Introducing the WoW Token

[MoanaLisa]

so now you can buy gold with real life money. blizzard has become the gold sellers.

thoughts? even with boosts I never thought we'd see this.

They you haven't been paying the slightest bit of attention. This has been talked about for weeks.

It works well on EVE: Online and should bring more people to the game.

I don't believe that it will put gold sellers out of business but it will inconvenience them and put a dent into their market. I'm OK with that.

[Xargoth6634]

It'll be interesting to see where the market is this summer when I sub again for a month or two. If gametime is super cheap, (10k/month) I'll buy some with gold. If it's really expensive, (~30k/month) then I might buy some with cash and make some extra gold. I dunno though, it's not like gold is hard to make now. /shrug

In any case, I think its a good system that pretty much benefits everyone.

[Traveler Voltin]

It's not like it's falsely inflated though, they're still getting money for each of those subs, in fact they're probably getting even more money since the tokens will most likely cost more than a regular sub.

the tokens probably wont.

[Deleted]

[wombinator04]

These systems are terrible and reward economic manipulation. People who already have a lot of gold (because they bought it, or "earned" it by playing the AH in more lucrative expansions) will be the most able to capitalize on this system, which will keep demand artificially low.

PLEX works in EVE because there are simply resources a large portion of the playerbase can't access due to how territories in the game work. Do any of you remember how people lost their shit back in BC when Stormherald was the PvP weapon, but it was basically gated behind SSC and TK? That's the entire corner stone of EVE's economy. It's also very valuable in EVE to maintain multiple accounts to have characters located throughout the galaxy with fundamentally different training, which makes the demand for PLEX much higher than in a game where 95%+ of players will only have 1 account. Almost everyone in my EVE corp back when I played had at least 2 accounts because it cost $15 for one, not the ~$70 it costs for a second (and nearly useless) WoW account.

CREDD was hilariously dumb in Wildstar, and when I quit that game I had ~3 years of CREDD piled up, entirely by fucking over the economy for my own gain. The market in Wildstar is very similar to current WoW where very little actually has value. In Wildstar it was runes, In WoW it's enchants, gems, pots, flasks, and augment runes. These types of items will always have some value because they are consumables. People who already have a lot of money will manipulate/inflate these markets further so that it's easy for them to buy WoW time, while having a large incentive to hoard their gold to keep the prices for game time artificially low. If you want to see people buying out and relisting the entire Blackrock Ore market every few hours so they can make money entirely because they had a large amount of seed money, CREDD-like systems will accomplish this. People can only "spend" in-game time at a static rate, which, unlike EVE, keeps the costs low as fuck which disincentivizes the entire system.

If you think systems like this are good for WoW (or any game really, there are pretty good arguments against PLEX in EVE because of macro farming), you're out of your mind. All they ultimately do is reward economic exploitation and automation.

For people who think this will kill gold selling, you're out of your fucking mind. Money is way more useful in life than game time, and people will continue to undercut the rates you can buy game time for on the AH.

^^^^^^^^^^^^

[Deleted]

What's left to sell? Top of the line raid and pvp gear?

That'll be next then. The waters got too hot for this frog, i'm out.

[Moradim]

my friend is happy because he can now buy gametime for his 20 or so bots, without spending any real money on it or risking getting banned by blizz/scammed by people for purchasing gametime with gold through goldsellers. great move i think!

see, people don't realize yet how much this encourages botting

if 1 bot can pay for 1 account....many bots can pay for many accounts!

[Puri]

why not just have a NPC that sells gametime tokens?

Is this a serious question? Blizzard would lose (real) money if they offered game time for gold.
With the new system they will even earn more money, because very likely the game tokens will be more expensive than the normal gamecard/subscription fee. That means (made up numbers) instead of paying 12 Euro per 30 days for a normal gamecard, the players will probably buy a token for 15 euros and sell that for gold, which means a simple gain of 3 euros per 30 days playtime.

[Schmeebs]

I really don't understand people that are going crazy about this.

I have just under 2 Mill Gold, I priobably won't bother trying to sell tokens for sub fees though

Why?

15 Bucks a month is nothing, its one decent dinner, I spend more than that weekly on beer...

If I could use tokens for Battle.net Account balance for stuff like server transfers/Race Changes/Faction Changes, I would probably take advantage of that, but that is about it.

[Kezotar]

I really don't understand people that are going crazy about this.

I have just under 2 Mill Gold, I priobably won't bother trying to sell tokens for sub fees though

Why?

15 Bucks a month is nothing, its one decent dinner, I spend more than that weekly on beer...

If I could use tokens for Battle.net Account balance for stuff like server transfers/Race Changes/Faction Changes, I would probably take advantage of that, but that is about it.

Go brag with your shitty gold somewhere else. Nobody cares about that it is expensive or cheap. it's the kind of effect this will have on the economy. And I assume you, if you actually have 2 mill gold should know something about economy.

- - - Updated - - -

Only now it is legally and you cannot be scammed out of your account. And how did you not see it coming? They announced it a few weeks / months ago.

How can you not be scammed? You can still be scammed. Only difference is that Blizzard now sells you the gold to buy the boosts, rather than you.. Farm it yourself.

[Deleted]

I see you giving such good reasons right there. /sarcasm

Facts are, its worked out well in other games, people are just getting all riled up because it's touching their precious WoW.

"Touching their precious WoW". What the fuck does that even mean? You mean people care about WoW? Yeah, how ridiculous.

Goldselling is a bad thing, and Blizzard used to agree, which is why they used to be against it. People shouldn't be able to spend real money on the game and get an ingame advantage.

