f13.net

This will probably incite some yelling in one form or another.

It would have been nice, I suppose to see them just donating 100% of profits, but then, anything is nice, really.

Quick summary: You can buy the Pandaren Monk and Lil KT that were exposed through Data Mining 3.3 stuff for $10 each. Now through the end of the year, 50% of the profits on the Pandaren go to the Make-A-Wish foundation.

http://www.wow.com/2009/11/04/blizzard-launches-real-money-in-game-pet-store/

http://us.blizzard.com/store/details.xml?id=1100000763

http://us.blizzard.com/store/browse.xml?f=c:5

I don't think it's a bad idea, but even 50% to charity seems greedy.  Should be all or none.

50% is a lot higher than those promos usually go isn't it? I have in my head that its usually something like "We'll donate a dollar from every iPod sale to Toys for Tots!" or whatever when companies do these sorts of promos.

I've got to imagine something like an iPod though has a lot more overhead then a likely automated system that just adds a digital pet to a video game account.

Even assuming there is no cost at all, by almost any measure Blizzard is donating more of their profit to charity.

I just picked iPod at random, the example works equally as well for low-overhead stuff.

I've seen absolutely retarded fine print on charities like these, like "We will donate a dollar for every bottle of Dawn sold to save the seals."*

* $100 000 maximum.

Or, in other words, they will donate $100 000 for a large upswing in sales that will in all likelihood extend far past them reaching their limit.

I wish KT also donated money to charity, I think he's the bee's knees.

I just saw the two pets, the pandaren monk is the size of a dwarf and bows back when you bow at him...also /drink causes him to sit down and drink with you.

There is a lot of crying over this, this thing that doesn't matter.

I really hate microtrans, but it doesn't really affect me unless they start extending it to other things.

How much of this is lol Activision, I wonder?

Oh gtfo. Who the fuck are you to judge how much money a charity deserves from corporations?

I'm not saint, but I'm not completely full of myself as to believe I should be allowed to call such a thing greedy. Do you give more than 50% of your income (FROM ANYTHING) to charity? If not, please back the hell away.

Microtrans for pets is fine. It takes the fun out of finding/earning them though. Like everyone has a Blizz Bear, and it's only fun when the whole raid busts them out at once.  :grin:

It's random, stupid, and costs less than most people spend on a lunch in a major city.

And yet it's so popular they broke the servers trying to process all the payments. I personally think it's a great idea, and I hope they do more pets this way.

I would bet a small sum of real money that the 50% to charity came about as a direct result of some Blizzard execs sitting down and brainstorming ways to go about damage control on the "omg blizz r sellouts" backlash.

Also, usual wow.com writing quality shines through:
:oh_i_see:

I've yet to see the point against selling air to addicts.

maybe crazy, but does this feel like they're testing the water for more general microtransactions to anyone else?  not saying it'll be leet epicz for $50, but more vanity pets and the like?

or am i so far out of touch that this train has already pulled into the station?

That's what I was getting at. I don't like microtrans because I find it to be a bad dynamic.  To get something cool, you can spend just a littttle money.  Then just a litttle more... then more... then suddenly you've paid way more than you intended.  That some people can resist it more than others is not the point.

I bought both the pets last night, and would gladly pay for the ability to re-colour my armour or for additional emotes.

Having experienced and payed for micro-transactions while playing City of Heroes (their brilliant costume pack options), I am neither surprised nor disheartened that Blizzard have now added pay-pets to their lengthy list of paid services. I am somewhat dismayed at the inflated price - $10 for a single pet seems about $5 too much imo, but Blizz is a business and there's plenty who believe that's a bargain. I'm even happy that they're going to give 50% of the proceeds of the Kung Fu Panda to a worthwhile charity - that's pretty much an unheard of percentage in these situations. My biggest problem is Blizzard and I don't see eye to eye when it comes to being able to pay for anything with my CC, so I am locked out of possible future pets they reveal (I have a feeling the baby windrider will be a pay-pet) unless they produce something along the lines of a timecard.

Also, apparently US pet codes work on EU servers, so if you're an EU player and don't feel like paying the 40% markup (10 euros/pet), buy US pets. This info comes from MMO-Champ forums so take that with a generous pinch of salt.

I collect pets and will buy them.

It's not like people haven't been paying for the codes for promotional pets for a while. Murlocs run about 150. A collectors edition runs about 1200 with the code (and 250 without) and there's a Tyrael from the invitation on ebay right now for 1200.

Ten seems like kind of a bargain.

I'd pay for the ability to hide shoulder armor on every toon I have. 

I like this move.  Giving money to charity for a meaningless in game item is a great idea. 

Isn't that kind of....every single thing in WoW?

I know your being a smart ass, but 'Matters' is relative here. The Pet has no mechanical effect on the game, it's purely cosmetic. If they were selling, say, +5 Swords of Awesome, then it would "matter".

This. THIS. THIS.

What you said is exactly what I meant, it doesn't matter. If they did add +5 swords (thought they already did), then I could understand, but I was referring to the OMGWTFRMTCANCEL postings.

EDIT: and anything that includes "Greedy".

I am so tempted to buy that Lich.

I never go after achievements.  Any of them.  I don't go after pets, in - game or purchased.  That said, I have no problems with any of it because it makes other peoples' experience with the game that much better.  It's all good.  Anything they can keep doing to maintain a good population on the servers benefits everyone involved.  I'd be much more upset if they just stopped offering little carrots like this and let the game die off little by little.  We've all seen that happen too many times in the past, eh?

Yes: http://www.station.sony.com/en/stationcash/

I'll get all the enjoyment out of these pets seeing someone else with them in-game as I would if I paid £9 myself, but that's about it. Don't care if they add more fluff and I think it's unlikely they'll add in-game benefit items via microtrans in WoW.

It's definitely practice for a much more extensive move to microtrans in future product if they think they can make it work though. I don't see Blizzard making it as simple and obvious as £2.50 for a +5 sword of awesomeness though. I think they're far more likely to do something more creative with it, I dunno, maybe pay-per-view live events in-game, like the L70ETC gigs or the assorted holiday events.

There's a big market for the fluff though, no doubt. My GF instantly said, when I showed her these pets, that she'd pay £10 for an in-game baby murloc pet.

I wish I could pro-rate 3 days of playtime instead of buying a month.  When's that coming?

There's no way Blizzard will allow people to buy stuff that confers gameplay advantages though. That would rub way too many people the wrong way. It's certain that we should expect a hell of a lot of cosmetic shit to appear in that store before long, though.

I wish they'd add more pets that have been around for a long while, like the vanilla collectors edition pets, or the murloc from the first Blizzcon, etc.  Or the option to buy the codes from the CCG loot cards without having to buy bajillion packs of cards, though I don't see that happening.

I hope not.  Being able to pull out the Zerg, Diablor or panda in Dal and walk around with the other oldschool idiots as a kind of little club is half the fun of having it.

I like the mounts.  I don't really care so much about in game pets, though.  At least not to the level that I'd actually spend money on one.  Maybe in something like Free Realms where cuteness is one of the primary goals.  In WoW I get one of the cuties (like the penguin) and have it out for a while and then that's it.  I mostly forget about them.  I would, however, pay $$ to have an outfit system like the one in LOTRO.

Added push, the lil lich will kill critters you are standing near from time to time.

Squee.

