It’s just time. The decision to remove these was completely at odds with the philosophy of the game as was proven with the very next patch (Ulduar drakes) and ever since then. Now we have an incomplete cycle of the most iconic mounts in the game for classic age players. The arguments for it are tired and have been retread countless times on this forum. Now it’s just time to do it.
The BMAH doesn’t count as a source as it is a ridiculous endeavor to try to get the Plagued drake there and it is a poor mitigation for the original sins of removing content.
Existing holders of the drakes (achievement plagued, achievement black, and bmah plagued) will have the option of enabling “glory mode” on their account, which is that whenever they cast the mount, it toasts the associated achievement/feat, allowing them to relive their glory days from 15 years ago, creates a trail of glowing confetti when riding these mounts (not visible to other players), and generates a congratulatory in-game mail.
I dunno about that, but they are fun mounts and there’s not really any good reason for them being removed while all the other Glory mounts are still in game and able to be worked toward.
I support your idea, but I am concerned about the BMAH aspect of this. The BMAH is unique in that it’s entirely a Blizzard-sanctioned transaction all-around. If the drakes were like TCG items where Blizzard was mostly hands-off, then it’d be a different story and I wouldn’t have a care in the world.
I think if the drakes were to be brought back to the achievement, the achievement should instead award a turn-in quest that unlocks the drakes on a vendor, and the vendor then will sell you the drake for whatever the BMAH average price has been. That’s my view to maintain a semblance of fairness.
idk… i think the iron bound and rusted proto drake from ulduar look alot better than the black and plagued anyways…
i’d rather blizzard just spend time making new mounts.
also, maybe blizzard shouldn’t have removed those drakes when the nax patch ended but the mounts definitely needed to be removed at the end of wotlk because they required “Undying” and “Immortal”, both of which were removed. So, the process for obtaining these drakes would have drastically changed if they remained in the game in cataclysm.
I don’t think its really about what they look like, its about something that isn’t currently available on the mount tab. I mean, I tried for ages to get the Onyxian Drake and I hardly ever use it now. Can’t remember the last time I did.
If something is unavailable, that equals Unique/Special, which means people want it. Of course, once it loses that Unique/Special aspect it no longer really means anything. Achievements, pshaw, who bothers about those except where they provide Titles and even then, it hardly impringes on anyone’s game.
Give us Drakes with different colours or decorations or sparkly effects rather than just reef out something old.
Eh people just want it cuz its no loner in the game, theres like over 1k mounts, why do people want the ones you cant get anymore, cuz they cant get it
The Plagued Proto-Drake is on the BMAH and is currently still obtainable. It just requires gold instead of an achievement. I think, despite their dislike of the BMAH (which I don’t disagree with), the OP may be trying to make the argument that if one of them is available, then both should be.
Given that they broke with the removal per tier philosophy immediately after trying it just once for Naxx, I would argue they should come back on principle.
The catch will be how it was announced that they would be removed, and whether it was explicitly stated they wouldn’t return. I honestly can’t remember how it was handled at the time, though I suspect there isn’t any specific language barring their return since they are featured on the BMAH.
Similarly to the T3 sets, though, they have been established as a pestige/gold sink item, and a non-BMAH way of aquisition may need to be handled in much the same way as a result. If they didn’t want to outright add them back to the metas, I wouldn’t balk at the idea of them tossing another item on the new Naxx vendor that could drop “ancient reins,” or such.
I don’t understand why they removed them either. They’re basically just Glory meta achievement mounts. All the other glory mounts are still in the game.