What's the point of playing a game when someone can dump some cash on it and come out ahead of you? It devalues everything in the game. It devalues your achievements, it devalues the achievements of everyone.

[Deleted]

Although the prices will fluctuate, I am surprised to see how low people think the month will be sold for. If we look at how much a lvl 90 costs and other such abominations, I would expect us to see a month of gameplay selling closer towards 100k, not 20k,30k or 50k as mentioned by many.

Also why are people talking about TRYING to sell these tokens for sub fees. That's not how it works. You will be able to exchange them.

So I guess for a million G you will get about a year of sub.

[Farseer]

i'm not even against alternative ways to fund an account.

the problem is BUYING GOLD. and despite gold being mostly useless, it can still buy top level gear, or carries, or whatever. or vanity stuff on the bmah. funny thing is, we saw how the RMAH failed in diablo 3, and now we're going to try the "real money for virtual items" idea again?

No offense, I just don't think you really understand the idea behind the system. First of all, this is nothing like the RMAH in Diablo because:

- nobody is selling any items, only game time.
- Prices are strictly controlled by Blizzard, so you can't decide how much gold you sell it for yourself.

Basically what this feature will do is:

1. Give people with RL money problems (or just want to save money) a way to buy game time with gold
2. Since Blizzard cannot only sell game time for gold (because a game time is worth money and in-game gold is, of course, completely useless for Blizzard), they allow other people to buy the tokens with RL money and then sell it for gold. This way they will allow other players to play WoW without spending actual money on sub fees, and what they get for it in return is these players' gold. This way Blizzard still gets paid for their subscriptions, but it gives people a choice on whether they would like to spend some extra money and receive some gold for it, while giving other people the opportunity to play WoW without spending actual money (13 euros a month is a lot of money for many people).

I'd call it a win-win-win because, the potential is this:

1. People can save money on sub fees, and people who wanted to play WoW but didn't have money WoW can now play.
2. People who want more gold and are willing to buy this with money can do so legitimately
3. Illegal gold trading could get a lot less business and we could be seeing less bots farming gold if they lose their clients.

Let's face it, buying gold is happening already whether Blizzard condones it or not. It's impossible to prevent all gold selling from taking place. This way, gold buyers and people who want to save money on sub fees both benefit without Blizzard losing revenue (this depends on how much they're going to sell the tokens for, but let's assume it will be similar to the current sub fee). They could even be gaining new subscribers who didn't play before because they couldn't or wouldn't pay sub fees.

I'm curious how much gold the tokens will generally go for though. I think the price may be steeper than we expect since it has to be worth it for the people that purchase the tokens IRL. I also expect demand to be bigger than the supply, unless maybe the gold cost is extremely high.

[Jester Joe]

How can you not be scammed? You can still be scammed. Only difference is that Blizzard now sells you the gold to buy the boosts, rather than you.. Farm it yourself.

Yes, because Blizzard themselves is gonna scam you of your account they could take at any time, of course, how could I ever miss that?!

"Touching their precious WoW". What the fuck does that even mean? You mean people care about WoW? Yeah, how ridiculous.

If people don't care, why are they here complaining?

[schwarzkopf]

You can trade it for gold, gear, pets, mounts, etc.

It isn't tradable as it is sell once ... that by definition means it isn't.

[Kelsierx]

I'm kind of on the fence about this one.

I always loved how RL money didn't really affect the game (albeit I know there are people doing illegal things) but this will definitely change things. For the better or worse? I am not quite sure yet, but I hope it will be okay.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Explain how its going to put gold sellers out of business. Give it a couple of weeks and there will be 100's of game time tokens on the AH all at Blizzard controlled prices, just like the TGC pets now.

Poor little Timmy won't be able to shift that token to buy that shiny mount.

When people have a safe way of buying gold, they're not going to turn to gold sellers, which are notorious for account theft via multiple methods. Also, an in-game way to buy game time or buy gold with cash is going to be a lot more convenient than going through a third party. It may not kill gold sellers, but they will become insignificant, and they'll have to offer gold at prices lower than Blizz sells at, which might in the long run be unprofitable for them.

[Special K]

why cant blizzard just have a vendor that allows you to buy a non-tradeable token you can use to add a month of time on your account?

there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to include the "can buy/sell gold" part. why do players need to sell tokens at all?

just add a npc. they will add a month of time to your account for 30k gold (for example). done. no effect on the economy, gold sink available for players that want an alternative to fund their account.

why not do that?

That does have an effect on the economy, as it takes gold out. This is (mostly) a zero-sum system.

[Deleted]

I wonder how expensive they will be, for both cash and gold.

[Kezotar]

Yes, because Blizzard themselves is gonna scam you of your account they could take at any time, of course, how could I ever miss that?!

I'm not sure if you're playing plain stupid or not. People can still scam you when buying the boosts. As in, buy gold, buy boost. Rather than buy boost directly with money. I hope you're not comparing buying the boost directly with money. Because that's not the same scenario.

We're looking at buying gold from a third party vs Blizzard and then again buying stuff with gold.

If people don't care, why are they here complaining?

Because of the economy and how it will impact the players.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm kind of on the fence about this one.

I always loved how RL money didn't really affect the game (albeit I know there are people doing illegal things) but this will definitely change things. For the better or worse? I am not quite sure yet, but I hope it will be okay.

it's the silly oh weed is illegal, but people still buy it, so let's sell it ourselves. silly.
and no offence to weed, but it could go for anything, including drugs and illegal acitivities.