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Okay, I admit it: I bought the celestial steed in World of Warcraft.
It amuses me to see the number of people who criticize the number of people who have. (Judging from the number of people I see riding one, it was obviously a pretty good business decision on Blizzard's part.) Who are we, some of them ask, to think we're so special for having a mount that just cost real world money, not hard game work?
Anyone who is talking about how they are super-special for it deserves that response.
But most of those of us running around with it aren't claiming to be cool. (I restricted my saying even "isn't this cool" to Scott, until this post, actually. And I think a couple people in my guild. And that was claiming the mount was cool, which it is, IMO.) We're just running around playing the game, and enjoying the mount (hopefully, anyway; I feel bad for anyone who bought it and isn't enjoying it).
Here's why I bought the mount and why I love it:
1. It's pretty. Really, really pretty. This is my number one reason: watching it makes me happy, so having one I can ride and therefore see lots makes me happy.
2. Never again having to buy a mount with in-game gold for any alt, as you level up. You have to buy the riding training, but not the mount since you'll always have a celestial steed (every character on that account gets one).
3. I didn't realize this when I bought it, but not having to keep two mounts on action bars, since the celestial steed acts as a ground mount when appropriate, even if you can fly. (This is not as big a deal as it would have been back when mounts took up inventory slots, though.) It doesn't do one thing I wish it did - when you're in Dalaran and move into or out of the flight area, it doesn't switch between flying and ground modes. It stays ground going in; coming out it dismounts you. You can remount in either case to switch modes, but it isn't seamless.
There are a number of mounts that are very cool to have and make you look super-cool and special because you did that - that being whatever is needed to get them. The celestial steed isn't one, considering that buying stuff isn't real difficult. But it's pretty, and it has some minor game advantages, and I like it anyway.
I feel pretty good about buying it, until someone goes off about how stupid/silly/full of ourselves the people who bought it are. Even then I just feel a little self-conscious...and then I go back to watching the pretty, and playing the game.
It amuses me to see the number of people who criticize the number of people who have. (Judging from the number of people I see riding one, it was obviously a pretty good business decision on Blizzard's part.) Who are we, some of them ask, to think we're so special for having a mount that just cost real world money, not hard game work?
Anyone who is talking about how they are super-special for it deserves that response.
But most of those of us running around with it aren't claiming to be cool. (I restricted my saying even "isn't this cool" to Scott, until this post, actually. And I think a couple people in my guild. And that was claiming the mount was cool, which it is, IMO.) We're just running around playing the game, and enjoying the mount (hopefully, anyway; I feel bad for anyone who bought it and isn't enjoying it).
Here's why I bought the mount and why I love it:
1. It's pretty. Really, really pretty. This is my number one reason: watching it makes me happy, so having one I can ride and therefore see lots makes me happy.
2. Never again having to buy a mount with in-game gold for any alt, as you level up. You have to buy the riding training, but not the mount since you'll always have a celestial steed (every character on that account gets one).
3. I didn't realize this when I bought it, but not having to keep two mounts on action bars, since the celestial steed acts as a ground mount when appropriate, even if you can fly. (This is not as big a deal as it would have been back when mounts took up inventory slots, though.) It doesn't do one thing I wish it did - when you're in Dalaran and move into or out of the flight area, it doesn't switch between flying and ground modes. It stays ground going in; coming out it dismounts you. You can remount in either case to switch modes, but it isn't seamless.
There are a number of mounts that are very cool to have and make you look super-cool and special because you did that - that being whatever is needed to get them. The celestial steed isn't one, considering that buying stuff isn't real difficult. But it's pretty, and it has some minor game advantages, and I like it anyway.
I feel pretty good about buying it, until someone goes off about how stupid/silly/full of ourselves the people who bought it are. Even then I just feel a little self-conscious...and then I go back to watching the pretty, and playing the game.