Darkmoon Faire ticket clarifications
by Mathew McCurley 
Dec 6th 2011 at 5:45PM
Bashiok's post clearly points out that the max number of tickets a player can get during each Darkmoon Island week is 145 tickets. The only issue is that a mount from the Darkmoon Faire costs 180 tickets, so players will have to wait until the next Darkmoon Island opens to claim their first mount reward. Now that the number of tickets is spelled out, it doesn't actually seem as bad as I originally thought it was going to be.
However, the weird thing that still permeates all of this is why playing the games at the Faire, the real focus of the island, rewards players with the lowest amount of tickets. The random Darkmoon artifacts that you get as drops from PvP, dungeons, and raids give substantially more in terms of tickets than the games themselves; the random pickups or Auction House items eclipse the daily games in terms of rewards. I really like the new Faire and hope that the prize ticket changes for the games can be upped to reflect their focus.
Hit the jump to read Bashiok's breakdown of Darkmoon Faire tickets.
Darkmoon Faire Tickets
Thanks everyone for your feedback. To hopefully clear up some of the confusion over time investment vs reward costs we've broken down exactly how many tickets you can obtain in a single Darkmoon Faire week. The design intent of the Darkmoon Faire is that it's available for one week out of the month, and in that one week we expect you to be able to obtain a significant amount of tickets. To clarify the OP's point of how long it would take to obtain an entire set of cosmetic gear, the math presented was incorrect, and it would in fact only take 4 Darkmoon Faire weeks to complete an entire set. That's of course still no quick task, and the intent is not for it to be. There are plenty of rewards that can be obtained in one or two weeks of the Darkmoon Faire, but we expect that an entire set will take a few events to obtain.
Here's the breakdown:
Tickets Per Faire
Dungeon: 40
Heroic Dungeon: 15
Raid: 10
Tradeskill quests (primary): 8
Tradeskill quests (secondary): 12
BGs: 15
Kill Quest: 10
Mini Games*: 35
Total Tickets per faire: 145
* 5 mini games, available daily: 7*5=35
As an example, here are some options that you can choose over the course of two Darkmoon Faires (2 weeks over 2 months):
Prioritizing mounts/pets: 1 mount + 1 pet, with 20 tickets to spare
Prioritizing pets: 3 pets, 20 tickets to spare
Prioritizing cosmetic armor: 4 pieces of cosmetic armor, with 30 tickets to spare
Prioritizing heirloom armor: 1 piece of heirloom armor + 1 heirloom weapon, with 20 tickets to spare
Keeping all of this in mind we don't feel the current ticket acquisition rates or reward costs are out of hand, but we're interested to hear your thoughts after reading this information and considering the longevity of the content, as well as the 'once a month' format of the faire. We'll be continually evaluating it, and we're looking forward to incorporating more goodies to be won, and more activities to the faire, in the future.
Here's the breakdown:
Tickets Per Faire
Dungeon: 40
Heroic Dungeon: 15
Raid: 10
Tradeskill quests (primary): 8
Tradeskill quests (secondary): 12
BGs: 15
Kill Quest: 10
Mini Games*: 35
Total Tickets per faire: 145
* 5 mini games, available daily: 7*5=35
As an example, here are some options that you can choose over the course of two Darkmoon Faires (2 weeks over 2 months):
Prioritizing mounts/pets: 1 mount + 1 pet, with 20 tickets to spare
Prioritizing pets: 3 pets, 20 tickets to spare
Prioritizing cosmetic armor: 4 pieces of cosmetic armor, with 30 tickets to spare
Prioritizing heirloom armor: 1 piece of heirloom armor + 1 heirloom weapon, with 20 tickets to spare
Keeping all of this in mind we don't feel the current ticket acquisition rates or reward costs are out of hand, but we're interested to hear your thoughts after reading this information and considering the longevity of the content, as well as the 'once a month' format of the faire. We'll be continually evaluating it, and we're looking forward to incorporating more goodies to be won, and more activities to the faire, in the future.
Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Filed under: Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
chipthamac Dec 6th 2011 5:47PM
How do you get tickets from dungeons, I must have missed something...
wintermoon1370@gmail.com Dec 6th 2011 5:52PM
I think they mean the drops from bosses you can get that offer quests for the DMF. You can get them by carrying the guide with you at all times.
Brett Porter Dec 6th 2011 5:54PM
There are certain quests at the faire (it was one with a yellow and not blue, iirc) that allows you to collect Grisly Trophies from doing content (battlegrounds, dungeons and I think raids).
