Shattering shinies: minipets and games

‘Tis the end of the world as we know it. And I must say, I like how the new one looks and sounds (you should really turn the ingame music on!).
I started my journey through WoW 4.0.3a in Stormwind, to check out what Deathwing (and Blizzard) did to my hometown and my beloved Elwynn Forest. Lo and behold, there’s flightpaths in abundance now and all the worldmap’s parchments have been revamped and look a lot funkier than before. Such is the beauty of not playing or following any betas – everything is new and shiny!

Which brought me to the most important question pretty soon: where are all the shinies? What to do until December 7th besides farming future reputations?

1) First stop: Plants vs Zombies 
Quest Reward: Brazie’s Sunflower (it sings!)

After satiating my initial impulse to explore maps and get new flightpaths, I headed straight to Hillsbrad Foothills to test myself in the newly featured PvZ mini-game Blizzard installed just south of Dalaran’s Crater.
The quests toward beating the final boss are progressing from easy to more difficult and there’s explanations on the way teaching you about each ability.
The last two quests can be somewhat of a challenge until you’re used to what all the actions do and how to manage your resources. In case you’re struggling on the later parts (2 massive waves of zombies and Warden Stillwater), a few tips that helped me beat this:

• Stall your very first packs of mobs for as long as you can with rocknuts, to plant sunflowers and gather sun power. You can stall just one zombie for a very long time, refreshing walls before and behind him (they also attack walls that are refreshed right on top / behind them) until you’re good to proceed. You want to have 9-10 up sunflowers towards the end.

• Reserve your two left-most rows for sunflowers, go for at least 2 rows of spitters and/or freezyas in your midfield. Keep more rocknuts and tentacles up front.

•  Use rocknuts frequently to hold up as many lines as possible until you’ve properly arranged your midfield.

1. Keep them busy

2. Build up your rows

2) Two’s company: Darkshore 
Quest Reward: Withers (it shrinks!)

Like for other newbie-areas, Darkshore has had new lowbie questlines installed. In case you’re wondering why you should bother with these at lvl 80, there’s another shiny new mini-pet to be picked up here, after finishing a quest called Remembrance of Auberdine. To get the show started, you want to pick up the following two quests in Darkshore and follow things from there until you get you get to the final stage:

• The Last Wave of Survivors 
• Threat from the Water 

These first two quests will take you through a series of about ten more steps before you are able to pick up the final quest in Darkshore. There is no need to complete other quests from the area (like the one to kill 50 murlocs). The approximate time to complete all quests at lvl 80 is 60-90 minutes, depending on rush hour.

Tip: Turn your low level quests tracker on.

3) Three’s a crowd: Eastern Plaguelands
Quest Reward: Mr. Grubbs (ewww!)

Fiona is a worgen lady stationed at the western entrance to Eastern Plaguelands (a new neutral flightpath can be found there too) with her caravan. She will initially present you with two quests which will result in a few follow-ups of their own before returning you to her. After completion, you will be able to interact with her caravan and receive Fiona’s Lucky Charm (there is no need to complete Fiona’s further quests).

Her lucky buff lasts for as long as you stay inside the zone and enables you to loot hidden stashes randomly from any EPL mobs which have a chance to drop Mr. Grubbs – similar to the Disgusting Oozeling grind but not nearly as bad (AoE is your friend!). Funny enough, it was Garginox (lvl 45 elite) in the Noxious Glade that finally dropped this for me. Didn’t you always wish for one of those carrion grubs in miniature form?

4) Fourth of a quartet: Burning Steppes
Quest Reward: Tiny Flamefly (bzzz!)

While warcraftpets hasn’t added this pet to their data bank yet as I’m writing this post, the tiny flamefly can be picked up over at Burning Steppes, by completing a quest called Seven!Yup!.

To get there you will have to complete a longer series of quests similar to the chain in Darkshore which are started by Mouton Flamestar and John J. Keeshan in western BS at Flamestar Post (a new flightpath is available). Continue from there and you will eventually be awarded your new companion.

The approximate time to complete all quests at lvl 80 is 60-90 minutes, depending on rush hour.

5) More shinies: Azshara 
Quest Reward: Faded Wizard Hat (horde only?)

A little disappointing, this seems to be the reward to a horde only quest so far.
The quest you are looking to complete to receive this fun item is called Farewell, Minnow in Azshara. Once more this is the final reward to a long series of quests, started by Teemo at Bilgewater Harbor.

Similar to the Orb of Deception, the Faded Wizard Hat will allow you to randomly transform into different races which lasts for 30 minutes. I’m wondering if there’s ever going to be an alliance equivalent to this?

…Just when I thought the wait until Cataclysm was gonna be boring! Anything I’ve missed?
Have fun with these quests and rewards everybody! =)