Blizzard stance on gold inflation and AH mount being to common

[Schizoide]

People really don't get it. Inflation of decent value is needed so a new player doesn't feel hopelessly behind a player who hoarded gold for 10 years. It's the same frigging reason why every expac is a gear reset and a newbie doesn't have to start the gear grind all the way down from molten core.

Inflation is also needed to boost the economy, inflation encourages people to buy goods and spent their gold before it loses value, while lack of inflation or even worse, deflation, encourages sitting on piles of gold and not trading at all.

All of that is true, but it needs to be controlled moderate inflation, not the hyperinflation we saw in WoD and particularly post-7.3 Legion.

[Marrilaife]

All of that is true, but it needs to be controlled moderate inflation, not the hyperinflation we saw in WoD and particularly post-7.3 Legion.

Yeah, I said the same in my previous post few pages ago, they don't need to have zimbabwe / venezuela levels of inflation, but general idea was every expansion giving you more gold than the previous one, even though things like dailies / world quests, or trash drops from mobs.

WOD would be fine if they never implemented treasure hunter perk, or only kept it on Harrison and not letting any other follower roll it, or not letting it stack the least.

Legion was also fine until Argus when they for some reason went completely ham with the amount of gold missions. Pre 7.3 you were getting new missions every 18h or so, past 7.3 you were getting new missions every 6 hours. They literally said after WOD they don't want people to time missions with a stop watch or interrupt their play every 2-4 hours to recheck if new gold mission spawned... and they did the same in Argus patch. Even worse, because WOD missions had 24h expiry, you just had to cycle them if you didn't have full roster of treasure hunters. Legion missions had 8h expiry or so, so you had to check them 2-3 times per day if you wanted to milk them to the fullest.

[Powerogue]

" In this case, we want to ensure that in the long run, years from now, we don’t find ourselves looking around and seeing AH mounts that are as common as repair mounts are today."

It sounds like it has little to do with inflation, which they see as inevitable, and more to do with the sheer usefulness of the mount, and they don't want it to get to a point where the things are everywhere and no one needs to go to a capital city anymore. I'm sure they'll continue having things like those 333k each frogs.

[Cæli]

there is a major illogical thinking in what blizz say...

they say that they want regular players to retain some kind of prestige -> want to reward assiduous players that stay

then they say they're for a slight inflation, which over time reduce the gold value earned of regular players -> hit on assiduous players that stay

NOOT NOOT BLIZZARD, FATAL ERROR IN PROCESS 999

either you want to favor paying players and make them stay or you don't...furthermore FOMO will only make regulars lose interest over time...and make new players not engaged on top

2/10 marketing

[Soon-TM]

Problem: there is too much gold flying around from past expansions, especially WoD and (to a lesser extent) Legion.

Solution: remove a well-received and considerable gold sink.

OR:

Problem: "we don't want mobile AHs".

Solution: create a mount with a mobile AH.

#BlizzLogic

Besides, all those "B-b-b-but MUH LEGIUNZ SKEENZ LOL" folks are simply missing the point, because it was very clear, from the very beginning, that Artifacts and everything related to them was going to be exclusive to Legion. Something that clearly didn't happen with the longboi.

[Drusin]

Lol @ people who say that its so easy to get 5 million gold by "just playing the game" well thats true if by playing you mean camping AH 15 hours a day.

Yeah people shouldn't say that, it assumes everyone plays the same.

[sam86]

it wouldn't be a problem if it was only in-game gold, wow gold = rl money either u like it or not, and right now it has sh8t price
remove token wow and gold prices will be back to zero problem again, it will be just in game and for game, it will has zero effect anywhere else
heck even remove that mount wouldn't made half that problem if gold != real actual money, since it is just game gold for game gold, half of ppl who are making problem are ppl who are stuck at 2-3 million gold and know that paying some cash will get them the mount instead of hours of unpleasant farming

[TickTickTick]

If they remove all buyable mounts from previous expansions either then I dont give a fuck about that. If they leave them and only remove the brutosaur then they are full of shit in my book.

[sam86]

Lol @ people who say that its so easy to get 5 million gold by "just playing the game" well thats true if by playing you mean camping AH 15 hours a day.

it isn't
in fact if everyone decide to be an AH whale, no one will be, so they are 'lucky' that most ppl don't give a f8ck about AH, don't like to manipulate others with overprice and prefer honest 'work' to get their gold
i know someone in TBC (undead priest) who literally transferred server to new one when my server started to get too many AH whales to get rich easy (which back then didn't make sense, since game gold is just that, game gold, not actual real money)

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there is a major illogical thinking in what blizz say...

they say that they want regular players to retain some kind of prestige -> want to reward assiduous players that stay

then they say they're for a slight inflation, which over time reduce the gold value earned of regular players -> hit on assiduous players that stay

NOOT NOOT BLIZZARD, FATAL ERROR IN PROCESS 999

either you want to favor paying players and make them stay or you don't...furthermore FOMO will only make regulars lose interest over time...and make new players not engaged on top

2/10 marketing

if u didn't guess the real reason.. the answer is simple
tokens are equal sh8t, only way to make token worth buying with real money and sell it on AH is make its gold value far higher than now
Also in eu it is quite pricey, in NA specially tokens are equal sh8t since ages, and ppl started to just ignore it since it gave even less gold than boosting service

[Schizoide]

Legion was also fine until Argus when they for some reason went completely ham with the amount of gold missions. Pre 7.3 you were getting new missions every 18h or so, past 7.3 you were getting new missions every 6 hours.

