If you haven't bought into the whole Midsummer hype yet, allow me to try to convince you. This year's Midsummer Fire Festival is possibly the most casual-friendly WoW event. Still you may ask, to paraphrase a guildie, "What's so great except for a useless pet?"
This holiday is not about the loot.
Sure, I got myself a Brazier of Dancing Flames, but I had the blossoms burning a hole in my pocket anyway, so why not? Midsummer is really about every other reason we play the game: progressing our characters, seeing the world, supporting our faction and, most importantly, fun.
Let's break it down:
Experience: The experience you get for doing the quests is just obscene. My 54 pally got 8150 XP just for doing the daily Torch Tossing quest. Honoring fires gets you nice experience and desecrating flames gets you double that. And of course there is the experience buff from the maypole. If you have characters lower than 70, check out the Level Guide for the quests appropriate for you and go to it. It's a great way to get the most out of your limited game time.
Cash: Are you still trying to save up for your epic mount or are you looking to fund enchantments and gems for your new Arena gear? If you are level 70, these quests give a lot of cold, hard gold. The Torch dailies award just short of 12 gold as does desecrating enemy flames. Honoring flames gives about half that. I have totally recouped my frivolous title money and then some.
Exploring: Desecrating flames is a great reason to go out and see the world, particularly if you have a mount. If you are level 50 or above, take in the sights of the opposing faction's capitals as well. These quests can be done as part of a raid, so pick up strangers as you go and travel in a mob. Even if you play characters on both factions, it's fun to see familiar zones as the enemy.
Keeping it fresh: Let's face it: if you've been playing this game for a while, you are probably impatient for the expansion. Taking time out to participate in events is a great way to keep the game fresh and fun. Even if you don't like some of the quests (like Torch Catching), it's still different from what you've been doing and that's a good thing.
Fun: Sunday night, the Spousal Unit and I decided to take a tour of the Alliance flames. We picked up a small raid's worth of Horde and doused fires all over Azeroth. We died a lot (Stormwind was very well defended) but we had a blast. It's not always easy, even on a PvP server, to get interest going for World PvP, so I like to take advantage of it when I can. Being a crab is delightfully silly, giving incense to the scorchling was a great surprise, and even trying to catch torches with everyone else was a little enjoyable. There's a lot of fun to be had for this holiday, so why not take advantage of it?
Sure, the more hardcore players get that Alune guy to play with (and even that is possible to do as a casual player), but the rest of the event seems tailor-made for those of us with limited playtime. So get out and support Blizzard's casual-friendly holiday. And come join It came from the Blog this Sunday for some Midsummer fun.
WoW, Casually is a column for those of us who are playtime-challenged and proud Welfare Epic wearers. If you have questions or tips about how to get the most out of your limited playtime, please send them to Robin.Torres AT weblogsinc DOT com for a possible future column.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-26-2008 @ 8:03PM
rick gregory said...
Yeah I've liked this a lot. I took my rogue to Azshara... leapt off the bridge into the river... stealthed into Org... waited for an Alliance raid to distract the Horde there... stole the flame, vanished, stealthed out. Most roguey thing i've done in a long time and great fun.
the 400g didn't hurt either...
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6-26-2008 @ 9:01PM
Gryphon Hall said...
It was also one of the only times that wearing low-level armor that looked good rather than being armed to the teeth made sense—you're going to die anyway, so better go out in style! It was nice being whistled rather than laughed at by a Blood Elf Rogue before he killed me. And the repair bills are so low that making gold out of it is a winning proposition.
I just wished that desecrating or at the very least stealing the fires was a daily. Now that most have stolen their fires, the World PvP has been winding down.
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6-26-2008 @ 9:25PM
Verit said...
I found you could make about 650 gold or so from honoring and desecrating every fire in the game. Multiply that by 4 lvl 70's and I'm easily half way to yet another epic flyer (last one of the 4 :)).
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6-26-2008 @ 10:11PM
Draenors said...
Let's face it. Draenei females are hot. A Draenei female on fire? Even hotter.
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6-26-2008 @ 10:20PM
Todd said...
I'm going to miss the torch catching and tossing. I've gotten so good I go through all 11 of my toons and for the most part (lag permitting) I can finish the catching daily in one try. I'll miss the easy xp!
