Finally, it comes to this. It’s quite a feat really, I can’t remember the last time I got so impatient with a book that I just tossed it aside and never looked back. I certainly don’t think I’ve ever tossed a book aside with as much disdain and relief. Hell, I even finished the first Twilight book all the way through. So, unfortunately (or, rather, appropriately) Stranger in a Strange Land will now have this infamy for me: god, I hated this book.
First, a quick background. The book tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human born on Mars during a failed expedition. He is raised by Martians until a second expedition brings him home, sometime during his early adulthood. The book then focuses on Smith’s interactions with Earth’s culture, and basically examines humanity and society from an outsider’s perspective (Smith’s bewilderment when he learns about money, clothes, God, etc, and how he tries to understand such things, or “grok” them). In a nutshell, that’s about it, eventually Smith focuses on religion and begins teaching Earthlings his point of view, which is derived from what he’s learned about Earth religion and combined with his Martian beliefs. I don’t believe the book calls it a cult but, come on. Anyway, I think he royally pisses people off but I didn’t read past the part where his new religion is getting off the ground and gaining a strong following.
The book, published sometime in 1961, became a favorite of the hippie movement, which is no surprise given it’s themes of paganism, sexual freedom, anti-government, individual liberty, so on. It won the Hugo Award for best fiction of the year and, according to Wikipedia anyway, it’s considered one of the most important works of science fiction. I mean, so far all of the books on that 52 books list have been groundbreaking and important in some way. So just because I didn’t like it doesn’t mean it isn’t…I don’t know, I can’t say great because it really wasn’t to me, but I guess I can say that it’s important. There’s even a real life religion (cult?) that exists today that is partly based on the religion created by Smith in the book.
I may really hate the book, but I certainly can admire it for a few reasons: for the time when it was published, it was very radical. A lot of scenes were edited out from the original publishing because they were considered to be too much for audiences (I’m assuming they’re referring to the commune scenes with free love, sexual freedom, multiple partners, what have you). The themes explored in the book were probably considered taboo back then, and probably still are to this day. And it has been embraced by thousands of people, it sparked a real-life religious movement, and it pioneered a real-life social movement as well. I don’t know how many other books out there have done that.
There are also other elements about the book that I will admit I can’t fault it for. Feeling dated, for example. This was written in the 60’s, that’s literally a different world to me. It’s the same thing as looking past Star Trek’s (the original series) miniskirts, beehives, and glossy filters. It was just a different time, it is allowed to feel dated. You can argue that there are plenty of works out there that don’t necessarily feel dated, but I think that’s just a bonus. If it feels dated, oh well.
I also can’t fault it too much for being set in an alternate reality that I didn’t believe in or like. This is science fiction, it’s supposed to be a completely alien environment, and while I completely did not believe in the environment, that’s not the books fault. Finally, I can’t fault it for producing emotional reactions from me that were unpleasant. For instance, I cringed during the scene where two of the main characters started having sex in the middle of the commune. Call me a prude, I probably am, but that was just painful to read. I’m sure I’ve read other books that elicited an unpleasant reaction, its part of the experience.
HOWEVER, I have MANY other issues that I think are completely the book’s fault. The entire book is incredibly preachy. It really feels like it’s just a vehicle for Heinlein to spout out every tiny minutiae of his beliefs. Ultimately, that’s what books are for an author, but dear god, good authors know how to do this without becoming a pain in the butt. It was just too preachy, entire pages of characters not really doing anything expect having a huge back and forth about this one thing or another. They didn’t even sound like real people. That’s the other thing. None of the characters were even remotely interesting, none of them had any unique personality, and at the end of the day I cared absolutely nothing for any of them. The “plot” may sound interesting in a nutshell (an outsider inspecting and dissecting our day to day lives while teaching us new things about ourselves in the process) but it was just drowned in pages and pages of preaching.
The famous parts, the ones about Smith becoming a new-age prophet and leading a new social movement, don’t happen till the last third of the book. Everything before it is legal battles regarding his inheritance (he’s the heir to everyone on the first failed expedition, and all of their estates), then goes on about…god I don’t even remember. The point is, it was all boring. It was a chore to keep flipping pages. There was absolutely no emotional investment required, all the characters were flat and shallow, and the plot happened in between huge segments of preaching about why society is wrong and what beliefs are the truths. A lot of people argue that some people just don’t get the book’s message. That’s crap. I “got” the message, I’m just not buying it.
