Project Lore

I'll tell you right off the bat that I'm not much of an economist. I don't play the Auction House, I don't farm for things to sell, and I only do dailies on occasion (usually if I'm determined to raise my reputation with a certain faction). With the guild vault taking care of most of my raiding bills, I don't usually have a whole lot else to spend money on aside from sending gold to an alt every once in awhile, and that's almost always repaid by the time they hit Level 80, themselves.

I've sat, more or less comfortably, around 4000 gold since Wrath of the Lich King launched. That is, until now. Trial of the Crusader, in all of its incarnations, has made me dirt poor!

Just two nights ago, I finally got the main-hand dagger I'd been looking for, Gouge of the Frigid Heart, off of Twin Val'kyr in 25-man. My guild's core group also likes to run 10-man Heroic on their own time, and wouldn't you know it? Nemesis Blade drops off the very same boss. Now, Nemesis Blade is ever-so-slightly better than Gouge of the Frigid Heart, but I'd already gone and spent 7-800 gold on enchanting it with Berserkering and I honestly didn't have the money left to do it again. So, for now, the superior dagger sits in my bank, completely unused.

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Blue Stew is a new semi-daily column bringing you a delicious concoction of developer news, thoughts, and opinions straight from the boiling pot that is the official World of Warcraft forums. The highlights of each day include additional commentary by Project Lore staff. PvPvPvE Would you look at this pair of winners... In one thread, Paladin extraordinaire, Feanorion, wonders:

"why are PvE concerns being trumped by the concerns of such a miniscule portion of the subscriber population? "

And in another, posted the same day, Fireweed puts on her frowny-face:

"Since the Illidan kill in TBC I swore I would not touch PvE ever, ever again. It's mind numbing, forces you to deal with people you never want to deal with on your free time, it requires way too much dedication in the scene/too many people and to stay in a guild that is capable to handle it and so forth... What I really enjoy about this game is arena, even some random battlegrounds here and there with a small group."

This, friends, is a microcosm of all that is wrong with the average complainer's mentality towards the game : "I don't like it, so it shouldn't be there!" I've said time and time again that I'm not particularly in favor of PvP, at least not to its extremes, but that's the way I prefer to play. I'm not going to outright deny the ways in which other people might have fun. But the fact of the matter is that if any decisions to change the underlying structure of Warcraft, it would be based on an entirely different group altogether, as Ghostcrawler so handily points out:

"If you expect us to balance around the most popular way to play the game, then you'd see most of our changes aimed at low level alts and very few end-game raiding tanking changes. "

I think we all get so caught up in the endgame, that we forget most people who subscribe to WoW simply enjoy tooling around, by themselves, or with a couple of close friends, in the lower levels of the game. These are the people that like to level up over a week, not a couple of hours. And these are the people that enjoy picking herbs just because they enjoy picking herbs, not because they need to make flasks for the next raid. And that's why I think Cataclysm is going to be such a big hit with the community. It refocuses the game on these types of players without entirely forgetting those at the level cap. You see, WoW is a lot like this scrum-diddly-umptious cake... (image courtesy of http://www.mmmmbrains.com/blogg/) But even ignoring this group of players, can't we just all accept that PvP and PvE are integral parts of the game? I used to be a nay-sayer, too, but I've long since learned that both styles are like two delicious flavors coming together to make World of Warcraft just as enjoyable as a tasty little peanut butter cup! Ghostcrawler explains in a seperate thread why you will never see them split:

"Internal consistency for belief in the game world is part of it. Just keeping complexity down is another part of it. We don't want to see every spell or talent have two tooltips and players having to keep all of that straight. It just feels like two games with one art set at that point, which isn't what we're going for."

Please Explain Argent Tournament Reset Seems like the Faction Change service includes everything but the kitchen sink. Or, in this case, Argent Tournament progress. Kisirani gives a simple enough answer:

"I'm responding to this thread because it's written in a calm and concise manner, so thank you for that. Simply put, while it was not a decision we enjoyed making, due to the way the Argent Tournament functions it was not feasible on a technical level to properly switch progress between factions. I am sorry we were unable to offer a better solution."

