Blizzard not mentioning battle balance tokens

[cuafpr]

It doesn't have an effect to crash the market but to completely ignore that it has any is also wrong. While it's true blizzard is not creating gold but shuffling it instead, you need to keep in mind that tokens are region wide while economies are local to the realm. My 50k in realm A will be shuffled into realm B where the seller is. That's 50k magically injecting into the economy.

besides "joined" realms though you can't buy a token from realm to another? So its not like 50k from Stormrage server is suddenly going to be on Illidan server? (totally random servers and no clue if they are joined already or not...)

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What's a battle balance token?

Better not be pay to win.

theory is you can use it to by things such as name changes, xfers, and even boxes in other games like OW. not P2W

[Zahgaan]

besides "joined" realms though you can't buy a token from realm to another? So its not like 50k from Stormrage server is suddenly going to be on Illidan server? (totally random servers and no clue if they are joined already or not...)

Joined realms have zero effect on tokens. It's solely based on region only. A person in Stormrage can sell a token to a buyer in Area 52 as an example. Keep in mind though, gold shuffles between realms existed pre token days (character transfer, pet cages, etc). Local economies can handle such influxes and still be stable enough to function as we've seen through the years.

[cuafpr]

Joined realms have zero effect on tokens. It's solely based on region only. A person in Stormrage can sell a token to a buyer in Area 52 as an example. Keep in mind though, gold shuffles between realms existed pre token days (character transfer, pet cages, etc). Local economies can handle such influxes and still be stable enough to function as we've seen through the years.

ah ok i get what you are saying now... didn't put 2 and 2 together, 2 much damn email shit for the CEO blarg. But yeah person A on stormrage puts a token on the AH, and technically the person buying it could be from Illidan. Never really thought about, figured it was the same server/group like other AH items.

[Fang7986]

You realize that has to do more with Blizzard not finishing achievement metas in respective expansions (or just cutting expansions short) and not "saving them for later", right?

yeah that's why the eclipse dragonhawk model datamined in BC wasn't added until timewalking cause of acheivements

[Dracullus]

I think they are really careful and still discussing this. Now system is balanced:

1) Token is worth lot of gold, more people buy token, less people get sub for gold.
2) Token value goes down, less people buy token, more people get sub for gold.
3) Repeat

If for token you can buy many stuff, token gold value may go up to the sky and never drop again to reasonable level (and yeah, now it's reasonable because this is how market works - if people wouldn't buy abonament for gold, price would go down - players in Europe have more gold than players in America apparently). So it may turn out that almost nobody will get free sub for gold anymore beside few players that play auction house. And of course you will have shit ton of gold for token - so you could just buy things like Spider mount for expansion price (honesly, all should praise Spider and Black Market house - this heroes save us from hyperinflation every day).

[Nevcairiel]

If for token you can buy many stuff, token gold value may go up to the sky and never drop again to reasonable level (and yeah, now it's reasonable because this is how market works - if people wouldn't buy abonament for gold, price would go down - players in Europe have more gold than players in America apparently). So it may turn out that almost nobody will get free sub for gold anymore beside few players that play auction house. And of course you will have shit ton of gold for token - so you could just buy things like Spider mount for expansion price (honesly, all should praise Spider and Black Market house - this heroes save us from hyperinflation every day).

But if noone buys the tokens anymore because they are too expensive, then the gold price drops again. Why would they pay massive gold amounts to get character services, but not game time? If its too expensive and people stop buying, it'll go down again.

[Dracullus]

But if noone buys the tokens anymore because they are too expensive, then the gold price drops again. Why would they pay massive gold amounts to get character services, but not game time? If its too expensive and people stop buying, it'll go down again.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if this go to battle.net balance, you can buy things like Blizzard games and Overwatch/Hearthstone boxes with it, right? So it may turn out that people with lot of gold (that also play Overwatch/HS) will buy a lot of that tokens and keep price high.

So imagine that in real world you can make Ferrari or some luxury goods from basic food, just smash it together and you get a car. Now for example bread is rather cheap (I'm talking about first world right now), because don't matter if you are reach or not, we all have similar needs for bread. But if we can transform bread into super-bread and smash 100 super-breads into Ferrari (without any work put into this process), rich people would buy shit ton of this breads and their price would go up, because they would offer more money for single bread that typical person. I hope I didn't overcomplicated that.

Of course it's not good analogy. Without food you would die, so it wouldn't work exactly this way. But you can live without WoW sub for gold for sure.

[Zahgaan]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if this go to battle.net balance, you can buy things like Blizzard games and Overwatch/Hearthstone boxes with it, right? So it may turn out that people with lot of gold (that also play Overwatch/HS) will buy a lot of that tokens and keep price high.

