Project Lore

If you have been killing Coren Direbrew as often as possible this year, you probably noticed the increased drop rate for the Direbrew's Remote as well as both of the Brewfest mounts. They now all seem to be a flat 5% drop rate. If you are lucky enough to get a remote, there are some novel uses for it besides teleporting your group to the Grim Guzzler during Brewfest. Something you should be doing already is visiting Plugger Spazzring when you have the chance. He resides upstairs in the Grim Guzzler and sells a few items which you can resell or have fun with: Recipe: Transmute: Fire to Earth (maybe a 10g profit), Dark Iron Ale Mugs (useful for getting Jubjub during the Darkmoon Faire and very pricey on the AH during that time), and the Sulfuron Slammer, which gets you drunk quickly and lights your feet on fire. You can also kill him; he drops the Schematic: Goblin Jumper Cables XL, which teach Goblin Engineers to make Goblin Jumper Cables XL. These can only be made by Goblin Engineers, but used by Gnomish Engineers as well. They are all but obsolete with the Gnomish Army Knife, which shares a cooldown and supposedly has a higher rate of success, rumored at 75% over the 50% rate of the cables. Regardless, the schematic continues to fetch a fair price, and hey, if you are going to hearth anyway, why not take a stroll to Blackrock Depths to try grabbing some? Another useful way to use the item is as a teleport to Searing Gorge. With the new "ghetto hearth" in patch 3.2, if you leave your group in an instance, you are teleported to the nearest graveyard. With this in mind, if you invite someone to your group, use your remote to teleport to BRD, then drop group, you will end up at Thorium Point. This is useful for Horde players who would otherwise have to fly from Undercity to get there conventionally. While not much of interest is around Searing Gorge, its useful if you decide to do Molten Core or Blackwing Lair, and it could be a useful ability come Cataclysm time. If you are the type of person who likes to get kicked out of raids, you can use it during the Razorscale encounter. It may confuse some people who are expecting some adds, and you can mock people who run up to it and accidentally teleport to BRD. Other uses are purely for visual effect or strange curiosity. Using it in nonsensical places always gets me a laugh. For example, how exactly would the mole machine get you from Outlands or Dalaran to BRD, as it not connected by earth? How does one burrow through a bridge? And, of course, what better way to impress n00bs or spitefully leave a group than using your mole machine? Be warned that you cannot use the remote while in an instance you are saved to, like heroics or raids, so you will look silly if you try to use it and fail.

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I've heard quite a few tales of players getting both the Kodo and Ram mounts from the Brewfest boss in BRD. What I haven't heard mentioned at all was a piece of loot that dropped on my 20th (and final) run for today: the Tankard O' Terror. The slow one-handed mace is not only higher item level than any other loot from Direbrew, but is also BoE. Since googling the term showed no results, I figure it must be an extremely rare drop. The stats on it are actually very good for a melee, especially an enhancement shaman. Not only that, but it looks amazing. A huge mug that is acutally useful in combat? Very nice. Almost as good as an overflowing chalice or a broken beer bottle. Anybody else seen unexpected items come off of our old friend Coren? I have yet to nab a Kodo from him so I'll likely be spending more time piling the floor with his corpses. For all of the times I've already killed the guy, this drop was quite the surprise. Maybe there is reason for people to go in there, even after they have all of the trinkets they can handle.

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The annual celebration of Oktoberfest began over the weekend.  Brewfest, as it is known in Azeroth, is another fun filled seasonal celebration like the earlier Harvest Festival.  Those of you that may have been disappointed by the lack of stuff to do at this year's Harvest Festival definitely need to check out Brewfest. The Brewfest offers much more than paying your respect.  The latest seasonal even even gives players a reason to venture back to Black Rock Depths.  Those of you who participated in the Brewfest last year likely have the old 2007 tickets.  Fear not, for those tickets can be turned into the 2008 tokens via one of two NPCs, Belbi Quikswitch for the Alliance or Crest Blix Fixwidget for the Horde.  Be aware though, this year's tokens are not savable for the 2009 Brewfest so use them all.  For all of those out their who fancy Achievements, you should purchase the "Brew of the Month" Club Membership Form.  By the time the form runs its course, you will unlock an achievement for the 2009 Brewfest. Probably the biggest change to the Brewfest this year is the removal of a purchasable item. Previously, players who saved up 600 tickets could purchase the Brewfest-exclusive mount, but that ability has been removed for the 2008 celebration.  Players who wish to score the mounts will now have to return to Black Rock Depths with a daily quest called [Insult Coren Direbrew].  The drop percentage has been reported to be as low as 2-3% and as high as 15%, so good luck.  Regardless, Direbrew has some pretty good loot – especially his trinkets - for characters that don't regularly run Karazhan or own Season 2 PvP gear or better. Direbrew has proven to be a fairly easy boss and very farmable.  For starters, you need to complete [Welcome to Brewfest!] and then [Save Brewfest!] before you can get the daily.  Once everyone has the daily quest, your group can summon him five times without having to switch up the line-up.  Then, have someone switch to an alt with the quest or look around for a new player entirely.  Naturally, having a Warlock around would make the whole process go faster.  You only need to be level 65 to start the quest, although tanks and melee should be 70. Brewfest 2008 will end October 4.  See you in BRD!

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