Filed under: Events

User CJGibson over on Reddit's /r/wow community made an excellent point earlier today concerning the Children's Week pets that are only available while the holiday is running.

Ordinarily, it's only possible for one character to get three pets each year: one from the classic Azeroth quests (Piglet's Collar, the Rat Cage, the Turtle Box, or the Snail Shell), one from the Outland quests (Elekk Training Collar, Egbert's Egg, Sleepy Willy, or Legs), and one from the Northrend quests (the Curious Wolvar Pup or the Curious Oracle Hatchling). But you know how in Mists of Pandaria all of the non-combat pets on your account will be shared amongst your characters? If you run a series of alts through the quests and pick different pets on each one, you'll have all the pets on all your characters once the Mists of Pandaria content patch hits (or, at the latest, once Mists itself does).

The tip was so brilliant that I slapped myself for not thinking of it, so I wanted to draw some attention to it here as quickly as possible. Pet hunters? Save yourselves four years' worth of waiting, and get cracking.

If this is your first year with the holiday and you need any help with the achievements, you can find our guide to Children's Week here.

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Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, children are the future, damn them.

Being the dedicated achievement hunter that I was and am (why else would I be writing this column?), I worked tirelessly on all the requirements for What A Long Strange Trip It's Been when the achievement system debuted in patch 3.0.2. This even extended to planning months in advance for the Brewmaster title before achievements even hit the game. My efforts were coming along quite nicely until Children's Week, when an unstoppable force (me) hit an immovable object (School of Hard Knocks) -- and physics being less predictable than our teachers led us to believe, it turns out that bodies in motion do not always remain so.

For an entire year, the only thing that stood between me and that purple proto-drake was that one damn achievement. And every year, I return to this guide and flinch at having to think of it again. So let's do this, folks, and then we shall speak no more of it for another year. This is actually a great and fantastically fun holiday, with the exception of that one thing.

The Children's Week achievements and the meta For The Children are part of the year-long What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, so you will want to get these done if you're working toward a Violet Proto-Drake. This year the holiday runs from Sunday, April 29 to Saturday, May 5.

Children's Week starts this Sunday, so that must mean that it's time for It came from the Blog's annual Running of the Orphans. As the event name says, we get orphans and we run around with them while completing our orphan quests.

• When: Sunday, April 29 at 12:30 p.m. EDT (9:30 a.m. PDT, 10:30 a.m. server time)
• Where: Meet at the pond near the engineering trainer that's next to the orphanage in Orgrimmar on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H)
• Who: Any Horde character level 10 or over
• How: Ask any member of It came from the Blog for an invite to the guild if you are not already a member of our family of guilds already.

We will have a fishing party while we wait for everyone to arrive and get their orphans. Then we will be orphan minions, taking them wherever they want to go -- the Running of the Orphan Caregivers may be a more accurate title, but it doesn't have the same ring to it. Time permitting, we may even try for some achievements.

You have to be at least level 10, because you can't get an orphan otherwise. We also will not be forming a raid since we need to complete quests. We will have an event chat set up as usual, however.

Hope to see you there!

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Please join us on Zangarmarsh (US-PVE-H) in It came from the Blog. All guild ranks can invite, so /whisper Roblinator or any online member. You are all welcome as long as you play by our simple rules -- basically, don't be a funsucker! Visit the guild FAQ for more details.

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Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, a harvest of eggs, chocolate bunnies, and general practitioners to cluck over our cholesterol numbers.

I still think this is the single greatest holiday screenshot I have ever captured.

Noblegarden is one of WoW's less stressful holidays overall -- which is good, as you'll have to deal with Children's Week later in the month. Noblegarden will run this year from Sunday, April 8 (this Sunday) until Sunday, April 15 (well, technically Saturday at 11:59 pm server time, if your calendar reads the same as mine). If you've never done Noblegarden before or only done its pre-2009 version, be aware that Noble Gardener (the holiday's meta) is part of the year-long What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been achievement rewarding the 310% speed Violet Proto-Drake.

The one new thing that I can confirm in 2012 is the presence of the Swift Springstrider, which can be purchased for 500 (!) Noblegarden chocolate from holiday vendors or found randomly in eggs. (However, nobody knows what the drop rate is like. I would bet on "bad.") This is pretty much the same deal as the Swift Lovebird from Love Is In the Air -- it's a way to keep players who already have the meta involved with the holiday.

