Celestial Steed and Lil'XT

[zenga]

Here is my final thought on these mounts and pet.

The Mounts look awesome IMHO. They dont put you in a OOOO Im special club look what kinda of money I can spend on a game. They dont Grant you faster flying. They do provide a cool graphic and if you want to pay for that then by all means its your money. I think its a bit rediculious that they generate the hate they do. But thats just people. People will hate on you for things they dont have thats part of life get over it. We all spend quite a bit of money on our "Hobby" but some of the posts I see here really mimic trade chat and tells that Ive been getting even since I got my star horsies. If you like the graphic get it if you dont then dont its that simple.

Lil Xt is Fing hilarious! because he screams talks REALLY loud in raid and in dalaran and he griefs best 10 dollars Ive ever spent.

Thats just my 2 cents

One finds the mount cool, someone else (like me) finds it rather girly/gay. One cares for looking cool, another one doesn't care (like me). One is willing to spend money / gold on looking cool, another one isn't (like me). By all means don't get influenced by contradictory opinions like mine, do what you want and what you find fun. Your definition of fun is not inferior to mine, nor the other way around. And we are both entitled to give our opinion.

But the point you miss imo is the precedent blizzard created, and where you contributed: i.e. selling ingame stuff for real life currency. Remember the companions they sold under the name of charity? That was a pretty neat test case. I'm not going so far by saying that it was not a genuine action and that is was just for marketing purposes. But it was definitely a first step. And now they sell an ingame mount, marketed as being exclusive. Judgingby the queues you can forget about the exclusive part, but that is not my problem/business.

And there is what bothers/worries many people.

Bothers: it has often been stated that no ingame 'stuff' would be sold for rl currency. While it's not directly something you gonna kill the lick king with, it is an account advantage. Not to mention that parents who's kid is playing wow are now confronted with the pressure of the 'my friend has this cool mount, i want it too'. While they signed up for wow since it's a fixed price per month and they wouldn't have to deal with that stuff. Raf and all the name/real/server changes are something totally different: they are a service, not an ingame thing. So the principle gone is what bothers many players i talked with. While not entirely true, it smells like bait and switch to me.

And on a second note: having a 'cool mount' was a result of achieving something. This is no longer true and makes the achievement worth less (not that i care too much about that, but still).

Worries.
After the charity-companion-test-case, this turns out to be a big hit. While they will use the argument: 'this is what our player base wants', they of course created this demand themselves marketing wise. The shareholders and anyone who holds a financial position will be too happy to not repeat / extend this action. And that is what worries several players: where will this end. Regardless how good the game is, the day they shift towards the micro payment model (where you just pay for what you want/need ingame) instead of the current flat fee way, the game will lose me. I've seen it happen previously and how it kills a game. Only those who wish/were able to spend $ were are able to compete on an end game level.