Official Blizzard Poll - Choose the Next Shadowlands Mount

[Azerate]

It works for OSRS because OSRS' audience is far less broad and the game isn't 1,000 different things to 1,000 different people. It's a simple, grindy MMO you can play on your phone with a few bells and whistles added to it.

Strongly disagree. I don't think you know much about OSRS, which isn't necessarily bad. OSRS is anything but simple. In fact, you could make an argument that it's many times more complex than WoW. It very much has 1000 different things, and unlike in WoW, many of those things are genuine alternatives to each other, and have been for years. Until Legion, in WoW, everything was focused on dungeons/raids and only since then other content started gaining more popularity and relevance but still to this day, for many players wow is just a raid simulator with some distractions in it. Now to be clear, I personally disagree with this and I'm enjoying all the content WoW has to offer, but it's also true that this is what WoW has always been in the past, so these people do have some grounds for making those claims.

Also, it's not like there's no arguing on reddit etc. over for example PvPers voting for PvE things in OSRS, or people who don't play harder game modes voting on things that don't affect them at all. You're always gonna have this kind of thing, but at least what remains undebatable is that the majority is in favor of something or not. In WoW we keep having these discussions of who is actually representing the view of the majority. That would be solved once and for all with a poll system, because we would get the actual answer. I don't believe it would lead to any mass exoduses. There are unfavourable updates to groups of people and these people are still playing regardless, because they like the game too much. The drama around covenants is a great example of such a situation. If instead of forum/twitter drama we just got a poll from Blizzard with an unbiased question, and a multiple choice answer with well worded descriptions of the possibilities, and one of those received 80% of votes, no one would be able to really dispute that.

[KainneAbsolute]

Ancient seems really cool but the Tome and Nerubian are easier to make them fly....hmmm I hope the Nerubian is not the spider one...

[SirBeef]

The issue is that they try to pass it off as a community reward of some sort. There's no *real* issue with giving stuff with people buying the expansion,but don't pass it off as a generous gift

The paying community that will be purchasing SL. It makes sense. Every business dies stuff like thus and you all clutch your Pearl's over it when Blizzard does it.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Oh my, the drama that'll arise from the other mounts being turned into store ones for 6-month sub rewards... XD

Why the fuck should they give freebies to those not buying?

Because some people suffer from entitlement issues.

That's why. ^_^

[Relapses]

Strongly disagree. I don't think you know much about OSRS, which isn't necessarily bad. OSRS is anything but simple. In fact, you could make an argument that it's many times more complex than WoW. It very much has 1000 different things, and unlike in WoW, many of those things are genuine alternatives to each other, and have been for years. Until Legion, in WoW, everything was focused on dungeons/raids and only since then other content started gaining more popularity and relevance but still to this day, for many players wow is just a raid simulator with some distractions in it. Now to be clear, I personally disagree with this and I'm enjoying all the content WoW has to offer, but it's also true that this is what WoW has always been in the past, so these people do have some grounds for making those claims.

Also, it's not like there's no arguing on reddit etc. over for example PvPers voting for PvE things in OSRS, or people who don't play harder game modes voting on things that don't affect them at all. You're always gonna have this kind of thing, but at least what remains undebatable is that the majority is in favor of something or not. In WoW we keep having these discussions of who is actually representing the view of the majority. That would be solved once and for all with a poll system, because we would get the actual answer. I don't believe it would lead to any mass exoduses. There are unfavourable updates to groups of people and these people are still playing regardless, because they like the game too much. The drama around covenants is a great example of such a situation. If instead of forum/twitter drama we just got a poll from Blizzard with an unbiased question, and a multiple choice answer with well worded descriptions of the possibilities, and one of those received 80% of votes, no one would be able to really dispute that.

I really find it hard to believe anybody who sees the absolute shitshow that this community represents and thinks, "yeah, let's just let them figure out what's best for the game." You'd end up with subfactions of players actively campaigning against one another and it'd amplify the already-pretty-shitty "casual vs hardcore" debate up yet another level. It'd probably lead to the removal of things like M+ and Mythic raiding, as well...two things that I think WoW does better than anything else out there. So if you want to see WoW turn into a LFR-hero friendly system of lobbies designed to appeal to the lowest of the lowest common denominator, have at it. I can't see many positives myself.

Moreover, I personally believe that the power of game development is solely that of the developers themselves. The Mona Lisa wasn't crowdsourced. The community has the right to be upset with directions the developers take but I think putting that direction solely in the hands of the community is a step too far.

[RevenantReaper]

I like all of the ideas except the Gooey Slimesaber. We have too many cats already.

[Amerissis]

So you can only vote when you have an active sub. Even though I have SL on my account. That sucks.

[Gaebryel Quintyne]

Caterpillar it is then. I don't think we have any ground-based-crawling worm skeleton in the game at the moment... No, the many Nzoth serpent mounts don't count. They fly and they wriggle in the air.

[Clash the DK]

Not really interested in any of those choices.
I voted for the tree since that would be the most unique option compared to the rest.

[Zaganite]

I am hoping for the Ancient mount! that would be pretty sick for my Night Elf Druid!

[Adamas102]

Brother, I could give a shit about what you think about me or my posts -- but please don't act surprised when your smarminess is reciprocated by people who don't subscribe to your particularly drab flavor of anti-Blizzard rhetoric.

