I had a similar view at some point, where I questioned why people were so “angry” about some cosmetic rewards being put behind either a time gate + low drop chance or a super hard challenge…
And I will admit, a few people changed my mind completely, and made me see this whole thing in a new way that has stuck with me ever since.
It was a person sharing their own story of how they were disabled and the game was “all they had”, so what some of us, lucky enough to be healthy, capable of doing stuff, having a social group to do things with, the reality is, the game is for some people an escape from all the things they can’t do… While they may be in a wheelchair in real life, when they log on they are capable of flying, dressing their characters in different outfits, enjoying the festivities in game with friends they met through it…
And no, I’m not advocating for Blizzard to just give everyone everything, but I no longer see the “cool” aspect of gate keeping awesome stuff behind something that only 0.1% can enjoy… Many high-end players don’t do the high end stuff for the rewards anyways… They do it, because they want to be the best, the cosmetics are a plus of course, but I still think Race to World first would have the same people even if you removed a mount… Whazz, Lontar, Cdew etc. would still be pushing high end PVP even if you removed the mount…
But heck, at the end of the day this is a game… If Blizzard tomorrow pulls the plug, no one is going to say “awh man, I remember in this game there was a dude called Clawcious he had the love rocket mount, which is rare! He was so cool!”… So yes, while they surely can make stuff like the mage tower, I think they should do it as it came to be, there forever… A challenge that is not restricted by time, something people can have a go at, at their own pace, cosmetic rewards that bring us joy to collect and go for, not FOMO low drop chance / extreme skill caps so a handful of people can feel special that their dragon has reindeer antlers on.
You’re absolutely delusional if you believe this is the same as in the game…
I can’t believe I have to explain this but in the game we all start the same, irl we do not.
In the game all that limits you is time. With time you can farm gold or spend that time farming for mounts or practice getting better at things like pvp or m+.
Irl your boss has a better degree because he could go to college while the burger flipper or checkout girl often didn’t have that chance from the moment he/she was born. Or the boss knew someone that pushed his promotion.
Some rules must apply… otherwise we have WoW in state “we are the family”, and see how far it goes? Blizzard lost nice amount of subscribers, and money because trying to make disney unicorn land from WoW
I literally don’t have a clue what you mean by that.
It seems you generally dislike the game in general, so why not quit or take a break until WW? I agree the ‘family’ cutscene was cringe but people, as always, project their personal dislike for wow on that moment while in truth objectively Dragonflight has done better than the last two expansions, and blizz has made steps in the right direction.
You contradict yourself. The only metric we have for it’s popularity is the numbers, which are growing since DF. You hear complaining? It’s been like that since the start of the game back in 2004-05, it doesn’t mean that the game is ‘dying’.
Again if that was true the game was dead from the start.
Yet people also praise the game for the changes since SL. So which is it?
Oh a different group of people? So you agree hearing or seeing people complain about x/y isn’t a good indicator. In SL people actually left the game in droves, which prompted blizzard to change the direction of the game.
Even as a collector, I think we have way to many recolors and not much variety in new mounts.
Since SL we got way too many mounts and most of them were just recolors of the old models, but I don’t see the point of “showering” us with that much collectibles (same for transmogs and same items with 5 different colors). I would rather have less, but different models then previous ones and also not time limited so people can be able to obtain them even if they take a break and not to just wait few months to see the same mount/tmog on the trading post, shop or limited time event, but only a bit recolored.
I find it very lazy way to attract and force people to play/do content.
I think the amount of players who put themselves through the recent Plunderstorm event despite hating every minute of it would argue against your premise.
His essay is about removing everything else to only provide mount/tmog for this kind of achievement to increase the ego-meter of some people. I do agree hard challenges should provide a nice reward and there are still plenty available right now, so I don’t see what he is whining about.
I can see that you reached the peak of your argumentation and are now switching to real life comparison and inventing narrative, therefore showing that you have nothing else to say to defend your case.
Btw my boss drives a Seat, I drive a LS. So which one am I?
I don’t care for elitist attitudes in gams like this. Everything should be achievable by anyone as long as you work for it. It is still the case that most of the better looking transmogs and mounts etc are tied to either a lot of work or higher level of skill. Take for example Plunderstorm transmogs and Mythic raiding gear sets, if you like that sort of thing. Also that big dog you can get for completting everything in Dragonflight, I’d assume that about 1% of the entire population will achieve that.
I’m people and I wear and use what I think looks nice. I don’t need to show off to other players who I don’t know, will never know and opinions I don’t particularly care about…no offense
I’d say that cosmetics have proven to be a very powerful motivator for keeping players interested.
Personally, if we could sacrifice some mounts for more mogs, I’d be happy. There are so many items in the game that you can always make a new mog for your char.
There are lots of mogs and mounts which are difficult to obtain and if you play for couple seasons you can get a lot of them and “ride them with pride.”
I really don’t see the issue here.
Also, in my experience, people who collect mogs and people who want to perform don’t mix much. A good example of this is the Black Dragonflight set for The Dawn of the Infinite Hardmode - extremely hard to find people to do it with because people who collect mogs don’t want to do a hard dungeon and people who want to do hard dungeons prefer to push m+ instead.
Rewards don’t need to be limited or exclusive to be rewarding.
As i role player, my transmog and mount is a way to express more about the character, not my skills.
I need lots of shapes and colours.
The same mount in a different colour could be better fit for certain character.
Having the way to express myself locked behind stick measuring contest that only a few care about would not provide me with any sort of satisfaction.
This game is not only for the 1%.
I have harder to obtain mounts that I will never use compared to a humble pandaren tortoise.
You have a stick measuring mentality, other people don’t.
My pride doesn’t come from showing off. Comes from having a perfectly personal and meaningful attire. Whatever is hard or not to get pieces, they just need to be white, or blue.
