World of Warcraft will have been around for 15 years come November 2019, not too bad for a MMORPG that people seem to hate but yet millions still seem to play. (Including a couple of Outerhaven staff members no matter how much they try to kick the habit. EIC Keith Mitchell is the only one to do so at time of writing, the other two have relapsed in recent patch updates to the game.) So instead of waiting till that actual anniversary in November to give people a nice little bonus for the years many have sunk into the game, including untold thousands of dollars they spent on subscriptions to play the game and hundreds more in unneeded but still pretty mount and pet purchases; Blizzard decided to release more things you can buy!
The first thing that you could buy in order to celebrate World of Warcraft is the World of Warcraft Classic 15th Anniversary Collectors Edition… If it wasn’t sold out on Amazon or the Blizzard Gear store, leaving you to pay anywhere from $200 to $400 for the full set of items on eBay. Though this would be one of the best things Blizzard had done for the anniversary. Consisting of a collectable pin and figure set, in-game mounts, a mouse pad, special prints and the most amazing statue of Ragnaros The Firelord known to Azaroth kind. That statue alone is worth the purchase, if you got it and lived in the US since this one is not an international release…. boo-urns.
Well most people who know that anniversary time means some fresh digital goods landing in your mailbox in-game. In previous years pets have been the main thing, sometimes mounts are available too. But what better way to celebrate by giving Blizzard USD$25 for two reskinned Stormtalon Gryphon and Thunderwing Wyvern mounts! Man that sounds lazy, but damn we want them! To say that this idea has gone over like a led balloon on the Official World of Warcraft forums is an understatement… that’s if you actually get anything for your purchase since it’s not World of Warcraft without major bugs thanks to a lack of proper quality control.
Ok ok, it’s not all about spending money to celebrate the 15th Anniversary of Blizzard’s biggest profit driven game, though it seems like it by the way things are being marketed. You will still got your free pet for the celebration as well as the Anniversary Token that allows you to level alts (secondary characters) a little easier. This year’s pet comes from one of the most interesting and most experimental and weird expansions: Cataclysm. The pet is known as Lil Nefarian, a baby dragon version of Nefarian, the final boss of one of the original raids in the game: Blackwing Lair. This pet will be free to all players who login to the game during the anniversary period in November 2019.
The other thing that you can get for free is the Obsidian Worldbreaker Mount, a mount based on Deathwing the Destroyer, the big bad of the Cataclysm expansion. This amazing looking metal and lava bastard of a dragon is yours if you can earn it. The way you’ll be able to earn it is to defeat a special event raid featuring some of the most iconic bosses from throughout the game’s history. This event will be a 25 man raid available in the Raid Finder, so it’s unknown at this stage if this is going to be Looking For Raid levels of easy which gives away the mount to everyone, or if this is going to be a hardcore raid with a 1 in 25 drop chance, meaning multiple runs of people who have more than 3 brain cells will need to work together in order to obtain.
So while it’s not all “give us your cash” with Blizzard this upcoming anniversary, it does seem like they are really moving to a more money focused way of doing everything. No doubt a result of the past and recent people involved in long-term World of Warcraft development leaving the company in droves. Not to mention that it seems weird that the focus on flying mounts is happening given current World of Warcraft developers going on record saying that flying is ruining the experience of the game, resulting in flying being restricted behind some of the increasingly insane grind walls in the game’s history. But I guess money trumps all when it comes to Activision-Blizzard.
World of Warcraft will officially celebrate 15 years of online gameplay (and server downtime when anything new appears) in November 2019.
