wow-loyalty-program
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Hi, remember me? I've been here since 2004
Hello. Let's do a brief math exercise, just for a moment. I've been playing World of Warcraft since some point in December of 2004, as illustrated by the screenshot above. This is March of 2012, which means I've been playing WoW for roughly 87 months. Actually, I'm going to subtract three months, because there was a point where I cancelled my subscription and took a three-month break from the game -- so 84 months of gameplay or thereabouts. Each month of World of Warcraft is $14.95. Multiply that by 84, and I've paid Blizzard $1,255.80 over the past seven years of gameplay. That doesn't include the Collector's Editions I've purchased or the pets or the mounts I've nabbed via the Blizzard Store, and it also doesn't include my second account, which I've had since 2008. It also doesn't include the money I've thrown at Blizzard for pretty much every novel under the sun, the comics, and the other assorted merchandise I've picked up over the years. I like World of Warcraft. I like it a lot. I like it so much that even though I took a little break, I've never, ever quit. So where's my mount?
What could a World of Warcraft loyalty or veteran program look like?
Seven years is a long time to be alive in the video game world. When you talk about games you played for seven years, you usually talk about WoW, Mario Kart, Goldeneye 64, and EverQuest. One thing that I have always felt was missing from Blizzard that synced up with one of my fondest memories of the MMO genre was a yearly loyalty program with rewards for all players to partake in. We get this somewhat during the Winterveil holiday with each year's exclusive gift, but I'm talking about a totally different type of loyalty reward scheme. One of my fondest memories of any MMO ever was receiving my Ultima Online veteran rewards after a few years of play. While I can't remember the specifics of the transactions, either I was gifted my loyalty rewards or I got to choose based on seniority (it's been a long time, holy moly), but I went home with some cool items. The coolest of the bunch was a black dye tub, an item that had unlimited uses and could change any dyeable clothing item the darkest shade of black in the game. These black dye tubs were very rare and made for great items to sell at high prices down the line when they slowly became more and more rare. Maybe if you're good, I'll tell you about the time that I stole a black dye tub in the middle of Vesper bank -- I hope the four of you who thought that was impressive are smiling to yourselves.
