How do you feel when your hard-earned rewards become much more easily available?

There are few feelings more fulfilling in gaming than finishing a long series of quests or a particularly difficult challenge and receiving a fantastic reward, be it a powerful new weapon or an impressive means of transportation or even just some snazzy new threads. But when that very reward that you worked so hard to earn suddenly becomes available for significantly less effort, it can trigger a whole series of emotions.

I felt much like the rest of the World of Warcraft community when the Plunderstorm game mode dropped this year. It was a rich tapestry of emotion all on its own — excitement for something completely different, amusement at the novelty of the first few parrot rides into Arathi Highlands, and eventual disillusionment and indifference to the whole idea.

I was ready to pack up my swashbuckling sabres and head back to Valdrakken to finish out my Dragonflight bucket list when I took one more look at the reward track. And there, close to the absolute pinnacle, was a reward that I instantly decided was worth however much effort it took: a dragonriding parrot.

We had already heard that dragonriding would be coming to nearly all flying mounts with the launch of The War Within, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to grind out the plunder to earn Polly Roger more than any other reward in recent memory. After a slow start to the event, I was all-in: looking up strategies, maximizing my plunder-per-match, and making sure to sign on for the daily rewards no matter what was going on in my personal life.

I managed it, although without every single hotfix to the drop rate and a few late nights I would have come up short. And yet this was one of those rewards that was that much more sweet because it came from a hyper-focused effort. I felt proud every time I saddled up on my hook-footed parrot to glide across the Ohn’ahran Plains.

Shortly after the announcement of Plunderstorm’s upcoming return, we got our first look at how the event rewards will work this time around. Many players have expressed gratitude that the linear renown track is being replaced with a currency that allows players to focus on the category of reward they most want. You won’t need to grind your way up a ladder earning pets and mounts if all you care about is adding to your pirate wardrobe.

To my horror, there will not only be a recolor of my hard-earned Polly Roger mount available in the new Plunderstore, but Polly Roger itself. Had my efforts to grind out the renown track in 2024 failed, I could have simply waited until 2025’s iteration and played a dozen or so matches to purchase the parrot.

This makes me feel a whole range of emotions, with most of them falling under the umbrella of “bad.” All that time I spent sneaking around the Plunderstorm map opening the same six treasure chests could have been spent on something I enjoyed a lot more, and I certainly would have if I thought there was any chance that my parrot prize would come back at a later date in an easily purchasable package.

So what’s your hard-earned reward horror story? How did it make you feel to find out that your rare mount, weapon, or battle pet would become much easier to obtain after your long grind was completed?