I really really like Lunar Fest. It’s, far and away my favorite holiday festival (though Brewfest bucked really hard for that position this year). The year before last I wrote a lengthy post about my impressions of the event, and much of those remain on the money. (I’m revisiting this on purpose, which is more than I can say for my recent post about small-group recognition. I first talked about that waaay back when the blog first started, and totally forgot. I’m going senile.)

Something I didn’t discuss then is how the ‘casual’ coin-collecting portion of the festival ramps up to hard-core difficulty when you try to ‘catch them all’. There are coins in the six core cities and the six ‘level 10′ towns, but the rest are spread willy nilly across the world of Azeroth - some of them in surprisingly strange places. Today I’ll go over my experiences talking to the Azerothian Elders, and a few personal tweaks I’d like to see for next year’s Festival.

Plus: you get to find out why there are Chocobos on this post. Wark?

Regardless of what level you are, collecting the coins from the Elders is a great excuse to get any waypoints you haven’t snagged and see the sights in the opposing faction’s cities. I’m on a PvP server, which makes things … supremely interesting. Undaunted, I set a steely gaze on my countenance and did what any hardcore quester would do: I put on my pretty purple dress.

At some point during last year’s fest I must have desultorily picked up a few coins and grabbed the purple festival dress. This year Blizz reset everyone’s progress, allowing me to start with a fresh slate. But I had a pretty dress! Wearing that to make my non-violent purpose clear, I also equipped my Brewfest beer stein and that wacky lantern I picked up at level 10 or so. And topped it off with my jaunty Brewfest cap. Snazzy doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Most of the coins are easy pickups. I’m only level 45 with Hackworth, my current main, but that’s just high enough that going into former-max-level content zones like Plaguelands isn’t instant death. Hinterlands (a zone right about on par with my level) was actually one of the more annoying places to move through just because of how closely things spawn near each other. While running from a griffon I’d get aggro’d by three or four wolves, which tore me to freaking pieces.

The hardest (or at least most annoying) coins to get were the ones in the Alliance capital cities. Darnassus was a pain in the butt - dying before you hit the purple teleporter of shiny gayness sends you all the way back to a graveyard north of Auberdine. That means waiting for the boat every. bloody. time. After you get past the teleporter, though, dying in the city proper sends you to Dolanaar … which is one of the places you need a coin from anyway. Rezzing at the friendly ghost and walking back to the city isn’t bad at all, and because of the open architecture of the city you can skirt around most of the gate defenders to get to the Cenarion Enclave.

Ironforge wasn’t that bad either. Because of the vicious choke-point at the gate a lowbie like me will inevitably die quite a bit within just a few steps. Death only bumps you back to Kharanos, though, a quick trot away in ghost-mode. Once you’re past the guards at the gate, the internal streets are lightly defended enough that even a lowbie should get to the Elder without issue. Dying then sets you up for grabbing the Kharanos coin before a port home.

Stormwind … gaah. Fing Stormwind was a nightmare. At first glance it’s not much worse than Ironforge. The Elder is in the Park, which is a longer run than the Mystic Ward, but I’m a patient man. The problem is that I don’t have the patience of the freaking glaciers. When Hordies die there they’re sent allll the way across Elwynn to the Eastvale Logging Camp. That’s a five minute run in ghost mode, every bloody time. Add to that the fact that the poor humans need to have a guard on every streetcorner and positioned approximately every two feet in alleys, and you get angry peepul. I have officially lumped Stormwind in with BRD, Strat, and the other raid instances. Bah! The only other one that bugged me was the Elder right outside of Zul’Farrak; there are three high level mobs right next to him, and that makes it mighty difficult to have a decent conversation.

While ‘catching them’ was the primary reason for playing the coin game, there were a few others this year. Lunar Fest coincided with the Valentine’s Day event for this past week, and it was great being able to participate in both events at the same time.  I have also been stressing a bit about GDC. Being able to be in-game but not worrying about anything in particular was a great way to relax. And finally (and most practically) I was going for my Chocobo. Okay, not a real Chocobo, but as real as it gets in WoW. I’ve always really liked the concept of cross-racial mount collection, and the Hawkstrider seemed like a hella cool thing to acquire. I’ve been grinding Silvermoon faction with Hackworth since she was a wee tot, and I’m already to Revered prior to 50. The mega reputation boost you receive with your faction by doing the coin quests was the perfect bump to carry me higher.  I’ll have to do some heavy Runecloth turn-ins to make it to Exalted, and I know it … but it will be worth it when I land me a battle chicken.

As a closing thought, apparently one of the ‘old’ holidays is going to get a revamp this year, and while obviously Lunar Fest isn’t it, that can’t stop me from dreaming, right?

Here’s what I want added to next year’s Lunar Festival:

• A Pet - This one is perfect, I think, for Lunar Fest and will be a huge hit with players. Every year have a questline that culminates in a vanity pet themed to the Zodiac for the year. This year players would have netted a rat, for example. To give it that ‘lunar’ feel, slap on the translucent skin we’ve seen on a few other notable critters. The keen part? Make it an expiring pet, one that disappears sometime the week before the next Lunar fest starts. Don’t just make it flee, though; give characters with the pets that log in that week a chance to notice its upcoming departure and reward them for saying ‘goodbye’. I look forward to getting a tiny oxen next year!
• Player-Given Red Envelopes - Give these out as a vendor-purchasable item along with Moonglow and the firecrackers. It’s just fancy wrapping paper, right? I want to give chums Lunar gifts with the right kind of trappings.
• More Direction Towards Omen - Omen’s position in the fest is somewhat vague, I think. Making him more obvious, or providing some system for ‘PUG Raids’ to form, would be handy.
• More Launchers - When the festival is on, I want to get rid of my rockets in a public area where people are likely to join in! The Mystic Ward in Ironforge is great for this, but every other area set up with the ‘Deep Moonglow’ is tucked too far out of the way for this kind of display to really get going. Why doesn’t Org have a launcher on top of the bank?

Even tweakless, it’s still a highlight in my WoW-playing life. Thanks for throwing a good party, Blizz!