In the on-going discussion about FOMO, I went back and looked at the whole available catalogue of items and why people are upset about the current distribution system. To make it short:
- FOMO dominates the gameplay loop too much, meaningful rewards are locked away
- Inaccurate designing choices, no proper care or quality control
- No updated graphics to reflect the year 2022
- False perception or not available class fantasies
Let’s start from the bottom before we discuss FOMO itself. The biggest problem with having FOMO are the lack of updated graphic models, which is prevalent across the game, regardless if it comes to NPCs or the players.
These two are just mere examples but it factors into the unrest players have with the game. Older mounts don’t get updated, although Blizzard started with this process in 8.0 (Gilnean/Bloodhoof Tauren mounts) but decided to stop suddenly. The problem with this approach is how updated models are gatekeeped behind irregular content (PVP, raiding, …) which are on a timer or require too much time.
In these two examples we have the vicious mounts and a store mount. Both of those have a new model which is not available to the regular players who either participate in this content or don’t want to spend money. Nobody asks for a flag on the back of the vicious mount but the models should be available to the player base and not the NPCs only.
So, why don’t they update the mounts and put some recolors on it? If you look at warcraftmounts, they already have so many unreleased new models ready but where are they in the game? Blizzard purposely neglected to update these mounts which is why people are looking for alternatives in general. You can’t easily get any desirable mount and even if you work for it, it’s never guaranteed to be a 100% drop after x tries. This is something what Final Fantasy 14 does well. It rewards participation.
(I’m aware that the Grand Wyvern/Gryphon are available through MoP but these are a different mount-race.)
Another problem Horde-players currently face is that a heritage mount has been put on the cash shop, which is also available to the Alliance. People suggested that this was the actual mount-reward for the Blood Elf heritage weapon/mount/paladin class fantasy questline in 9.2.5 and was removed so the company can earn money from it.
For what reason was a Blood Elf-styled mount made available to the Alliance? Everyone who has been reading the elf wars knows how bitter the people already are for giving the Alliance High Elves. This went certainly too far and should have been Horde-exclusive.
But this sloppiness prevails also through other content. We Horde-players know that the Allied Races were awful for the Alliance but do you also remember this? The original Light-forged Draenei heritage armor was different and was changed due the user feedback in Legion. But at the same time they forgot to change the actual heritage mount with it in one swoop, which is part of the Argus paragon boxes now.
If you want to have a mount which somewhat suits the race you play without going into the RNG, you need to look deep into the catalogue or grind reputation to get it out of a lootbox or pay 400k for having the associated flying mount with this race. These expensive prices prevail also in BfA and the flying mounts associated with the Zandalari Trolls and Kul Tiran, where 70k each one for a mere recolor of MoP-mounts is almost a steal. For what reason? There are better gold sink opportunities to be made.
As a Horde-player we usually don’t have to fear quality control issues but they do exist in some of the heritage armors. These armors are often the best choices to represent the race because we lack class and race fantasy items in general. Players don’t even have access to all of the heritage weapons and if they get released, then it’s not fast at all. Where are the Void Elf weapons? Why are the Light-forged Draenei weapons off-color? Why do the Zandalari weapons don’t match the heritage armor?
The Nightborne armor was also updated three times until the physics finally started to work for the belt but sometimes they simply forget to work on a few items and they stand out like nothing else, but this is usually an Alliance-issue:
Let’s talk the big one. FOMO.
FOMO is needed for the game to stay relevant and give players an incentive to play but sometimes items should not be removed. With the listed examples above, what makes people go against FOMO?
- Lack of class fantasies items, either only available to NPCs or FOMO
- No guaranteed obtainable raid/world boss mounts
- Content either too time-consuming or hard to get
- Lore/class/race-based transmog are not updated or gatekeeped
These problems adds up if we look at several pieces which are part of the race’s culture and also contribute to the lack of updated models described above.
Forsaken-player, who did not participated in rated PVP, cannot access the lore-based blight outfit in their already thin available race fantasy options. Only the purple one is available to them, and this not even easily. Not only need they do find a group to do a warfront (with the heroic not automatically queue-able although the technology exists), it also has a RNG-layer on top of it while not being the lore-accurate colorization. The actual colorization should have been swapped so that PVPers get access to a stand-out colorization without punishing RPers and regular people in the process.
