The Argent Tournament feels lifeless. Completely and utterly lifeless. patch 2.4 was the favorite patch of World of Warcraft thus far, no contest. Patch 2.4 brought people more joy than even the Wrath launch. Not only did it have content for absolutely every aspect of the game, but it also actually changed the world. Storylines progressed in an in-your-face way. Sure, patch 3.1 moved the Ulduar and Yogg-Saron story forward, but would you know it if you didn't read fansites or watch the patch 3.1 cinematic? What's different? What indicator is there that something new is happening in the Storm Peaks?

When the Sunwell Plateau war effort began, Shattrath very significantly changed. You arrived in the city and you knew something was going on. There was a crisis, and some of the prime forces of the world (at the time) had to come together to stop it. Sure, patch 2.4 and patch 3.1 came at different points in their respective expansions' development cycles, and that allows patch 2.4 to do more with the world than patch 3.1 would, but that doesn't excuse the lack of life in 3.1 at all.

The Argent Tournament is a little better, but not much. You get a letter in the mail letting you know the event has started, but there's still very little happening outside of the daily quests. There are no event promoters, no recruiters, nobody really talking about what's going on. When you go to the Tournament, you get a distinct impression that there's some sort of festival going on, some celebration. There are banners and flags and all of the races are flying their colors in elaborate tents. It's exhilarating!

Then your mount touches down on the ground and you slowly realize that there's nothing happening here. There are NPCs on mounts idling by their flags and nothing else is going on. The only notable flavor text in the entire place is a goblin trying to sell you the medieval equivalent of a t-shirt. You can say, "But Alex, the coliseum is still being built!" Yep. You sure can say that. I would tell you that's no excuse for a part of the world being lifeless. Have you ever walked/driven past a construction site before? Unless they've been abandoned, they're absolutely full of activity. This should be much the same.

Ulduar
Like I said, the Ulduar war effort would be a pretty big deal, even if the Horde and the Alliance haven't officially thrown their lot in with Dalaran here. At the end of the day, just about every adventurer in Northrend retreats to Dalaran for some rest and would hear about something happening. The Horde and Alliance may not be interested in Ulduar, but the Kirin Tor definitely is. Problem is, Dalaran doesn't display that. You wouldn't know something is going on in Ulduar. So what would I do?

• The most obvious thing to do is use the Dalaran Magi that act as city guards to fill the role of the Commoners that crop up in capital cities such as Stormwind and Orgrimmar during world events.
• When you enter Ulduar itself, you see that they've pulled in a number of mercenary groups to bulk up their forces. Bring some of those mercenaries into Dalaran.
• Put more activity directly outside of Ulduar. The righteous (and not so righteous) forces of Azeroth are mobilizing to stop Yogg-Saron. Set up some of the activity going on inside of the raid zone...

Not all of these things are required, certainly, but some of it would help the feeling of 'nothing is actually happening.' Doing too much of this has another danger, too. If you shift over to the other extreme, it can lead to everything blurring together and being a crowded, spammy mess. Putting mercenary activity in Dalaran would mean needing to lower the number of something else. Load times are bad enough in Dalaran. There's a balance that needs to be found.

The Argent Tournament
Again, as mentioned earlier, the Argent Tournament may not be in full swing yet since the coliseum is still under construction, but that doesn't mean nothing should be happening there. That's just silly. So what would I do?

• Recruiters! The Argent Crusade wants to bring capable warriors from far and wide to compete at the Tournament and help them against the Scourge. They really oughta send out some feelers. A mass-mailing is such a copout! Obviously Dalaran knows it's happening, those guys are already in Northrend. Send a few guys to Stormwind, or Undercity, or Orgrimmar. For extra drama, send some Human Crusaders to Orgrimmar and some Forsaken or Orc Crusaders to Stormwind. Sweet, sweet animosity.
• The event needs star power. Are there any big names planning to take part in the tournament? There's a ton of opportunity here to pit some lore figures up against each other in a friendly (yet competitive) way. Tirion Fordring vs. Darion Mograine on horseback, anyone? Make these star power duels only happen every few hours, and you can even make a big show of it. NPCs would run to watch, and guess what? Players would, too. If this only happens a few times a day, people would go out of their way to watch, and they wouldn't mind their dailies being interrupted for a few minutes for it.
  
  Conclusion
  Patch 3.1 has lots of cool content, but it is utterly lifeless. In my opinion, Blizzard has set the bar for the story progressing within the game itself so high starting with patch 2.4 and through Wrath of the Lich King's initial release that they can't really afford to slip back into the days where the world was utterly stagnant. The game world needs to continue reflecting current events, and those current events need character.
  

It's certainly a possibility that Blizzard had these ideas in mind and simply didn't have the time to implement them given the fact that patch 3.1 had already taken so long to produce, but it's still sad to see something with such potential fall so short.