I wish he would've expanded a bit more on that, but then again, that's due to my own curiosity. I'm always intrigued to know how the game is built, how its underlying systems are structured to allow certain things and not others. While I have no way of being specific myself, I imagine it's the case of simply coding, or constructing, the Argent Tournament in a certain way at a time before the requirements for the Faction Change service were fully laid out, leaving the two aspects of the game incompatible with each other. So for those of you still considering a Faction Change, please keep this in mind. You'll have to do the Argent Tournament all over again (though, presumably, the earned reputation with each home city will remain intact, even if the quest progress doesn't). And for those of you who already did, without realizing this caveat, I'm sorry! That's potentially months worth of daily work down the drain! Earthen Power Nerf: Overkill Oh, it's the weekend. I'll throw you guys one more bone to look over! This one's for the Enhancement Shamans out there, in response to the most recent PTR patch update, which makes changes to the way in which Earthen Power works, potentially affecting their performance in Arena teams:

"The 3.2.2 PTR change to earthen power will be crippling to Enhancement Shaman, I am not saying that this talent isn't a bit too powerful, but granting the shaman short term immunity to movement impairing effects is not the issue, the issue is it granting the shamans team mates the immunity. Removing the immunity from the shaman themselves will do nothing but cripple a spec that has just recently regained viability, without showing any form of dominance, except as a part of a counter RMP team in one tournament, a tournament which doesn't well reflect the state of play on live (nothing over item level 213)... I would propose that if you feel earthen power is overly powerful, you remove the snare immunity from allied targets, but leave it on the shaman, else we will see a return enhancement shaman being unable to stick to a target. We already suffer greatly from a lack of controllable damage, reliance on long cooldowns (bloodlust/heroism, spirit wolves), and inability to kill healers. Returning Enhancement Shaman an easy to kite class will severely undermine everything you have done to give us arena viability."

Ghostcrawler explains that they favored Ghost Wolf as a reducer of movement-impairing effects instead:

"We think Earthen Power and the Ghost Wolf change were trying to solve the same problem. Together they felt like overkill to us, and we thought the Ghost Wolf change was more interesting so we kept that one. Your mileage may vary and I would be surprised if many shaman agreed since they were the target of the nerf."

Alright, folks! Have a fantastic weekend, but don't forget to respond and let us know what you think about all of these different subjects before you do!

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Blue Stew is a new daily column bringing you a delicious concoction of developer news, thoughts, and opinions straight from the boiling pot that is the official World of Warcraft forums. The highlights of each day include additional commentary by Project Lore staff. Welcome to the first edition of Blue Stew! We know that trying to find anything useful on the official forums can be a lot like tip-toe-ing through a minefield, but if you look a little harder, you can find some surprisingly useful information from the development team and various Community Managers (collectively known as "Blues," due to their specially-colored text). The goal of this column is to provide you with the highlights each day, as well as our own brand of commentary on the subjects at hand where appropriate. Considering the nature of the beast, there might not always be a lot worth talking about. But since this is our virgin voyage, why don't we go ahead, crack the bottle on the bow of the ship, and get this thing sailing?

