The Midsummer Fire Festival

[MongoJerry]

The Midsummer Fire Festival is a time of celebration for all of Azeroth. It's also a great time to sneak into the cities of the opposing faction. If you talk to the Fire Festival NPCs near the bonfires in your faction's home cities, one of them will mention that fires also burn in the major cities of the opposing faction. This is a broad hint that might find something of interest if you visited those bonfires.

The first Alliance city Neriad snuck into was Stormwind. Well really, there wasn't much sneaking involved. She rode straight through the main gate, dodging guards as best she could. She had managed to do this and live during the Lunar Festival earlier this year, but this time "Lagwind" grabbed a hold of her and slowed her down just enough for the Stormwind City Guards to catch up and pound her into the ground just in front of the famous Trias Cheese Shop. Neriad ghosted back to her corpse and, hoping to avoid being spotted by Alliance players, make the mistake of resurrecting inside the Cheese Shop itself. Unfortunately, Elaine Trias didn't take kindly to having an undead priest appear suddenly in her shop, and she began calling for the guards.

Neriad killed one Stormwind guard after another, without getting a chance to drink or step outside to mount up. After the fifth guard appeared, Neriad realized the situation was hopeless and knew that the best she could hope to do was run toward the Stormwind Fire Festival bonfire and make as much progress as she could. She ran outside and found about twenty Alliance players in the main square in addition to the usual Stormwind Guards. A timely psychic scream bought her a few more seconds, but she died in the tunnel leading to the canal district between the mage and trade quarters.

Alliance players were clearly going to be an annoyance on this adventure, and the situation was only going to get worse in Ironforge. So, Neriad came up with a new plan. She would dazzle the Alliance with her new Bloodsail Buccaneer outfit, complete with her Bloodsail Admiral's Hat and Blood Parrot!

You might be thinking, "MongoJerry is crazy! How would a Bloodsail outfit stop Alliance players from killing Neriad?" Well, yes, I am crazy. Thank-you for noticing. Nonetheless, the plan worked like a charm! Neriad rezed up, swapped into her pirate outfit (which has already been conveniently set up for one-button access in Itemrack), and ran toward the bonfire. This time, the same Alliance players who had just killed Neriad /cheered, /gasped, /questioned, and /clapped as she stole the Stormwind fire (she had to psychic scream the nearby guards to be able to steal the fire). After jumping into and swimming across the canal to lose the nettlesome Stormwind Guards, Neriad mounted up and had no more difficulty with Alliance players. She had a clear ride to the tram entrance, and as she boarded the tram, she wondered what her reception in Ironforge would be like.

As Neriad entered Ironforge via the Tinkertown entrance, she was almost immediately beset by Ironforge Guards. She ran all through the Explorer's League area, trying to find a place where the guards would leash. She finally found a spot in a dark corner near some abandoned buildings, where all but one guard leashed. Neriad dispatched the remaining guard with ease.

She then navigated her way toward the bonfire in the middle of the Explorer's League, while carefully avoiding any further guards. Nearby Alliance players stared at the strange sight of an undead Bloodsail Admiral taking some of their fire.

The Alliance players seemed to be such good sports that Neriad took some time to dance around the Fire Festival pole with them. A guard aggroed Neriad at this point, and as Neriad ran back to her spot to leash the guard, an Alliance warrior took a swing at her. However, as she turned around, the warrior apologized (/sorry) and walked away. Boy, if you put on a Bloodsail outfit, normally cutthroat Tichondrius turns out to be downright carebearish!

Neriad hearthed out and made her way to Teldrasil to get the last Alliance bonfire. This was by far the easiest of the three fires to get, because the bonfire is right out front by the docks. Neriad had to psychic scream a couple of guards, but otherwise, she had no problems getting to the fire.

Her hearthstone was still on cooldown, and as she waited on the dock for the boat ride home, a level 60 Alliance rogue chose to rp with her and show off his furbolg outfit rather than attack her. The Bloodsail pirate outfit saves the day again!

Neriad returned to Orgrimmar and clicked on the three items she received from the bonfires. Each one started a quest with festival related rewards. After all three quests were turned in, the Festival Talespinner offered a new followup quest called A Thief's Reward that gave Neriad her Crown of the Fire Festival.

And here Neriad is, sporting her new halo. It's no Bloodsail Admiral's Hat, of course, but it's quite becoming. It's nice to know that the new Bloodsail uniform is paying off, too. It seemed to disarm Neriad's potential foes with its sheik look and trim lines. Or it could be how much extra cleavage it shows. Whatever works.


This report officially inaugurates the "Spot Report" section of the Strategy section linked off the front page of the Lurker Lounge. Write your own spot reports of anything you find fun or interesting in the World of Warcraft, and you may find yourself immortalized off the front page of the Lurker Lounge!