Did you just "squee"?  :oh_i_see:

I caved and bought the Pandaren via the US site to see if it'll just do the conversion.  Will let you know when I check the statement.  Further to what Lakov said, it bows when anybody bows to it not just it's owner. 

By far the best pet I've got (which, granted, isn't many).

Not sure why people are saying this is an in game store, I only see the blizzard store.

Ya know, that's a good point. I didn't even think about it when I copied it. I think I just got hit with awesome cuteness and overlooked that.

The Lich is tempting but I intend to resist.

I caved and bought the lich...

I can't be sure but it seems he laughs when raid members die too, which is awesome.

Shit, I extra need him then.  :grin:

Damn, why did Blizzard have to go and provide extra value for your money....  

If I have to eat my words...  :angryfist:


(edit for clarity: by buying one)

The only thing missing is the ability to rename him chuckles.

So...

Both pets look great, but I also get the feel they are a big FU to China...

 :awesome_for_real:

The Scorchling pet from Ahune (the fire festival holidy boss) will Scorch critters too.  It's awesome.

Blizz have cottoned on to the regional price differences and are making it so that the codes only work for the region that they're purchased for. Won't affect any pets purchased prior to the change, fortunately.

You really are not making this easy.  Seriously.

I really wish Lil' KT interacted with the Siamese Cat pet. :(

I will celebrate my NEW COMPUTER finally getting here by buying BOTH pets, watch out!  :awesome_for_real:

I just "heard" from a co-worker that Blizzard was "selling raid equipment for real-life money", to help people catch up to the current level of gear, dontcha know.

I wonder if they considered how the rumor mill would treat this.  I know that if I heard this, and didn't think to check up on it to find it out was only flavor items, I'd probably just give the game a miss.

Also, when I was telling him that they have stated they would never microtrans things that affect gameplay, I started thinking you should never say never.  I wonder if they would?  Would they sell (for example) lower-tier gear?  Mounts that go faster than you're able to get in game?  Buffs?  Anyone have a source either way?

Blizzard will do RMT for an MMO how people want RMT for an MMO to be done. With as little impact on gameplay as possible, if any at all. They have high integrity when it comes to preserving the sanctity of the "game" environment.

The next phase of microtrans has been announced (http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12424323711&sid=1) - Auction House access via the Armory as a "premium service".


I think the future's starting to look pretty clear on this stuff - existing functionality is unlikely to become further monetarised but more and more things will be added that are. So far all of the premium content has been fluff - pets, mounts, etc. - but this is a step further IMO.

So I would be able to log in to my character online and then buy and sell goods?  So I could access my character's bank storage, mail and backpack without being near the AH?

That would be very useful during down times in raids.

The new premium AH service:

So they intend to charge for "Quality of Life" convenience changes?
Meh... Once you start charging for conveniences its another slippery slope down the wholesale "epic lootz for dollars" route.

Go look through all the previous WoW patches. Single out all the little fixes, modifications and changes that does not impact gameplay but makes more "convenient", less tiresome or saves time. Start putting little $$$$ signs on them. I will imagine that that will be the trend for all the future patches. The nicer changes will have dollar signs on them.

My prediction for a possible premium item:
An instant teleportation device that can go to all the flight points instantly... Who knows?  it may even be in the form a cute looking Mage pet that can cast portals.

Sky status: falling

World of Warcraft: Circling the Drain

Well...i am loathe to think where this could lead but if this is simply being able to use the AH through a website or your iphone without having to be on wow proper than its not exactly an in game convenience. This is a service outside the regular game and I can see some sort of justification for paying for that functionality.

The people who will make the most use of it are the goldfarmers who buy up anything below their ridiculous prices on the AH, then relist them.  For example, the chick on my server who seems to feel that no shaman glyph should sell for less than 75g. 

I can see Blizz wanting to recoup some of that money for themselves.   I have no problem with this at all.

I never use the Armory (too impatient to wait for its slow ass to function) and I only use the AH when I'm too lazy to have one of my alts make me stuff or farm.  I'd never pay for this feature.

Merusk has it right.  This is for people playing the AH, not really the game.

Doesn't anyone else absolutely loathe the word "Premium"?  I

Not as much as the word "Innovate", which seems to be businessspeak for "new ways to f@ck customers"

Personally, I think every single item in the game should be available for cash, including stuff like the one per server bug mount from AQ opening. With the ammount of RL money being made by shallow facebook games from people buying "premium" stuff in petville, castle age, etc, it's going to happen.

I agree for many reasons.  If the prices were set correctly, it would eliminate gold sellers almost entirely sending the profits where they belong.

The only reason I could imagine that this isn't already happening is the volume of legal hassles/CSR issues that it would create. 

Might be easy enough to implement the items like pets/mounts are currently.  That way one use and they can never be deleted.  A new tab for items, "Made by Visa".

The amount of money made through this would dwarf the ill will it would generate from the poopsockers.

Didn't EQ2 go this route?  Has SOE put out any numbers regarding how successful or not it's been?

They're a vocal minority who apparently have more free time than sense.  Let them howl!  :grin:

That sounds like a wonderful and guaranteed market niche.  Time to start selling Shaman glyphs for 50g each.

Only problem with that Lantyssa, is that you have to be available to repost and undercut at all hours in order for it to work.  I have a friend who put WoW on his travel laptop, and played the glyph market like a minigame.  He's got like 300k spread across a couple servers and several dudes.  You need to be able to undercut the farmers a lot.  That's where the appeal for this app comes in.  It gives guys like my friend an opportunity to repost in between meetings.

Contrary to what you might think at first, I think it will fuck farmers right in the ass.  Now my friend will be able to compete with those farmers who's job it is to out repost my friend while sitting there chain smoking at their terminal in a net cafe in Viet Nam, knocking back Tiger beers.

You can still make money if you only repost a couple times a day, but it will be closer to repair money than buy all your friends a motorcycle money.

The idea isn't to outsell the farmers and capture the market.  It's to make glyph chick buy all his to resell.

I wouldn't count on that (unless you folks are trolling...  :oh_i_see:)  I have next to no time to play - 1.5-2 hrs a night at best - but microtrans to let you buy anything besides the most inconsequential shit would have me leaving so fast you'd hear a sucking sound.

It's a pve game.  Why do you even care what gear someone else has? 

I think its less that and more the fact that when anyone can buy the gear, actually going out and getting the gear feels like a chore, instead of just playing the game.  One of the things I've learned about many years of MMO playing is that the mindset I approach the game with is probably about 90%+ responsible for how much I enjoy the game.  It isn't so much that epix for $ would really change the game that much, but it WOULD change how people thought about the game.   That can be an important factor.  Now granted, if you can discipline yourself enough to just carry on as usualy,  you'll be fine, but its actually not as easy as it sounds. 

From my own standpoint, I honestly don't mind micros anymore.  It used to bother me really badly in principle, then I played a few free to play games when I was in an MMO slump a year or two ago, and I found that it wasn't nearly the big deal I thought it was.

I'd be out the door myself most likely. It isn't so much a case of what other people have as removing the entire engine that drives why people play in the first case. If character improvement is available by just spending money rather than playing the game as designed, why bother at all?

For that reason, of course, I suspect Blizzard will never make that sort of thing available in WoW. They know how their game is supposed to work and why people play it.

