None of those other products or services are required to play the game. They're an optional choice, or an optional convenience. Don't want to re-level a character on a new server, you can transfer it instead, if you choose. Other alts? Either leave them, re-level, or wait until you want to move them. It comes down to choice and convenience for each player. Some folks take the pay options, some don't. And it doesn't matter in the long run except to their own wallets or how they chose to spend X number of weeks of free time.

The price tag also means a throttle on several of those services so people aren't swapping names/appearance/race/faction/server willy-nilly and causing more server stress as things are shuffled around. It's rather streamlined now, sure, but if people could just say "oh, I think I'll change servers again" every weekend when a raid didn't go their way, it'd be ridiculous.

The store mounts and pets are fun side projects, not required as there are multiple enough critters in game. Some do come with charity options which makes them worth it to some people; I got the plush gryphon as a gift for a friend's small child because she saw someone else's and adored it. But no one's twisting anyone's arm to get them, unless one is that desperate to play "keep-up with the Joneses" in a virtual world.

And of course, heaven forbid that a business want to make a profit so they can continue to run and create products people obviously want, or pay the employees who put the time and effort into programming and creating those optional services to run as smoothly as they do. I mean. Jeez. The nerve, amirite?

I swear sometimes people are so used to pirating and grabbing cheap sales deals that anything sold at a regular, even reasonable, price is a personal affront if they can't just have all the accessories for free, too. I mean, I can get a lot of games cheaper on Steam too, but for some, I'd rather have the actual packaging with whatever extras come with that price (or even just to buy through a local store as enough places around here have shut down lately). That's my choice. If you don't want to pay the extra, optional fees for stuff--then don't.

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