While Player Housing is good n’ all, I feel like I speak for everyone here in that Blizzard needs to bring Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor out of the events of Cataclysm and into Midnight. And what better way to do it than to do a World Revamp?
I think that much like with the option to Level a character in Chromie Time, or to turn on the PvP Mode from a major Capital City: Players should have the ability to opt into what I would like to call “Midnight Mode”.
Midnight Mode as its’ name implies is a higher difficulty setting for not only the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, but also for Northrend, Pandaria, and the Broken Isles: where there’s a whole slew of new Quests and Rewards for Players to engage in on the old content zones that play into the events of Midnight, but that there’s one major difference to them that sets Midnight Mode apart from the base game: Flightpaths and Flying Mounts are disabled. With the Lore being that the Void is doing something screwy is happening in the skies that is keeping all of the Gryphons, Wyverns, Hippogriffs, and Cloud Serpents grounded in these Zones and that Overland Travel by Ground Mounts are one of the safest methods of moving from place-to-place.
This is where the Gilnean Stagecoach in the Topic Title comes into play at.
Players enter a Tavern and are given a Quest by an NPC to head over to either the Gilneas Transit Authority Headquarters found at the Merchant Square in Gilneas (Alliance), or to the Kezan Transport Association Main Office located at Bilgewater Harbor (Horde) and they’ll take note of your record and skills which is what they are looking for in a Caravan Captain.
Both Organizations will grant Players with a Gilneas Stagecoach (The Goblins stole several of the abandoned carriages from Gilneas during the events of Cataclysm) and ask for you to help rebuild or pioneer a Network of Stagecoach Stations: the substitute for Flightpaths in Midnight Mode, and that these Stagecoach Stations are automatically added in for other characters on the Players’ account meaning that there’s no repeatable paths to continuously grind out for your Alts.
The Gilnean Stagecoach in this respect differs from other Ground Mounts in that it would be a Dynamic Mount that is heavily customizable like the Dragonriding Mounts of yore, in that at Stagecoach Stations the Players will find a Rostrum where they can alter their Stagecoachs’ appearance at, where the options are split into various categories, and that you can find new cosmetic appearances for the Stagecoach from a wide variety of activities, scenarios, dungeons and holidays. However one of the two best things about the Stagecoach would be the Harness Option: allowing for Players to assign their favorite Mounts to pull the Stagecoach for them. However there are two rules for the Harness option that limits what kinds of Mounts you can hitch up:
Rule 1: The Mounts have to be “Living Creatures”: no Magic Carpets, Robot Spiders, Mech Suits, Motorcycles, Rockets, or Elemental Tornados. The only exceptions to this rule are Infernals, Undead Mounts, and Gnomish Mechanostriders.
Rule 2: The Mounts need to have a programmed Walk/Run Animation: no Ardenweald Moths, Pandaria Cloud Serpents, Parrots, Dragons, Bats, Dragonhawks, etc.
Aside from that: anything is valid to pull your Stagecoach.
The Harness Option is split into three separate categories by-default: allowing you to hitch up your favorite Mounts to pull the Stagecoach with how many you can have pull the Stagecoach based on the Mounts’ general size:
Sturdy Harness: Allows for 4 “Small” Mounts (IE: your general Racial Mounts like Horses, Wolves, Raptors, Hawkstriders, Talbuks, Unicorns, Nightsabers, Foxes, etc.)
Reinforced Harness: Allows for 2 “Medium” Mounts (IE: Rams, Kodos, Yaks, Bears, Mushans, Direhorns, Riverbeasts, Elekks, Crocolisks, etc.)
Industrial Harness: Allows for 1 “Large” Mount (IE: Ironhoof Destroyer, Hellhounds, Ohn’aran Mammoths, Gronnlings/Yetis, Infernals, “Long Bois”, Snails, Gorms, etc.)