This weekend, the It came from the Blog family of guilds will be hosting a scavenger hunt! Here are the details:

• When: Saturday, March 31 at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT, 11 a.m. server time)
• Where: Meet at the throne room in the Ruins of Lordaeron on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H)
• Who: Any level Horde character
• How: Ask any It came from the Blog member for an invite, if you are not already in one of our guilds

This will be an all-levels event, as we will not be forming a raid group. However, those with mounts will have an advantage. Money will be provided for those characters short on cash. Keep paper and a writing utensil on hand in the physical world so that you can write down the scavenger hunt items.

I will be giving out the list right at the beginning of the event, so punctuality will be rewarded. I'll repeat it, of course, but I will make sure the prompt players get a good head start.

We hope to see you there!

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Please join us on Zangarmarsh (US-PVE-H) in It came from the Blog. All guild ranks can invite, so /whisper Roblinator or any online member. You are all welcome as long as you play by our simple rules -- basically, don't be a funsucker! Visit the guild FAQ for more details.

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We hold events monthly in the It came from the Blog family of guilds. We usually hold them during in-game holidays, but when there aren't any, I make up something else to do. We've been doing this for a few years now and have had a wide variety, from achievement spam activities to free-for-all PvP beatdowns.

It came from the Blog isn't the only game in town, of course. The Defias Brotherhood hosts a few RP-PvP events, as this video shows. The Spreading Taint and The Stonewall Family guilds march in a pride parade every year. Big Red Kitty's charity run for Ezra was so much of a success that they crashed the server and were asked to end the event early. Many more events are held in WoW each month, and some realms are more active than others. You can check the Community Events and Creations Forums for events you may be interested in.

Unfortunately, Love is in the Air doesn't really lend itself to an all-levels event. Many of the achievements require rather high levels to complete, and the Dangerous Love quest line can't be picked up if you've already done it in a previous year. So I've decided to go literal with this holiday and take our love into the air.

The It came from the Blog family of guilds will be holding a party on the Love Zeppelin -- and you're invited!

• When: Thursday, Feb. 16 at 11 p.m. EST (8 p.m. PST, 9 p.m. server time)
• Where: Meet near the flightpath in Orgrimmar on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H)
• Who: Any level Horde player, clothing optional
• How: Ask any member of It came from the Blog for an invite
• What: Fun, dancing, party games, love -- something for everyone

We will not be forming a raid group for this event, but we will have a chat channel set up as usual. So join us this Thursday night for the Love Zeppelin. Here, have an earworm.

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Please join us on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H) in It came from the Blog. Any member can invite, so /whisper Roblinator or any online member. You are all welcome as long as you play by our simple rules -- basically, don't be a funsucker! Visit the guild FAQ for more details.

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At this point, it shouldn't be hard to remember when the Darkmoon Faire is active. This is our third month with the new Darkmoon Island. However, with both Lunar Festival and Love is in the Air in progress, we figure this friendly reminder can't hurt. It's incredibly easy to get caught up in the festivities with so many events happening at one time.

Remember, your Darkmoon Faire achievement progress has been reset since last month. Don't wait until the last minute to take care of those! And if you need a little help with those achievements, we have a guide for that.

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Blizzard has posted a guide to what customer service and support can and cannot do for players during Love is in the Air, the WoW in-game holiday that runs between Feb. 5 through 20. As with most in-game events like this, players will be getting exclusive items, quests, tokens, prizes, and chances on really rare items like mounts from daily bosses. These events are designed to be rare and happen only once a year, and Blizzard stresses (again, by design) that these titles, achievements, and other event goodies need to be acquired during the holiday. Legitimate claims of items lost with logs will be restored as normal, but Blizzard wanted to make sure people knew in advance that item purchases and achievement-related issues during this limited-time event will most likely not be able to be addressed.

Putting out notices like this is definitely a nice move by the community team. Many people have complained in the past of not knowing when a new event was starting in game or that their schedules did not permit them to complete all of the necessary holiday achievements and get all of the accompanying items. For many of those, the bright line rule is that "Blizzard wants these things to be rare," so they are rare by design.

Remember: Get your holiday stuff done ASAP. This is your early notice that things will most likely not be given to you if you miss the event.

The full blue post, after the break.

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we discover that love is not free.

