Activision's push to get you to buy more WoW tokens is here

[THEORACLE64]

Definitely, assuming they see this notice, of course. I had friends who never knew MoP CM sets were being removed because that information was only announced during the last 8 months, after they had decided to take a break.

But as for this mount, let's assume 8 months and from scratch. That's 147k a week. That's not too hard to break, even for casuals.

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I've done that much in about 2 hours just from Nazjatar herbs + pots tbh. Maybe prices have gone down a bit now, but that was even when flying came out.

[Mojo03]

Anyone who spends $400+ worth of gold or hundreds of hours of their life farming for a dinosaur mount needs help.

If that is the most valuable thing you can do with your time and money you need help. Not only that, Blizzard is exploiting you and taking advantage of it, which is messed up and wrong.

It’s not cool having one of these, it’s sad.

[Wyviner]

The genius thing about this is not only that in will drive up token sales, but the increased tokens flooding the market will lower their prices, meaning anyone who already sells tokens as a way of earning gold will have to buy more of them, irregardless of the mount situation. And it has the potential to lower the prices enough that people not playing the game currently, who have thought about using gold to buy a free month, and either didn't have enough, or didn't want to use so much gold, will be more likely to resubscribe. More resubs can possibly = more profit. It's too bad Blizzard can't put such genius to better work.

[Tartys]

I really dont understand why the hell someone care about an expensive mount that is quite useless.

Ok, the problem is mine that I dont understand the problem here... but if I need something to buy, I use my Alt left in front of the AH, that sent to my Main a mail... there is a toy - for free - that allow you to recive mail if you dont have a mail box near you.

To me, having Alts with differents professions is more profitable and helpful than a no-fly mount with an AH.


This outrage it's all about the show off. We can agree about this?

Your argument doesn't hold up. It is because of shit like this, new players are simply not coming to wow since more and more content is being unavailable.
Nobody gives a shit that you got something unique and time limited.
They do give a shit when they can't get it anymore.

Sorry dude, but a mount is not "content"... also we are speaking about a no-fly mount with an AH. If you feel the ungency about a portable AH... you can always roll engineering. So, you got an option for that unspeakable urgency.

[Again we return]

I really dont understand why the hell someone care about an expensive mount that is quite useless.

Ok, the problem is mine that I dont understand the problem here... but if I need something to buy, I use my Alt left in front of the AH, that sent to my Main a mail... there is a toy - for free - that allow you to recive mail if you dont have a mail box near you.

To me, having Alts with differents professions is more profitable and helpful than a no-fly mount with an AH.


This outrage it's all about the show off. We can agree about this?




Sorry dude, but a mount is not "content"... also we are speaking about a no-fly mount with an AH. If you feel the ungency about a portable AH... you can always roll engineering. So, you got an option for that unspeakable urgency.

I think it is more based around the nature of what is being removed. The community has come to accept things being removed due to their being limited factors be it seasonal rewards for pvp or some other content where the difficulty can no longer be replicated after a expansion ends.

This isn't that... it is just a mount that is sold off a vendor with unlimited qualities. I can easily see this being the start of a new push to make extremely expensive gold sink mounts be seasonal as a way of selling tokens to whales.

[therealbowser]

I think that there's a certain element to that at play here. A lot of people have been with Blizzard for a long time. And if they've never been exposed to the corporate/political side of the company, especially in recent years, I imagine it must look like someone trying to slander the good name of a trusted business or friend.

I wish it was that more often, honestly. Sadly, I think a lot of the pushback to the criticism of Blizzard is based on raw ignorant tribalism. That weird psychological response where in ANYTHING you like is criticized, it reflects poorly on yourself and your decision to support that thing. And thus it must be attacked.

This is getting a bit preachy, but it needs to be said: As long as consumers remain ignorant to the behavior of people selling things to them, and the motivations behind those sales, the market will always stay firmly in a greed-oriented position. Corporations, by their very nature, care primarily about profit. And if no one ever calls them out on anything, they can and will do anything and everything to increase that profit.

