OctoWow - Forums

Removing the Gnome Enlargement Balm was one of the negative changes that turtle implemented, as it was in-game for quite some time. My guess is that it seemed to be part of their move to try to "clean up" some of the more-goofy/buggy things available in light of their cleaner look towards the end, and their shift towards their GMs being both more numerous and less active in public.

With the recent patch, the vendor that had this had it removed from his inventory, probably due to just parity updating with the "real" 1.18. But I think people have a lot of fun with items like this and the horde equivalent (that makes tauren shrink down) so these items being readded to the respective vendors would be a good change.

Personally, this was one of the few indulgences I had that added a bit of levity to otherwise boring tasks done in town.

It's seriously one of the better toy items, it has interesting interactions with non-gnomes that made it a very fun mechanic interaction hunt and kept me around in Turt until they removed it. It's also a really nice RP tool as well.

I have a new theory as to why Turtle removed it, and I'm hoping Octo can take a different path.

Namely, that on Turtle, certain Large Mounts like the spider tank were prevented from being used in SW, due to the balm's effect making them disproportionately large.

However, as time went on, Turtle added more Large-size Mounts, both as drops and in the shop. I believe that this presented them with a choice:
A: Block people from being able to use their big, rare and/or expensive (and often obnoxious) mount from being able to flaunt it in the largest public gathering area in the game.
B: Remove a (harmlessly) slightly-buggy for-fun item that was in-game in early early OG vanilla, which can be used anywhere.

Turtle chose option B, I am sure because of their increasing trend towards being more "cleancut" by the end of things.

But I am sure that Option A is really the best one, since even without the balm said mounts can be disruptive in SW (blocking mailboxes, NPCs, just being an eyesore) due to their base level girth. And even without the balm, firewater and elixirs of giant growth can be cheap enough for the raiders who are most likely to obtain said mounts that the kind of person who would be obnoxious with the balm anyway, will still be obnoxious without it.