What a Long, Strangle Trip It's Been
Posted by 
Heartbourne on Monday, September 21, 2009 - 16 Comments Tags: Mount, brewfest, hallow's end, violet proto drake
Heartbourne on Monday, September 21, 2009 - 16 Comments Tags: Mount, brewfest, hallow's end, violet proto drake 
I finally achieved the elusive What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been, the achievement for completing the main achievements for all the major holidays. It awards the Violet Proto-Drake, which is an epic 310% movement speed flying mount, currently among the fastest in the game. Players who receive the achievement get their drakes in the mail from Alexstrasza, with the following message:With the drums of war pounding in the distance, it is easy for the denizens of Azeroth to forget all that life has to offer.
You, on the other hand, have maintained the dignity of the good races of Azeroth with your ability to remember what we fight for. To not celebrate our victories is another form of defeat. Remember that well, Reveler.
May others be inspired by your good cheer,
Alexstrasza the Life-Binder
Note that I corrected Alexstrasza's misspelling of "remember", which was written as "remeber". Come on, Blizzard!
Its very curious to me where Alexstrasza is getting all of these drakes from and how she is fitting them in the mail. She also sends the Red Proto-Drake to players who complete Glory of the Hero.
There are a lot of controversies surrounding the Violet Proto-Drake. The number of 310% move speed mounts is extremely small, and most of the others can only be obtained by completing very difficult raid achievements when the content is still very new. The other 310% are the Black Proto-Drake, Plagued Proto-Drake, Ironbound Proto-Drake, and the Rusted Proto-Drake. Aside from the Violet Proto-Drake, you must be in a progression raiding guild to obtain one of these super-fast mounts.
Is it fair that players who just participate in all of the holidays can get one of these mounts? They will likely be pretty common by the end of Brewfest, and even more common by Hallow's End, which was the first holiday the occur after the launch of the achievement system last year. I personally will enjoy my Violet Proto-Drake and won't complain.
The other issue is that there is no reason to use other mounts once a player obtains a 310% movement speed mount. I love my Sunreaver Dragonhawk, Turbo-charged Flying Machine, and Green Proto-Drake, but they will not see the light of day when I'm flying around, as they are slower than my Violet Proto-Drake. Its really a pity, because I put a lot of effort into getting those mounts and they are really cool. Blizzard has said that they might do this in the future, but for now, I'm stuck flaunting only one of my flying mounts.
Should Blizzard scale mounts up with riding skill, including those at 150% movement speed?
Reader Comments (16)
For sure... I want to use my Headless Horseman's Mount forever!
I'm still unsure as to why the mount speed trinkets where removed? Has this ever been answered?
i think they removed the trinkets because all they can do with mounts as they bring out new expansions is either make them faster and change what they look like. if they make them faster they cant have ppl going too fast haha.
and anyway ist the wpic flyer fast enough for you?
Time-Lost Proto isn't 310% speed mount. It's just 280%. I almost had one, since I had made it a habit to spam my targeting macro every time I flew through its spawn areas but someone had been actively hunting it and beat me to the tag. So I clapped for the lucky dwarf. Then he tried to kill me. I hate sore winners, so I made sure he was a very dead winner.
As for the Violet Proto Drakes, I thought about how many people are going to have 310% speed mounts now, but if you've got a year at max level to invest, I think you can claim your speedier flight well-earned. I have to wait till Noblegarden to finish up. But I can't wait.
I would have had mine this Winterfest Holiday but I missed the 2 holidays in April due to me moving.
Already have mine, and my 100 mounts achievement mount.. which is only 280% speed :\
Fixed the Time-lost thing. Thought it was 310!
During Brewfest last year I don't what I was doing but I didn't get any of the clothing back then or join the brew of the month club so that means I still need to wait a bit more for my proto... 137 tokens needed still, I think I will get it on wednesday as long I dont screw up the ram racing (i.em Brew keg delivery "quest")
Imo kinda unfair though that US players can get 40 extra tokens from the Pink Elekk zapping quest but it wasn't fixed/added for EU players, but then again whenever was Blizz equally fair with anything in WoW? Always something the other side has and the other side doesnt..
I don't think it would have been too hard to squeeze in some method to get the 40 extra tokens for EU players still, like maybe adding the 40 extras to the quest you get from the item that Coren drops, you can only do it once per character anyway so it doesn't really make that big of a difference, unless Blizz is going to (I hope) add the Elekk quest to EU players during the next maintenance
I dunno, I think maybe you should have the option to scale them up or not. I know that I keep a regular mount on my action bar for when I'm running around with my friends who are lower level, or are levelling a new alt. It's so much easier to not have to stop and start ever few seconds so that, for example, they don't get killed by roving mobs while I'm way ahead of them on the way to one instance or another.
On the other hand, I really like my black hawkstrider, and hate that I had to get a PINK one for my poor rogue, who really doesn't like bright colours, and would love to have her black one scaled up.
I hated Brewfest last year. Everytime I went to do the shout outs I would get dismounted then kicked from the game. ger! I probably won't get this mount for another year. I have some achievements in each holiday finished, but never finish them all.
As for why the Purple Proto-drake is 310%, I would say because it takes so long to get it. A full year of hard work, waiting for events to come along. It's as time consuming, if not more so depending on luck, than raiding. It's just less stressful than raiding. XD
Thx for qq'ing after u got it urself. Hopefully the reward stays.
I agree that, although it's not progression raiding, it takes hard work and commitment to earn this mount. You cannot let a single holiday celebration pass without gaining all the required achievements, or you have to wait another year to have another opportunity to get it done. That long-term commitment deserves a top-level mount to show off.
I also believe that all (fast) flying mounts should be scaled to the fastest you have, so you can proudly show off all the mounts you've worked so hard to get.
Another reason for the payout is the fact that many of the meta-achievements have sub-achievements that require PvE, profession crafting, and PVP and quite frankly I'll never enter a BG for the sake of an achievement everyone and their brother is trying to get.
If someone else wants to be Blizzard's lab rat and press the right buttons for the cheese that's up to them. But I am no one's guinea pig.
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