My Dark Leather Tunic pattern means more to me than anything else in the game because getting it took time, effort and energy and when it dropped it was probably the most satisfactory and exciting moment I have had in the game.
My Ashes of A’lar means far more to me than any other mount because, again, it took time, effort and energy to get it. When it finally dropped I was so shocked, I didn’t believe it was real and not going to just disappear, so I waited to click on it until I was outside the instance. Every time I look at her, she brings me joy.
My Masked Tanuki means far more to me than any other pet (including the one I bought from the shop for half price for my demon hunter which is the only thing I have ever bought from the shop) because in order to get it for my gnome rogue, I learned how to pet battle, collected every open world pet in the prior expansions, leveled a bunch to create a variety of strong teams, and then went and got it. The satisfaction was monumental. (Ironically it’s size made it look odd with her, so she uses the Masked Tanuki Pup instead.)
None of my toys really mean anything to me. I mean I enjoy the Anglers Fishing Raft, Blazing Wings and Cherry Blossom Trail but if they disappeared tomorrow I wouldn’t pitch a fit over having to re-earn them, even if I bothered.
Yeah, I have been looking at the excess of everything lately and kinda cringing.
A belt that I have been trying to get to complete a set will have more value than a mount that I’ll never use. The idea that it drops doesn’t give value. The value is just something I assign to it.
Dopamine feels less effective when the trigger is old news. First mount, new experience, you’re chemically rewarded.
The mount you’ve been craving, like Invincible, the anticipation of that dopamine burst makes you excited and want the mount more and more. And once you get it, it’s not the feeling you hoped for, and over time you may still use the mount but it isn’t as chemically enticing as it once was.
Repeat that over and over with 33 recolored versions of the same mount and now you see them everywhere in town, and the game just can’t excite your brain like that anymore. It’s old news, the dopamine has moved on, and eventually so do you.
The only way to move passed it all permanently is to train your brain to steadily allow the dopamine to drip little by little, causing an even, subtle rise and plateau of joyful rewarding accomplishments, without the huge “WOOOHOOOOO!!” of success and the “CRY CRIES” of failure.
It’s emotional stability. But you can get that anywhere, not just in WoW, and not just in video games. And that profound flow of joy lasts far longer when found offline away from pixels on a screen.
WoW hasn’t felt rewarding for me since Legion. The weapon appearances, those class quests and collecting those class mounts, taking on the heads of the Legion, it was a dream come true.
Everything after that was a steady decline in dopamine when it came to WoW, and now it’s finally faded for me personally.
I didn’t mean remove what is already there - that would be grossly unfair - I meant in the future.
I mean at this point in the game, everyone has more than enough, either already in their collections or available for them to acquire in the game. Heck even the white quality stuff is now available!
Then no.
I made a few really good friends in-game extremely easily back in Dragonflight, and I value them all deeply.
In terms of in-game acquisitions, the unicorn foals and baby vorquin were easy to obtain and I love them quite a bit more than nearly every single other pet available in or removed from the game. I even gave them names.
In terms of irl things, there’s a rock out in the backyard. I value it above all other rocks for many a mile. It’s not rare or expensive, but it serves its purpose well as a headstone.
I just use what I like. What anyone else thinks of your transmog/mount/pet, whatever, does not matter at all.
I will say though, if someone only cares about something like that because of rarity or difficulty, they may be placing far more care into the game than perhaps they should.
I just like to have as many options as possible, in case something happens to look great with an alt I one day make. Though if I put in time and effort I am more likely to value the reward more highly and possibly will make a transmog to work with it. Like others have said it’s pretty subjective and sometimes good rewards are ugly
I feel like value is relative to what use or enjoyment we get out of it in the moment. When I typically play, the Gnoll Tent toy is useless. But when I roleplay, I treasure the tent.
Although I also feel like denoting value toward a collection of coherent pixels is redundant. Just find enjoyment in your items in whatever ways you see fit.
Change “value” to status. Flexing irl disposable income through cash shops has become pretty typical for gamers. PC gamers spend more on mtx than actual games now. When Blizzard sold the $90 mount, thousands lined up in cities to show off their purchase. But it happens in the real world too. Imagine the people with the trailered boat in your community, or something similar, that you’ve never seen leave their property. But they ideally earned that money legitimately, so who’s to judge? It happens with in-game earned stuff too, just not on the same scale, like with achievement mounts.
Value ends up what ‘you’ ascribe to it.
I have the rated PvP mount from last season and a few times people have been like ‘oh that’s cool I’ve never seen that’. PvP participation has generally died down in this game so I understand why people didn’t know that mount existed, but I don’t particularly ascribe additional value to it.
But in Classic I got gifted Jaina’s Firestarter and by good graces that wand did about 33% more damage and had the added benefit of not being totally immuned by the whelps in Wetlands. Yes I valued that wand.
(Pity I died not long after)
For people who say ‘yes’ I do understand as far as people who value particular exclusive rewards (titles, mounts, appearances) I find they are great at the time, value fades.
Since the game is old as hell now, I find myself enjoying green world gear/heritage gear/anniversary t2 gear now more than I enjoy my old challenge mode sets. There’s just more detail now.
I only get on my swift zulian tiger to annoy my friends now. Otherwise I like using the Halloween broom or the store mouse I won in a forum give away.
Sometimes my friend and I will go run old mythic raids for transmog together. It’s not difficult to get now, but it was when current, so where does that fall?
One of my favourite titles to use is Postmaster. It’s probably rare only because you have to find the quest item on the floor at a mailbox in Dalaran to start it, but anyone who does find it can give it a try.
I might just be an outlier though, idk.
I am using the underpin hard mode title and mount right now on a few characters, but not because it’s rare; it was an interesting fight and the rewards are gaudy and silly. I go after and use things that I find interesting first and items that are limited time second.
It’s interesting how many people looked at the question and instead of looking at their investment in getting an item and how it related to the value they personally set in the item, they jumped to bringing in fictional ‘others’ to either compare or to deny comparisons with.
Exactly.
That is what personal means.
From your examples, I would say you assign value according to how useful an item is, not how easy or difficult it is to obtain.
not really, i feel no special sort of way other than a brief moment of satisfaction after spending years farming soo for the tusks (before mop remix and i am not one of the manchildren pooping my diaper that people were able to get it for free basically in remix)
So my friend Yuki is a collector type.
She has some kinda website (sorry I didn’t pay attention to exactly what it was named), shows her what she is missing from each expansion.
A strength she has that I don’t is she will doggedly pursue what she is after no matter how many runs it takes or how many weeks. She will always initiate the raid party and stay there for hours until she gets her way.
We aren’t generally ‘CE’ players so our way of getting the mount is by farming the final boss after the fact.
Yuki ran the raid 170 times (F2, L2) over 10 characters before she finally got the drop.
It was a different kinda prog but you bet she uses the mount and the pets and the druid travel wherever she goes. It meant a lot more to her because of how long it took her to get it.
I think if I had bought a CE carry during DF S3 I don’t think I’d value as high as she did after the fact.