• First up is an inquiry from transmogrification fetishist and part-time Druid, Saberclaw, who idly wonders why Goblins don't get to transform in the same way that Worgen do? Maybe it has something to do with our fuzzy, were-wolf bretheren being the only race with a reason to change the way they look? He quickly recoils from his stupidly outlandish thread title, stating that he was really just trying to ask whether or not we'd get to pick from various goblin types at the outset. Wryxian was kind enough to step up to the plate, stating that while the playable Goblins aren't as vastly different from their current in-game counterparts (as opposed to the Draenei, when they were introduced), you can expect them to be more than just another "standard green short guy." And I have to agree. Just looking at the picture to the right, you can tell that this particular set of Goblins has been bred and prepared for combat. There's something leaner and meaner about them. Something that says they'd rather drain your blood than your bank account. I don't know if it calls for drastic changes to the race, but I bet they'll be a lot more expressive and interesting than your average, "time is money, friend" NPC.
• Axelhander, when he's not busy squishing grapes between his toes, spends his spare time correcting the development team on their flawed game design.  Today, he called out Kalgan (a.k.a. Lead Game Designer, Tom Chilton) on some comments he'd made in a locked thread about the nature of Rated Battlegrounds. His major beef? Why, as a primarily solo player, is he being locked out of the best gear able to be obtained through the new rating system? Kalgan already addressed this issue in the previous thread, stating that the reason they didn't want to allow single players to queue and participate in the rated Battlegrounds was because it would be too easy and convenient for them to game the system by afk-ing. The natural assumption would be that, as a part of a group, any individual player would have more incentive to perform at their best. After all, think of it like an Arena group: a member that just sits there while his comrades do all the work (or, more likely, get slaughtered) isn't going to be on the team much longer. Kalgan adds that the current design philosophy for end-game PvE content is to reward organization, and that they'd they like to do the same with PvP: "I understand that you're expressing a philosophical disagreement as to whether rewarding for organizational effort and coordination is the right approach for the game, but I'm not sure why the expectation would be that we'd do that in battlegrounds when we don't do that in pve. You certainly can't 'get gear on par with the game's best' by doing solo daily quests either." Hey, I like to solo as much as the next guy. When I level a new alt, I almost never team up with anybody until I hit the level cap, but what's the use in rewarding someone the finest gear in the game if they don't care to engage in the level of content that requires it?
• Zomber had to put on his "smart" glasses for this one. He asks: What's going to happen to the Argent Tournament when Cataclysm hits? Will it simply become another Quel'Danas, a once-major hub of end-game activity reduced to obsolescence by new content? Or will the event end once the crusade against the Lich King does? Zomber then expanded his query to incorporate other pockets of "dead" content in the game. The inimitable Bornakk answered the call, stating that since not everyone will own Cataclym right away, it makes sense to keep the Tournament, and areas like it, in the game. He also emphasized that it may stay in play longer than Quel'Danas did because it's currently one of the easiest and most convenient ways for a player to raise their reputation with their faction's major cities. Bornakk acknowledges how tricky managing this sort of ephemeral content is: "Generally speaking - spending a lot of time on new content and then making it end and disappear is not something we like to do and have to be very careful on when and how often we do it. We are changing some of the classic continents because they have been there for 5 years so we feel it's okay to change it around after all this time."

So that's it for the first edition of Blue Stew, which we will pick up starting again on Monday. I hope you were entertained, enlightened, or both. But it's clear that there are many ways in which we could improve this column. So, please, in addition to adding your thoughts on the content above, let us know how we might make it better! What sorts of issues should we focus on? How can we make it more interesting to read? The floor is yours, readers.

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With 3.2 once again the game has received a fresh coat of paint, and we have a whole list new things to do. Personally I have enjoyed getting back into heroics, trying new raid content, and earning some coin on the new dailies.

Clearly most of the new content involves the Argent Tournament, and all of the instances and quests surrounding it. So far one of my favorite activities has been collecting champion seals and saving up for all of the new toys they have introduced.

While in 3.1 there were plenty of gear and pets we could buy, with 3.2 Blizzard has dramatically increased the rate at which we can get the seals, as well and introduced some amazing rewards.

For me the first thing I bought as soon as I got that Crusader title was the Argent Crusade Tabard. Despite having the Tabard of the Achiever, I have never really been a big fan of tabards. That is, of course, unless they do something for me besides just looking stylish. Well, this one does, and it is amazing. Every 30 minutes you can teleport yourself directly to the Argent Tournament grounds. For me this is something infinitely useful, and something that I am doing several times a day.

Say I have a few extra minutes to knock out some quick dailies, I just port straight to the quest hub and get them down. Then say I am running late to a raid, I can port there again and be zoned in before summons even go out. The point is that the Argent Tournament Grounds are where EVERYTHING is going on in this patch, and getting there instantly is amazingly useful. I would suggest you guys pick this one up as soon as you can.

Beyond that, the Argent Pony Bridal is another game changer that should be at the top of any serious players priority list. This will transform your squire into more than a fun vanity pet. It will allow him to act as a banker, vendor, or mailbox once every 4 hours. You can only imagine the hundreds of scenarios where this will come in handy. Bags filling up while questing, forgetting your offset during a raid, or mailing yourself consumable from an alt. The list goes on.

Personally there are a few other rewards I have my eye on, although they do start to take a turn toward vanity items at this point. For me I am getting the Argent Charger very soon, for no other reason that I love the idea of a Paladin only mount, there are also tons of pets, mounts, tabards, and trinkets to collect.

Regardless of what you are after I think Blizzard has done a great job of giving us some carrots to go after that are not just standard gear. What do you guys think? Any new in-game items that you are chasing after?

