Account-Wide is the New Grind

I’ve been waiting for account-wide mounts and pets since the day I even considered switching mains from my rogue to my shaman. I finally have access to my prized Netherwing Drakes, my rare Azure Whelpling pet, and so much more.

There is a rather unforeseen consequence of the account-wide feature. Since pets and mounts are available to any character, they can be acquired by any character. In the case of rare drop mounts or pets with a limited number of attempts available per day or week, this greatly increases the options available to you. Now instead of just grinding on your main, you can grind for them on every alt you’ve ever created! For most mount/pet collectors the word ‘can’ in that last sentence should be substituted with ‘must’. Blizzard has given those of us with alts an opportunity to truly drive ourselves insane.

My husband Jardal ran Heroic Sethekk Halls on every high level character for several months, in anticipation of the account-wide feature. He finally got the elusive bird to drop last week, and even I was grateful. I was tired of the squawking noises. I was tired of hearing him say, “I’ll be ready to go in just a few minutes – I need to finish my Anzu runs”. It was starting to drive me insane, and I wasn’t even running it with him.

My guild-mate also pointed out that we can now speed up acquiring pets and mounts from factions that require token grinding via dailies, such as Tol Barad, the Argent Tournament, or the Darkmoon Faire. You can now do the sets of dailies on multiple characters a day if you’re working towards multiple items you want to purchase.

For the pessimists among us, this is proof that there is a downside to everything.