Project Lore

We reported, pre-Blizzcon, that Blizzard had created several new Twitter accounts, each focused on one of the company's key franchises. Some of you started following them instantly, while others maintained their distance from the social networking site wonder what, precisely, it could offer beyond the usual community or news features. Well, so far, the latter would be right. Posts have generally concerned themselves with daily questions, opinion polls, and highlighting the more creative aspects of the Blizzard fandom (things like fan art, stories, and, most recently, papercraft). Though there is an on-going Battlecry contest -- in which fans of the Horde or Alliance update their own accounts with "For the ____!" whenever their side's banner is lifted -- there have yet to be any prizes that you can actually use within the game. But, a recent post on the Warcraft Twitter page hints that might not be the case for long:

We are talking to our licensing department about giving out some#WoW in-game pets/mounts through Twitter. Looks promising. Stay tuned.

That's right, soon enough, you could be earning in-game content just for participating in the usual Twitter shenanigans. I can tell you from personal experience that it's not a sham, either. I recently won a Starcraft 2 Beta Key through Blizzard's Starcraft Twitter page. Generally, these contests involve little more than "re-tweeting" a phrase or offering up your own thoughts on a given subject. At 140 characters, that's not very hard at all. So what sorts of things might Blizzard actually give out? According to another tweet from yesterday, quite possible pets and mounts normally available only through loot cards:

What types of in-game prizes would you like to see us give on Twitter? Interested in #WoW TCG loot items? Spectral Tiger Mounts maybe?

This is wonderful news for those who have no interest in playing (or spending money) on the Trading Card Game. I wouldn't expect to see anything game-changing to be offered through these contests, but vanity items like Spectral Tiger Mounts, alone, are desirable and rare prizes. Do you think this sort of giveaway might get you to sign up for Twitter if you haven't already? Well, if you do, please make sure to follow Project Lore and myself, as well! We're always keen on having new friends to talk to!

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Zarhym just dropped the bombshell that, in honor of the 5-year anniversary of World of Warcraft that's coming up in November, Onyxia's Lair will be getting an update. That's right, Patch 3.2.2 will bring a new, level 80, 10- and 25-man version of Onyxia for players to take on. Not only that, but there is a new 310% mount in her loot table, along with "updated" loot modeled after tier 2 but with updated stats. Further details will be coming soon, and the full announcement is here on the official forums. I hope this news means that, if the upgrade goes smoothly, other old school raids and instances will get an update. Like, say, Deadmines? Is this news exciting for you guys, or are you thinking it might be another Naxx that was dumbed down and made a little too easy?

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This former Tuskarr-inhabited island has been turned into a staging ground by the Vrykul. With so many new details about Patch 3.2 trickling out of Blizzard lately, it surely won't be too long before we see it pop up on the PTR! This time, they're letting us know a little bit more about what to expect from the expanded Argent Tournament. There's plenty to get excited about for those that have worn themselves out on the existing dailies, Paladin players, and even fans of the Black Knight. Two entirely new quest hubs have been added to the event. One lies within a Cult of the Damned camp that's just been set up to spy on the Crusade's activities (does this mean you'll be able to work for the bad guys in some capacity?), and the other takes place on a sizable island just off the coast that Sea Vrykul have claimed as their own. Remember those guys in Borean Tundra who made everything so misty? Well, they're back to pester you again and they're apparently attacking the Sunreavers' ships, which occupy the waters between the coast and the island. More quests will be available for those that have already achieved notoriety in the Tournament, itself. Those who are exalted with the Silver Covenant or Sunreavers will gain access to three new (randomized) dailies through which they will be able to earn more seals. New rewards have, of course, been added for you to spend your hard-earned seals on including tabards and two new mounts (one flying and one ground) representative of either faction, and a vanity pet called the Shimmering Wyrmling which will be available to players of both sides. For the true Argent Tournament Obsessives, the ones who have achieved the Crusader title already, even more quests and rewards will open up. Yet another new line of dailies will appear (at least two will reward seals), but the things you can purchase are even more exciting! There will be new heirloom goodies to send to your alts, an Argent Crusade Banner and Tabard (the latter of which has the ability to transport you directly to the Tournament from anywhere), and an upgraded squire who comes with his own summonable mount. It has a reported eight-hour cooldown, but the upgraded squire can serve as either a bank, vendor, or mailbox! Likewise, Paladins who are tired of their old Charger can trade it in for a fresh, new Argent Crusade-themed one. Blizzard also reports that the terrible Black Knight will make his triumphant return. What, you thought you killed him? Is this the true face of the Black Knight?! Pfft! That was only a flesh wound! For those that have run themselves ragged on the Argent Tournament, it seems like there is a whole lot of new stuff to look forward to. With so many dailies, there's no doubt it'll become the "go-to" place for anyone looking to earn some extra gold to foot the repair bills they get from the included instances! And for those that haven't bothered with it yet, there's no sign of them getting rid of any of the old quests (aside, perhaps, from the coliseum-building ones offered by the goblins out front) any time soon. Full notes can be be perused at your leisure here. Chime in below, readers. What do you think of all the new additions to the Argent Tournament? Does the amount of dailies make your head spin, like it does mine?

