Introducing the Trading Post!

Originally Posted by VMSmith

On the one hand it's about time Blizzard finally figured out that battlepasses are the way to go now, even if they did re-jigger it so that it doesn't look like a battlepass. And I love battlepasses so if I were still playing WoW I would be tentatively happy about this.

My quibble is that between OW2 and now WoW, Blizzard has created the stingiest battlepasses in gaming, and I hope that their stinginess doesn't get picked up by all the other games that I enjoy with generous battlepasses. I worry that the Blizzard simps who lap up anything that's offered to them will show the rest of the gaming companies that they can half-ass their battlepasses and the truly addicted will still cough up money for them.

It doesn't look like a battle pass because it isn't a battle pass.

I'm genuinely confused how people are looking at this and going "Ah, battle pass!".

Originally Posted by chaoticcrono

you already have that reason though, so having on a rotation doesnt change that.

He's not Blizzard and you're coming at him as if he's a dev and has to answer for their choices, lmao. You sound so intense right now.

It doesn't matter if it's on a rotation. It's a game. Play it. Or don't. Who cares.

Looks awesome. As another poster said, if there's more ways to obtain transmog, then I'm all for it.

From looking at this, it seems easy. A max of 1000 coins a month, with 500 just for going there and clicking a chest, so that's already half of your monthly coins earned. With every two activities you do at 50 each, you gain 100 coins. So just by logging in and doing 10 activities, you already hit your 1000 cap. Easy enough.

Originally Posted by Jester Joe

It doesn't look like a battle pass because it isn't a battle pass.

I'm genuinely confused how people are looking at this and going "Ah, battle pass!".

It's just that is is like a battle pass if you think of the subscription as a battle pass. It does make me a little afraid of WoW going free to play but otherwise its like the Twitch Drops using TCG loot: Its people getting mad over things they were never promised or entitled to.

The good: stuff from the store becomes available to players

The bad: opens up the door for more monetization in the form of "premium" battlepasses.

Originally Posted by Ersula

It's just that is is like a battle pass if you think of the subscription as a battle pass. It does make me a little afraid of WoW going free to play but otherwise its like the Twitch Drops using TCG loot: Its people getting mad over things they were never promised or entitled to.

The subscription isn't giving access to that though.

Nor is there any leveling involved, no resets, no buying levels, no items being discontinued if you don't get them now, etc.

The only similarity is the missions really, but that's hardly unique to Battle Passes.

Originally Posted by Daronokk

And people actually had hope that new Blizzard would be better than old Blizzard. This is the stooping to new lows.

Disgusting greed.

? How is it greed? Like... literally LOG INTO THE GAME ONCE A MONTH, and do some random activities and collect rewards... or did I miss the part where it says "pay X amount of RL money to get it faster?" Like, did you even READ the post?

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Originally Posted by Jester Joe

It doesn't look like a battle pass because it isn't a battle pass.

I'm genuinely confused how people are looking at this and going "Ah, battle pass!".

Well, the problem is that Blizzard has a VERY poor track record. Are we SURE they aren't going to come out with some "premium traders post" down the line? I mean, yeah, for now it looks really cool and basically free (aside from sub fee), but they haven't earned the benefit of the doubt that 6 months down the line they wont go "hmm... if we put a Zulian Tiger or Zul'Amani Bear or Spectral Tiger, I bet we can get people to pay an extra 20 bucks for a premium post!"

Originally Posted by rhorle

The blue post states new activities and items introduced every month. So that seems like the rotation for most items will be monthly which gives at least 30 days if you are not subscribed but want a specific item. If the currency doesn't reset each month there is no real reason to have a fear of missing anything because you'll have plenty of time to subscribe and buy.

Presuming, of course, that the items you want out of any given pool are affordable on a month's worth of Tender. With no decay, there's some degree of incentive to sub monthly to try to hoard Tender should a month roll around that has a pool with several desirable items. It's similarly possible that some items may require multiple month's worth of tender to purchase, leading to a whole other can of worms.

I like this. I was initially worried it'd bring back the feeling of chores to Dragonflight, but 10 activities a month, half of your monthly maximum being free and having a wide range of stuff to do instead of a Great Vault style very specific list you can max out means the element of choice is still around.

FOMO was a concern, until I saw the explicit statement confirming things that rotate out will rotate back in eventually - meaning nothing is missable, and you can even save something so it doesn't expire if you really want it but don't have quite enough.

And bringing back old, currently unobtainable rewards on top of all that? Awesome.

Basically free rewards for staying subscribed, which is vastly preferable to up-front paying on the store for subscription mounts - hopefully more of the cash shop stuff is available through this system. The only downside is you won't be able to earn enough to buy everything, especially if they keep adding more stuff, but that's not a real problem - and the only potential big downside is if they monetize it, which they show no indication of doing. Until they do, I'm gonna trust this is New Blizzard coming up with a fun new thing to keep the game fresh. We'll see.