Hot on the heels of the Lunar Festival comes another WoW holiday! Love is in the Air returns this year from Sunday, Feb. 5 through Sunday, Feb. 19. Personally, I can't see too many players logging into the game on Super Bowl Sunday for the purpose of celebrating love and all its many-splendored things, but to each his own. After many tweaks to the holiday, it's definitely one of the less annoying and RNG-riddled outings from the What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been meta. Before you ask -- yep, it's required if you're still on the warpath for your Violet Proto-Drake. The finished holiday meta will also reward the title the Love Fool.

If you're completely new to Love Is In the Air, you'll probably want to read our FAQ on the holiday. Otherwise, we'll be dealing with the holiday achievements here. There are only two optional ones if you're going for the meta, so I've listed all the ones you'll need first.

Last week, the It came from the Blog family of guilds celebrated our second annual Lunar Lunacy. We gathered in Orgrimmar at the Lunar Festival area near the flight path. The minimum level to participate was 10, so that we could organize a raid in order to make good use of guild perks.

With participants from level 12 to 85, we got the following achievements:

• Elders of the Alliance Members of The Insiders (our sister max-level guild) summoned us with Have Group, Will Travel to the enemy cities and used Mass Resurrection as needed.
• Elders of the Horde Mage ports took us where we needed to go for this achievement.
• Elune's Blessing We defeated Omen and basked in the afterglow.

Some players also got the Frenzied Firecracker and Rocket's Red Glare achievements while we were organizing the raid.

Then those of us with all of the sub-Cataclysm Azerothian flight paths completed the Elders of Eastern Kingdoms achievement by following the Overachiever's Guide to the Lunar Festival, only abandoning one non-flying person along the way. (Sorry, Pricecut!)

This Saturday, the It came from the Blog family of guilds will be holding the second annual Lunar Lunacy event. We will be attempting a few Lunar Festival achievements and respecting our elders. Hopefully, they weren't paying attention to those of us who got the Scrooge achievement during the Feast of Winter Veil.

• When: Saturday, Jan, 28 at 1 p.m. EST (10 a.m. PST, 11 a.m. server time)
• Where: Meet at the Lunar Festival area near the flightpath in Orgrimmar on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H).
• Who: Any Horde player level 10 or higher (for raid forming)
• How: Ask Roblinator or anyone in It came from the Blog for a guild invite if you are not already in our family of guilds.
• What: The plan is to get Elders of the Alliance, Elune's Blessing and a few other achievements.

The highest character you have will probably have the most fun, as otherwise you may be abandoned with the other lowbies if we honor some flightpath elders. Death knights don't take too long to be event-ready -- just make sure you are done getting food thrown at you by the time the event begins.

Hope to see you there!

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Please join us on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H) in It came from the Blog. All members can invite, so /whisper Roblinator or any online member. You are all welcome as long as you play by our simple rules -- basically, don't be a funsucker! Visit the guild FAQ for more details.

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Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we burn through a lot of shoe leather.

The Lunar Festival is one of WoW's more fun and forgiving holidays, and this year it runs from Sunday, Jan. 22 until Sunday, Feb. 12. That's right, folks; you've got three weeks to get everything done, which is definitely a good thing if you're new to the holiday and unfamiliar with the amount of travel time it requires. The basics of the holiday involve talking to a number of elders to honor them, receiving Coins of Ancestry in return, and then using the coins to purchase holiday items. The To Honor One's Elders meta-achievement is also a requirement for What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, so if you're still after a Violet Proto-Drake, make sure you get this done.

The Lunar Festival is definitely not one of Azeroth's more difficult holidays, but it's time-consuming if you're starting from scratch due to the number of NPCs you'll need to hunt down. However, it's also a good time to do World Explorer and Surveying the Damage for just that reason.

At the end of last month, It came from the Blog held its Caroling Carnage event in order to get the feat of strength achievement A-Caroling We Will Go. This involved putting on our Gaudy Winter Veil Sweaters and using them to carol in each Alliance city.

We met under the tree in Orgrimmar, and the world server crashed. There were only around 40 of us, but maybe the normal population of the Horde capital city couldn't handle so many under the already busy tree. So after we reconnected and dusted ourselves off, we zipped out to the front of Orgrimmar.

Our plan was to get to the area formerly known as Auberdine in order to get to Darnassus. A few of us were under level 20, so that meant hoofing it. We traveled to Razor Hill, sloshed through the mire to the Northern Barrens and then gathered at the Mor'shan Rampart. Then we stayed on the road, making our way to the Zoram Strand and then on the beach up to the wasted coast across from Teldrassil.

The gallery of our travels, as well as the continuation of our story, are after the break.