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It was the Friday after patch day, and my buddies in our small guild were itching to try out some of the new 3.2 content. Considering there were five of us online, we thought the best place to start would be besting the Black Knight in the new 5-player dungeon, Trial of the Champion, in the Crusaders' Coliseum. Here's the lineup: Warrior tank, Paladin DPS, Warlock DPS, Shaman Healer - all level 80s, and my lonely level 79 Rogue. I'll be the first to admit that we weren't super-well prepared for this dungeon, even on normal mode. One of us had never jousted before, and I'm still getting used to the shield-break, charge and thrust rotation while mounted with a lance. So I was a little unsure of what we were getting ourselves into when the dungeon began and we had to mount up and face several waves of javelin-wielding champions. But the strategy was pretty straight-forward: focus on one at a time until they are dismounted, then trample them to prevent them from getting back up. Then it's on to the hand-to-hand combat. Once through this set, you go on to encounters with several more argent trash followed by a nice fight with either Eadric the Pure or Argent Confessor Paletress. It was Eadric for us. Not the smoothest of kills; he's a bit tricky right at first before the tank picks up aggro, and even after that has an annoying Vengeance buff causing him to crit often. But we kept on him and took him out. Well, took him down to 1 HP, anyway. Then he ran away, like the bitch he his, but not before throwing in his loot chest. Thanks. Finally, on to the main event: The Black Knight.  From what I can gather from the Project Lore forums, it appears that several of us here already have tried out this new dungeon, but if you haven't and dislike spoilers you may want to stop reading here! This guy doesn't like to stay dead - he comes at you in three phases. And that's where my relatively inexperienced group wiped several times before we got the hang of things. The Black Knight starts out as a forsaken, then a skeleton and finally a wraith. Probably the most trouble we experienced was in the second phase when he started summoning an exploding Army of Dead. We talked through a couple of possible strategies - kiting the Black Knight to avoid the trash Ghoul Explosion, or throw some nice AoEs to kill the ghouls before they explode all over you. Neither of those seemed to be working for us, so we instead just ignored the jerks and focused all of our attention on the main battle at hand. It worked. When we downed the Black Knight in that form and saw the ghouls channeling their explodey spell, we just ran away. From there, the boss enters wraith form, this time without any adds. He consistently casts Marked for Death on his enemies, which increases their magical damage two fold, and can make things sticky if you drag out the fight too long. Each DPSer pulled out all the stops at this point, and finally the Black Knight was downed... for good this time. The best part: My very first purple item (/dance), and a pretty darn good one at that, at least for a 5-man on normal difficulty. Now I just have to finish off my last half-level to 80 so I can equip this beauty - Uruka's Band of Zeal. Overall, I'd say the coliseum is about what I expected. Granted, I haven't checked out Trial of the Crusader yet (beyond watching Juggy and the TRS Guild take it on), but got a decent preview of that through the smaller battle. It's pretty short and to-the-point, which to some may be a disappointment. Others say they've felt underwhelmed by the small scale of the coliseum itself. And I can see that point. But as for me, I was happy with it, and plan to keep running it to get more loots! Hopefully next time, it'll go a bit smoother! Any of you who have tried out the Crusaders' Coliseum so far? What are your impressions of either instance?

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It's been about four months since the last one, but the latest edition of the Blizzcast, Blizzard Entertainment's official podcast, has finally arrived! The good news (at least for our readers) is that it focuses exclusively on the World of Warcraft, namely the events of Patch 3.2. The bad news? It's all stuff that we've more or less heard before (and it's a bit on the short side to boot, clocking in around 22 1/2 minutes). Nevertheless, it doesn't hurt to expand upon your knowledge of all the new content. Remember, knowledge is half the battle! Episode 10 is hosted by WoW Community Team member Zarhym and his guests are Lead Encounter Designer Scott Mercer and Senior Game Designer Dave Maldonado. Topics covered include the new 5-man instance and raid zones, dailies associated with the Argent Tournament, the questionable mortality of the Black Knight, and even the new Battleground, Isle of Conquest. Likewise, they go out of their way to show you how all of the 3.2-related gameplay elements are incorporated into the lore. It's all capped off with some brief talk about how pumped up they are to be attending Blizzcon. Unfortunately, there are no specific details about what they will or will not be showing beyond the fact that they are pants-wettingly excited to unveil something (to quote Mercer: "We’re of course showing off a lot of really, really, REALLY cool stuff"). It certainly wouldn't be Blizzcon without some really cool WoW-related stuff, now would it? If you care to listen to or download Episode 10, head on over to the official page of the Blizzcast. A full transcription is also available for those who would rather just skim the contents. Once you're done listening, come on back here and discuss! Any interesting points you'd like to comment on? Did you learn something? Or was it just boring? Would it be better if they had teased us with forthcoming content or a more extensive Blizzcon preview? Chime in below.