Nah. I was making 35k gold per day in 7.2. Base legion mission gold income was waaaay too high. And I was making 15k gold/day in WoD. Also way too high for passive income.

[FelPlague]

It's scummy because this is a very coveted item, that can be acquired through real life money, and the early removal of it will force people who desparately want it to cover the missing gold with wow tokens. Don't need to be a detective to figure that out.

Limited time items/events are generally the worst part of wow, but usually these items are purely about skill and gameplay. Sure, you could argue that you can buy raid boosts etc. in the same way, to get some of the other limited things, but that's a niche illegal out of game activity. In this case, this is just an outright official incentive to spend money to get it.



Of course they aren't the same thing. Store mounts have no additional perks, aren't even that pretty, and don't have any prestige bound to them whatsoever. Most people who buy them are just hardcore collectors who want that +1 to the counter while supporting Blizzard for some additional buck. You don't feel any pressure whatsoever to get any of them.

Brutosaur on the other hand is that one mount in the game that has AH functionality. It's an item of incredibly luxury. And now it's getting discontinued (yes, I know about the future availability on BMAH, but good lucking getting it through there for the first couple years below the original price).

So no, they aren't the same thing. Brutosaur fiasco is actually a scummy/predatory move, while the store mounts really are not.

Yes for the first few years it will be below the original price. Do you not understand how the economy works?

Someone who has for example 8 mil will buy it now. They won't wait.

Someone who has gold cap will buy it now. They won't wait.
When it goes on BMAH why would someone who has for example 8 mil pay 8 mil for it. When they could have paid 5 mil only a few weeks prior.
Players who have that much gold are smarter then that
So only those who couldn't afford it when it was 5 million will buy it. Maybe in 4-5 years he's it will go over 5 mill. But not now.

[Marrilaife]

the answer is simple
tokens are equal sh8t, only way to make token worth buying with real money and sell it on AH is make its gold value far higher than now
Also in eu it is quite pricey, in NA specially tokens are equal sh8t since ages, and ppl started to just ignore it since it gave even less gold than boosting service

Can't make token "worth more" without injecting gold into economy or reworking how token works.

Legion gave players gold = token gold value went up
BFA cut the gold income = token dropped a whopping 50% in value and only regained a bit of it more than a year later... nowhere close to legion value.

If they make a lot of people buy token for gold to afford the longboi, guess what, the gold value of token will drop even further due to increased supply.

[SirCowdog]

" In this case, we want to ensure that in the long run, years from now, we don’t find ourselves looking around and seeing AH mounts that are as common as repair mounts are today."

It sounds like it has little to do with inflation, which they see as inevitable, and more to do with the sheer usefulness of the mount, and they don't want it to get to a point where the things are everywhere and no one needs to go to a capital city anymore. I'm sure they'll continue having things like those 333k each frogs.

Make the AH accessible from anywhere via a UI element, remove the feature from the longboi and replace with something else cool, and keep the mount available.

The reasons they're giving sound good, but the solution just isn't. If their issue is with the functionality of the AH feature, then fix THAT. Don't use a sledgehammer when a jeweler's mallet will suffice.

[Coconut]

Yes for the first few years it will be below the original price. Do you not understand how the economy works?

Someone who has for example 8 mil will buy it now. They won't wait.

Someone who has gold cap will buy it now. They won't wait.
When it goes on BMAH why would someone who has for example 8 mil pay 8 mil for it. When they could have paid 5 mil only a few weeks prior.
Players who have that much gold are smarter then that
So only those who couldn't afford it when it was 5 million will buy it. Maybe in 4-5 years he's it will go over 5 mill. But not now.

Sorry, but I disagree with you here, Fel.

Yeah, the people who can currently afford will buy it before 9.0 (unless they don't find out that it is being removed, which is more likely than you think for people who take breaks). But all the people who aren't able to break 5 million right now because the economy is dead will be able to do more than that early in Shadowlands, if not throughout the entire expansion, and their competition will drive the prices up.

If you end BFA with 3 million gold, you may be able to rise up to 5 million within a month or two of launch by selling mats, consumables and BoEs at early inflated prices, but if someone else will be able to rise to 6 million within the same time frame, they will always outbid you. And soon enough, the best chance will be to hope the cap stays at 10 million so you can reach that, camp the BMAH and be the first to bid on it, the good old strategy from MoP.

