2 Million Gold for the Spider Mount - will Legion have controlled inflation?

[kamuimac]

while you feel obligated to use your cheap token (otherwise it's a waste that they are lying around in your bag) a

why are they a "waste" ? in 2 realms that i mainly play i have 2x11 alts - plenty of space to keep tokens. and why woudl i feel "obligated" ? im not 10 years old anymore lol. the same would be saying that i should feel obligated to use all money i have on my saving account because why save them for worse times or whenver ill need it if i could spend it all now -_-

[rogueMatthias]

I'm in two minds on this.

First of all... I've never got this whole "Gold hoarding" thing in Warcraft. People are always on the forums saying "LOL you only have 500k? I only spend an hour each day sorting out my Garrisons and I have 300 billion!". WHY would you ever need Gold cap? It's not like real life where you can buy a house and have a completely different quality of life with wealth. Wealth in Warcraft mostly is just a number that keeps going up the more time you spend - People that continue to farm multiple caps anyway really REALLY need to get out more.

But then... 2million is nothing anyway to these people, and it's not like they EVER have to pay for game time again if they have that much gold - Which in itself is a far better reward than any mount. If they want to sort the Gold inflation, they should just start charging interest on anything over 4-600k in the banks, and increase the amount the more you have. I feel it'd save players from themselves.

Personally, I liked the Spider mount as it looks different and unique so I'm disappointed I'd never feasibly be able to get it, but that's mostly because I'm scared that they'll just keep reusing the same crappy mounts again and again all expansion like they did in WOD. The Fox mount looks cool and Fellbat's pretty neat, but I'm bored of all the Mooses already and the game isn't even out, a lot of the others are just an updated model lazily tacked onto an old skeleton (like the weird bear mount) and that people have datamined ANOTHER 6 colour of the fucking WOD Wolf mount doesn't really fill me with confidence.

[Lei]

why are they a "waste" ? in 2 realms that i mainly play i have 2x11 alts - plenty of space to keep tokens. and why woudl i feel "obligated" ? im not 10 years old anymore lol. the same would be saying that i should feel obligated to use all money i have on my saving account because why save them for worse times or whenver ill need it if i could spend it all now -_-

Worse times? You have tokens for 3 years For how long are you planning with wow? I mean sure, maybe wow will celebrate it's 15-20 years anniversary with 3-4 mill people (that is, from all around the world so EU+subregion realms, OC, US+subreagion realms, and eastern realms together) For worse times you could just switch to back and pay 13 eur/dollars for wow.

[Deleted]

That's exactly what I believe it's happening.

The thing that Blizzard failed to realize is that the people who invested the effort they did into getting ridiculous amounts of gold in WoD are people who don't go wild with cosmetic purchases and spend wisely.

All these prices will do is to cause these items to be severely ignored by a big portion of the player-base and envied by another portion that will simply not be able to purchase these with ease. All while increasing the desire of Token purchases, that is.

I doubt Blizzard is upset with it, though. They do not seem to be getting the bad end of the deal~

I do not think that is what is happening at all.
I think blizzard are trying to make the "white whales" spend a lot of real money on tokens, so the supply of those does not stop, because, let´s be real here for a moment, remember how many times have we talked about what happens when people are given something in this game? we have said that it is really hard to take it back from them, and that is why if there were not enough supply of tokens, so that people can go on playing for free, population would seriously drop.
So i think the main goal of those expensives mounts, is to keep those tokens going into the AH.

[Sinyc]

Will Legion give so much gold during leveling and questing and class hall quests and world quests that 2 million gold would be something even a casual player can reach in a month or so?

Are you out of your freaking mind? Why would a casual player, or any player for that matter, be able to earn this mount in a month?

If that is your attitude that you are owed everything and should be given equal access to a virtual item in a game, you are playing the wrong game... you also need to change your attitude on things.

[Ehrenpanzer]

Where's the "Blizzard is okay with selling heroic/mythic carries" conspiracy thread then?

We've had those repeatedly, however people have the memory and brain power of a budgie and now conveniently forget

[Raelbo]

No. They are literally selling gold.

They are "literally" not. Hell they aren't even doing it figuratively.

