Reflections on the soon-to-come end of my long, strange trip

It's almost here. With Fool For Love under my belt, I am about to reach the end of my long, strange trip. Once I earn To Honor Ones Elders, that will be it; the Violet Proto-Drake will be mine, and my year of work (ok, it will likely be a bit under eleven months, but who's counting?) will have finally paid off. I will finally have access to that long coveted 310% speed mount, and my Swift Flight Form will be updated to go that much faster as well. I'm not going to lie; I am absolutely giddy with anticipation.

How I got started on this long, strange trip is it's own story, because for the longest time, I refused to participate in the holidays. Though I didn't reach level 80 until early January back in 2009, I could have certainly started working on the holidays as soon as Hallow's End came after the achievements were first implemented, but I didn't. Why? Because I was afraid to fail. I know that's a silly fear to have about what is essentially solo content, but I didn't want to start the holidays if I knew there was a chance I may not be able to finish them. I also didn't want to divert my focus from leveling my main, so those two factors prevented me form working on Hallow's End and Winter Veil. Even after I hit 80, I didn't want to start on the achievements: the Lunar Festive seemed like too much work, and considering how much of Fool For Love was based on luck back in 2009, I didn't want to risk it knowing that I could be screwed out of the meta with just a bit of bad luck.

What finally got me into the holiday spirit, if you will, was Noblegarden. By the time Noblegarden came around, I was an avid reader of WoW.com (then wowinsider.com), and they came out with a post detailing what one needed to do to complete the Noblegarden achievements. I read through it and thought to myself, "Say, that doesn't seem so difficult." A few days later, I received my first meta. It was then that I realized that my fears about the holiday achievements were unfounded, and I did a complete 180° and resolved to earn the Violet Proto-Drake. That was almost a year ago, and I have formed quite a few memories in the process of attaining that goal.

Children's Week came next, and like many of you, I was worried about not being able to complete School of Hard Knocks. I went into the battlegrounds immediately to get that part of the meta over with quickly, and I fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of a collection of small miracles. I started in Arathi Basin, where I was able to capture the Blacksmith flag without too much effort. I then moved on to Eye of the Storm, where the Alliance and Horde took turns taking the flag from the center without trying to stop each other. Though I had to wait a bit, I was able to complete that criterion during my first battle. I then moved into Alterac Valley, where I fell behind the other people there on my way to the tower. I followed them anyways, hoping some kind-hearted hordie would risk life and limb to helps us get the achievement. So there we were, ten of us in one tower, and one person had already taken the flag. We waited a bit, and then we saw him: a Tauren Warrior with his orphan out. He stood in the doorway for a while to gauge our intentions, and when no one attacked him, he walked in and took the tower for the Horde. Then one of us took it for the Alliance. Then he took it back. Then another one of us took it back. It was a beautiful sight (at least to my care bear eyes; I'm sure dedicated PvP'ers are still horrified that the battlegrounds became a place of cooperation between the two factions that week.), and we all /thanked the warrior before /afk'ing out. I then queued for Warsong Gulch, which I knew would likely be the hardest part of School of Hard Knocks. Indeed, that round would have turned into a round of turtling if that band of hordies hadn't run in to take our flag. We let them pass and then nuked the flag bearer down, and wouldn't you know it, it landed right in front of me. I right clicked it, /afk'ed out, and thanked God it was over. I then completed the rest of the achievements without issue.

The Fire Festival meta didn't take me too long, since I had already interacted with all of the fires the year before. All I needed to do was kill Ahune (I had bad luck with groups the year before, but Blizzard's decision to not update him to level 80 made the process easy for me) and do the other two easy achievements. Brewfest was also pretty easy, and though I had to juggle starting college and doing those dailies every day, I managed the meta without much issue, and even got a Great Brewfest Kodo out of the holiday, as well as some direly needed trinkets for my tank set and healing set. The one difficult thing about the holiday was seeing Violet Proto-Drakes popping up around me and trying to not feel discouraged.

Hallow's End gave me more trouble than I thought it would. That tooth pick stubbornly refused to drop until the last few days of the holiday, so That Sparkling Smile stood incomplete in my achievement panel for quite some time. Sinister Calling also gave me quite a bit of trouble, for the Headless Horsemen didn't seem to want to drop the helm or the pet, but by running the boss every day, I got them both. Winter Veil wasn't too difficult, with the exception of With a Little Helper from My Friends. As a druid, if I shifted into any of my forms, I lost the little helper costume, meaning I couldn't really contribute meaningfully to the fight. After unsuccessfully trying to get honorable kills in Strand of the Ancients, I tried playing defense in Isle of Conquest by killing players with the turrets. That got me about ten kills a battle, and once I finally got fifty, I finally said a tearless goodbye to PvP.

As you can guess by the fact that it only took me two days to get Fool For Love, I didn't find those achievements particularly difficult. Fistful of Love was less than pleasant to do, but at least I confirmed that Troll Rogues and Undead Warriors do indeed exist on my server. What was a bit ironic were that the combos I had the most trouble finding (the previous two, as well as a Night Elf Priest and Orc Shaman) were all characters I either currently have or had in the past. My first character was an Undeed Warrior, my second one was a Troll Rogue, I rolled an Orc Shaman at some point in the past, any one of my current alts is a Night Elf Priest.

So it comes down to this. The Lunar Festival is the last event I will need to participate in in order to get my Violet Proto-Drake, and with the long weekend I have this week, I'll be able to take care of a good chunk of it early on. Still, as giddy as I am that I am finally going to complete this trip, this journey, this long-term goal, I can't help but wonder what will happen now. Will I still participate in the holidays? The reason I participated in them for the last year was the Violet Proto-Drake; once I have that, will I even bother anymore? Will the lure of cool vanity items alone be enough to draw me in? Or will I become like those curmudgeons who comment on WoW.com posts about the holidays by saying that if it doesn't offer gear or emblems, then they aren't interested, and are then immediately voted down? I hope not; even before the achievement system, the holidays were some of my favorite parts of the game. They gave a whimsical diversion form the usual rat race of gold and gear. If they keep evolving as they have in the past to fit the current game design, I'm sure they'll still interest me. I guess I'll just have to wait and see. One can't know the future while still living in the present.

Of course, all of this is assuming that some time in the next three weeks, the Alliance will be able to take Wintergrasp on my realm so that I can talk to Elder Bluewolf, a pretty big assumption to make. If I loose out on this one last meta because of that, I just may ragequit.