I thought it was pretty clear. I don't really care about your posts at all. Don't worry, buddy. I'm not surprised. It's just amusing that you're trying to take the high road on being smug and smarmy.

TIL that pointing out Blizzard is a company that makes decisions based on maximizing profitability is "anti-Blizzard rhetoric" . You must be as confused as chrisisvacant was if you think I have a problem with Blizzard as a company, the decisions they make, or the games they produce. Who'd have thunk that someone can point something out without being emotionally invested in the subject.

To get aaaaaall the way back on topic: anything but caterpillar, I guess.

[Doffen]

Voted Ancient mount! Sounds awesome!

[Lucetia]

I mean, to each their own at the end of the day #CaterpillarTeamBestTeam because all of them sound like interesting additions to some degree at least.

Well, that's one thing to consider. If that happens, I would assume the other ones might become store mounts, though.

The twist is that they're developing all four anyway and they just wanted to do a poll to give us the illusion of choice.

I wouldn't be surprised if they make it in the game either way. Just one is free. It'd be like the Azeroth Chopper series back at the end of MoP, I believe it was? Where the winner got their mount for free and then they later added the opposite faction for 10,000G.

I could see a similar thing being done here where everyone gets the winner for free and then the other four mounts are added to the various covenants or a rep faction later added in 9.1 / 9.2.

[Redroniksre]

Oh honey, are you confused and trying to respond to someone that cares? Maybe if you'd read the first post of mine in this thread you'd have seen that all I did was point this out as a business decision to motivate an increase in preorders. Maybe next time you should read a bit more before trying to be sneakily condescending. How does that sound, honey?

It is an incorrect observation however. For one, it won't increase pre orders because the mount doesn't come out until far after Shadowlands releases (Was it Q1 2021?) and on top of that, who would buy it for a single mount? If anything they would buy it for the dozens of mounts it already offers, one isn't going to change much. This is more of a goodwill event than a profit event, given how much people have been complaining about everything else this is just an attempt to lighten it up.

[scrappybristol]

Without any concept art to go on: The Wandering Ancient

don't need a book, plenty of caterpillars coming in shadowlands, cat mounts are a dime a dozen, and the description of the nerubians is too vague

[Vlex]

Whilst I agree we don't have numbers on how many people hang back and don't choose to buy and upgrade to the newest expansion every time one comes out, there certainly is a significant number of people who don't buy the expansion either prior to or on release. Usually they wait until later patches come out that fix issues and makes available a broader range content to do and of course not to mention the game usually goes on deep discount at the time. Mostly my issue is they couldn't be upfront about this being a sales promotion and instead are pretending it's some sort of good will for the year despite it explicitly being tied to the next expansion's purchase.


You mean everyone after Shadowlands releases?


??? Didn't we just spend a whole expansion with the 1-50 content on offer as current content? I guess there is a slight possibility that they might make it a retro-active reward but the fact they specified:

and made no mention that it will be available after that period sounds like a pretty conclusive deadline.

They literally said "the next Shadowlands Mount", and you're complaining that it requires you to have Shadowlands? Are you dumb?

[Relapses]

I thought it was pretty clear. I don't really care about your posts at all. Don't worry, buddy. I'm not surprised. It's just amusing that you're trying to take the high road on being smug and smarmy.

Please -- I don't care about the "high road." I post for nobody other than myself. If anybody has a problem with my posts they're welcome to use the board's ignore feature.

TIL that pointing out Blizzard is a company that makes decisions based on maximizing profitability is "anti-Blizzard rhetoric" . You must be as confused as chrisisvacant was if you think I have a problem with Blizzard as a company, the decisions they make, or the games they produce. Who'd have thunk that someone can point something out without being emotionally invested in the subject.

Apparently this is news to you but yes, using rote cynicism to paint a positive feature (Blizzard asking the community for input) as a negative one (they just want to pad preorders) is generally seen as not supportive. Claiming you "don't care" after people rightfully give you shit for making such a bland observation doesn't preclude you from criticism either.

To get aaaaaall the way back on topic: anything but caterpillar, I guess.

At least we can agree here. :^)

[Boricha]

I voted wandering ancient, but I kinda hope it's not huge. I tend not to like big mounts.

[azuraji]

Got you some concept art for the Gooey Slimesaber!



https://imgur.com/a/B5ZLQZ8

[Adamas102]

It is an incorrect observation however. For one, it won't increase pre orders because the mount doesn't come out until far after Shadowlands releases (Was it Q1 2021?) and on top of that, who would buy it for a single mount? If anything they would buy it for the dozens of mounts it already offers, one isn't going to change much. This is more of a goodwill event than a profit event, given how much people have been complaining about everything else this is just an attempt to lighten it up.

Ok, I'll go over it one more time. The official Blizzard post notes that this is a collaboration with everyone who "owns Shadowlands". If that collaboration is referring to participating in the poll then that seems to imply that it's only for people who have pre-ordered SL. I noted several posts back that maybe I was experiencing some of the technical difficulties as a result of the high amount of traffic the poll was causing, but no one really confirmed whether or not you could vote even if you hadn't pre-ordered the expansion. If the poll is open to everyone regardless of having pre-ordered or being subscribed then I take it all back.