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The OverAchiever: Pet shop and Trading Card Game mounts
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we rediscover the joy of dailies. This week we'll continue our Mountain O' Mounts guide examining rides from the WoW Trading Card Game and pet shop. For all those of you who let your snark flag fly over the sparkle pony ... here's your chance again! Here's the full series if you're just catching up with us: Combining The Ambassador and Mountain O' Mounts Mountain O' Mounts in Outland Mountain O' Mounts in Northrend Mountain O' Mounts in 5-man dungeons Mountain O' Mounts in raids Mountain O' Mounts from achievements Mountain O' Mounts from PVP Mountain O' Mounts from professions Mountain O' Mounts from holidays Mountain O' Mounts in Cataclysm Mountain O' Mounts and the Argent Tournament
The Virtual Whirl: Ill-repute
Virtual environments have a generally poor reputation in many quarters, particularly in the mass-media. Much of that reputation is ill-deserved, and some of it is entirely fabricated (eg: by the mass-media). I have to ask, what's the big deal?
Breakfast Topic: I just bought a $25 imaginary horse
digg_url = 'http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/04/19/breakfast-topic-i-just-bought-a-25-imaginary-horse/'; Over the past few hours, I have come to the realization that I have purchased a $25 imaginary space horse. To be honest, I do not regret my horse purchase. I do not have horse remorse. What I have gleaned, however, is a keen understanding of the nature of video games moving forward, in particular the massively multiplayer genre. World of Warcraft is not new to the world of microtransactions, or in this case, macrotransactions. I do not believe anyone considers $25 to be a microtransaction, which seems like a healthy bit of cash. A few thoughts came to my mind. First, we now have the Blizzard price list for all sorts of purchased add-on content and the range of money we will be shelling out in the future. Pets are $10; mounts are $25. The celestial horse's success yesterday proved beyond a doubt that the $25 pricetag was not a deterrent for many purchasers, as the queue pushed over 100,000 people at times in the U.S. store alone. Early sales were estimated to be in the 400,000 area, with more climbing steadily. This horse is a hit. My second thought was how drastically the dynamic has changed for Blizzard and why, potentially, it has changed. This past year showed a stagnation in the number of accounts created for World of Warcraft, leaving Blizzard with the same number to tell shareholders at their next meeting a year later. With new ways to monetize the player base other than the number of accounts, Blizzard has essentially given shareholders the go on holding onto increasingly valuable Activision Blizzard stock and to expect wonderful new profit generators. New ways to monetize existing subscriber bases are always being explored, and the Celestial Steed has cemented the pet and mount store as one of the absolutely critical endeavors. This is only the beginning for macrotransactions in World of Warcraft. As long as the items up for sale do not give another player an advantage and stay purely cosmetic (with the exception of the race change, which has the potential to alter balance), I am confident Blizzard will provide some compelling additions to the already mind-blowingly successful pet and mount store. What do you think about the Celestial Steed and what it represents? $25 seems to be a sweet spot if the sales are to be believed, but what do you think?
Breakfast Topic: What are you willing to buy?
The Celestial Steed and Lil' XT went live the other day to the delight of many, the disgust of a few, and one mother of a checkout line. Toward the end of the day as I write this, the line for purchasing the mount in the North American store clocks in at 148,108 and climbing. I think it's safe to say that the shiny horse, at least, has been a runaway success. I haven't yet bought anything from the Blizzard store, but I come from a long line of suspicious New England cheapskates for whom saving 10¢ on bulk toilet paper was a day for the diary. Most people don't seem to have a problem with RMT (Real Money Transactions/Trading) as long as they're kept to things that don't exercise any real influence on the game. If they're just for fun and they don't give anyone an unfair advantage -- we ask reasonably -- what's the big deal? Then again, it makes me a bit sad to see brilliant new pets and mounts head straight to the store while things like the moonkin and Tree of Life models have languished for years without updates. Oh well. Everyone has mounts and pets, but not everyone plays a druid (more's the pity). I have to admit that Blizzard selling formerly TCG-only rewards like the Path of Cenarius might make me reconsider, although I'm not sure it'd be great policy for them to undermine the card game's rewards. Have you bought anything from Blizzard's store, and do you think they should sell anything in addition to pets or mounts? Or, to put it another way, what would you love to buy?
