Blizzard has finally revealed how Icecrown raid will act at launch.They are going  a ToC-type route. Content will be released over several weeks, below is how the raid will work.

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Quote from: Daelo – Blizzard Lead Encounter Designer (Source)

Icecrown Citadel testing has been progressing very well over the last few weeks, and this has been a huge help to the encounter design team. We want to thank everyone who has logged onto the PTR and tried the encounters there.

As we’re now getting closer to the release of 3.3.0, we wanted to talk about our plans for access progression within Icecrown Citadel. Icecrown Citadel is going to be broken up into four distinct sections: The Lower Spire, Plagueworks, Crimson Hall, and Frostwing Halls. We plan on releasing these four sections of Icecrown Citadel over time and not all immediately when patch 3.3.0 goes live. At this point we can’t give precise dates for these release dates as they are determined by when patch 3.3.0 goes live. Once dates are known with more certainty, I’ll update the community so they can plan appropriately.

The first section that opens will include the Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang encounters. Progress beyond that point will be prevented for several weeks. Then the Plagueworks will open with Rotface, Festergut, and Professor Putricide becoming available. After another period of time, the Crimson Hall will open and you can then fight the Blood Princes and Blood-Queen Lana’thel. The final Frostwing Halls unlock then occurs after that, making Valithria Dreamwalker, Sindragosa, and the Lich King available. We believe a staggered release of the content will allow players to experience Icecrown Citadel at a sustainable, measured, and ultimately more enjoyable pace.

There are other elements that gate access along the way. Players may not attempt any Heroic versions of 10 player encounters until they have defeated the Lich King in a 10 player raid. Similarly, players must defeat the Lich King in a 25 player raid before they can attempt a Heroic 25 player encounter. So players must master every normal difficulty encounter in Icecrown Citadel before attempting Heroic difficulty.

The Lich King may not be attempted until Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana’thel, and Sindragosa are defeated. Furthermore, the Heroic difficulty of The Lich King encounter may not be attempted in any week unless the three aforementioned encounters have been defeated in Heroic difficulty that week.

The Ashen Verdict provides reinforcements and material for players to assault Icecrown Citadel, but this support is not endless. Raids will have a limited number of attempts total each week to defeat the four most difficult encounters in Icecrown Citadel: Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana’thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King. As these boss encounters are unlocked, the number of attempts available per week will increase. The initial number of attempts provided for defeating Professor Putricide is only five. When Blood-Queen Lana’thel unlocks, the amount of total attempts remaining will increase to 10. Then when Sindragosa and the Lich King unlock, 15 total attempts will be available to defeat all four bosses. After a raid has exhausted their attempts for the week, the Ashen Verdict must withdraw their support and the four most difficult bosses all despawn and become unavailable for the week. The limited attempt system is a feature of both Normal and Heroic difficulty.

There will be no explicit rewards for defeating the Lich King with a specific number of attempts remaining as there was with Trial of the Grand Crusader. There will also not be an achievement to complete Icecrown Citadel without being defeated by a boss encounter, or letting a raid member die. (i.e. A Tribute to Insanity).

In the weeks and months after all twelve encounters are unlocked, additional attempts against the final four boss encounters become available. This represents the Ashen Verdict growing more powerful and gaining a stronger foothold in Icecrown Citadel. To further help raids, Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream will begin to provide assistance by inspiring the armies attacking Icecrown Citadel. This is represented as an additional zone wide spell effect applied to all players that will increase their hit points, damage dealt, and healing done. This effect will also increase in effectiveness over time. Players may opt out of the spell’s effect if they so wish.

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This move by Blizz is a smart one, to keep content from being cleared to fast. This way even the most top end guilds will have to wait before they can knock the Lich King off his throne. As was the case with the Release of ToC, it gave every guild a chance to build up to the later encounters at the same pace as the Hard-Core Raiders. Leveling out the playing field as it were.

The max counter on the Big-Four and having to beat Arthas on regular to start Hard Modes will make it more fun and offer a new take on raiding. Blizzard is essentially applying their ToC formula to an actual 10-25 man raid, as opposed to ”encounters”. In retrospect it seems that ToC reveals itself to be a test for a new format of end-game encounter.

Another fringe benefit of this type of growth is that it will allow all players the necessary time to pick up the rather rare Emblem of Frost necessary for the Tier-10 gear. I also suspect that this latest tier won’t really be an option if you want to stand a chance against Arthas.

The format used in Icecrown will allow Blizzard more time to develop the next expansion by stretching out this patch over several weeks as well as allowing them the necessary time to fix the bugs they inevitably create when tweaking existing content.

This should keep players busy for a while, at least until a certain Black Dragon performs a global, elemental jail-break. I’m still curious to see just how long this patch will last based on how fast guild are progressing through content.

All in all however it’s always nice to see Blizzard respond to user feedback and continue to cater to their clients.

