Should wow go free to play?

[Altariaz]

Well, with all those unsubs and so on, wow now have less players, and u can notice that walking around the game.

Isnt a good time to go f2p now? Doing that surely will bring more players to the game.

And no need to make p2w, blizz shop alone could make a big money to then.

If WoW went f2p, then it is more than likely that Blizzard will attach a cash cost to many more things. It would probably usher in an explicit pay to win structure. (Yes, some will argue the seeds of that are already there, but it is surely small-fry relative to what would come if WoW went f2p)

[erifwodahs]

I am not happy to what sub gets now, quality wise, but F2P is just going to make it way worse so no.

[Thelxi]

The best thing you can do is hope things stay the same as much possible. Asking them to change their business model is never going to go in your favor, hello. They have made it very clear over the last few years that they see any change as an opportunity to make the game more profitable and viable. They will spin anything in a way that is palatable to you on first sight and profitable for them.

[Asrialol]

I'm at the point where i don't care.

Though F2P will make things substantially worse, no doubt. It will mean a decrease on content support without the regular revenue stream and even more malpractices.

It would just make it easier to stop playing, for me.

Do you find it hard to stop playing?

[Swnem]

Do you find it hard to stop playing?

Not for me. Other people tend to take it hard. So, i have to be thoughtful.

[Gratlim]

No reason to keep the sub money. Technically WoW is currently working and mostly financed by it's P2W elements (through Tokens and wales buying BoEs and boosts).

But they manage to do the F2P P2W model while charging sub fees to stay afloat. With the massive drop since the Blizzardgate i can hardly see them go free. But they should reset the whole thing though and maybe change their ways and make it free to attract younger players.

[Azerate]

sure guys there are no boosts in wow at all....no pay to win....all those bots you see are just for show there they aint there to sell for peoples tokens.....everything is juuuust fine

*big hit of copium*

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maybe read what i write before just repeating yourself like a parrot? what other fantasy mmo besides wow flat out sells you gold for cash while asking for a box price for each expanison and a subscription fee every month? and then read that that action by itself increases gold selling and buying 10 times.....when something is against tos....people do it MUCH LESS.....when you can safely swipe your credit card direct to blizzard and not to som e shady chinese site, everyone is gonna just do it.....and everyone is gonna boost.....and in the end you have people like you defending the sh out of it.....no wonder wow is in a state it is.....they know they have bozos that will pay for any sheet they serve them, and ev en defend it no matter how hard they are gettin frickied over

Well, you are just repeating yourself over and over so I decided to do the same.

And no, clearly not everyone is gonna do it because the vast majority play without interacting with the wow token at all.

[Sinaa]

can you tell me how gw2 cash shop is influencing player behavior any worse than wow one?

In WoW the cashshop skins are still just a minor part of the game, however in GW2 there have been barely any presentable in game rewards added to the game since the first expansion has launched. In WoW there are like 300+ mounts available for the player to earn, in GW2 despite there being 7? mount types as opposed to WoW having only two types you cannot earn mount skins outside of the item shop. You unlock the mount & then either use that one base skin, or visit the shop. The same pretty much applies for outfits & weapons, there are some exceptions, but not many and there is certainly not much variety outside of the shop.

And now I've arrived at the my main point. In GW2 you can just farm gold, convert that to gems & then buy whatever in the item shop, but this means that as a player, if you are interested in fashion wars (in GW2 almost everyone is interested in that), then you must grind gold, a lot of gold and there are new shinies to buy every two weeks.
There are a plethora of currencies & reward systems in the game, but it's all useless, because the game boils down to farming gold to look good and occasionally doing something you enjoy while looking good.

[Progenitor Aquarius]

I think they should just delete WoW Token, that would fix a lot of problems.

/me hides.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I think they should just delete WoW Token, that would fix a lot of problems.

/me hides.

That and cracking down on bots before they can make their initial investment back (so faster than once every quarter...).

[Zyrinx]

Absolutely not.

They need to dial down the hubris and make a player centric expansion in 10.0. Or hell even 9.2 or 9.3. The key is, start valuing the player's time.

