While World of Warcraft Forever is heading to what is likely a monumental release on November 4, some retail World of Warcraft players have been angry at the state of the game, and a recent mount has become a flashpoint for that frustration.
Blizzard released the ‘Hot Motocross Bunmover 4000’ mount as part of its November Trading Post, and it’s just a cute little tricycle with an oven attached to the back to tie in with Thanksgiving. The problem, though, is that its wheels aren’t animated. They also clip through the ground, making it look like it’s just sliding around on the floor. In the grand scheme of things, this would have been a minor blip, but the mount has ignited player frustrations that have been simmering for the last year since Midnight released.
Back when Midnight launched, everything seemed great, and it reviewed well. Here at IGN, we gave it a 9, with reviewer Len Hafer saying, “Enthralling zones and a satisfying endgame loop carry World of Warcraft: Midnight from high point to high point.” But just like any MMO, the real test is the updates that follow release.
Those updates have been marked by rapid-fire content with ‘invasions’ that feel like they’ve been copied and pasted from previous seasons and lackluster writing, culminating in the current patch, which kills off a beloved Horde character pretty much out of the blue. So, when Blizzard released the Hot Motocross Bunmover 4000, it took all of that frustration and gave it a confectionary symbol.
Reddit user iamShorteh posted a screenshot of the mount on Reddit, captioned, “Attached: image of the mount, this is how the wheels remain permanently on the Hot Motocross Bunmover 4000. Literally unplayable.” Then, user audioshaman replied, “But Holly Langdale assured me that the 8 week patch cadence has had zero impact on quality.” That was followed by user gladfanatic saying, “They straight up don’t care anymore in retail lol.”
That eight-week patch cadence started back in Dragonflight as a way to eliminate the long content droughts that the MMO had in past expansions. While it was fine for a while, that schedule has grown problematic over the last couple of expansions, with bugs and repeated content plaguing nearly every patch. It’s little wonder, then, why WoW Forever developers told me last week that the Classic+ mode would be opting for a slower update schedule.
But there are some WoW fans that think the problems run deeper than WoW’s update schedule. User Jocic posted, “Genuinely, what is happening? At this point, you can’t even use the eight-week cadence as an excuse for them. How is EVERYTHING broken?” Even on Twitter, Windows Central Executive Editor Jez Corden retweeted a video of the mount, saying, “Blizz has really phoned it in with World of Warcraft: Retail.”
However, while people are frustrated with the state of retail, World of Warcraft has been through harder times. The game has survived the lows of Warlords of Draenor and Shadowlands, even when Classic launched right before the latter. Retail WoW will probably live on through these current quality issues, but hopefully the backlash will at least get Blizzard to at least consider changing up the speed at which it’s pumping out new content. It’s time to pull the ripcord.
At least in the interim, WoW Forever is on the eve of its full release. Despite the problems with its name reservation system last week, it’s shaping up to be a massive game. Even in the beta, WoW Forever devs were shocked at how many people were playing, and once the floodgates open on Wednesday, those numbers are only going to go up.