Quick Facts

Screenshots

Videos

Comments

Comment by AKdenton

Arguably the lamest holiday on the Warcraft calendar.

Comment by 628276

well.......... you get free food

Comment by 254062

The quest appears to be repeatable this year even if you've done it in the past.

Comment by Herukakaya

Honouring a Hero quest for Alliance and Horde

Comment by 610986

well, its easy and you get 500 rep with your faction (example: alliance + 500, horde + 500). Suppose thats something if you're trying for ambassador /shrug

Comment by Steensborg

You get 500 rep with "Alliance" or "Horde" even though you've got the ambassador title, the thing it grants rep to you there is a very weird "hidden" reputation panel only visible on the armory, I think im at 14k/21K with "Alliance", even though I've been ambassador since 2 days after the release of the achievement system.

Not sure if anyone knows what happens (or more, if anything happens) when you get this hidden faction to exalted status.

Comment by gamedisciple

I know that many think this holiday doesn't do much, but the food and drink from it does count toward two acheivements: Tastes Like Chicken and It's Happy Hour Somewhere. So grab some free grub and eat one of each! Happy holidays!

Comment by 821863

I've only been playing WoW for about 13 months now. I picked up the quest "Honoring a Hero" when I was a 20 or 30 and managed to finish it. By the time I got back to Ironforge, Wagner Hammerstrike was gone.

I kept this hunk of a yellow question mark around for a whole year. I've been waiting to meet Wagner Hammerstrike and to see what achievements the Harvest Festival would bring. Especially since it has been so long since the last world event. And then I get 16g, 54s. WTF?

Someone print me a "I went to the Harvest Festival and all I got was these lousy 16g." - t-shirt...

Comment by 879320

the in-game holidays are based on real holidays - this is good for a little change but a mount or pet is good for a little reminder of the fun had on the holiday that can last through the year

Comment by 782722

I understand the holiday isn't supposed to be about getting shiny goodies and such. It's about showing respect for your ancestors. I'm totally fine with that too. I don't really feel like doing any holiday grinding on my new Cataclysm characters right now anyway.

However, not having at least an achievement kind of defeats the purpose of it even being an in game holiday. No achievement or anything means most players will just ignore it and go about their daily raiding, questing, and PvPing. If they really want people to recognize the holiday, there kind of needs to be at least a tiny bit of incentive to pay attention to it.

Comment by 879962

I loved this quest. It was very well thought out with just the right amount of difficulty. I almost killed myself. Twice.

Comment by cobra807

By the way, People that think you get nothing from this holiday, you do get an item called bounty of the harvest which is cool if you like to collect stuff. I do this holiday just because its a fun way to get to know other things about the world I never knew. I never knew about october fest untill I played brewfest in wow.

Thats kind of how I get my info, I learn alot from funny comedians on youtube. With wow its fun, its engaging, and you get some info from it to.

Dwyers caber, a trinket from firelands, I learned what caber tossing is.

I hope that after people read this that holidays and in game playthroughs are not just about collecting, but for the experiences and also the things you learn from them.

Wow is chock full of potential things that a player can learn and become more knowledgeable, just like anything else in life, such as bowling in real life, going to school, reading a book E.T.C.

The point is, experiences are what you make of them. If you think that the harvest festival is the lamest event in the world, then it is going to be. How you perceive determines your reality.

Happy world eventing. :)

Comment by thenixie

While it may not make much of a difference to those who are unhappy they don't get some "thing" or achieve from this holiday, those who are interested in WoW Lore sometimes find this one of the game's most rewarding events. For those unfamiliar with the lore:

Uther, honored by the alliance's quest, was the Paladin who trained Arthas. When Arthas decided that the only way to prevent the scourge was to kill every man, woman, and child in Stratholme, whether they had been infected or not, "just in case," Uther refused to help him commit genocide.

To the alliance, Uther is the righteous paladin who refused to murder innocents rather than try to find a better solution - even at the cost of disobeying his future king. (When Arthas murdered his own father, and became the Lich King rather than Lordaeron's king, this seemed to be borne out as 'a decision not to support the wrong man in doing the wrong thing').
To the scourged denizens of Undercity, Uther is the coward who could not stand and do what was necessary - resulting in their becoming 'cursed' as undead. Adding insult to injury, the undead are not welcome among their former human peers.

On the other side of things, Grom Hellscream was the first orc leader to accept the demonic taint that turned Azerothian orcs green. Having recognized that this deal was a deception, delivering his people as slaves to the Burning Legion, Grom then stood against Mannoroth in combat. Though he died, he did succeed in freeing his people from demonic servitude. (Before the Nagrand quest line was removed in Cataclysm, players could return to the brown-skinned Mag'har orcs, find Grom's son grieving that his father had sold his people out - and see Thrall tell Garrosh the story of his father's heroism in saving all of the orcish people, restoring the son's confidence and making him able to lead his people).

To the orcs, Grom is the hero who delivered them from slavery. Thrall's Horde revere him as a liberator.
To the alliance, Grom is the miserable sucker whose actions resulted in the orcs invading Azeroth and brought the threat of the Burning Legion back to their doorstep.

In each case, it is easy to see how one side's hero is the other side's demon. In addition to a reminder of the complexity of the rich lore and history that Blizz has created for Azeroth, it is also a reminder that, as the song says, "on each end of the rifle, we're the same." So much of WoW is built around the 'differences' and disputes between Horde and Alliance - this tiny event, consisting of just two quests, makes a small but visible statement that the thousands of differences we think we see are not nearly as significant as the similarities that we overlook - and in doing so, makes an equally strong statement about the nature of war, of 'enemies', and of our ability to 'dehumanize' an opponent to make it easier to hate and kill while forgetting the far greater number of things that link us and make us the same.

Every autumn, our guild gets together and makes a group procession from Splintertree to Grom's Monument, and does the quest together. In addition to the lore, we take the time to recognize that many of the people in our guild are people who might be 'other' or 'stranger' to us if we had met on the street - and appreciate the things that bring us together, rather than what divides us. Then we all hop over to the server where our alliance guild office is, and make the trip to Uther's together as well.

People who need a "reward" in order to do something, else it just isn't worth bothering - probably wouldn't enjoy this event. Its only reward is information and thought, and those two approaches to 'reward' generally don't mesh. However, the fact that the reward it gives is something that one person doesn't value does not make the event or the reward 'lame,' any more than PvP is lame just because I don't enjoy it. WoW has something to offer to many different types of people - hence the huge player base. Some of it won't offer anything to you - which only means it isn't your cup of tea. Doesn't make it bad tea....

(The song is "Christmas in the Trenches, about WWI's Christmas Truce, where soldiers on both sides of the line suspended hostilites and celebrated the Season of Peace together)

Edited to correct my endless typos.
Edit: 9/2013 Added hyperlink to Christmas in the Trenches

Comment by barcs

Here I was thinking we'd get food buffs, achievements and other cool stuff, but there is literally nothing but a single quest and boring food.

Links

Harvest Festival

Related

Contribute