your skill. Others will test your knowledge. A lot of the game will test your luck (if luck can be tested). I don’t think there is anything wrong with having an event that tests your patience.
I got no patience… I won’t even try this.
this holiday makes me glad i have two monitors. endless travelling on the right, lord of the rings return of the king on the left.
and omfg the mailbox spam. i *almost* installed a mailbox addon just so i could delete en masse
so how far are you toward your 310? I get my mine after childrens week.
Yes, this holiday was horrible. The whole thing was deja-vu of some of the other traveling holidays (Halloween & Midsummer), but unlike those, there was no actual gold earned for finding the elders.
The only thing earned were those stupid coins, and way more than enough to buy schematics to light up half of Azeroth. I also wanted to report the elders for spamming my inbox after all the lucky envelopes had arrived.
I have to say though, that this was my last for the meta, and finally having a 310 mount is pretty sweet. I used to think the violet was kind of ugly, but after all the work I’ve put in over the past year, I can’t stop staring.
I really have no patience or desire to finish all these holiday quests. I’m quite happy to chuck bon bons or spray perfume for 30 secs to make 13G but I have never even tried to pug the boss in SFK or lake Elune and have never looked for the elders. My only chance for a 310% mount ( or a new gun) is if it ever drops from Ony PUGS. I only have have 5 mounts. Slow and fast sheep, slow and fast griffon and the drake from CoS. I’m not even sure why I keep the slow sheep and slow griffon.
Aside from the fact that I have to find time to do this between trying to raid on two 80s in separate guilds (I seriously need to stop waiting until Monday to get my weekly raids done, what a PITA) I actually enjoy this one because I like seeing all of the world. I ALSO enjoy that there is absolutely zero RNG for this. Unlike you Frost, I didn’t get my sinister scorchling, otherwise I would be getting my protodrake after children’s week…. 4 of my alts that I care nothing about achievements or vanity pets on all have that stupid scorchling from trick or treat bags, but running 9 headless horseman kills a day for a week, paying for summons wasn’t enough to see it on my main who collects pets….. No hallow’s end is the one I despise!
Agreed this is the most useless, mind-numbing holiday in the game. You can complete it in a matter of hours, and yet it has a very long duration.
The irony for me is I stupidly spent the couple of days prior to this event getting my Loremaster achievement. I’ve had my fill of the old world until Cataclysm.
Oh, quivering, you had to remind me of the mailbox. Two days ago I did all the Northrend elders, and then spent ten minutes clawing my way through 25 lucky red envelopes to get to auction house money.
Yesterday, I did all the Old World elders… I haven’t been to a mailbox yet…
I also had a delightful conversation with some guildies over TS where I mentioned that, thanks to damned Hallow’s End, I won’t get my Violet Drake until this October at the earliest, which was rewarded with the reply, “Bah, it wouldn’t surprise me if Blizz have taken it out by then”.
Do you guys really want the Violet Drake? Get a group together and blast through Ulduar10 this weekend if travel speed is what you need! In current gearlevels, this achievements are easy peasy…
The purpose of this holiday seems to be having players riding to the most remote, uninteresting corners of the world seeking out tokens to buy dumb shit. Luckily I had all but two done on my main from the previous year, with the only two remaining being elders of the horde and elders of the dungeons. Spent all afternoon sunday doing them and got my proto drake.
Honestly, with the new LFG system, this holiday is PERFECT. It gave me something to do during the 15 minutes I sit waiting for instance groups. I was able to queue for the dungeons that had Elders in them so that I wasn’t wasting time trying to just go in for the elders.
I’m not done yet, but with 3 weeks to complete it, I don’t see a problem at all with this holiday – and it’s been kind of nice to revisit old areas – I can’t remember the last time I was down at the gates of Uldum, though I bet there’ll be something there come Cataclysm.
No one said you had to finish this in one sitting – the Elders will be here until early March.
I’m leveling an alt at the moment, and am running some of the vanilla dungeons for the first time ever. And Frost isn’t kidding, some of the 5-mans are larger than most raids in the current content.
I rarely pay attention to holidays. Even with sexy baubles like the faster mount, I usually can’t be bothered. Brewfest is the only one I’ve ever done because A. I like beer and B. the dude dropped some awesome stam. trinkets last year.
Satan’s Tool?!?! No….this is a spawn of the devil himself. Especially after logging only to find that my progress on the achievement was RESET!!!
I had finished all the elders except 1 hall last year (I wasn’t into it that much). Now I have to do them all OVER AGAIN????
Yeah…this prompts a message to a GM….and unless I get some help, I’ll be force to do the devil’s dance all over again.
Serves ya, right, you goblin-killer!
