the blizzard store has been selling WoW in-game pets for a few months now, but this week they took a new step forward and began offering mounts for sale as well.
like the good little WoW lemming I am, I (and everyone else in Dalaran, it seems) went and bought one. it's a beautiful mount and the price seems fair considering it will be available to all your existing and future characters (unlike the recruit-a-friend [Swift Zhevra] mount, which can only be given to a single character *cough* lame *cough*). I do have a couple minor nits, though.
first is the sound the steed makes while flying... it's the same sound set used by the nether ray mounts and it just seems weird to me. second, and this applies to all mounts that count as both ground and air mounts (e.g., [The Horseman's Reins]), is that if you mount up in a ground-only area you'll be stuck in ground mode even if you ride into another area where flying is allowed. for example, if you mount your shiny new celestial steed in the center of Dalaran and then ride out to the landing platform, you won't be able to fly off until you dismount and remount. I'm guessing this is a programmatic constraint that the devs just haven't put time into fixing rather than an intentional restriction, but it's pretty annoying regardless.
I'm excited to see what other flavor items blizzard is going to put up for sale. they've said time and again that they won't sell items in the store that have any impact on game mechanics (i.e., no gear), which is a choice that I applaud. that still leaves them with a lot of things they *could* sell, though. I wouldn't be surprised to see items that are currently only available via loot cards from the WoW TCG to start popping up in the store. I can imagine other things, too, like custom hi-resolution tabards or even new emotes and hair styles. I do think it's important for blizzard to maintain a good balance between what's available in the store vs. rewards only available to top-tier raiders or arena masters, though. I'd hate to see items in the store over-shadow very rare rewards like the lich king's mount. can't wait to see what the store 'drops' next :) Continue reading "My god... it's full of stars!"...
