Some More Pets, Even More Mounts, and the Return of Vanilla WoW

I love vanity pets, I love them so much that I’ll drop gold on worthless floating skulls and mana wyrms, and though Blizzard has done a great job of providing more and more unique vanity pets, I am always disappointed that they are often purchased.

Though the Consortium sells the mana wyrm, why didn’t they offer it at the end of a long quest chain? I’m not saying this because I want the wyrm for free, but because it allows a story to unfold that could possibly include the idea of vanity pets from notable NPC’s or factions. Though my lock, my original toon, has the Defender of the Timbermaw it became little more than a vanity item in TBC. Hell I even wear it in towns because people are always inspecting and asking where in the world I got it. It’s a great trinket, but when you are looking at gear that becomes easily outdated like it, wouldn’t it be better to include a vanity item that says, “hey, look how much time I put into something useless?” Achievements lead to titles, and rewards, why can’t long lore driven quest chains? Something like the Hand of A’dal possibly?

Old world factions deserve more than an achievement. I have said countless times that I wish my little gnome could have the title “of the Timbermaw” for his countless months spent farming the rep. Sure the Diplomat is a great title, but I don’t have any kind of connection to the other factions involved. I do wish that Blizzard had added the The Kalu'ak to the title achievement and title. They like, the other 3 factions involved are fighting the evils of the world as it invades their homeland. The Kalu’ak just seem to compliment the other factions with regard to overall story and feel in each of their respective versions of the game.

Along with old world titles, how about some respect for those factions? The Timbermaw could offer a Vanity pet when you do reach exalted, the Thorium Brotherhood could have some dark iron mount for horde or alliance, and the for those people who are crazy enough, why do none of the goblin factions, or when you reach exalted with all 4 offer you some sort of reward? How about a mechanical zeppelin pet?

I know that I have been advocating more pets, but what I would really like are more mounts. I’m not talking skins of mounts, because I think that has gotten out of control. The Argent Tournament is adding even more skins to the same old mounts. Once you have seen one mechanostrider, haven’t you seen them all? Where are the Clefthoofs, the Sporebats, the Shoveltusks, the boars, the rhinos, and the pterodactyl mounts? Mammoths, drakes, proto or otherwise, and bears are cool, but where are mounts that don’t look like rehashed skins of other mounts? Blizzard did a great job with ways to obtain mounts in Northrend, and I wish they would take it a step further and other unique ways to do so. Rep grinds and random hatchlings keep people interested, as do rare spawn killing with super cool lootz, so why not drive lore chains with vanity items that last long after the gear rewards?

There has been talk over at wowinsider about ending vanilla wow, and I would love to see just the opposite. I know some of this has been covered a million times, but dungeons need updated, streamlined, lore driven, and revisited. I’m sure that Blizzard spends countless hours on loot tables alone, and I would guess that remains the biggest issue with vanilla dungeons, but why not just have them scale? I realize we are told encounters don’t just scale because the mechanics of the fight are balanced around classes having certain abilities, but would BoA items be that bad even if they refuse to allow heroic old world dungeons?

I still don’t buy all the crap about scaling anyway. Blizzard proved places can be tuned up and trashed down with the new Naxx. They have taken lots of grief because Naxx was a redo of an old place, and there are many critics that will say that Blizzard was able to rush WotLK because instead of offering an entry level raid, they just retuned an old one. Why not get that retuning department in gear and let them hit up ZF, Mauradon, and Dire Maul?

-Rhab