"Los Pollos Ardiente"

Never bring a single Phoenix Hatchling to a 3 Phoenix Hatchling fight.

He knew this day would come. It was inevitable. The world of underground pet battles is harsh, where sometimes even the victor limps away to die. There is no loyalty in pet battles, you serve your roll, you live or die, for the team. Most team mates don't even bother learning your name. Why bother, one of you will probably be dead by tomorrow. If you do manage to stay alive long enough though, you're bound to re-enter the circle with former foes and allies alike. It's just a matter of time. This was different though. This wasn't just some rag-tag band of brawlers Dave was confronted with. This was his former gang, "Los Pollos Ardiente". Deemed too small and too weak to a be a contender, their leader Rico had Dave "jumped out" right before what was supposed to be his first battle. Then to add insult to injury they had him replaced with an Ash Chicken. But that was many patches ago, way back in beta and time heals all wounds. Dave recovered, grew stronger and now was a whole level higher than his former brothers. Dave looked them each square in the eye. First Johnny, then the other Johnny before finally setting his stare on Rico. Dave could see it in his eyes... fear. He played out this fight over a million times in his head and he knew exactly how this was going down. Dave was ready. Ready for that sweet, sweet revenge.

DMF Vendors Need More Stuff

I'm currently sitting on almost 1000 Darkmoon Prize Tickets across all my alts. I have 2 Dancing Bears, a Forest Strider and at least 1 of each pet, most alts have the little monkey with the fez because it's a little monkey with a fez! I've even redeemed some tickets for the Replica tier pieces, but it's been months since I've claimed a prize at the Darkmoon Faire. So where's my motivation to keep visiting our wandering band of carnies and merry makers?

Yes, I have a lot of alts, but I'm not hardcore about the Faire at all. At best I hit up the Faire once on half my toons while it's in town mostly for the +5 cooking and fishing quests and to turn my Grisly Trophies in. Those first couple months after the Faire's relaunch I collected and turned in all the dungeon/battleground quest drop artifacts for the achievements on my main. Since then however when I get a Mysterious Grimoire, Captured Insignia, etc... they all get put on the AH. At any given time I have 20+ Soothsayer Runes littering my toons bags. They don't sell for squat so often I just have to type in DELETE to get rid of them. I've learned to NOT click that first raid boss just so I can avoid looting another one of these things.

Last December I wrote about how grand and awesome the DMF redesign was and that's where my issue lays. I still think it's a beautiful and magical zone and even after 6+ months the mini-games are still kinda fun, but in this game it's gear and rewards that drive players to keep chuggin away at same content again and again. And in a relatively short amount of time, even just casually enjoying this content I've realized that there's no reward left to pursue and keep me coming back. Most of the time if I'm at DMF I'm fishing not playing. Love that Darkmoon Firewater! Gear, toys, goodies, etc... drive players to keep playing. I'm sure I'm not in the minority of players here who have exhausted the gifts DMF offers and that kind of seems like a shame.

So for now, I'll still be casually enjoying the Faire, hording up those prize tickets and crossing my fingers that at the very least those heirloom pants that were data-mined so long ago at least end up at the vendor here.