It all has to do with Pilgrim Festival. This will require you to run from Undercity(Stormwind) to Orgrimar(IronForge) and ThunderBluff(Darnassus) but will net you a bit of gold and those precious cooking levels that are such a pain to get. Assuming you’ve got no skill in cooking you’ll want to get to Undercity and train up cooking at the Pilgrim Festival Cooking trainer.  Buy the Bountiful cookbook from the vendor and open it up to pick up the 5 Festival recipes and learn the first one right away: Spice Bread Stuffing

Undercity/Stormwind

Buy:

• 60x Simple Flour
• 60x Mild Spices
• Create 60x Spice Bread

The recipe will go gray on you at 40 but you’ll get to use the extra you buy to make the last few points.  Once you’ve got 60x Spice Bread, combine it with 60xAutomnal Herbs (from Pilgrim Vendor) to make 60xSpice Bread Stuffing and get to 100 cooking (or a little more).  Don’t forget to train up cooking before you get to 75 cooking skill or you’ll have to re-cook the bread. Learn Pumpkin pie recipe (at 100)

Buy

• 70x Ripe Tirisfal(Elwynn Pumpkin)
• 70x Honey
• Create 70x Pumpkin Pie

Again remember to train up cooking when you get to 125 (but before 150).  Once you hit 160 cooking, learn the Cranberry Chutney recipe and travel to your next destination (Orgrimar/Ironforge).

Orgrimar/Ironforge

Buy:

• 70x Tangy Southfury Cranberries(TangyWetland Cranberries)
• 70x Honey
• Create 70x Cranberry Chutney

Again remember to train up cooking when your skill reaches 200 and before it hits 225. Learn the Candied Sweet Potato recipe at 220 cooking and move on to your next destination: ThunderBluff/Darnassus

Thunder Bluff/Darnasuss

Buy:

• 70x Mulgore Sweet Potato (Teldrasil Sweet Potato)
• 70x Honey
• Create 70x Candied Sweet Potato

Train cooking between 275 and 300 and return to Undercity/ Stormwind for the last part of this adventure.  This part will require you run around like a turkey after … well … Wild Turkeys

Go outside Undercity/Darnassus and kill Wild Turkeys and remember to loot them, you’ll need quite a few so don’t be shy they are scattered all over the start area and spawn rather quickly.

Back to Undercity/Stormwind

Buy:

• 140x Honey
• 70x Automnal Herbs
• kill 70x Wild Turkeys
• Create 70x SlowRoasted Turkeys

Voila! Your cooking skill should be at 350 or a little above (355?) In the process you’ve managed to accomplish all the seasonal cooking quests and have enough for 3 days’ worth of dailies. All of which should buy you more then enough Turkey Shooters to turn all the rogues you need for the achievement (assuming you don’t miss too often)

This is BY FAR the cheapest and most effective way to level cooking you’ll ever get. The recipes don’t go yellow until you’re 10 pts away from the next one (which is whyI make you buy 70 instead of the minimum 60 you really need). To be honest I didn’t do the math on this and it’s so cheap that I’m not even going to bother. 5-10 gold ? … the amount is infinitesimal, ridiculous even.

Regardless whether you do the seasonal events or not this is a DOMINATING way to level cooking and it only comes around once/year so better take advantage of it now or you’ll regret it come Christmas when you need to get your MerryMaker title. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Brewfest is probably my favorite World Event  in WoW.  Why?  Because it’s one giant party.  You get oompah music, to obtain fun pets (who could ever forget the adorable Wolpertinger?), throw beer steins at Dark Iron Dwarves, and drink until you see pink Elekks.  How could that not be fun?

But with all the things you can do at Brewfest, plus the massive amounts of people clogging up your computer, it can get confusing or even annoying figuring out how to do everything you want to get done.  Below I have a quick rundown of the quests, achievements, and tips on how to get the trickier ones done by the end of the Brewfest week.

To Start…

In any major city, look for a Commoner (Human Commoner, Dwarven Commoner, etc) dressed in lederhosen.  He’ll direct you to the Brewfest Organizer outside of Ironforge.  Take a jaunt outside IF and look for the Brewfest banners to start things off.

The Quests

Once you get to the Brewfest itself and talk to the Brewfest Organizer, you have a choice of multiple quests:

• Chug and Chuck!
  Do this one first; it is much easier to hit S.T.O.U.T. when you’re sober than when you’re drunk (in fact, it’s nigh impossible to hit it when you’re drunk).  Pick up a Complimentary Brewfest Sampler from the table under the tent, target S.T.O.U.T. and toss it!  I suggest you put the item in an easily accessible slot for you, rather than searching through your inventory for it.
  Reward: 10 Tokens

