The Midsummer Fire Festival is a huge disappointment. I wrote earlier about why players should be excited to light their faction’s fires, extinguish the enemy’s fires, and more. However, this event has not lived up to expectations.
First off, the Summer Scorchling is not available this year. Blizzard has not indicated if this was intentional or not. Instead, we got the Frigid Frostling. I suppose its more of an appropriate drop from Ahune and his Satchel of Chilled Goods than a fire elemental, but this is the first year that players can easily and efficiently farm for his drops with the Dungeon Finder. Incidentally, the droprate for the pet is 5%. If you kill Ahune every day during the Fire Festival, you have a 1-(.95)^15=53.7% to obtain the pet. A coin flip is a pretty good distribution rate for players who put in the effort. The Summer Scorchling had a lower drop rate and was harder to get for organizational reasons. I’m happy I was able to secure my ice elemental this year, in case he takes next year off.
Another loss in this year’s festival is the reputation gains from the fire quests. In previous years, there was tens of thousands of reputation to be had with major cities. With the Argent Tournament, this reputation is more relevant than ever. Unfortunately, you’ll have to keep grinding the Tournament or Runecloth to get your home city rep if you are still working on it.
All and all, there seems like there is less this year aside from the new queueing system. The loot table is smaller (though more relevant), less rewards from doing the fire quests, and there are no new Cataclysm-related (or otherwise) quests or achievements.
I’ll keep grinding to get my capes and Frost Emblems on my alts, but overall, I am not at all impressed by this year’s Fire Festival.
I hate to sound like a hater man, but maybe it’s time you take a break. Seriously, it seems lately as if EVERYTHING in the game is a dissapointment to you. I’ve had that happen myself and stepped away and felt much better about it when I did. It’s the ‘Been there, done that’ syndrome and it ain’t healthy.
I’m not suggesting stepping away from LH but WoW in particular. Perhaps find another game to report about or something?
@Highwayman
It’s more of the “Why do this, when what was previously there, was somewhat better” syndrome. It’s albeit also the end-of-expansion fever.
I somewhat agree with you Heartbourne, but since I had been grounded from WoW for two months, I missed out on a large amount of frost badges, and this helped me somewhat regain ground with the rest of the players on my server.
Dissapointing holiday is disappointing. I agree.
Pffft, no offense man, but I disagree completely. (what a shock lately)
I’m an Altaholic, and all the other holiday events really don’t light my fire like Mid-summer festival. (no pun intended). Now that all my 8 characters are 80, I’ve been having a blast doing Ahune to get them cloaks, running around azeroth for free achievements and money, and of course my mage, now has, the frost scythe. Which is Awesome.
There’s so much to do for this holiday and I’m not even close to done. And TBH, you shot your expectations waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too high for the holiday event in the last post.
All holidays are mainly to become about seasonal bosses and achievements, it’s what makes them fun. There wouldn’t be lore added, obviously, because everything done in these holidays is outside of the lore. You just need to kick back and enjoy it more for what it is.
OH, and the summer scorchling is still dropping from satchels.
The scorchling does not drop this year. It is confirmed by blues. Also see WoWHead:
http://www.wowhead.com/item=54536
All of the holidays are cannon. They are referenced in books and add to a lot of the background mythos, especially the Feast of Winter Veil.
This post is a little hyperbolic, but the loss of reputation gains and lack of anything new really has me disappointed.
Like Heartbourne said, it’s the loss of what was available last year. He was expecting what most of us did – updated things such as better loot organization and queuing through the DF.
Even though we received the updates, we lost what most of us wanted – last years’ pet, reputation gains, etc.
Although we still have money, exp (for those Altoholics, or people still leveling to 80), and quests counting towards , half of the people who looked forward to this event are disappointed.
I’m just scared that this might set a precedent for Brewfest and Hallow’s End, for both contain mounts and/or pets, and bosses.
im with you on that Mordil. ive been grinding headless horseman for 2 years now and i still haven gotten his mount.im going to be ticked if they remove the mount for this year.
For alts, this holiday is amazing. Easy frost badges and an iLvl 232 cloak.
On the other hand, it doesn’t offer much to already established 80s. I just did this holiday to finally get my Violet Proto-Drake.
I’m a tad disappointed as well.