Knifey's Brewfest Adventure
When Knifey was working his way towards getting a ram, and avoiding the mechanostrider as much as possible, Melmoth helpfully pointed out that the popular Brewfest in October offers a swift ram mount that can be gained by repeating some daily quests for a week. Brewfest didn't come around quickly enough before Knifey reached 60 and got his ram, but it's here now and I thought I'd see what all the fuss is about.
Brewfest is another time of celebration in Azeroth, this time it is all about the beer. Naturally, this makes it a Dwarven celebration, and you can't turn around without stumbling in to another beer-drenched beard. The initial quests I pick up are simple enough. I use something to hit some robot, complete a quest to collect a beer stein, and do something with something else to... I dunno. It isn't even a state of drunkeness that's preventing me from remembering, it is all just a bit of a blur because of the sheer number of people running around and the overall lack of interaction with most of the quests, unlike the Midsummer celebration quests.
I find my way to the ram master and collect some reigns, which let me participate in the quests I actually get involved with. The introductory quest has me learning how to ride the Brewfest ram, loosening the reigns on the ram to let it speed up. I maintain three separate speeds for eight seconds each and am able to take the learner plates off the ram's tail for further quests. The ram master asks me to pick up a few kegs from Kharanos, allowing me to keep the ram for a full four minutes even if I complete the quest sooner. This lets me accidentally find out about exhausting the mount and the usefulness of the apple barrels he had mentioned but to which I had previously paid no attention, mostly because I hadn't seen them for what they were.
Finding the apple barrels, and thus the route I was supposed to be following, makes his repeatable quest easier. I am to collect kegs as before, but as many as I can manage this time and for each keg I collect I will be able to ride the mount for an extra thirty seconds. As someone who greatly enjoys efficiency this appeals to me. I push my mount at full speed and work out a quick route between each barrel of apples, keeping my mount refreshed despite riding at full pelt, as well as determining how close I need to get to collect and drop off each keg. The apple barrel next to the keg pick-up point isn't necessary, I discover, and I keep my mount riding at full speed for quite a time, picking up a chunk of reward tokens when my time is over. The next time I do this quest I should be able to gain even more tokens.
This leaves one more quest for the day that I can see, to be a caller for the Brewfest. I am to ride a Brewfest ram up in to Ironforge and holler at the flags outside four of the major quarters of the city about the festival happening down the mountainside. After my success with the keg delivery I think this will be pretty easy. However, I soon notice a distinct lack of apple barrels in Ironforge and I am quickly tiring my mount. I hold back on the reigns as much as I can, but with only had four minutes to complete the quest I need to keep pushing. Luckily, I am a sneaky rogue. Rushing around the four flag areas and calling out as required leaves my ram exhausted but I don't need it to hand in the quest. With the ram knackered, I dismiss it and get on the saddle of my own swift riding ram, easier to handle and never tiring, and ride down the mountain to hand in the quest in plenty of time.
After all of this dedicated celebrating I speak to the trader who swaps tokens for gifts, wondering how many I would need to collect before I could pick up a Brewfest ram of my own. Hmm, none for sale, maybe the ram master has them instead. Nope, he doesn't want to talk to me any more. I ask around and it turns out that the rams are no longer for trade, instead a boss has to be defeated in Blackrock Depths, in the style of the Headless Horseman of Halloween. Whilst the daily quest formula can be most enjoyable it appears that I am not quite high enough level to pick up the Brewfest quest, and so a Brewfest ram is out of my reach for now. Being teetotal, the Beer of the Month club isn't of particular interest to me either, nor is the portable keg. Ah well, I may not be indulging in Brewfest again until I reach 70th level, but with halloween coming up I have a clear motivation to reaching a level where I can take on the Headless Horseman in the Scarlet Monastery.
23rd September 2008 at 5.36 pm
It utterly sucks that you can't purchase the ram any more, it just feels as though Blizzard have turned it into another raid situation to satisfy the end-gamers, rather than letting people work for it primarily by themselves as they can with, say, the Netherdrakes.
Sorry to hear that you won't get your ram, I think Knifey would have looked most splendid on one.
24th September 2008 at 7.27 am
If the Brewfest daily quest is similar the Headless Horseman then I think it is a good addition, although I think it should have been clearly an addition and not a replacement. I don't see why the ram was taken away as a purchase, particularly when it means it is no longer available to a character of 60th level.
It is disappointing that the quest doesn't cater to different levels, with scalable loot tables, resulting in the festival being most enjoyable for end-game characters, as you say.
26th September 2008 at 12.47 pm
Another strike against the casual player. The wife and I'd planned on getting riding rams for our Draenei. Six hooves being better than two they say. We've not reached level 40 yet, but Blizzard lowered the beam for riding to 30, yay, and then pulls this stunt and yanked the brew fest rams away from them forever, boo! Now we have to work harder for the Dwarves, and have someone farm Runecloth for us (or whatever the Alliance want for reputation increases) so we can get common Rams. >:|
29th September 2008 at 9.29 pm
It is odd, because it removes the casual player from the special event entirely, as Melmoth points out. I don't quite understand why they are being so exclusive about Brewfest, only allowing the interesting events to be completed by players at the level cap.
It's possible that because the next level-raising expansion is a couple of months away Blizzard is expecting most players to be at the level cap, but it cannot have been too difficult to include a couple more tiers of equipment to be included had the Brewfest event quest been available to a different levels.