The importance of object permanence

[Ramue]

This is my in vain attempt to preach in to the ether as I have done a few times before on other subjects to no success.
But a particular recent change has killed my drive to play twow for one very small yet hugely important reason so I need to speak on it.
And that is object permanence.

Taking away the azure armored drake is a Pandora's box turtle just opened.
With it's opening all that myself and many other players will feel when we look at what we have achieved myself having earned some real cool accolades from my over 2+ years playing on turtle wow is apathy.
Which recent choices have made it clear that all we have earned and achieved can be taken away on a mere feeling just from this one incident, and that is a experience that has cut my motivation and enthusiasm for the server to near zero levels and I am sure will for many others.

This isn't about the mount itself or even about how cool or uncool the replacement is, but rather the message this sends to myself and every player on the server with the fact the drake was taken away completely.
And that message is, all your achievements no matter what it is can be taken away at the merest of twow dev's whims it is a horrible feeling to have and only sows distrust between players and staff as apathy grows from more stunts like this.

Do with this what you will, the damage is done, but I beg you please don't let it happen again, I still love this server and I don't want to fall out of love because of something like this.

And please have a nice day who ever is reading this. Thank you for taking the time to read it.

[Qixel]

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time it's happened and probably won't be the last. Over the last few years, but especially in the last year, I've had several things removed from my characters. Wider ranging things like outfits from the old transmogrification system and narrower things like trinkets and armor sets and cosmetics, some of which I paid for with turtle tokens. When I brought up my complaints, I'm either told they'll come back later in another form, such as the revantusk troll weapon skins I planned to use for transmog, or that they no longer fit the vision for the server, such as the hidden armor set I bought with tokens. I agree that the knowledge that everything you've worked for can be taken away at a whim is crushing. Even if others don't get it, or weren't affected, everyone has something they're working for, and suddenly being confronted with the reality that it doesn't matter hurts.

[Striderbrah]

It's a good thing. Imagine if Blizzard had deleted flying mounts in TBC, the whole game could have been salvaged right then and there. A blue drake in Ogrimmar looks dumb.

[Ramue]

It's a good thing. Imagine if Blizzard had deleted flying mounts in TBC, the whole game could have been salvaged right then and there. A blue drake in Ogrimmar looks dumb.

Doesn't matter what you think of the drake, point is people had it and for some for over a year. Taking it away is the worst choice.
The drake could be a clown car with an obnoxious blaring horn and I would still be just as upset about it's removal.
MMO's are different, you can't just take stuff away 100% like a sequel to a single player game even blizz knew that.
That is why they never took flying away, once it was added people would riot if it was removed.
So instead blizz did what they could to limit it without outright removing it.

Once the player has that feeling of anything being subject of removal from their collection it kills their motivation to get anything and in turn in a game that is really about collecting kills motivation to login and play.

[Calkey]

I think this sets an ugly precedent of arbitrary removals of notable items cherished by the people. I can't see why there isn't a poll and a list of mounts that we can vote for as replacement?

[Mac]

Unless an item is absolutely utterly broken, you shouldn’t really remove it. Just make it no longer obtainable, but let those who obtained it keep it. Then it becomes a neat little rarity, a part of the server lore and history. Everquest did this a ton back in the day, and it really honestly added to the experience.

That goes double for items bought from the shop. They paid you real cash for those items, let them keep them.