Finally, I keep having a debate with myself. I found the book extremely hard to relate to. While the point is to hold up our society to a magnifying glass and allow us to examine ourselves as an outsider would, I could not relate to the society depicted in the book.
“But its science fiction, it doesn’t have to even remotely resemble the society you know.”
Yes, ok, but then that kind of misses the point of having the reader reflect about his own society.
“But other science fiction works (let’s take Star Trek again because Rock and I have been on a Star Trek marathon for the past year) present completely different societies and you can still relate to them.”
I don’t know, like I said, I didn’t believe in the environment or the way people acted and reacted, but I can’t necessarily fault the book for that. I feel the same about Klingons, for example…”today is a good day to die?” The. Hell? But if the point of the book is to get us to question ourselves, then shouldn’t it resemble us? Ugh, well, to me it didn’t, so take that as you will. I’m never thinking about that book again.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
This is not the book that I’ve been complaining about, that I (still!) haven’t been able to finish because it’s awful (not finishing it, either, screw that, so that is a post for another day). I picked up The Great Gatsby because it is also one of the last audiobooks I bought, and I bought that audiobook because it was another Frank Muller narration, but either way this book is also on my 52 books to read list. And, actually, this book falls into the rather large pile of books that I have read before but I may as well have been sleeping through at the time for all I remember about them.
And sleep through I probably did, in the most literal sense, because this book was assigned reading for my first year seminar in college (which, at my school, was sort of an introductory college class for freshmen, to help them bridge over the transition from high school to college level…the other three mandatory college classes being, what? A momentary diversion I guess…I still don’t know). Anyway, that seminar was in the English department and it had the tantalizingly grand title “The Jazz Age.” I picked that particular seminar because it promised to be a vibrant mixture of film, music, and literary studies on…well, you can imagine, and I figured that was a sound way of not being bored straight through it. It got me halfway there I suppose. We attended jazz concerts featuring our professor and his other ragtime professor buddies (yeah, it was pretty cool), watched Porgy and Bess in opera version (dear lord those were the longest four hours of my life, and I like musicals…an opera is like a musical right? No? hmm), and read really good works like T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland (so cracked out but I really did enjoy it) and other poetry by William Carlos Williams, and so on. And, of course, we read The Great Gatsby, and it’s not that this is an obvious choice for a class like this, but that it is the reason why there is a class like this. Fitzgerald himself coined the phrase The Jazz Age and he put it all there in this book. So it’s really very sad that I don’t particularly remember the class discussions but I’m positive (even though I have no real memory or proof of this) that it was the first book we read and that the tone of the class followed from there.
If you want to know what American literature was like during this period, and what the period itself was like, you start with this book. The Jazz Age starts after the end of World War I, through the Roaring Twenties when prohibition existed and the stock market would have taken the 2008 stock market out for Cristal to drown its sorrow, and on to the Great Depression. My English professor would have emphasized how the book illustrates the rise of the ‘nouveau-riche’ in the wake of a soaring stock market, their clash with the established wealthy sectors, the opulence, seductiveness, and flamboyance of the two, and how it all crashes down as the Great Depression starts to take hold. Fitzgerald fittingly describes the flashy, wealthy period but he criticizes it as well, symbolized by the ultimate hollowness and lack of morals of his characters. Gatsby, with his new-money (questionably obtained), earnestly chases a wonderful, dazzling dream personified by the so-called love of his life, Daisy, only to realize that the dream was more splendid, and probably worth more, than Daisy herself.
It is a very tragic novel because it offers a glimpse of wish fulfillment for an endearing and charming character (Gatsby) only to crush it under the malicious, self-preserving, oblivious actions of everyone else (except possibly the narrator, who tells Gatsby, in the only sincerely affectionate moment in the story, that he’s worth more than the lot of them). That’s not to say Gatsby is played to be a saint and everyone else is played to kick him down. On the contrary, none of the characters ever feel one-dimensional and, to some extent, they all undergo change and self-reflection. It was a very good read and it helped me realize that if a book is good, you’ll want to keep turning the page without having to force yourself to do it (god, I hate that other book).