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The Argent Tournament has become my first destination when I log on every day. The reputation with both the Sunreavers and the Argent Crusade is easy, the gold is insane for the amount of time invested, and there are all the cool mounts and pets to pick up. We've already discussed the dailies and goals of an Argent Tournament participant, but there are a few things you might want to be aware of when you make the trip to the far reaches of Icecrown every day. First up, its important to note that there are some daily quests available that are much quicker than the others, and there are some that just don't have as high a reward. If you are going for any of the pets, mounts, or most rewards, you probably want to get as many Champion's Seals per day as possible. This means doing Battle Before the Citadel, Taking Battle to the Enemy, Among the Champions, and Threat from Above for a total of 5 seals a day. However, while you are doing Battle Before the Citadel and Taking Battle to the Enemy, the same mobs you are killing are also the objectives of the valiant's dailies, A Valiant's Field Training and At the Enemy's Gates. These are, in fact, the only Argent Tournament dailies I do! It shouldn't be difficult to see why the goblin's quests, A Chip Off the Ulduar Block and Jack Me Some Lumber, are pointless. They require you to travel far and reward nothing but the standard 13 gold and 23 silver. At that rate, you might as well do dailies that reward reputation as well, such as the Sons of Hodir, Oracles, Frenzyheart, or Kalu'ak dailies. Contributin' to the Cause is not worth doing because it costs you gold and only rewards Argent Crusade reputation. If you do the other dailies for a couple weeks, you will quickly hit exalted with the Argent Crusade and will have wasted all that donated gold! As for the other valiant's quests, consider this: if you want all of the mounts and/or all of the pets, you will be doing a lot of these dailies. In fact, just the pets and the hippogryph will run you 450 seals, which is 90 days! Since getting the Champion's Seals also gets you a couple Valiant's Seals if you do the overlapping quests, why go out of your way to do the other valiant's dailies? Unless you are in a rush to get all the titles, you might as well do dailies of another faction, as you will eventually get enough Valiant's Seals doing the champion's quests to champion all the factions anyway! The quests you are already doing will get you all the reputation you need for the Argent Crusade and the Sunreavers/Silver Covenant anyway. Additionally, after you champion all the factions, you lose the ability to pick up the valiant's quests. Since you are completing their objectives for the champions quests, losing the ability to do the valiant's quests is a severe loss of gold. Therefore, I've decided not to champion one of the factions until I'm done grinding away at my goals for the Argent Tournament. It would be a loss of hundreds, even thousands of gold. I hope Blizzard remedies this somehow, that Crusader title is sweet! Are you going to rush to get the Crusader title and do all the Argent Tournament dailies you can, or are you going to use similar moderation?