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We were one of the first to bring our readers an extensive, even exhausting (for me at least), look at everything the Argent Tournament had to offer upon its release.  The solo content of Patch 3.1 brought players a large collection of new quests, an original mode of play (jousting), the opportunity to make obtuse amounts of gold in a short time frame, an easy way to level up the old city factions and the Argent Crusade, mounts, pets and even the ability to gain reputation with the Silver Covenant/Sunreaver faction for the first time.  Save Threat From Above, it was an entirely soloable experience. In sticking with my plan, Solidsamm spent a good amount of time in Icecrown getting a feel for the new quests, flying around the updated tournament grounds, and taking in the sights.  If you've just decided to tackle the Argent Tournament for the first time then be sure to check out the original guide.  The following only pertains to the newest quests additions.  These quests are only accessible if you are Exalted with the associated factions.  You can check your standing with any of the factions by checking your Reputation pane (default 'U') or by viewing your Argent Tournament Achievements (default 'Y' then select World Events and scroll to Argent Tournament). Most of these tasks are located very close to the Argent Tournament.  However, there are a few exceptions were Blizzard saw fit to send us out on our flying mounts, such as Breakfast of Champions' Storm Peaks run.  Assuming you still want to do the four dailies from Patch 3.1 (still offer the most money), you'll now have the opportunity to gain a guaranteed 10 Champion's Seals a day to put towards the new loot.  I'm already working towards my new squire. Overall, it appears that the quests are designed better than before thanks to the everyone being randomly assigned five of the jobs below.  No more Battle Before The Citadel-type lag sessions. <Crusader> Quests: You'll randomly be assigned two of these.  Generally, they send you off to kill a non-elite named target that respawns very quickly.

• Deathspeaker Kharos - Kharos is camped out with his underlings directly west of the tournament grounds.  You can take him out as you are hunting for Black Cage Keys for You've Really Done It This Time, Kul.
• Drottinn Hrothgar - Drottinn is the leader of the Kvaldir that exterminated the Tuskarr settlement, which was recently discovered directly north of the grounds.  He's located by the three heads (Tuskarr impressions of Easter Island statues) on the eastern part of the Hrothgar's Landing island.  The heads are viable on the map of the island.
• Get Kraken! - We're off to support the Sunreaver and Silver Covenant naval forces in this one.  On your way towards Hrothgar's Landing you'll see the boats under assault by Kvaldir raiding parties, and even Kraken that they have found a way to control.  Fear not, you're tasked with raining fire upon the wicked from the seat of an Argent Hippogryph, so the quest is as easy as the rest.  Just don't forget to get on said mount!
• Mistcaller Yngvar - Found in a cave located on the west side of Hrothgar's Landing.  You must use the provided trinket to reveal him before he can be easily dispatched.
• Ornolf The Scarred - Ornolf isn't anymore challenging than the rest of the named mobs, but you'll want to clear the boat a bit before you challenge him.  His ship, Bor's Fury, is located in the southeast area of the island you're sure to become so found of.
• The Fate Of The Fallen - This quest sends you the farthest away from the grounds of any of the <Crusader> unlocks.  It's also the most difficult to figure out exactly where to go, as theIronwall Rampart is not labeled on the interactive map.  Just head directly east of Aldur'thar (it's labeled on your map, and is southeast of The Shadow Vault) and you'll see the needed crystals and mobs on the ground.  There is no need to even fight anything.

<A Silver Confidant>/<The Sunreaver> Quests:  You'll be randomly assigned three of these, bringing your total up to five new dailies a day, nine overall.  Unlike the <Crusader> unlocks, these quests are more involved and tend to send your farther away from the grounds.