Once you have 250 of these you can turn them in for tickets. You do have to have your Adventurer's Guide in your bags to collect the trophies though.
http://www.wowhead.com/quest=29433
(cutaia) Dec 6th 2011 5:59PM
Man, though...the drops from dungeons and PvP seem to be pretty damn low. I've already invested quite a bit of time into looking for them and haven't seen a single one. I would be perfectly ok with this system if getting those to drop were a little more consistent. As is stands, this feels like the most hardcore casual content I've ever seen. Hours and hours of battlegrounds to get a cute little turtle. /cry
Chris Gonzalez Dec 6th 2011 6:12PM
The drops are terribly low. I've ran enough dungeons to get over 200 grizzly trophies (as a tank, I hit the mobs first, so I get the drops), but I haven't seen any of the quest items drop, while my guildie, who is also a tank, has seen five of them drop, each on the last boss of a heroic dungeon. And from what I've heard, Battlegrounds have simply become "kill people so we can loot them" fests. Which is okay, I guess. /shrug
raingod Dec 6th 2011 6:13PM
@Cutaia I've gotten two drops one from Azshara and the other from Murozond I believe.
Neodarkmatter Dec 6th 2011 6:51PM
These items are also not soulbound when picked up so you can find them on your Auction house. If you wind up getting multiples you may want to hold onto them so you don't have to farm them next month.
mitch_b_666 Dec 6th 2011 6:57PM
@Cutaia if you go into the Cathedral of the Darkness in Icecrown and kill the Chosen Zealots you'll get the trophies really fast. They have around 34k hp, respawn really fast (in the time it takes you to loot the 25 that you pulled) and they are in group of 20 to 30.
Location: http://i.imgur.com/jttCx.jpg
pretty much any class with an AoE spell should be able to kill them easily, as a shadow priest i just shield myself and AoE them down. Took me 20 mins to get all 250.
Stouph Dec 6th 2011 7:30PM
lol MOST HARDCORE CASUAL CONTENT EVARR!!!
Indeed it does feel that way.. This stuff used to be fun, now it feels like a chore.
Huge Thumbs up for the faire Blizz.... but the randomness of it all is very fatiguing.
I'm not feeling the fun factor... just feels like a long boring grind.
I mean "A Long strang Trip..." was a huge colossal grind, but it was a lot of fun too!
Jason Dec 6th 2011 7:35PM
I've seen lots of the quest items drop, so much so that I've even been stuck with unusable items in my bags as I've already done the quests and get the warning "You've already completed that quest". I was farming the Rivendare mount on my 85 and 2 quest items dropped from 2 different bosses. Kael'thas gave up another when I was farming the MgT mount.
Caylynn Dec 6th 2011 7:37PM
Despite running more dungeons than I can count, more BGs than I've ever run before, and a couple of raids, I only saw the stupid thing drop once, in a heroic. No, I didn't win it. :(
Blizzard definitely needs to up the drop rate for people who have the book in their bags. If this keeps up, I'm going to probably give up on the Faire before I have everything I want from it (pets, mounts, replica armour).
Ez Dec 6th 2011 9:43PM
if you have a boatload of gold just buy the stuff on AH. there is a guide on WoWHead
http://www.wowheadnews.com/blog=197208/4-3-darkmoon-faire-preview-guide
bluefin.lock Dec 6th 2011 9:49PM
It's not as bad as you make out. You can get them from low level dungeons so they are easily farmable for a lvl 85. I got all but the one that drops from Cata heroics.
Here is a list of which boss drops which item:
http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=6027
(about the 5th post down)
SamLowry Dec 7th 2011 6:37AM
Pst, Jason, someone stated in a related thread that he sold some of these "unusable" items on the AH for 9k each.
Paul Dec 7th 2011 7:34AM
It's only a chore if you approach it with the "now now NOW! Gimme gimme! Must be FIRST" attitude.
If you go with a genuine casual attitude, you know, the one where you do things because you want to, not because you're jumping through hoops to get things IMMEDIATELY (gimmegimmegimme), then this content will seem a lot less frustrating.
If everything was available straight away, then what would be the point of DMF in 4 months time?
The event is designed to last for a long time. Considering how people keep complaining about how content is over too quickly, I'm honestly surprised (but not really) that now people are complaining about the complete opposite.
scherbaddie Dec 12th 2011 2:33PM
"Hours and hours of battlegrounds to get a cute little turtle. /cry"
I remember doing hours and hours of battlegrounds to get a white wolf to ride on.
sporkwind Dec 7th 2011 10:10AM
Grizzly trophies are really easy to do. At least for now.
Jump over to Icecrown and slaughter massive amounts of green mobs in one shot. Doesn't take long.
The artifacts and such though are painful. I guess they want to keep the Darkmoon Faire still in line with that Insane title. Sad that the games and such are semi-worthless.
bethontheharbor Dec 6th 2011 5:53PM
sounds great if youre into all the games content. I don't raid or do heroics.. so thats out.
Ilmyrn Dec 6th 2011 6:04PM
If you don't do raids or heroics, that's only 25 total tickets per month that you're not able to get.
pwherman Dec 6th 2011 6:06PM
And yet, it sounds great if you're NOT into all the game's content, because there are a variety of ways to get tickets. It will take longer, but there's a path to getting them eventually, as opposed to other aspects of the game that if you don't play, you never get those rewards offered by those parts.