by Mathew McCurley

Lord Ahune, the Frost Lord, hates fire. We, however, love fire! We’re celebrating fire for two weeks, and this party pooper needs to go. Kinaesthesia, has made an excellent video guiding players through the Ahune fight. The Ahune fight isn’t terribly complicated, but for newer players, players experiencing the Midsummer Fire Festival for the first time, or just people who love Kinesthesia’s boss tutorials, the video is definitely worth a watch. Check it out!

Read the rest of this entry »

by Allison Robert

This year, the Midsummer Fire Festival will go live at 3:00 am server time , June 21st and will run through 3:00 am Sunday, July 4th. While it doesn’t outwardly appear to be a very time-intensive holiday — the meta, awarding the Flame Warden title to Alliance players and Flame Keeper title to Horde players, consists of only six achievements — three of them will have you trekking all over the world.

We don’t believe that the holiday has changed significantly from its 2009 incarnation (if it has, the information hasn’t become available yet), but there have been a few changes to how you’ll do some of the achievements, and the holiday’s boss, Lord Ahune, also has an updated loot table. Consequently, I’ve updated and expanded our 2009 guide to reflect the changes we’re aware of.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Allison Robert

This week, I’d like to present the first set of evil achievements for your reading, wincing and antacid-chugging pleasure.

A note on judging the “evil value” of achievements: I’ve been adding to this list for a while, and it’s drawn from both the achievements we’ve covered in this column and some I’ve seen players complain about frequently in game. Obviously, there’s no real way to quantify exactly how difficult or excruciating achievements are, so I’m going with the definition I gave above. Any incredibly difficult or RNG-saturated achievement made the short list, but I also tried to keep some unusual picks in mind. In this vein, there’s an achievement in today’s column that, while extremely easy by today’s standards, was a screaming horror when it first debuted. I may wind up doing a list of honorable mentions as well.

So, in no particular order, I am pleased to present World of Warcraft‘s 25 most evil achievements, starting with #25-16 this week.

25. We Had It All Along *cough*

Read the rest of this entry »

source: http://www.alteracvolley.com/daily-quest-guide-midsummer-fire-festival/

The Midsummer Fire Festival is a great way to earn some fast gold for your level 80 characters or quickly get experience for your lower level toons. Unfortunately, two of the dailies that come with this in-game holiday require some above average eye-hand coordination. Those quests, More Torch Tossing and More Torch Catching, can both be completed in a minute or two with the right technique.

Since I’m a Horde player the above video shows me completing these quests in the Spirit Rise section of Thunder Bluff. In addition to the video tutorial, here are some notes for each quest:

More Torch Tossing

Before you accept the quest, make sure you have the quest item located on an easy to reach key on your toolbar. I have a secondary row in my interface devoted solely to obnoxious daily quest items so I can quickly hit a button and activate an item.

• The key to More Torch Tossing is all in your starting position. Try to place yourself in between the fire (so you can light the torches) and the center target.
• It’s also helpful to have your camera as far back and up as your computer can handle. I prefer to keep it at about a 45 degree angle as well.
• After each successful toss, quickly position your cursor back over the center target and activate the item. Then when the next target is lit up you can just click near it and re-center your cursor as you wait for the next one.
• If you happen to miss a target, or are late in clicking on one, take a second and let the next target pass without an attempt. This will get you back in sync with the rhythm and save you from constantly falling a second behind on each throw.

Read the rest of this entry »

Brazier of Dancing Flames, don’t we all love it? (especially the item icon) Problem is, that as soon as you move, you stop being a sexy sextail flame, and resume being your boring old self.
So how do you fix this?

Step 1: Get someone with a chopper / thundra mammoth
Step 2: Drop your brazier
Step 3: Get on the chopper
Step 4: /dance

Step 5:
http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/9362/screenshot070109011207.jpg
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/6066/screenshot070109011306.jpg

Read the rest of this entry »

by Alex Ziebart

While not the fastest way to earn Burning Blossoms, stealing the opposing faction’s flames is the most fun way to do it, I think. How do you steal the enemy’s flame, you ask? Easy! Run into the heart of their capital city and click on their bonfire. Okay, maybe that isn’t very easy, but knowing where you should be going makes it less difficult, at least.

To acquire to flames, simply run up to the bonfire and click on it like you would a chest or similar item. Once the casting bar has completed, the fire will be placed in your inventory automatically. Right click on that item to begin a quest, one quest for each fire. Unfortunately, these quests require level 50 to begin.

