Outfit of the Month, or "Fists of the Phoenix"

Valentines Boss, or "Apothecary of LOVE!"

The Valentines holiday starts in two days and I know most of you are (or should be) as excited as I am. I'm particularly anxious because of the new boss, the fact that Birdy doesn't have any level 80 friends yet, and how much I want her (and another alt) to get that pretty new PINK mount.

The mount definitely drops off the Valentines boss, according to Wowhead's data-mined feat of strength "Big Love Rocket."

PINK HEART ROCKET!, or "Omg Pink Heart Rocket!"

Okay, so mmo-champion updated with two new patch mounts.

One is the thing that'll probably be super-wicked-hard-to-get from Arthas or as a related achievement. Death-horse-thing, boys may now go wild with enthusiasm:


Yah yah, whatev, it's badass.

The AWESOME thing is the big love rocket, which is pink and has hearts on it! SQUEEEE!


Boubouille thinks the love rocket will be a rare Valentines drop. :D It's supposition, but he's almost always correct.

Both mounts "change depending on your Riding skill and location."

Squeedle squeedle flail flail!

While I realize I have my pretty bird on Dusty, if this is a rare Valentines drop, I will be farming it on every single one of my characters. Call it the principle of the thing, if you like, since I've posted in the official forums and suggested a pink mount before, bringing forth the cleverness of the forum trolls in all their glory.

But in reality, it's a pink mount. Who wouldn't farm that to excess?

P.S. Post title changed from "Pink Love Rocket" because a friend has been to too many bachelorette parties and told me that's the name of a sex toy. *coughs uncomfortably* So yeah. Edited .

Pink Hippogryph Soon, or "They'd Never Make a Pink Mount Too Hard to Get... Right?"

The uber hardmode mounts are all hyper-masculine, so I'm hoping this will just be a new addition to the Argent Tournament mounts, or even a world event prize. Anyway, something I can solo on 6 characters no matter of level. That'd be perfect.

I'm on this like Tiger on catnip (so... I drool on things and then roll around in it).

Big thanks to Wowgirl for the heads up. :)

Valentines 2009, or "Yay, Hearts Everywhere!"

Feel free to check Valentines 2007 and 2008. Last year has the quest chain walkthrough. I'll edit this post as I go, and don't forget that Lunar Festival is still going and ends very soon.

Get to a city innkeeper (not Exodar or Silvermoon) and get cologne, perfume (both have 10 charges, so just grab them one at a time, no need for bulk) and a bunch of Love Tokens.

Once an hour, if you're wearing the appropriate scent (cologne for female guards, perfume for male), you can show your love to a city guard by giving them a Love Token (right-click, "can I give?"). DO NOT waste Love Tokens until the Adored debuff wears off! I'm seeing people running around tossing love at guards or civilians continuously -- this does not get you the good presents. It gets you the cheap pointless presents.*

Sometimes, instead of a gift, they'll break your heart. If you see others with broken hearts, toss a ring of friendship at them and it will heal them. This is an achievement now, so you shouldn't have to beg to get fixed anymore.

Last note, you get GIFTS of Adoration from civilians and PLEDGES of Adoration from guards. They hold the same items but you need 1 GIFT from each city for an achievement.

*The cheap presents used to be useful in acquiring the Faction Gift Collection. Which used to be the ONLY way to get a Peddlefeet pet. Now he's a random rare drop. So no need to bother unless you really really want to waste the time.

Required Items for Title Achievement
Title: "The Love Fool"

• 20 Unbestowed Friendship Bracelets
• 10 Silver Shafted Arrows
• 10 Love Rockets
• 3 Different City Gifts of Adoration (from civilians)
• 11 Handful of Rose Petals
• 4 Different Holiday Candies
• 1+ Bag of Candies
• 1 Bouquet of Red or Ebon Roses (boss drop)*
• 5 Love Fool
  

* The Red bouquet of roses was removed from the game as a drop, per a Blue post, and then put back in the game on the bosses that drop the Ebon bouquet, per a different Blue post.

Rare Drops from Pledges of Adoration
Gifts now soulbound.

• Peddlefeet Pet
• Romantic Picnic Basket
• Lovely Black Dress
• Love Rocket x5

Places You Have to Visit
And What You Do There

You need 5 Love Fools and at least 1 Handful of Rose Petals for this part. (Similar to handfuls of snowflakes at Winter Veil, the petals must go on characters with a specific race and class combination.)

1. Dalaran: Click on a romantic picnic basket. Someone else should join you. Win. (Does not have to be your basket, can be anyone's.)
   