My point is this:  If microtrans make the game more fun for you, then you win and Blizzard wins.  If you enjoy playing to get the gear without paying extra, you also win.  It's about having fun.  I see microtrans as offering alternative pathways to fun for those that enjoy different styles of gameplay.  If you find getting gear a chore, then don't do it.  There are enough options for your entertainment dollar out there that you have choices.  

I'm just tired of the whole epeen argument about this.  It isn't about earning anything folks.  It's about entertainment.  You shouldn't have to suffer for your fun.  


Edit: For the record, I'd never pay cash in a game for something I can get through normal gameplay.  I don't see a point in paying money to bypass portions of the game.  That doesn't mean I'm against it.  People have been buying and selling accounts, powerleveling, and gold for years.  At least through a legitimized venue Blizzard would profit from it. 

I'll just make this counter argument, and I'm not really totally in agreement with it, but I'll throw it out there and you can tell me what you think:

 The fact of the matter is this, I think:  Life isn't fair, lots of people have different amounts money.  The income gap of WoW players is drastic.  I think a lot of people really love the fact that every can pay the same 15 bucks, and they get to be on equal footing with anyone else that plays.  Social/Economic class is basically totally masked by the game.    Dismantling that mask by allowing people to simply pay cash for things I think ruins that illusion for fairness for a lot of people.  It hurts the games value as a method of escapism, and I think that is the problem.

Now, I get the impression that the majority of posters here are generally not super strapped for cash, and are generally comfortable.  Thats a pretty big assumption, and I'm sure there are exceptions.  So, this particular problem might not be a big deal to some people, but I know it is a real issue for some people I know.  Maybe I'm reading way too far into it, and maybe the general MMO population has enough disposable income not to care too much about this in general, but I wouldn't totally dismiss it out of hand.

My objections are a few:

1 - It seems like it would pack the game with people similar to the gambling crowd - many have more money than sense, and most of little of either. The only other ones there, for lack of willingness to spend lots of cash, would not stick around long.

2 - Even as a casual, I can set goals and achieve them. If I get the Loremaster title, I've put in some work and can be proud of it. Empty as it may be, it's entertaining to me, and given the number of people who play an achiever-like playstyle, I'm not the only one.  If you can just go buy that, it's not special any more.

3 - Given the competitive nature of PvE (world firsts and so forth) I expect the raiding game would rapidly become spenders-only. Can you imagine someone checking your armory and to see whether you've spent "only" $100 getting the gear you need before inviting you into their pickup raid? Or if all raids were like that?

4 - Imagine the above scenario with respect to PvP. Imagine not being able to compete in any way in BGs or Arenas or world PvP unless you spend x amount of money.  Remember, you guys said any item in the game.


edited to address:

But it is about earning something, even though the something isn't real and it's just pixels and etc and yadda yadda.  Maybe it's a pathology, but if you're not into spending time working for something you perceive to be of value, and being goal-oriented, and just want a quick fix of action/entertainment, why are you playing an MMOG? Quick fixes are a valid playstyle, but not a good match for persistent state games.

Good luck finding anyone to do the content with once people can just buy the drops though. That's the core problem I see.

The core mechanic of WoW is do content to get drops to do harder content to get better drops to do harder content, right? If I can just buy stuff, what do I then spend my time in game actually doing? The other supporting systems like crafting, PVP, fishing, other minigames they might add, etc., do not in themselves amount to a complete game.

Malakili, Replace "money" with "time" in your point and see what you think.  

People that want to keep the status quo are generally benefitting from the status quo.  That's a hallmark of human nature.  

Jayce: I twitch when I see the word "work" in any comment about a game.   I really don't care what other players have in a PvE game and I don't really understand why others do.  The "achievements" are your own.  You know how you got them.  Does it really matter or devalue what you did if someone else did it differently?  People in large guilds with strong social networks will always do more than I can.  That doesn't devalue the things I've done in game for myself.  

Ingmar: I'm guessing that you're wrong.  There are plenty of people online that actually play games to have fun rather than to compete with the bleeding edge crowd.  All Blizzard would have to do is create separate server types and they'd find out immediately how interested people are in buying their way through content. 

I don't see it as a choice between fun and competitiveness, really.

Ultimately the only playstyle that would generally benefit from purchasable gear is a PVP-centric one; the goal of a PVP-oriented player is generally to have fun killing other players, and so purchasable gear would remove obstacles to this end goal. That is absolutely opposite the goal of a PVE-oriented player; the fun on the PVE side of the game is all *during* the process of advancing your character, gearing up, and overcoming whatever the new challenges are. If you remove the gearing up and tweaking your character side of the equation, it simply becomes a process of killing each new boss once to see it, and no MMO company can generate content at a pace fast enough to make that viable.

Fine, then don't play a game with work involved. I did allow that it might be a pathology :)

But that's not really true in the "vertical" sense of progression.  Yes, time is going to be the main factor in someone getting Loremaster or Conquerer but not in being a really good player in a really good raiding guild or arena team.

WoW isn't a perfect meritocracy, but there is a sense that people are good because of what they do and know in-game, not because every slash of their sword is a swipe of a Black American Express.

The Microtransaction debate for WoW seems to be coming down to a Bartle thing.

A : Achievers want to do it themselves.  Why buy it?
E : Explorers want to see it themselves.  Why buy it?
K : Killers generally just want to compete (and win).  Probable audience.
S : Socializers just want to play the game.  Target audience.

A's and E's will be generally against it.  K's and S's will have fewer problems with it.

Time is money, friend!  I get your point. 

Seriously though, most people are willing to more readily accept that someone else has more time than them to play than they are to accept that someone is just plain richer in real life, the difference being that at least the former is still contained within the game.   

I can just imagine the lulz when some guys says "I'm gonna stop raiding because if I work an extra 3 hours a night I can get my loot way faster!"

Keep in mind though, i don't personally care about it anymore.  I used to, but I got over it when I played a bunch of free to play games and it didn't really matter to me.  I can see it going more poorly with the general WoW player base if it were ever to get to that level though.

Microtrans for armor a tier or two back would let you gear up via cash and keep the achievement game going.  Granted, the achievement game might become smaller as some doing it right now would say, "meh why bother, I can buy it in 6 months", but it would still be there for folks like me who actually enjoy boss killing.

Well, this is a big part of it actually.  I've often said that if MMOs had to stand on gameplay alone, no one would be playing them.   There are plenty of people who like raiding because of the social experience of being in a raiding guild, but I think that would have to become the sustaining factor.  There are a LOT of people out there who get caught up in the loot grind and end up playing the game for YEARS simply to get their next upgrade.  I know you, Nebu, will just expound your disbelief that anyone could play a game without the "fun" aspect, but it just seems demonstrably true that it happens and its a reality of the genre.

I know you're right.  I just enjoy my private state of denial. 

People already say that with the gear resets via Emblems.  I think it's a good idea because it seems necessary to maintain a sufficiently large raiding population.

I don't see offering "Ready to Raid/PvP/etc Kits" as an intrinsically bad idea if it's similar to how gear resets are being handled today.

I didn't see anything about the announcement about premium services associated with an auction house app that indicated the sale of progression drops only attainable through pve.  I did say it would not interfere with gameplay.  You know.  Just sayin'.


I'm reading this like:  "We're spending a shitload of money on this internet website thing.  And you're going to help pay for it, because I want a yacht!"  I don't think they'll ever allow progression items to be bought for money.  Items that help new players get to progression?  Sure.  I could see them selling gold, and thus allowing players to buy crafted gear.  But progression gear?  Why are we even talking about this shit again?