I also need to relate this here because I don’t know where else I would do it, but one of my favorite parts about reading this was reading Fitzgerald’s biography and telling Rock, “I think if I ever have a girl I will name her Zelda. It’s a real name you know.” And Rock replies, “I know, she was the wife of Fitzgerald.” And I say, “How the hell do you know that?” “Where do you think the Nintendo name came from?” “No way.” “Yeah, Miyamoto says he named the character after her.” And this blows my mind because I never would have learned that tidbit without him and it makes me wonder what the hell else is stored in that noggin and honestly how can someone remember so many details about video games, ever? But he does and it truly is a very neat thing to me :)
Ta-da: Zelda's glamorous image also inspired the name of video game creator Shigeru Miyamoto's character Princess Zelda in his The Legend of Zelda video game series. Miyamoto explained, "Zelda was the name of the wife of the famous novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was a famous and beautiful woman from all accounts, and I liked the sound of her name. So I took the liberty of using her name for the very first Zelda title."
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
And sleep through I probably did, in the most literal sense, because this book was assigned reading for my first year seminar in college (which, at my school, was sort of an introductory college class for freshmen, to help them bridge over the transition from high school to college level…the other three mandatory college classes being, what? A momentary diversion I guess…I still don’t know). Anyway, that seminar was in the English department and it had the tantalizingly grand title “The Jazz Age.” I picked that particular seminar because it promised to be a vibrant mixture of film, music, and literary studies on…well, you can imagine, and I figured that was a sound way of not being bored straight through it. It got me halfway there I suppose. We attended jazz concerts featuring our professor and his other ragtime professor buddies (yeah, it was pretty cool), watched Porgy and Bess in opera version (dear lord those were the longest four hours of my life, and I like musicals…an opera is like a musical right? No? hmm), and read really good works like T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland (so cracked out but I really did enjoy it) and other poetry by William Carlos Williams, and so on. And, of course, we read The Great Gatsby, and it’s not that this is an obvious choice for a class like this, but that it is the reason why there is a class like this. Fitzgerald himself coined the phrase The Jazz Age and he put it all there in this book. So it’s really very sad that I don’t particularly remember the class discussions but I’m positive (even though I have no real memory or proof of this) that it was the first book we read and that the tone of the class followed from there.
If you want to know what American literature was like during this period, and what the period itself was like, you start with this book. The Jazz Age starts after the end of World War I, through the Roaring Twenties when prohibition existed and the stock market would have taken the 2008 stock market out for Cristal to drown its sorrow, and on to the Great Depression. My English professor would have emphasized how the book illustrates the rise of the ‘nouveau-riche’ in the wake of a soaring stock market, their clash with the established wealthy sectors, the opulence, seductiveness, and flamboyance of the two, and how it all crashes down as the Great Depression starts to take hold. Fitzgerald fittingly describes the flashy, wealthy period but he criticizes it as well, symbolized by the ultimate hollowness and lack of morals of his characters. Gatsby, with his new-money (questionably obtained), earnestly chases a wonderful, dazzling dream personified by the so-called love of his life, Daisy, only to realize that the dream was more splendid, and probably worth more, than Daisy herself.
It is a very tragic novel because it offers a glimpse of wish fulfillment for an endearing and charming character (Gatsby) only to crush it under the malicious, self-preserving, oblivious actions of everyone else (except possibly the narrator, who tells Gatsby, in the only sincerely affectionate moment in the story, that he’s worth more than the lot of them). That’s not to say Gatsby is played to be a saint and everyone else is played to kick him down. On the contrary, none of the characters ever feel one-dimensional and, to some extent, they all undergo change and self-reflection. It was a very good read and it helped me realize that if a book is good, you’ll want to keep turning the page without having to force yourself to do it (god, I hate that other book).
I also need to relate this here because I don’t know where else I would do it, but one of my favorite parts about reading this was reading Fitzgerald’s biography and telling Rock, “I think if I ever have a girl I will name her Zelda. It’s a real name you know.” And Rock replies, “I know, she was the wife of Fitzgerald.” And I say, “How the hell do you know that?” “Where do you think the Nintendo name came from?” “No way.” “Yeah, Miyamoto says he named the character after her.” And this blows my mind because I never would have learned that tidbit without him and it makes me wonder what the hell else is stored in that noggin and honestly how can someone remember so many details about video games, ever? But he does and it truly is a very neat thing to me :)
Ta-da: Zelda's glamorous image also inspired the name of video game creator Shigeru Miyamoto's character Princess Zelda in his The Legend of Zelda video game series. Miyamoto explained, "Zelda was the name of the wife of the famous novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was a famous and beautiful woman from all accounts, and I liked the sound of her name. So I took the liberty of using her name for the very first Zelda title."
