Was tying gold to real life currency a good step for you?

[yetgdhfgh]

I would like the possibility to create a token yourself with your gold which would give you real money and blizzard takes cut on it each time
If it boosts the token sales by 2-3 times it's worth it for them but I don't see how it can happen

Boy would the gold hackers have a field day with that one!

[Cæli]

Boy would the gold hackers have a field day with that one!

yes ahah, but maybe it could open the way to make that things plain illegal and punishable by law and not just by blizzard

to export money you'll need a bank account chosen by blizzard and transactions would be saved, banks knows who you are, you would not take that stolen money very far and it would create jobs in order to control all that

[ping-pong]

My problem is that now I do not see gold tags anymore but € tags.
E.g. The spider mount does not cost 2 Million Gold, it costs ((2.000.000 / 167.000)*14€) ~168€. 168 for a mount. I will never pay that. 2 Million gold on the other hand...
2 Hearthstone packs are 2,69€ (or 32080 gold). This means I need to DE ~76 epic items for 2 HS packs.
Again, those are just examples, but that are the price tags that I now see ingame.

Of course this also means that if someone asks me if he can have a piece of personal loot that dropped for me (e.g. in LFR or in m+ dungeons) I feel like he is begging me for money. You know, like the poor people on the street that beg you for spare change. The consequence is of course that I do not want to trade loot and that I feel really annoyed every time someone asks for an item.

It's really your thing how you choose to interpret it. However, not giving some fella the gear you don't need is very weak thing to do. It's not him that's being a begger for money, it's you that's being a cheap bloke. I always give the gear I don't need, I make portals for free and I help out with quests when I'm around. You know, playing the game and being a good sport. People who look everything through money usually enjoy nothing in life, be careful of that trap.

[Raelbo]

yes ahah, but maybe it could open the way to make that things plain illegal and punishable by law and not just by blizzard

to export money you'll need a bank account chosen by blizzard and transactions would be saved, banks knows who you are, you would not take that stolen money very far and it would create jobs in order to control all that

If people could actually get real money out of it you can bet that it would attract all manner of cheating scum. The last thing the game needs is to become a festering haven of such scum and villainy.

And the last thing that law enforcement needs is to have to try and police these cybercrimes, which even if they were willing to do, I doubt they'd be particularly effective at. Also, can you imagine the kind of legal liability Blizzard would be opening themselves up to with such a thing. Basically closing someone's account would now be something aggrieved players would probably try to sue them for.

In the end, what seems like a nice idea for people with a lot of gold would actually end up wrecking the game for everyone.

[Deleted]

My only problem with this that nolifers and / or WoD garrison abusers are now rewarded with being able to get stuff which otherwise would cost money, while the wow token price has risen so much that the casual player won't be able to finance it with gold, and will be "forced" to buy it with real money. Basically this whole thing went reverse digital Robin Hood if we look at ingame currency - rewarded the rich and fucked the poor.

[Rotted]

Not overly fussed in all honesty,

In WoD I grinded up to 200k gold from three L3 garrisons with the l3 tavern in each (honestly some of you fucks got up to 10 mil with the same set up, no idea how ) and I wanted to ensure I got the CM achis, so I decided to get a boost group. I was 75k short at the time so bought a wow token. £15 thats a couple a drinks of a night out, so I sacrificed going out that weekend or did a home cooked meal opposed to a takeaway on date night, my point, its neither here or there for me. But I now have unobtainable achis, x mog, title and a mount attatched to my account, I value that at more than £15. My only regret is that we didn't have the token in MoP when I was 80k and no one would do a boost for less than 90 xD

Oh I'm buying my second token tonight, as raid nights recently have been costing me 8-11k for supplies - old war is OTT price wise.

I also think its important to note, EU servers the tokens are avg 160k I believe you guys in the states are having shit fits at 60k? I have to admit I wouldn't be buying a token at 15 for 60

[ping-pong]

My only problem with this that nolifers and / or WoD garrison abusers are now rewarded with being able to get stuff which otherwise would cost money, while the wow token price has risen so much that the casual player won't be able to finance it with gold, and will be "forced" to buy it with real money. Basically this whole thing went reverse digital Robin Hood if we look at ingame currency - rewarded the rich and fucked the poor.

So, people who often use company's product get a lot of shit for free, while someone who logs every now and then needs to pay the regular price. Seems like a good business model for me: rewarding dedicated players.

[Teri]

Yes it was good, got €130 bnet balance right now, and still deciding if/when/where I want to transfer eventually, cuz my low pop realm is getting lower by the day it seems.

Honestly still waiting on a followup from blizzcon on more connected realms...

I can deal with EU tokens sitting at 165k-ish, average atm, I don't buy playtime with gold, but services.

[Deleted]

Gold has always been tied to real life currency. The only difference is that you're safer against scammers/hackers now.

It is still cheaper to order gold from gold sellers than from Blizz!

[Accendor]

People who look everything through money usually enjoy nothing in life, be careful of that trap.

You are completely right about that one and that is part of my problem: As for many people money is something that is always on my mind. Not because I want MORE MORE MORE but simply because I have to pay bills, rent, food etc. I am not even talking about luxury items.
Thats why, when I played WoW in the past everything was fine for me. Someone needed gear? No problem bro, here, you can have it. When playing wow, real money was never an issue to me, because yes ofc, I could sell the gold I earned, but that was against the TOS and it was simply of the table for me.
But today that is different. It feels different.
1 hour of farming herbs can get me some HS packs. That feels like work, with the difference that if I had actually worked, I would have gotten way more money out of that time.

Thinking like that didn't make any sense before, since gold was for ingame stuff only, but the problem already started when the subscription system was introduced. TBH I would buy most blizzard products either way, so for me every gold I spend on something that I could theoretically buy with RL money is wasted gold. And that just feels wrong.

