Thursday, October 18, 2007

40 sans mount? Come on, now!

Ok, after writing this post, and sitting on it for a day, I re-read it and perhaps its a bit too harsh. Or perhaps I was a drop tired and cranky when I wrote it. But oh well, here it is, unedited...


I have a huge tolerance for ignorance. Ignorance is pretty much just a factor of not having been exposed to something yet, and as such, its ok to not know a whole lot about it. I myself am ignorant of a great many things. I constantly seek to improve that situation (by becoming ignorant of more things), but in general, I'm ok with the whole ignorant thing.

But there are one or two monumental, fundamental concepts that I simply refuse to accept ignorance.

Your first mount at 40 is one of them.Specifically not getting one within 10 seconds of turning 40.And even more specifically, not getting one within 10 seconds of turning 40, on the basis of not enough money.

Lets take a look at this for a moment, shall we? I'll first try to give the benefit of the doubt to these folks (from hence forth to as knuckleheads, or KH's). As a new player to WoW, I know there's tons and tons and tons of topics that I'm completely and utterly ignorant of. I'll give you Battlegrounds as an example. When I hit 29, a guildie started harassing me about hitting BG before I turn 30? At that point, I was all "what the hell is BG, and why would I delay turning 30 for any reason?" He explained the concept of BG and the lvl brackets, and I felt enlilghtned. I had been ignorant of the topic prior to that.

But mounts? Who hasn't seen a mounted player and wonder "how the hell did that guy get that cool looking ride?"

Since its my blog, I'll grant myself forgiveness for being completely ignorant of BG at first (note to readers, I'm still ignorant on how to be good at BG, but I at least am aware of the concept now). Its obscure enough and not quite right in your face the way mounts are.

You see your first player on a mount run past you as a brand new shiny little lvl 1 toon (or whatever low level you were when you saw your first mounted guy). Perhaps lvl 5 as you get to a city?

You see that mount, and you immediately wonder and start to inquire. You just gotta!

I find it pretty difficult to imagine that a person can reach mid 30's and be ignorant of the following concepts:
A) how much it sucks running around on your feet in Azeroth
B) you gotta wait till 40 to get your mount
C) a mount costs a bit more than the normal equipment and supplies you've been spending money on up to this point.

I'm fairly confident that EVERY SINGLE PLAYER of WoW more or less is aware of the concept of mounts prior to 40.

As a result, I'm fairly comfortable ruling out the defense of "ignorance" for why I see a player turn 40 and not get a mount.

So what is the defense then?

Typcially the reason is "not enough dough".

Not enough dough? Ok, so its roughly 100g for your mount and riding training. I know you get reputation and faction discounts and such, but lets just say its 100g. I'm willing to stipulate that this is probably a lot more money than you've spent on training/equipment up to this point.

So what's the problem? 100g at 40? I think that's a great checkpoint for how you're doing in your WoW career. I'm not saying you should be rich by 40, but 100g? Pretty reasonable, me thinks.

Yesterday was a classic. In my brand new lvl'ing guild, we've technically got a guild bank set up, namely an alt of mine that I park in Darnassus and people send stuff and request stuff from the user. I threw in a bunch of my own personal gold to get it started, and then a couple other guildies threw in a couple gold.

Going into yesterday night, we've got 4 guild members who are on the doorstep of 40. One of them was 5 minutes away from 40, and so he whispers me to ask about how to make a withdrawal from the guild bank. I say that he's going to have to work something out with the other 3 to determine how much each needs, because the guild bank can't cover the costs for all 4 of them. He grumbles, but I suppose I expected that.

Then 20 minutes later, the next guy dings 40. Whisper about how to withdraw.

Both of these guys had hit 40 with less than 20g each.

It made me sad.

But I'm not sure if I was sad for them, or for me for guilding with them and not having the balls to gquit yet.