• Now This is Ram Racing…Almost
  This quest is designed to teach you how to use the riding reigns and how your ram’s speed works with Ram Fatigue.  So first, read my quick tutorial on Ram Racing Basics:
• Ram Racing Basics
  Your ram has 4 speeds: Walk, Trot, Canter, and Gallop (the last 3 have symbols that can be found on your buff bar).  Basically, you use your ram’s reigns, given to you by the quest giver, to increase the ram’s speed.  The faster you go, though, the faster your ram’s Ram Fatigue (also seen on your buff bar) increases.  If your Ram Fatigue hits 100, your ram is slowed to a crawl for the next 15 seconds.  Walk and Trot each allow your Ram Fatigue to decrease, while Canter and Gallop increases your Ram Fatigue.  Fatigue wouldn’t be a big deal, except that any quest involving you riding a ram will have a time limitation.  When you’re trying to complete a Ram quest, the best way to do it is to either Canter or Trot the entire time.  Steady yourself at a canter until your Ram Fatigue hits around 85 or 90, then slow yourself to a Trot until your Ram Fatigue hits around 50.  Then Canter until you’re done.   The trick to steadying yourself at one speed is to use your ram’s reigns until you get to your required speed, then use them once every count of 3.  The only way to slow your ram down is to stop using the reigns and let it slow on its own.
  For this quest, all you have to do is keep your ram steady for 8 seconds at each of its 3 higher speeds: Trot, Canter, and Gallop.
  Reward: Opens There and Back Again, Bark for the Barleybrews! (Daily), Bark for the Thunderbrews! (Daily)

• There and Back Again
  Simple once you’ve mastered the art of Ram Racing.  Run your Ram to Kharanos until you can see Flynn Firebrew (he’ll have a purple arrow over his head).  Flynn will automatically toss a keg at you as soon as you get close enough; you won’t even have to stop!  Turn around and head right back to the quest giver (he will now have a purple arrow over his head, too).  As you ride by, you will automatically toss the keg to him.  Do this 3 times, and you’re golden.  Don’t forget to keep an eye on your Ram Fatigue and relax to a Trot if you have to.  Also, make sure you have an open spot in your inventory for the keg to land.
  Reward: 10 Tokens

• Bark for the Barley/Thunderbrews (Daily)
  Another Ram Racing quest!  This time you need to run up into Ironforge and in a circle to each of the wards, plus the bank.  Get back to the Brewfest and turn it in on time, and you’re good to go!
  Reward: 15 Tokens

• This One Time, When I Was Drunk…(Daily)
  You can obtain this quest from the Dark Iron Mole Machine Wreckage, which shows up after the Dark Iron’s drill up from the ground in the middle of Brewfest, which happens about once every 30 minutes.  After defeating the Iron Dwarves (much like in Chug and Chuck!, pick up the mugs from the tables around the camp and use them, which will make you drink, then chuck the mug; you should have a fresh one thrown to you if you’re standing near the tables), a large cog wheel will be left behind, giving you this quest.  Simply turn it in, and you’re done!  It should also give you the Down With the Dark Iron achievement.
  Reward: 10 Tokens

• Catch the Wild Wolpertinger!
  Everybody loves Wolpertingers, right?  Now you can have one of your very own!  Head into Brewfest to get yourself nice and drunk (or obtain a pair of Synthebrew Goggles simply by asking for them from Goldark Snipehunter) and search around the areas surrounding the Brewfest.  Find a Wild Wolpertinger, select it, and toss your net onto it.  Easy peasy!
  Reward: Wolpertinger Tankard (pet)

• Pink Elekks on Parade
  Take yourself to the areas outside Darnassus, the Exodar, and Stormwind.  Buy some alcohol (or again, put on your Synthebrew Goggles) until you see adorable pink Elekks wandering about the area.  Target, then zap with your Elekk Dispersion Ray.  Done and done!
  Reward: 40 Tokens

• Direbrew’s Dire Brew
  This is a quest you pick up from the corpse of Coren Direbrew inside Blackrock Depths.  Saunter your way to BRD with 4 friends and once zoned take a look to your right.  There you should see several Dark Iron Dwarves guarding a set of controls.  Once you kill them, you can take the controls to the room where you’ll see Coren Direbrew ranting and raving.  In the bar you’ll find the daily quest from the Brewfest Spy, Insult Coren Direbrew.  This will allow you to activate and then kill him.  The first time you kill him, you will be able to pick up Direbrew’s Dire Brew, from his corpse, which yields this quest.
  Reward: 40 Tokens

The Achievements

If you check out your Achievements, you’ll see that the one for Brewfest under World Events is the Brewmaster Achievement.  Most of the achievements for Brewfest are pretty straight forward and easy, but they also require you to spend your tokens carefully.  For all the achievements, you will need 550 tokens in total (552, assuming you don’t win a Brewfest mount from Coren Direbrew).  There are 2 dailies (Bark for the Thunder/Barleybrews, and This One Time, When I Was Drunk…), which give you 15 and 10 tokens respectively.  Brewfest is open for 14 days, so if you do your dailies every day, you’ll end up with 350 tokens.  Including the extra 100 tokens you get from the one-time quests, you should have 450 when all’s said and done.  This is obviously not quite enough to cover your achievement expenses, but here’s the good news: you can sell items back to the vendor within 2 hours of purchasing them for a full refund  (thank you, 3.2).  So to get all your achievements done, you can purchase the items you need, use them, and sell them back to use the tokens for something else.

