So, about the Kor'kron War Wolf

Community WoW Community Council
1

Disclaimer: this entire post and community discussion is based around datamining and related conjecture. Nothing as of yet has been confirmed or denied by Blizzard themselves; we have no idea what the future will actually hold in regards to their plans with this item. Most importantly of all, this is just my own opinion.

I personally disagree with the Kor’kron War Wolf being added to the Trading Post, however, I agree that it and all other AotC mounts should be accessible again.

There has been a precedent set since Siege of Orgrimmar that each final boss of an expansion will reward a mount for achieving Ahead of the Curve. The mount is and has been the reward and goalpost for non-Cutting-Edge raiders.
I believe putting AotC mounts on the Trading Post completely disenfranchises the achievement of getting Ahead of the Curve. (Yes, specifically the KKWW could be awarded from Flex, or Normal, as well as Heroic, but this has proved to be an outlier.)
Between lackluster M+ mounts and genuinely difficult to achieve once-per-expac Cutting Edge mounts, AotC mounts fill a perfect reward niche for most people.

PvE-centric mount rewards are already few and far between, however. I would be a huge fan of bringing these mounts back, but is the Trading Post the right way to do it? I don’t think so myself. This is more about the elimination of prestige from AotC than it is about AotC mounts becoming available again. The idea I’d suggest would be treating AotC mounts in a similar vein as Vicious Saddles, something like this:

Each time you achieved Ahead of the Curve- no more than once per raid tier, of course- something like a [Vindictive Bridle] would be awarded to you. This Bridle, or mount token, would allow you the choice of any past or current AotC mount. If you achieve AotC during a tier that also otherwise would award an AotC mount, you must choose between the “current” mount or getting a token to choose one of the past mounts.

This solution would open access to past AotC mounts- which is a good thing- while still preserving the requirement of getting Ahead of the Curve. Recolors of AotC mounts would be a completely appropriate area for the Trading Post to cover, however.

Let me know what you think!

16 Likes
2

I’m totally okay with AOTC mounts returning to the game to be earnable again, though I’m also not sure if the Trading Post is really the place for them.

A saddle system like you have suggested could work okay but I would honestly just throw them up onto the endboss of that raid on Heroic difficulty as a 1% drop in the exact same fashion as the Mythic mounts. I also dislike the idea of choosing between the current, new mount and the old ones. It hamstrings the potential rate of acquisition in a hard, seasonal manner which something like a Vicious Saddle doesn’t as it can be re-earned multiple times in a season. Whilst an RNG 1% diceroll is also hamstringing acquisition, it’s not a hardcap and you can retry each week or go on more alts if you really want to farm it out. It also keeps that old raid relevant in the minds of collectors and people after specific items and gives the game more ‘things to do’ in dryer spells.

I’ve always appreciated the ‘compromise’ that exists between Mythic mounts (Not Cutting Edge, they have never been tied to Cutting Edge) being earned when they were current versus after the fact. First of all, you have the timestamp of your kill on your achievement, everyone knows you got it then if you care to tell them. You have to put in some serious dedication, knowledge and effort to get into a Mythic raiding guild capable of killing the boss and then potentially rekill multiple times to earn it for everyone on the guild’s roster.

Or, if you lack the skill, the dedication or just wasn’t there at the time, you can instead wait for a little while, potentially up to 3-4 years or more before the content is doable in a solo fashion and then run it and pray to RNGesus each time and hope you get lucky. It gives the mount years of exclusivity before it becomes more common but still relatively ‘hard’ to get. Not ‘difficult’ in the sense that there is basically no skill requirement, but still requiring some dedication.

I see no reason why this couldn’t be extended to AOTC mounts too.

I’ve seen other ideas, such as rewarding mounts for Timewalking versions of that raid.

