Hallow's End

So, as we reach the half way mark of the month of October and are literally less than a month from Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard's annual Hallow's End Festival is now in full swing for the players of World of Warcraft. With the newly introduced achievement system, players are more eager than ever to take part in the Halloween inspired quests. Time for me to break down what you can do from October 18 - November in game.

Trick or Treating - Once an hour, players can bring up the option to "trick or treat" any inn-keeper in Azeroth or Outland. If you're lucky enough to get a treat, you will receive a treat bag that a chance of giving you one of the various masks or wands required complete the achievements that are bundled with the festival. However, if you're luck is in limited to supply, you may be tricked into being turned into a mini-diablo or bat.

The Headless Horseman
Returning to the Hallow's End festival for the second year in a row, the Headless Horseman is back to his annual village terrorizing. You can obtain Crudely Wrapped Gifts by protecting low level Alliance or Horde from the Horseman's relentless attacks on these defenceless towns. Also, a fan favorite, the Headless Horseman can be summoned in the Scarlet Monastery by a team of level 70s. His loot table is the same as last year's. You still have a chance at the mount, but the mask and pet have been made the criteria of the hardest achievement linked to the festival due to their low drop rate.

Candy Buckets
This is mostly for the folks who have a lot of patience or have an obsession with gathering up all the achivements. Buckets of candy have been placed in every inn in Outland, Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. There is an achivement for each of the continents as well as gathering every handful of candy from each bucket. The bucket's offer a quest that gives four gold and a handful of candy that is automatically completed. The handful of candy gives random candy buff foods as well as (G.N.E.R.D.S that are required for another achivement). I netted a decent amount of gold just running around getting the achivements, so it is indeed worth the time.

The Hallowed
From here on out, every world event in the game will now a certain amount of achievements, and if you complete all achievements for that specific event, you will earn a title. If you earn the titles for every world event, you will receive the albino drake. However, Hallow's End seems to have a serious flaw. There are two achievements that may take a year or two to complete. The mask collecting is almost impossible and the chance of getting both the pet and mask from The Headless Horseman is unlikely because you need to share the loot between your party. Even if you run it every day, the chance is very slim that you'll even see it drop. I've been looking at the other festival achievements and it really seems that this isn't the case for anything else.

Edit: At the time of this edit, 3.0.3 has arrived on the PTRs and it seems as if the mask hunting achivement has been removed as a criteria for the title and albino drake. Whippe, now I just need to get my hands on a pet.

A list of achievements for Hallow's End are here.

Achivements are going to be huge. I could tell just by the cheer amount of people trying to go after them all in my guild. In ending, Hallow's End is a lot of fun. I wish I had gotten more stuff during Brewfest done so I had a head start on the achivements last year, but I guess that's life. This is something that will keep many casual players busy until Wrath and Northrend opens up, so it's a very good time to be playing.