Fans raise a ruckus over the paywalling of World of Warcraft Forever’s Skyborne

As World of Warcraft Forever continues to dominate the conversation among fans after its BlizzCon reveal, another round of chatter is quickly gaining momentum: the matter of the Skyborne race, or as one fan put called them the “cash elves,” which is locked behind a paywall and not included with the upcoming variant or game subscription.

Three different bundles are being offered that include the Skyborne and access to their starting zone of Zephras Isle: a heroic pack for $30 that also includes a mount, housing items, and cosmetics; a $60 epic pack that also includes access to Forever’s beta, 30 days of sub time, and more cosmetics on top; and a limited-time $80 pack that has all of the previous editions’ goodies and a copy of WarCraft III: Reforged. The Battle.net store page further clarifies that access to the Skyborne requires a purchase of one of these packs and is not part of a subscription, though maintaining a sub will include access to the rest of Forever otherwise.

This decision has ignited many discussions on the forums as well as across Reddit, with some players calling the move scummy, a dangerous precedent, or thoughtless since the race is seen as lore-breaking, while others argue that those who don’t like the Skyborne should just simply not buy it, consider it a “tradeoff” to maintain Forever, or have already made up their mind to not play as blue belfs to begin with.

In the end, this seems to boil down to value for money, which remains an extremely subjective point in many cases considering things offered in other MMORPGs — spaceships in Elite Dangerous or Star Citizen come quickly to mind — but there’s also something to be said about whether sales of the bundles will encourage the money folks at Blizzard to push similar packs or paywall unlocks. Either way, this matter is likely not going to go away anytime soon.

sources: official site, Battle.net, official forums (1, 2, 3, 4), Reddit (1, 2, 3)