This is why I get so easily disgusted with people who leap to the defense of what's obviously a decision that has no value to players. Removing the brutosaur has no beneficial effect for players. None. Even the supposed exclusivity of having one was already well-protected by the gold cost. Five Million gold is no easy feat, even today. It won't be easy in Shadowlands either, even with inflated earning ability caused by power-creep.

I couldn't agree more, friend.

Personally I have been with Blizzard since Starcraft & Warcraft II BNE, so I've watched their downfall over time. And it's been miserable. Again going back to Real ID, that was the real turning point for me. The second they made the announcement that Activision merged with Blizzard and they said "it wouldn't change anything", I knew it was only a matter of time before things started going downhill. And so it has. We've come so far since then, and sadly none of it is surprising.

I miss the Blizzard that made Warcraft III, World of Warcraft's earlier content (up to WotLK, specifically), Starcraft and Diablo II. There isn't much of the 'old guard' left, so I don't know what hope there is for things getting any better.

Sadly things like this are to be expected. I'm not taking it lightly, but at the same time it's more of the same. I like Brutosaurs but I never would have paid 5 million for a mount. It being removed does not impact me. What does impact me is the damage this is going to do to WoW's economy when the price of items across the board go way up from people manipulating the market. Blizzard is slowly but steadily making the game worse and less fun to play with changes like this, and people act like "it doesn't change anything".

I mean, I was hopeful after hearing about Shadowlands and some of the changes they intended to make, but frankly... I have to now wonder if that's just Blizzard trying to earn back the trust of players they lost, or even worse, if they are doing things like that so that they can pull more stunts like this--like it's a balancing game between pulling shit that makes the playerbase mad but makes them money, and keeping people happy so they'll overlook it.

Ah, but I digress. I don't know where to stand on just how badly I should be taking this, I just know that I hate it and it pisses me off.

[Tartys]

I think it is more based around the nature of what is being removed. The community has come to accept things being removed due to their being limited factors be it seasonal rewards for pvp or some other content where the difficulty can no longer be replicated after a expansion ends.

This isn't that... it is just a mount that is sold off a vendor with unlimited qualities. I can easily see this being the start of a new push to make extremely expensive gold sink mounts be seasonal as a way of selling tokens to whales.

But we got even pets and mounts remouved from the e-shop and there is no logical reason to do that...

[Again we return]

But we got even pets and mounts remouved from the e-shop and there is no logical reason to do that...

There is if you want to spike sales on a slow moving product...

[Sansnom]

Players accept that it will function like every other expensive mount.

Blizzard then decides that this one will be the enigma and tell people to go buy it before it's made much harder to obtain.

What is Blizzard's benefit for doing this? What does Blizzard have to gain? How convenient that they not only allow players to "buy gold", but like every FOMO item, people will resub to try and get it. Surely there must be a reason why the gold sink mount was suddenly made limited*.

The problem is gold inflation. I recall 20k was a lot for the mammoth mount. Now 20k is peanuts. 5M is quite a bit but as other have said, it is not entirely impossible to acquire that amount of gold. If so, then this mount will be as common as the mammoth.

So maybe Blizzard is trying to pre-empt that by removing it. Do I agree with it? No. But the bigger problem is Blizzard is pushing more gold in the game such that 5M will be even easier to acquire.

Sure claiming the mount removal is an attempt to drive token sale sounds good and is a good hammer to hit Blizzard. Really? How many people are really willingly to buy how many millions required to buy the mount? Those who can probably already have done so. Those who are close probably have enough time to acquire the remaining gold before its removal.

[Lime]

The problem is gold inflation.

Yes, that's why the mount was introduced, like the other gold sink mounts. I already pointed this out.

I don't know if you're trying to answer my question you quoted, but to clarify, that question is rhetorical. In two separate posts that follow, I point out the existence of other reasons and even highlighted the gold sink reasoning. The direct answer and insinuation I gave was to point out that a perfectly plausible reason exists where Blizzard does this for their own gain. No matter what Blizzard does, players can come up with multiple reasons why Blizzard did so and in many cases, multiple answers are right.