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been
[Warning: EXTREMELY long WoW-related post ahead]
When achievements first came out in WoW, I looked at this achievement as something only a hardcore player would do. Not only does it take a year to achieve, it requires the player to perform a variety of tasks that range from easy to mind-numbingly repetitive to downright infuriating. AND you generally only have a week or two during which to do those tasks. AND every other player in the server is going after the same thing at the same time. For the uninitiated, WoW has in-game holidays that mirror real life holidays, such as Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, etc. For each holiday, there are holiday specific achievements and one meta-achievement (which means an achievement for completing the achievements). And there’s also What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been, which is the meta-achievement for completing all of the meta-achievements of all the holidays. There are 8 holidays that are required for What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been, and all together those meta-achievements add up to around 70 achievements. So in a nutshell, we’re talking about completing over 70 achievements throughout the year, but only during specific times of the year. WHY on earth bother to do this, you ask? The reward for completing What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been is the Violet Proto-Drake, a flying mount that flies 310% faster than the normal speed. It’s the fastest mount in the game, a step ahead of the lowly 280% mounts. So there’s that…
I didn’t have much desire to attempt this when it came out, since I was still leveling up and I had never really participated in holidays and dear god that sounded like A LOT of work. But a little less than a year later my character was finally 80 and the first holiday during which she would be 80 was coming up (coincidentally, because of the timing of when the achievements came out, this was also the holiday during which players would be able to complete their long, strange trips and get their mounts…so maybe I was slightly influenced by all the shiny new purple dragons flying around, is what I’m saying).
And so I decided to venture into what still seemed to me to be a mad endeavor. I started hesitantly at first, telling myself I was just doing the holiday achievements for fun…but as one holiday after another came around I started to notice that I was getting increasingly more and more worried about completing each holiday’s achievements. I still looked forward to the holidays coming up, but I was also FREAKING OUT during each holiday. When the last holiday finally came around, I breathed a huge sigh of relief but I was so done with stressing out that when I got my Violet Proto-Drake, it was slightly anti-climactic…I probably said “good riddance” more so than “woot!.”
Well now I get to relive my year-long accomplishments and sincerely agree with The Grateful Dead: it was a long, strange trip. In order of appearance:
Brewfest
The one that started it all, an homage to Oktoberfest, complete with beer, beer goggles, pink elephants, rowdy drunken dwarves, and racing rams (which I don’t believe are featured in the real event…).
Most fun achievement: Down with The Dark Iron. You have to defend your festival (and most importantly, the beer!) from a pack of meddlesome dwarves that spring out of the ground like moles. Best part? The only weapon you seem to have are full beer mugs, so you chug and hurl the mugs at their heads, and get increasingly drunk as you do so.
The beginning of the grind: right out of the gate, this holiday has one of the more grindier requirements. You need to collect about 400 tokens to complete some achievements, and you get those by completing daily quests. No, you don’t get all 400 in one day, silly…then there’d be no point in doing them every day, now would there?
What eluded me: the holiday boss drops not one, but two unique mount models. Have I ever seen one drop? Not a chance. Did I group with someone who happily relayed that they won both in one day? :(
Hallow’s End
WoW’s Halloween, the fare is pretty standard, there are costumes, you go trick or treating to the different villages, eat candy, kill the Headless Horseman…that last one isn’t standard, is it?
Most fun achievement: also the best title for an achievement, Bring Me The Head of…Oh, Wait. Out of all the holiday boss fights, I adore the Headless Horseman fight the best. The setting is awesome (haunted graveyard), the voice acting is fantastic, and the fight mechanic is so much fun (he flings his pumpkin head at you as a distraction and during his last dying moments summons a pack of pumpkins to give you the hurt).
Most stressful moment: you’ll hear PLENTY about the abomination that is the random number generator for this holiday. Part of the meta is to loot a pumpkin pet and a pumpkin hat…which are random drops…which might not drop during the entire event…which has happened to people…talk about a sigh of relief when I finally got that darn hat.
