According to Adalia above, the blue posts in this thread count as “official” announcements. 
2 Likes
Look, I’ll buy that. Begrudgingly. I guess.
There’s still the issue that it took dataminers to actually announce this change. One wonders if datamining wasn’t a thing if Blizzard would have said anything at all.
3 Likes
I was curious how many WoW players were aware of Kaivax’s post here regarding the Brutosaur so I spent yesterday talking to players about it. Out of dozens I mentioned it to, not one indicated they knew about it, despite a bunch still saving, hoping to buy it “one day”.
I asked some to ask in guild chat, and their guildies had not heard anything about the Brutosaur being removed from the vendor either.
I ended up being accused of spreading false rumours by players who wouldn’t believe Blizzard would remove an expensive mount like this, because “Blizzard doesn’t remove mounts from vendors.”
So much for the “official” communication hidden within one forum thread.
15 Likes
Absolutely not. A blog post that is put on the launcher is an announcement. Do not make excuses for the abysmal communication skills.
6 Likes
It’s really unfortunate the threads that will pop up once it’s gone. I guarantee there are players who don’t look at the forums, and will come on when they suddenly wonder what the hell happened.
I didn’t read the forums before. I only came to it once there was a topic I wanted to discuss and then wanted to see the community’s opinion on (the Mage Tower.) But I’ve been subbed for significantly longer than that. Most people don’t go to the forums unless there is an issue or topic they really want to address. And I bet the brutosaur is going to be one of those issues for people.
5 Likes
I’m not making excuses for their horrible communication skills. I never said it was okay that they’re as awful with communicating things as they are. They’ve completely failed at effective communication since Ghostcrawler left.
However, I am acknowledging reality. It’s quite clear from their actions that they consider a blue post an announcement. There have been countless issues, ones with far more serious implications than one mount, that were only announced via blue posts on the forums. Sometimes it’s a thread they start, sometimes it’s in a thread started by a player. So, if someone cares at all about the game, checking a blue tracker to see what’s going on once every week or two is essential. I’m sorry that not everyone gets that, but people who don’t get screwed over time and time again. This whole issue feels very much like the pet charms in 8.0. People who watched blue posts knew to convert their charms into whatever upgrade stones they wanted before the patch. People who didn’t had thousands or even tens of thousands of charms they were unable to use in the way they planned. Blizzard didn’t care. They’re not going to care about a bunch of people who were “someday” going to save up five million gold either (maybe Brahima was really going to save up five million gold over four years, but the vast majority of the population does not have that discipline).
The playerbase has been screaming for better communication for over five years now. They’ve not kept a single promise they’ve made about better communications in that time (they improved the situation with individual devs posting important info in their personal twitter accounts, but even then info about pets, secrets, and whatnot still flows through some of those). They’ve shown they won’t change, so if a player cares at all about the game, they’ve just got to acknowledge that they need to make a minimum of effort to keep track of what the representatives of the company say through official means. Blue posts is one of the big ones there.
Well, thanks for that vote of confidence. Seems like you’re the only one (besides myself) who believes it’s possible to set a long term goal and stick to it.
I don’t disagree with this observation. I disagree with not calling them out on it. Will it make any difference? Doubtful. Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be said.
Important changes (like an unprecedented removal of a gold-sink vendor mount) need to be put in news announcements. The very fact that the Feat of Strength was announced with no mention of the mount’s removal from the vendors is unconscionable. It shouldn’t be all on the players to find these things out.
I honestly feel gut-punched about this decision. I don’t do cutting edge progression. I play the game at my own pace, set goals, and try to have fun. I was excited to see the Brutosaur mount when BfA launched. Sure, I could do without the AH on it, and the price tag isn’t great, but at least it was something I could save up for and buy for myself. And now I can’t.
This game is dying the death of a thousand cuts. I was a super fan not that long ago. I would post replies saying I would be playing until the servers go dark–and I honestly believed that. Now, I’m not so sure.
I can’t even get excited about Shadowlands. What cool stuff will they be removing from that expansion before I have the chance to earn it? It’s like Blizzard is telling me, “Sorry, champ. If you don’t play the way we expect you to, you get squat.”
I’m pretty easy to please. It would improve my morale immensely if they put a non-AH model on the vendors to replace the Mighty Caravan Brutosaur. I’m not so sure other players are so easily bought off. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be playing, but at the rate things are going, I might indeed still be here when the servers shut down. It just might happen a whole lot sooner than I ever imagined.
