So...about that white magitek mount

[Berethos]

An argument to people screaming that it's optional? Yep, citing other MMOs that have went down the same route, the same group of people claimed it was only optional stuff and that the majority was still in the game, and that changed fast.

The few subscription-required MMOs that I know that have gone down the same route with a cash shop (it's not a long list after all) haven't changed from having the majority still be in-game.

Those that shifted the lion's share of stuff to optional purchases via cash shop are pretty much all games that also shifted to a F2P model, wherein the cash shop becomes the main source of revenue instead of subscriptions.

Now, most mounts in game are a literal reskin (not even adding extra armour in some cases).

That's not exactly a new thing. Even as far back as The Burning Crusade most mounts added were reskins of a select set. Netherwings were just reskinned drake models and most options were simple recolors. On occasion they have made greater variations and the occasional unique model (usually attached to a raid boss - something they are still doing with the current one for killing Heroic or Mythic Archimonde), but since 2004 most in-game available mounts have been reskins of a specific set of the already available mounts. The only store-bought mount that I can think of that doesn't already have an equivalent version in the game (with reskins of it also available from various sources in the game) is the armored bat mount.

So yeah...WoW doing more reskins than new mounts is almost a decade old at this point.

[Colorful]

snip

I'm aware that WoW is very reskin happy (along with FFXIV and its recolours of the unicorn mount), the majority were reskins yes, but there were a few new models here and there which would eventually be re skinned. Now just about every unique mount that isn't a boar or a wolf is placed in the cash shop, the Siege of Orgrimmar raid mount is a Kor'kron Annihilator. The moose mount from Mythic Archimonde was also intended to be a cash shop mount, but it was changed after much outburst (at least they listen). If you don't mind me asking, what are the equivalents of the Winged Guardian, Enchanted Fey Dragon, Swift Windsteed, Grinning Reaver, and the Warforged Nightmare?

[Berethos]

If you don't mind me asking, what are the equivalents of the Winged Guardian, Enchanted Fey Dragon, Swift Windsteed, Grinning Reaver, and the Warforged Nightmare?

Grinning Reaver is a reskin of the bug mount from the Scepter of Azj'Aqir, Winged Guardian is saber mount with wings and a different face and bits of armor, Enchanted Fey Dragon is a reskinned drake (the same way the various drake mounts have been since the Netherwing mounts), the Swift Windsteed is a reskinned Talbuk, and the Warforrged Nightmare is simply a horse reskinned with different armor.

Now they may not have an equivalent that is nothing more than recolor, but all of them are reskins of existing personal mounts available in the game...save the bat mount (and even that one has long been a flight path mount type).

[Colorful]

snip

Incredibly smart rekins then (other than the Talbuk, don't know how I missed that), but I wouldn't consider a Drake mount to be an alternative to the Enchanted Fey Dragon, nor would I consider a horse as an alternative to the Warforged Nightmare. Would be in similar fashion to calling Kirin an alternative Sleipnir, their base skeleton is the same but otherwise it has a different model and textures too.