I think it was sad for me, but then again, I'm on a bit of a teeny, tiny self-pity kick lately, but that's neither here nor there.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Great, you had it easy hitting 100g before level 40. Most people don't. That's no excuse to poop on them.

Unknown said...

To talk about this in more detail, most people I know did things such as:

- play the auction house using auctioneer and watching trends, significantly augmenting their income
- intensively gather using their chosen professions
- avoid wasting money on unnecessary purchases (especially AH gear)

Typical funds upon hitting level 40? 40g? 60g? 70g? 100g is really atypically high.

Some things that drag on your funds:

- crafting
- playing multiple characters (alts)
- playing most of your time in groups (more quest exp, less loot)

The above things have two things in common. First, they make you poorere. Second, they make the game _more fun_.

The point of this game is not to be rich, it is to *have fun*. So if you focused all of your core and self upon gaining money, good for you. I hope that this was a very fun way to play, for you. If you focus on profitability over having a fun time, you're robbing yourself.

Suzanne said...

Ouch. Does the guild have some sort of plan in place for people to repay the bank when they make withdrawals like that? (Otherwise, I have a feeling you're going to end up paying for a lot more people's mounts.)

Anonymous said...

I have played a few toons in WoW so far and even got to delete some mid-40ies too (doh! I could have used that Eng skill though!).

I can *now* easily level a toon to 40 and get there with mount money (did the experience one of these months without getting any help from my main/higher levels). But I *do* remember hitting 40 on my first char (my currently 70 druid) and *not* having mount money! I even recall spending around 2 levels of massive grinding/questing/saving to get that money, so I finally got the mount at 42...

Of course, the game was ALL new to me, the friend who introduced me to it was leveling even slower than I was, I had absolutely no notion on how to make money or what would be useful! Training starts to get expensive at 30 or so, and I don't know what I may need!

And, as others pointed out, I wasn't playing to get the mount! I was playing to have fun, do the quests, see the sights, be constantly amazed at the new places and variety I kept discovering while leveling, even re-talenting to try out different builds and different ways to tackle problems... Spending some gold on AH gear, etc, etc, etc...

Of course, I'm also a casual player, not much time to devote to WoW or WoW resources, and even reading WoW related blogs is something I started a few months ago...

Recently (around 1 week or less), I dinged 70. When I dinged 68, I had to borrow some couple hundred gold from a friend to learn riding skill 150 so I could get my Flight Form! Repayed him in 2 nights play and soon made around 1000g in the following nights, but, after doing a lousy tank job in CoT:Old Hilsbrad FootHills, already spent some 600g+ on tanking gear+gems+a couple chant mats... Also, one reason my main is so devoid of gold is that he's a dual crafter and one of those is Enchanting! Yes, I know enchanting is a gold sink and should probably have spent (directly or indirectly from not selling stuff that ends DEd) around 2500g, but I got bored trying to look for an enchanter to do a simple +25 AGI on 2H quite some months ago, so I dropped Herb (no way I'd drop Alch as I have some rare recipes!), and took Enchanting.

Also, another gold sink for me has been some of my alts, especially since my main is an Enchanter! :) Also, all my 40+ alts have mounts even if the first ones weren't making enough gold for those! :)

Long story short, yes, I could have enough money now for my Swift Flight Form and would only require the rep to take on the proper heroic, but what's the point?

Yes, I could use that and I *will* be having that, but, I'll probably make the gold while getting enough rep to run that heroic anyway, so as long as I'm having fun that's what counts! I spend my time in WoW to have FUN, not to be worried if I'm making too little gold! As long as I have fun, I keep coming back!

Anonymous said...

Forgot to add: that friend I borrowed the 200g from, had around 500g in bank. He is also the one who introduced me to WoW and his highest char is a level 48 rogue! Next one on his list is a mid 30 hunter, after I talked him to create one! He sure can save money, but I can say I'm having twice as much fun as he is, by simply not worrying too much about it! Shinny new bow on AH? Gone! (Well, I'm a bit better on that regard now, but you get the drift!)