7 Likes
I don’t think calling them out on it is going to do anything. I don’t think even the CM’s read most posts, let alone the posts on a thread nearly 5k posts in. The whole reason they make mega threads like this is to contain the noise to more easily ignore it. That’s why I tried suggesting to Rankin to make a more general thread about adding more of the unused mount models to the game. They’re not looking at this at all. There’s some chance they might look at a new thread that isn’t just obviously complaining about the brutosaur. But I’ve seen how this goes through the years. They mostly don’t even read the alpha/beta/PTR forums post-GC. There were some pretty significant bugs with pets that went live with 7.0. They’d been reported for months during the Legion beta. It wasn’t until a major streamer tweeted Ion after 7.0 went live that he said, essentially, that he hadn’t been aware of the problem and they’d get to fixing it.
So if they’re not reading reports of major bugs in the PTR and the like, they’re sure not reading this stuff.
That being said, you really shouldn’t write off getting the mount. Even if you don’t have the gold now, it is going on the BMAH. Keep watching, keep saving, and I bet you can get it that way. The mount won’t be gone and your server is pretty small by your reports. I mean, I still think you could learn to maximize your gold making to get it off the vendor, but even without that, it’s not going to be gone for good.
1 Like
I don’t think it’s very weird. Not all changes to the game are put in patch notes or advertised on the launcher. If it were a big deal then I could see them having an official announcement somewhere other than the forums but it’s simply not a big deal to most players. When this “issue” first popped up I saw only a couple players talk about it in-game, in my guild, and on discord. After a couple days it was never spoke of again.
There are times when we want to think that something we think is important is a lot more important, or at least should be, than it is when most others simply don’t care. Even this forum, as much as players want to blow things up and hate on changes and hate on Blizzard, isn’t making a big deal about it anymore. There are a very few select people who are even bumping this topic anymore. It’s just not an important topic to most players.
1 Like
And they’ve been getting complaints about that for how many years?
Removing a mount from a vendor for the first time in WoWs history with no official announcement is definitely a big deal.
11 Likes
Because most players don’t know it’s happening. Also, even if it isn’t a concern for “most players” that’s irrelevant. Should we have a popularity contest for every change that Blizzard wants to make?
2 Likes
I’m sure there would be a big complaint from players if it was in an ingame message. Did you see how many people complained of no flying in Draenor when the devs said the expansion wouldn’t have it compared to live?
7 Likes
Thank you I don’t block mailboxes now with my Long Boy…don’t make up stuff on other players. Usually those that complain bout mailbox blockers are ones that do it in first place with others mounts and block NPC’s too.
So glad you’re getting rid of this. It’s a stupid gold sink creating greed on our servers.
Yet removing the brutosaur from vendors is creating more desperation for gold than ever, so it’s kind of self-defeating from that point of view.
1 Like
Listen smarty-pants… Why don’t they keep it and reduce the gold amount then? Ha!
I guess your notion that the Brutosaur may be
is not a problem to Blizzard. It’s certainly not the reason Kaivax gave for its removal.
It could even be Blizzard likes encouraging players to buy expensive items in order to sell more tokens.
By the way, thank you so much for complementing my ultra smart Leggings of the Sable Stalkers. I’m so thrilled with them I have them mogged in two colours.
1 Like
I dislike spending money on anything…even this game. I wouldn’t see myself spending 5 million on a mount unless someone gave me the money; and I still might keep the gold and use it on other things.
I get why people like their shinnies i really do, but I think it adds so much more to the mount with its discontinuation than keeping it. Besides, they will likely introduce another 5 million gold mount in Shadowlands and then we will most likely be bombarded with threads like, “OMG, the new AH mount is so cool…wish i would have saved my gold…can i return the bronto for a refund???”
here is to hoping that everyone who wants one gets it before it is removed!! cheers.
Is there another game out there this size that puts every change to the game in patch notes?
Which solidifies my statement even more, if it was such a big issue then more players would actually know about it. I’ve spoken to a large number of players who are in support of the decision to place this mount on the BMAH.
I’ve spoken to a large number of players about this, and not one was happy about this change.
Most had not even known of the change, as most players do not frequent the forums, and this was a big issue to those I mentioned it to.
6 Likes