World of Warcraft's limited-time event, Plunderstorm, is nearly over—but there's going to be one last chance to swipe your bag of pirate-themed swag from its many reputation rewards. Once this week's maintenance is complete (around 4 pm UTC April 16 for US servers, 4 am UTC April 17 for EU servers), all reputation gains will be doubled until the event wraps up April 30.
This is great news for everybody except for our online editor, Fraser Brown, who recently "decided not to sleep for a day" to "grind it out". "I have played Plunderstorm for two days and I'm almost done," he writes in a feature published to our website less than 24 hours ago, as if tempting the very sword of Damocles to fall from on high.
As much as I feel for Fraser's wasted hours, I'm also feeling somewhat vindicated in my decision to take a break from shooting my fellow scallywags. Unlike Fraser, I do actually enjoy the mode's PvP aspect, but for some reason battle royale games get me wired in a way that just isn't pleasant. I made it into the top three exactly, and I had to go and have a little lie-down afterwards. My poor heart just can't take it.
In case you're wondering whether it's worth it to get plundering, here's an abbreviated list of the major rewards you can snag from Plunderstorm in half the time Fraser did:
- Access to Da'kash Grimledger, a vendor in Val'drakken that'll pawn you a few one-time purchases for some keg-stamped coins.
- Three mounts: The Silver Tidestallion, The Royal Seafeather, and the Polly Roger.
- Three pets for retail: Happy, Bubbles, and Glamrok.
- Two pets for Wrath of the Lich King Classic: Pinchy and Polly Roger.
- A snazzy little outfit for your Pepe pet, if you have one.
- A swarthy warning sign toy.
- Three armour sets: The Swabbie, Captain, and Plunderlord sets. There's also a tabard at renown rank 40.
- Two two-handed weapons: The Plunderlord's Silver Cutlass and the Plunderlord's Guided Sigil.
- Six one-handed weapons: The Deadly Dagger, the Calcified Claymore, the Blacksteel Saber, the Bloody Iron Cleaver, the Plunderlord's Neck Severer, and the Plunderlord's Fine Rapier.
- Four ranged weapons: The Copper Cannon, the Marvellous Multi-Shot, and the Plunderlord's Handcannon.
- A total of 750 trader's tender for use at the trading post.
- The Plunderlord title.
In all seriousness, while I do appreciate the function of Plunderstorm—a good bit of fun during the typical pre-expansion lull—I can't help but wonder if Blizzard could've done this sooner. Granted, you've got almost half a month to catch up, but for players who got on their plunderous grindset early, this news is bound to be frustrating.
On the other side of the doubloon, doing this ensures that Plunderstorm won't be a ghost ship towards the latter half of its lifespan—since the double renown period is bound to bring back a whole crew's worth of players to panic-grind 40 renown levels in a loot-crazed fugue state, myself included.