The same problem applies also to other race in similar fashion. Bloodhoof Tauren/Darkspear Trolls don’t have access to either modern weapons/armors or colorizations which reflects their races. At least Shaman got something out of it from the Legion expansion (Antorus raid, hidden weapon transmog).
The same problem can also be found in the Burning of Teldrassil mounts. These mounts shouldn’t have been removed because the associated set is still obtainable for the players, leaving everyone only with ground mounts but no suitable flying mounts. But to be fair, the overall distribution was rather confusing, with a few items even not available in the regular set associated with (second picture, the cape).
FOMO is a problem when it fits the race and fantasy it is associate with. A few of the Artifact weapons are based on future races which were not available at the time the weapons got released. Void elves have a specific marksmanship bow recolor and Mag’har Orcs have a mage tower weapon appearance which should never been locked away. Thankfully though, a whole expansion was based around Mag’har weapons, so this can at least remedy some of the issues but looking for suitable heritage armor weapons will leave you, depending on the race you play (Void Elves come into the mind) with little to no choices.
When people scream for “release another color but don’t make the same available”, they do not realize that several of these items have been made together and with certain races/armors in mind. Removing them is problematic.
FOMO plays also a part when it comes to general advertisement and class fantasies. As an easy example all of us are aware of: The goblin rocket on wowhead and displayed in the wow 404 homepages is not available to the players or only for a large of sum.
Regular tabards and cloaks locked behind pvp and gladiator ratings or a BlizzCon ticket. The mounts associated with the BlizzCon ticket are subjective, because it’s more a super deformed edition of their respective inGame airships. This should not have happened. Players are still stuck with Cataclysm faction pride items from 2010/11 for the most part, with a flag available to pvpers only through collecting an absolutely unreasonable amount much honor. People, who also got the flags back in Legion do not like this new system.
The weapon sheathing feature is bugged on the live server. We all know the hilarious sheathing pictures on the internet or have witnessed them for ourselves, but this is not the only reason why weapons look awkward on our characters. What do I mean with this? These pictures provided by my brother will give us some insight into an inGame feature which gets overlooked very often because not many people are aware of it. You might work for a specific weapon version (str or int versions) but the game does not allow you to pick the exact version you have worked for.
The in the picture displayed Cataclysm PVP 1h-gladiator axes will sit on the back but one of them, the green one, is sheathed around the hips standard-wise. While this looks like an mistake, the reason for this lies within the stats of the original weapon as mentioned above. If you want to have another sheathed version of the same weapon, you usually need to collect a specific transmog-version of it. In this case, it’s the “Nifflevar Bearded Axe” from the Vrykul archeology profession.
But even if you manage to collect the right version of the same weapon, the game will only use the default entry in the database for this item at the top. This goes for all weapons with alternate sheathing options. In other words, the inGame transmogrify system isn’t properly working and should be revisited.
Tyrael’s Charger is one of the more frustrating FOMO experiences you can have in World of Warcraft. Either you purchased it through the Annual Pass promotion in 2011 or a few years ago through a Chinese promotion for ~$35 which unlocked the mount account-wide. While the FOMO-aspect is awful enough on its own, people have started to report several incidents of their mount getting removed without a warning or reason. To this day there hasn’t been made an official statement regarding the situation.
Why has it to be this way? The best action of course would have been to rotate several FOMO-mounts on the cash shop, so everyone can have their shot at getting them. For a company, which values money, the developers do a bad job at rotating their recruit- and promotion mounts, to keep everyone happy. Speaking of, who remembers these mounts? This is something what Final Fantasy 14 does best. It honors their players in every possible way.
Speaking of. The current RAF-reward, the renowned explorer’s attire is not only something what League of Explorer-fans wanted to have happen a long time, it’s also on another timer until Blizzard decides to remove it, while even NPCs wear this outfit in the upcoming Dragonflight expansion.
This outfit could have been splendid archaeology-profession rewards for an abandoned feature but someone decided against it, in their quest for more money instead what the game actually needed: Class fantasy and evergreen content.
This is another example of how things turn sour for the players. Three sets which would improve the overall class fantasies of the game but they are either too hard to get or too limiting for their own good. What do I mean with this?
