Thursday, December 29, 2011

Moving On

Well, there are exactly 4 more days of Winter Veil which means 4 attempts left. At this point I've thrown all hope out and I'm doing the daily out of pure routine and stubbornness. I don't expect to receive Lumpy on my main collector this year. My gut has yet to fail me, so I suppose I just have to accept it.

I haven't lost my spirit as a pet collector, but I have lost some faith and confidence in Blizzard. Shrug. Perhaps it's just meant to be a teeter-tottering type of love/hate relationship. Whatever. That'll teach me to get any hopes up. What goes up, must come down.

Instead of dwelling any further, I'm looking to the future. The Darkmoon Faire is quickly approaching, so I've been gathering my artifacts and getting ready for the grind. I'm missing only one artifact, the Treatise. Damn its rarity. (At least I can farm for it at my own leisure, unlike the holiday pet which will be out of reach for an entire year shortly.)

If all else fails, I suppose I could try my hand at the DMF PVP chest. If I can manage to loot it 3 times during the next faire, it would make up for the Treatise artifact. Let's just call that "plan B" heh.

The next DMF pets I plan on getting are the Darkmoon Zeppelin and Darkmoon Tonk. I hear Lil' XT doesn't play so nice with them. *Insert evil cackle here* ;) After experiencing such a disappointing and depressing holiday, I'm up for some destruction.

Oh, and if I had to choose between a grind for pets like the DMF or the randomness that is the holiday loot pets, I'd choose the DMF any day. Hands. Down.

One may ask, 'What's the difference between waiting for the DMF and its pets and waiting for each holiday to come around once a year?' Well nevermind that the DMF comes every month while the holidays are a one time event (for however many varying days) per year, there are key differences that make one stomach-able while the other is absolutely detestable.

On one hand, there's the fact that at least with the DMF, I'm compensated for my efforts. For every quest I turn in and each daily completed, it helps advance me to an end goal. The holiday pets, on the other hand, well there's nothing to be earned but disappointment there.

Not to mention there's no guarantee of anything no matter how long I stick to completing each holiday daily. But the DMF dailies, quests, and turn ins are all guaranteed to reward me with pets so long as I don't quit.

Yes, I'm perfectly fine with waiting for weeks on end for just 7 days' worth of time to collect maybe one or two pets, yet it's painfully brutal to wait for year after year for another chance at a holiday RNG dropped companion. One involves determination and true effort on my part, while the other is purely a gamble. It's these subtle and psychological differences that make or break a system. I see this. Many other collectors realize it. Now if only Blizzard would acknowledge it and take it into consideration so change can start in preparation for a better and more balanced future. I'm done with holding my breath, though.

6 comments:

  1. I'm with you, I'll take the DMF model over RNG holiday companions ANY day. I hate the holiday drops with a burning passion- pets and mounts.

    I was happy to see they added the Scorchling back in the game since I knew a lot of pet collector friends that didn't have it- but back when he was still available, it was somewhat possible to farm him. To get mine I had a group of like 8+ friends that didn't care about the pet filtering in endless amounts of alts for me to use their summons every day until I got it. I hated having to do that (so I honestly prefer the once a day thing now), but it was at least possible to farm. So he was rare, but it wasn't as soul crushing as these current ones are. And then they go and re-add him. But they have even RARER pets now that are absolutely impossible to farm. I just got to enjoy my 3rd? Halloween never seeing the Horseman's mount (and I farmed it that first year with everyone's alts), yet another V-Day coming up where I won't get the Love Rocket (but I did finally get a Toxic Wasteling last year- I never saw it the first year). If I had been saving up some sort of currency for 3 years from these events, surely that could be enough to buy one of these rare mounts?

    I don't mind waiting a very long time (I do despise farming though... like my 700 casts to get a Sea Pony when it only took everyone else I know under 100). But I'll gladly farm as well! Anything but these limited time only RNG fests.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very much agreed. There is nothing RNG about DMF (well, suppose artifacts, but those can be farmed the entire month and bought on AH), so waiting a month for a new DMF to pop ain't bad at all. Long term investment is fine, random drops from a limited event that is yearly ain't fine. That reminds me I still lack the Toxic Wasteling...

    Me and event boss drops...argh. Still missing Headless Horseman, Kodo and Love Rocket mount on my main. Most of these events I have doing for 3ish years now.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, RNG was apparently on my side for once. I just opened my present to find a Lump of Coal inside, and thankfully it was on my pet collector. My heart hurts for all the pet collectors that won't be as lucky though, because up until 5 minutes ago I was ready to chuck my computer out a window in frustration. I really hope they rethink these systems.

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Saberella: Congrats on Lumpy!

    @Maru: "Long term investment" - great way to put it, and I would definitely be behind that. There needs to be some feeling of compensation and an end goal, even if it's just collecting bits and pieces to turn in at the end. Otherwise, the current holiday system is just one disappointment after another.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I agree with you on the RNG being a total pain in the patooter. lol I silently seethed as someone (it had to be a non-collector, of course) in guild chat commented that they got the clockwork bot the first day, then lumpy the second day, so they stopped doing the daily. I, on the other hand, got some copper racers every. single. day. I am also going on three years now without a kodo, love rocket, wasteling, and horseman mount (feels like around 75% of the 85's on my server has that darn thing).

    good luck to all of you in the upcoming holidays. here's to hoping we all get something to reward us for enduring our pain and suffering! lol

    ReplyDelete
  6. @Anonymous Jan 5: At some point Blizzard is going to need to rethink how the current holiday loot system works. It just doesn't fit well with the current holiday model. Hopefully something can be worked out before the next in-game event where a holiday loot bag is involved, or before the next holiday pet is implemented.

    ReplyDelete

Creative Commons License
Perks N Peeves by Quintessence is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.