Darkmoon Island: Fun for All Levels

Psychocandy in druid T2 with her My Little Seapony

I spent some time tooling around on Darkmoon Island this past Sunday, running errands for some carnies and fishing up a storm. the fishing is what netted me the Sea Pony vanity pet you see in the screenshot above. It too fewer than 50 casts off the coast (both in and outside of wreckage pools) to catch this guy. I obtained my second sea pony, on my Forsaken shadow priest, in a scant 12 casts. But in contrast, my gnomey shadow priest fished the coast off and on for several hours (while I baked cookies) and never saw a sea pony land in her bags.

The sea pony fishing wasn’t the only excuse to bust out my mad professional skills on the island however– there are quests you can complete for all flavors of professions, netting you some rep with the Faire, plus prize tickets and cash or XP depending upon your level. Some of the professional quests will require that you bring some supplies with you (or head out the portal to your staging area at the end of the dock to go grab some.) Thus I started bringing my stack of flour with me on all my chefs, and blue dye/red dye/simple thread on my tailors.

One of the more silly but fun aspects were the many new World event achievements the Faire brought with it, including the “I was Promised a Pony” achievement. As seen below, there are some ponies you can abscond with and ride around the island on for a bit. And who doesn’t like ponies?? EVERYBODY likes ponies. But I digress.

The Faire also hands out some quests that involve incenting you to grind mobs complete Battlegrounds and Dugneons back on the continents. Thus, even though there is a little bit of a grind involved if you plan to save up your tickets to purchase some of the fabulous prizes (which include mounts and vanity pets, heirlooms, and replica tier gear) they actively aim to make it feel less grindy than Firelands for instance. Somehow I doubt I will return to the Faire to play the games very often, or complete the in game challenges to rack up the tickets for even one pet, but it was a nice day’s excursion to bring out my favorite toons to go see.

My Little Gnome Pony!

Friday Five: Five Dreamy Additions to the Darkmoon Faire

We goblins have high hopes for this new Darkmoon Faire Isle

In Patch 4.3 the Darkmoon Fair stops being that traveling caravan of carnies and gets its own permanent year-round home. Now that they’re putting their roots down, I have some thoughts for a few Faire additions to give it that immersive good ‘ole Fair time feeling:

  1. A rodeo. Preferably one wherein your entire guild can take part in various vehicle-based challenges in an arena full of your favorite friends and frenemies.
  2. An Old Tyme Photo Studio. With dress-up outfits and the ability to include your BFF, with the resulting screenie mailed to you in game and to your battlenet email address.
  3. Crafter’s Corner. Any good fair has a hall of crafting, showing off the handicraft skills of the local citizens. Seeing as how the Darkmoon Faire is run by goblins, there needs to be some profit in it though. That’s why this crafting hall should have all manner of rare patterns, AND commemorative plaques with the names of your server’s crafters of truly rare items.
  4. Coin Toss. But instead of the traditional mugs and glassware, have vanity pets or vanity gear as what you’re shooting for.
  5. Vanity Pet Parade. What’s a fair without a 4-H show? Since we can’t raise our own cows and bunnies, we could instead have denizens sign up to have a pet show.

If you had your say, what would you add to the Darkmoon Faire?