Breakfast Topic: Brewing up better faires and festivals

I've just spent a day being Scottish. My father's family hails from Scotland, and the summer months will find me out and about at a variety of highland games in the Midwest. Sometimes I'm a spectator, and sometimes I run a tent for my clan. There's a general understanding that the highland games were created to prepare men for doing battle with the English. Each part of what has become the athletic portion of the games can be traced back a need for hurling hurl rocks, logs or flaming bales of vegetation at advancing troops or fortified positions. At the games I just attended, a group gave demonstrations on medieval swordplay.
In World of Warcraft, the Argent Tournament springs immediately to mind. We were informed this was a training ground to prepare us for an assault on the LIch King and his forces. The Darkmoon Faire and Brewfest are examples of festivals with games of chance, food and vendors, and tickets you have to procure by participating in events or getting lots of items requested by vendors.
We've heard rumors (or perhaps it was a column of wishful thinking on WoW.com's part) about an upgrade to the Darkmoon Faire. I'd go more often if I could make an attempt to toss a caber, the stone or the sheaf. These are strength and agility events; having purchasable trinkets for both attributes would give everyone a chance to succeed. Rewards could be class-specific buff items of a certain duration. If you can get the caber to twelve o'clock (the prime position for this event; check out the North American Scottish Games Association for the rules), you get a scroll that will give a hunter an additional 50 agility for 10 minutes. It might be something of minor interest to a level 80 -- but you can be sure I'd be at the faire, just to try to toss a caber.
I'd also like the ability to set up a guild tent. Charge me 5k gold, but give me the ability to have a tent at the faire where we could recruit, give away items or allow our crafters to provide their services. This is not a roleplaying event. This is another way for those unguilded people who don't read the realm or WoW recruiting forums or pay no attention to the recruitment spam in trade or general chat to talk with guilds and maybe find one they like.
There have to be other festivals celebrating specific cultures that have events which could be incorporated into the Darkmoon Faire. Right now, the faire isn't something most people attend, beyond a "what is that?" the first time they see it. By incorporating more ideas from current world festivals, the faire could be something incredibly exciting. What are your suggestions?
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Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Krz Jul 25th 2010 9:05AM
Darkmoon Faire upgrade sounds like a great idea..
Tim Jul 25th 2010 10:16AM
Guild tents would be a sweet idea. And I might actually care about the faire then if I could see others being involved in it in such a way. Make it something that the players can have a hand in.
wkennaway Jul 25th 2010 1:47PM
Sorry, but all this nonsense about 'clans' and 'highland games' is stuff that only foreigners who claim to have 'Scottish roots' take part in. Actual Scottish people just think it's a load of nonsense.
Zeplar Jul 26th 2010 12:16PM
On an older server, how many guild tents would be packed into the one faire? Even considering that it's faction-specific.
I would like to see more along the lines of Steam Tonks (nobody uses those anymore). Perhaps BG-style battles, but not instanced (so there can be observers). Of course, steam tonks are 4 years outdated, so we'd need something spicier :p
Aeneron Jul 25th 2010 11:22AM
Upgrades? Guilds tents? EPIC ROLEPLAYING OPPORTUNITY? Yes please.
.... Can we have epics too? :D
DarkSpade Jul 25th 2010 11:51AM
1) Make the tickets worth collecting.
This could be done in many ways. Anything from vanity items to entry level epics or even heirloom items. Look at how the argent tournament did it. More of an emphasis on the vanity items though.
2) Games for tickets
Currently the fair has, what, one? And isn't there a troll trying fix one? how long has he been working on it?
3) Dailies
Give me a reason to come back every day. Make them level with me. Maybe at level 5 I'm just running around repairing holes in the tents and at level 80 I'm collecting dragon bones for the world's strongest lady to lift. Maybe make it a daily dungeon quest too.
Uriah Jul 25th 2010 11:54AM
Speaking of which, I should really grind Darkmoon rep one day...
