WoW Adds New Purchasable Mount - Winged Guardian

[Coffinshaker]

Oh my... well it was bound to happen! Also, props to the Nerf Now link! Love those comics!

And speaking of, not sure if this fits well or not, but I made fun of that Celestial Steed mount with a little MLP tossed in there. I still think it's just a matter of time before they start marketing the wowcraft toy set and breakfast cereal... that you eat while watching the warcraft cartoon every saturday morning...

[http://coffin-comics.jesterbrand.com/2011/05/11/celestial-pony/]

 

[jurnag12]

Activision is quite shameless. Charging 15 bucks a months for updating the game, hosting the servers while in truth they can keep the servers running for years on a single month of fees. Usually companies stick to one business-model. Activision-Blizzard decides to make use of all of them. B2P, Expansions, Cashshop, Premium Services (transfers, race change, etc), Subscription, Mobile Apps and so on. I guess it is good to be nr. 1.

Yes, how dares Blizzard to make a profit!
Seriously, as long as none of the payed services actually interfere with gameplay, there is absolutely no reason to complain about any of this, just don't buy it.
Also, even if Blizzard would be able to maintain the servers with the fess from1 month, there's still people to be payed, loans to be payed off, and shareholders who want to see a regular, stable profit or will otherwise drop the company without a second thought.

 

[Vyce]

So to quote TotalBiscuit now we have now gone from 'That Retarded Horse' to 'That Retarded Lion'

 

[Mirrorknight]

Meh. If by "means business" they mean "disposable income or parents with disposable income", then yes, the person that buys this means business. Wouldn't hold it against them. I mean, I did buy the Pandarian Monk and Baby Moonkin. Justified it buy figuring I'm really only paying five for it, and I donated five to charity. $25 Just seems...excessive for something that a person will ride around for a month or two, then stop when their dream of being a unique snowflake is shattered by the hundreds of other people that also bought it (as well as avoid the ridicule of the people that found a better use for 25 bucks)

 

[AccessGranted]

There are so many better ways to spend $25 but if people want to buy this mount that's their choice... I play WoW once in a while (I like the fishing) when my friends send me the reviving scrolls. lol.

 

[Azmael Silverlance]

i cannot ressist X_X

Battle.net
Online Store.....
Add to Cart
Buyout!

SHOW OFF IN ORGRIMMAR

 

[Wuvlycuddles]

Real money for digital items, Blizzard devs are evil geniuses.

Ah well, cue people bitching on the WoW forms, even though this is an optional item, and threating to stop playing. People will still pay for it, and Blizz will be crying all the way to the bank.

EDIT: Hell, I'd pay $25 or more if I could add wings to my Mammoth. They should add that.

I've been campaigning for flying Elekks since TBC.

No joy and that's why I play Rift now.

Flying mounts were a mistake on Blizzards part though, they kill off that feeling of epicness you get from your surroundings, scenery seems far less impressive when you are flying half a mile above it. Compare leveling through Wrath content that first time to leveling through Cata content, sure the quests were better in Cata but I didn't feel as immersed as I did in Wrath.

 

[Kris015]

Spoiler: lots of people saying this isn't worth the money

25$ is pretty outrageous but I guess if someone likes WoW enough, and has enough disposable income, then it's not really any of my business.

I just don't understand why anyone would pay 25$ for something like this.. There are soooo many things i'd rather spend those money on.

Well that looks awful, not as bad as sparkle pony, but still awful.

I was shocked when so many people spent $25 on sparkle pony, I still can't see why people will buy this. $25 puts you half way to a new game and the mount is purely cosmetic. If people will pay for it I can't fault Blizzard for selling it.

I am getting a good laugh out of the people on the WoW forums calling this "a desperate move" and a sign that "the game is going downhill".

But 25$ for a mount? That's just...way too much. Nobody forces anyone to buy anything, of course. Still, that's a lot of money for a single item with a bit of animation work a team like Blizzard probably threw together in the lunch break.

saw these ingame today, this is worth more then the celestial steed by far.

not 25 euros, but still more then the crappy horse.

It's pretty much a link in the dictionary next to the definition of "cash-in" and "ripoff".

The real question is, how is this news? No real discussion being promoted, nothing really relevant, just another item in the store of the MMO giant (not even the first of it's kind) and I don't see Escapist being in the business of marketing such things.

First That Retarded Horse, now this retarded lion.

So they are switching to microtransactions...

Nah. This is just something they dish out once in a while for people with more money than sense.

I love Blizzard to death, and I love WoW... but it boggles my mind to imagine paying $25 for a stupid mount. It's not even a cool mount! Sheesh.

People are dumb.

To all the following people who say this is a ripoff:

$25 actually isn't that bad when you consider how long it takes most people to earn $25 in real life as opposed to how long it would take them to grind rep/older dungeons for an equally cool mount in game.

Also I don't get why anyone would use so much time just to get a mount.. There are sooo many things i'd rather spend my time on.

 

[Knife-28]

Well, at least the Winged Guardian isn't blind. Actually, I wonder how well it would do on a battlefield.

 

[Mordwyl]

Spoiler: Ahem.

THIS is a bragging right.

 

[Auxiliary]

Activision is quite shameless. Charging 15 bucks a months for updating the game, hosting the servers while in truth they can keep the servers running for years on a single month of fees. Usually companies stick to one business-model. Activision-Blizzard decides to make use of all of them. B2P, Expansions, Cashshop, Premium Services (transfers, race change, etc), Subscription, Mobile Apps and so on. I guess it is good to be nr. 1.

Yes, how dares Blizzard to make a profit!
Seriously, as long as none of the payed services actually interfere with gameplay, there is absolutely no reason to complain about any of this, just don't buy it.
Also, even if Blizzard would be able to maintain the servers with the fess from1 month, there's still people to be payed, loans to be payed off, and shareholders who want to see a regular, stable profit or will otherwise drop the company without a second thought.

