Blizzard’s in-game store, with its wide selection of mounts and pets, is something we take for granted now. It’s amusing to recall how, about ten years ago, Blizzard cautiously launched a shop with just a few items, sparking heated debates on the forums.
It all began in the fall of 2009 with the Pet Store, which initially offered a baby Kel’Thuzad and a pandaren monk. At the time, this didn’t stir up strong emotions, as pets were purely cosmetic. However, the first mount sold for real money, the Celestial Steed, was a different story.
Previous: WoW Player Diary. Part 13. Stranger in a stranger land
When I first saw news about this mount on MMO Champion, I figured Blizzard was planning a small surprise for an Ulduar anniversary – perhaps adding this beautiful, translucent horse to Algalon’s loot table with a tiny drop chance to revive interest in the instance. I never imagined it would appear in their digital store. But it did.
The excitement around this horse was immense. News sites reported queues of tens of thousands of people eager to buy it. Yes, surprisingly, many were willing to spend real money on a striking collection of pixels.
Soon after, I flew into Ironforge and witnessed a funny, yet telling, scene: proud owners of these “star horses” were lined up before the main bridge. Players on regular mounts quickly gathered, and a classic online confrontation began. One side shouted things like, “Shitty mounts!” and “Impale them!”, while the Celestial Steed owners retorted with, “Envy quietly, bums!” and “What are you angry about, you poor people?” Some of the “bums” then mounted their mammoths – which were very expensive back then – and used them to block the view of the “rich” players.
Some worried that Blizzard was subtly introducing “pay-to-win” elements, though this fear was a bit overblown. After all, “card mounts” from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game had existed since The Burning Crusade. These rare code cards, found in TCG packs, could be redeemed for items like a ghostly tiger from a goblin in Booty Bay. This tiger mount was Bind-on-Equip (BoE), meaning it could be sold on the auction house. The physical cards themselves could cost 500-600, and the in-game mounts fetched hundreds of thousands of gold. I remember one player on Gordunni selling the “blue” spectral tiger for 200,000 gold before Cataclysm. So, a perfectly legal way to convert real money to in-game gold (by buying a card and selling the mount) already existed.
Truthfully, those TCG mounts were only accessible to the very wealthy. The Celestial Steed, however, offered a “budget” option: for just 20 euros or 25 dollars, any player could own a beautiful, unique horse.
Cataclysm alpha
Leaks and rumors about upcoming WoW expansions are a favorite topic on fan sites, especially during the latter half of an expansion when in-game activities dwindle. I see these “leaks” falling into two categories: fan-created theories and content, and information deliberately “leaked” by Blizzard as part of their PR strategy. I’m convinced Blizzard strategically releases information this way, and it was particularly noticeable during the Cataclysm hype cycle.
Remember, the official Cataclysm announcement was in August 2009. Just a week prior, MMO-Champion published information that almost perfectly mirrored the official reveal.
Then, in early May 2010, another “scandal” erupted. First, a screenshot surfaced showing Deathwing perched on the Stormwind bridge. Shortly after, the entire alpha client for the expansion “leaked” online. Boubouille, the admin of MMO-Champion, posted a flood of screenshots taken from this “sandbox” client. These images revealed many interesting details: new zone maps, a volcano in Ashenvale, the goblin island of Kezan, a flooded Darkshore and Thousand Needles, a re-greened Blasted Lands, and a goblin-modified Azshara.
A couple of days later, Blizzard “officially” reprimanded Boubouille. He feigned contrition and removed the screenshots from his site. But by 2010, anything interesting that hit the internet, even for five minutes, was quickly saved and spread across countless hard drives and less scrupulous websites. Fans got another massive batch of images to discuss while eagerly awaiting beta access.
Meanwhile, life on the live servers continued. Players were still running the heavily nerfed Icecrown Citadel (ICC). Towards the end of June, Blizzard rolled out Patch 3.3.5, a filler patch.
Patch 3.3.5
(Released June 22, 2010)
Experienced players understand the monotony of farming the same raid for over six months. By the summer of 2010, ICC had become tiresome for many. To offer a brief distraction, Blizzard released a “raid filler”: the Ruby Sanctum. This instance, featuring three mini-bosses and the dragon Halion, was intended to briefly challenge raiders weary of ICC’s icy halls. In reality, a single new boss means one lockout to master it, followed by endless farming. However, Patch 3.3.5 was notable for more than just this.
This patch introduced Real ID, a Battle.net feature allowing players to connect with friends across different Blizzard games. As the name implies, Real ID displayed your actual name to your friends. Regardless of which alt you logged in on, your Real ID friends would see it was you.
That, in itself, was mostly fine. But when Blizzard announced that players would only be able to post on the official forums using their Real ID, perhaps the biggest whine in WoW’s history erupted. The official forums went into meltdown. One Blizzard employee tried to demonstrate that using your real name online wasn’t scary by posting under his own. Within hours, kind forum-goers had figured out his personal details and address, and he was inundated with unsolicited pizza deliveries. After that incident, Blizzard quickly reversed its decision on mandatory Real ID forum posting and dropped the issue.
Today, using your real name on social media is common, so this whole episode might seem a bit funny. But back then, online anonymity was still a thing.
“Invite a Friend or Yourself”
In a previous video, I explained why I left my guild. I should add that, frankly, I was also burned out on raiding. Seven months of raiding the same instance, three or four times a week for several hours each session, had become a chore. I was tired of ICC, tired of living by raid cooldowns, and tired of the whole gear progression race.