Also, Black American Express?  Like wut?

You know the answer to this. You've been here long enough.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centurion_Card (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centurion_Card)

(Another one of the random-ass things I remember from This Week in Tech (http://twit.tv/) episodes.)

Fair enough.

I'm all Explorer with a hint of Achiever.

I don't care what anyone else does if it doesn't impact my game.  I won't take advantage of it unless it's fluff or really, really cool, but I'm not opposed to it.  (I only have Lil' KT because it was a birthday gift.)

I think selling gear for money is perfectly fine if it's a step removed from the current level of content. It makes little to no sense forcing people to rerun cold raids, so they already offer that gear for the ridiculously low price of farming heroics. I don't think it's worth any less to someone that wants to spend $20 on a full set to jump into the action, rather than waiting 100 hours to get involved.

For most of us with jobs, it's a minute cost.

I'm 60/40 E/A myself.   On reflection - you're right, there's little you can do to affect the real Explorer experience, so it really doesn't matter.  The Achiever in me fears MMOGs becoming CCGs if real money gets you too much.

edit : post I replied to is gone.

I deleted my post as I was concerned that it would come off as antagonistic.  My apologies.

So, plushes.  I find both almost painfully cute.

(http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/news/images/10-02/plushpets.jpg)

Goddammit, I like both too. Too bad the grown up wyverns aren't as good looking as the babies.  :oh_i_see:

They will sell a million of those.

I absolutely knew those two were going to be micro-trans.  :heartbreak:

The Wyvern cub is mindbogglingly cute.  
The Gryphon hatchling is kinda doofy looking but cute in its own way.  

If the plush versions come with a pet version redeemable in-game, I might consider it.

Also, what the in-game gryphon reminds me of:

Yeah I'm not exactly sure you can call that a micro-trans or whatever. I mean the lil and panda definitely but with these you're getting an actual physical object with a bonus in-game pet. Which, might I add is damn near satanic.

I'm definitely getting the Wyvern.  The mini-pet is nice, but the plush is absolutely adorable.

Those Blizzard marketing guys are just evil.  I have an OCD level addiction to Titles, Pets, Acheivements, etc. as it is.  Adding new pets I can buy is just... evil.

FigurePrints is getting in on the action. Seems like there's a Matrix of "Cute Pets I.P." (Pandaren Monk, Perky Pug) to "Ways To Make People Pay For Cute Pets" (TCG, FigurePrints, Plush) that they are going through to maximize profits.

This is why Blizzard is rich and everybody else has a failed mmo.

Pretty much my exact thought.  All this stuff they're branding with WoW lately (Mice, Headsets, Mouse pads, etc)  has anyone else been able to even attempt this?  Has anyone tried it where it didn't come across as a blatant cash grab?  I mean, sure that's what these are but for some reason the company has so much goodwill that nobody's lambasting them for it the way SOE or Turbine would have been.

SOE and Turbine have made enemies of their own players. Blizzard hasn't. Much the same way people so rarely complain about how blatant Google is about gathering, processing, and making money off of everybody's personal info.

Indeed.

Review of the plushes on Tomopop (http://tomopop.com/tomopop-review-blizzard-s-world-of-warcraft-plush-pets-11208.phtml).

In short: $25 each, on the Blizzard Store later today now, and they're totally as cute as they first seemed.  Apparently, they also fly up with you if you're on a flying mount which is super-awesome (ala Argent Gruntling with Pony Bridle).

(http://tomopop.com/ul/11208-tomopop-review-blizzard-s-world-of-warcraft-plush-pets/WoWPlushPets1-550x.jpg)

(http://tomopop.com/ul/11208-tomopop-review-blizzard-s-world-of-warcraft-plush-pets/WindRiderCub_FlyingHigh-550x.jpg)

Edit: Up on the store now.

I feel this urge to squee, and I almost never have a pet out in-game.

Other non-combat pets can do that, but they're either kind of ugly (Moths, Dragonhawks, and Tickbirds) or kind of rare (Firefly (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29960)) or both... like my Proto-Drake Whelp:

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/40252/runed%2Bwhelp.jpg)

Anyway, they're up in the store now and I picked up the Wind Rider Cub.  Shipping seemed a touch steep at $6.21 for Ground to Los Angeles, but that's probably just Amazon Prime and ~$4 Overnight from Monoprice talking.

Gryhon & Wind-Rider cub pets sold out in the EU store already, in under a week, at 25 euros (£22, about $33) each. Either they sold much better than I would have expected at that price, or they had a really small supply to begin with.

One of my guildies got the wind-rider one from his wife for his birthday, it's very cute, but £22 is over my comfort threshold for a vanity pet :(

It's not just a vanity pet though, it is also a plushie as well, which is probably a steal at that much.   hell, just buy two, put one on ebay for 3x what you paid for it, and come out of the whole thing with extra cash in your wallet.

Bought one of each - they just arrived.   Love them.

 :hello_kitty_2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzvwK_NFshU

"New toys for me?!"  :awesome_for_real:

Whut?

Found out this weekend that my Nether Ray Fry does that.  squee!

I think this is all new behavior, because I don't recall any of my other flying pets flying.

I do miss the days of having my hunter pets run alongside my mount.  I wish they'd bring that back.

My daughter and I both had pig hunter pets, and then picked up Mr. Wiggles.  We looked as though we had a herd of pigs when we ran around, which was fun.

I love doing that on my shaman.  Throw on the Don Carlos hat and summon the wolf pet, cast Spirit Wolves, shift ghost wolf, and you are your own personal Wolf Pack.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/news-2/celestial-steed-and-lil%27xt-to-be-sold-in-the-blizzard-store/

It was inevitable but I'm starting to worry the line between baseline/premium content is forming.

I'm not sure how either of these changes anything. What do these two do that the previous pets have not? (Admittedly one is a mount this time, but scales with your riding skill and so isn't something above what can be had in game.)

It'll be nice to have another potential 310% mount, outside of the one I currently have.

Blizzard can't make blockbuster games more than once every couple of years, but they can bang out a mount that costs half the box price of a retail game and sell millions.

(http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/7897/nrdrge.jpg)

lol, that's hysterical

Hmmm $25 is enough to make me think twice about buying it. At $15 I wouldn't think twice probably.

I said that too until I saw one in game. However...

Currently in Queue...

Position: 11162 - Estimated time: 2  hours

Agreed. I'm sick of only using the protodrake.  I've even slummed it up and used some of the Netherwing or DK mounts instead recently.

It's not a consideration at those prices.  The Wind Rider Cub was easy to justify -- both the mini and the plushie were adorable, and there's at least a physical product involved.  $5 is about my limit for purely digital items though.  Free Realms has the right idea for its pet and mount prices.  Not that Blizzard is hurting, I'm sure.

I'd pay $25 for the final Flying skill... I've never had 5k gold on any combination of characters ever.

Heck, I'd pay $25 to level any crafting skill to the bottom tier of the most current content so I don't have to go to goldshire to pick herbs or somethin'

There's a whole host of gates I'd pay to kick through.... and I'm not talking about uber end-game gates... just gates that keep me out of current content.

I wish I had March's perspective. Then I'd probably be rich.

