1.) back in april i mentioned a non-profit auction being held for the the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District (PVPUSD). the ending and winning bid was $6,700.00! i hope they made good use of that donation, and i hope the winner enjoys their new non-combat companions plus other goodies.
2.) despite my interest in the thor mini-pet (available with purchase of the collector's edition of starcraft 2), my indecision got the better of me. as far as i know, most places have stopped taking pre-orders for the CE version. blizzard can only print so many of these, so pre-ordering them was bound to have only a short duration. well, i guess now all i can do is hope that the companion pet will not be connected to the battle.net account that the CE SC2 game is connected to. maybe then we'll see some decently priced thor pets up on ebay? i can only hope!
3.) and finally:
"Some of you guys are coming from the angle that players should take responsibility for not playing more than they want to. I agree with that of course, but I also think the game design should not be something that puts that kind of pressure on you. We don't want to make a game full of traps or temptations that you should have to resist. It's more fun, I think, if what the game asks of you is reasonable." - ghostcrawlerkeep in mind when reading the rest of this post that this quote has been TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT, and he is referring more to raiding than anything else.
when i read the bolded statement above i had to laugh. sparkle pony anyone? how about lil' k.t.? the pandaren monk? lil' x.t., the gryphon hatchling or the wyvern cub? there are quite a lot of high priced items on sale on ebay too for a game that isn't putting pressure on players to do unreasonable things.
i feel for all the collectors and completionists of WoW since this mentality of 'there shouldn't be traps and temptations that you feel you have to resist' obviously doesn't apply to them. especially since achievements are becoming a bigger part of the game as well as collecting in general. for some people it's the ONLY part of the game that's enjoyable or do-able. perhaps they aren't the majority of players, but a community does exist and they do take the largest blow when it comes to being the odd ones out.
all the time, energy, effort, and even real money put into their achievements/collections, and then blizzard releases more for them to not farm or gather. no, to buy with more real money. at that point with so much invested, how can a completionist say no even if they wanted to? this falls into the "traps and temptations" department in my book, even if it's a vanity item.
is it wrong? is it right? is it ethical? there are many arguments for every side, so only time will tell now. whichever direction blizzard decides to take this game will be the ultimate determining factor.