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It looks like we'll have to stop calling the Swift White Hawkstrider the Chicken Mount, because Blizzard is adding an actual chicken mount into the game. MMO-Champion once again revealed some of the newest items in the game before anyone even knew they existed. One of the loot cards included in Upper Deck's newest Trading Card Game expansion - "Field of Heroes" - will be the Magical Rooster Egg. This teaches El Pollo Grande, which as you can see, is a very large chicken that players can ride around on. How amazing does that sound? It may be a little too out there for me, but I'll decide what I think when I actually see one in game. There are also two other new loot cards incoming, one being the Ogre Piñata, which will presumably output candy when you break it. This is cute, but I think it may have been a better item if Blizzard used a different model such as, say Void Reaver, Archavon, or some other boss called a "Loot Piñata" by the players. Oh well, breaking open an ogre to find candy should be fun. Lastly, we'll be seeing the Path of Cenarius, which will leave flowers in your wake as you run around the world. Lifeblood already does this for me, but I may be dropping herbalism soon for something a little more min-max (aka Jewelcrafting), but I don't really need this for the time being. I've still yet to see a lot of the loot card items that are still available, such as the Foam Sword Rack, which looks like so much fun. Although, thanks to a nice warlock, I was able to get a Sandbox Tiger, which is fun to pull out next to a real Spectral Tiger. Anybody looking forward to picking up a gigantic chicken?

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Dungeon maps? Yes, please!

While my game was patching this afternoon, I took a look through WoW's official Patch Notes on 3.1. We've already been talking a lot about some of the larger ticket items including Ulduar and related achievements, dual spec, armor upgrades, profession changes and the unfortunate delay of Equipment Manager. Now, there's a WHOLE lot more that we'll undoubtedly be combing over in the coming days and weeks, but until then let's take a look at some of the other random details from the Secrets of Ulduar page and the patch notes that jumped out at me. My aim for this first round up is to detail what will affect all of us, as opposed to the specific. The convenience factor:

• All Ground Mounts may now swim without dismounting the rider. Flying Mounts still may NOT, and will dismount the rider upon entering water.
• Players will now be able to queue for battlegrounds from any location. Leaving a battleground will return you to the location from which you entered.
• Applying a glyph no longer requires a Lexicon of Power. The same rules for switching between dual talent specializations now apply to switching glyphs and cannot be performed while in combat, Battlegrounds (except when Preparation is up), or Arenas (no exceptions).

Class changes:

• Death Knights have a TON of changes that will take some time to readjust. Some spells got buffed, some got nerfed. With time, we'll see what the overall affect is. If I had to guess, it may be an overall nerf.
• Druids, hunters, paladins, priests, shamans and warlocks also are seeing substantial class changes.
• Mages and warriors will see some changes but not as many.
• Rogues, my specialty, may possibly be getting an overall buff. A couple of skills got debuffed, but not by a ton. /hopeful! What I'm looking forward to most -- Killing Spree: Now also increases all damage done by the rogue while active by 20%.

Professions: cooking:

• A new recipe has been added to cooking trainers for making Black Jelly, using several Borean Man 'O War as ingredients. While it looks disgusting, it restores more health and mana than the highest level food.
• Flint and Tinder is no longer necessary for creating a campfire. You're just that resourceful!
• Ingredients such as Spices, Apples, and the like have been removed from most cooking recipes.
• Several Northrend recipes were given greater skill up ranges to make it easier to reach 450 cooking skill.
• You no longer need to learn cooking from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.

And for the all-important First Aid:

• You no longer need to complete the “Triage” quest to attain Artisan First Aid. Instead you can learn the Artisan skill from the trainers in the capital cities.
• You no longer need to learn First Aid from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.

And Fishing:

• A new (and very rare) special mount can now be caught from Northrend fishing pools (hmmm, what could it be?).
• The time needed to catch fish has been reduced.
• You can now fish anywhere, regardless of skill. Every catch has the potential for fishing skill gains, but you are likely to catch worthless junk in areas that are too difficult for your skill.
• You no longer need to learn fishing from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.

The only bummer for me on professions, and this is of my own doing, comes from Leatherworking:

• Added a recipe for combining Borean Leather Scraps into Borean Leather. You can still use Borean Scraps from your inventory to combine them. (I JUST combined a TON of these without the recipe, and hence got no levels for it. Sadness!)