Basically, a heritage armor for the Mag’har Orcs has been limited to Leather-wearers only and the developers stripped the set of the headgear for no real explanation either, while the inGame NPCs are represented as warriors, shamans and hunters. It’s one of the more unwise decisions made by Blizzard during Warlords of Draenor and it still shows. Doesn’t help either that they released a Mag’har Heritage Armor recolor variation while other races still only have one heritage armor color available to them but this is a story for another day.
The mirroring set for the Alliance is one of the Karabor Finery designs (which will return time to time in various colors in Legion). The displayed Frostwolf- and Karabor-sets can only obtained in WoD with a specific armor-type in mind, after they earned the revered reputation status with a certain group. Given the lengthy nature of the WoD expansion, both of those sets should have been unlockables for every class the players plays, instead forcing them to grind a specific armor type so they can buy the -otherwise- hidden ensemble from the vendor.
The Kor’kron Dark Shaman armor set is one of the few Orc Shaman fantasies and groups which stayed relevant up to Battle for Azeroth. While the set is still obtainable, people have been reporting several issues in unlocking them, ranging from taking up to years to acquire it. Like with most desirable items, the game needs a pity system so they don’t spend years farming something they want to have until they get burned out. Something, what FF14 still does great and it harms nobody. Instead encouraging to farm people in every content the game has to offer, people still are conditioned in doing the same thing, even decades later. It’s the love rocket farming method but with a bit more freedom. Let’s just hope that the upcoming love rocket changes will do their wonder.
Let’s talk about Void Elves and their class fantasy in general. The paper-thin race concept lacks not only story-relevance but also weapons, mounts and customization. Not only were they absolutely abandoned during the 8.3 void patch storyline in stopping N’Zoth, they also lack actual flying mounts which are not FOMO. Yes, yes: We also have the corrupted Fire Hawk mount but this is rather an off-color of the Firelands (and therefore flame-based) raid. Void Elf-players are limited to a very small pool and it makes it hard to justify the existence of the race, at all.
At the moment they have only two weapons suitable for their heritage armor, namely the Voidcore Greatstaff and an Artifact Marksmanship Bow Recolor. It’s no wonder everyone championed for the High Elves to be playable with the lack of care and dedication the developers show. There have been several people fighting for their literal existence by creating great graphics and ideas, which I’m gladly to share in this topic with everyone. Resident Void Elf-supporter of the forums Fenelon made several collages with ideas in his topic, which also include the locked away heritage weapons, which should have been released from the very start with this race.
Let’s have another talk about a few mounts associated with the Siege of Orgrimmar raid and the lore-established Kor’kron, who have still a relevance up to Battle for Azeroth. As I have written before about the Kor’kron Shaman-set, we still haven’t talked about the linked War Wolf, which is FOMO nowdays. It’s another Teldrassil-situation, where lore-based sets or class/race fantasies are split apart, with few items still available. When we’re at it, the two off-colors (1) (2) haven’t been made available to the players as well. So, no: Orc-players are not obliged in having a mount which fits e
I was asked to bring up the Deathwheel mount, the poll and how it was distributed. This has been discussed to death already. On a personal level, I do not care much about it. Blizzard had all the time and money to adjust the mount so they can avoid the legal troubles they have with the collaboration but they did not. Prestige was more important to them rather doing the right thing for the community and make it available to the players. At least the Alliance-players can enjoy their motorcycle.
In general, class fantasies take a setback in World of Warcraft. Toys which give you Pandaren brewmaster kegs have a 5min uptime with 60min cooldowns. Burning Blade flags and weapons share the same cooldown with them. People cannot represent themselves as they wish to.
Blizzard needs to reevaluate their idea of player rewards in general. FOMO, yes, but not at the cost of suitable transmog option available. Some of these choices make no sense and should come back. And this also adds to the frustration in general with FOMO-items. Another one are the Ardenweald soulshapes. Shamans cried for years for getting new forms and yet nothing came out of it but for a SL covenant where nobody is sure if you can actually use them after the expansions end.
Depending on what race you play, you either have nothing to work for, it’s too hard to acquire (either too much RNG or content not something everyone can do) or it simply doesn’t fit.
