Is Wow now a game for the wealthy?

[Ronduwil]

Its buying a new game vs paying to skip the bad parts of an old game.

If the game is new to you those parts aren't old or bad. If the game is old to you then chances are you already have plenty of high level characters and will not need to take advantage of the service. You would choose to do that instead.

[Buildapanda]

all that is required to play WoW at any level of competitiveness is 13.99 per month. or whatever plan you take.

the rest is fluff.

You can't have it both ways, you can't say 14.99 is cheap, and then go and say I can save a WHOLE dollar by giving them 6 months of subscription time up front rather than paying monthly. I would have to play over a year to even make that worthwhile. And the double whammy here is times like right now where I have much better control of my say in the company and have not obligated myself to play if I had payed up front instead of monthly.

I really hope this isn't blizzards way of trying to get players back, because they really should focus on what they can do to bring value to their game.

[Ronduwil]

If its good why are people investing heavily to skip it? Clearly your statement contradicts reality.

"Good" is subjective. Some people play because they want their virtual avatar to be "powerful" and at low levels they're anything but so the game is "bad" for them. Others play for a sense of progression and the lower levels are packed with that so for them the game is good. I'd like to point out that if you level with no heirlooms, no guild buffs, and no rested XP the game is actually well-paced and moderately challenging. It's a shame that Blizzard screwed up their well-tuned content by providing so many mechanisms to ruin it.

[DeadmanWalking]

"Good" is subjective. Some people play because they want their virtual avatar to be "powerful" and at low levels they're anything but so the game is "bad" for them. Others play for a sense of progression and the lower levels are packed with that so for them the game is good. I'd like to point out that if you level with no heirlooms, no guild buffs, and no rested XP the game is actually well-paced and moderately challenging. It's a shame that Blizzard screwed up their well-tuned content by providing so many mechanisms to ruin it.

All experiences in a game are subjective, for example my ideal of the game is that the real game does not start until endgame and herilooms are a blessing so I can get to that endgame and not repeat the leveling process for the 20th boring time. Your opinion on the subject is nullified by my opinion. Void and Null.

[Izenhart]

Yes, having money to buy useless and pointless mounts or vanity pets is definitely a matter of utter importance in the balance of the game, not to mention the unfair advantage of paying 60$ to get a lvl90 character instead of spending the absurd, obscene amount of a grand total of 3 days to do it yourself.

Like, who cares.

[Ronduwil]

All experiences in a game are subjective, for example my ideal of the game is that the real game does not start until endgame and herilooms are a blessing so I can get to that endgame and not repeat the leveling process for the 20th boring time. Your opinion on the subject is nullified by my opinion. Void and Null.

Actually my opinion on the subject is pretty similar to yours. The point I was trying to make was that each player should have the freedom to choose the experience that they found compelling, and heirlooms were an attempt to make that happen. I agree with you that the decision to rush through content is subjective. On the other hand, even though heirlooms seem like the same thing as a paid boost by virtue of being opt-in, they pretty much destroy all balance in low-level dungeons. A character with no heirlooms is going to hang around at the low end of the DPS scale and often will not even get a hit in because the tank will run through the dungeon at break-neck speed without a care in the world because his heirlooms will negate the damage he's taking. That's part of why levelling has become so tedious, and that's why I'm not so keen on heirlooms. I prefer the level 90 boost because players can opt into that without impacting anyone else's playing experience.

[Zia]

Pay2win is here.

Get your head out of the sand

[jellmoo]

Pay2win is here.

Get your head out of the sand

Wait... I already have multiple level 90 characters... Holy smokes, I WON! I WON!

Hey everybody, you can all go home now. I already won WoW. Thanks for trying, but I totally won. YES!!!

[Not Againnn]

who cares why are there people crying so hard about this.

you could already buy 60/70/80/85/90s off ebay

[Deleted]

Pay2win is here.

Get your head out of the sand

I don't see how this is even remotely close to pay to win. You don't have to buy it if you don't want to and it doesn't give people any advantage over others, at all.

[rayvio]

I can afford to pay the monthly subscription and buy the expansion packs despite the fact that my income is very small due to living alone with disability allowance as my only income. so no, you most certainly do not need to be wealthy to play WoW

[Dormu]

I got a friend who plays WoW on welfare, so, no.

[Shemsu Hov]

My account with 5 90s in gone. I can't get it back. You know what I was going to do yesterday until I heard the live 90 boost was a mistake? I was going to buy a 90 and get back into the game. I was gonna make a Druid, my class of choice since BC. The purchasable 90s aren't a grand scheme to bring death and doom on everyone, they are a new feature to avoid 90% of the leveling when WoD comes out. Simply convience. PS I only have 2 store mounts(Dat winter sale). I spent the money willingly because I have the money to spend.

- - - Updated - - -

who cares why are there people crying so hard about this.

you could already buy 60/70/80/85/90s off ebay

So now Blizzard is tapping into a market of convenience they should own in the first place.

[Celista]

Other MMO's sell larger bags.

That's more P2W then anything WoW does. And larger bags isn't even that big a deal.

I disagree, I think outright selling level-capped toons is closer to p2w...I think a better solution would have been to sell xp pots from the store. But I think selling a boost to 90 is fine as long as the price is high, so it won't affect the leveling experience of new players/people who choose to level normally too much.

Yes, it is. It's absolutely MANDATORY to buy level 90 boosts, the "plain ol' leveling" has been removed from the game, so unless you are filthy rich and buy the boost you will need to remain at level 1.

Worse: Blizzard retrocatively applies this to all of your toons, you now need $60 to level your main from 1 to 90 before raid time!

I wish it were a game for the articulate.

Haha.

[Numeanor]

I sit in my castle and laugh at everybody who cant afford to play WoW.

It's a shame you don't know how it is to live on welfare... well I hope one day you will be penniless and poor. Then remember about your castle.

[Racthoh]

Says who? If you buy a boost, you can spend the freed time in raids / arenas / whatever, making your character stronger. Not sure what's to argue with here.

so you're leveling during raid time? my point is even with a free max level character, you still have to put the same amount of time into raiding/pvp to get anything out of it. that guy who bought his 90 is no better off than you are.

[toomes211]

The short answer is no.

The long answer is despite the sub cost and cost of expansions, coupled with cosmetic race changes, faction changes, and realm changes over the years, wow has been an exceedingly low hours of entertainment to dollar spent ratio.

[Ytlayol]

The game is mostly for people with more money than sense. Blizzard fans are pretty derpy, so its easy to take advantage of/manipulate them.

[rangerann]

I don't think so.

[Deleted]

Well 60$ is not that much when u think about it. 20$ Race change, Faction. it cant really be under 40$ and at 40 the other two services would be unused.