Dungeons:

• New dungeon maps have been added for all Wrath of the Lich King dungeons. (YAAAAAAAY!!)

User Interface:

• New Advanced features for quest tracking are now available. Players will need to activate this option within the Interface panel.
• Several new options for increased graphics such as Video Mode Ultra, higher Shadow Quality detail and new high-resolution player textures for Northrend armor sets.
• Players can now return items purchased with an alternate currency back to the original vendor within 2 hours of the purchase time for the original cost of the item. Stackable items (such as Frozen Orbs and gems) and charged items that can be purchased with an alternate currency are not eligible.
• Confirmation boxes have been added to purchases over 150 gold.
• The calendar now supports a guild-wide sign-up sheet, allowing the event organizer to invite his or her entire guild.
• Class roles (i.e. damage, tanking, healing) have been added to the Looking For Group feature. Class roles will be displayed when sorting through the Looking For More section.
• Quest and Achievement tracking are now combined in a new Objectives Tracking window. Advanced features can be activated from the Objectives Options panel.
• On-Use items will display in the Objectives Tracking when tracking a quest that uses them. No more searching through your bags for that on-use quest item!
• Health and Fuel/Ammo bars have been added to the vehicle interface whenever operating a vehicle.
• The mini-map has been optimized for better performance. Displays for vehicles, class colors, and off-map pings have been added as well.

Items:

• Loot from clams now stacks correctly! (Thank the Azeroth heavens)
• Changed the icon for Succulent Clam Meat so it doesn't look quite as disgusting. Now 100% more succulent!
• A whole ton of glyph changes.
• Three new mounts are available from Horde mount vendors, equalizing the number of purchasable normal and epic mounts: the Black Wolf, the White Kodo, and the Black Skeletal Horse (in Orgrimmar, Bloodhoof Village, and Brill respectively).
• Hearthstone: Cooldown has been reduced to 30 minutes down from 60 minutes. (!!)Bug Fixes - there's a bunch for all the classes, some items and some race-related. Good stuff to make your game play a more enjoyable experience.

For the full notes, check WoW's patch notes page, and keep checking back with Project Lore as we wrap our heads around all these changes!

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MMO-Champion has been bringing the thunder this morning with tons of news that has been cascading out of the public test realm. With a build of patch 3.1 live on the PTR, players have been given the first full look at an almost overwhelming number of changes and additions to the World of Warcraft. Big, drool-worthy news for Paladins, Priests, Druids, and Shaman is that a legendary One Handed Mace looks like it will be making its way to those classes' hands eventually. The classes mentioned will have the ability to collect 40 Fragments of Val'anyr and combine them, creating Shattered Fragments of Val'anyr, which begins a quest, eventually rewarding Val'anyr, Gavel of the Ancient Kings. Here's to hoping there's a version which certain enhancement shaman might be able to use. Players have also discovered that inscribed versions of the Kirin Tor rings (the ones that cost 8000g and teleport you to Dalaran) are available for an additional 1000g. These rings will be item level 213 and require the original ring to purchase. Finally, MMO-Champion revealed that new mounts and pets are being added into WoW, including Mimiron's Head, which summons and dismisses a rideable mechanical gnome head! This thing reminds me of Bowser's clown faced aircraft from Super Mario World. A full list of the pets and mounts can be found below. New Pets

• Spring Rabbit - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Spring Rabbit.
• Plump Turkey - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Plump Turkey.
• Teldrassil Sproutling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Teldrassil Sproutling.
• Tirisfal Batling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Tirisfal batling.
• Dun Morogh Cub - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Dun Morogh Cub.
• Durotar Scorpion - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Durotar scorpion.
• Alarming Clockbot - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Alarming Clockbot.
• Elwynn Lamb - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Elwynn lamb.
• Mulgore Hatchling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Mulgore hatchling.
• Ammen Vale Lashling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Ammen Vale lashling.
• Strand Crawler - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Darkspear Strand crawler.
• Enchanted Broom - Right Click to summon and dismiss your enchanted broom.
• Argent Squire - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Argent Crusade squire.
• Mechanopeep - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Mechanopeep.
• Argent Gruntling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Argent Crusade gruntling.
• Curious Gorloc Hatchling - Right Click to call or shoo away a Curious Gorloc Hatchling.
• Curious Wolvar Pup - Right Click to call or shoo away a Curious Wolvar Pup.
• Gorloc Orphan - Right Click to summon and dismiss the orphan you've agreed to look after for Children's Week.
• Wolvar Orphan - Right Click to summon and dismiss the orphan you've agreed to look after for Children's Week.
• Murkimus the Gladiator - Right Click to summon and dismiss Murkimus the Gladiator.
• Sen'jin Fetish - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Sen'jin fetish.

