World of Warcraft Review: Celestial Steed Mount

Since my tax money finally came in this week, I decided to get a little virtual treat for my World of Warcraft account, namely, the new Celestial Steed mount. Yes the same one that costs twenty five very real dollars and made headlines throughout the blogsphere.

Before we go further, the non-WoW fans might be a bit lost, so bear with me as I try to make this a relateable and enjoyable read for all. :)

World of Warcraft, as most have heard by now, is a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMO for short) that will delightfully suck your spare time away. In said black hole of fantasy awesome, players have rideable creatures called mounts to get them from place to place much faster than hoofing it. Depending on your experience level, some mounts are faster than others or they're special rewards for real world promos or quests in WoW.

Blizzard, the company behind WoW, offers several paid digital services along with extras that can be bought in the game, much like the micro payment systems of Second Life or Xbox Live. You spend real cash for a digital somethingeruther for your character/avatar (Celestial Steed in this case).

The Celestial Steed is a glowing Pegasus constellation (horse model variant) your WoW character can ride, but with a few twists. This mount speeds up and flies at higher levels. Up to now, you'd have to switch mounts as you progressed or went to flying areas. Now, you have a simpler option. Also, when you buy the steed, you pay once per Warcraft account. So, if you have, say four characters on one account (like me) everybody gets the mount verses paying $25 per character. In short it works like the special edition pets that WoW puts out now and then. Every character on the same account gets one.

One of my characters is a particular race called Draenei (Dran Eye), or as I like to call them, Romanian Space Demons. They basically look like rockin' purple Satrs with awesome accents. There's only one problem. I just don't care for Draenei native mounts, aka Elekks. Elekks are really just modified Real Life elephants, and they're bulky. Considering Night Elves ride the equivalent to sabre tooth tigers, old Romanian Space Jumbo just isn't for me. Sorry pal, but no peanut love for you. Back to the space circus.

Since I've been counting down the points until I get exalted status with ANY other race, and dying for ANY other kind of mount, this was a good opportunity to check out the Celestial Steed. Was it worth it? As a dedicated (or is that committed?) WoW player and fan, yes, the capabilities you get out of the model in the game were worth the price tag. It was a welcome change for my Alliance Priest, and it added a nice equestrian alternative for my Horde Warlock. The latter, incidentally, already stables a skeletal horse and a flaming horse ala Carter Slade in Ghost Rider.

All things considered, Blizzard did a good job with the model and gave a good value for the money. Bottom line, I will enjoy my Celestial Steed for a long time.