• Disturbing the Peace
  This achievement requires you to wear 3 pieces of Brewfest clothing , get completely smashed, and dance in Dalaran.  The 3 pieces are:
  Chest (Dress/Regalia) – 200 Tokens
  Shoes (Boots/Slippers) – 100 Tokens
  Hat (Blue/Brown/Green/Purple) – 50 Tokens
  If you’re going to attempt to get all of your achievements done for the final Brewmaster achievement, save your tokens for this one first.  Buy all 3 pieces at the same time, get smashed, dance in Dalaran, and then return to the Brewfest to sell them back.

• Brew of the Month
  This is a fun little item that signs you up for the Brew of the Month Club.  Every month you’ll get sent in the mail a sample of a new beer; each beer will do something comical after drinking a few (you might start seeing sand gnomes, pink Elekks, or maybe even breathe fire!).  It’ll cost you 200 tokens to purchase the quest item to become a member, so if you’re counting your tokens to complete the Brewmaster achievement, wait until you’ve done Disturbing the Peace first- you won’t be able to get your tokens back from this one.

• Have Keg, Will Travel
  This achievement can be obtained in 1 of 2 ways: first, you can spend the 2 Tokens it costs to purchase Barley Hops.  The Hops work like Preserved Holly in that it turns your mount into something more festive.  In this case, a Brewfest Ram.  Second, you can kill Coren Direbrew (with your Insult Coren Direbrew quest) for a possibility of either a Kodo or Ram to drop.  The Hops is really the more reliable course of action.

• Down With the Dark Iron
  Completed when you turn in This One Time, When I Was Drunk… for the first time.

That sums up the more confusing or time intensive quests and achievements for Brewfest.  Hopefully this small walkthrough plus its tips will help you become a Brewmaster with minimal problems and irritations.  Good hunting…and please…try not to stand on the NPCs!

The news of all the upgrades to Guild systems in the expansion is really exciting; Blizzard has stated they’re trying to make being in a guild more viable and interesting.  It seems like from whatever polls they’ve taken, they’ve gathered that the social aspect of World of Warcraft is something drawing in a large portion of their players, so they’re trying to improve and bank upon that.

So far, here’s a list of the things the Guild Advancement system is slated to have:

• Guild Experience
  Your entire guild will have and experience bar.  Gaining experience for your guild may be possible from things like leveling, gaining reputation, killing bosses, or winning Battlegrounds or Arenas, all on your guilded toons.

• Guild Talent Tree
  As your guild levels, it naturally gains talent points as well.  These talent points can give your guild members a range of very useful abilities, such as reduced durability taken during fights, removal of buff reagents for raid-wide buffs, and even mass resurrection (my inner-raider can’t stop drooling!).
  

  Guild Talent Tree sample, with example talents "Everybody's Friend" which removes reagents for raid-wide buffs and "Penny Pincher" which reduces repair costs by 30%.

• Guild Currency
  Gaining Guild Experience will convert into (somehow) a special kind of currency called Guild Currency.  You’ll be able to use Guild Currency to purchase a vast array of items, from purely cosmetic and fun to very useful.  There’s the possibility it will be able to be used for mounts, standards with your guild’s insignia on it, as well as being used for a guild talent respect.

• Profession Plans
  Profession Plans can also be bought with Guild Currency.  Once a plan is bought, any person of what profession will be able to purchase the plan from their profession’s trainer.  It will also be possible to craft guild heirlooms, which will scale with level just as regular heirlooms do today.  Additionally, an interface is being added so that anyone online can see other online players’ profession levels and patterns (no more spamming, now we can just ask!)

• Achievements
  Just like normal achievements work now, except, naturally, guild-wide.  Achievements for having Grand Masters of every profession and obtaining Legendary items were mentioned.
  

  Guild Achievement examples, showing the "Working as a Team" achievement, where the guild has a Grand Master of each profession.

• News Feed
  Keep everybody up to date on the latest happenings in the guild with the News Feed.  What bosses were killed, what achievements people have earned, what the most recent loot was.
  

  The Guild Professions interface on the left, and General Guild interface on the right, including the experience bar, News Feed, and MOTD.

• Improved Looking for Guild/Recruit Feature
  A new Looking for Guild interface will be included.  This interface will let you better specify who you are and what kind of guild you’re looking for.   Some specifications for the Guild Recruit feature may include the guild’s play style (casual, moderate, or hardcore), common days of activity, class roles needed, and what levels of toons are being accepted.
  

  Looking For Recruit Interface

• Other Guild Invitations to Calendar
  Finally, something many people have been waiting for: the ability to invite another guild to an event on the Calendar.

As you can see from this Guild Advancement system, a lot has been done to make it beneficial to be in a guild.  Plus, besides encouraging people to be in guilds, it also discourages people from guild hopping; the system is put together to actually encourage guild allegiance.  These days it can be much easier for people to just jump around to whatever guild seems to be doing best, get some gear, and go.  There tends to be fewer people willing to stick around and work (I.E. wipe, pay for consumables, practice) for the final goal, be it downing a boss or winning a Battleground.  With this new system, as soon as you leave a guild, all the benefits you’ve received from being a member are wiped.  The game will still be completely playable, but any professions, heirlooms, or other guild doo-dads you’ve collected during your time will be gone.

