I do a lot of rare pattern farming, mostly to have "every" pattern, but there a lot of patterns for a variety of professions that simply are literally not obtainable anymore, and i got to thinking about how they could someday remedy this. Granted, some say some of the rare patterns should be kept rare or that it would de-value some that are really rare but i think at this point they could make a gameplay aspect out of it, and let us finish our collections
Here is my idea. Start off giving us "Treasure Points" (name subject to change) or something similiar to valor, make it cap each week, but allow this currency to be obtained maybe from questing, maybe from running older non-new raids, or various other ways. Once obtained, make either a faction that is lore related that collects patterns and has them for sale for said currency. Make some daily profession quests even to boost the currency, and allow you to level even that profession
For example, you have leatherworking and you are missing quite a few patterns, you could use this system to gather points to eventually buy them all, and thus finish your collection.
See, i love the idea of shared rep, because there is so many patterns (especially for jewelcrafting) that are behind specific vendors that require rep from raids or a LOT of grinding to obtain (Aldor, Karazan, Hyjal raid, etc) but i doubt they will ever make them account wide, so with this idea, the idea is we can choose to have something to work torwards and obtain all the patterns in a profession, stuff that has been really lost (Dirge's Chops for cooking)
It wouldnt be really hard to craft it all together, and it would boost overall playing time because there is so many collectors be a great thing to do in your offtime, and something you work torwards.
Make a vendor for each profession and have EVERY pattern from drop/rep/other, set prices for the "currency" can even gate behind rep, say it takes revered for certain patterns or exalted for the really good stuff, either way, i think it would make a really cool addition to the item hunt in wow, and boost professions, allowing more stuff to be made, and can finally say we have all the patterns
tie some achievements to it all too, say "obtain all xx number of patterns in engineering" for example, even can do feats of strength when you are server first to have every pattern, and an achievement to have every pattern for every profession.
I am missing quite a few for my engineering, would love someday to get them all, but so many are simply not in game anymore or were in vanilla only etc, a system set up so we could aquire these patterns, even if it takes a long grind or time, would be great.