And finally...

We'll wrap up the major aspects of the patch notes here. Besides the new dungeon and raid instance, the Argent Tournament is expanding in some other areas. There will be new dailys for those exalted with the Sunreaver or Silver Covenant factions, and new mounts and pets corresponding with these factions will also be available. Similarly, there will be new dailys for those who have earned the "Crusader" title (Oh yeah, that'd be me.); these will also give rewards like a new tabard, pet, etc. One of the more exciting new things arriving with this change is a mounted squire, with which you can access bank, vendor, and mailbox for a short time every few hours. Also, there will be new heirloom chest pieces that have a 10% exp boost.

I'm a rather large fan of the Argent Tournament, and I find these changes to be excellent. I have a reason to go back and start doing the dailys again, since I'll need more seals for all those shiny new rewards. More dailys to have is always good. I like how Blizzard has provided enough dailys in the expansion that players can kind of choose which ones they're going to do that day. For example, I may want to do some Hodir dailys one day, Oracles and Kalu'ak the next, or spend the whole day just doing Tournament dailys. It doesn't have to be the same thing every day, though that's the way most players seem to do things. It might not get you that one rep all that fast, but it is nice to know one has options.

Finally, the last changes I'll talk about are the changes to travel. The level needed for ground mounts has been reduced across the board, and regular flying mounts are now available at level 60. Higher level flying skills have remained the same. Prices for ground mounts and training have also been lowered. Also, portals have been added from Orgrimmar and Stormwind to the Dark Portal, so players have easier access to the Outlands, and a zepplin route has been added between Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff.

As far as the mounts go, I'm really excited. Alt leveling will be much less painful, and I'm all up for that. It will be interesting to see how the feeling of leveling in Outlands changes when everyone's zipping around on (150% speed) flying mounts. Thank goodness for the speed change too; 60% just felt like a standstill. Portals, meh. Blizzard's taking away my business! Not that I make portals for people all that often, but still. It's a good market. The zepplin is good though. I never really used Thunder Bluff that much, mostly because it's so disconnected from everything else. I still probably won't use it that much because the city itself feels disconnected to me, but it's a nice change for leveling and such.

So, that's all the major changes coming in the upcoming patch. The PTR also just came up yesterday, so everyone go test to their heart's content! I'm not much for the PTR; I like to see the content only when it goes live. I do appreciate all the juicy tidbits though.

Also, I should probably say that most of my numbers and info come from WoW.com. They rule.