What does this mean for Guild Alliances?

Now, while I personally am stoked for these changes (as far as I can tell, they’ll bring nothing but fun in for those already in solidly performing guilds), I fear for those that use the Guild Alliance as their primary way to accomplish high-end content.  These days it’s relatively common for 2 or 3 smaller guilds to band together into an alliance to attempt to accomplish higher end content; 2 or 3 guilds that run their own solitary 10 man can easily form a 25 man together.

Often these guilds stay separate because they simply like having their autonomy; often they’re a small group of friends who play together and have no interest in joining another guild with people they don’t know as well.  While the ability to invite more than one guild to your Calendar is a plus for guild alliances, everything else they’re implementing is basically a detriment.  To receive a guild achievement for a boss kill or Battleground, for example, it was stated that 75% of the guild will have to be present.  This means that any guilds that happen to be accomplishing content as an alliance will likely not be able to receive any of these achievements.  Allied guilds will have separate talent trees as well, separate obtained profession plans.  While these issues don’t keep anyone from playing the game, it will certainly keep them from taking part in many of the game’s new features, at least to the extent that other bigger guilds do.

Cataclysm has a lot of wonderful new features coming that are going to make raiding and general game-play easier and more fun for most of us.  It’s understandable that Blizz wants everyone to take advantage of the social aspect of the MMO (whether it’s to make them more money or to actually help us enjoy the game more), I just hope it doesn’t end up strangling smaller guilds and alliances.  So enjoy the new Guild Advancement system, everyone…it has a lot of amazing new features to offer.  But for anyone in a guild alliance, it may be time to start contemplating what to do when Cataclysm hits.

We didn’t buy it when the news first broke.  Several online sources last month touted a blue post at the Blizz forums that mentioned that Blizzard was working on providing players with the ability to change faction from Ally to Horde and Horde to Alliance.  Unfortunately we were unable to locate the original post at the forums, so we kept the idea on the shelf until we got further solid confirmation of this news.

Just a few days ago a well known name on the forums referenced the original post in its entirety, bringing solidity to the idea and we thought it was high time you heard about it.  This actually leads us to more good news for those of you who use the Auction House Mastery Guide, and we’re going to lump both bits of news together and give you an overview.

PvP Realm Cross Faction Toon Restrictions Lifted

This is the post that led us back to the original idea that Blizz was working on a Faction Transfer Service.  Because of this, Blizz decided to lift the restriction that does not allow you to have toons of both Alliance and Horde on the same PvP server.  Here is the post from Eonix confirming this change:

As we’ve already discussed, we’re in the process of developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. To prepare for this new service, we’ve removed the restriction that prevents players from creating both Horde and Alliance characters on a PvP realm. For more information on our Faction Change service, please visit the following link.

Included in this post is this link: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=18031079410&sid=1

Now you can create toons of any faction on any realm.  We also imagine that this will help ease the imbalance of Ally to Horde ratios on some servers, but not nearly as much as the next issue.

Faction Change Service Coming in WoW

If you follow the link from the Eonix post above you will find the original blue post concerning the faction change service.  And don’t give me the usual QQ chorus about how this will ruin the game.  It’s not going to do anything but help balance things out.

Right now, and for as long as I’ve been involved with WoW, the general rule is that Ally will outnumber horde on most servers – especially PvE.  This service is going to give players the opportunity to take their level 80 and switch factions.  The toon would retain roughly the same gear, reputation and achievements.  Of course, duplicating everything is practically impossible because of the many differences between factions, but you should find that it’s an equal swap.

There isn’t a lot of FAQ to this point, and the service is probably going to come either several patches down the road or with the next expansion, so don’t get all hot and bothered just yet.  While we can see several major advantages to this service; one, in particular, stands out.

Make Leveling Easy On Yourself

Leveling toons is both easier and takes longer than ever before.  With the XP caps lowered through 70, and more XP from kills and quests you can rocket through levels like never before.  However,Northrend is a time sink.  Overall it still takes a lot longer to go from 1-80 than it did to go from 1-60 or 1-70.

But most of us have a comfort zone or some level of expertise with one faction or another.  For me, leveling as horde is faster than Ally, and has fewer “sticky” spots where the going gets tough for a while.  There are simply more easy quests for horde, and the progression into new zones flows better for the most part.  The scenery sucks a LOT more, but hey, we just want to hit 80 as fast as possible – right?

With the faction change service, you could easily quest level, powerlevel or RaF a new toon with your uber geared level 80 Ally, and then rush up to 80 doing content you are already familiar with to start.  Then you can just make a few dozen runs through heroics with your buddies who don’t mind carrying you a little bit, grab a couple of pieces of T8, some almost Ulduar gear and THEN transfer to Horde – which is what you wanted all along.