Sadly, I'd pay for 310% flying simply because I don't have the sustained time to raid to get the achievements for a mount. Crafting is another one I'd pay for.

My 310% mount required very little sustained raiding activity. It does take a year of real time, but it isn't all that painful to get the world event reward, and the playtime can just be done in bursts every few weeks (on their schedule though of course.)

Once I missed an event for the 310% mount I lost a lot of motivation to play.

You don't buy a 310% mount though, you have to possess a mount that goes that fast first. I see that being misreported in places. Blizzard isn't selling game-play enhancing items. The mount is still cosmetic.

Sort of. It does amount to a certain amount of gold saved on characters who will never have to buy a real mount now; while the cost of the mount is only a small percentage of the total cost, which is mostly the skill, it still adds up to a few hundred gold worth of value after you roll a couple new characters. The same can't really be said for the vanity pets since those really are purely cosmetic. You won't get to 310% without possessing another mount, but you can get to 280%.

If you buy the mount, you can have it on ALL your characters?

That's how the vanity pets from the store work.

EDIT:

Friend linked this to me thinking it was a 310 mount too.  Personally (if I was actively playing) I would totally pay $25 for a 310 mount that applies to all characters.  I might even pay $25 for a 310 mount that requires that at least one character, anywhere, on any server, possess a regular 310.  But if I have to get a 310 mount in-game on each character in order to enable that character to go that fast, I'm not too interested.

Ask around on your server, the Uld-10 achievements aren't that hard to get (minus Yogg and Firefighter) and people still regularly do them.  I love mine personally.

Fuck! I shouldn't buy this thing, but I am going to. Fuck!

I still like my armored snowy gryphon. I've never been motivated to get anything else. Once Cataclysm comes and I presumably renew at some point, it'll probably be the only mount I use, what with flying allowed in Azeroth.

I don't even play WoW much and I bought this mount. It's worth it not ever having to buy another mount for any character ever again.

position in queue 85000.... jesus fucking christ.


Also, what ozzu said.  Remember this also counts as a land mount in oldworld so you never need to buy another mount for any char.

$2,125,000

The people buying this are insane.  Seriously.  It's just not that hard to get a mount.  At that price point go donate to a shelter or something.

Why? Maybe it's tax season that sours me when I look at what people do with their money, but the Bible had it pretty spot on. You either throw your two coppers into the plate or you don't. It doesn't matter how much beyond that you get, people will always find ways to piss it away.

I'm not buying it because it's hard to get a mount, but I figure that goes without saying on my part. :P

I like how it looks and I'm going to use it often enough that the price doesn't bug me. I DIDN'T buy the windrider or gryphon pet because I didn't want to pay that much for a plushie that, while cute, I don't give a crap about, so it felt like more of a waste. Everyone has different priorities.  :oh_i_see:

Proof positive that the world prefers a magic horse to an iPad.

I actually shudder to think how much money this is going to make Blizzard - they continually strive for achievements no other MMO developer will ever have the downright gall to try, let alone better. $25 on a pretend pony? The sheer audacity blows me away, frankly. Quarter of a million queues to buy one? Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Where's my fucking permanent Broom, you bastards.

I'll probably get more gaming value out of this than a number of games I've paid twice as much for over the years.  :awesome_for_real:

You're just saying that because she convinced you to buy one too.

Pfft, like I give a shit if he has a flying pony or not.


EDIT: Also I am pretty sure I would've paid twice this for a fucking headless horseman mount.

You think this is bad? Wait til you see how many people buy new WoW boxes when they put in the RAF promo for the 2 seater rocket.

The title of this thread reminds me of the true evil genius of Blizzard.  Start off doing RMT, but donate some for teh children - and noone can really give them a hard time for RMT since they are helping teh children.  Then once people are ok with the concept of RMT in WoW, do more RMT at over double the cost of the pets, without any mention of teh children.  Genius!

I have the Headless Horseman's horse, and I still got the stupid star horse thing.  Why?  Well, I don't mean to ever use it on my character with the HHH, because it's going to wind up being much less common than the star horse.  But my other, lower-level characters, I can be lazy and never bother with buying or upgrading mounts and just tool around on the star horse.  Looks nifty, is convenient, good enough for $25.  When any character finds a better mount (for free), I'll just stop using the star horse on that character, easy.

Fuuuuuuuuck
yoooooooooooooooooooou


(My computer died RIGHT when Hallow's End rolled around and I loathe using Ingmar's computer, so my farming was not nearly as high as it would've otherwise been. To really rub it in, my stupid SISTER got the mount. She flies in circles around me when she sees me in game. ><)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCjuFpQ3EeA&fmt=18

Hah.

Yall remember when they first did brooms, and the things were insta-cast? I have since referred to it as Insta-broom, and would gladly fork over $10 for one. Life was so much damn easier with Insta-broom in gathering and pvp.

Seriously? Have you seen it ingame? It looks like shit :(

I thought at some point they said they we're going to make it so that if you have one 310 mount, all your flying mounts will move at 310.  This may be a fantasy.

I feel like I should buy the horse just given all the angst in this thread and on the WoW forums.  It's hard to buy that much entertainment for $25 these days.  Lol, I smile every time I see the horse

don't get me wrong, I'll be buying that in a second if the visuals appealed to me. E20 is nothing compared to http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=4535 or http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=4538. I'm just whining because it's ugly :(

I really don't mind the idea of the shop, or fault anyone for buying it who wants it.  I've spoken in favor of, or at least, against being against, the cash shop in the Cryptic games, and I don't think its any different in WoW.  That being said, I don't really see the appeal of this particular item.  The sort of thing I would love, though I don't know if its possible, would be some sort of item that makes me loot like I'm wearing the Stormrage Set, regardless of what gear I am wearing (or, whatever old 1 or 2 set you wanted for your class).  I

I'm definitely biased as to why I like this - I play with a crew of 5 people and none of us have any interest in putting up with guild drama, so 5 man content is the most that we'll ever see.  With RMT, I get a chance for some selection of "teh shiny".

So, just like in CoX, I see this as a win/win if this stuff pays for an independent development stream that focuses on "teh shiny" development.  In my head, Team Shiny creates shiny that is distributed to achievements and RMT.  Leaving the core team to focus on dungeons, items and combat.  Win/win.  That the items generate nerd rage is just icing.

Know what.. that's how you get the appearance tab in game.  E-mail Activision marketing and suggest "hey, why not add an appearance tab for $40 to the cash shop"  I bet it'll be in by this summer.

More likely: $25 a piece for shirt-slot versions of your favorite tier sets.

Yep. Asshorse. Fuck that ugly thing. I have no problems with people who spend that money on fluff, but at least get something less tacky!   :awesome_for_real:

I think this horsie just made $2.5 million dollars since it went on sale. Blizzard literally prints money.

They've talked about it but right now only the druid flight form and maybe a couple other things work that way.

FIFY

You've been waiting since seventh grade to correct him, I bet.

You are literally the craziest person I've ever met.

No I was more implying literally. They likely have a mint machine now that prints Blizzard branded money, that probably is worth more than the American dollar by now.

Given the price of a sparkley horse, expect it to be more like $50. Per item slot, each to be purchased separately.

They'll make Tier armor as ugly as sin so as to encourage people to buy the new cool appearance tab social armor.  Oh wait, they already do...

