Okay then, I’m taking the time to hopefully articulate my feelings on this better than I might have earlier in the day. I don’t know if anyone at Blizzard will ever read this or even why it deserves to be read over every else’s equally valid opinions.
It’s long, but here are my thoughts:
I have played this game for a long time. Eighteen years this December
The first character I rolled is still my main to this day (who I am posting on). She’s been around for longer than some of the younger folks now playing this game.
I have so many great memories in WoW. I do not regret one moment of the 1100 or so days spent in this game (across so many characters, but mostly on my beloved mage).
I’ve developed stories (being on an RP server) for all of my characters. I know their family histories, and I’ve woven tales of their adventures and relationships with each other.
I’ve made friends in this game. I’ve discovered new media, great podcasts, videos, and become involved in great communities.
The guilds I’ve been in were long-lived. I raided in the same guild from Vanilla to MoP. Then another guild from WoD to Shadowlands. Long-lived, healthy communities. Sometimes drama, but always worth it in the long run.
They’re nearly all gone now.
The shows. The guilds. The community. My home realm for all these years (Feathermoon) has been dead for quite a while now.
I’ve tried to move on in the game, as I have before. I made new friends, new guilds, new cross-realm raids. It worked for a while, but with every community collapse, my will to make new friends became weaker.
Eventually, I raided and did dungeons just to get the achievements with strangers in pick-up groups.
Through all that, I never really lost the will to play, but it did weaken it.
I had never honestly considered hanging-up my adventurer’s cap and calling it a good 18 years, until today.
Why? What about this silly Wrath Classic promotional mount for Retail could possibly cause such a dramatic reconsideration of the state of the game, of Blizzard (certainly after all else that’s happened to that company), and of my own mental health with respect to the game?
This is the straw that has very nearly broken the camel’s back after all these years.
That’s right, add yet another post talking about the Fear of Missing Out.
FOMO has always existed in WoW, though, hasn’t it? Truly it has!
The limited-time rewards since Vanilla are far too numerous to count, from the earliest promotions such as the original Collector’s Edition rewards, to the Amani Warbear, to Tier 3, PvP seasonal rewards, titles…
And yet these early examples don’t upset me. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’ve never enjoyed missing-out on a limited-time or special achievement reward. Indeed, I still love to tell the story of how I almost got the Vanilla CE but held back because I didn’t think I’d be playing the game for that long! (Haha, right?)
There’s the story of how I missed the original unarmored epic mount by about a week because I just hadn’t made quite enough gold at the time. Or the story about how I missed a roll or two on the Amani Warbear. Or that time we wiped in Naxx and missed the Immortal title. Or when my buddy out-rolled me for the ZA tiger!
Yet all of these limited-time rewards never truly damaged my will to play. They made great stories!
However, it didn’t end with limited special rewards, did it?
Over the years, over the expansions, Blizzard has slowly added more seasonal and promotional rewards. It started with collector’s editions promotions, PvP seasons, and special raid achievements. Every little missed opportunity bothered me, but I realized that that was sometimes how it went and it was all part of my story.
Today, however, we have a lengthy list of rewards which are regularly removed from the game on a schedule: PvP seasons, mythic plus dungeon seasons, and raiding seasons. We have special end-of-expansion rush rewards where it’s announced with a month or so left that they will be removed without sufficient time to complete them. Then, we have this latest announcement of the Wrath promotional mount.
Each of these by themselves… fine. I’ve never loved anything being removed from the game, and I’ve earned plenty of these rewards, but at least it was just one or two things per season or expansion.
Now, the list has gotten so long that I can hardly remember everything we’re bound to miss-out on unless we play every season of every activity and participate in every promotion within a limited time window.
Now, one could ask why this silly promotional reward is such a big deal. If I’ve played so much, surely I can roll a DK in Classic and get my reward and not miss this, right?
Yes… but also no. First, as others have pointed out, this FOMO reward system has reached the point of being predatory and toxic. In principal, it’s just breaking my heart to see the game and Blizzard at this point.
Another reason I find this so upsetting is a little hard to explain for folks who don’t really understand (which would be a post in and of itself). I’m very OCD about my characters (technically OCPD, but I shan’t make that distinction here and risk a longer post delving into psychology). Suffice it to say I’m very finicky about my characters.
They’re all well planned-out and I only create new characters when I want to, when I have a character story in mind, and when I can do it on my terms.
Furthermore, I cannot stand to have a deleted character in my list. Any character I roll above level 50 (as per the character restoration policy) I consider to be a permanent addition to my character family, including Classic. They cannot be purged from an account at that point, so they’re just there, deleted or not.
So, any new DK created in Classic is immediately and irreversibly added to your account. You can’t purge them.
Simply put, I don’t want to feel forced to create a DK that I don’t want in Classic, just for a reward in Retail which I very much would like.
Perhaps someday, when I’m ready, but not now.
And that’s the issue, isn’t it?
Maybe I’m too OCD and finicky with weird rules about creating toons, and that’s my issue, but the reality that Blizzard is becoming increasingly hostile to players who want to play the game their way, at their own pace, and on their own schedule is frankly becoming sickening to me.
It’s causing me to truly question how long I wish to sustain this state of things in this game.
There are almost certainly good folks at Blizzard who work hard, who believe in what they do, and would sympathize with us on these sorts of issues. However, it feels more and more like they’re under the heel of a system at a company that is tearing the heart and soul out of this game and have very nearly succeeded into converting WoW into a slot machine.
If this seems overly harsh, we must ask ourselves, and ask Blizzard, “Why do this?”
Why are they introducing so many seasonal FOMO rewards, and continuing to introduce more. More promotions, more limited-time opportunities.
Can any of those who work at Blizzard honestly look at these FOMO rewards and be proud of this with the level community ire which they repeatedly and inevitably raise?
I’m sorry to have to say this, but despite so many good people working through rough times at a rough company, I have to say collectively to Blizzard:
Shame on you for this, Blizzard.
Your company and the way you conduct business, once beloved by your customers (your fans), has lost nearly all integrity and honor.
Shame on you.