Alliance Flames

• Exodar – The Exodar Flame is one of the more hidden simply due to the town’s layout, but you’ll run into the least amount of player resistance here. You’ll find the Flame of Exodar in the back of The Crystal Hall, the northmost wing of the city’s three wings.
• Darnassus – You will run into a little more Alliance opposition here than in Exodar, since Alliance players generally pass through here to begin the Unusual Activity chain. Luckily, you don’t even need to enter Darnassus itself to reach the flame. It is in Rut’Theran Village, a few steps away from the dock to/from Auberdine.
• Ironforge – This is where you’ll see the most Alliance interference, most likely. The flame is in the Hall of Explorers, far in the back of the city. If you want to avoid going through the front door and getting slammed by all of the players auctioning and banking at the front of the city, I recommend doing the Stormwind flame first and using the Deeprun Tram since it will take you pretty close to the Hall of Explorers. If Stormwind is highly populated on your server, you may want to do it the other way around.
• Stormwind – This city has become fairly popular since The Burning Crusade, so this might challenge you more than Ironforge depending on your server. The Stormwind flame is just next to the Stockade. If you don’t know where the Stockade is, go west from the Trade District and across the first bridge you see. If you look north along the Canals, you’ll see the Stockade Meeting Stone. Run towards that, and the flame will be on your left. If you need to make a quick getaway or drop some heat from guard aggro, pop in there for a minute or two and people will forget all about you.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Natalie Mootz

a quick guide to getting your very own Tabard of Summer by completing the Shards of Ahune quest.

After you’ve taken down Lord Ahune in the Slave Pens, loot the Ice Chest he drops. If you get an item called Shards of Alune, you can right-click it to start the quest. Um, then the rest is ever so tough. You just trot yourself over to Luma Skymother, a female Tauren in the Slave Pens and complete the quest with her. She’ll give you 20 Burning Blossoms and your choice of tabards — either with Flames or Skies. Note that you need to be at least Level 66 to obtain and complete this quest.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Robin Torres

You don’t have to be level 70 to get in on most of the fun for this year’s Midsummer Fire Festival. Here is a guide to the minimum levels required (as stated by Kisirani) and recommended for each of the quests:

• Torch Tossing and Torch Catching have no minimum level requirement. Because you complete these quests in the safety of a capital city, any level is appropriate.
• Honoring the flames has no minimum level requirement. Unless you are 50+, however, the recommended level is the same as the level of the area you can comfortably hunt in.
• Desecrating flames also has no minimum level requirement, but considering it flags you for PvP even on a PvE server, do so at your own risk if you are low level.
• Incense for the Festival Scorchlings also has no minimum level and any level is recommended.
• Unusual Activitiy requires level 16, but I wouldn’t recommend lower than 20 given that you have to fight level 20 and 21 cultists and the area is rotten with level 20 Naga.
• A Thief’s Reward or stealing the flames in the other faction’s capital cities required a minimum level of 50, but if the flame is at all defended, it’s best to be level 70.
• Lord Ahune requires a minimum level of 65. Slave Pens is where he resides, the recommended level to complete this quest is 70 and it is easier if the 70s in your group are well-geared.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Allison Robert

It’s that time of year again, folks. Frankly, I’m glad to be back in the realm of more reasonable and just plain fun holiday achievements, because I hated School of Hard Knocks, and wound up giving up and quitting the achievement after hours of fruitless battleground deaths. Fortunately, the Fire Festival has a lot less potential to drive you to the nuthouse, and a lot more potential to grant experience, gold, and cool items. From what I’ve seen, Blizzard hasn’t changed the holiday since its 2008 incarnation, which is actually a good thing in a number of ways because last year’s revamped and expanded Fire Festival was great.

A note on eligibility: your character will need to be at least 50 to hand in the items needed for King of the Fire Festival, and at least 65 to get the higher-level quests necessary for killing Lord Ahune in Slave Pens. With that said, we still recommend that lower-level characters participate, because you’ll wind up with a ton of experience and gold even if you can’t complete the meta-achievement.

Should you complete the meta, you will be awarded the “Flame Keeper” title. I’ve listed all of the required achievements in the order I think will be easiest/fastest for the average player to do.

UPDATE: Your character is currently unable to honor/desecrate any flame (including city flames) that you’ve honored/desecrated in 2008, which will make getting enough Burning Blossoms to purchase Midsummer clothing difficult, if not impossible. I’m still trying to find official confirmation that this is a bug (and I assume it has to be, as otherwise the meta-achievement isn’t doable), but it also appears that fires have been added to Northrend as well. I’m heading ingame right now to assemble a list with coordinates and will update the post later.

Read the rest of this entry »