There just won’t be any need to really grind a toon out from the basement up through all the crap.  You can just level your new Ally toon on the Horde server with your power toons and then transfer once the guy (or gal) is ready to rock on the other side.  Beyond that, a few other thoughts spring to mind.

Tired of barrens chat?  Just switch to Ally – but beware that Ally trade chat tends to be a little barrens-ish.  AH on your server blows?  Switch sides and servers and go pwn.  Want to join the Dominate guild because your guild is sucking wind but don’t have a horde toon?  No problem, flip over and come see us.  Just tired of the same old same old and need a change?  Join the dark side (whichever one you think that may be) and inject a little new content into you play time.

All in all, these two changes are pretty big.  And although the faction change service is probably some time away, you could easily use that time to develop your new power Alliance toon on your horde server for a while without having to worry about doing the grind all over again fresh on a new server.  It’s not here yet, but when it is it will be pretty Dominating.

The Domination Podcast Episode 20

This week on the podcast the summer intern turns in her first field report.  Needless to say it’s a little . . .different.  The guys discuss a little patch 3.2, especially the ToC instances.  This may be one transcript you will want to read along.  You can download it below.

The Domination Podcast Episode 20

The first Midsummer Fire Festival was great fun, and this year is going to be no different. We’ll resurrect a couple of posts about the festival, but we certainly needed to cover first things first, since you might be tempted to skip honoring or desecrating flames, but that wouldn’t be very smart.

Outside most settlements in Azeroth and Outland have been placed festival bonfires. They look a lot like the ones in the major cities that I’m sure you’ve seen. Alliance and Horde both have their own fires burning. At both factions bonfires you will find a quest.

At every friendly fire you will find an NPC with a quest called “Honor the Flame.” At any level, this will grant you 5 Burning Blossom. Even better, if you’re level 80, you will also receive 6g63s. At every hostile fire you will find that the fire itself gives a quest called “Desecrate this Fire!”

At any level this will give you 10 Burning Blossom. At level 80 you will also receive 13g23s. That’s the same as many dailies! For both these quests all you have to do is talk to the NPC or fire and you complete the quest automatically. A very easy way to make gold.

Now, last but not least, the four hostile cities. Within these are the big fires. These will be harder to put out, due to having to sneak past the guards as well as avoid combat with the opposing faction. However they are well worth it. For each one you will get a selection of some basic holiday items, 25 Burning Blossom and 9g93s. On top of all that if you turn in all of the opposing city flames, you will have received 49g65s and the item Crown of the Festive Fire.

Now you may think that’s all well and good, but you might think that if the gold is similar to what you get from dallies, surely it’s quicker just to complete all the quests in Ice Crown for the same amount of gold – wrong. Last year it took about 3 hours to hit every single fire in the game, and that includes the major cities. Add about 20 minutes for Northrend this time around and another 130+ gold and it’s not a bad way to get a meta achievement nearly done for a title and pick up over 900 gold.

As a Horde player at level 80, if you visit every bonfire you will gain a total of 910 gold 23 silver total. As an Alliance player at level 80, if you visit every bonfire you will gain a total of 897 gold 3 silver total).

Eastern Kingdoms

• Arathi Highlands: Refuge Pointe [50,44] (A) / Hammerfall [74,41] (H)
• Badlands: Kargath [4,49] (H)
• Blasted Lands: Nethergarde Keep [58,17] (A)
• Burning Steppes: Morgan’s Vigil [80,62] (A) / Flame Crest [62,29] (H)
• Dun Morogh: Kharanos [46,46] (A)
• Duskwood: Darkshire [74,51] (A)
• Elwynn Forest: Goldshire [43,65] (A)
• Eversong Woods: North Sanctum [46,50] (H)
• Ghostlands: Tranquillien [46,26] (H)
• Hillsbrad Foothills: Southshore [50,46] (A) / Tarren Mill [58,25] (H)
• Loch Modan: Thelsamar [32,40] (A)
• Redridge Mountains: Lakeshire [24,59] (A)
• Silverpine Forest: The Sepulcher [49,38] (H)
• Stranglethorn Vale: Booty Bay [34,73] (A) / Booty Bay [33,75] (H)
• Swamp of Sorrows: Stonard [47,47] (H)
• The Hinterlands: Aerie Peak [14,50] (A) / Revantusk Village [76,74] (H)
• Tirisfal Glades: Brill [57,52] (H)
• Western Plaguelands: Chillwind Camp [43,82] (A)
• Westfall: Sentinel Hill [56,64] (A)
• Wetlands: Menethil Harbor [13,47] (A)