New Mounts

• Aquatic Riding Ray - Summons and dismisses an Aquatic Riding Ray. This is an aquatic mount.
• Swift Stormwind Steed - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Stormwind Steed. This is a very fast mount.
• Great Azuremyst Elekk - Summons and dismisses a rideable Great Azuremyst Elekk. This is a very fast mount.
• Swift Darnassian Mistsaber - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Darnassian Mistaber. This is a very fast mount.
• Swift Silvermoon Hawkstrider - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Silvermoon Hawkstrider. This is a very fast mount.
• Great Mulgore Kodo - Summons and dismisses a rideable Great Mulgore Kodo. This is a very fast mount.
• Turbostrider - Summons and dismisses a rideable Turbostrider. This is a very fast mount.
• Swift Ironforge Ram - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Ironforge Ram. This is a very fast mount.
• Swift Sen'jin Raptor - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Sen'jin Raptor. This is a very fast mount.
• Forsaken Warhorse - Summons and dismisses a rideable Forsaken Warhorse. This is a very fast mount.
• Swift Orgrimmar Wolf - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Orgrimmar Wolf. This is a very fast mount.

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So I am now proudly wearing the Merrymaker title over my head, and am still on track for my violet proto-drake. As I look back at the Winter Veil holiday event there is one thing above all else I am grateful for. There was not special holiday boss with a super rare mount drop!! Don’t get me wrong, new bosses are fun, seasonal loot is fun, but for my own personal sanity I am glad I didn’t have to put myself through the grinder this holiday season.

Yes I am the guy that killed Coren Direbrew over 200X during Brewfest, and no Kodo mount for me. Then I kill The Headless Horseman about 100X before I lost my sanity at not seeing the Horseman’s Reins drop, and swore off mount grinding (at least until the next opportunity).

See somewhere in those hours and days of praying for a mount to drop, I lost perspective on the whole thing. It stopped being a game and started being an obsession. Something about limited time only exclusive items just flips a switch in my head.

I would like to think I have learned my lesson, but I know that I haven’t. After all I did log every alt I have opening every gift under the tree for all the seasonal pets. Fortunately for me that was a 30 minute activity and not a 30 hour one.

All in all I am relieved. The event was fun, there was lots of to do, and great achievements to achieve. All this and I didn’t have to live in some obscure dungeon begging guildies to let me use their summon. It was a happy Winter Veil!

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Mages, Death Knights and Hunters definitely need to be aware of Ghostcrawler's most recent posts. The face of the forums has tore it up over the last two days, announcing changes to all three classes that are sure to upset some, but will having others jump for joy.

Some of the changes he listed are now part of the just posted v3.0.8 PTR notes, which include a new mount-based Achievement, complete with an exclusive mount as the reward. Although this probably isn't exactly what the people QQing in the comments of this post had in mind, it is a start. An expensive start considering if you bought ground epic mounts for half of the required 100 mounts, you'd be dropping something like 5000g. And I don't think there are even that many available.  So let's just call it a crapton of gold.

I will just start this off with the bad news. Dorkins, prepared to be nerfed to the ground. Ghostcrawler's notes specifically mention that Hunters, PvE Beastmastery Hunters to be more specific, are doing too much god damn damage for Blizzard's liking. While the designers hoped other classes would catch up to them, they haven't, thus comes a series of nerfs. The developers figured the best way to hurt PvE damage, while skirting the PvP balance issue, would be to heavily modify Steady Shot and Volley. Ouch!