2. Ironforge (A): Get a Gift of Adoration from a civilian. Drink until you get "smashed," perfume yourself, toss a Handful of Petals on Sraaz and /kiss him.
3. Stormwind (A): Get a Gift of Adoration from a civilian. Pick up Dangerous Love, covered in my 2008 post.
4. Darnassus (A): Get a Gift of Adoration from a civilian.
5. Undercity (H): Get a Gift of Adoration from a civilian. Drink until you get "smashed," perfume yourself, toss a Handful of Petals on Jeremiah Payson and /kiss him. Pick up Dangerous Love, covered in my 2008 post.
6. Orgrimmar (H): Get a Gift of Adoration from a civilian.
7. Thunder Bluff (H): Get a Gift of Adoration from a civilian.
8. Arathi Basin (Queue From a Battlemaster in Any City): Use a Love Fool at the blacksmith and /pity it, or /pity someone else's.
9. Wintergrasp (Northrend): Use a Love Fool and /pity it anywhere in the zone.
10. Gurubashi Arena (Stranglethorn Vale): Drop down in the ring that marks you for PVP, drop a Love Fool and /pity it, or /pity someone else's before you get killed.
11. Culling of Stratholm (Tanaris, Level 75 Required): Go to the Caverns of Time, enter the instance, drop your Love Fool, /pity it, exit. May have minimum level requirement.
    
12. Naxxramas (Northrend, Dragonblight, Winterguard Keep, Level 80? Required): Find a friend to join a group with you, convert to a raid (top of raid panel), enter the instance, drop your Love Fool, /pity it, exit. May have minimum level requirement.
13. Alterac Mountains (89, 75): Final turn-in spot for the Dangerous Love quest chain.
    

Dress Me Up, or "Yes, I Spent Years on This"

This one's for Escada.

My current collection is by no means complete. One of my greatest joys is collecting the pretty dresses, pets, and mounts that Warcraft has to offer, but I'm limited by the time the events run.

Collections. Dustfire's was made over the course of 2 years. Birdfall's has only had a chance to grow for half a year, since I remade her so recently. Please note that I don't include some very nice tailoring items due to their unlimited availability and bag space being at a premium.


There is one dress in the game that is (debatably) more rare than the Easter dress. This is the Formal Dangui which shows up on a vendor in Moonglade for 50g once every 2 months or so. I haven't been farming this dress, but my friend has because it can accept item level 60 enchants and has no level requirement to wear (thus, a fantastic twink item when Northrend enchants come out).

Early Birthday, or "I Got My Netherwhelps!"

Last month, I told you about how I asked my mom for the Burning Crusade Collector's Edition for my birthday (which is in November) for an account-load of Netherwhelps.

I found the unused keycode only for $25 on Amazon and poked and prodded her to get it right away, because that was all I wanted.

The guy emailed it to her and she forwarded it to me. ^_^

So this is what you do:

You Have an Unused Collector's Edition Keycode
but you also have a non-collector's edition version of the game installed

• Call Customer Support.
• Wait 10-20 minutes listening to very loud hold music.
• Talk to a very friendly support person and tell them "I have the collector's edition code but I already have the regular version. So I'd like to upgrade my keycode to the collector's edition version."
• The support person says "Of course!" and asks for the following information:
• Your name.
• Your login (account) name.
• The name that the account belongs to. (This must be your name.)
  
• Your secret question answer.
• Once that's all verified, you give the nice support person the new keycode and they repeat it back to you.
• They make sure you know that your original keycode can't be reused, and as long as you still want to go ahead knowing that, they activate the new one on your account.
• "Next time you log in, you should have your netherwhelps in the mail on all existing characters!"
  

I left out my general squealing and profuse gratitude, but the support lady was extremely nice and seemed genuinely excited for me. I ran to my computer after I hung up and logged onto Birdfall and found a Netherwhelp in her mail, and tried it on two other characters who also had them. Then I wondered if all my new characters would get one too, so I made a random blood elf guy and he had the same mail. Then I hopped on Dustfire to squee to my guild and take another screenshot. XD

So this is confirmed. It totally works.

Netherwhelp, or "I'm Going For It!... If My Mom Lets Me"

I've whined about the Netherwhelp being a collector's edition pet and used by morons who can't spell, but I've looked into how to get one and decided it's worth the effort. Especially because people say that all of your characters get one -- every character you ever create.

So I asked my mom to get me one for my birthday.

A World of Warcraft Burning Crusade Collector's Edition with an unused pet code, that is. I read on the forums that a) the market is glutted with BC:CE and b) people with the regular BC expansion pack have called support and updated their account to reflect the CE, and they've gotten their Netherwhelps in the in-game mail a few days later.

I looked on Amazon, and there are some factory-sealed editions going for $43 ($75 retail). If you're lucky on Ebay, you can get it for closer to $20 not including shipping (Hippogryph Hatchlings run in the $40+ range--I know because... well, I have to wait for my druid to hit 70 to give you that news, don't I?).

I'm perfectly willing to do this and confirm that it works for you dear readers, though it will be a hardship living with all those ultra-cute snugglies for the sake of the blog. I'll edit this post with a big red "confirmed" when it does and tell you exactly what I did for it. Unfortunately, confirmation probably won't happen until November, because that's when my birthday is.

If you've upgraded your BC account to a Collector's Edition in the past, or are going to do it soon, please reply with your story. The more confirmations we can get, the better. ^_^ Ty!

