World of Warcraft: The War Withinhas been celebrating the game’s 20th anniversary with a host of special events. On top of all the in-game fanfare, the shop has introduced some brand-new cosmetic goodies to accompany the festivities. One such newcomer is the Trader’s Gilded Brutosaur, an immense sauropod commemorating every past expansion.
Despite store mounts being a longtime staple at this point, the black brutosaur riled up many ofWorld of Warcraft’s players. There’s a whole world of context to this dinosaur that isn’t immediately obvious, and the repercussions of its arrival have been felt far and wide. To understand this mount’s impact on the game, one has to travel back in time, some five years ago.
Battle For Azeroth’s Brutosaur Was a Literal Game Changer
Battle for Azeroth was the current expansion, featuring a new continent full of prehistoric reptiles. Players scrambled to collect dozens of new mounts, many of which were dinosaurs. Two kinds of dinosaurs were not made into mounts, namely the devilsaur (basically a T. Rex) and the brutosaur, simply because they were too large. But that all changed when the Mighty Caravan Brutosaur showed up.
This green sauropod, affectionately known to the community as “Long Boi,” was one of a kind. By far the largest mount in the game, it also came with two NPCs. Other mounts such as the Grand Expedition Yak and the Traveler’s Tundra Mammoth had simple repair or transmog vendors, but the Caravan Brutosaur had anAuction House NPCattached, something never seen before.
An Auction House Mount Is Worth Its Weight In Gold
Accessing theAuction House on demandoffered players an incredible advantage. Those who constantly work auctions for marginal profits could now park their dinosaur next to a mailbox and sell or bid to their heart’s content. Speed is everything in such a rapid economy, especially since the Auction House is shared between all servers.
On top of this, raiders canquickly buyWoWitemsthey need in the middle of the action, eliminating long trips to capital cities. This shaves minutes off competitive raiders’ times, giving them a distinct advantage. The new 90$ mount took it even further, providing its own mailbox and eliminating the need for mailbox toys and pets.
The Mighty Caravan Brutosaur cost players 5 milliongold in Battle for Azeroth, and once the pre-patch for the following expansion arrived, this dinosaur mount became unobtainable. If that in-game gold is transferred from WoW Tokens (which go for $20 each), it went for around $500 in BFA, a princely sum to be sure. Now, the only way to get it is at the Black Market Auction House, and when it does appear there, it goes for 10 million, the current gold cap.
Why WoW’s New Brutosaur Has Set the Playerbase Alight
The Trader’s Caravan Brutosaur costs $90, which, as players quickly noticed, is an absolute steal when compared to its predecessor. When turned into Tokens, that comes out to around a million gold, or at least it did for a short time. Players quickly caught on to this loophole, and theprice of WoW Tokenshas rocketed, likely to increase even more as players clamber to get hold of such a useful mount.
Causing the WoW Token to increase in price so drastically will have a huge effect on the game as a whole. A significant number of playerspay for theirWorld of Warcraftsubscriptionsusing in-game gold to purchase tokens. A single token redeems one month of game time, and players who already can’t afford a subscription will feel immense pressure as the gold price of the Token swells.
World of Warcraft’s economyrelies heavily on the WoW Token, as its ebb and flow can impact the prices of all the Auction House’s goods. It’s difficult to imagine that a simple mount could have such an effect on the game, but the demand for tokens has far outgrown its supply, leaving players in a chaotic race to salvage what they can.
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In this opening chapter of The Worldsoul Saga, you’ll journey through never-before-seen subterranean worlds filled with hidden wonders and lurking perils, down to the dark depths of the Nerubian empire, where the inscrutable Harbinger of the Void has gathered her arachnid forces to bring Azeroth to its knees.
