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World of Warcraft: The Argent Tournament
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com Correspondent Robert Duckworth provides us with this look at the Argent Tournament that sees players in Azeroth face off against each other in mounted duels.
Outlands has been set free. Arthas remains at large, plotting for his scourge armies to conquer the world. But most important: The Argent Tournament is coming to Azeroth!
In a new quest hub stylized much in the same manner as Sunwell Isle, the Argent Tournament is looking to provide that extra little thing to make you stay logged in each day after you've done everything else. The plot line behind the Argent Tournament is terrible. The Argent faction has decided that, after all of the bickering and infighting that has happened so far, in order for the combined forces of the Horde and the Alliance to work together and defeat Arthas, they need to kill each other in mounted combat. It has no place in lore or the over arching plot line of the expansion, but who cares about that anymore? It does look like it will be a fun distraction.
;)
Read about the The Argent Tournament
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I really question the person who wrote this article.
Quote: "The plot line behind the Argent Tournament is terrible. The Argent faction has decided that, after all of the bickering and infighting that has happened so far, in order for the combined forces of the Horde and the Alliance to work together and defeat Arthas, they need to kill each other in mounted combat. It has no place in lore or the over arching plot line of the expansion, but who cares about that anymore?"
The combat is not death. Only deaths that occur are accidental, well most of the time. This is a take off on the chivalry era knights who jousted. Go watch First Knight, A Knight's Tale, Excalibur and almost any other "fantasy" movie dealing with knights (the Argent Crusade is clearly based closely after historic and fantasy knightly orders). You have seen them before right? You play a fantasy game, but so many people seem to pay no attention to the origins of fantasy.
The few deaths at the tournament actually cause the Argent Crusade to send you around the tourney grounds investigating them. When you challenge other players and npcs to jousting matches, nobody dies. When someone gets to low health, they surrender, it's just like a duel.
Jousts and other games of this nature are a matter of history and lore. It was common in medieval times for these games to occur to help lords pick champions or just as medieval version of ABC's wide world of sports. And so, the argent crusade is holding these games to not only boost the morale of their troops. But also promote some friendship between the Alliance and Horde who are currently more willing to currently kill each other than the enemies that are now ready to destroy them both. And of course, they also get to name their champions, the best of the best who they will send against arthas at Icecrown citadel.
I'm so sick of people bashing Blizzard and 3.1 about this. Every comment I see about the AT is some form of bashing about the story behind it. Plenty of other things they've done if you want something to gripe about. So stop nitpicking and trying to complain about the game because "it's the cool thing to do".
Go look up jousting, and tilting and other such topics on wikipedia or something. Here, I'll make it easy for you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jousting
As for the tourney itself, I just made Champion of Silvermoon this morning. I have to say it is a very fun group of dailies to do. I've never done dailies in wow religously. I still haven't even bothered to get Hodir rep to Exalted. But the AT quests were actually fun and were enough to make me want to finish them. I don't care for the item rewards, none are really better than what I have now, but getting the tabards, mounts and non-combat pets will be fun.
I suggest that MMORPG.COM get itself a new Correspondent for WOW, one with more of an eye for accurate reports.
<Mod Edit>
How exactly would a tourney based around medieval jousting attract 10 year olds? I doubt most even have a clue what knights or jousting is.
Warcraft Lore is like all MMORPG lore, it's an ever evolving concept. Why exactly does this not fit into the current game lore? The Argent Crusade are knights after all. Where in Warcraft lore is it forbidden for knights to joust or have games of strength? By your reason, why would the world of Azeroth celebrate any sort of holiday, festival or even the Darkmoon Faire?
Is it because you think they're crazy for not attacking Arthas? Let's see, the last time in the current chronology of quests that you encounter Arthas, his heart is cut in half by Tirion. Yet he still has the power to fight off all of the top knights of the Ebon Blade and many of those of the Argent Crusade. If you and they did not immediately flee, his wrath spell would instantly kill all of you.
So you have a creature who currently posseses the power to not only easily slay you, but he can raise an army from the corpses of your army. Clearly until you come up with a better plan or some way to stop his power, a head long attack on his citadel would easily be thwarted and would probably increase the size of his army. So until then, the crusade has to wait until they find a way (provided by the designers) to thwart Arthas' power and enable a group of brave adventurers ( i.e. us) to go into the Citadel and defeat Arthas.
In the meantime to keep their soldier's spirits up, and their minds off the fact that they will probably die in some scripted event faster than a red shirt wearing crewman on Star Trek, the Argent Crusade hosts the tournament.
I wish there were some way to =accurately= measure it, but i'd bet WoW has the widest age range of any MMOG, with more people in their 30's and 40's than any MMOG. 35+ probably makes up the 2nd largest age group in the game. I'd also wager that WoW attracts the highest income and best educated of any MMOG as well. Only possible competitor for these ranges would be Eve.
Everyone knows all the 10 year olds are playing DarkFall.
Jousting just seems like yet another mini game that futher spreads apart the population. I dont care for it.
I find it difficult to understand why so many people see World of Warcraft as a game for the 'kiddies', I've played WoW for almost four years now, and I've enjoyed it pretty much every time I log on. Sure, we have our share of fools an' such, but with a game that boasts a population of over 10 million people, you've gotta expect to find some stupidity with in the ranks.
I think if most people would gather up a group of friends, play together, join a guild that meets your play style, be it casual, hardcore, raider, pvper, what ever. People would enjoy the game far more. As for graphics, sure, if the art style isn't for you then that's fine, but there's no reason why people should bitch about something like that. It's the art style of WoW, if it was in true 3D, I think I'd have quit the game long ago. As for the Argent Tourney, it's an event and it does in fact make sense to the lore. As somebody mentioned, the Argent Crusade is the combined efforts of the Knights of Silverhand, and the Argent Dawn - Jousting is a contest of strength it meets the fantasy setting. As for the tourney itself in general, it has subpar loot because it's aimed at the casuals who do -NOT- raid.