WoW Review: Noblegarden

As with many in-game events over the last year or so, Blizzard has revamped Noblegarden to improve its quality and add achievements. I've got a good handle on the events that are available in-game, having completed nearly all the achievements already. I'll polish off my last two (Chocoholic and Shake Your Bunny Maker) later today, most likely, assuming all the female dwarves aren't in hiding.

The first thing that stands out about this event is the expansion of the egg hunt. In past years, egg hunting has been a painful process because there were too few egg spawns and too many egg hunters. That has all changed this time around. Egg spawns in the starting towns - Razor Hill, Goldshire, Kharanos, Bloodhoof Village, Brill, etc. - are astronomical. Its very hard not to be able to get eggs in a reasonable amount of time. Sure, it might start off slow, but once you start figuring out where the eggs spawn, its easy as pie. There's a daily quest to collect egg shells, which rewards you with gold based on your level and another event item. There's also a one-time quest to collect 10 Noblegarden chocolates. Those chocolates drop out of 90% of the eggs you pick up.

The event vendors deal in chocolates, so that acts as a currency, as well. There's all sorts of fancy things you can buy such as a vanity pet and, for mages, a new polymorph. Many of the items on the vendor, including the pet and clothing, are needed to finish the holiday achievements. However, if you're lucky enough, it is possible to get all these items except for the placeable egg from opening the eggs you find around town. In my case, I got anxious to get the Spring Rabbit, so after about 200 eggs with no pet, I decided to just purchase it for the 100 chocolates. Not surprisingly when I went out to find more eggs the next day I got three pets to drop, all of which I can't use, can't give away and can't sell. If I had it to do over again, I'd farm all the chocolates I need, then take stock of the achievement items I still need and buy them from the vendor - likely that would have saved me a bit of work. But, like I mentioned, the eggs are easy to find, so it takes no time at all - especially during non-peak hours - to farm up the chocolates needed.

Once you get all the event items needed for the achievements, its simply a matter of doing a lot of travel around old Azeroth, preferably with a friend, and sitting around Dalaran trying to toss bunny ears on unsuspecting females of at least 18th level (no jailbait!) from each race.

I praise Blizzard for taking the luck factor out of getting clearing all these achievements to receive the title "the Noble" and adding to the meta achievement to obtain the Violet Proto-Drake. If you don't get the items you need in the eggs, you can buy all the same things from the vendor with chocolates.

The only real down side is the fact that egg hunting can be tedious sometimes, and I'd avoid the more heavily populated starting towns, like Goldshire and Razor Hill, at peak hours. You also might want to bring a partner along for some of the achievements, because they're needed for one and preferable to have around for another.

All in all this is a great event. I think Blizzard is finally starting to understand how to handle these events and create the achievements for them. Children's Week doesn't promise to be quite as easy next week, with both a PVP-based and a dungeon-based achievement required to get the title and work toward the ultimate event meta achievement.