[kaminaris]

I said it before and I say it once again:

Nobody gives a flying fuck what YOU have, people only care enough to ask you how to get it for themselves:

1. Being on mythic mount from previous expansion, dude asks how to get it?
- Well thats easy, you just have to wait till next expansion and start farming that old raid. OR do runs now, but you will need more people to clear it.

2. Having mage tower appearance:
- Well that's easy, you just have to rewind time and play during legion, complete mage tower. OR you can find some account for sale with mage tower appearances.

3. Having WoD/Mop challange mode appearances/mounts:
- Well that's easy, you just have to rewind time and play during mop/wod, complete challenges on gold. OR you can find some account for sale with that stuff.

4. Having AH brontosaur, I will say to new players:
- Well, that's easy, first you will need to learn how to earn massive amounts of gold, you will need 10M so gold cap. Then you will have to camp BMAH for half a year day by day and instantly bid 9 999 999g 99s 99c on it otherwise you will need to wait another half a year.


Moral is simple, up until MoP, not too much content was removed so anyone who came to game late, you still could earn pretty much everything, legendaries, almost all items (maybe except for transmog greens from rare mobs because of cataclysm).

Now, after 4th exclusive expansion to cater to special snowflakes that have fantasy of people drooling over their gear, more and more content is being removed.
That is extremely bad for new players.

[FelPlague]

Sorry, but I disagree with you here, Fel.

Yeah, the people who can currently afford will buy it before 9.0 (unless they don't find out that it is being removed, which is more likely than you think for people who take breaks). But all the people who aren't able to break 5 million right now because the economy is dead will be able to do more than that early in Shadowlands, if not throughout the entire expansion, and their competition will drive the prices up.

If you end BFA with 3 million gold, you may be able to rise up to 5 million within a month or two of launch by selling mats, consumables and BoEs at early inflated prices, but if someone else will be able to rise to 6 million within the same time frame, they will always outbid you. And soon enough, the best chance will be to hope the cap stays at 10 million so you can reach that, camp the BMAH and be the first to bid on it, the good old strategy from MoP.

someone who had 3 mill, and just barely gets to 5 mill, will not then waste literally every penny of their gold on a mount.
also really dead economy? its super easy to make gold right now. i make tns just by putting stuff i come across on the Ah passively.

[Tyranitar]

Im convinced Blizz ran out of ideas and will just refresh the AH mount every expansion, having another look each time.

This makes removing the old version plausible.

[FelPlague]

Moral is simple, up until MoP, not too much content was removed so anyone who came to game late, you still could earn pretty much everything, legendaries, almost all items (maybe except for transmog greens from rare mobs because of cataclysm).

Now, after 4th exclusive expansion to cater to special snowflakes that have fantasy of people drooling over their gear, more and more content is being removed.
That is extremely bad for new players.

Not true at all "Up until mop not too much was removed"

Cough.

Vanilla- PVP gear, armorless epic mounts, scarab lord+mount, corrupted ashbringer, atiesh, nax gear, original ZG rewards
tbc- pvp mounts, pvp gear original ZA rewards
wotlk- pvp mounts, pvp gear, black and tan protodrake
cata- pvp mounts, pvp gear


we have always had a fair bit of "gear you can only get for abit then its gone"


and again, blizz tried to remove the "We remove gear" and pvp players FLIPPED THEIR LIDS to the point blizz reversed the change.
they wanted to make it so if you got 2200 rating in pvp, you could buy a new set, OR an old set.
people did not like that one fucking bit.

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Im convinced Blizz ran out of ideas and will just refresh the AH mount every expansion, having another look each time.

This makes removing the old version plausible.

how wuld that be lazy?
adding multiple AH mounts sounds great.

[Dakhath]

Every expansion should have something that gets removed after its over, while I don't like the term "prestige" items, there should be something available for people who played through at any given point. I greatly prefer something like the mage tower over removing a mount that is purchased with gold, but it is what it is.

[Jester Joe]

I understand their logic, but I don't exactly agree with it.

I suppose there's possibly a bit more to it, like they want people to go to SW/Org still for auctions for whatever reason, but that's something they knew would be a consequence from the start of making this mount.

And I don't have issues with removing things from the game as long as it's said from the start that it was going to be time limited.
Things like the MoP cloak were a bit sketchy I feel like when Blizzard announced near the end of the chain "by the way this is getting removed in WoD". And now you end up with an achievement that no one can get if you don't have the MoP cloak (Ordos, he's still worth 10 achievement points last I checked and even dragging him in range so someone without the cloak can hit him doesn't give them the achievement).

This is one of those sketchy situations I feel. They should have said from the start of the expansion they wanted it to be obtainable this expansion only.