On Prestige

I honestly don’t think AOTC has had much prestige at all unfortunately. Whilst in theory it is a prestigious reward for most of the playerbase when they progress through Heroic with their guild over the course of a few weeks or a couple of months, or slog it through with PuGs until they hit the jackpot, it ends up being very quickly devalued. Not only is it extremely easy to find boost runs at nearly all hours of the day for a pitiful amount of gold which already makes the idea of actually working on something like AOTC as an end goal laughable. For the reward driven player, which a lot of people sure seem to be, what sense is it to spend your time in Pugs or finding and then dealing with a guild if you can speak to the Murloc icon in Services chat and get a hot deal on Fyrakk for 100k, which will be going down and down as the patch progresses. (Speaking of, 99% of ads in Services Chat are breaking rules, and boosting communities still run rampant with what seems like no enforcement). The content is also just…easy, for a semi-competent group of players, Normal/Heroic kind of just flops over and the difficulty has been put mostly into Mythic. Part of this is tuning, another part is people overgearing the content because of M+ and the upgrade system etc.

13 Likes
3

The mount does not replace the achievement of “Ahead of the Curve”. It doesnt diminish or eliminate any prestige, if that is valuable, achievement dates can be checked publicly easily.

Nobody has any issue with the mythic mounts being available indefinitely, nor the Mythic transmogs. Nobody has any issue with the mage tower appearances being available permanently. AOTC in particular makes little to no sense for prestige as Boosts are extremely common, friend and community acquisition on getting people the mounts despite skill level is common, and Pugging AOTC is usually also common after the first 2-3 weeks of a raid release, requiring no time commitment or scheduling, voice comms etc.

People only seem to care about their imagined prestige as a special exclusionary walled garden for PvP transmogs, Gladiator mounts, and apparently AOTC mounts. None of it makes sense, and making you choose in a fabricated mutually exclusive false dichotomy doesn’t solve the problem either. I dont know whether the trading post is the best option, but whatever option does exist for these things being acquirable in the game is that they dont exclude you from getting something else. if you want to get “all the things”, you should be able to do so if you are willing to play the game and content required for them. The trading post’s limited currency does serve as kinda another way that you might miss out on something else, but eventually things will rotate back in so i dont know how much of a long term problem it is.

17 Likes
4

I do feel like these sorts of mounts are best designated to Time Walking Raids and Fated Raids. If anything, it would make those ventures more lucrative to the player, while also holding some level of “prestigious” feeling. Not that I personally find them to be wholly so, but many others do and I understand their qualms.

It’s also not like the developers can’t do this later even if the mount goes up on the Trading Post for one month. Not everyone will buy it or be able to afford it that month and having another venture to acquire it would be ideal. Down the line, people will still want or be missing these AOTC mounts.

4 Likes
5

I don’t really see why it can’t be a recolor. Sure, it is an old mount that not everyone had the opportunity to get, but there are many mounts like that from before MOP (Amani war bear etc) If anything, it should be similar to the recolor of the cutting edge mount from time rifts

5 Likes
6

Without putting too much stock into whether it’ll be on the the trading post due to the nature of datamining, I do think a reward such as that being available is good but not as simply something you can buy.

Making previous aotc mounts available after a certain amount of time has passed ensures others can claim it even if they hadn’t even been playing (in some cases been born yet lmao) at the time, but the acquisition method should be something similar to its original method.

For something like the mounts, then Timewalking raids (especially if a heroic version of it were to happen) are imo the ideal way to make them available again.

9 Likes
7

I think expired/retired mounts ought to be offered only as a recolor and hopefully remastered (higher-res texture files). Prays in MOP Phoenixes recolored & higher res

As to where such mounts come from? I would be happy with a 1% drop somewhere or some sort of noteworthy achievement and/or with a currency (Time Rifts). Trading Post does not bother me much.

Last thought: I do not think we should be introducing a 100% duplicate of the same mount if the pretense people got it was under it being gone FOREVER after the fact. Recolored and remastered.

3 Likes
8

Ive been saying it for years that every single item within this game needs to be available to the player. Everything. Especially items that were “FOMO” items dating more than a decade ago.

Let it all go. Sure, things from the current expansion should be locked to having to do the content. The moment that expansion is no longer “current”, the proverbial gates should open.

Because PvP is what it is, Leave those things alone I guess. *even though, it falls under the same category and should be open to every player too past it’s current content stage… but whatever.

