Just in time, before my boss comes through the virtual front door with a threatening finger, I manage to tear myself away from the “Evolve Big Alpha” (and only because it ended right then…) and put my main annoyance from this week back into words.
In “World of Warcraft“, the “Hallow’s End” event has been over for a few days now, an annual event thematically very close to Halloween, and like almost every year, there were some nice items to earn. Candy was used as currency for this event, which could be obtained in various ways in the game: One could visit all the inns in the game world, defeat the headless horseman, or complete daily quests. The important thing was: They were limited. No matter how hard you tried, once you had exhausted all sources, they were gone. But for an ambitious person like me, it’s of course no problem to actually exploit all possibilities with my elf. It’s just frustrating when it doesn’t suffice.
Overall, there were four new items that cost a total of 950 candies – just under 600 could only be earned with a single character. Tough luck. Anyone who truly wanted everything was thus forced to create a second and third character and repeat everything there.
And it is exactly here that I boldly question the design of this holiday event: Shouldn’t there be a reward for participating in the event? Why must that aspect be turned into a horrendous “grind”? I will probably never understand it. My two twinks, who have since bid farewell to the data nirvana, probably won’t either.
The Darkmoon Faire: New Fun and New Frustration
The Darkmoon Faire is also accessible to players of “World of Warcraft” again this week and has some new features thanks to the big patch. There is a new minigame where you have to fly through burning rings – after each ring, you have 10 seconds to reach the next one. A new achievement lures here, of course: Anyone who manages to fly through 50 rings in a row will be rewarded with an item that can permanently grant fiery wings on their character’s back. I was really looking forward to that (Ha! Wordplay! So good!).
Of course, the thing has two tiny catches: There are only 55 rings available per attempt in the whole area, which means you have to plan your route very carefully to not take too long from one ring to the next. On its own, that wouldn’t have been a problem.
However, the really bad part was that you could take the rings from other players, and then they were left with fewer than 50. Given that around 200 players wanted that achievement at the same time, you can imagine what was going on there: It was a flying operation that the Berlin airport could only dream of.
But I wouldn’t be myself if I hadn’t participated in that absolutely foolishly. Or to express it with a picture from Webfail:
We read each other. Now with burning wings.
P.S.: Since today, you can no longer take the rings from other players – a hotfix makes it possible. I still don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’ll try to do both.