You realize what you're saying here is that getting around in WOW is a pain in the ass and rather than make it easier and thus make the game better Blizzard is instead happy to sell you a basic game improvement for $25.

Man I hate this kind of shit. Developers fixing design problems with paid content is a joke. The fact that "convenience" is a selling point is pretty sad given that fun is largely the point of games.

I honestly can't believe how many people are willing to accept this sort of thing. At this rate I fully expect bug fixes to become DLC within a few years. If you read up on what Chinese and Korean devs are doing they constantly purposely make their games worse so they can upsell to DLC.

Business softwares are already doing this.  Autodesk will push out one, maybe two bug fix packages for their products then not touch it again when that year is over.  Want to fix that memory leak in ACA 2009?  Upgrade to 2010 or 2011.  Oh, you can't afford buying the software every year, of course not... so just sign up for the subscription plan at $600 a seat per year.  Convenient, right?! Look how we take care of you for such a small fee!  Ignore the part of the sub license that says you can't resell the software because you don't own it.

It's the way the whole software industry is moving. You own nothing but you pay out the nose for it or get a crippled version for a lesser charge.

Lol, yep seems completely clear that, internally, they aren't calling this the "Celestial Horse", rather they are calling it the "Trojan Horse".  Now that they have us hooked on a small/specific case for convenience they'll take us straight to charging for bug fixes.   What really sucks is that there's nothing we can do to stop them, say, like, canceling our accounts.

Did you put on your emo makeup and look in the mirror while you typed that?

My problem is that they released what amounts to Horse Armor for half the price of a retail game product and at anywhere from 2x to 4x the normal cost of such DLC. But I'm looking at function over form. The steed is jewelry, nothing more. A total waste of cash except for those who want to impress their friends and without the ability to resell.

There is a functional purpose to the Celestial Steed beyond saving your characters a maximum of 261 gold each.

If you have another 310%-speed mount, it works like the Big Love Rocket (http://www.wowhead.com/item=50250).  If you don't, it works like the Headless Horseman's Mount (http://www.wowhead.com/item=37012).

Both of these are rare seasonal drops and really aren't any more functional than just writing up your own mount macro (or using a mod (http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info15191-Mountster.html)).  Personally, I think it's gaudy, wouldn't consider purchasing it in a thousand years, and much prefer my current set-up of Rusted Proto-Drake / Grand Ice Mammoth / Small-Single-Seat-Epic-Ground-Mount-of-the-Week.

In light of the knee-jerk crybaby bitching on this page, I thought the above deserved a repost.

Also, from Wowhead (http://www.wowhead.com/blog=152847):

(http://static.wowhead.com/images/comic/022.jpg)

and make belieeeeeeve you!  :drillf:

And I now have a new avatar and desktop wallpaper (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/40252/noxy-steed.jpg).  Damn horse was good for something at least.

But, the star horse only goes as fast as you highest mount, so you still have to get the riding skill and all that jazz.


And riding skill is what costs most of the gold, not the mounts.

This is purely a cosmetic shell over any existing mounts you would have.  Which makes Margalis' post a bit odd, but hey, if you want to rage, rock out.

The total cost saved per character is 161 - 128.8 gold total per character.  For the first three mount speeds (rare ground, epic ground, rare flying) it's 61 - 48.8 gold.  The value of a stack of level 30 herbs.

If it's any consolation, WoW is probably one of the only games where there's a sizable enough amount of people that actually support this kind of thing.  These are the same people who will probably spend $100 on the Starcraft 2 collector's edition for the in-game WoW pet, even if they have no interest in Starcraft.

Point being, it's not like $25 horse armor is something that's in danger of catching on with other developers.

Other devs try to make WoW.  Everyone is doing DLC out the wazoo.  What makes you think they're smart enough to realize only Blizzard can get away with $25 mounts?

Good for Blizzard for milking their player base for tens of millions on a reskin that probably took an afternoon, but this whole thing is surreal.

I'm still stuck on the draenei in the comic. Ummm...what are they trying to say there?

My shaman has a purple dress like that somewhere...

More beer is clearly the answer.

I think you have to be quite naive to think that bug fixes won't soon be parceled with other DLC content. Just as now there is plenty of DLC that introduces new content bundled with basic obvious gameplay improvement like increased inventory space you can be pretty much 100% certain that at some point relatively soon some developer is going to release a content + bug fix paid package and claim that for some unexplainable technical reason the bug fix can only be included with the rest of the paid content.

Developers are already willing to sell DLC that fixes logical and gameplay problems, to think that they aren't willing to charge for fixes to technical issues seems silly.

You can say that at that point you'll cancel your account but we all know that if you're willing to pay $25 for an in-game My Little Pony you're probably willing to pay $5 to fix an issue with you character's hat not properly displaying.

You guys really don't pay attention do you? What do you think cataclysm is besides new content? it's bug fixes and class revamping. It's what they did in both past expansions.

Normally I'd go "HEY!", but this situation isn't as cut and dried as previous.

- There needs to be a distinction made between normal gamers and WoW gamers. What Blizzard is doing for WoW gamers wouldn't be as successful, if at all, if done by another game dev company with gamers. Another MMO dev is more likely to sell stuff that enhances their game. Look at every browser game ever.

- But what about Cataclysm? I would need to see the details but previous expansions always released a patch that put all the gameplay chnages to everyone and allowed people to not buy the expansion to benefit them. They'd just miss out on the content, the new classes... with that hanging over you, who WOULDN'T upgrade?

But with Cataclysm, they are revamping all the old worlds. Are they doing Classic / Caavlysm servers? Upgrading be ones almmost necessary at this point. But any bug fixes and other *critical* elements should be made available to all subscribing customers (note: the doomcasting is more spot-on with a game that doesn't require a subscription).

All the 1-60 cataclysm content is available whether you upgrade or not. Then it's off to Outland and Northrend, after which you need the expansion to do the 80-85 stuff. No 'classic' servers.

Blizzard has been milking their player base for lots of things.  Be it the Race/Faction Changes, Server Transfers, Character Re-Customizations, or the TCG stuff.  Honestly, the Celestial Steed is just them cutting out the middle-man from the TCG loot card sales on eBay (with the added benefit to the player of making them account-wide instead of character-specific).

Yes, if by "did in both" you mean "patched in before".

Because as you said, everyone is already getting involved in DLC and most of them have found out that it's hard to even sell a substantial amount of content for $25 let alone something thats largely cosmetic.

I don't really care if Blizzard sells silly shit to people who can't think of a better use for $25, in and of itself. Replace "$25" with "$15/month" and that pretty much describes their entire business plan. But the people behind this comic can feast on my succulent balls.

Ride smugly off into the sunset, little pedo-draenei, having stood up for your right to pay the price of some entire games for a bit of fluff like a good little sheep. Everyone who thinks this is a bad thing just wants to "ruin something awesome" because they "can't afford" twattery like this.

Then again what else would I expect from one of these bullshit goldseller-owned fansites?

I'm just marking everyone who bitches about it as "too old."   People pay $150 or more for Mafia Wars points on Facebook. Right now Mafia Wars is selling "limited edition" loot for 30-40 points.. it costs $10 to get 42 points.  Think about just how useless those particular items are, as they sit on a page doing nothing. 

It's a different generation of gamer, one who's already been brought up on paying for small bits and pieces of useless fluff.  I fully expect this to expand in to the 'pay for your loot' mechanic of the F2P games sooner rather than later.  Nothing to do about it except not play.

