Quote Originally Posted by ReiMakoto View Post
It is the only metric of measurable success
I think this definition of "success" is questionable. I haven't gotten the mount but I've played a number of hours of blue mage and I've had a good time. I would consider that, in some capacity, to be a success. And I think the claim that my fun was illegitimate because I don't yet have the shiniest horse would be arbitrary gatekeeping. Not that that's happening here, but it is the general thrust of the diablo-clone MMO is it not? An endlessly increasing number attached to the "hardest" available set of monsters to fight, completion of which becomes the only goal? The push for class streamlining meaning that anything outside the most recently developed 10% of content is literally untouched in favor of what is essentially a repeatable rotation simulator? Honestly I appreciate the class because it's a pushback against that, which is necessary, because MMO's can be more.

The availability of it as the only measurable metric is also untrue. Getting better data from a player end would require more comprehensive polling than anyone should put into the game, but the development team can absolutely measure how many people have completed the story, how many people have completed carnivale, the rate at which certain skills are learned or used, how often people do the weekly entries in carnivale or the log, etc.