Ian Jul 25th 2010 12:34PM
"There's a general understanding that the highland games were created to prepare men for doing battle with the English."
Unfortunately there's little or no evidence of that, despite it being a nice idea. In fact, the majority of what people now consider to be Highland Games didn't exist before about 1820 when it was introduced as a romanticised view of the Highlands after the horrible period of clearances. Plus a lot of the events weren't really militarised. For example, "twisting the four legs off a cow for which a fat sheep is offered as a prize" doesn't really sound like a tactic of battle. The original mediaeval games were more like Darkmoon, being a combination of feats of strength, music, dance and poetry.
slythwolf Jul 26th 2010 6:03AM
Oh, so about the time someone made up the "clan tartans" then?
Direwoe Jul 26th 2010 8:15AM
As said elsewhere, the Scots were much more concerned with fighting each other than the English. But we won't let the truth get in the way of an Anglo-Phobic Aussies version of history (be it European or American)
rkaliski Jul 25th 2010 7:49PM
Darkmoon Faire was great back in the Vanilla days when there was little in the way of in game events. Now pretty much every month has an event. It needs to be brought up to level 85 standards.
I too attended a lot of Scottish games when I lived in upstate NY. I am not sure even Azeroth is ready for a gnome in full scottish regalia.
cowfodder Jul 25th 2010 1:04PM
Anyone else read that whole article in William Wallace's voice?
slythwolf Jul 26th 2010 6:05AM
No, because you don't know what William Wallace sounded like. You only know what Mel Gibson trying to do a Scottish accent sounds like.
Also, Wallace was a lowlander.
Kylenne Jul 25th 2010 1:57PM
Forget real world cultures, I'd like to see more incorporation of the in-universe cultures. You see bits and pieces of them during some of the world holidays (like the Lunar Festival, and Hallows End WRT the Forsaken), but not nearly enough. How about storytellers sharing some of their cultural myths and legends, different kinds of foods, etc? What about music and traditional dances?
I mean, hell, a lot of reason why I'm Horde is because we just have cooler stuff where that's concerned (generic Euro pseudo-medieval stuff just does nothing for me, and Nelf/Draenei culture sadly doesn't get as much representation or "screen time", especially the poor Draenei). But tell me the Faire wouldn't be way more fun with dancing trolls in tiki masks.
Valt Jul 25th 2010 2:39PM
Festivals with guilds? Tents? Items? Souvenirs?
I think they are awesome ideas.
"Too bad" RP servers are way ahead of people. Theres player made items with addon, communities to make this possible, ideas, "staff" etc for free.
Just need to get this thing going. Hmm.. that really got me idea to make one on my server.. guild recruit faire..
Zahira Jul 26th 2010 3:54PM
I think that anything that would give me more Darkmoon faire rep without turning it lots of expensive decks would be a vast improvement as I am currently working on Insane in the Membrane (if you don't know what it is you should look).
Exodus Jul 25th 2010 3:37PM
Dwarf tossing and Gnome punting for the Darkmoon Faire.
Eufimische Jul 25th 2010 3:55PM
I think you'll find those games were actually preparation for fighting other Scottish people, not 'The English'. But, hey, wasn't Braveheart an awesome movie?
(Also what that guy said about Clans and Highland games. And add in, probably only 1 in every 6 or 7 people of Scottish descent actually has Highland ancestry)
Craig Jul 25th 2010 4:16PM
I don't know if every monthly festival has this but i'd like to see more things like candy buckets put out fires with xp/gold rewards....and by more I mean maybe 2 one for spring and one for winter. Just me but I'll waste the three hours to take one of my alts around azeroth and outland for some quick xp/gold. If there are other xp festival quests then what are they...besides tourney because I do those as soon as they are available.
slythwolf Jul 26th 2010 6:09AM
There's visiting the Elders during Lunar Festival. That's all of them, I think.