It's a bit of a quiet time for World of Warcraft as players wait for the release of its next expansion. In this pre-Midnight lull, there's not much to do except prepare yourself for the removal of combat mods and the sweeping class balance changes. This, along with it being WoW's 21st anniversary, is probably why Blizzard decided now is a good time to drop that $90 mount again.
That's right—the $90 dinosaur mount is back. Notorious for showing up right after a controversial balance patch last year, the Trader's Gilded Brutosaur has been released from its cage and it might be the reason WoW Tokens are currently sold out in the UK.
The mount was extraordinarily popular last time. Players were crowding the streets with it, which led some other players to despair as this absurdly priced microtransaction seemingly got more attention than a botched patch. That's not exactly the case this time, but there are still people who hate that it even exists.
Most of the fervor for the dinosaur mount is because it comes with an auction house and mailbox attached to it, unlike almost every other mount in the game. The only other option costs 5 million gold. In a world as big as WoW, it pays to have that kind of convenience.
I logged in to see if the streets were overrun by dinosaurs, but surprisingly that wasn't the case. I saw one player riding one, which might mean most people who wanted it already bought it the first time. That said, there are reports that WoW Tokens, the items you can buy for gold that grant game time, are sold out in the UK. Presumably, this is because people are racing to convert their gold into Battle.net balance to buy the mount.
WoW Token prices are ramping up in all regions, according to this site that tracks the prices. Right now in the US, it would cost you 2.2 million gold to buy the six WoW Tokens ($15 each) you need to afford the mount. That's far too rich for me, but for some people, farming gold for moments like this is the whole reason they play.
The $90 dinosaur mount will probably be responsible for inflating the WoW Token price up until it leaves the shop on January 5.