Kalimdor

• Ashenvale: Astranaar [37,54] (A) / Splintertree Post [70,69] (H)
• Azuremyst Isle: Azure Watch [44,53] (A)
• Bloodmyst Isle: Blood Watch [55,69] (A)
• Darkshore: Auberdine [37,46] (A)
• Desolace: Nijel’s Point [65,17] (A) / Shadowprey Village [26,76] (H)
• Durotar: Razor Hill [52,47] (H)
• Dustwallow Marsh: Theramore Isle [62,40] (A) / Brackenwall Village [33,30] (H)
• Feralas: Feathermoon Stronghold [28,43] (A) / Camp Mojache [72,47] (H)
• Mulgore: Bloodhoof Village [51,60] (H)
• Silithus: Cenarion Hold [57,34] (A) / Cenarion Hold [46,44] (H)
• Stonetalon Mountains: Sun Rock Retreat [50,60] (H)
• Tanaris: Gadgetzan [52,29] (A) / Gadgetzan [49,27] (H)
• Teldrassil: Dolanaar [55,60] (A)
• The Barrens: Crossroads [52,28] (H)
• Thousand Needles: Freewind Post [42,53] (H)
• Winterspring: Everlook [62,35] (A) / Everlook [59,35] (H)

Outland

• Blade’s Edge Mountains: Sylvanaar [42,66] (A) / Thunderlord Stronghold [50,59] (H)
• Hellfire Peninsula: Honor Hold [62,58] (A) / Thrallmar [55,40] (H)
• Nagrand: Telaar [50,70] (A) / Garadar [51,34] (H)
• Netherstorm: Area 52 [31,63] (A) / Area 52 [32,68] (H)
• Shadowmoon Valley: Wildhammer Stronghold [40,55] (A) / Shadowmoon Village [33,30] (H)
• Terokkar Forest: Allerian Stronghold [55,55] (A) / Stonebreaker Hold [52,43] (H)
• Zangarmarsh: Telredor [69,52] (A) / Zabra’Jin [36,52] (H)

Northrend

• Borean Tundra: Fizzcrank Airstrip [55.2,20.3] (A) / Bor’Gorock Outpost [51.1,11.8] (H)
• Sholazar Basin: [47,66] (A) / [47,61] (H) (Fires are around River’s Heart Basin)
• Storm Peaks: [41.4,86.9] (A) / [40.3,85.6] (H) (Both Fires near K3)
• Dragonblight: Winter’sguard Keep [75,43] (A) / Agmar’s Hammer [43.6,57.6] (H)
• Crystalsong Forest: Windrunner’s Outlook [55.7,46.1] (A) / Sunreaver’s Command [56.1,42.] (H)
• Grizzly Hills: Amberpine Lodge [Conquest Hold [68.3,60.8] (A) / [63.8,61.1] (H)
• Howling Fjord: [79.5,68.6] (A) / Camp Winterhoof [76.3,67.7] (H)
• Zul Drak: [66.7,41.9] (A) / [67.5,44.8] (H) (Both Fires near Argent Stand)

Major Towns

Alliance:

• Darnassus (57, 93)
• Ironforge (64, 25)
• Stormwind (41, 61)
• The Exodar (41, 26)

Horde:

• Orgrimmar (47, 38)
• Silvermoon City (70, 43)
• Thunder Bluff (21, 26)
• Undercity (68, 9 [upstairs])

So get out there and start hunting down all the flames. Honoring your own flames will grant you rewards, but remember that desecrating your enemies bonfires will not only get you more gold and blossoms, but will also grant your faction the zone buff, and remove it from your enemies – just be prepared to fight your way in, and out again.

If you read our recent post on Leveling Cooking, you should already be far enough past the Great Feast to use this one.   If you’re still working up your cooking make sure that you keep 5 Great Feasts sitting around to use on this achievement.

As a matter of fact, when you hit the point where you’re making the Great Feast for points, just run up to the Battlegrounds queues and join the queue for all of them at the same time.  It makes the time you will spend getting this achievement ultra quick.

Just join the BG’s in order and drop a feast.  As soon as the queue pops for the next BG you can hop in, drop another feast, take the next join and so on.  If you do this in prime time you can get it done in about 5 minutes flat.  And before anyone complains about joining a BG just to get an achievement and then leaving – you certainly don’t have to do it that way.  Just join all the BG’s in order and do whatever you think makes you feel better.

Here is a list of the mats you’ll need to make the 5 Great Feasts you need.  You can tooltip the achievement name above for a list of the specific battlegrounds – even though it’s all of them except Wintergrasp.

Great Feast

• 5 Chunk o’ Mammoth
• 5 Shoveltusk Flank
• 5 Worm Meat
• 10 Chilled Meat

This is a really easy 10 points that also counts toward the Chef title meta achievement – especially if you do a lot of BG’s anyway.  But it’s also a tiny bit obscure, so we thought a little nudge would be just the ticket to get you moving in the right direction – which is leveling your cooking.  At least getting a few achievement points out of what you should be doing while doing what you like doing is kinda slick.

Goofy, fun and fast – just the way we like our achievements.  This is a really easy one to do as well and it’s certainly a break from raiding.  It’s a break from anything else for that matter since it has virtually  nothing to do with anything we can think of.

There is a tiny bit of preparation involved.  You’ll need a half a stack of Critter Bites.  If you’re making the recipe yourself that means you’ll need a stack of chilled meat (20) and 10 northern spices.  If you don’t feel like blowing the spices on these, just get the critter bites from the AH, they are usually super cheap.

