Revisiting the Ghost Wolf
My original Ghost Wolf article has gotten a lot of traffic in the last week since I posted it - mainly due to Mania linking to it, I think (<3 Mania) - and I want to revisit the issue to more fully explain my... um, issues.
To start off, when I wrote that article, I was quite angry about the whole deal. I think I came off a bit stronger than I intended. I probably could have been more understanding of Blizz's position on this. They are the only ones who know exactly why the Ghost Wolf change was made and they are the only ones who have any knowledge as to what direction the game is heading.
There have been several comments made in the discussion of this deal that changed my perspective a bit. One of those is the possibility that Blizzard had been planning on doing something in a future patch (or the WotLK expansion) that involves a Ghost Wolf, or a spirit wolf guide, or something along those lines. Then suddenly, the Ghost Wolf is being tamed left and right (which they never intended) and they are faced with having to change their (potential) plans, or change the Ghost Wolf back to the state that they originally intended, i.e., non-tameable. Maybe they just felt that the "ghost" part of the Ghost Wolf went against the feel and lore of the Hunter class too strongly.
In any case, what's done is done and only Blizzard knows the real reasons why. And I think I'm OK with that. I like Blizzard. They make terrific games. And I usually support 99% of the changes that they make to the game. (Even when my class gets nerfed. The buff/nerf cycle is just a part of the game.) So while I would still like to know more about the issue, I'm OK with what Blizz chose to give us.
But I still have a problem with two things. First off, I can't imagine a worse way of handling the situation. A Blizzard Rep told us one thing - and it was worded in a very definite manner - and then Blizzard proceeds to do the exact opposite of that. Was this just an unfortunate mistake? Probably. As one particularly level-headed Hunter pointed out on the WoW forums, the only way to totally prevent those kinds of communication errors would be for Blizz to totally stop talking to us. =O We definitely don't want that.
However, I still don't understand the stealth hotfix. Why do it in such an underhanded manner? Blizz had to know how many Hunters were in the process of getting the mats together to tame a Ghost Wolf. Why not give us some notice that things were about to change?
Hey guys, although we told you that the Ghost Wolf would always be tameable in future, circumstances have forced us to change that. If you’re planning on taming one, you’ve got exactly one week to get it done, and then we’re going to put in a hotfix that will make them permanently untameable. Our sincerest apologies for the misinformation.
Why not do that? It would have been so simple. Sure, people still wouldn’t have liked it. There would have still been a predictable level of outrage, but at least they would have been upfront and honest about the situation. That’s what really surprised me about this. Blizzard has never backed down from giving bad news to players. Why handle this situation any differently?
The second problem I still have is that the Ghost Wolf was just about fun. It cost a Hunter hundreds of Gold to tame a wolf that had no functional difference from any other wolf in the game. It just looked cool.
Why take that away?
The bigger issue here is this: We play this game to have fun. Define fun however you want - Arena, BGs, raiding, leveling alts, clowning around with friends, whatever - fun is still the reason that we play this game. I think sometimes Blizzard loses sight of that.
You take away our Ghost Wolf? Ok, fine. Give us something in return. Let us tame a giraffe! Do you have any idea how many Hunters would go absolutely Bursar at the thought of having a giraffe pet?
EVERY
SINGLE
ONE!!!!!
Why? Because it’s fun. It’s fun to tame new pets and try them out. It’s fun to hunt down the one pet in the game that has the unique skin you want. It’s fun to walk around Org or IF and get whispers “Hey, where’d you get that pet?”
You don’t want to let us tame giraffes? OK, fine. Here’s a serious suggestion. Give us one more stable slot. That won’t affect anything except the amount of pleasure I take from the game. Let us tame and keep one more pet per Hunter and all will be forgiven. How’s that sound, Blizz?
Let me conclude with this. I’ve been playing WoW for nearly two and a half years now. Obviously, I really enjoy this game. I enjoy the gameplay, I enjoy the lore, I enjoy getting to know people that I’d otherwise never meet. Heck, I enjoy watching my friends get good loot, even when it means that I don’t get anything.
But sometimes, Blizzard, sometimes you pull a stupid stunt like this and you make it very difficult to love this game. Stop doing that, ok?
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