From the blue:

• Steady Shot – now only gains 10% of attack power as damage (down from 20%).
• Volley – reduced the damage by about 30% for all ranks. Note that AE damage from many classes is very high right now and we are looking at all of them. Volley in particular had reached the point where some hunters were using it to the exclusion of most other attacks.

Death Knights are getting the opposite treatment of Hunters. The changes to the newest and most populous class - for the moment – revolve around modify tanking a good deal, while reducing their defense capabilities for PvP. Those PvEers out there, specifically the ones who rolled a DK for tanking, should be excited. From my understanding of the changes, and the class, the PvP modifications aren't nearly the nerf that Hunters received on the PvE end.  Blood Aura doing double the healing...think I may go Blood when I return to my DK.

As for our faithful Blinkers out there, some of you will be happy to hear that you have a buff coming your way. I quantified that previous sentence with 'some' because the buffs only apply to those mages that are Arcane spec. To be honest, I do not know, and possibly have never known, a mage that was Arcane spec. Nonetheless, Blizzard will has decided that that particular spec needs a hand, going so far as to completley redesigning the Arcane Blast ability.

• Arcane Blast – overhauled. Will now increase the damage of your next Arcane spell by 15/30/45%. However using Arcane Blast itself does not consume the charge, but instead increases the mana of your next Arcane Blast, up to a maximum of 3 stacks (and a 45% buff). You can alternate Blast and Barrage to keep buffing Barrage, or you can build Blast up higher for a heavy mana cost.

To sum it up, we have Hunters' PvE being super-nerfed with a buff in survivability for PvP. Death Knight's Blood spec is more attractive for tanking, with tanking mechanics relying less on cooldowns and a small nerf to their defense in PvP. Arcane Mages get a nice bump in damage, however, Blizzard is keeping a close eye on them to see if they become too powerful in PvP, or the class in general taking the lead in PvE damage output.

As for me, my two main characters have barely been touched. Fan of Knives is now better, but my rogue lacks the ability, so blah. Circle of Healing now has a 6 second cooldown, instead of just the global cooldown. That sucks, but I hated spamming it so much anyways.

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I’m not sure if it’s the recent holiday events, the new achievements system, or something that has been here all along, but it seems the whole world is going crazy about mounts. People want them, want to show them off, and are going to extremely lengths to get them. The most obvious example is the holiday mounts. Groups of dedicated people are spending hours everyday farming the latest seasonal boss and hoping they will drop the latest mount. First it was the Kodo/Ram now it’s the Horseman mount. I’ll admit, I am one of them, and because I don’t have luck like Juggy, I imagine I will be in SM everyday for the rest of the event. It doesn’t stop there however! It’s just the tip of the iceberg. With the new achievement system in place lots of folk in my guild have spent tons of gold and farmed tons of rep  to buy every mount they can get their hands on. The goal is the 50 mount achievement, and yet another mount. (A very cool one, given). While we are on the topic of achievements, the other reason the whole world is farming away inside SM this week is to make sure they get the squashling and the Hallowed title. Not a mount, I know, but guess what you get if you finish all the seasonal event achievements? You guessed it: another mount. The problem actually predates the newest batch of content. People have been mount obsessed long before this. Rare mounts are certainly nothing new. On the extreme end, there is a friend of mine in my guild that has soloed Stratholme several times every day for the last few months. The reason is the Baron Mount. Rumor is that it is the lowest drop rate in the game, and from the stories I’ve heard I believe it. This is one for the truly dedicated, or truly insane (sorry, Feralface). Then of course there is the Huntsman Mount, The White Hawkstrider, The Anzu Mount, The Ashes of Alar, The ZG Raptor and Tiger, and the now inaccessible Bear Mount. While given mounts are really really cool, is it really worth all this time we put into farming them? The are (usually) cosmetic, they don’t improve our ability to down a boss. The are vanity items, but then again, perhaps that is their appeal. What about you? What lengths have you gone to to get a mount? Or are you just happy riding around on your boring faction mount?

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