[faithbane]

Friend you do realize where Tokens come from?! XD ppl pay 20 bucks/euro for token, u get 15/13 for it (5/7 bank), and then u buy stuff. It's not "free", the service u purchases with gold was already paid by some1 and yet Blizzard manages to get some more out of it. Its genius! for ppl that might otherwise not buy stuff they get to have them, and from ppl that have enough money to spend on gold it gives Blizzard a way to get even more money from them. Its a win-win situation.

Yea I never bought one myself and I wasn't aware of the 15/13 exchange rate. someone else mentioned it as well. Thanks tho!

[shaunika123]

But that's money you can spend on Blizzard products and have real money left to spend elsewhere.

granted, but i guarantee you that 99% of the shit you'll buy for gold in the blizzard store you wouldnt buy if you couldnt for gold

otherwise you wouldve bought it for money already

[Djuntas]

Bad....Now I haft to pay money to play WoW yet again...

[cFortyfive]

Of course this also means that if someone asks me if he can have a piece of personal loot that dropped for me (e.g. in LFR or in m+ dungeons) I feel like he is begging me for money. You know, like the poor people on the street that beg you for spare change. The consequence is of course that I do not want to trade loot and that I feel really annoyed every time someone asks for an item.

You feel annoyed over a couple cent ? Feelspoorman.
Still I get the issue there but that's just the direction we are going.

[Accendor]

It's really your thing how you choose to interpret it. However, not giving some fella the gear you don't need is very weak thing to do.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem giving away gear in general.
But this is basically the experience I had (And in the following I am of course not talking about tier sets, stuff that is ridiculous titanforged or something like that but for all that other stuff that drops.

I played A LOT of m+ in the last 5 weeks (~400 and yes, I know there are people who did a lot more) and also did every raid in every difficulty except mythic. My raid group only does Nighthold atm, so for every other raid I used PUGs.
I am running the other raids for a chance on legendarys, transmog stuff and items that I can DE to get some gold (with which I can now buy battle.net balance).
And for every item that drops at least three people are whispering me. Some are very friendly, some are demanding, some are just assholes. But they all want the same "GIVE ME THAT ITEM YOU DONT NEED IT" Saying "no" only leads most of them to complain in group chat until they or I get kicked (depending on what side the rest of the raid takes). If they are not using group chat they start flaming in /w. Yes, I can put them to ignore, but it will just repeat itself on the next drop.
Worst case: One guy whispers you, you just give him the item so he shuts up and 30 seconds later two other people ask you if they can have the item. You tell them that you don't have it anymore and they complain that you should have let them /roll for it. Damn it, I do not want to be some sort of loot master. I do not want to get involved in that loot drama. I just want to have my PERSONAL loot, but people do not see to get this concept. This is something different for guild groups of course, I will happily share my loot with them and I surely are not declining someone that +30 itemlevel titanforged piece, but for everything else I just don't want to be involved. At least in M+ it only starts after the dungeon is done, but it is still annoying to handle it every time.

In this 400 m+ runs I got around 500 items. I gave roughly 100 of them away which means a loss of 40k. But the thing is that I was asked for over 90% or the items. That would have meant a loss of 180000 gold. Converted in RL money that is around ~15-16€ (or one month wow subscription fee and two HS packs).

So where do you draw the line? Where do you stop? I don't know and I don't want to think about it and I feel like I should not think about it, but the way the world works this new system forces me to think about it. That's why I do not like it.

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You feel annoyed over a couple cent ? Feelspoorman.
Still I get the issue there but that's just the direction we are going.

I don't feel annoyed over a few cent, I feel annoyed about being asked 15 times a day and getting insulted if I decline just once. And because it are cents now (and not gold anymore) its basically the same as being harassed on the street all the time. I am living currently in Vienna and the begging is a real problem here where you basically can not go in the inner city or a train station without being begged all the time.

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granted, but i guarantee you that 99% of the shit you'll buy for gold in the blizzard store you wouldnt buy if you couldnt for gold

otherwise you wouldve bought it for money already

Thats not true at all. Being able to buy new games with it makes a huge difference. This is not only about mounts and pets.

[Mad_Murdock]

In WoD I grinded up to 200k gold from three L3 garrisons with the l3 tavern in each (honestly some of you fucks got up to 10 mil with the same set up, no idea how )

22 toons with L3 garrisons and shipyards. It was an upfront investment of time to get them to 100 and then cruise mode the remaining 18 months. If you're not on a connected realm server, then you got screwed a tad, but 10 followers was still good for 3-4 million if you started on day 1 of the treasure finder.

[Dangg]

Gold was always tied to RL money, because you could have bought it on 3rd party sites.

[Darsithis]

All gold has always had a tie to real money. Depended on what you were willing to spend to earn it in terms of time. Time is money, friend!

[Saucerian]

Pay-to-skip is the logical conclusion of games designed around grinding. E.g. repetitive MMO endgames. Sucks, but true.

I'd been happy with how it worked out for WoW. For the longest time it was 'casuals subsidize raiding'. Gold-for-gametime upended that to an extent. Effectively enabled trading gametime for raid carries / consumables etc.

Now with gold-for-cash, within WoW it's more 'gold farmers / bots subsidize raiding' or rather 'Blizzard quadruple dipping'. Pay for game, pay for gametime, pay for cash shop, pay for gold (previously cancelled out by others trading gametime for it when obtaining enough gold for a monthly token was more feasible pre-b.net-cash).

[Yunru]

It is still cheaper to order gold from gold sellers than from Blizz!

Probaly, i never check those gold sites. But i bet some people stockpiled this gold from garisons and they are now selling it to gold selling companys.