World of Warcraft's cash shop is a contentious thing for World of Warcraft players. It features some extremely cool mounts at extremely high prices (averaging around $25 each) and some equally overpriced account services. Want to join your buds on a different server? That'll cost you another $25 on top of the base price for the game and its monthly subscription. But people won't stop making fun of its latest addition, an extremely colorful fairy costume complete with multicolored wings.
Called the Sprite Darter's Wings, this eight-piece costume set costs $20, but is free if you buy a six-month subscription (or currently have one). It's the first time Blizzard has ever sold armor sets in the cash shop, but I'm not sure what players hate more: the costume itself or the fact that you have to spend money to get it.
Since releasing yesterday, the trailer for the Sprite Darter's Wings has been downvoted on YouTube 17,000 times—far more than it has been upvoted—but I've also been having a laugh at all the memes mocking it on the WoW subreddit.
Let's help Blizz fund Shadowlands. from r/wow
Naturally, players are a little miffed that Blizzard is selling the costume instead of putting it into the game as something players can earn. Some of the most popular memes I've been seeing are targeting Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, who makes a grossly high salary of $30 million.
Blizzard when they release yet another thing to the cash shop from r/wow
Hey kids! Wanna buy some transmogs? from r/wow
While players are used to a lot of the cash shop mounts looking extra pretty, a few have also pointed out how frustrating it is that most regular armor sets don't have special openings for characters with ears or horns—which is pretty much half of WoW's races—but the Sprite Darter's Wings does.
This. THIS is what makes this feel so bad. from r/wow
"Transmog restrictions exist for armor types because people might have trouble telling classes apart" from r/wow
Many of the top posts on the WoW subreddit are mocking the costume, but not everyone hates it. I've seen quite a few comments from the news post on the WoW website and in the forums of people downright excited to dress like a magical fairy. But it is pretty funny how such a harmless thing has caused such a stir in the community.
After having to buff event rewards 4 times in a year, WoW director Ion Hazzikostas admits there's 'a pattern' and that 'we may tend to err on the conservative side'
World of Warcraft might not have invented the wheel, but it certainly made it popular—and 20 years on, the MMO titan has fundamentally changed gaming's DNA
