Lunar Festival Highlights

The Lunar Festival in the World of Warcraft coincides with our Chinese New Year. Every year the druids of Moonglade hold a celebration of their city's great triumph over an ancient evil. During the Lunar Festival, citizens of Azeroth have the opportunity to honor their elders by celebrating their sage wisdom, sharing in magnificent feasts, and of course...shooting fireworks!  Elder Ghosts are found throughout the world of Azeroth and each time players finds a new Elder, they receive a token that can be redeemed for special holiday-related items.  I wanted to earn the Purple Festival Dress [cost: 5 Coins of Ancestry] and the Lantern companion [cost: 50 Coins of Ancestry].

Imagine my shock and chagrin when I realized that it meant traveling and exploring all the continents of the in-game world, including some places in Horde territory.  Fortunately for me, Vier had only done a bit of the festival a long time ago and she was game to take me to meet all of the Elders.  Even with Vier's savvy and expertise, I got killed a couple of times and she even got surprised and killed once.  The Festival it seems, is not for the faint of heart.  We started off in Moonglade.  Drank some Moonglow and fired off a few rocket clusters.

In hindsight, again a World Event that offers little opportunity to participate for low level characters.  There is no way I could have traveled to all the elders on foot.  Highly unlikely that I would have survived any attempt at speaking with an Elder in Horde territory.  I love to explore the world and word on the internets is that Blizzard is keen for me to do so.  Why then make it impossible for low levels to participate?  Very Frustrating.

Now that I've had my little rant, some screenshots of our adventures.

Off we went with Vier as her Obsidian Nightwing and me riding on her back. We over flew and discovered a lot of new territory for my character.  Here we are overflying Sar'theris Stand.  No, I didn't get screenshots of every place we were, just a few in fact!

Approaching the Twin Colossals, Vier had to go AFK for a bit.

She tucked me into a safe corner to wait for her return.  I was practicing summoning pets.  With my newly learned skill of "left-click and drag" to move the camera around, I took a gazillion screenshots.   Here's one with Tamm out.

It's quite the trick to get everyone lined up and facing the same way, with none of the on-screen labels obscuring anything.  No way could I get it all done and have Orangey Cu facing the camera!

Here we are leaving the Twin Colossals, over-flying the nasty red beasts

By the time we were overflying Tanaris, I had leveled up to 28!

We had to kill a Sandstone Golem to get to the elder at the Valley of the Watchers.

We followed some mysterious tracks in the desert at the Southmoon Ruins

I leveled up again to 29 by the time we were overflying the Blasted Lands

Discovered Ironforge_Airfield,

and New Tinkertown where we encountered some bad guys.  This is where we both died, me a couple of times and were it took some strategy and low flying and hovering to grab the Elder!

By the time we left and were overflying Dun Morogh, I had leveled up to 30 and my gear and equipment were in bad shape.  This is the first time I saw that red guy over on the right of the screenshot.

Overflying the Howling Fjord, Vier spotted something she had never seen before.  Lucky for me, she was eager to investigate. ... It was High  --  Lair  --  Eee  --  Us! ... ...  A Turtle Boat!

Here we are on the upper deck of the turtle boat, riding Vier's rocket

 A boat structure built on the shell of a turtle, propelled by dangling some carrots in front of the turtle's nose.  Literally!

Check out Vier's Rhino pet "Taxi"!

 We'll see if I can ever find it again once I get my flying mount at level 60, or get the super powers granted to a level 90 character.  At the end of the day, I wanted to go "home", so Vier took us to a point where I could grab a hippogryph ride back to Azuremyst Isles.

There you have it, some highlights of the Lunar Festival 2014.

Nor.