So imagine that in real world you can make Ferrari or some luxury goods from basic food, just smash it together and you get a car. Now for example bread is rather cheap (I'm talking about first world right now), because don't matter if you are reach or not, we all have similar needs for bread. But if we can transform bread into super-bread and smash 100 super-breads into Ferrari (without any work put into this process), rich people would buy shit ton of this breads and their price would go up, because they would offer more money for single bread that typical person. I hope I didn't overcomplicated that.

Of course it's not good analogy. Without food you would die, so it wouldn't work exactly this way. But you can live without WoW sub for gold for sure.

The exact reason I'm excited and frustrated for lack of information about it. I've set aside few mils just for hearthstone. Probably pick up Overwatch/Starcraft, options are endless. Just hope they remove 36 tokens per 24 months cap off.

[Marrilaife]

If for token you can buy many stuff, token gold value may go up to the sky and never drop again to reasonable level

The is a cap though how many tokens you can either sell or buy to prevent massive swings in economy. Even if you have 100 million gold you aren't allowed to buy that many tokens.

Unless they plan to lift or change the cap, but no word on it so far and I'd presume they wouldn't want the prices to go out of whack and scare people "something fishy is going on behind the scenes". There's enough tin foil hat theories how Blizz is supposedly tampering with token prices. If they allowed unlimited buying or selling then yea, we should worry. Otherwise the rich both irl and in game will hit their caps and the price will reach the new equilibrium.

Personally I think the option should come available asap, there are so many people stuck on dead servers with not enough irl money to get out of those pitholes, for those it might be the last hope to fix their wow experience. I've already paid my price in rl money at the end of MOP but I'm still looking forward to maybe transfer my old dk, I used WOD boost to recreate one so I don't pay for transfer, but I miss my original one with all the unobtainable patterns, old keepsake items, old reps I never regrinded and cool memories from wotlk.

And I don't really know how people can claim it will make game "pay to win" you will only be able to pay for stuff that already exists in Blizzard store. And it has a cap, so you won't be able to transfer every week or create an army of boosted lvl 100s just for gold.

[Deficineiron]

Blizzard doesn't sell gold. Its all player gold, one player sells the token to another player for gold through the auction house.

I do not believe it has ever been clarified if blizzard acts as buyer of last resort during periods that their 'managed auctions' have imbalance trends that would impede orderly sale of tokens from cashshop buyers (who want their gold)..

Providing market stability would not be considered a deviation of the 10q definition, even if it was part of the business plan.

[Orangetai420]

I understand that people like buying their game time with gold, but to claim blizzard doesn't sell gold and their gold selling hasn't caused the biggest inflation in the history of the game is just dishonest.

Still waiting for your explanation of how blizz is selling gold

[Deficineiron]

Yeah gold is just shufflesd around just like the AH. I do enjoy the people that think Blizzard is generating new gild from it or even better only taking gold with no real money paid for aubs.

the 2nd idea is obviously absurd. the 1st would be the logical business model goal.

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Still waiting for your explanation of how blizz is selling gold

Quite difficult to prove a negative also.

The elephant in the living room is that every token blizzard redeems themselves for gold goes from being 5$ value=added extra revenue to 20$ value-added service extra revenue. It is a huge difference. It is painfully obvious why the company has every financial incentive to redeem a certain % of tokens themselves for gold, and also has every incentive to provide the playerbase with a narrative that provides a rationalization basis for the entire scheme.

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New gold isn't added to the game though. If you sell me a token for gold you get the gold I had. It is no different then the AH being used.

This may or may not be true. I think there is a perfectly logical way blizzard can say this in their filings and still act to provide market stability and in effect redeem tokens for gold themselves. market stabilization measures are a recognized and ordinary expectation.

[D3cadent]

I understand that people like buying their game time with gold, but to claim blizzard doesn't sell gold and their gold selling hasn't caused the biggest inflation in the history of the game is just dishonest.

LMAO

Have you got your tinfoil hat on today, friend?

[Orangetai420]

the 2nd idea is obviously absurd. the 1st would be the logical business model goal.

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Quite difficult to prove a negative also.

The elephant in the living room is that every token blizzard redeems themselves for gold goes from being 5$ value=added extra revenue to 20$ value-added service extra revenue. It is a huge difference. It is painfully obvious why the company has every financial incentive to redeem a certain % of tokens themselves for gold, and also has every incentive to provide the playerbase with a narrative that provides a rationalization basis for the entire scheme.

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This may or may not be true. I think there is a perfectly logical way blizzard can say this in their filings and still act to provide market stability and in effect redeem tokens for gold themselves. market stabilization measures are a recognized and ordinary expectation.

Do you really believe blizz is behind the scenes buying their own tokens? I'm sorry but thats just crazy.

[Alvito]

I understand that people like buying their game time with gold, but to claim blizzard doesn't sell gold and their gold selling hasn't caused the biggest inflation in the history of the game is just dishonest.

