Cash Shop Mounts

[Deleted]

The Nightmare Steed, the one that looks like the Warlock old school steed (Albeit i already have the Vanilla one from Q) - Except armored.

I think it's dope as shit.

[ComputerNerd]

Celestial Steed I bought a long time ago when I had more of a budget, but that mount has since lost its appeal.
That can happen regardless of its source.

Grinning Reaver and Warforged Nightmare are the two that appeal most.
If I had to choose, I would go with the Warforged Nightmare.

[Xheoul]

All I see in this thread is "Money isn't an issue" .... Damn, must be nice... .____.


OT: The Reaver. That thing is badass.

[Polarthief]

OT: Probably all of them. I bought the first 3 but I just never use them now. If they go on sale, I might.

Off-topic:

Got them all...

... the last one I want is from RAF.

RAF are the cheapest of them all!

1. Buy a WoW key when they're on sale for $5 (or get a really nice family member's/friend's WarCraft movie ticket if they went to a specific theater that gave out accounts)

2. Make a new email (or don't) and send a RAF recruitment email to that new email (or your current BNet account's email)

3. Make a trial account using the RAF link

4. Add the trial account to your BTag/RealID friends

5. Trade enough gold for 2 WoW tokens. You're technically only losing 1 (since the first reward is a free month on the recruiter account)

6. Use the 2 WoW tokens on the recruitee account. Now you have 2 months on the recruitee account, 1 free month on the recruiter account, and a RAF reward of your choice!

[Dristereau]

None, because I don't agree that something like this should be bought outside the game. Yes, I understand the reason behind it, an Artist spends less than a week making one of these things and pretty much prints out cash, but still. I'm of the opinion you should be able to earn them in game.

What I do like and would want if not from Cash Shop?
Fey Dragon (Called it as a store mount from first time MMO-Champ found it)
Armored Bloodwing (Nothing like insulting a faction that's been flying these things since Vanilla and now making them pay to have one)
Runesaber (Nice reskin of Viscous Warsaber, would use on my Alt Mage if not for Void Talon and my purple theme using that)

[Franzy]

Eh. I can warrant buying mounts because I don't pay sub with money anymore since there is the token.

[OnlineSamantha]

There is a massive difference in cut content and devs having the right to make money on there IP. the cash shop mounts are not cut content...

They DO make money on their IP. Plenty of it. That argument wouldn't have merit unless the game was free-to-play.

- - - Updated - - -

Even if you accept that it's not technically taking something out of the game because it was never in it to begin with, it sure as hell acts as a deterrent to future mounts. Blizzard won't make a recolor of the bat or the Reaver because they know it will slow down the sales of the store mounts.

[Jtbrig7390]

They DO make money on their IP. Plenty of it. That argument wouldn't have merit unless the game was free-to-play.

- - - Updated - - -

Even if you accept that it's not technically taking something out of the game because it was never in it to begin with, it sure as hell acts as a deterrent to future mounts. Blizzard won't make a recolor of the bat or the Reaver because they know it will slow down the sales of the store mounts.

The argument holds mert because there is no X limit to how much they can make.

Don't want to use the cash shop fine don't, but they have every right to have one and sell shit from it. $15 a month allows you to connect to the server nothing more. They are not required to make any kind of content for you.

They are even allowed to delete ur character tomorrow if they needed to. $15 only allows you to log in and connect...nothing more.

[SteveRocks]

Money isn't an issue for me and I have most of the store mounts. The ones I don't have I don't find all that appealing but will probably pick them up when they do their 50% promotion because I collect mounts.

[Franzy]

They DO make money on their IP. Plenty of it. That argument wouldn't have merit unless the game was free-to-play.

- - - Updated - - -

Even if you accept that it's not technically taking something out of the game because it was never in it to begin with, it sure as hell acts as a deterrent to future mounts. Blizzard won't make a recolor of the bat or the Reaver because they know it will slow down the sales of the store mounts.

They did make a recolour of the skyreaver however (except less armour).

[SteveRocks]

They DO make money on their IP. Plenty of it. That argument wouldn't have merit unless the game was free-to-play.

- - - Updated - - -

Even if you accept that it's not technically taking something out of the game because it was never in it to begin with, it sure as hell acts as a deterrent to future mounts. Blizzard won't make a recolor of the bat or the Reaver because they know it will slow down the sales of the store mounts.

How does it act as a deterrent to future mounts exactly? There are literally hundreds of mounts in game that cannot be purchased in the store. WoW is a business and businesses make money.

[Xheoul]

None, because I don't agree that something like this should be bought outside the game. Yes, I understand the reason behind it, an Artist spends less than a week making one of these things and pretty much prints out cash, but still.

Whoa there, fella. I understand you don't want to buy mounts and that's fine, but as an artist, I find the fact that a person says "It takes an artist less than a week" insulting. Artists don't simply blink their eyes and stuff come out. First you have to go into the design stage, what works, what doesn't, sketch out concepts and models with different variations. Then you have to finalize the concept, to then hand to the 3D artists. Not only do you have people that handle the sculpting of the model itself, but you also need to work on the textures and the rigging so it can then be passed over to animators. Not to mention that once it's fully modeled, textured and animated, it has to be coded within the game. People really underestimate the hard work that comes into making even the smallest detail.