Sure claiming the mount removal is an attempt to drive token sale sounds good and is a good hammer to hit Blizzard. Really? How many people are really willingly to buy how many millions required to buy the mount? Those who can probably already have done so. Those who are close probably have enough time to acquire the remaining gold before its removal.

Counter-question: How many are willing to buy a token or a few to help themselves reach their goal? How many will be willing to do so as the deadline draws near?

We've seen it happen since WoD with the end-of-the-expansion 'AotC' mounts. The carry price is always the price of a token because plenty are willing to buy a token to secure their FOMO mount.

There's a good case for this being Blizzard's first step to double-dipping with expansion FOMO mounts. After the huge success of WoD's Friendship Moose, every expansion that follows has a limited time AoTC mount. Now we'll see if Shadowlands has a gold sink mount that will be limited* as well.

[Relapses]

I think that there's a certain element to that at play here. A lot of people have been with Blizzard for a long time. And if they've never been exposed to the corporate/political side of the company, especially in recent years, I imagine it must look like someone trying to slander the good name of a trusted business or friend.

I wish it was that more often, honestly. Sadly, I think a lot of the pushback to the criticism of Blizzard is based on raw ignorant tribalism. That weird psychological response where in ANYTHING you like is criticized, it reflects poorly on yourself and your decision to support that thing. And thus it must be attacked.

It's not "blind tribalism." Like, what the actual fuck dude. This is a petty reason to be angry at Blizzard. And it's just the latest in a long list of perceived sleights this ridiculously cynical fucking community has its collective panties in a twirl over. And before you begin your next enlightened pro-consumerism rant, let me explain one real issue which exists with all of the faux outrage WoW players seem to love to generate. It's pretty important, too:

It makes legitimate, reasonable feedback harder to find.

A 50-page thread of people talking about how people are mad at Blizzard for no real fucking reason, just, you know, they're mad... is completely pointless. Okay, the community doesn't like making shit time sensitive. Feedback received. Alright, let's move onto the next topic. But nope. We've gotta have page after page of people arguing with each other about how this is "hugely important" presumably, as Glenn Howerton puts it...



Yet, in reality, this type of trivial nitpicking actually devalues legitimate criticism because how the fuck are the devs supposed to determine which issues actually matter when shit as stupid as removing a fucking dinosaur mount generates this much impotent fury?

This is getting a bit preachy, but needs to be said: As long as consumers remain ignorant to the behavior of people selling things to them, and the motivations behind those sales, the market will always stay firmly in a greed-oriented position. Corporations, by their very nature, care primarily about profit. And if no one ever calls them out on anything, they can and will do anything and everything to increase that profit.

Out of curiosity, is "defender for the common consumer against overt capitalism" part of your Twitter bio?

This is why I get so easily disgusted with people who leap to the defense of what's obviously a decision that has no value to players. Removing the brutosaur has no beneficial effect for players. None. Even the supposed exclusivity of having one was already well-protected by the gold cost. Five Million gold is no easy feat, even today. It won't be easy in Shadowlands either, even with inflated earning ability caused by power-creep.

Pick your battles.

This issue isn't nearly as important as you'd like for it to be. I know I'll get shit for this, but I really think it's becoming a tremendous problem as of late. This entire fucking community is so anxious to shit on Blizzard for literally every fucking thing they do that it is drowning out legitimate criticism. Players love to say Blizzard "doesn't listen" but you can't blame them when the only fucking thing we seem to agree on is that they suck and we're mad but we're not really sure why.

[Eosia]

Have you ever seen people ingame with the spectral tiger? Yes? You know how much one of those is these days? 3.2k $ for instant buy on TCG Loot

But that has actual scarcity. Only a certain number were ever printed. So they will eventually run out. They will not run out of Longboys,

[kaminaris]

I can't tell you how much of something looks good, because it's subjective

Yes you can, but be honest, cause for me, 80-90% of armor/weapon transmogs looks dull and boring.