What eluded me: I saw the Headless Horseman’s mount drop once during the entire holiday. Rock’s character actually tied during the roll but lost the tie-breaker. In the two years I’ve done this holiday, that is the only time I’ve seen it.
Winter Veil
It’s a goblin sponsored Christmas! I love this holiday because it really does put you in the Christmas mood. There’s actually no holiday boss for this one but there is a quest line to save Metzen the Reindeer (named after one of Blizzard’s creative team members).
Most fun achievement: With a Little Helper from My Friends. A lot of people stress out over the PvP achievements (and rightfully so if they’ve never done it or just don’t like it), but the sight of a pack of winter gnomes assembling for battle makes this achievement completely worthwhile.
It’s a merry Christmas: I love, love, love that you get to open presents under the tree on Christmas morning. The sight of all those players up early amassing under the tree is too funny, and SO Christmas!
What eluded me: actually, I managed to get all the pets on my main character (I pilfered pets from my alts).
Love is in the Air
I like this holiday so much I dedicated a whole post to it . This is easier than rewriting stuff here :)
Most fun achievement: first of all, the entire holiday is a vast improvement over what it used to be, and a lot of fun all around. But, that said, there isn’t one achievement that really sticks out as being the best. Dangerous Love would come close because the boss fight at the end of the quest line is my second most favorite boss fight.
Inspiration: for one achievement, you have to share a romantic picnic basket with someone and find true love. The image of Rock’s and my character sitting under the umbrella with hearts above their heads was so cute it became my wedding invitation.
What eluded me: the new boss fight also comes with the chance of looting a big rocket mount (complete with zebra-striped seats!). Alas, I did not see a mount drop the entire time. The Rocket is a Lie.
Lunar Festival
One of the less traditional WoW holidays taken from real life, this is a reference to the Chinese New Year. I’m not very familiar with the actual Chinese holiday but I believe some of the similarities are honoring the elders, fireworks, and gifts contained in red envelopes. But my ignorance is showing so, moving on…
Most fun achievement: eh, I’m pretty neutral on this holiday because on the one hand, it is incredibly time consuming since you have to visit a ton of elders located all over the world; but, on the other hand, all of the achievements are very easy and the entire holiday is the least stressful one. Plus, it was relatively fun to watch ANTM reruns while flying from one elder to another.
Most interesting and least interesting boss: the holiday boss for this event is the only boss actually located in the world (as opposed to inside an instance), and it requires around 10 players to kill easily, and it doesn’t matter what faction the players are (everyone gets credit). So it is very neat to see a bunch of players, of all levels and of either faction, gather around to kill him. Sadly, he doesn’t drop anything remotely interesting, that I’m aware of.
Noblegarden
WoW’s version of Easter, complete with bunnies (oh, so cute, bunnehs!), colored easter eggs, chocolate eggs, and flowers everywhere.
Most fun achievement: Spring Fling. Even bunnies are looking for love in WoW. If you park your pet bunny next to someone else’s bunny, they’ll fall in love, and little eggs pop up that hatch into baby bunnies!
Second most dreaded achievement: during the holiday you need to collect about 350 or so chocolates (I forget the number) in order to complete the other achievements. You get chocolates by finding hidden easter eggs in four specific towns…where every other player in the world is also trying to get 350 or so chocolates…my plan B, if I didn’t get the chocolates during my normal playing hours, was to wake up at 3 am…thankfully, it didn’t come to that.
What eluded me: another holiday with no boss :(
Children’s Week
Here we go. This is THE holiday most hated by the WoW community. See where it says “second most dreaded achievement” in Noblegarden? This is where you’ll see “the number one most dreaded achievement” that I also wish I could take out back and shoot in the head. But, besides that, I don’t dislike this holiday in general. I don’t think there is a real world counterpart to adopting a war orphan for a week and training him in the finer aspects of military life, including killing your enemies, touring dangerous locations, and killing deposed kings.