The one bright spot during this period was an Ulduar achievement run focused on Yogg-Saron. That was genuinely fun. Our group, decked out in heroic epics from ICC, spent an entire evening wiping on the “Hedgehog” (Yogg-Saron) trying to defeat him without any Keeper assistance. We eventually succeeded, but our raid leader, Dollmaster, nearly lost his voice shouting at us.
Regardless, I decided to quit raiding for a while.
Around the same time, another aspect of the game caught my serious interest: crafting and playing the auction house.
The thought of leveling another character from 1 to 80 the traditional way still made me shudder; I had no desire to repeat that grind two or three more times. So, I invested in a second WoW account and used the “Recruit-A-Friend” (RAF) feature to invite myself. By mid-June, I was happily dual-boxing a pair of paladins across Azeroth, mastering the quirky fun of playing on two screens. These paladins hit level 60 in about three weeks thanks to the RAF experience bonus. My next RAF pair was a warrior and a warlock, and leveling them went even more smoothly with the experience I’d gained. As a reward for using RAF, I got to choose a special item, and I picked the X-53 Rocket – the only two-seater flying mount available at the time.
In short, for a staunch “altophobe” like me (someone who disliked leveling multiple characters), the “Give Blizzard another $15 a month” RAF promotion allowed me to experiment with different class combinations without the months-long time investment.
This experience reinforced my belief that WoW’s solo content was incredibly simple. To reach the level cap, you really only needed to know a couple of abilities and equip whatever dropped from mobs or quests, without even bothering with heirlooms. There was no need to consult theorycrafting sites for optimal talent builds. Minor build errors or incorrect enchants had little impact on solo questing.
Ultimately, I ended up with several alts that later formed the backbone of my “candle factory” (gold-making enterprise). My draenei paladin, Akarina, took up Tailoring and Enchanting – a logical choice, as leveling characters generated a lot of cloth, which could be crafted into items and then disenchanted. On my human mage, Teraphina, I experimented with various professions before settling on Enchanting and Jewelcrafting.
It’s worth noting that mastering professions and trading on a high-population server’s auction house became a genuinely engaging activity. Even during the typical summer slowdown of 2010, the Auction House (AH) was bustling, and you could buy or sell almost anything. That’s a clear advantage of playing on a “top server.” Despite high competition and many “nerds” camping the AH 24/7, I carved out a niche for myself that provided a steady stream of gold. Professions in WotLK were well-implemented, and I genuinely enjoyed this solo pursuit, earning around a thousand gold a day from trading various odds and ends.
Later, in the fall, armed with knowledge about upcoming Cataclysm profession requirements, I leveled Sehara (my main crafting alt), Akarina, and Teraphina to the minimum levels needed to learn new Cataclysm recipes and schematics. Subsequently, Sehara and Akarina became my loyal companions, transferring with me from server to server, while Teraphina eventually “rolled Horde” and became my main character during the Mists of Pandaria expansion.
Cataclysm beta test
Gurrikap, the admin of wowraider.ru, gave me a Cataclysm beta key around mid-July 2010. It was a truly royal gift; I hadn’t even dreamed of getting into the beta and generally didn’t participate in such things. Honestly, I was completely surprised and initially overwhelmed. Firstly, I had to upgrade my internet plan, as the beta client was thirteen gigabytes, and my monthly data cap was only eight. This was solvable; upgrading to thirty gigabytes wasn’t too expensive, only about a twenty hryvnia difference.
Secondly, my in-game plans leading up to Cataclysm’s launch had to change. I decided to focus heavily on the beta after leveling my alts and once my 90-day RAF period expired. Again, I’d never done anything like this, but the chance to experience the new content before release was incredibly valuable from an information-gathering perspective.
Once I logged into Mekkatorque-EU, the designated European test server, the chat channels instantly reminded me of the good old days on Moonglade, where I’d played for a year and a half. Of course, beta content wasn’t about finding groups or selling gear, but the atmosphere was still positive. People were actively discussing the game: quests, bugs, lore, and their impressions of various moments. Seeing comments like, “OMG, It’s Nordrassil!” was common. If you asked a question, you generally received a helpful answer, not mockery. The overall vibe was businesslike yet pleasant and comfortable – a stark contrast to the often-toxic environment I’d grown accustomed to on Gordunni.
Players from all over Europe were there, speaking a mix of languages in chat – English, German, Russian, Spanish, French – and no one seemed to have a problem with it. It was quite an international atmosphere, and it was sometimes amusing when someone would start addressing you in their native tongue. Guilds often formed along national lines.
As for the beta itself, after about a week of exploring the new content, my impression was that Cataclysm was still very raw. Two high-level zones, Twilight Highlands and Uldum, were completely unfinished and inaccessible. Only three 5-player dungeons were open. Crafting was also incomplete: reforging trainers were present but non-functional, and there was no training available for the new 525 profession skill cap. Archaeology trainers were nowhere to be found. Serious bugs persisted, like one preventing players with two crafting professions from learning new class talents until one profession was dropped. Quests were buggy, and many felt like generic “kill and fetch” placeholders, unlikely to make it to the final release. I couldn’t believe, for example, that an epic event like summoning aid from the demigods would boil down to a simple grindy quest chain. Even the WotLK starting zones had felt more engaging. Talent trees were still being iterated on, and the new “Mastery” stat wasn’t yet working. Female worgen models weren’t even playable. In short, everything felt very much “in progress.”
And then, like a bolt from the blue in early July, came the shocking news: the “Path of the Titans” system would not be in Cataclysm at launch. This meant a major advertised feature, intended to provide an alternative progression path for max-level characters, was being cut. Archaeology was consequently demoted to just another secondary profession.
Next: WoW Player Diary. Part 15. The end of WotLK era