• A Leg Up - Apparently the Kvaldir were hungry, so they stole some of the food en route to the grounds.  Thanks to the chilly weather up in Icecrown the food stays fresh even though its strewn across Hrothgar's Landing.  If floor pie meat isn't to your liking, then you can always thin the Kvaldir ranks for some untainted meat.  Snob.
• Breakfast Of Champions - Mmm Wheaties.  Wait, the Jormungar eat their own larval young?  What are they sharks?  To keep the Dune-inspired creatures healthy, so we can kill them in the Coliseum, we have to feed them their own species' eggs.  Eggs which are located dead center of Storm Peaks - as in outside of Icecrown.  Enjoy the lengthiest trip the patch has to offer.
• Gormok Wants His Snobolds - You're off to Storm Peaks once again.  This time you'll be slightly closer to home.  Head over to Garm's Bane, just northeast of K3, and capture some Snobolds to put the blubbering baby to bed.  I guess even giant monsters can have "binkies."
• Rescue At Sea - You'll come across the besieged The Wavecrest as you head up the east side of the strait to Hrothgar's Run.  Board the ship and drop the seaweed filled creatures.  Beware of the Krakens though.  They have a knockback that can put you in the drink, and thus, in their reach.  Perhaps the riskiest of the quests.
• Stop The Aggressors - Kill 10 Kvaldir; the new school Training in the Field + two.
• The Light's Mercy - This follows The Fate Of The Fallen, only now you are praying over the fallen Tuskarr on the island to the north.  Again, no need to even fight.
• What Do You Feed A Yeti, Anyway? - In celebration of Shark Week Blizzard has us tossing fresh chum, located on the boats, into the North Sea to attract sharks, or even a Kvaldir.  The drop rate on the shark meat (and seemingly all other quest drops) is 100%.
• You've Really Done It This Time, Kul - Head directly west to Deathspeaker's Watch, run by Deathspeaker Kharos, and kill mobs until you have saved four Aspirants.  You'll need a fifth key to free Kul, whom is located on the right side of a raised platform.  If you spot the body of The Black Knight, then you've found the correct platform.  Like the Isle of Quel'Danas key daily, the keys are not 100% drop rate.

There you have it, a breakdown and easy-to-navigate guide for the Argent Tournament's new daily quests.  I guess all the jousting ideas went into the instances, as none of the dailies have you mount a stead. Once more, if you aren't Exalted with the factions you will not be able to partake in these quests! And yes, The Black Knight has returned, and he's even more powerful than ever.  You can start his new questline by picking up The Black Knight's Curse from the main tent.

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There's a crapload of stuff to do in this upcoming patch.  Thanks to Blizzard's shift in patch design, from just high end content to a solid mix of content for all player types, the Call of the Crusade patch has my head spinning.  I hope you have a grasp on the content thanks to our extensive coverage, but that doesn't mean you have a plan for tonight.  I love content, so my plan is already in the works. I'm a realist.  I will be shocked, stunned, stupefied if the servers come up on time.  Let alone coming up and being stable enough to raid, heroic get anything of substance done.  My pessimistic outlook on patching doesn't mean I won't be logging in though.  You damn well better believe I will be spamming the servers next to each and everyone of you.  Downloading the patch is of the utmost importance, but I haven't seen it available anywhere as of the time of this writing.  The first order of business that we should all take care of upon logging in is following Heartbourne's advice, and dumping the old and busted emblems for some new hotness.  With a purse full of Emblems of Conquest I will be able to pick up a few minor upgrades before venturing into the new 5-man and old heroics.  Then Solidsamm will revisit his old stomping ground of the Argent Tournament.  He's heard through the grapevine that there's a lot more to do up there these days.  Not to mention that the Black Knight has been heard calling him out. My little stabbing machine can receive his fair share of upgrades from Conquest and Triumph badges, but its Solidsagart who can benefit the most.  I'll surely get called into heroics and raids during the week, but my main focus is going to be on the priest.  I'd be absolutely stupid to not hit level 80 on my healer ASAP.  With everyone and their brother once again running heroics it'll be incredibly easy to find groups, and fairly easy to collect badges for her.  Much to the hardcore playerbase's chagrin, she'll be geared out the wazoo in no time.  She'll just have to wait until Solidsamm conquers the new 5-man dungeon. Those are the basic starting points for me.  What are you going to do as soon as the servers return to a stable state?  Return to the Argent Tournament grounds for the new dailies and easy money?  Continue working on your pile of Champion's Seals for the mounts and pets?  Go Raptor hunting?  Or are you going to just dive right into one of the four levels of the Argent Coliseum's raid content? As with all patches, I will be rapidly filling my coffers thanks to all the needed materials I have been hording for weeks.  Gnomes love gold almost as much as Goblins.

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So I’m sure you will be all calling me very late to the party on this one, but I made a personal discovery recently. This discovery is just how profitable the Argent Tournament dailies can be!

I have never been a big fan of doing dailies, they have always seemed a bit too much like work to me. In fact there has historically only been 3 dailies I will ever do, those are the fishing, cooking, and jewelcrafting dailies. Beyond that, I would rather drum up my repair gold elsewhere.