Next, get on a flight to Howling Fjord and then travel out to 69,64 right where the roads form a “Y” on the map south of Nifflevar and west of the Explorer’s League Outpost.  You’ll see the turkeys running around all over the place.

Now, there is a slightly better spot to do this, but we’ve got a good reason for sending you here.  You can double up on two achievements at one time in this spot.After you’ve befriended all the turkeys with the critter bites, you can give them all a good smack down for the second achievement.

To complete Critter Gitter

• Hotkey the Critter Bites
• Target a Turkey
• Hit your Critter Bite Hotkey

It’s pretty funny to see the small flock following you around for a minute or so.  Sadly, they are all about to end up as supper.  Once your bird army de-spawn (takes about a minute) set up for the next part.

To complete Friend or Fowl just use the following macro:

/target Fjord Turkey
/cast Ice Lance (insert your favorite instant cast spell or ability here)
/cleartarget

Roasted turkey bodies all over the ground, and be prepared for the mass turkey attack that follows.  About 10 seconds after you do this one you’ll be swarmed by about 20 Angry Turkeys wanting a little payback for the Fowl Fricassee you just made.  It’s good for a chuckle and 20 points in your log in about 5 minutes.  Go Dominate those turkeys.

Munching Your Way To Another One

Last time we covered how to do the achievement “It’s Happy hour Somewhere” in 30 minutes or less.  This week it’s even faster.  It turns out that the quest “Tastes Like Chicken” has a bit of a catch, but it certainly doesn’t make it difficult.

Once again, we’ve broken this down to it’s lowest common denominators.  It turns out that both Alliance and Horde can get this one done with just one trip to a faction city  and one to Shattrath.  Pretty quick eh?

Now, Mage food and water count toward both the drinking achievement as well as the eating thing we’re about to do.  But just in case you’re not a mage or don’t know one who isn’t grumpy (that can be tricky) here is where you need to go to get enough food from vendors alone to complete this achievement.  As usual it is best to do this at level 80 with a hearthstone in Dalaran.

I need to explain the numbers you are about to see before you get confused (possibly).  As you start in Dalaran you will just buy all the available foods at the vendor.  Then in Shattrath you can pretty much buy everything as well.  But by the time you get to Stormwind or Silvermoon you are going to start seeing a lot of duplication in the things you can buy.

So don’t be confused when you read “Innkeeper Jovia, Silvermoon = 16″ and count over 30 foods she sells.  We don’t mean she only sells 16 foods, but that she can sell you 16 foods you don’t have already from the other vendors you’ve visited.  Remember, a food we already have or have already eaten doesn’t count.  So we only give you the count for the things you still may need.

Alliance:

• Innkeeper in Dalaran = 6
• Brendan Turner, Meat Vendor in Shattrath = 8
• Muffin Man Moser, Bread Vendor in Shattrath = 4
• Granny Smith, Fruit Vendor in Shattrath = 5
• Oloraak, Fish Vendor in Shattrath = 8
• Innkeeper Allison, Stormwind = 12
• Ben Trias, Cheese Vendor in Stormwind = 7

This nabs you 50 foods to munch

Horde:

• Innkeeper in Dalaran = 6
• Brendan Turner, Meat Vendor in Shattrath = 8
• Muffin Man Moser, Bread Vendor in Shattrath = 4
• Granny Smith, Fruit Vendor in Shattrath = 5
• Oloraak, Fish Vendor in Shattrath = 8
• Innkeeper Norman, Undercity = 9
• Innkeeper Jovia, Silvermoon = 16

That’s 56 eats although you have to go to UC (I don’t love that place)

A few tips if you are doing this under age 80.   Remember that some vendors sell some of the same things.  You can certainly just go to everyone and buy everything they have and then pig out, but if you pay attention you can certainly only buy the things from each vendor that are unique compared to the other vendors you’ve visited.

If you can’t eat everything in the list above (because you are not level 80 yet) remember that every fish in the game counts as 2 foods.  Raw an uncooked count as both, and you can get there on fish alone.  Now it’s a whole lot harder to do that than just hit the vendors, but it is an option.

If you like using trade chat you might pick up a full stack or two while you’re at it and then post that you are selling full sets of foods for the achievement for like 50 gold or something.  You can’t just put them all on the AH because no one will be able to remember or find them all, plus you would have to stack split 50 items times 20-40 (that’s 1,000 to 2,000 auctions – yikes).  But you could have folks meet you somewhere and trade with them 8 times to transfer one of each, although that’s going to take some time as well, but if they are willing to drop the gold to get one stop shopping – it may be worth it.

I just went and bought a small stack (the usual 5) of everything, ate it and then mailed it off to the next guy.  In a few hours all 4 of my 80’s will have this achievement and then the rest will go to Moneybaggins to sell to the highest bidder on the open chat market.  No, some achievements don’t Dominate, but they are really easy and fun and might make you a little dough to boot.  Enjoy the heartburn!