FOMO… hmmm… How could that be legislatable? F (fear) is an emotion and can be felt over anything and nothing and under all circumstances. Sounds strange.
I see it more as GOGU (grind or give up) or maybe POG (pay or grind). But whatever it is we’re evaluating and legislating needs to be of a tangible or mechanical nature. As soon as emotions are brought into it things fog up pretty quickly - even becoming undefinable all together.
As far as directed grinding goes the jury is out (for me) until I experience the game and it’s new features. At first glance it seems OK enough. I mean we pretty much already have that. You want legendary armor? Look at the crafting menus to see what’s needed, then go grind for it (X amount of fur, X amount of thick hide, X amount of iron, X amount of a special item (maybe Dragon Bone or another) and you get it. You want a cultural esthetic piece of equipment? Now on top of the directed grinding you also have to pay money. The only exception is if you did all the grinding and manufacturing in advance.
But isn’t this prelusive grinding something that needs addressing? Isn’t it largely true that PvE players at least, build up these massive stores of materials and then soon feel like they’ve done everything in the game and there’s nothing left to accomplish? Mr. Aspargus details just such a notion which lead him to leave the game for several years. And most readers here have heard many many people saying the same things in the past.
I don’t honestly see much difference between what we were shown of the battle pass and what we have now - except that it’s structured differently and directed. My guess would be that these items will come in round-robin distribution so I’m not even sure FOMO applies at all - if it’s even definable in the first place. Feeling bored, not sure what to do next? Check the Battle Pass tab and see if there’s anything worthy of your time - it’s an option.
It’s an option I will likely be ignoring 95% of the time simply because I care very little (about 5%) for what my character looks like etc… I care about stats and abilities mostly (95%) so I can dominate in battle or grind quickly and efficiently when I need to. I will probably be using the BP for the building pieces but even that looks like it might have to be ignored: “In the battle pass we have sorcery themed building pieces which are built to compliment and supplement the existing base building sets.” So if I can’t use them without buying DLC then yup, it’s a no thanks from me.
I know this thread is specifically about the Battle Pass but keep in mind as you read and reply here that the BP is only one small part of the FREE 3.0 update. There’s teleportation, air travel, looks like maybe ANOTHER form of “fast travel” as well, a new undead theme with mounts, armor?, NPCs? and Thralls?, activities, like that witchdoctor event they did last October, Sorcerer abilities, interesting corruption states, an in-game shop (even though it’s menu driven and not map location 
which is sad and a half), armor “face lifting” which should make PvP especially more interesting, a new KNOWLEDGE tab which seems like a rethink of the Abilities tab, improved building mechanics, and so on… lots of goodies.
There are so many other goodies that it makes me wonder if this opt-in Battle Pass thing is even worthy of my time to consider very deeply.
