Argent Tournament

When I first heard that the new content patch was going to include (in addition to the desperately awaited new raid instance Ulduar) a new daily quest hub with vanity pets and mounts as rewards, I admit to being extremely excited. I've always had a love-hate relationship with WoW, but the small changes they make to accomodate better gameplay, like adding the pet and mount books, are what really make the game stand out from other MMOs. Just as an aside note, if they added in player housing I would probably be hooked for life - this was the single coolest "extra" feature of Dark Age of Camelot.

Logging in on patch day, I made my way to the Argent Tournament grounds first thing - I wanted to get started on my way to glorious new vanity pets. I was surprised with what I found when I got there. I appreciate that Blizzard is attempting to level the playing field with dailies and quests that utilize vehicles, but jousting is far too annoying for a daily quest. As a player who has a healer, I understand how frustrating and slow it can be to get anything done on your own. My holy priest never managed to finish rep farming with Burning Crusade factions due to her inability to accomplish much on her own and my unwillingness to put another person on the hook for my dailies. However, patch 3.1 also introduced dual specs - effectively every healer class can now chose a dps spec as well, allowing them to complete their daily quests without trouble.

So, instead of making things easier for healers to do these dailies, they've made it tougher for everyone else.The idea behind the jousting is fun, but the process is slow and frustrating - especially for someone like me who tends to complete game dailies while I do my RL dailies - making dinner, putting away groceries, checking email and tidying my apartment, etc. Once you start jousting against an opponent you need to finish. There's little room for stop and go, and a lot of time needed for travel across the map in order to complete all the quests. And unlike other dailies that you can pick and chose from, you really must complete all the dailies. I made the mistake of skipping one quest on the second day, and as a result I had to wait a full extra day before I could proceed to the next set of dailies. Missing one daily set me back quite far.

I'm confused as to why they implemented a massive quest hub that requires players to control units rather than just completing traditional gameplay based quests. I play a hunter for a reason - I like playing a hunter. The jousting controls are annoying to me, and I greatly prefer old style dailies. I appreciate that Blizzard is attempting to provide a broad spectrum of quest styles, but these are dailies that literally must be done every day - so something that is pleasantly repeatable is necessary. Not something that annoys you before you even start doing them. I dread these dailies, but I have to do them anyway because I desire the rewards. I am already sick of the quests and I don't even have enough marks to purchase a single vanity pet!

That being said, I have progressed pretty well so far. I am an Exalted Champion of Silvermoon, my home city. In just 2 more days I will be an Exalted Champion of the Sen'Jin (horray - raptor mount here I come!), and after that I'll tackle Thunder Bluff. I can't help myself, the flamingo pet is probably the best addition. I mean, it's certainly better than a MAGICAL BROOM...unless the broom splits up like the Sorcerer's Apprentice...then it's cool. Creepy, but cool. Unfortunately it's not nearly as cool as the baby restoration druid pet.

I have to say that Blizzard really dropped the ball on balancing the pets, though - the Alliance pets are much neater than the Horde equivalents. Here's hoping there are more pet rewards added in the future.