[Tuftears]

Congrats!:D I didn't have much trouble sneaking the Horde fires myself with a friend druid kitty... There was one spot where a Horde hunter decided to play with the kitties by marking me at the bonfire, then initiating PVP - we gave him some worries, but didn't quite kill him. (we were both running nekkid, to avoid durability damage should we get spotted by the guards)

[Kevin]

My horde hunter on Terenas had some issues. I wore the flaming shoulders, a pitchfork with a fiery enchant and my blue overalls hoping to get cut a little slack. I started in IF and got smacked by a gnome rogue. I rezzed and got smacked by a NE rogue. I rezzed again and heard 3 rogues unstealth but they didn't smack me until after I had looted the fire. Then the gnome, NE, and human rogues pwned me. I never attempted to fight back. They let me rez up again and let me run to the tram though a dwarf warrior took up the chase. Because of that I didn't ride the tram but got down in the tracks and put cheetah up to get some distance. The chase stopped.

I got to SW mounted up and got over to the fire with no incident a feign death got the guards off me. I was almost done with getting the fire when I got shot by a little L36 dwarf hunter, interrupting me. I did the long ghost run back rezzed on the fire and managed to not get hit by two of his shots and got the fire. As I was leaving he and mage killed me though a few other alliance in the area seemed to try and stop them with their emotes and mourning my death and I had tried to get under bridge to mess with LoS so I could hearth but the mage messed that up and was really want got me with his AE. I ran back to SW and checked if I could get rezzed in any of the buildings. No luck. So I ran around the little hunter who was still there a few times with my ghost then headed to the water. As I hoped, he jumped in so that he could have LoS to pester me, so I went and got behind some boxes rezzed and hearthed out.

Getting to the fire in DN was no problem, no one was around so I just got passed the guards, did my FD and opened the fire. My heart still in cooldown I waited for the boat and ended up dancing with a NE rogue who seemed to like my flaming farmer outfit, which now includes the crown. I'll get a screeny of that and update when I get a chance.



I'd like to note that those trying to get the pet by touching all the flames in the dungeons, the flame in LBRS won't complete in a raid. We had 7 people on that quest after finishing a UBRS run last night and decided to get over to the flame only to find out that we couldn't get quest credit. Ah well.

I'd also like to know where the flames in DM and strat are. I haven't looked for them yet.

I know the LBRS is over by the Urok event and scholo is in the room where you set off Dawn's Gambit. Not sure where the others are but I would like to get them done on at least my hunter.

[Klaus]

The Dire Maul fire is in North. You'll pass it doing a tribute run. Sadly, I didn't have the fires quest when we went past it. Ah well.

I would like to get to all of these, but I don't know that I'll have the time this week. I'd love to do Scholo, because I have the Dawn's Gambit quest (I'd like the staff) and I need the headpiece. Getting the fire would be a bonus!

[oldmandennis]

Strat is at the entrance to the bastion. It's actually pretty handy if you have a druid solo healing - you can get rid of those 30min diseases there.

[MongoJerry]

The Dire Maul fire is in North. You'll pass it doing a tribute run. Sadly, I didn't have the fires quest when we went past it. Ah well.

Specifically, it's on the platform with the ogre tanin basket. The Strat one is where Timmy pops out during an SM Strat run.

[Watto44]

Just a heads-up. The quest from the enemy city fires has a minimum requirement. I've heard 50, which sounds about right. My level 47 shaman was able to get the fires in Stormwind and Ironforge without aggroing any guards from the fire (although I had to be careful of the wandering guards in IF). I also had a much harder time with players in IF than MongoJerry, and ended up having to out wait the campers. Luckily they got bored just before I finished my cup of tea and I managed to steal a bit of fire. :shuriken:

Unfortunately I was aggroing the guards from next to the fire in Darnassass no matter where I stood, and there are two wanderers come around a lot. I ended up having to MC-hat the stationary guard to tank the two pats. (I must say, I really don't like the nerf that the MC hat got. It's made it extremely situational in PvP for any non-stealth class. Luckily for engineering junkies like myself, the goblin rocket helm is as powerful as ever.) Don't ask why I bothered trying the other cities after discovering I couldn't get the first quest in Stormwind, but it was lots of fun trying. :P

Also, all the bonfires for Wild Fires in the Eastern Kingdoms are 'gettable' at level 20 - go go blink and mana shield!:)- although the Hinterlands was a nightmare until I made it to the road. My path to the Searing Gorge fire took me through the Burning Steppes and Blackrock Mountain, and for just about the first time ever I didn't get attacked in BRM, which kind of made up for getting camped in IF!

I was going to try Kalimdor as well, but the thought of running through Timbermaw Hold at level 20 was too much.:)

I really like these special events, although I must say I enjoyed the lunar festival a little more since it had a nice scavenger hunt feel to it.:)It's nice just to get out and roam around Azeroth for a little while.