They are selling game time and facillitating a transfer of gold between two players. The fact that, to the people paying $$ for tokens, it is to all intents and purposes no different from "literally" buying gold from Blizzard, is most likely what has you adled. But the distinction is important, especially when you want to consider other issues, for example how this affects Blizzard's motives regarding gold in game, or how it affects the WoW economy and inflation.

And while you would be correct that Blizzard do benefit financially from selling more tokens, the way in which it benefits them is a lot more complex than simply: "they get $20 from selling gold". What they are actually getting is $15 from subscription, and $5 for the service. The subscription they are selling is also highly beneficial because it allows them to tap into an extra group of subscribers and get subscription out of them where, without tokens, they might have stopped playing.

But I think the thing people like you with your rancid attitude tend to overlook is that at the end of the day, by far the biggest factor affecting how much profit Blizzard earns from WoW, whether it be from tokens, the shop, or just regular subscriptions, is the gaming experience. People are not going to pay $$ for tokens if they don't like WoW. And people are not going to bother farming gold to pay for tokens in game if they don't like WoW.

The whole point of tokens is to make people more likely to play WoW, by helping some players who are finding the effort of earning gold to be a deterrent to their fun, and by helping others who are finding the financial cost of playing the game to be a deterrent to being able to play. This is how, when all is said and done, Blizzard are actually using tokens to make money.


PS: If you actually stop and think about WoW as a system, then it makes no sense that Blizzard would be putting an item like this in the game to encourage people to buy tokens. 2M gold is way beyond the limit of what token can currently (and for a few more years at least) be used practically for.

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I think blizzard are trying to make the "white whales" spend a lot of real money on tokens, so the supply of those does not stop, because, let´s be real here for a moment, remember how many times have we talked about what happens when people are given something in this game? we have said that it is really hard to take it back from them, and that is why if there were not enough supply of tokens, so that people can go on playing for free, population would seriously drop.
So i think the main goal of those expensives mounts, is to keep those tokens going into the AH.

Except that there are way better ways to achieve that. For starters, make the price of the mount such that it is actually feasible to buy it with gold from tokens....

If they sold the mount for the cost of 1-2 tokens, I can see a large number of casuals buying 1-2 tokens. At a cost of 25 tokens (EU) that is so outrageously expensive that very few people will try to get there using tokens.

Which means that this mount is clearly aimed squarely at those players who are successful at amassing large amounts of gold in game and who need something to spend it on. Because here's the thing: If you are a player who spends his/her time in WoW making gold, unless there is something to actually spend it on, at some point you're going to realise it is pointless, and when that happens, you've just lost your motivation to keep playing this game. WoW has to provide stuff for us to spend our gold on, to keep us playing in order to make more.

[Deleted]

Except that there are way better ways to achieve that. For starters, make the price of the mount such that it is actually feasible to buy it with gold from tokens....

If they sold the mount for the cost of 1-2 tokens, I can see a large number of casuals buying 1-2 tokens. At a cost of 25 tokens (EU) that is so outrageously expensive that very few people will try to get there using tokens.

I suggest you look up some article about the "white whales" in videogames, because the part i quoted specifically shows you have never done it.

Offtopic: YAY ABOUT TIME STOPPING BEING A LOUSY WHATEVER GNOME. XD

[rogueMatthias]

I know it's harsh to say, but this is going to end up as an anti-achievement mount.

Currently in game, there's no real reason at all to get to gold-cap, let alone people that have multiple gold (and guild) caps on different characters. It's LITERALLY pointless having that much gold in game.

It's not like the real world where wealth can really effect your quality of life or buy you tangible rewards. It's not like you can "cash out" your gold either. Wealth gets you epics early, and maybe boosts in dungeons if you're too lazy to join a proper raid team (which defeats half the fun of the game). It's also fun to help out your friends with gold.. but lets be honest, that's not what gold hoarding is about. The very fact you're sitting on that much gold means you can't enjoy helping them with it THAT much

I know "its easy to get billions in WOD" but... WHY? Once you've got enough gold to cover your subscription forever then WHY do people keep doing the same farming stuff and AH stuff, no matter how easy, every single day in order to get more gold? I guess you might even REALLY want to hit gold-cap as an achievement in itself.. but then why keep going? Seriously you must have SOMETHING better to be doing with your life?

