Joust

So i wont know how many of you are already past this point in your leveling but in Hyjal there are 3 flame gates that you have to go through in order to complete the zone (i think). Well in the second gate there is a series of quests that force you to do a mini game type activity that is based off of the game Joust which was super popular in the 80's.

I have been talking with people in my guild who absolutely hate this little series of quests, but i have to say that i loved every moment of it. If they made it into a daily i would definitely go do it. I think that the problem lies in understanding how to control your character. Most of the people that i talked to said that they didn't like it because you have no control over your character. I found that this was easier to control then some of the vehicles that we have that don't seem to turn properly. But there may be some of you that gave up or some of you that have yet to do it or even some that have vowed to never do it on another character again but i hope to change your mind and tell you how to do it.

These ostriches do not function anything like flying mounts. They don't fly the direction your character is facing, they always fly in a straight line, they are always falling unless you intervene, and you can only control speed and direction with one button. But it isn't that hard. You simply need to change your idea of how the mount should work and do what you need to to actually make it work.

When you are flying on a flying mount, the mount will follow the exact direction that you are facing, you can spin your camera around but the instant that you change your characters view direction, whether with the mouse or the keyboard, you will immediately change to be going that direction. Forget this completely. When you want to move forward you simply hold down both mouse buttons or use your keyboard and you immediately move forward. Forget this too.

The only way to make these ostriches move once they are in the air is with the use of your one button. This button will be in the number 4 position and will be called flap. What it does is cause you to move forward in THE DIRECTION THAT YOU ARE FACING and also move upwards a little bit. That is all it does. Lets do an example.

say you are standing on a platform and you want to move north, simply face your character north hit the button a couple times and you are moving north. Now after you stop hitting the button you will start falling and in order to stop from hitting the ground you have to keep hitting it. This is the easy part. Ok, so now you are moving north and you want to move east. Face your CHARACTER the direction you want to be moving and then hit the flap button. You want to face your character there because if you only face your camera and then flap you will just hit the wall on the far side of the room. Also, there is a small amount of momentum taking you in the direction that you are going that needs to be overcome, so when you are trying to go east one flap might not do it and you may have to flap two or three times to get going that direction. For this reason, if you are trying to joust the other guys off you will probably want to lead them a little bit because the change in direction is not exact.

Think of this as riding a bike, the first thing my mother ever told me when i was learning to ride a bike was to look the direction that i wanted to go, this is no different. Simply face the direction you want to go and then flap. The flapping is important because if you don't flap you will never change directions and this may be one of the issues that people are having. I found it was easiest to get the people knocked down by aiming ahead of them and then letting myself fall down on top of them.

also don't hit fireballs or your mount might die, but i think that there is a person with some mounts at the bottom of the cave if you do happen to lose your mount. Oh and the last part where you have to kill the eggs, don't try and fly to them, just land on a platform and walk around the platform killing them.

I really loved doing this, i thought it was fun and unique and i enjoyed it for the 5 min that it took me to complete. And for anyone who still doesn't get how to do it "You can be Goalie" (I just wanted to link this because it is awesome, you should watch it).