Most fun achievement: Aw, Isn’t It Cute? is doubly fun in that you get to do a neat quest line and get a neat pet as a reward. The quest line involves taking three orphans out for some sightseeing (like a Big Brother, Big Sister kind of thing). The reactions from the NPC’s involved and the orphans are very, very cute and more than a little heart-warming :)
The MOST dreaded achievement: people have written EXTENSIVELY about the pain that is School of Hard Knocks. The PvP achievements required would be easy enough to do as they are a main component of the mechanics for that particular battleground, were it not for the horde of other players that are out to simply kill you (the enemy faction) or to diabolically impede your progress (your own f-ing team!). This achievement really does bring out the worst in people, from griefers who are there to purposely make other people miserable, to the regular players who are just there to get their damn achievement regardless of what it takes and how many teammates they have to screw over to do it. It turns battlegrounds upside down for an entire week and does the exact opposite of what the Blizzard team “envisions:” instead of getting people interested in PvP, it turns people off entirely. Argh, end rant.
What eluded me: actually, I can complain a lot about School of Hard Knocks, but I didn’t have as hard a time completing it as I thought I would. Hell, I even did it twice because Rock was too lazy to do it for his own character. I was definitely the most stressed out, out of any other holiday, but I was lucky enough to walk into battlegrounds where people, even enemy players, were actually helping each other (the enemy team purposely losing the flag and such). But I even complain about this because that is NOT what battlegrounds are supposed to be. I would much rather see them change the achievement to win a certain number of battles or kill a certain number of players. At least that is in keeping with the spirit of the battleground. Ok, now end rant…
No, wait, did I mention you only get one week to do this and that the holiday was on the same week that my family was visiting for my wedding and during which I got (obviously) married? Not a good time.
Midsummer
A reference to Midsummer celebrations during the summer solstice, the event has activities that are all fire related (breathing fire, juggling fire torches, dancing around a fire pole).
Most fun achievement: Torch Juggler was the most fun achievement because I was completely dreading it until I realized how ridiculously easy it is to do :) And because when I was coaching Rock on how to do it I got to say “just click those keys like it’s Space Invaders at the arcade,” and he got it!
Once more around the world: the last of those holidays where you travel all over the world to visit or collect or do something. It was fun and cute during Hallow’s End (you’re trick or treating, how can it not be fun?), tolerable during Lunar Festival (I did it in October, it wasn’t so bad), and downright annoying during Midsummer (oh my god how many more places? I have to visit the alliance places also???).
What eluded me: another grindy holiday where you can complete quests every day to get tokens but it is literally impossible to get enough tokens to buy all of the special items…so I’m missing a pet.
Oh, god, I’m done.
When achievements first came out in WoW, I looked at this achievement as something only a hardcore player would do. Not only does it take a year to achieve, it requires the player to perform a variety of tasks that range from easy to mind-numbingly repetitive to downright infuriating. AND you generally only have a week or two during which to do those tasks. AND every other player in the server is going after the same thing at the same time. For the uninitiated, WoW has in-game holidays that mirror real life holidays, such as Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, etc. For each holiday, there are holiday specific achievements and one meta-achievement (which means an achievement for completing the achievements). And there’s also What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been, which is the meta-achievement for completing all of the meta-achievements of all the holidays. There are 8 holidays that are required for What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been, and all together those meta-achievements add up to around 70 achievements. So in a nutshell, we’re talking about completing over 70 achievements throughout the year, but only during specific times of the year. WHY on earth bother to do this, you ask? The reward for completing What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been is the Violet Proto-Drake, a flying mount that flies 310% faster than the normal speed. It’s the fastest mount in the game, a step ahead of the lowly 280% mounts. So there’s that…
I didn’t have much desire to attempt this when it came out, since I was still leveling up and I had never really participated in holidays and dear god that sounded like A LOT of work. But a little less than a year later my character was finally 80 and the first holiday during which she would be 80 was coming up (coincidentally, because of the timing of when the achievements came out, this was also the holiday during which players would be able to complete their long, strange trips and get their mounts…so maybe I was slightly influenced by all the shiny new purple dragons flying around, is what I’m saying).
And so I decided to venture into what still seemed to me to be a mad endeavor. I started hesitantly at first, telling myself I was just doing the holiday achievements for fun…but as one holiday after another came around I started to notice that I was getting increasingly more and more worried about completing each holiday’s achievements. I still looked forward to the holidays coming up, but I was also FREAKING OUT during each holiday. When the last holiday finally came around, I breathed a huge sigh of relief but I was so done with stressing out that when I got my Violet Proto-Drake, it was slightly anti-climactic…I probably said “good riddance” more so than “woot!.”
Well now I get to relive my year-long accomplishments and sincerely agree with The Grateful Dead: it was a long, strange trip. In order of appearance:
Brewfest
The one that started it all, an homage to Oktoberfest, complete with beer, beer goggles, pink elephants, rowdy drunken dwarves, and racing rams (which I don’t believe are featured in the real event…).Most fun achievement: Down with The Dark Iron. You have to defend your festival (and most importantly, the beer!) from a pack of meddlesome dwarves that spring out of the ground like moles. Best part? The only weapon you seem to have are full beer mugs, so you chug and hurl the mugs at their heads, and get increasingly drunk as you do so.
The beginning of the grind: right out of the gate, this holiday has one of the more grindier requirements. You need to collect about 400 tokens to complete some achievements, and you get those by completing daily quests. No, you don’t get all 400 in one day, silly…then there’d be no point in doing them every day, now would there?
What eluded me: the holiday boss drops not one, but two unique mount models. Have I ever seen one drop? Not a chance. Did I group with someone who happily relayed that they won both in one day? :(
Hallow’s End
WoW’s Halloween, the fare is pretty standard, there are costumes, you go trick or treating to the different villages, eat candy, kill the Headless Horseman…that last one isn’t standard, is it?Most fun achievement: also the best title for an achievement, Bring Me The Head of…Oh, Wait. Out of all the holiday boss fights, I adore the Headless Horseman fight the best. The setting is awesome (haunted graveyard), the voice acting is fantastic, and the fight mechanic is so much fun (he flings his pumpkin head at you as a distraction and during his last dying moments summons a pack of pumpkins to give you the hurt).
Most stressful moment: you’ll hear PLENTY about the abomination that is the random number generator for this holiday. Part of the meta is to loot a pumpkin pet and a pumpkin hat…which are random drops…which might not drop during the entire event…which has happened to people…talk about a sigh of relief when I finally got that darn hat.
What eluded me: I saw the Headless Horseman’s mount drop once during the entire holiday. Rock’s character actually tied during the roll but lost the tie-breaker. In the two years I’ve done this holiday, that is the only time I’ve seen it.
Winter Veil
It’s a goblin sponsored Christmas! I love this holiday because it really does put you in the Christmas mood. There’s actually no holiday boss for this one but there is a quest line to save Metzen the Reindeer (named after one of Blizzard’s creative team members).Most fun achievement: With a Little Helper from My Friends. A lot of people stress out over the PvP achievements (and rightfully so if they’ve never done it or just don’t like it), but the sight of a pack of winter gnomes assembling for battle makes this achievement completely worthwhile.
It’s a merry Christmas: I love, love, love that you get to open presents under the tree on Christmas morning. The sight of all those players up early amassing under the tree is too funny, and SO Christmas!
What eluded me: actually, I managed to get all the pets on my main character (I pilfered pets from my alts).
Love is in the Air
I like this holiday so much I dedicated a whole post to it . This is easier than rewriting stuff here :)Most fun achievement: first of all, the entire holiday is a vast improvement over what it used to be, and a lot of fun all around. But, that said, there isn’t one achievement that really sticks out as being the best. Dangerous Love would come close because the boss fight at the end of the quest line is my second most favorite boss fight.
Inspiration: for one achievement, you have to share a romantic picnic basket with someone and find true love. The image of Rock’s and my character sitting under the umbrella with hearts above their heads was so cute it became my wedding invitation.
What eluded me: the new boss fight also comes with the chance of looting a big rocket mount (complete with zebra-striped seats!). Alas, I did not see a mount drop the entire time. The Rocket is a Lie.
Lunar Festival
One of the less traditional WoW holidays taken from real life, this is a reference to the Chinese New Year. I’m not very familiar with the actual Chinese holiday but I believe some of the similarities are honoring the elders, fireworks, and gifts contained in red envelopes. But my ignorance is showing so, moving on…Most fun achievement: eh, I’m pretty neutral on this holiday because on the one hand, it is incredibly time consuming since you have to visit a ton of elders located all over the world; but, on the other hand, all of the achievements are very easy and the entire holiday is the least stressful one. Plus, it was relatively fun to watch ANTM reruns while flying from one elder to another.