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Sorry dude, but a mount is not "content"... also we are speaking about a no-fly mount with an AH. If you feel the ungency about a portable AH... you can always roll engineering. So, you got an option for that unspeakable urgency.

Sorry dude but collectibles are also a content, especially mount like this which encourages you to amass giant amount of gold.

[Charge me Doctor]

People arent complaining about the fact they dont have the gold in time.......... They are complaining about the fact that this is clearly being done to create artificial scarcity to goad so called 'whales' into purchasing tokens.

It's not "whales", it's people. You are talking about people. I understand why corporations want to use this term - to desensitize people, to make it harder to sympathize with them, to think that they are not human and shouldn't be treated as such (you don't even have to look that back into history, you know, that whole slavery and hitler thing).
Seriously, if this bullshit found its way into gaming forums then we are in rough spot

[Charge me Doctor]

Well its a term they use to differentiate between customers who buy little, and the ones who are seen as 'large and fat with disposable cash' in the eyes of this corporate giants, thats where it comes from.

It doesn't matter where it comes from, it's you who used it just right now, to differentiate people from people, while also spreading the usage of this "term", which should be stopped at all costs. You are talking about corporations exploiting vulnerable people to spend more money on shitty product for fucks sake, desensitizing this issue is destructive in the long run.

[scubi666stacy]

Well... if you don't have the 5 millions without buying tokens, you probably don't need this mount, anyway. And people who are really into collecting mounts should always consider to stock up on gold, either to buy goldsink mounts, or to buy rare world drops or crafted mounts from the AH.

I bought it with excess gold from Legion, and after purchasing some more mounts here and there and from the AH, I am still comfortably sitting on 1 mio. gold. This without ever playing the AH game. I just have an alt army to run gold emissaries and WQs with higher gold numbers (also gold missions, even if these are not as lucrative anymore compared to Legion / WoD) - if I have the time, I don't even log in every day now because I have so many other things to do. And my most active guild buddy also got it - even though it took him more time to get the gold amount ready.

If I would not have had the gold though, I would not have bought tokens for this mount. Even though I love dinosaurs. :3
I don't have most TCG mounts for example (except the epic spectral tiger, which is my favorite), and I only have bought 1 BMAH mount so far. At some point, the cash value of gold tokens / mounts just does not work for me compared to my desire to have the specific mount. The only mount from the BMAH I would really be wanting is the ZG tiger. That's it.

[exochaft]

Well... if you don't have the 5 millions without buying tokens, you probably don't need this mount, anyway. And people who are really into collecting mounts should always consider to stock up on gold, either to buy goldsink mounts, or to buy rare world drops or crafted mounts from the AH.

I bought it with excess gold from Legion, and after purchasing some more mounts here and there and from the AH, I am still comfortably sitting on 1 mio. gold. This without ever playing the AH game. I just have an alt army to run gold emissaries and WQs with higher gold numbers (also gold missions, even if these are not as lucrative anymore compared to Legion / WoD) - if I have the time, I don't even log in every day now because I have so many other things to do. And my most active guild buddy also got it - even though it took him more time to get the gold amount ready.

If I would not have had the gold though, I would not have bought tokens for this mount. Even though I love dinosaurs. :3
I don't have most TCG mounts for example (except the epic spectral tiger, which is my favorite), and I only have bought 1 BMAH mount so far. At some point, the cash value of gold tokens / mounts just does not work for me compared to my desire to have the specific mount. The only mount from the BMAH I would really be wanting is the ZG tiger. That's it.

You're pretty much in the exact same spot as me, except I didn't buy the mount because I've been using my gold in exchange for subscription time and B.net balance for purchasing other games (plus I rarely use the AH). The only people that would likely even be affected by this change are people who likely have millions of gold and are either debating to buy the mount or are decently close to buying it.

