"Why must you chase me, mechanical yeti?"
by Krystalle Voecks 
Apr 19th 2007 at 12:00PM
Let me preface this by saying that I absolutely love the tonks. I cackle with fiendish glee anytime one of my guild mates pulls out a tonk while we're waiting on the rest of the group to get to an instance. Tonk wars are no end of fun.One of the things that has been conspicuously absent from the game for some time was more mini-games like the tonks at the Darkmoon Faire. Sure, you get the Battered Steam Tonk Controller as a quest reward in the Bone Wastes, but I already have a tonk. I had hopes when I did the Arcano Scorpid quest in Shadowmoon Valley... It seems like you should be able to battle them. But sadly enough, as a guild mate and I found out, once you've turned in the quest, you can no longer control the arcano scorpids. (We can only guess that it is still possible that you can battle them, considering they have attacks that only work on other arcano scorpids. But you'd have to never turn in the quest to be able to continue playing.) And yes, you can do the bombing run over and over in Hellfire, but without actually playing against another person, where is the challenge in it?
So, what we'd like to propose is for Blizzard to actually build in some form of mini-games. Not a true PVP thing, like dueling or battlegrounds, but something of a smaller and potentially sillier bent. Like giving folks control of the arcano scorpids after the quest is completed. That way you could play Scorpid Battle Mechs to break up the monotony of puking your guts out while searching for that one perfectly ripe Arakkoa egg. Or hey, how about making those non-combat pets useful and let us fight them against each other? I can just see it now... Magical Crawdad, I choose you!
Well, okay, maybe that last bit is all me.
The quest for new toys could be used to revitalize old content like, say, the old L60 instances. Collect trinkets from the old bosses and turn them in for some form of uber-toy. Perhaps a Mecha BattleYeti based off the Mechanical Yetis you get in Winterspring, or how about having your very own Killer Rabbit a-la Monty Python? I think most of us would fall all over ourselves to get another yeti that actually fights. (Or hey, let engineers make ones that fight, perhaps? I'm sure they'd love a new schematic!)
Battling with new pets/toys would be fun, much like my beloved tonk has been. Other options could include something like the Texas Hold 'Em mod that proved the bane of many a Raid Leader, or the /gems game, which started a Tetris-like game to kill time while you waited for your raiding party to get assembled.
Then again, maybe it's just me who wants to play with toys while waiting around for a raid group to form up... What do you all think?
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Masema Apr 19th 2007 12:32PM
"Or hey, how about making those non-combat pets useful and let us fight them against each other?"
I fully support this idea, I would love to have this option!
Matt Apr 19th 2007 2:06PM
Some form of gambling FTW!!! Poker, black jack, or some Blizzard made up game. Let me Gamble GP's with NPC's and other players. Almost every RFG has some form of gambling and I always wondered why Blizzard left this out.
Krystalle Voecks Apr 19th 2007 12:42PM
Just think of all the battles you could have with the non-combat pets. Murky vs. Mr. Wiggles in a three-round deathmatch! Lil' Smokey vs. Zergling! The mind boggles, really.
spiral prophet Apr 19th 2007 12:54PM
That would be cool.. Then we could get some underground illegal cockfighting with gambling and what not FTW!!!
Metaphyzxx Apr 19th 2007 12:54PM
Or let your in game character play the TCG... using 'loot' cards as an ingame reward to get new cards... Heck if nothing else, itd probably sell more tcg cards.
Krystalle Voecks Apr 19th 2007 1:00PM
Spiral: I could see using Mecha-chickens for that. They could just use the existing models as opposed to having to draw out full roosters. :D
Matt: I admit I'm not terriby good at poker myself, but I'd imagine my guild mates would love to stomp me (especially if it involved gold) in a round of poker while waiting around for groups to form. Although I still think I'd be better in pet battles.
Metaphyzxx: That's a thought. Something like the mini-card game in Final Fantasy 8 perhaps, although based on the real-life TCG? I could see occasional rare cards being used as part of the mini-card-game, much like rare cards give in-game items now.
Derbeste Apr 19th 2007 1:14PM
My name is Derbeste and I support this add.
Strongmark on Arthas Apr 19th 2007 1:28PM
I wanna see my little Father's Winter Helper kick some butt against another little mini gnome.
We could even gamble on them... like cock fights. haha, that would be awesome.