However, note that I said that the Harness was “one of the two best things about the Stagecoach” What would be more interesting than a Harness to flaunt your favorite Mounts pulling a Stagecoach? What about building up a Caravan Crew to ride that Stagecoach with you?
In order for Players to establish the Stagecoach Stations, you will need to build up a Caravan Crew to help you out on your task who are called Caravanners: 9 NPCs that you can assign to your Stagecoach that will handle the defense, navigation, economic opportunities, or just as a friendly voice to listen to on long trips. The Caravanner System is similar to the Follower Systems of past expansions where you can find and recruit a great number of people to travel with you. Unlike with the Follower Systems however: there is NO Mission Table System attached to it (HAAAALELUJIAH!!) meaning that the Caravanners are an active element to your journey and that they can provide certain Buffs and Traits to you when you assign them to your Stagecoach. More importantly: you have the option to also assign your favorite Mount NPCs from either the Tundra Mammoth, Expedition Yak, or either of the “Long Bois” to your Stagecoach and benefit from their abilities while driving it.
However, there’s a large expansive pool of ways that a Player can go about getting Caravanners, ranging from straightforward methods like completing Quests and Zone Storylines, reaching a certain ranking with a Reputation, finding them somewhere in the world: either in the regular game or in Midnight Mode. One such example that Players can find would be Rosaine the Harpist from the Suramar Storyline: a Nightborne harpist who grew disillusioned by the Magistrix’s pact with Demons and decided to join the Nightfallen and plays her harp in the zone. Returning to Suramar in Midnight Mode and you’ll find Rosaine suffering from writers’ block and needs some inspiration for her music, so you take her on a world tour to explore the various Zones of Azeroth to sample the local music there and afterwards she’ll join as a Caravanner who will play Harp Solo renditions of Zone Music for you.
There’s also Caravanners that Players can find by using Weapons, Trinkets or Racial Abilities that can summon them when used: like using the Brewfest Charms in order to summon the Brewmaidens, using the Horsemans’ Sinister Slicer to summon a Pumpkin Soldier named “Squire Linus”, or using the Goblins’ Racial Ability “Pack Hobgoblin” in order to summon Gobber who will become a permanent Bank NPC on your Stagecoach. Even then; all of this isn’t the upper limit to how one can go about getting Caravanners…
There exists an Esoteric Category of Caravanners: Caravanners that would require a secret-finding community level of effort to discover and uncover these Caravanners that would offer unique rewards and goodies like new Mounts, Battle Pets, Cosmetic Weapons and Armor to the Players when completing their quests. Several examples that come to mind would involve playing as a Level 20 Dwarf or Gnome with their Hearthstone set to Loch Modan and using the Archaeology Hearthstone “The Innkeepers’ Daughter” which will summon Keelin Stonekeeper who will give you a quest to go track down the Gnome Warlock that transformed her into a Hearthstone centuries ago in order to kill him and bring back his Grimoire to help undo her curse: after doing that she will become a Caravanner and will offer Players with a 10% decrease to their Hearthstone Cooldowns when assigned to your Stagecoach. While another involves Human Casters collecting The Postmaster Transmog from Stratholme and then traveling to the Culling of Stratholme Dungeon and talking to the past version of Postmaster Malown in the Inn; who’ll give you a “Postmans’ Satchel” and a quest to help deliver mail across to various recipients in the Eastern Kingdoms for him; which requires you to track down the people or their living relatives to hand them the mail. After delivering the mail, the Players would then travel back to the Stratholme Dungeon and click on the empty “Postmans’ Satchel” in your inventory to summon Postmaster Malown who will remember you and thank you for helping him out in delivering the mail and ask to join your Stagecoach and serve as a Mailbox NPC for you; along with letting you buy a Cosmetic Postmaster Ensemble from him.
These are only a relatively small pool of examples that I would wish to have them become features in Midnight that will serve to make it an Expansion remembered more than just the expansion that finally let Players stop being Murder-Hobos by default.