Again, it's fine that you dont want to spend money on a mount. But please give credit where credit is due and don't belittle a group of artists' work.

[Lex Icon]

honestly it's like buying merch from an artist/band/game etc. you like
you don't have to but it's a way to show your support.

[Thetruth1400]

I'm not sure I'd buy anything unless heavily discounted. It's not that I can't afford it, it's just that it feels a little silly to me to spend money on when I could pick up several entire indie games for that price, or a couple movie tickets, or some new martial arts training gear - a lot of other hobby items cost around the same and have more "value" to me.

But hypothetically, if they were free and I could just pick one to have? I do like the Reaver a lot. If I didn't already have the bat and fey dragon (gifts), it would be one of those.

Agreed. Even heavily discounted, I find it kind of bonkers for a pay to play game to also have micro transactions. Kind of feels like Blizzard asking customers to pay them money to let Blizzard kick the customer in the sack. "Oh, we used the cost of your subscription to make these cool mounts and pets! Oh, you want them in game? HAHAHAHA, no. I mean, sure, I guess we will put them in, but you're going to have to pay us $20+ if you want one."

[Tziva]

All I see in this thread is "Money isn't an issue" .... Damn, must be nice... .____.

I think most people who can afford a sub fee can manage to shell out an extra $25 USD as a one time fee if they really desired. It would make sense that people for whom that $25 is a financial challenge are probably not going to blow $15 a month on a subscription-based game. That's not to say people that can manage the sub but have no extra spending money for other luxuries don't exist, but by virtue of being on this business model, I think WoW already caters to people who have at least a little spare money that goes beyond basic necessities.

I'm not exactly well off but paying ~$25 periodically for a luxury/fun thing is not a hardship for me... I just feel the money is better spent on other things, like maybe a new game, or some books, a restaurant meal, training gear, or whatever.

But yeah I don't think people are saying MONEY IS NO OBJECT BUY ALL THE THINGS EVER. I think most of us just mean that our primary motivation for not buying store mounts isn't that we literally can't afford them, but other concerns.

[Vinciri]

Mystic Runesaber would look beautiful underneath my nightelf's bum

[DarkAmbient]

None of the store items are worth the money.

[Drusin]

I've bought them all, plz add moar.

[Varitok]

Money isn't a issue.

I won't buy content that should be included in the base game while wow charges a subscription.

This, you are absolutely right.

[Dristereau]

Whoa there, fella. I understand you don't want to buy mounts and that's fine, but as an artist, I find the fact that a person says "It takes an artist less than a week" insulting. Artists don't simply blink their eyes and stuff come out. First you have to go into the design stage, what works, what doesn't, sketch out concepts and models with different variations. Then you have to finalize the concept, to then hand to the 3D artists. Not only do you have people that handle the sculpting of the model itself, but you also need to work on the textures and the rigging so it can then be passed over to animators. Not to mention that once it's fully modeled, textured and animated, it has to be coded within the game. People really underestimate the hard work that comes into making even the smallest detail.

Again, it's fine that you dont want to spend money on a mount. But please give credit where credit is due and don't belittle a group of artists' work.

I spent four years studying Games Design and modelling, and still do my fair share of it. Most of these concepts are based on previous work or ideas not used for the actual expansions. Unwrapping and texturing a model such as those for Cash Shop mounts won't take long, for a group who have used the same basic shape repeatedly for quest mobs and will know exactly where to make any seams and be able to smooth them out.

As for animation and rigging, most of these are based on preexisting models in game (Runesaber is Viscous Warsaber with a new texture and slight alterations, Skyreaver is a quest mob with added armor/detail). It would be simple enough to weight the bones and polygons based on having the other model open on your second monitor to see how that works, or even just edit the original version and rename, which would be even less effort). Let's face it, 3DS Max has a basic bone structure for a variety of creatures and various styled walk cycles, I'm sure Blizzard has their own library of these.

As for coding, I highly doubt these models need to be individually coded in. They will have a mount template, and place it under that. Mainly just a thing of adding the exported File Asset to the correct location.

I'll give credit where credit is due. Brand new assets with unique animations and designs such as the Fox, Felsaber, Rat, Spider and Felbats are great to see and I appreciate them more. But reusing something over and over again in game such as the Draenor Wildlife as mounts and then releasing these things for people to pay for is cruel (Also looks like they just changed to colour filters in Photoshop). Especially when the Laughing Skull ended up nothing having a Reaver for yet another Wolf, and the Reaver was to be sold.

The most impressive thing of the Mounts is unique textures such as the changing Fey Dragon and the glowing Runesaber. However, I'm pretty sure the Artists at Blizzard will be know exactly how to create these effects from previous WoW Expansions/Experimentations. As I said, I think the Artists at Blizzard do a great job, especially with the Expansions, Raids and Environments, plus Armor and other Models. But if you compare what they build and do in the main compared to these, it really is a minute task.