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6-26-2008 @ 11:44PM
cory said...
Yeah i had a ton of fun with putting out every fire on your city list, i got the dancing flames and now i'm working on the fire fairy pet thing. i have 260 flames again after the 350 for the dancing flame. i figure with the repeatables netting you 20 a day (flames) from the two tossing quests and the killing of the ice dude quest. it's good fun and takes maybe 20 minutes.
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6-27-2008 @ 4:12AM
Thijz said...
Easily the most fun event, next to Brewfest which was awesome too :) Got from low 68 well into lvl 69 just by honoring and desecrating flames :)
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6-27-2008 @ 9:30AM
flythebike said...
Because I'm a PvPer with a new 70 I hadn't taken the time to farm gold for a flying mount rather spending my gold leveling enchanting and jewelcrafting, and on gear enchants. But the gold from honoring/dousing has allowed me to farm it up in the last couple of days. Should have the mount later today in time to do the double Bot daily today. Yay for badges for the PvP cloak!
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6-27-2008 @ 10:47AM
zappo said...
I've doused and honored all the flames in Azeroth with my level 70 rogue, and these sorts of quests are right up my alley. Few people went into other capitals just to get coins of ancestry during the lunar festival, but I did and had a blast.
Then I decided to get the robe on an alt and started to travel around. I flagged in Gagazet and some Night Elf hunter chased me over to the guards.. who proceeded to throw a net on me and kill me. He said something in common which I can only assume was something obnoxious.
I was really annoyed by the entire situation until I figured that for 10k xp it's not that bad to run from a graveyard that's like 20 feet away. I'd be grinding for like at least a half an hour for that much. So all in all it's probably worth a few PvP deaths for some nice xp. Also the second I rezzed I saw the guards kill the hunters pet and a few moments later killed him as well.
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6-27-2008 @ 12:39PM
Greenman said...
My 52.9 pally leveled to 54.6 or so entirely by wandering around to all of the towns he could reach in the old world. Almost 2 levels of experience for time spent running around. On my PVE server, the only place I got ganked was, of course, a bored 70 rogue in crossroads. I just let him kill me, waited for the flag to drop, /golfclap'ed and moved on.
6-27-2008 @ 12:44PM
Zanzi said...
I loved this event! It's been my favorite seasonal event so far (been playing since January).
Even though being an altaholic (yes, I'm addicted to altahol) usually cuts into precious time that could be used to level my main (now at 53), I was able this past week to get a few of my low-leveled alts to a capital to at least do the daily torch quests and grab a few flames to honor on the way, which has netted them some nice XP, all without taking away from the XP and gold my main has made by getting to as many bonfires as possible plus the dailies. I even nabbed all the capital flames and got my crown!
I hope that this event comes back just as-is next year or if anything that they add a few more cool items. I won't earn enough blossoms this to get everything I want, so hopefully, I get another chance for them, plus more XP and gold again.
Also, even if the prizes/benefits weren't as cool as they are (and they are!), sneaking up to bonfires and infiltrating enemy capitals has been just plain fun, ganks and all. The crown on my rogue's head is a badge of honor telling of thrilling back-ally chases (Sprint+Vanish FTW!) and suspenseful sneaking. It's a shame that Distract (or any combat abilities) from a 53 rogue has no effect on a 65 guard, but I guess that would make it too easy.
Anyway, I've had a blast so far. I Blizzard marks this down as a smashing success and makes all the season events this fun.
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6-27-2008 @ 1:45PM
Norvis said...
You actually don't need a raid to get the other faction's capitals, at least not if you have anything to help you be sneaky about it...I guess some classes will have more trouble than others. If you're a rogue, though, obviously some careful stealth will get you through (Blizz is good about none of the mobs near the flame attacking you) and I find that for hunters, a combination of Aspect of the Beast and FD works well. The method's not perfect, but nothing is.
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6-27-2008 @ 6:19PM
Silverrealm said...
I thoroughly enjoyed this on my lvl 70 druid.
It was nice to see all the areas I haven't been to in a while, and not to mention the gold!
Kudos to Blizz for not making the opposing faction's mobs around the fires come after you. Or I would have been once cranky cat! Literally!
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