This.  It's a business.  You don't HAVE to buy any of this shit.  If you don't like their business, you definitely have the option to go somewhere else. 

The horse is only worth the convenience when creating alts and the joy it brings you if you can taunt your friends with it.  Is that worth $25?  Not to me!

The QQs though, they are priceless.

If it shot beams from its mouth and created rainbows it might be worth the money.  It's funny how they inflate it's value to justify its purchase. ;D

Remember AOL?  Remember gemstone?

Or, you know, it's a direct reference to Robot Unicorn Attack.

"What the hell do you have a $500 AOL bill for?  What the fuck is Gemstones III and what do you mean you 'know a guy' who pays $1,000 a month to play it?!"

I admit it, the real reason I don't like this is that I can't afford the $25 price tag and I really really want one. That's totally it!

UO started selling shit like this years ago, it didn't bother me then and doesn't now. It also doesn't bother me that Blizzard is basically announcing "Our customers are sheep!" by charging half the price of a AAA box game for a mount rehue some intern probably banged out in a day. It doesn't even faze me that some people think half the price of a box game is worth not having to pay a whopping 500g or whatever for mounts each time they level an alt.

I just have an involuntary urge to throw my middle fingers up when I see something like that comic, which to me just says "Yes I'm a sheep and I'm smug about it! Maybe I'll pay Blizzard FIFTY bucks next for... uh... I don't know but you can't stop me!"

I hear it's hip to not like things.

PEOPLE SHOULD GRIND FOR THEIR LOOT LIKE GOD INTENDED!

Is anyone actually QQing, or is this some Onion bullshit like the Star Trek movie garbage? Everywhere I go on the net people are just 'meh' or 'yay'.

Breaking news, people buy stupid shit.

If grinding for loot makes the game suck selling an option to make it suck less seems less good than just making it suck less.

I really don't get why the price comes up at all.

People having been paying 10-50x as much for loot card mounts on one character for years and maybe it's just a foggy memory, but I don't remember a similar reaction.  Maybe people like a middleman?  Even more germanely, I paid a bit more for the Wind Rider Cub plush and it's as much of a "rehue" (which it isn't) as the Celestial Steed and doesn't replicate any rare-ish functionality.  Oh, and it comes with a plush but that's just real life's useless fluff.  I would totally write a rant defending my $25 purchase of it because I think it's painfully cute and worth every penny for me.  And again, while the people in this thread commented on the price, it was still mostly seen as okay.

Finally, the mount-for-alts argument was never about "any" mount, but for a decent looking one (or one that doesn't get stuck on doors, or give you a tinge of motion sickness).  I recently spent 700 gold and ~750 Stone Keeper Shards getting two characters off their stupid Kodos that can't fit through doors and onto smaller mounts (Armored Brown Bear and Black War Wolf respectively).

There is no loot.  It's goddamn fluff.  The gold value is so inconsequential that it is a matter of half an hour in the game to acquire it.  Stop being a retard.

EDIT: Normally I'm the first to complain about gold.  This is not one of those times.  I've spent more in repair money in this game on my warrior than I would ever recoup by buying one of these, and I'm usually leveling two alts at a time (speaking of which, I need to introduce Ingmar and Sjofn to my hunter and priest).

One good thing about it if you're horde, it means never having to ride a fugly windrider ever again.

I guess you somehow missed that I was responding to:

PEOPLE SHOULD GRIND FOR THEIR LOOT LIKE GOD INTENDED!

Pro-tip: Don't call people retards while acting like a retard.

Dude, you're the one that trotted out the "they will soon be charging real money for bugfixes!" bullshit, not me.

I thought Pollyanna had better manners than to call people retards.

In the early hours post-release there were a number of threads that were pretty over-the-top (well, I thought, anyway), it settled down pretty quickly.  The "here's someone not to group with" video was funny in a, "Really?  You won't group with someone because they have a poor/different grasp of what a dollar is worth than you?" kind of way. 

This thread also delivers - I don't see the Celestial Mount as a gateway drug that will lead to paying for bug fixes as DLC, but I'm a known naive Pollyanna, so I'm not to be trusted.

:ye_gods:

You're dead to me!  Dead, I say! <sniffle>

I admit, I don't understand why the WoW Card Game items were fine, but this isn't.

Special items were usually obtained through unique circumstances. Attending an event, getting a lucky grab of a rare, limited item from a card pack (of a popular, separate game), etc. The only reason there was a high price on loot cards was because it was set by people, not by a business.

What seems dodgy here is that now items are being created specifically to be sold directly, with fake limited quantities (it's a digital item only), and for a price that is inconsistent with other DLC items. It's a more obvious exploitation of the audience that shows an unsavory future of WoW and how much more gullible the audience is compared to other DLC audiences. This item was made for the Facebook / Free-To-Play generation, not the "I want an actual game / content I can play for my money" generation.

I am beginning to worry about what things are going to look like 10 years down the road if today's youth is that fucking stupid with their money and desires to get flashy shit that doesn't really do anything.

I imagine I sound pretty stupid / oblivious with some of my assessments here. I just never associated Blizzard with worrying so much about creating non-game content.

Ok, seriously, the 'fake limited quanities' thing is in tinfoil hat territory. They've explained multiple times that the only reason it looks that way to the store is they have to generate a code for each one, and the app that does that isn't part of the actual store.

It's not a limited quantity. And while the price might be inconsistent with DLC elsewhere, $25 for a mount isn't that bad when pets are $10. I find this MUCH better than the stupid card game shit, because I'd rather pay $25 and get a mount guaranteed then pay hundreds on eBay and hope I don't get scammed.

Yeah, thinking about it some more and considering the other angles, I was a little off-base there. The whole "Digital item, limited quantities? LOL" perspective fails given their current implementation of redeeming digital items based off loot codes, a system that probably saves them a lot of money since everything is automated.

While I personally think its just short of criminally insane to spend $25 on something like this.. I don't hold it against anyone (and especially not Blizzard). I only care when people can purchase in-game advantages over me (which I don't consider this to be). Probably in part because I'm a broke-ass motherfucker.

As for Blizzard... shit like this is exactly why when the big merger happened Blizzard got their name on it. They're exceedingly good at making money, especially considering the rate at which they put out actual products (every fourth ice age). I can't do anything but respect them for the money they're making off of this.

Blizzard got its name on Actvision Blizzard to exploit the goodwill formed from Blizzard's game development practices, not its money making practices. Shit like this also wouldn't have happened were it not for the fact that WoW is a 5-year old product that isn't experiencing the record growths that typified its early history, which requires a new strategy in making even bigger profits. Or the merger. Take your pick.

Edit: I forgot how greed plays a huge role in all this. I have not been able to muster the feelings of greed that must drive someone to continually improve and grow and do bigger and better things, and it's forced a disconnect.

If anyone thinks activision has any say whatsoever over blizzard they are criminally insane.  The only reason blizzard even merged was because it was convenient for them. 

The only reason Blizzard merged was because their parent company, Vivendi, and Activision struck a deal. Blizzard had very little say, if any, in the merger. They are an independent unit involved in the machinations of their corporate parent.