If they were actually generating new gold to sell for money, then they would never let the game run out of tokens to sell. They would also limit how far token prices could drop to always make people want to buy them and make as much gold as possible doing so. Seeing how I have personally seen the AH out of them multiple times, it knocks the legs out on your idea that they are just selling gold.

[SL1200]

If they were actually generating new gold to sell for money, then they would never let the game run out of tokens to sell. They would also limit how far token prices could drop to always make people want to buy them and make as much gold as possible doing so. Seeing how I have personally seen the AH out of them multiple times, it knocks the legs out on your idea that they are just selling gold.

The effect on the game economy is the same. They might as well generate the gold and sell it. I believe the token is just about winning support from players for their gold selling scheme.

I wasn't against the token until I saw what it's done to the economy in Legion.

[Alvito]

The effect on the game economy is the same. They might as well generate the gold and sell it. I believe the token is just about winning support from players for their gold selling scheme.

I wasn't against the token until I saw what it's done to the economy in Legion.

2 years of garrisons shitting out millions of gold on players has a much larger impact then tokens do. As for potions and flasks which seem to be what people bitch about the most it comes down to starlight roses and how they are farmed, mixed with how professions work now. Before people could easily just make anything they needed on a much lower level alt. Now that is not the case so more people are buying things they would have made themselves before. If prices were as bad as you are implying they are people would just make whatever they needed for themselves, the fact the higher prices are holding indicates people are willing to pay those prices. WoD flooded people with passive gold. Now Legion floods people with gold for doing very little in game. So of course the AH is going to mirror that. Shit garrisons are still making 20 to 30k a week on top of all the Legion stuff. You also have a lot of people that cannot buy anymore tokens for gold so the people shifting gold around is going down. I haven't bought a token in over a year and cannot buy a new one until April.

[SL1200]

2 years of garrisons shitting out millions of gold on players has a much larger impact then tokens do. As for potions and flasks which seem to be what people bitch about the most it comes down to starlight roses and how they are farmed, mixed with how professions work now. Before people could easily just make anything they needed on a much lower level alt. Now that is not the case so more people are buying things they would have made themselves before. If prices were as bad as you are implying they are people would just make whatever they needed for themselves, the fact the higher prices are holding indicates people are willing to pay those prices. WoD flooded people with passive gold. Now Legion floods people with gold for doing very little in game. So of course the AH is going to mirror that. Shit garrisons are still making 20 to 30k a week on top of all the Legion stuff. You also have a lot of people that cannot buy anymore tokens for gold so the people shifting gold around is going down. I haven't bought a token in over a year and cannot buy a new one until April.

Well, I call bullshit on that. Plenty of players were making Hundreds of Thousands of gold long before the Garrison. I was with just my jewlcrafting profession. I don't find the garrison caused inflation argument very convincing. We also had the equalivant of starlight rose in every expansion going as far back as mop [golden lotus] and probably before that, I didn't use alchemy until mop so i dont know.

[Alvito]

the 2nd idea is obviously absurd. the 1st would be the logical business model goal.

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Quite difficult to prove a negative also.

The elephant in the living room is that every token blizzard redeems themselves for gold goes from being 5$ value=added extra revenue to 20$ value-added service extra revenue. It is a huge difference. It is painfully obvious why the company has every financial incentive to redeem a certain % of tokens themselves for gold, and also has every incentive to provide the playerbase with a narrative that provides a rationalization basis for the entire scheme.

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This may or may not be true. I think there is a perfectly logical way blizzard can say this in their filings and still act to provide market stability and in effect redeem tokens for gold themselves. market stabilization measures are a recognized and ordinary expectation.

It can take a few weeks to get your gold after you post your token though. If they were just selling gold for cash why make players wait and deter them from impulse buying them when they need quick gold? There wouldn't be a delay past processing time if they actually did just sell gold for cash.

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Well, I call bullshit on that. Plenty of players were making Hundreds of Thousands of gold long before the Garrison. I was with just my jewlcrafting profession. I don't find the garrison caused inflation argument very convincing.

Not passively like they could with the AH. You also still made buckets of gold with professions during WoD and had the good luck to make millions for doing almost nothing with our garrison. It was a 5 to 20 minute fire and forget process, no AH involved nothing. You are off your rocker if you are going to sit there and say that garrisons didn't make players rich in gold. Log in clear your mission board, run to each building log off and do nothing else with your character would net you 100k a week if you had a poorly set up garrison and follower list. Add in the shipyard and it's gold missions then the every 2 week 2k for your raid caches, nevermind any boe loot you got from them.

[Phookah]

Hopefully it never happens. Blizzard should stop selling gold immediately. It has ruined the game economy. The prices for things like flasks and potions are out of hand.

The tokens have nothing to do with the in game prices on flasks and pots.