Jenet Apr 19th 2007 1:28PM
RE: poker, my guild currently plays poker while we wait for things. we just /rand 10000 99999, so you get a hand. For example, 30207 is a pair of 0 which is low. 39997 is triple 9s. We've had a few four of a kinds, and once saw a number in the high 999xxs, I can't remember just how high it was.
Strongmark on Arthas Apr 19th 2007 1:28PM
I really gotta start reading other people's comments... i thought i was all genious with the cock fighting thing...
dammit...
Omegi Apr 19th 2007 1:30PM
I got this http://thottbot.com/i23767 the other day and have yet to find an engineer that will buy it. Perhaps I will make a trade for a few to be made for the pattern.
Ekimus Apr 19th 2007 1:36PM
Let us not forget two, fun-for-about-2-seconds, items
Happy Fun Rock: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=18640
Heavy Leather Ball: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=1866
Krystalle Voecks Apr 19th 2007 1:45PM
Omegi: If I was lucky enough to get that, you can bet I'd be forking it over to my Hunter class officer (who is also one of the elder engineers in my guild) because he's just as addicted to tonks as I am. Any deal I cut for that pattern would definitely have to involve me getting a robot to play with!
Jenet: Sounds like a neat way to do it, but doesn't that take the bluff aspect out of it? If it was straight rolls, I'd be in trouble! I'm one of those people who rolls in the single digits most of the time, no matter what. O.o
Tseran Apr 20th 2007 9:37AM
Actually, Blizzard could do something really unique. Anyone who has ever played the old (and I do mean old) game The Fools Errand knows that the game is based around the Tarot deck. Each card in the deck is its own puzzle, and one off the puzzles is a competative gambling type game where you take a mini deck and literally play against the computer four points. This could EASILLY be done with the Darkmoon cards. From what I saw of the Darkmoon cards, they are the equivelent to the minor arcana in tarot (swords, cups, pentacles & staves) but the mini game was played with the major arcana (death, tower, world, lovers, et al) which has never made an appearance in WoW.
In fact, the collecting of the major arcana could be the source of a quest. "The last cards of the Darkmoon seer deck was stolen by the Murlocs around darkshire, kill them and collect the cards" Make them common, but semi-rare drop and possibly drop the same one over and over to encourage trading amongst players. Don't make any one card more rare then another, and when the players collect all of them, they get their own deck, which they can use to play the mini-game against someone.
Now, even if the mini-game was the same rules as the one from Fools Errand, it would still be an incredible game that people could seemingly spend hours playing (I know I did in that game)
In fact, I am gonna post this to the Blizzard suggestion forum too. They need a good idea. ;)
Rihlsul Apr 19th 2007 1:50PM
Haha, don't forget Ekimus, both of those can be used in a Dodgeball event.
Go-go-Guild Relations forum for silly events and other awesome Guild things.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12052659&sid=1#6
Dixi Apr 19th 2007 2:03PM
I would love for my pets to attack critters. I think my mechanical squirrel could do some real damage. :)
Dixi Jun 28th 2007 10:45AM
I would love for my Mechanical Squirrel to attack critters. I think that he could give them a real run for their money. :)
Juliette Apr 19th 2007 2:17PM
You can indeed fight eachother as arcano scorpids. My partner and I did the quest at the same time and it didn't take very long for us to notice that they had abilities that could be used against other arcano scorpids...
Krystalle Voecks Apr 19th 2007 2:12PM
Rihlsul: That's a brilliant thread! Pardon me while I steal some ideas for fun and silliness at my next guild meeting. (all due credit, of course) Currently, we have a round of "Nogginfogger Roulette" planned for the next one.
Tseran: I'm not familiar with the game, but it sounds like it was a lot of fun! There again, if it was half as much fun as you make it sound like, you realize you're giving Blizzard the ideas with which to addict all of us even further. hehe
Ekimus: I love those too. The problem with those (for me) has always been that it causes people who don't want to play to get involved. Someone always throws the rock to someone afk or otherwise busy, and it winds up sitting in their bag until much later. I can't tell you how many Happy Fun Rocks I've lost that way.
Juliette: That is so cool! Sadly, I turned in the quest already, so I can't fight with them anymore. :(
Asynchronous Apr 19th 2007 2:42PM
The problem with the Crashin' Thrashin' Robots that engineers make is that they're BoP. So you need to get your hands on a world drop recipe, and find another engineer who also has.
That said, I reeaaally want to get my hands one.