Ah yes, the hoops we jump thru to get that 310 mount. I’m jumping them right with you, and all I have to say is:
“SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS.”
/dread
clearly the answer to your goblin problem is the insane title. I just finished mine last month. now EVERYONE loves me. If I could figure out a way to get exalted with the alliance factions too, I would.
anecdotally, I did all the seasonal quests last year, I got my purple barney protodrake, and i discovered that each of the elders counts as a quest completed towards my 3000 quests achievement, so I’m doing them all again. QQ
Yeah, I’m going to continue ignoring all holiday quests that don’t involve killing a boss for loot. My welfare dragon from H CoS works for those long flights between… summoning stones and queues.
Yeah I too hate the long drawn out travel especially in the old worlds were you can not fly without a flight point, the other night there was only 4 members of the guild on and we went to AQ for my 1st time man some of the classic dungeons seem to be bigger than some of the continents in wow it was massive. We hit up the 10 raid for the achievement since it was my 1st time then went onto the 40 raid however it was a wipe fest with the boss mind controlling 2 to 3 people at once there was not enough of us to kill the boss , I remember Maudren being huge too but this was massive instance to say the least . As for the achievements i didnt realise they all reset if you didnt complete them so its looks like i have to do all the coin guys again
so frost you can double that time for me lol.
Hmmmmm…so if this is such a monotonous endeavor then why don’t you just skip it? The thing has (at quick glance on my calendar) nearly three weeks to complete. I completed some of the sites while popping myself in the dungeon finder for the elders in the heroic dungeons. It seemed a nice palette cleanser to my long rides through the barrens.
While much of this game is geared towards group events I think some players actually enjoy some individual endeavors like these. Heck, try rep grinding the Insane title for some supreme boredom. I must have killed 10,000 low level syndicate pukes on my way to revered.
Spleet, doing all the holidays in one year is the only way most players will obtain a 310% speed flying mount. The other ways require you to be extremely cutting-edge good at arenas, or just as cutting-edge at raiding. Or you need a >1% chance drop from a raid boss.
Anyway, Lunar festival used to be my favorite holiday. Sure, the travelling was tedious, but prior to the Trials of the Crusader dailies, it was the only way my main was ever going to get exalted with all the alliance factions. You see, I did nearly all of the quests in early classic when they gave severely reduced reputation (which is never enough to get exalted, or even revered for some!) Sure, theres runecloth, but I never wanted to farm a few thousand pieces. SO it was a respectable +~3000 for every faction in one day.
I’m glad I got these Achievements done last year…. don’t have to do any this year
I couldn’t agree more. This holiday is total hell. WAY worse than the halloween one. I swear I can hear the Blizz developers laughing at me as I spend hours running to the distant parts of all the lands- as far from the flight points as possible, of course. Azshara was awful, and Maraudon was a freakin nightmare. I will be so happy when- someday -I have my drake and never have to do a holiday event ever again.
is lunar festival one of the many holiday achievement requirements for violet drake?
I couldn’t agree more. By the way did you know you are uncommonly good looking?
Frost- why are you warring with the goblins? I know they are gonna end up being horde when cataclysm drops- but for now they are harmless, deformed gnomes
@TheKnightOne I believe he is going for Bloodsail Rep, which makes him hated by the goblins:(
I’ve finished everything but the Dungeon Elders and the Horde, both of which I’m dreading. Horde because I hate (and am bad at) PVP, and the Dungeons because I just started playing this game last year, so I haven’t done any of these old world dungeons. Even with the help of various websites finding the elders is an annoying challenge.
What I’m really, really dreading though is School of Hard Knocks. It is an evil, evil achievement.
Finished this at Brewfest on my main, and I simply refuse to do it all over again on any of my alts.
One Long Strange Trip is enough.
LOL. So serves you right for wiping out booty bay guards and quest givers so you could get a silly title.
You can always get the Steamwheedle Cartel back up later without losing your Bloodsail rep. And its only slightly more tedious than killing the bruisers.
I don’t quite understand why people subject themselves to doing boring things in a game. I did the Lunar festival once, was nice but noting I would want to repeat, so I didn’t do it this year. Same with daily quests. If I don’t have fun doing it, I don’t, I can make money other ways. So… why subject yourself to 6 hours of mind numbing boredom and then rant about it when you could have spent the time doing something fun? Just saying, it’s a game, have fun
i am one Elder away from finishing LF and Strange Trip… but i have to say, venturing into Maraudon was the worst, since i had never been there before… thank goodness there are still guides available for that, because that had to be the DUMBEST place to put an Elder!
and to echo Zyrinx above, only doing this on one toon (not my main) but not any others, ever, ever, ever!