As for what level of influence Activision Blizzard has on Blizzard, I'm sure there's SOME, and it likely has to do with how to increase their business, but they are more hands-off than most. Considering how AB treats its other developers, Blizzard is likely going to be the sole support for the organization once all of AB's other properties are properly exploited (just like they were with Vivendi Universal during their lean years).

I thought when you called a concern troll on his shit it was a binary choice whether he'd be holier-than-thou indignant or resort to "NO U".

As soon as people start getting charged for things they think should be in the base game, they will quit.  We've been down this road before.  A magical starpony is not one of these things, unless you're a eight year old girl. (Pollyanna? Ponies?  Hmm...)  Blizzard has spent their development time since partway through TBC actively undermining their ability to sell exp potions / levelling aids through a cash shop by removing the suck and decreasing the grind.  It's less a slippery slope and more a sheet of float glass.

Which makes it worth every fucking penny.  :heart:

Your parents said the same thing about you and those goddamn Magic cards/ Pogs/ Rock & Roll.  Welcome to adulthood.

I agree so much it's not even funny.  I *hate* the wind rider animation.  Once I get epic flying I *never* use it again.

To be fair, at least Magic is a game, and Rock and Roll turned out pretty good.  Pogs were a fad in the worst way though.

That being said, your point is right, this isn't any worse than any other thing anyone buys for purely cosmetic/decorative reasons.  Digital stuff like this still carries a stigma of not being worth money because it isn't "real" but if your social scene is online, its every bit as legitimate a purchase as any little trinket people buy and carry around with them.

Edit, not to mention, if it causes you that much happiness to have a shiny horse, its pretty worth it.  Hell, I paid over 8 bucks for a latte, a newspaper, and a cupcake today at a coffee shop.

One of the things stalling my Horde characters is that hideous thing. NOT ANYMORE.  :why_so_serious:

That's somewhat how I feel.  I'm not going to tell people how they should spend their money.  I do think that whoever at Blizzard made the call to charge $25 for this thing is a bit of a dick for exploiting WoW fans though.  There's no reason that one mount should cost over half the amount that a new expansion costs.

Item is worth what people.. blah blah blah, economics.

Also, yes, marketers are dicks.  Talk to a few and you find this is truer than you really wanted to know.  If one were to hear your second sentence, then their brain would interpret it as "you should raise the price of expansions!"   :awesome_for_real:

Food at theatres...that's far more heinous. Fuck you and your $5 for stale popcorn.

Which is why "it's worth what people will pay for it" works in the short term, but probably isn't the greatest long term strategy if they did go to the next step and jack up the price for expansions and everything else, at some point they'd run the risk of losing the good will of the fans.



I'm sure it's been pointed out before on these boards that there are reasons why theaters have to charge a lot for food.

I mock my friends who buy Starbucks' overpriced coffee and food regularly, so this remains in character for me.

Wait, people pay for newspapers?

Occasionally.

Again I have no problem with goofy vanity items. If you want to spend $25 on a new texture feel free.

What I don't like is when people are willing to pay for DLC that addresses gameplay problems, rather than those gameplay problems simply being fixed. If you are a developer and you know your game has issues selling a fix rather then just fixing it for everyone strikes me as a bad thing.

It's like the Facebook / social games that make the core game tedious then sell ways to make it go faster. They don't want to fix an obvious problem with the game because the base game being annoying is part of the business model.

Vanity DLC or DLC that gives you more of a game you like (a la Fallout 3) is cool with me. DLC that profits from the base game being annoying is not.

And Blizzard has adeptly dodged that pitfall time and time again.  The benefit in-game from the purchase is marginal until you start talking about several alts getting a free 280 speed mount, in which case you're already spending 10 000+ gold on the training alone.

Reading comprehension is hard.

1.  It's not a re-texture
2.  It doesn't give you riding skill, it's just a mount.
3.  The in game benefit is as stated marginal.  Convenient, but marginal.

I wouldn't want to have to start paying for big fixes but this isn't really a bug fix. There's no issues with characters having enough money to buy a mount, even starting fresh.

They're still a pretty cheap, disposable dropcloth for modeling and painting.

Sort of.  Not really.  There's probably a few more vertices than Invincible, but it hardly matters.

There's a fundamental disconnect between people who are willing to pay for convenience and people who think that if developers can identify inconveniences in the base game they should fix them. I'm not going to say that the former are wrong but I certainly don't share that mindset.

The dangerous thing here is that when you're willing to pay to make the game less tedious it gives developers incentives to leave the tedious bits in the game or even purposely design them in. Think Raph and his forced downtime except instead of forced downtime being a noble attempt to foster socialization it's a way to sell potions of faster resting.

And this is absolutely not sky-is-falling talk because this is how Asian microtrans games are designed today.

You're not wrong on the paying for tedium reduction is BS, but this isn't that.   The 'it's convenient for my alts' argument is how people are justifying it to themselves, nothing more.  It wasn't intended to be that because the gold to buy mounts (not the riding skill) at ANY level is trivial for that level.  If they started selling heirloom items, which have a tangible tedium reduction factor, for cash then you'd be right.

Really Margalis, who are you arguing with? You keep clamoring on about paying for bug fixes or paying for quicker leveling, but this isn't that. This is nothing close to that. Unless you consider "I didn't have a shiny horse" a fundamental gameplay problem, this isn't even a step in that direction.

This right here x 1,000. Seriously, Blizzard has been streamlining the game for years now and making it more accessible / painless to play, and now we're worried about them charging extra for bug fixes? The same company that has just released a Diablo 2 patch not too long ago, years after they made money from that title? Come on.

The multiple people in this thread who pointed to convenience as a reason for ownership.

The only convenience I can see is that all your level 70 or higher toons don't have to walk farther than the mailbox to get their new sparkly mount as opposed to walking a bit farther to pick up some other kind of mount.

I'm going to guess that for those concerned this much with a new sparkly mount, they already have 5-10 mounts that do the exact same thing, but look different.  There may be some speed differences in there, but I care so little about it I don't even know what those are.

This mount is only available through purchase and scales with your riding skill. There is no advantage of convenience. You can't attain it in another way.

The Celestial mount adjust itself to your highest riding skill/fastest mount.  The DK mount does something simliar (I don't think it can go 310%).

If I understand what they've been saying lately it's a pre-cursor to how things will work in Cataclysm, where a new level of riding skill will allow your character to travel at 310% speed.  From the comments the devs have made, it's a model that they are moving to for all mounts (even currently owned mounts) so that your decision of which mount you will ride will be based entirely upon aesthetics, rather than one mount being faster than others.

You still need the training, the trainer is right beside the vendor.  Therefore:


 :oh_i_see:

You still have to go to your mailbox.  :drill:

I never have to ride a Kodo, raptor, the blood elf one, or Windrider again.  It's a win.  Sure, my army of 80's don't care too much, but my alts love it.

Mechanostriders are the best mounts ever.

That's not convenience Selby, that's cosmetics.

And it's still a win in my book.  I fail to see the outrage here.

Hey, I'm not arguing, I bought one. Just trying to prevent another 'ZOMG PAYING FOR BUGFIXES' outburst.

No worries, I did too and still have no issues with it ;-)

I'm not sure why you are replying to me. I have absolutely zero problem with the mount. I plan on picking it up.

Would anyone else buy the X-53 Touring Rocket (if offered) if it played "Magic Carpet Ride" to all in the near vicinity?

Would be nice to drown out the racket of all the Mechanohogs.   :awesome_for_real: