Blog Azeroth Shared Topic: A Little Sugar Goes a Long Way...

This week's Blog Azeroth Shared Topic comes from Mataoka of Sugar & Blood. It prompts:

"[C]onsider the nicest, cutest, sappiest, and sweetest quests in the game; nothing sad or depressing but sweet and light."

Personally my favorite "nice" quest in the game is Orphans Like Cookies Too! in Stormwind City. It's one of the random daily cooking quests and tasks you with searching the various inns and general stores throughout the city to gather bags of confectioners' sugar to help Robby Flay finish a batch of cookies for the city's orphans. It's short, simple, and sweet as a sugar cookie. =P

One of the reasons I like the quest (outside the obvious fact that you're baking cookies for orphans. Cookies. For orphans.) is that it's all the more meaningful if you've paid attention to WarCraft's lore. The cookies aren't just being baked out of the blue, they're being baked at the behest of King Varian Wrynn, who was himself orphaned at the end of the First War. Despite becoming one of the most powerful figures in the Alliance, it seems he's still able to spare some thought towards making the days of his city's most misfortunate a little bit brighter. A little sugar goes a long way, indeed.



PS: I totally didn't realize that the Confectioners' Sugar could be purchased from certain vendors around the city until I looked at the WoWhead comments while writing this post. I thought they were only obtained from looting the Sack of Confectioner's [sic] Sugar objects at the inns and stores. /facepalm

Blog Azeroth Shared Topic: Favorite Vanity Items

This week, I've decided to participate in the Blog Azeroth Shared Topic. The prompt is from Noahdeer from the blog Be MOP, and states:

World of Warcraft is known to have a lot of vanity items that you can collect from your adventures and in this expansion Blizzard introduced even more of these silly cosmetic items into the game.

This week's Shared Topic is, "What is your favorite vanity item in World of Warcraft?"

While I'm not particularly sure I can choose a single favorite vanity item - there are so many amazing ones to choose from nowadays, such as the Puntable Marmot and The Golden Banana - I do have a particularly beloved, ultra-flashy combination that is /dancing with a Brazier of Dancing Flames while under the effects of a Super Simian Sphere.

Caution: Wear protective eyewear before viewing full size.

Can you imagine the retina-searing effect if it could be combined with Blinding Light? No one would ever dare make fun of Paladins ever again. Well, no one except Demon Hunters, perhaps. =P

However, if I were to choose a single item to spotlight - which I probably should to at least try to follow the prompt - I think I would go with the Essence of the Breeze. This item is occasionally dropped by Ai-Ran the Shifting Cloud in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, and though its visual flair is quite negligible (aren't you relieved?), its on-use effect more than makes up for it. "Unleash a gentle breeze, lightening your steps" might sound somewhat cryptic, but the result is actually pretty simple: it gives you a 10-minute long buff that causes you to be propelled forward a short distance every time you jump. If you choose to be creative (or read the comments on WoWhead), you can find a few practical uses for this item, but quite honestly it's just flat-out fun to jump around Pandaria like an over-caffeinated Virmen.

A word of caution before you go hopping about near cliffs and off ledges: the Essence of the Breeze does not include a slow fall effect, so be sure to bring one along or else you might find yourself in need of an Essence of the Spatula to scrape your corpse off the Pandarian landscape before you can resurrect. XD

10 Changes That Will Make The Stockade More Heroic

Wow!  It seems that my last post about 10 Changes That Will Make Deadmines More Heroic has become the most popular post on my blog by far (nearly twice as popular as the main page, in fact  o.O)!  On top of that, my 10 Changes That Will Make ___ More Heroic (where ___ is any single old-world dungeon) suggestion has been accepted as this week's Blog Azeroth shared topic!  I highly encourage you all to check out Relevart's suggestions for Ragefire Chasm, as well as Darkpurple's suggestions for Scarlet Monestary and Xeoneo's suggestions for Maraudon (all of which are more serious than my Deadmines post, as well as much better thought out and would seem like genuinely cool instances).

Anyway, to celebrate the above (and because it's been nearly 2 weeks since my last post  >.>), I bring you volume 2: 10 Changes That Will Make The Stockade More Heroic!

1. The Stockade has been renamed "The Stock-Cade", and is now a fully stocked arcade!
2. All bosses must be beaten via minigame challenges.
3. New limited resource system—quarters!
4. For added realism, it will cost 1 gold to continue in the instance after a wipe.
5. A brand new randomized miniboss encounter has been added to the instance.  Alternates daily between Whack-A-Gnome, Pin the Tail on the Tauren, and Skee-Ballistae!
6. The left wing of the instance is now a Space Invaders-like gauntlet involving Gnomish flying machines and harpoon guns!
7. Loot is no longer randomized!  Instead, it can be chosen by players...via the Claw game.
8. The Stock-Cade is open from 2pm to 4am on weekdays, and 10am to 6am on weekends.  However, private after-hours parties can be scheduled for a small fee.  No food, drinks, or pets allowed.
   
9. Fierce gaming tournaments will be held in The Stock-Cade daily, including Bejewelcrafted, Gold-Peggling, Mega Mash Siblings, Road Brawler Theta, and Dance Dance WaaauughhASpiderIsEatingMyFace...olution.
10. Oh, and as for the prisoners...they're in another castle.  ;)
    

10 Changes That Will Make Deadmines More Heroic

1. The Defias Traitor now offers a new daily heroic quest: The Big Pay. It sends you into Heroic Deadmines to acquire the Head of VanCleef, and pays double the normal daily quest reward amount.
2. Rhahk'Zor is now a two-headed ogre. Both heads have to be killed simultaneously, else the living head will resurrect the dead one. Aggro speech changed to "VanCleef pay bigger for your heads!"
3. Miner Johnson promoted to Majer Johnson (yes, the misspelling is intentional). He now dual wields mining picks.
4. The Sneed's Shredder encounter is now a vehicle fight for which players have to use catapults, motorcycles, ballistae, siege vehicles, and/or gnomish flying machines to succeed. However, the shredder itself is still susceptible to the Gnomish Universal Remote.
5. Sneed himself must now be fought by all 5 players jumping into his Shredder (now a 5-person vehicle) and using it to stop him. Two players stand on the shoulders and attack via the newly built-in turrets, one pilots and repairs the shredder, one manages the saw blade and fuel supplies, and the last uses the grappling arm to grab planks of lumber for repairing and barrels of pyrite for fuel. Combat pets can sit in front of the primary screen and play StarCraft: Brood War*.
6. Gilnid is now known as The Smelterer, and now smeltinates the foundryside with cool new abilities like Molten Ore and Melt Metal.
7. Mr. Smite has fallen in love and started a family. Players now face not Mr. Smite alone, but the bovines he commands (namely Mrs. Smite and the Smite-ettes). The Smite family now improvises with interpretive dance. Your party will have to /dance for supremacy. To facilitate this, the Dance Battle System will finally make it into the game!
8. Cookie has hired an apprentice...an ooze named Cream. Additionally, the pair now have a chance to drop main and off-hand fist weapons with brand new models—salt and pepper shakers! Hooray! Be warned, though, defeating one will cause the other to kick it up a notch. BAM!
9. In an effort to become more politically correct, Captain Greenskin has been renamed Captain Jadepidermis. Also, he can now summon sharks. With friggin' laser beams. On their heads.
10. Regular Deadmines was merely a setback! The Defias Kingpin has returned...with a vengeance! Edwin VanCleef has upgraded his Madcap's Outfit to a complete set of Totally Triumphant VanCleef's Battlegear, and now dual wields pirates who dual wield cutlasses. Also, those cutlasses have a chance on strike to summon ninjas. Ninjas with turtles. Teenage ninjas with turtles. Mutant turtles. And also a giant sewer rat. Plus, he's now 34.33% (repeating, of course) Cleefier than ever before.

*: For those of you who don't get the reference, see this.