A lot of the forum chatter seems to be defending or berating groups of people whom this mount change will not affect. If you're a whale, you had this mount day one and the mount going away doesn't affect you. If you're very gold poor, you likely were never going to get this mount and/or have no interest in this mount, so the mount going away doesn't affect you. Even if you planned to grind gold to get this mount this expansion, you've likely already reached your goal or are close to it (they're giving you potentially a year's worth of notice, no less), so the mount going away doesn't affect you. My guess is that almost everyone outraged by this change not only were never in the market to get this mount, but also are outraging on behalf of a victim group that doesn't exist.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Removing a great mount for me to obtain ingame is just one more reason for me to not to resub.

[Ihsan997]

It’s kind of funny that people can give reasons why they’re bothered by this, giving details across 500 or so posts, but somebody who disagrees feels comfortable saying “everybody is hating for no reason.” Tribalism is weird.

[Coconut]

You're pretty much in the exact same spot as me, except I didn't buy the mount because I've been using my gold in exchange for subscription time and B.net balance for purchasing other games (plus I rarely use the AH). The only people that would likely even be affected by this change are people who likely have millions of gold and are either debating to buy the mount or are decently close to buying it.

A lot of the forum chatter seems to be defending or berating groups of people whom this mount change will not affect. If you're a whale, you had this mount day one and the mount going away doesn't affect you. If you're very gold poor, you likely were never going to get this mount and/or have no interest in this mount, so the mount going away doesn't affect you. Even if you planned to grind gold to get this mount this expansion, you've likely already reached your goal or are close to it (they're giving you potentially a year's worth of notice, no less), so the mount going away doesn't affect you. My guess is that almost everyone outraged by this change not only were never in the market to get this mount, but also are outraging on behalf of a victim group that doesn't exist.

Pretending there are only two kinds of people, those who bought this mount already and those who wouldn't want it or buy it anyway, is profoundly ignorant and blatantly wrong (and I was sad to see that Taliesin and Evitel, who I like very much, made the same argument as well).

I should know that it's wrong because I'm in neither of those categories, and never was. I am a semi-casual mount collector and I had every plan to buy this mount, just like I bought every gold sink that came before it. In every previous expansion, I only just barely made enough gold to buy all current mounts (Mammoth and chopper in WotLK, Yak, panthers and all the rest in MoP, Spider, Lightframe and everything else in Legion, etc.). In BFA, however, there was a sudden and abrupt drop in gold earnings a few months into the expansion, and on top of that Blizzard added more gold sink mounts than ever before, going from a total requirement of ~ 3 million in Legion to a total of ~ 7.5 million if you count the Brutosaur, the frogs, the resistor and everything else.

Because of the deflation (which in itself I don't think is a bad thing), I realized that I wouldn't be able to reach 5 million this time while still enjoying my play time, so I made a conscious decision to stop farming gold for the time being and get back to it in early Shadowlands, since gold is always easier to make at the start of the expansion. Along the way, I also decided to spend some of my existing gold on the frogs and direhorn, to at least get something new if I wasn't gonna get the big one soon. But I was always going to buy the Brutosaur down the line, and I feel royally screwed over by this asspull of a decision by Blizzard.

Had I known they were going to remove it from the start, obviously I would have prioritized it. I would have delayed the frogs for next expansion instead, I would have sold some of the mounts and mogs that I kept, I would have focused on herbing more while hunting rares, whatever. But how was I supposed to expect it when no gold sink or special utility vendor mount has ever been made unobtainable before? And if I decided farming 5 million (for a mount I 100% thought I could get later!) was a bit too much for my enjoyment early in the expansion, how do you think I see that goal when there is only one year left?!

But really, to realize just how absurd your argument is, look at it this way. Of all the players who wanted and planned to get the Brutosaur, do you really think none of them set it as a long (heh) term goal, either because it would take them longer than two years to farm the gold, or because they were waiting for it to become relatively cheaper with inflation? Do you think people stopped buying Yaks after MoP? There are probably more people in this position than fat cats who bought it right away actually... And they have a right to care and voice their opinions now, ffs!