[Nihilan]

Are you out of your freaking mind? Why would a casual player, or any player for that matter, be able to earn this mount in a month?

If that is your attitude that you are owed everything and should be given equal access to a virtual item in a game, you are playing the wrong game... you also need to change your attitude on things.

There is already at least one person on Alpha who has the spider mount. Ive seen him/her hanging out near the Legendary vendor in Dal.

[Raiju]

Assuming it's not instantly in your collection in alpha you get 5k on each newly created char iirc, you could just spam create characters 400 times - would take you a few hours.

[Nihilan]

Assuming it's not instantly in your collection in alpha you get 5k on each newly created char iirc, you could just spam create characters 400 times - would take you a few hours.

Thats some dedication right there. Fucker must really like spiders.

[Nihilan]

Those account stealing 3rd party service websites are going to make a killing duping shitlords out their account info by dangling "$30.00" Spider mounts.

[Tinykong]

If you actually stop and think about WoW as a system, then it makes no sense that Blizzard would be putting an item like this in the game to encourage people to buy tokens. 2M gold is way beyond the limit of what token can currently (and for a few more years at least) be used practically for.

No one is going to buy tokens to purchase the 2M gold spider mount (well, someone might, but most will not.)

Blizzard putting these kinds of items into the game creates both a gold sink, and a gold demand. That person who sells glyphs might be more inclined to raise prices by just a little bit more because they are going after the mount. Raid carries, raid BoEs, etc. will go up because people want to buy the mount.

We don't really know what mechanisms exist behind the scenes regarding token prices/value, but Blizzard has an incentive (token sales) for players to buy gold. Obviously the spider mount isn't going to drive token sales, but the increased inflation from people acquiring more gold to get these super expensive items will trickle down onto people who use the token to buy other stuff, because they will need more gold to make those purchases.

[Riistov]

That price is ridiculous, even for those of us with full cash reserves.

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Right, cause the game doesn't need any goldsinks right?
Grow up.

Gold sinks are one thing, but 2 million for a mount? That's insanity.

Spectral tigers are less than half of that.

Bad move, I know a lot of people were looking forward to this mount.

[Nihilan]

The major goldsink mounts have always amounted to a relatively stable but steadily increasing fraction of the gold cap. Barring BMAH shenanigans. And since the gold cap is scaling, so are the major goldsink items.

1) Back in WotLK, with a 215k gold cap, the Travelers Tundra Mammoth was 20k iirc before rep discount. 20k = ~9.4% of the gold cap.

2) I dont remember if Cata had a goldsink mount. I think it was still the Tundra Mammoth from Wrath.

3) Back in MoP, with a 999k gold cap, the Grand Expedition Yak was around 170k. 170k = ~17% of the gold cap.

4) Now come Legion, with a 9,999k gold cap, the Spider mount will cost 2,000k. 2,000k = 20% of the gold cap.

[Kyanion]

The major goldsink mounts have always amounted to a relatively stable but steadily increasing fraction of the gold cap. Barring BMAH shenanigans. And since the gold cap is scaling, so are the major goldsink items.

1) Back in WotLK, with a 215k gold cap, the Travelers Tundra Mammoth was 20k iirc before rep discount. 20k = ~9.4% of the gold cap.

2) I dont remember if Cata had a goldsink mount. I think it was still the Tundra Mammoth from Wrath.

3) Back in MoP, with a 999k gold cap, the Grand Expedition Yak was around 170k. 170k = ~17% of the gold cap.

4) Now come Legion, with a 9,999k gold cap, the Spider mount will cost 2,000k. 2,000k = 20% of the gold cap.

The Yak was 120k and 108k after the guild perk that existed at the time.

[Nihilan]

The Yak was 120k and 108k after the guild perk that existed at the time.

Is there a reputation associated with the spider vendor?

[Kyanion]

Is there a reputation associated with the spider vendor?

Unknown but I imagine not. I mean we know the guild perk is gone, I don't even know if goblins get a discount anymore. I'm willing to bet on it being 2mil flat no discounts from anything.

[hulkgor]

They are "literally" not. Hell they aren't even doing it figuratively.

They are selling game time and facillitating a transfer of gold between two players.

Keep fooling yourself buddy.