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Posts with tag minigame

Wrath's Fetch Ball lets you play with your pets


This is hardly going to be one of the most amazing items in Wrath to those who clamor for epics and full dungeon sets, but for those of us who like the flavor that those cute little noncombat pets add, the Fetch Ball is a dream come true. The first thing you can see in this beta video is the pet and mount interface (which not only will let you choose pets or mounts, but also see a preview of each before you summon them), and the second thing you can see is, well, let's just say that Blizzard finally gave the noncombat pets something to do. And it's easy to get -- you can pick it up, along with a few other pet-related objects, from the NPC vendor named after the founder of the Warcraft Pets site.

Incredibly cute, and we're so glad to finally see some life from the little guys who've been following us around all this time. And who knows what else this will open the door to -- today, the noncombat pets can fetch, tomorrow they can pick up our loot, play dead or even go to a minigame battle? Maybe the whole "noncombat" term isn't quite their style anymore.

[via WoW Ladies LJ]

Breakfast Topic: Games within the game



We all know (or at least I hope we all know) that World of Warcraft is a game -- an MMO set in an immense universe with countless quests to do and whole continents to explore. However, sometimes the big game isn't as interesting as the minigames you can find. Steam tonk wars? (Or other pet games.) Guild bank checkers? (If you haven't tried that one, it's a blast!) What do you think of Azeroth's minigames -- do you play them? Do you enjoy them? Do you make up your own to entertain yourself between raids? Tell us about them!

Fishing and fun (or the lack thereof)

Fishing is probably the strangest implementation of activity in WoW-- there's really nothing like it (well, except everything-- it's basically clicking in a certain place at a certain time, and when aren't you doing that in this game?). But for all its boring qualities, players are still fascinated with it. Blizzard has hit on that weird balance of positive reinforcement-- it's boring, but gives just enough reward to keep you doing it.

And so it's not surprising that, once again, players are asking for fishing to be made "more fun." What that means, no one is really sure-- they could add better rewards, or make it a less boring minigame, or just make it require less attention (all other professions don't require any attention to be paid).

Lo and behold, Drysc actually acknowledges that there's something wrong with fishing-- something that has to do with the unquantifiable quantity known as "fun." But what it is, even Blizzard doesn't seem to know-- they added nodes to fishing to join a bit of exploration with it, but once you've found a node, it's just back to that same old clicking. Drysc suggests that real fishing is just as boring for some people, and that's why not everyone likes fishing in WoW, either.

My personal preference would be to put more into the fishing minigame-- catch different fish at different times of the day, or use different lures to attract various catches. Either that or make the skill involved something other than "waiting"-- maybe a meter where you have to click when the bar reaches a certain point. There's lots of reasons to fish, and that's why people still do it. But there's no question that sitting there waiting for the bobber to bounce needs more cowbell fun.

"Why must you chase me, mechanical yeti?"

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!

Continue reading "Why must you chase me, mechanical yeti?"


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