Confirmed [click to see details]

OMG PINK!, or "Colorful New Flying Mounts"

Cenarion Expedition flying mounts are now available for people with enough reputation to get one. And while I generally leave all the general announcements like this to real Warcraft news blogs, like MMO-Champion, or WoW Insider, there's a detail about the new mounts that caught my attention.

One of the Cenarion Expedition flying mounts is pink. Not bright glaring pink, but soft, gentle, bow-in-a-little-girl's-blonde-curls sort of pink. With equally flattering purple trimming.

So, while Dustfire is getting a phoenix, all of my others are going to go pink. So. Incredibly. Pink.

(Ok, I'm going to break down and get one for Dusty, too. But phoenix will be her main. ... Seriously, how can you resist the pink? It's impossible. And, I mean, come on. You need a screenshot of it in action, and in proper lighting. And I hate stealing other people's screenshots... So I'm doing it for the blog. Totally. Just for the blog.)

(Temporary Image from MMO-Champion)

But, as these are rumored to be 2,000g and I don't even have enough for my epic flight skill yet (5,000g), it will be a while.

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Edit: This is all you get for now, but wonderful Manasseh has informed me that Blizzard will release other colors in the future. He quoted them, "Other colors to be introduced in the future, including... Lilac..." Yays! So it's not here yet, but I'll give you a snazzy snapshot when it is.

Influx, or "It's About Time We Had a Pink Update"

It's time for PINK again, everybody! Today, on our list of pink guilds and items, we begin with the Pink Mageweave Shirt, which is wearable by anybody but fairly expensive to acquire, being made of mageweave. If, however, you're willing to buy some mageweave on an AH (3 bolts or 15 cloth), I'm sure a reputable tailor would be willing to make it for you -- for free if it's your guild tailor (and you're bringing them the mageweave, pink dye, and heavy silken thread), for a small fee if it's a stranger.

Lunar Festival, or "Finding Your Sugar Daddy"

Lunar Festival is an event, as defined in the Valentines post. It celebrates the lunar new year.

The fun part is that they have a lot of neat clothes, like pink dresses and black pantsuits. You need 5 coins per outfit, and you can get all of the clothing colors if you have enough coins. For example, I had my priest get both the pink and purple dresses, and together they were 10 coins.

Where do you get the coins? From daddy, of course. Daddy being over 70 "elders" spread across the world. Each elder gives you one coin, making me think of teenage girls asking dad for money to go shopping.

It is definitely beneficial to have traveled a good deal prior to this, otherwise you'll be walking everywhere.

Yes, you can get coins from elders without doing anything else Lunar Festival-ish. When you get the coins, take them to a giant moon portal thing (I've seen one in Darnassus and one in Stormwind) and do the very easy quest (shooting off fireworks) to get the invitation to Moonglade. Then click it while standing in the giant moonbeam and run north-ish to town. The guy you want is in the northeast corner of town, on the docks. I included a picture of him.

Men and women can wear both types of clothing, but they are soulbound, so you can't pick some up for a friend.

Tip: Ctrl-Click on the outfits to preview how they'd look on your character.

Love and Kittens, or "Further Adventures in Pinkness"

So the other day I saw another guild with a pink tabard called "Love and Kittens." One of its male members was getting down in nothing but his tabard while drinking Warcraft booze. Alongside him was a female character (played by a guy, maybe?) that somebody paid to dance in nothing but a pink shirt.

So if you're wondering why I didn't ask to interview "Love and Kittens," that'd be why.


In other news, my amazing sister-in-law just sent my priest (a tailor) the recipe for how to make pink shirts. Only problem is that the recipe requires 235 skill and my tailor is at 125.

15x Mageweave Cloth (or) 3x Mageweave Bolt

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Have YOU seen anything pink on your realm? Does your guild have a pink tabard? Reply to this post and tell your story.

Guild Interview, or "Rocking with the Very Pink 'Snugglebunnies of Doom'"

I'd been going on and on and on about pink tabards to my husband, so the other day when he was in Stormwind, he cried out, "I just saw someone with a pink tabard!"

I leaped out of my chair and ran over, demanding, "Who? Where? Show me!"

"They ran off," he replied.

"Follow them!" I screeched, gripping the back of his chair.

Instead, he opened the Social panel while I asked him questions like "How pink was it? Was it bright pink or soft pink? Because I like soft pink. What was the icon? What was the design?"

"It was pink. Just pink," he said, sounding harassed as he searched for her character level in the Who tab. He'd remembered her level, and he knew the name when he saw it.

"There," he said, pointing. "Her name is Frãye and she belongs to 'Snugglebunnies of Doom.'"

Guilds, or "Where are All the Pink Tabards?"

I admit it. I'm a girly-girl. I like baking, kittens, and wearing ruffled skirts. The first time I learned you could have a white kitten as a pet, I shrieked (with joy) and scared my husband half to death. I almost rolled on the floor in excitement, which isn't exactly "rolling on the floor laughing," but is about as close as I'll ever get to it. (Thank God.)

So my question is, where are all the pink tabards? Does anyone have a pink tabard? I went and looked at the tabard designs, dreaming of what might be, and this is what I came up with.