Gold and services aka Asian farmers in Classic

[Yunru]

Wow tokens would ruin the experience. Its that simple.
100% buggy vanila or nothing .

If you have such a problem with gold, just farm runecloth in felwood.

[Cracked]

Tokens would have to have their price scaled for classic realms. Seems like more trouble than it’s worth.

No, classic would just be a separate region. Either way, people who advocate that it's cheating.. is it better if people cheat by buying it from people directly, encouraging scammers to come to classic etc, or if blizzard does what is going to happen anyway?

[Xecks]

heh even though selling gold is going to happen directly they can always ban the people who do that. i dont like the thought of tokens but its kinda like we are at a rock and a hard place when it comes to it.

again i dont want tokens.

[Laqweeta]

SUSAN EXPRESS!!

They’d spell out their websites name with corpses in the air lmfao

[Dundebuns]

I think people are overestimating the problems that gold farmers introduced in vanilla WoW, as opposed to people who stole accounts and then stole the accounts gold and valuables. There weren't any where near as many farmers about towards the end of WoW. I remember farming black dragon scales when the majority of people were tackling Onyxia and BWL, there were a lot of farmers then. These days with accounts being as secure as they are, and bot programs being scarce or already being sued by Blizzard, the tools people have to farm up gold to sell for real money is severly diminished.

I really don't think classic will have tokens, unless they're scaled back by at least 10,000%. Having access to ~300,000g in classic when most people had at most 100g in vanilla would be economy breaking. There isn't the ability to generate wealth like that unless you really worked hard to flip the AH. I remember only a handful of people ever made the gold cap in vanilla (which was less than 300,000) and it took extraordinary ways to do that.

[Soisoisoi]

I think people are overestimating the problems that gold farmers introduced in vanilla WoW, as opposed to people who stole accounts and then stole the accounts gold and valuables. There weren't any where near as many farmers about towards the end of WoW. I remember farming black dragon scales when the majority of people were tackling Onyxia and BWL, there were a lot of farmers then. These days with accounts being as secure as they are, and bot programs being scarce or already being sued by Blizzard, the tools people have to farm up gold to sell for real money is severly diminished.

I really don't think classic will have tokens, unless they're scaled back by at least 10,000%. Having access to ~300,000g in classic when most people had at most 100g in vanilla would be economy breaking. There isn't the ability to generate wealth like that unless you really worked hard to flip the AH. I remember only a handful of people ever made the gold cap in vanilla (which was less than 300,000) and it took extraordinary ways to do that.

Tokens can be scaled, as they are in the different regions (current numbers - EU: 273k, NA: 168k, CN: 514k, TW: 389k, KR: 290k), so vanilla could easily have their own too, at like 100g per token or whatever... But I personally still think it'd be a bit weird to start out, because even I'd end up buying them for mount training and shit, because it's there - even if I DON'T want it available.

[Erolian]

It actually does not matter at all. This whole scenario was already played out on the newer version of runescape and their old school remake. What happened was people just offered to trade (made up numbers here) 30 gold on the new version of the game in exchange for 1 gold on the old school version. Yes you might get scammed but certain people will become known to be trustworthy because they're making gold both ways with the exchange rates they offer and its more profitable to run everything legit. The exact same thing will happen between both versions of WoW. This is why eventually you could buy the token equivalent on the old school version of runescape to cut the middle man out and its why it should just be included with vanilla. It doesn't even have anything to do with ToS breaking leveling or buying gold from Chinese farmers or whatever

[Soon-TM]

BoE's and rare crafting mats were far more valuable in Vanilla than they are now. So having easy access to those (as well as mounts) would tread dangerously close to P2W territory. Since presumably there will be relatively few Classic servers, active moderation from Blizz together with more player involvement -via that nifty Report button- is probably the best solution.

[azurrei]

It is popular opinion that Retail/Classic will have a shared subscription. If this is true why would people use Classic WoW gold (extremely valuable) to buy game time when they can use their Retail gold (practically worthless)?
My opinion, you'd have way more sellers than buyers.

Good point, though in theory supply/demand curve "fixes" that...in other words, if the price in gold gets low enough people will farm gold in classic to buy "cheap" tokens (even people who would normally not even bother with classic...they would play simply because it might be more efficient use of their time to get what they want (token.) It could take someone on average 2 hours to "earn" a token on retail but maybe they can buy that same token with one hour of play in classic because of the high demand for gold.