Well with the recent news that Paladins would be getting an exclusive mount for obtaining the “Crusader” title, I had to give the tournament a try; after all I am a sucker for mounts!

Once I grinded myself up to champion with my home faction, the Exodar, my eyes were opened to the huge amount of gold you could acquire just but making the Argent Tournament part of your daily routine.

It doesn’t take long to realize that many of the quests offered by both the champion quest givers and the valiant quest givers overlap. If you are killing 15 scourge for the champions you are likely to kill 10 scourge for the valiant’s at the same time. In addition to the cash you get for the quest rewards, if you are exalted with all factions like I am, you can pick up the champions purse for more gold and a chance at an additional champions seal.

While I am on the topic of champions seals, collecting these is a great way to pad your bank account as well, as they can be turned in for BoE pets that can catch a hefty sum on the AH or in trade. On my server these pets are averaging 1000g gold a piece. Figure 40 champions seals equals one pet, and simple math would value these seals at 25 gold each. Add that to the cash from two quest rewards (20g) and the purse (10g) and a few of these dailies will net you between 55-80g per quest!

I know the Argent Tournament has been covered on Project Lore before, but I really want to stress the money making potential of these quests! For a more complete guide on the Argent Tournament, but sure to check out iTZKooPA’s awesome guide on all of the quests!

If you have been oblivious to this whole racket, like myself, get out there and fund your repairs! There is gold to be made!

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Blizzard has updated their website with some background information and screenshots regarding the new raids coming in patch 3.2. While I'm not a huge PvE fan, I am a big lore fan. My issue with PvE raids is having to dedicate so much fixed time to play every week and having to trudge through trash and wipes. This opinion may be an artifact of being on the cutting edge of content in vanilla WoW; I'm aware that instances and raids are much shorter than they used to be. The Crusader's Coliseum instances are described as similar to the Ring of Blood style questlines, where players fight a series of bosses in succession. This sounds a lot more fun than fighting through trash. A lot of players groan when they hear Ring of Blood, but I really enjoy those style of fights. The twist on this is that there are 2 dungeons, a 10 man and a 25 man, each with a Normal and Heroic difficulty setting. The normal mode does not seem to have any "hard modes", so that guilds that have cleared a raid don't have to choose between clearing an instance and getting gear or progression. Once you finish the normal mode, you can proceed to the Heroic mode. On the heroic version, hard modes may be in play, and the main feature is a new take on the whole "Immortal" achievement that's been haunting us since Naxxramas. Heroic mode has a fixed number of attempts you can make, and every time you wipe, that number is decremented. Once you run out, you are locked out. The less you wipe, the better your loot. Blizzard has released some details on a few of the bosses:

Beasts: Your first challenge will pit you against a group of terrifying beasts the Argent Crusade captured in Northrend, including (but not limited to) a magnataur and not one, but two jormungar wyrms. Scourge: Some call the lieutenants of the Lich King fearsome creatures made of pure nightmare, which is doubtlessly a fitting description. How the Argent Crusade managed to capture these fiends remains a mystery; what's less mystifying is your fate should you fail to overcome this challenge.

As far as lore goes, this seems very contrived. Take a read of their introduction to the Crusader's Colliseum:

The time to strike at the heart of the Scourge is drawing close. Clouds blanket the skies of Azeroth and heroes gather beneath battle-worn banners in preparation for the coming storm. They say that even the darkest cloud has a silver lining. It is this hope that drives the men and women of the Argent Crusade: hope that the Light will see them through these trying times, hope that good will triumph over evil, hope that a hero blessed by the Light will come forth to put an end to the Lich King's dark reign. So the Argent Crusade has sent out the call, a call to arms for all heroes far and wide, to meet at the very doorstep of the Lich King's domain and to prove their might in a tournament the likes of which Azeroth has never seen. Of course, a tournament such as this needs a fitting stage. A place where potential candidates are tested to the limits of exhaustion. A place where heroes... become champions. A place called the Crusaders' Coliseum.

I imagine if the United States armed forces captured prisoners of war and had their fun beating them up we wouldn't fare any better in combat. Fighting monsters on the Lich King's doorstep seems so silly. The new Coliseum itself looks pretty cool. Are you a fan of this new style of no-trash, multi-mode raids, or do you want the standard version of dungeon-based gameplay?

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