Originally Posted by Chilela

Presuming, of course, that the items you want out of any given pool are affordable on a month's worth of Tender. With no decay, there's some degree of incentive to sub monthly to try to hoard Tender should a month roll around that has a pool with several desirable items. It's similarly possible that some items may require multiple month's worth of tender to purchase, leading to a whole other can of worms.

Of course. The more you play the more currency you can gain and the more chances you have of getting stuff. That isn't a another can of worms but simply how things work. Playing, and subscribing, gives more advantages to get things versus not playing. If a person has that degree of fear of missing out then they likely would already be subscribed and earning currency/items. There is always a "what if" scenario.

Originally Posted by Chilela

Presuming, of course, that the items you want out of any given pool are affordable on a month's worth of Tender. With no decay, there's some degree of incentive to sub monthly to try to hoard Tender should a month roll around that has a pool with several desirable items. It's similarly possible that some items may require multiple month's worth of tender to purchase, leading to a whole other can of worms.

I kind of wonder what quality the items will be at as well. In wow highend cosmetics are usually tied to prestige activities. They are playing around with unlocking armor spell effects for high end players. I wonder if the trading post will offer something on par?

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Originally Posted by Jester Joe

The subscription isn't giving access to that though.

Nor is there any leveling involved, no resets, no buying levels, no items being discontinued if you don't get them now, etc.

The only similarity is the missions really, but that's hardly unique to Battle Passes.

A decade of distrust doesn't vanish instantly from one expansion where they seem to be listening. This seems like a good system but people are taking the wait and see approach now over celebrating early.

Originally Posted by Ersula

It's just that is is like a battle pass if you think of the subscription as a battle pass. It does make me a little afraid of WoW going free to play but otherwise its like the Twitch Drops using TCG loot: Its people getting mad over things they were never promised or entitled to.

Though of course people where feeling discontent with TCG items as Twitch Drops for all the right reasons.

Nice mobile game mechanics to keep you logged in farming stuff you don't use or want because bad brain.

Originally Posted by rhorle

Of course. The more you play the more currency you can gain and the more chances you have of getting stuff. That isn't a another can of worms but simply how things work. Playing, and subscribing, gives more advantages to get things versus not playing. If a person has that degree of fear of missing out then they likely would already be subscribed and earning currency/items. There is always a "what if" scenario.

Still, the fact that there's a "What if something REALLY nice drops in a future month that requires a buildup of tender" mindset potentially at play, on top of the potential of not knowing when current items will become available again, potentially turns the Trading Post into a bizarre game of chance of sorts, which is what I was more or less getting at. Someone could miss out before even knowing they're missing out.

Originally Posted by Celement

I kind of wonder what quality the items will be at as well. In wow highend cosmetics are usually tied to prestige activities. They are playing around with unlocking armor spell effects for high end players. I wonder if the trading post will offer something on par?

I wouldn't be surprised if that ended up being the case. I could definitely see bigger-ticket items fall under the "Requires multiple months of subs to unlock" umbrella. Once again, one of those things that will probably be up in the air until it actually goes live, since even by their own admittance, the numbers are all subject to change.

That said, they'd REALLY have to bungle the system to make it feel dirtier than the cash shop.

Originally Posted by iperson

People on MMO-champion: There's nothing to do, give us more dailies!
Other people on MMO-champion: NO! We don't need FOMO content that requires you to login every --- checks notes -- month!!!

It's like it's different people or something.

Originally Posted by Drench

Nice mobile game mechanics to keep you logged in farming stuff you don't use or want because bad brain.

And if you dont use it or want it, why would you bother login to farm it.

Originally Posted by Ersula

It's just that is is like a battle pass if you think of the subscription as a battle pass. It does make me a little afraid of WoW going free to play but otherwise its like the Twitch Drops using TCG loot: Its people getting mad over things they were never promised or entitled to.

It isn't really like a battle pass. You get 500 tokens for loging in every month and another 500 tokens for doing stuff. So a maximum of 1000 tokens per months which is enough to buy 1 mount for 900 tokens and that's it. Weapon transmog seems to be 750 tokens, transmog ensembles 650, toys 500 and individual transmog pieces 250 or 100 tokens.

Each activity rewards 50 points and you need 1000 points to get the 500 tokens. So 20 activities which could probably be done in a couple of days or a week by just playing the game.

They should remove the cap so that people may try to do other activities to get more tokens. Maybe do some PVP or pet battles to get another 100 or 200 tokens so you can buy the mount and a piece of transmog or 1 transmog weapons.

This is an excellent thing. Many people have shared thoughts I agree with.

Can't wait to see this in game. I hope the Traveler's Log goals are fun and I really hope they leverage old content in some way - go /dance with innkeepers in Cata zones, or something. Just stuff to get people out and involved in the world.

I'm pleasantly surprised and excited.

Can't wait to be forced to do 50 fucking Sub-Par Pokemon-Battles for 5 of those tokens.

Yay, another effing currency to collect. Not thrilled.