Abandoned Faire

It’s a surreal view isn’t it?  The Darkmoon Faire just doesn’t look right empty.  It isn’t as though I just snapped a shot at a quiet hour or that moment where no one was going by.  Look closely, there isn’t even any NPC’s.  Now you’re no doubt asking yourself the same questions I was, and others who saw me online (such as Kamalia), and that is how am I even there?  Well it was legit.  I had hopped onto Carrera last night to grab her for the pet battle circuit for some experience and knowing she was logged out at the Faire I expected Elwynn Forest to be perfect since I could start the circuit there.  Except that isn’t what happened.

When I logged in, there I was on an abandoned island.  It wasn’t a character fluke as Saintvache was there as well and the same thing happened when I logged on with him.  The simplest explanation I can come up with is that it’s so close to the Faire opening up once more that the servers have the location as being live, there’s just no one in it.  Normally it wouldn’t be an issue because the entry portals in Elwynn and Thunder Bluff aren’t up yet.  But if you’re on the other side of the portal it’s a whole different story.  Needless to say with both the Tauren and the Draenei I took the opportunity to shutterbug a little bit.  I’m keeping what I post to a relative minimum.  Enjoy!

Oh no! Here come the Tonks! Whatever will I do?!?!

The sword? Eh. Some of the ingredients don’t go in the pot so willingly these days…

Empty Merry-Go-Rounds that turn are CREEPY.

Really?!!? There’s no one on the island and I still can’t get in? ARGH!!!!

Would you like to buy a Gnome?

“I think we’re alone now. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around….”

Hallowed Be Thy…Wait, What?

Last night I logged on and took Tumunzahar on a tour of Kalimdor.  The buckets across the continent were all I needed for the Hallowed achievement.  I stopped along the way once or twice for some pet battling or Archaeology (which is now 525), and then finished up with the last Trick or Treat bucket -in the Exodar (once I found the darn thing).  That means I’m “The Hallowed” now.

Wait…what the…?

That’s the shot right after I got the last bucket.  Now, if you do a mouse over on any of those in-game, it shows a completion date.  However, as you can see the entire meta is showing incomplete.  I reported it as a bug and just shook my head and went to bed.  No point worrying about it just yet.

Sure enough, first thing this morning when I popped on quick before work, It had been corrected or sorted itself out and I be a Hallowed fella after all.

Event Scheduling Conflict

Weird day in Azeroth.  A number of players were reportedly going along doing whatever their fancy was at that time and then got disconnected.  The result is a 12.5 MB patching (which I did when I got home, as I’ve not had a chance to login today).  Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what the patch was for.

I can’t tell you much of anything, because I can’t login at all.  I’m getting the login server is busy error.  I went to the forums to check it out, they were down.  They’re up now, but I’m heading out the door to work.  The apparent solution if you’re having trouble loading the game now, is to power cycle your computer/router.  The current discussion thread on the issue can be found here.  I won’t know until I get home tonight.

Personal opinion?  There’s way too much going on in-game. I apologise for the crop-job on this but I can’t actually get in-game for a picture of my calendar.  It’s a conclusion I came to yesterday when I realized it all.  We have the Lunar Festival for another week.  We now have the Darkmoon Faire on top of that.  To complete the trinity of madness, Love Is In The Air has now started this week, too.

For me, LITA isn’t a big deal.  I’ll probably do a little bit just for the xp for some of The 2012.  The Darkmoon Faire is great for XP and there’s actually one or two items I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on via tickets.  Lunar Festival, I’ve got a second Lantern now Alliance side.  I’d like to get one Horde side yet but the only toon high enough is Mortevache at 62 and even he’s going to have a heck of a time with that.

Now just imagine you’re an achievement seeker.  Or, for the sake of argument you indeed are one.  If you don’t have the Elder title yet or the Lunar Festival achievements you want to get (or are capable of snagging), you have less than a week to do it.  That happens to be the same amount of time you have for any Darkmoon Faire activities you want to get done (or tickets to acquire to actually buy something).  If you want Love Is In The Air as well?  I have no idea how your eyes and brain aren’t going to cross and explode.

A note to Blizzard that even someone who isn’t taking part in all the events going on that this simply is just too much.  Perhaps it’s just a fluke because the developers weren’t thinking about the overlap when they scheduled the Darkmoon Faire to be the first week of each month, I don’t know.  But they can’t have this happen again, it’s just terribly executed.  That’s why I jokingly blame it for the login issues today.  Even the system recognizes how awful it is.  I don’t mind the game being difficult, and I don’t think I complain too much about any difficulties that are encountered, so I’m pretty sure I’m within the realm of a legitimate argument when I point this out today.

Don’t Touch That Dial!

You Shall Not Summon!

Hallow’s End is upon is.  That means more achievements and goodies, and the always fun Headless Horseman fight.  Nothing about the Horseman has changed in the way of the fight or the rewards.  However, players have noticed one little problem: summoning him.

It’s a straight forward process.  Someone in your random goes up and clicks on the pumpkin and out comes the Horseman.  That’s how it’s supposed to work.  Unfortunately, not everyone can click on it -namely tanks and healers.  Instead, as soon as your mouse turns to the gear image you are locked out of the game.  It means shutting down the window and logging back in.  Even with Tuesday’s maintenance this still exists.

Obviously the strategy is to have a dps click it and then just collect their rewards when they log back in because in most cases the fight is already over.  Even on Tumunzahar I’ve had it happen once.  Blizzard has no explanation yet for why it’s happening, or why it’s only happening to some characters (I was in a group where the tank was the only person able to click on it safely).  All we can really do is plan for it, and fight through it.