The Daily Quest: Starpony edition
Here at WoW.com we're on a Daily Quest (which we try to do every day, honest) to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment and you may see it here tomorrow! Take a look at the links below, and be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW related sites. TDQ's back from an unplanned Cataclysm-news-overload hiatus! And what better topic to come back to than the epic debate currently raging over Blizzard's new starpony spacepony sparklepony My Little Algalon Pony Celestial Steed? Want to see the rest of the above comic? Of course you do. It's from Wowhead's latest comic by Noxychu. Wowhead also speculates on the number of Celestial Steeds sold. WoW.com's sister-site Massively has an opinion on this latest addition to the world of microtransactions. The 'mental Shaman talks sparkuls. Mystic Chicanery thinks this is more than a micro-payment. Big Bear Butt says it's superficial. Life in Azeroth has a thing or two to say about slippery slopes. Leafshine thinks this changes everything and asks: am I a beautiful and unique snowflake? Dechion's Place talks on Blizzard's marketing genius. Ixobelle explains how to create demand. Oh look, an alt! is happy. Matticus is ashamed.
Anti-Aliased: Shut up people, come buy my horse
So last week's little diversion into Net Neutrality (and me apparently being a right wing liberal jackhole) was fun, but this week brings me back on track with things happening in the gaming world. And, lucky for me, there's been a spot of news yesterday that's just caught my attention -- World of Warcraft's new Celestial Steed. Microtransaction discussions are nothing new in my column. From Cryptic to Free Realms, I've been all over the different payment structures that games implement. But, no matter the topic, one thing seems to stay the same: people really, really, really dislike microtransactions overall. The comments on these columns, and pretty much any other article we write on microtransactions, tend to end with angry commenters spewing their dissatisfaction. And you know what? Good for them. If that's their opinion, then totally go for it! But, what I really hate more than anything else is when people have double standards. It seems that people really hate microtransactions, yet Blizzard's newest buyable mount doesn't have people quitting the game left and right. In fact, it seems everyone is cramming in to buy one!
Queue for Celestial Steed and Lil' XT is above 140,000
The picture it says it all... If there was any doubt in the popularity of the new items, this is all you need. For virtual items to be going so fast and furious is unheard of. But here we have it. The most that WoW.com has seen is the number reach around 70,000. It could be more or less when you get in-line to buy one. Edit at 4:45 p.m. EDT: It's now above 80,000, which is nearly 10 times OVER 9000. Edit at 7:30 p.m. EDT: The queue is now above 140,000. Coverage of the new purchasable in-game mount and pet today: Initial Blizzard Store Discovery Mount available to be purchased Poll: Selling the Celestial Steed is... WoW.com will be giving away a few Celestial Steeds and Lil' XTs soon. Stay tuned and keep an eye out for the post!
Blizzard selling armored horse in WoW for $25
First it was virtual pets, now Blizzard is selling an in-game beast that actually has a function in World of Warcraft. For $25, you can buy the "Celestial Steed," which is an admittedly awesome-looking winged horse with constellations for bones. You don't really get any advantage beyond any other mount, as its performance is tied to your own riding skill -- except for the advantage of not having to take part in any bothersome gameplay to acquire it. Along with the steed, a new pet, the "Lil' XT," is available for $10. Of course, if this is the kind of thing that interests you, you not only already know about it, but are currently in line for it. Queues in North America alone have reached 15,000, meaning that at one time, there was $375,000 waiting to be poured into Blizzard's coffers. Our friends at WoW.com note that "If queue numbers in the Store are correct, Blizzard is making over half a million dollars an hour on the Celestial Steed." In other words, it's already a resounding success. All we can do is hope that Blizzard finishes developing StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3 before shifting its operations entirely into the fake horse business. Update: What does WoW.com say about the number of people in the queue? It's over 70,000! [Via WoW.com]
Celestial Steed mount and Lil' XT pet to be sold on the Blizzard store
Early this morning our staff uncovered pictographic evidence of the Celestial Steed and Lil' XT Pet being sold soon at the Blizzard Store. The image is no longer in their front page rotation, but likely it won't be gone for long. We don't know any details. That's all there is to say on that. So any speculation about price, functionality, etc... it's all just that. Speculation. We do know, however, that this is the first mount being sold at the store; and the first useful in-game item you can directly buy with real world money (if you don't count the mounts from the WoW TCG game). Video of the steed after the break.
Patch 3.3.3: Latest PTR datamining finds [Updated]
Hot from the latest patch 3.3.3 PTR updates are some stunning images contained in the data files. We don't know where you can get the above pictured Celestial Horse -- a lot of people are speculating about its location, but no one knows yet. First up is the Celestial Horse you see above: Celestial Horse 1 Celestial Horse 2 Celestial Horse 3 Celestial Horse 4 In addition, they've been tinkering with existing "tigon" models, the catwoman/catman models used for various Troll-related bosses. Most notably the bosses in Zul'Gurub. These will likely crop up in the reclamation of the Echo Isles. Tigon Male Tigon Female Next up is a Twilight Dragon model which we'll see in action in the Ruby Sanctum. Twilight Dragon 1 This post will be updated throughout the evening as new models come in. %Gallery-87114%
