♫This is Hallows End!♫

Cataclysm has brought a few changes to Hallows End and they are all amazing.

Currency

To bring Hallows End in line with other festivals like Noblegarden, Tricky Treats now function as a currency. All the bits like pieces like the sinister squashling can now be purchased from a vendor. Because of this, Trick or Treating from the Innkeepers has been removed. No more frantically logging every waking hour to try and ensure you got everything you needed.

So now it doesn’t matter how bad RNG is, that squashling or hallowed helm can be yours. However the drop rate on the Squashling from the Headless Horseman’s bag does seem high, so it might be worth holding off on that particular purchase until the end of the festival.

In the Candy Buckets, there is a chance to get your G.N.E.R.Ds, masks, wands and Hallowed Helm so I imagine most if not all of these bits and pieces could be found there. So again, it might be worth waiting until you’ve collected all the candy buckets before committing to buying anything. You also get 8g 27 for each bucket at 85.

Masks

Masks no longer replace your helm and so can be worn at all times.

So far I’ve received them in my pumpkin goodie bag from the Headless Horseman and in my handful of treats (received from interacting with the pumpkins full of sweets scattered through Azeroth’s Inns). However you can also buy all the masks.

The wands can also be purchased for 2 tricky treats each so completing all the achievements should be easy this year.

Quests (from an Alliance perspective)

The Worgen have brought their own version of the Wickerman Festival to Stormwind, so we can share in the fun (and the experience/reputation grinding buff).

Hallow’s End is a time for celebration and reflection, though many of us have forgotten why. Indeed some aspects of the festival, like the Wickerman, have been lost to time… until now, with the return of the Gilneans to the Alliance fold.

So both factions now have a bunch of dailies revolving around celebrating our own take on the festival and sabotaging the opposing side. There is a quest to light your own bonfire (which gives the exp/rep buff for 2 hours) and one to put out the Forsaken’s. There is a quest to clear up stinkbombs in Stormwind and what has to be the best daily ever, one to bomb Undercity/Stormwind from the back of a broomstick.

There is a also a new quest chain starting for the Alliance in the Gilded Rose (I imagine the Horde one starts in one of the Orgrimmar Inns) which is well worth doing for it’s reward.

All in all, with the addition of two new mini-pets (creepy crate and the feline familiar), a Wickerman Festival I don’t have to crash and the bombing quest, I’m loving the new Hallows End.