How dare they make a profit? They earn roughly what other games earn in a lifetime every month. The entrance to WoW is very expensive by the way (Original game + 3x expansion). So new players are quite hesitant to enter the game and still they treat their existing customers like pinatas loaded with cash.

Instead of adding premium services they should focus on making more content, better user experience instead of milking their existing customers. I used to be one of their customers, but I discovered that other companies can make a profit while providing a far better service. If they would stop shamelessly drawing every cent they can from the game, their userbase would not be dropping this rapidly.

 

[Nostalgia]

Yes, how dares Blizzard to make a profit!
Seriously, as long as none of the payed services actually interfere with gameplay, there is absolutely no reason to complain about any of this, just don't buy it.
Also, even if Blizzard would be able to maintain the servers with the fess from1 month, there's still people to be payed, loans to be payed off, and shareholders who want to see a regular, stable profit or will otherwise drop the company without a second thought.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2548785589

Sorry, it's already coming. Don't think it'll be the last.

 

[Nikolaz72]

Is that a flying Eleek Gryphon tiger giraff?

 

[Keava]

If you think Cataclysm has a lower difficulty than Wrath of the Lich King then you are dead wrong. Also part of the reason of the delay of the Firelands is because the majority of players haven't gotten Defender of a Shattered World yet, which is only a testament to its increased difficulty. And hey, if delaying it means getting a better raiding experience with new encounters, instead of Onyxia/Naxx again, then I'm all for it.

Also it doesn't save time on getting the normal mount. You still have to be the appropriate level and have the appropriate riding skill to learn it. So really it only saves you like 60 silver.

Cataclysm started with fine difficulty but what was it? 3 months after release they started lowering it, and now they do it again. They go back to lowering the difficulty to Wrath levels, removing any incentive for the majority of players to ever try and overcome the encounters, while even further expanding the gap between normal and heroic modes.

All the nerfing only leads to one thing - people that couldn't do it pre-nerf won't be able to progress in Firelands, hence they will complain Firelands are too hard and in 3 months Firelands will be nerfed, then again before release of next raid instance and so on.

In every game there is small group of players that play good enough to beat the encounters, slightly bigger that just can't and there is that biggest group in between that doesn't go on forums, that doesn't cry for nerf, that just plays. That group is ignored by Blizzard, even tho over 50% of raiders did beat Cho'Gall .. it wasn't too hard, it's just vocal minority that has problem with it.

Firelands was supposed to be on release, it was supposed to be part of first raiding tier. Title excuse is poor excuse, sorry, it holds no ground. And now they throw in it as separate tier, the only raid dungeon in the tier.. with whole 7 bosses. The lifespan of Firelands will be very very short. Pro guilds will clear it within days, normal raiding guilds will have it on farm in month, two at tops.

 

[Aeshi]

The logic everybody seems to be following here is: "Blizzard already make money so they're evil for trying to make more."

How is this any different to buying things TF2's MannCo store? If anything the MannCo store is actually worse since the stuff you buy there can actually make an impact in game.

Well, it's not a sparkle-pony, so it has that. But in some of those shots, it looks like a winged elephant. Not something I'd spring half a Grant on.

Also, Blizz... where the hell is my rideable Sporebat? Epic opportunity wasted and never returned to.

Pretty sure there IS a rideable sporebat, you just have to be exalted with the Sporegarr (I think that's how you spell it? They're the little guys in Zangamarsh)

 

[Vrach]

To all the following people who say this is a ripoff:

$25 actually isn't that bad when you consider how long it takes most people to earn $25 in real life as opposed to how long it would take them to grind rep/older dungeons for an equally cool mount in game.

So, if it takes you some 57 hours to make a Mars bar yourself, that makes it okay to price a Mars bar at some 500$?

 

[Shadesong]

And yet I still think the real question that everyone's asking is:

"Where the hell are my god damned dances?!"

 

[Kamehapa]

Never played WoW honestly, I just remembered this comic, but I feel it applies to many companies.

That lion thing looks suspiciously like that new mount...

Because it was created when the model was first datamined, and rumors of it being Blizzstore sold first came out

 

[lukey94]

$25 is exactly £15.222 at the time that I'm writing this, the cheapest subscription fee in Europe/UK is £7.69 a month. Which is about half of the cost of this mount. That seems a little silly because then someone is paying from £22.91-£24.22 in a single month for WoW (thats if the subscription and cost for the mount are the same in the US and EU). Now in the UK an average game can be anything from £15-£40 (40 being PS3+360 AAA titles that have just been released, 30 for Wii games and fairly recent AAA titles, and 15-30 for the PC games and AAA titles that are 3 or so months old)

Seems a little bit silly to effectively pay the same price that you would pay for something on sale on Steam (seeing as you must be a PC gamer to play WoW ... or some crazy hacker who made his Wii run WoW) for a single item .... technically a cosmetic item as well seeings as (and I'm not a Warcrafter so correct me if I'm wrong) you can pick up mounts in game with the same stats as this .... for in-game cash!

 

[Baldr]

Wow does not rake in profits, in fact some months in the past, they were actually losing profits on WoW. This has to do exactly with what they spend on employees mainly. Blizzard Employees are some of the highest paid industry professionals. Blizzard has two WoW development teams, a number of localization teams and massive number of Customer Service Representatives all over the world.


Running close to 500 realm servers 24/7 does not come cheap.
Cost include services like the massive amount of servers they keep running around the world. Each server has at least 2 backups so they can be kept online even if a tornado destroys one of their server facilities(it has in the past.)
Plus the cost of bandwidth and other online fees.