[Pastaman]

Will there be that much of a demand for it? All the people that say they are going to play Classic say they want to do it because they don't want such an easy game. It becomes much easier when you can buy your epic mount right when you hit 60. When you can respec every other day.

It's my understanding that Classic will only have hardcore players, it's not really hardcore of you don't have to grind endlessly for your epic mount.

[Zyky]

Remember Vanilla ( or anything before the Token) with the third party gold business and those guys who would level your toon in PvP in exchange for your credit card number ?
You never buy thoses services, but some people did.

Blizzard counter measure was the TOKEN.

So, how do you think Blizzard will face this situation ? Token ?

My thought: You bet they will

Let's face it, they are going to be everywhere, and many of you already know, those guys are even infesting ¨private servers¨.

I used to sell character leveling for in game gold, I never took real money, I just enjoyed leveling toons back then, I'll probably do it again.

[chazus]

I wouldn't be surprised if A) Classic/Retail is the same subscription, but tokens won't be available through classic servers and B) there will be a small, but present 3rd party gold market.

[digichi]

Problem is with this is that gold is sooooo much more valuable in vanilla than now. Being able to 'buy' gold means you have access to skills/abilities much more easily, materials, and the most important, epic mounts. Not to mention being able to buy enchants items etc

Being able to easily buy that completely changes the game. No way can they introduce wow tokens.

^this x1000

I clearly remember NOT having gold really shaped the experience.
You either had to go out of your way to make extra silver or whatever whilst levelling to buy all your skills, or be very picky with what skills you bought.

[onesBronson]

If the token is ment to combat gold farmers, I'm all for it. I just hope people won't think less of me for buying one just to sell for gold, I suck at playing the auction house.

[nomorepriest]

Haha.. right?! I remember being like.. oh I can't afford this skill, but I know this still is a must have/

^this x1000

I clearly remember NOT having gold really shaped the experience.
You either had to go out of your way to make extra silver or whatever whilst levelling to buy all your skills, or be very picky with what skills you bought.

[Goondicker]

Mark my words: If the token is put in, it will destroy Classic WoW.

I won't go in to detail, as I've talked about it before on other threads. You can keep it in BfA and tie a Classic sub to the normal sub, but as soon as Classic WoW gold can be legally and easily exchanged for real money, the game will suffer.

[Vlyse]

Mandatory food/water while soloing (some specs, just after 1-2 pulls)
Purchasing spell ranks from class trainers
Purchasing reagents for spells from vendors
Repairs
Ground Mount/Epic Ground Mount
Consumables
BoE gear/BoE profession recipes/BoE spell tomes
Quests that required money/expensive materials to complete (i.e. attunements to unlock raids)

These are all crucial Classic gameplay elements, where you had to pinch pennies, make choices and sacrifices, in order to progress. That all goes away with the WoW Token. Classic with Token becomes P2W.

[Nomads]

Paying for gold with real life money is cheating. Pure and simple. It allows you to PAY TO WIN. People who bought gold from Chinese farmers did so with the knowledge that their accounts could be banned, stolen, or their bank accounts stolen... It carried a risk, so only the fringes did it.

Having people get their epic mounts by selling WoW tokens ruins the Vanilla experience. That was a prestige item, showing you had put in the time and dedication to grind 900g.

[Solitare-sp]

Mandatory food/water while soloing (some specs, just after 1-2 pulls)
Purchasing spell ranks from class trainers
Purchasing reagents for spells from vendors
Repairs
Ground Mount/Epic Ground Mount
Consumables
BoE gear/BoE profession recipes/BoE spell tomes
Quests that required money/expensive materials to complete (i.e. attunements to unlock raids)

These are all crucial Classic gameplay elements, where you had to pinch pennies, make choices and sacrifices, in order to progress. That all goes away with the WoW Token. Classic with Token becomes P2W.

Spot on. Especially the re-specing which i didn't even think of. Right now in retail gold is just thrown at you, and there's not much to spend it on outside of comestics. In classic, the pressure to buy tokens would be so high you'd nigh on be forced to.

[khalltusk]

I don't think the token will be there at launch. As there is no player gold on launch to sustain the market. Perhaps after a certain amount of time and crucially if there is a lot of gold sellers about, then we may see the token come into play. As with enough time there will be plenty of gold in the system and those who play Vanilla would have a way to play the game with out paying. The flip side is it can help impact some of the gold sellers as blizzard does try to combat them.

So I think it is a case of if AND when we will see the token. Certainly not at launch but perhaps later.