Most interesting and least interesting boss: the holiday boss for this event is the only boss actually located in the world (as opposed to inside an instance), and it requires around 10 players to kill easily, and it doesn’t matter what faction the players are (everyone gets credit). So it is very neat to see a bunch of players, of all levels and of either faction, gather around to kill him. Sadly, he doesn’t drop anything remotely interesting, that I’m aware of.
Noblegarden
WoW’s version of Easter, complete with bunnies (oh, so cute, bunnehs!), colored easter eggs, chocolate eggs, and flowers everywhere.Most fun achievement: Spring Fling. Even bunnies are looking for love in WoW. If you park your pet bunny next to someone else’s bunny, they’ll fall in love, and little eggs pop up that hatch into baby bunnies!
Second most dreaded achievement: during the holiday you need to collect about 350 or so chocolates (I forget the number) in order to complete the other achievements. You get chocolates by finding hidden easter eggs in four specific towns…where every other player in the world is also trying to get 350 or so chocolates…my plan B, if I didn’t get the chocolates during my normal playing hours, was to wake up at 3 am…thankfully, it didn’t come to that.
What eluded me: another holiday with no boss :(
Children’s Week
Here we go. This is THE holiday most hated by the WoW community. See where it says “second most dreaded achievement” in Noblegarden? This is where you’ll see “the number one most dreaded achievement” that I also wish I could take out back and shoot in the head. But, besides that, I don’t dislike this holiday in general. I don’t think there is a real world counterpart to adopting a war orphan for a week and training him in the finer aspects of military life, including killing your enemies, touring dangerous locations, and killing deposed kings.Most fun achievement: Aw, Isn’t It Cute? is doubly fun in that you get to do a neat quest line and get a neat pet as a reward. The quest line involves taking three orphans out for some sightseeing (like a Big Brother, Big Sister kind of thing). The reactions from the NPC’s involved and the orphans are very, very cute and more than a little heart-warming :)
The MOST dreaded achievement: people have written EXTENSIVELY about the pain that is School of Hard Knocks. The PvP achievements required would be easy enough to do as they are a main component of the mechanics for that particular battleground, were it not for the horde of other players that are out to simply kill you (the enemy faction) or to diabolically impede your progress (your own f-ing team!). This achievement really does bring out the worst in people, from griefers who are there to purposely make other people miserable, to the regular players who are just there to get their damn achievement regardless of what it takes and how many teammates they have to screw over to do it. It turns battlegrounds upside down for an entire week and does the exact opposite of what the Blizzard team “envisions:” instead of getting people interested in PvP, it turns people off entirely. Argh, end rant.
What eluded me: actually, I can complain a lot about School of Hard Knocks, but I didn’t have as hard a time completing it as I thought I would. Hell, I even did it twice because Rock was too lazy to do it for his own character. I was definitely the most stressed out, out of any other holiday, but I was lucky enough to walk into battlegrounds where people, even enemy players, were actually helping each other (the enemy team purposely losing the flag and such). But I even complain about this because that is NOT what battlegrounds are supposed to be. I would much rather see them change the achievement to win a certain number of battles or kill a certain number of players. At least that is in keeping with the spirit of the battleground. Ok, now end rant…
No, wait, did I mention you only get one week to do this and that the holiday was on the same week that my family was visiting for my wedding and during which I got (obviously) married? Not a good time.
Midsummer
A reference to Midsummer celebrations during the summer solstice, the event has activities that are all fire related (breathing fire, juggling fire torches, dancing around a fire pole).Most fun achievement: Torch Juggler was the most fun achievement because I was completely dreading it until I realized how ridiculously easy it is to do :) And because when I was coaching Rock on how to do it I got to say “just click those keys like it’s Space Invaders at the arcade,” and he got it!
Once more around the world: the last of those holidays where you travel all over the world to visit or collect or do something. It was fun and cute during Hallow’s End (you’re trick or treating, how can it not be fun?), tolerable during Lunar Festival (I did it in October, it wasn’t so bad), and downright annoying during Midsummer (oh my god how many more places? I have to visit the alliance places also???).
What eluded me: another grindy holiday where you can complete quests every day to get tokens but it is literally impossible to get enough tokens to buy all of the special items…so I’m missing a pet.
Oh, god, I’m done.
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