Blizzards Pet Store Expands

[Aleu]

MMO Champion Source

Let's see how much money they make off the mount alone. >_>

Edited by Mania: MMO Champion is reporting that the Celestial Steed -- a new mount that scales its speed to your fastest mount -- and Lil'XT the mini-pet will soon be sold in the Blizzard Store. This will be the first time that a mount is directly available for cash (although you can of course buy the TCG loot cards for cash and get certain mounts that way).

[Saturo]

Why am I not surprised.
Won't be long until we see purchasable gear.

[Mania]

My apologize for editing your post, Aleu, but I wanted to move it into the Game News directly so I wanted a few more details right up front.

[Golden]

o.o The Celestial Steed is something I'm going to get the moment it becomes available.

[Palladiamorsdeus]

Yea, I swore I'd never buy anything off of the store, but that mount is way to sexy to pass up.

[Tahlian]

Why am I not surprised.
Won't be long until we see purchasable gear.

To date, nothing the Blizzard pet store has sold or made available has had any mechanical in-game advantage. Even with the addition of the Celestial Horse, this still holds true. Yes, it looks cool, but it doesn't go any faster than you are already permitted to go by your training or the mounts you already had before buying it. Blizzard repeatedly said, back when the pet store first launched, that they would not offer anything for sale there that offered a mechanical advantage in-game. They know that being able to buy good gear because you make a lot of money IRL is a break point and a touchy subject for their subscribers, and they know that those services appearing will cost them business.

I'm not worried about my hunter BiS pieces only being available from the Blizzard store until they make the announcement that that's what's going to happen. So far all I've seen in the Blizzard store is some cool minipets (which I do plan to keep collecting because they're fun and not terribly expensive at that) and a mount that has the slight added convenience of scaling with your riding training.

[Golden]

I also can't wait to see what this thing looks like as a land mount. First winged creature to act like one, wonder what kind of jump animation they gave it.

[Saturo]

Check it out in modelviewer, it's named "celestialhorse".

The "celestialhorse_nonflying" has the jump animation. It's just like a normal horse, which is kind of disappointing...

[Bulletdance]

I'm guessing they charge $50 for this. I've never wanted to be wrong so bad though.

[Vephriel]

Ugh....thank god I don't like the mount at all, that'll save me some cash. xD

Still, now I'm anxious to see what other sort of mounts will pop up in the future. I, personally, have absolutely no problem with Blizzard selling vanity items. I don't think they'll ever start selling gear or anything that will give someone an in-game advantage. Mounts and minipets are absolutely fine by me.

[Nevar]

MUST HAVE STARRY HORSEY!!!!

[Aleu]

$25 for the mount. o.O I honestly don't know if that's worth it for me. I'll see what I can do. >_>

[Golden]

$25 for the mount. o.O I honestly don't know if that's worth it for me. I'll see what I can do. >_>

And once again 25€ = $25. :P They're ripping us Europians off, seriously!

*starts looking for a friend whose credit card she could use* <.<

[Ryai]

Why am I not surprised.
Won't be long until we see purchasable gear.

Um what's wrong with a purchable mount Saturo? I always wanted a flying horse for my paladin. NOW I WILL GET ONE OH GOD I AM SO HAPPY I COULD EXPLODE WITH JOY.

And you people questioning the price; look at the TCG loot. 300 dollars for like say the griff hatchling. And you can only use it once.

25 bucks for a BoA horse and oh my god I am so happy.

[Golden]

I'm just wondering how it'll work on newly created toons - is it sent to them the same way as any other BoA account the first time they log in (and thus left to rot in their bags for the next 20 levels) or does it wait till the toon hits 20 first?

And OMGWTFBBQ no more ugly Kodo or Elekk mounts or boring rep grinds on alts! <3

Edit2: Looks like the mount's armor has a slight bug on live, black scratches keep flashing around it.

[Saturo]

Not the actual mount that I dislike. (Tough I do dislike the model)

It's just that they are moving closer to giving us somethig like gear. And I don't like that. Minipets and mounts are ok. I'm just a bit scared at what this might develop into...

[Golden]

Not the actual mount that I dislike. (Tough I do dislike the model)

It's just that they are moving closer to giving us somethig like gear. And I don't like that. Minipets and mounts are ok. I'm just a bit scared at what this might develop into...

I'm with Ryai here to be honest. They've been selling mounts, pets and other vanity items through TCG for ages, how is this any different? I'm fairly confident they'll stick to their philosophy of only selling vanity stuff for real life money.

[Ryai]

Not the actual mount that I dislike. (Tough I do dislike the model)

It's just that they are moving closer to giving us somethig like gear. And I don't like that. Minipets and mounts are ok. I'm just a bit scared at what this might develop into...

Ok mounts are the same as pets. Vanity items. Mounts aren't gear Saturo, you don't need to fear. I mean seriously, it's a vanity item. It's why I get so annoyed when people insult me for Embront having a basic mount and being 46+. It's not required that you actually get it; this is really no different than Warlocks and Pallies and DK's getting free horses, or droods getting free flight skill+'mount'.

The ONLY way I could see gear ever being placed in the store? Would be like for tabards. As it's evident the items they sell are Bind to Account so it'd be pretty stupid to offer sellable BoA items when there are already a crapload of soon to be useless boa items in game already.

[Saturo]

Yah, but you also have to agree that mounts are closer to gear than minipets.

[Golden]

I don't see the difference. <.< It would be different if it came with free riding skill, but the mount is nothing more than a reskin of the Headless Horseman's mount. No advantage, just a few changed pixels.