I really believe a lot of veteran unsubbers are still gettable. I know I am. For example, if their metrics show that subs are down 50%, but m+ and normal+ raid participation is up or flat, that means the casual player has left the game in droves (made up numbers obviously, but I could see them being true).

[mojusk]

No. But the free trial should be alot better. It should go up to lvl 59.99.. And there shouldnt be All those restrictions such as chat AH etc.
Pretty much the full game except endgame.

[CaptainV]

I think wow should go buy to play, tbh.

Not free to play, but buy to play, you need to buy the full version of the current expansion etc.

As for the free trial? They should up it to level 50, let people experience everything there is on offer in previous expansions so they have a reason and desire to play the new ones.

[Pivotal]

I'd say no, but it's not too far fetched if it would happen honestly. Many people pay their sub with in-game gold already anyway, and sub fees are probably not anywhere near their primary source of income for the game these days.

[Queen of Hamsters]

No, it should not. You people being disconnected from the reality of what this game makes in a bad year shouldn't dictate their business model.

WoW made 800k USD in a BAD year during WoD.

If the game isn't worth the low sub cost to you, vote with your wallet and stop paying for it. Bitching for it to become F2P with all that entails is just insipid.

[m4xc4v413r4]

I'm seeing a lot of confusing opinions on the thread...

Are we talking about ending the subscription and keeping the games/expansions paid or actually completely free to play?

[srambo]

In WoW the cashshop skins are still just a minor part of the game, however in GW2 there have been barely any presentable in game rewards added to the game since the first expansion has launched. In WoW there are like 300+ mounts available for the player to earn, in GW2 despite there being 7? mount types as opposed to WoW having only two types you cannot earn mount skins outside of the item shop. You unlock the mount & then either use that one base skin, or visit the shop. The same pretty much applies for outfits & weapons, there are some exceptions, but not many and there is certainly not much variety outside of the shop.

And now I've arrived at the my main point. In GW2 you can just farm gold, convert that to gems & then buy whatever in the item shop, but this means that as a player, if you are interested in fashion wars (in GW2 almost everyone is interested in that), then you must grind gold, a lot of gold and there are new shinies to buy every two weeks.
There are a plethora of currencies & reward systems in the game, but it's all useless, because the game boils down to farming gold to look good and occasionally doing something you enjoy while looking good.

ok but how is that more toxic than wow's cash shop where you can buy gold and with that gold get boosted to get almost anything in game? and that in effect leaves the game full of bots to provide the market with gold for tokens....and all this in a game thats all about achievements and item rarity and unobtainability and its all basically sold out for cash while gw2 gives everyone bis gear sooner or later. and all that plus you pay a monthly sub for wow as well, while gw2 has no sub.

wow's monetization and cash shop seems waaaaaay more toxic in how much it ruined the game experience

completely free wow WOULD NOT WORK....there would have to be a box price/expansion charge to keep the accounts playing responsible and with consequences to face

[Lorgar Aurelian]

ok but how is that more toxic than wow's cash shop where you can buy gold and with that gold get boosted to get almost anything in game? and that in effect leaves the game full of bots to provide the market with gold for tokens....and all this in a game thats all about achievements and item rarity and its all basically sold out for cash. and all that plus you pay a monthly sub for that as well, while gw2 has no sub.

wow's monetization and cash shop seems waaaaaay more toxic in how much it ruined the game experience

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completely free wow WOULD NOT WORK....there would have to be a box price/expansion charge to keep the accounts playing responsible and with consequences to face

GW2 also has a gem to gold conversion and vise versa last time I checked so in theory any thing you could do with the token you could do with gems as well as there being a bigger shop to spend gems on.

The only real difference is wow has a sub whole GW2 has a bigger shop.

[Al Gorefiend]

They will inevitably end up releasing entire classes in the store you need to pay for to unlock in the character creation menu.

And when they release that class, it's going to be WotLK-era Death Knight kind of OP to entice players to buy it. Since so many WoW players are completionists and collectors it will sell hard.

Once they discover a single new class is bringing in half the income an entire expansion provided them it's gg from there. Then we'll start getting sure to sell races in there, Ogres, High Elves, Arakkoa you name it

[vian]

Yes, the only reason I'm not playing is there's not enough value to keep the sub up, SL barely covered the initial cost of the expansion imo.