For everyone who says that MVP’s are Blizzard bootlickers and yes men shills, buckle up because I have one heck of a rant in me!
I am personally getting REAAAAAAAAAALY freaking tired of the inconsistency with Blizzard lately and its taking every fiber in my being to keep this post “G” rated and within the CoC, but I am absolutely disgusted over the choices Blizzard have been making with mounts lately and the Long Boi is the final straw that broke the camels back.
This change, this NEW decision on their part, I can’t defend or argue as anything but what it is. This is 100% creating false scarcity at the last minute.
Blizzard, you had an ENTIRE EXPANSION to make it clear that the Long Boi would be a limited time item, but you didn’t. It was presumed it was just another Travelers Tundra Mammoth or Grand Expedition Yak, because it honestly is. Yet, for some reason, this one is only going to be available for a limited time? There is no rhyme or reason behind it given the history of the other two mounts and you literally choose to wait until the last major patch of the expansion is nearing release to make this known? Really?
No! Heck no! Heckin heck heckity heck no! Back your butts up right now and reverse this brain dead decision, this is beyond dumb and sets an inconsistent standard. Are you guys also going to remove the Travelers Tundra Mammoth and the Grand Expedition Yaks with 9.0, make things consistent? No? Then why this one? Did ya need to boost Token Sales more, make the next quarter look better?
I am also sure someone is going to say “B-But you can get it on the Black Market Auction House, guy!” To which I will also say this, have you seen how much Zulian Tigers go for? Mounts that DON’T have passenger seats, vendors, or Auction Houses on them? Yeah, get ready to bend over when you see just how absurdly hard and pricey its going to be trying to get one on the BMAH compared to now and who knows if the Gold Cap will be increased to accommodate such a pricey mount. Good luck with that one.
This isn’t even Blizzard’s first blunder this expansion, they have handled all mounts like garbage ALL OF BFA!
The Dreadwake, a 6 month buy in mount that was nothing new. We saw this in the past with things like Tyrael’s Charger and yet this time you decided, after the limited time 6 month buy in, to just throw it up on the shop completely devaluing the investment in its entirety. That’s literally spitting in the face of your customers, that’s literally taking a dumpster, lighting it on fire, and then slapping your customers in the face with said dumpster fire.
I know people are going to point out “B-B-But the description said they would be in the cash shop at a later date before hand!” and to that I say, good for freaking Blizzard that’s not my point however. My point is the fact that they even choose to do that at all and how much it felt like it devalued the 6 month buy in. For heck’s sake, you can still buy the thing on the store! Why was it even advertised as a promotion, that’s so dumb and again inconsistent. If they want to do something like that then do it with an already existing store mount, not a brand spanking new one that is made to sound like its part of a promotion and not just a future addition to the store!
Are you guys going to put Tyrael’s Charger on the store then to be consistent? No? Of course not. And the Dreadwake is not even limited time on the shop, its still there AND it has no indication of going away at any time! So not only did you get far far far less than the old “Tyrael’s Charger” promotion gave you, but its not even something you can say was an investment when its literally available for anyone right now and until Blizzard decides to arbitrarily remove it to boost last minute sales with more false scarcity.
How about the bloody 15th Anniversary Collectors Edition and the two alabaster mounts that came with it that, on the store page that have been there since August 6th with no indication its going away anytime soon. Not really a collectors item if its just always available and entirely devalues those who got the actual collectors editions. What’s next? Why not throw up the Vanilla WoW CE pets on the cash shop as well? Just throw all of the expansions “Digital Collectors Items” up on the cash shop, really shows just how “Collectors” they are.
Then you have the old, random, shop items that were absolutely randomly discontinued. Digital items just randomly, without rhyme or reason, removed because… who the heck knows because I can’t figure out the thought process that went into that! Just removing items from the shop to create more false scarcity, to drive up sales before removing them. Removing them to do what? Just bring them back in about 5 years as some “Returning from the vault sale! Get these limited time items while you can!” You are not Disney and Digital items are not the same as producing physical good!
Blizzard creates false scarcity where it makes absolutely no sense and has never existed while at the same time devaluing items that SHOULD have scarcity and I, personally, am beyond sick and tired of this. I personally disagree with whoever is in charge with making these choices. I do not wish to create a witch hunt against anyone, so I am keeping this vague, but I do think they are making god awful choices and I absolutely disagree with whoever is involved in making these decisions.
I could also argue, albeit not as much, the Bee mount being handled HORRIBLY! The only reason I don’t want to argue that one is because Alliance have been shafted all expansion with Horse after Horse after Horse and they deserved something nice. HOWEVER it should have been very clear that the Bee mount was popular with EVERYONE and that was the WORST possible choice of mount to make exclusive to Alliance. Alliance certainly deserved something unique considering how many dumb Horses they got, but you handled rewarding mounts horribly for them all expansion.
Really getting tired with these thoughtless decisions and I hope, I pray, that whoever is making these choices has a momentary lapse in judgement and comes to their senses because you know what’s NOT going to get me excited for Shadowlands? The thought of spending this next year, starting now, doing NOTHING but gold farming to make that 5 million gold in the short window of opportunity that has abruptly been given. That’s exactly what I want to do before going into a new expansion, burn myself out on the game up to the next expansion all because Blizzard decided to randomly, out of left field, make the Long Boi limited time only even though every other previous mount that was not the case.
This is dumb and thoughtless and I really really REALLY hope that Blizzard wises up and starts making better freaking decisions because we don’t live in a world where WoW is the sole dominant super power of an MMO anymore. WoW has legitimate competition that is actively growing on the same level as WoW. They don’t have the cushy position of being a monopoly on the MMO market anymore, now is not the time to make dumb decisions.
EDIT: Making a small edit here to link to the Blue post confirming this removal in 9.0, you can find said post by clicking here . In my haste and frustration to make this post I forgot to link the original confirmation, thank you to Aveldruid for pointing this out.
EDIT 2: Re-posting this here with a minor edit to the post to better fit within guidelines.