Items shouldn’t be “Recolored” either just to keep the “MY PIXELZ” crowd happy for items dating 10+ years old. But thats just my two cents.

Players in this case who did AOTC for SoO will stll have the achievement and the mount. Players who garner it through maybe the trading post will not have that achievement.

22 Likes
9

the simple fact is that most of the “its gone forever” decisions were made at a different time, by different people, and the same decision wouldn’t be made today. The philosophy behind it doesnt make sense, it’s internally inconsistent and contradictory with other designs in the game etc.

This is exactly the type of thing where what was said in the past holds no weight and doing what is best for the game now and in the future is how it should be handled and remedied.

having the answer to “i want that thing how do i get it” being “you cant” is just bad for the game, straight up. It makes the game experience worse. Making the game worse because somebody years ago told you it wouldn’t be available again is a worthless justification that holds no real water. If it makes the game worse, it should be changed, it is that simple.

21 Likes
10

Mythic mounts can be farmed afterwards so if a heroic mount is obtainable I don’t seen an issue. Things like AotC mounts and the MoP/WoD leggo are purposefully designed as fomo not for the player but to encourage player engagement.

7 Likes
11

A subscription and the simple virtue of patience as time passes should not entitle anyone to challenge-based rewards.

These mounts should be earnable again by doing content equal to or greater than the difficulty originally required by them.

There IS more challenge involved in getting a Curve than there is by clicking “Buy Now”. I personally believe AotC is achievable by anyone of any skill level- I have easily achieved it more times than not. That being said, to call it completely skill-less is untrue. I know many guilds personally whose goalpost is Curve. To diminish what to them is a hard won guild achievement is nothing short of dismissive and callous at best. I was an active member in the JoinTheMoosement / FriendshipMoose community back in WoD, helping many dozens of folks get their Archimonde moose. If boosting, carries, and even plain ease of the boss fight in question is truly so easy, then why not go with something like a Saddle based system instead? It would reintroduce the mount back into player’s hands, while requiring the same core activity it always has.

This, to me, really diminishes the value of basically all chase items. Why should I finish a Glad grind? Why should I even keep caring about not being around for Scarab Lord? I can just log in sometime later when I see the Wowhead article, hit the button, and have my very own mount…one that was promised at the time that it would be limited time only. Maybe that’s a bit slippery of a slope here, but remember even at the beginning of the Trading Post, people said it’d end up linked to RMT, and here we are with tendie bundles in the shop.

7 Likes
12

Emphasizing that I don’t agree that the mounts should wind up on the trading post because I believe they should come back but require a challenge that resembled the original, I also don’t agree that this argument is it - you could “come back later” to get the mount, but we’re not exactly talking about waiting for the season to end and getting it for free. When the wait time has already exceeded 10 years, I personally think “well I can just wait” becomes a very questionable argument.

9 Likes
13

We’d like to dispel this particular rumor. At this time, we do not plan to offer mounts or other skill-based prestige rewards from achievements such as Cutting Edge or Ahead of the Curve or Gladiator in the Trading Post.

We’re very excited about what’s coming to the Trading Post in February and beyond, as each month, we intend to offer fun new rewards and themed cosmetics. We’ll post a complete preview of everything coming in February soon.

Thank you for all of your feedback on this.

36 Likes
14

Thank you for taking the time to respond to this thread.

I wish the team could get away from the mentality of “If you weren’t there, too bad”. In this case, this raid launched 10 years and 4 months ago( 10-Sep-13).

I understand maybe not putting it on the trading post (don’t see an issue here… but I guess “many” do?) but when can we… if ever… possibly see these types of mounts or items return? Why must a new player be forever barred from getting an item they weren’t playing, or sometimes even alive for or why must even a veteran player be forever barred from getting them? They were FOMO tactic mounts. As many have stated there is no “Skill” required to do AOTC at a certain point in a expansions lifetime.

I surely wish that someday we can see these “FOMO” items return. For all players. Nothing sucks more than seeing something awesome in game, trying to figure out where it came from just to see “Oh… It was something that came out 12 years ago and has been forever locked behind “Exclusivity” doors.”

31 Likes