Sneak Peek: Guardian Cub Tradable Pet

[Cows For Life]

How stupid are half the people posting here? Seriously OMG THEY ALLOWED GOLD BUYING, ECONOMY IS SCREWED, You guys realise it could sell for something like 100g ?


and because of that, not many people may buy it to sell via AH. 20k gold is £10, this pet is £10, So the pets going to sell for 20k gold on every server? somehow i dont think so.

I like how this person is calling other people stupid.

[Jiggles]

Yeah, it's not like Valve has their cash cow TF2 where they have millions of microtransactions and hats.

Nope. Blizzard is the devil.

Give me a break.

Oh, you mean the game that originally came bundled with the Orange Box; an outstanding value. The game that has been updated with new maps and game modes for years, free of cost? The game that went free to play because of said microtransactions and hats? That one?

Thanks for proving my point.

[k1037]

how dare blizzard be a for-profit company and try to make profithow dare they

Because companies have to either maximize short-term profit at all costs or be non-profit charities, amirite?

Here is a tale of two companies:

Company #1 earns a profit of several hundred million dollars a year and takes steps to provide a high-quality product with exceptional customer service. This company is not begrudged their profits, and is on track to make incredible amounts of money from loyal fans for decades to come.

Company #2 earns a profit of several billion dollars a year. Unsatisfied, they begin turning future features into paid services and cutting costs even if it leads to an inferior product. When many customers stop paying for their products, they double-down on their strategy. This company is begrudged their profits by millions of now-former customers and their future becomes more tenuous.

The kicker? They are the same company. Strategy #1 is early Blizzard and resulted in their rise. Strategy #2 is the current Activision-Blizzard and resulting in their slow-but-steady demise (they can't cover for lost subs with paid mounts/pets/transfers/mobile AH/etc. forever, though they're certainly trying).

[Gavan]

Yeah, it's not like Valve has their cash cow TF2 where they have millions of microtransactions and hats.

Nope. Blizzard is the devil.

Give me a break.

The fundamental difference with VIP/FTP hybred games is that you get an allowance of points to spend at a store. TF2 is totally free, and thrives off micro-trans, just like a Zynga game does. WoW on the other hand has a sub fee and a small number of pets/mounts to purchase with real cash.

This is crossing that grey line into the same realm that they started to go down with the RealID invite system. It's a premium service that can directly effect the integrity and stability of an aspect of the game. Direct server and character transactions are one thing (when they'er controlled *cough stars cough*), but selling items that can be utilized in such a way to directly or indirectly alter a player's or character's progression dependant upon the size of their wallet breaks the game.

[greyghost]

Well. Not surprised it came to this... but to be honest, I'd rather give Blizzard ten bucks for gold than people who abuse Chinese Prisoners to mass farm/hack accounts for currency.

[Deleted]

"guild leaders can use them to reward members for a job well done" lmfao

[Enderfish]

I've never had problems with the pet store pets before, or thinking that Blizzard was doing something sneaky behind the scenes, but this one kind of took me by surprise. A) It is a 1 time use, what is that? The other pets (and I've bought 3 of them ><) would be sent to every toon on your account and imo that made them easily worth their price. And even if they couldn't use that mechanic because it is boe, they could have made it like the Sindragosa pet that is BoA but you have to actually send it to each toon and learn it etc.. so I know that would be possible. The only thought I have is that you can't put BoA flagged items on the AH, but even if we had to sell it in trade chat, it would still be better than just getting it on one toon for 10 bucks.

The 2nd thing is this is a pretty obvious gold buying option. Imo they have never made it as clear as with this item that you are spending 10 bucks to buy X amount of gold. Their whole argument about giving it to friends or family is moot because you can already gift the other pets through the Blizz pet store.. so this one is a definite dollar for gold item. And maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing but because they are 1 time use Blizz is probably expecting to sell quite a lot of these pets because its not a 1 per account thing, some people with tons of gold will want them on more than one toon and I can just see people buying 20-30 of these things to make in game gold.

And this is funny because I've never been one of the "nothing in game for real life money" people. I always thought, whatever if they actually sell gold for money on their site, who cares? But this item just makes me feel a bit weird because they are pretending it will mainly be used as gifts for friends when they know damn well it will be used to get in game gold from the AH. And of course the fact that it is a 1 time use pet for 10 dollars is pretty expensive compared to the others that would go to every single toon you ever make on your account... for the same money. The contrast is just too great and shows this is definitely a sneaky step towards purchasing gold from their site directly.

[Prag]

Don't be naive. There's already an economy in-game for this. Someone with a reloadable credit card or Visa Gift Card, etc. sells in-game mounts/pets from the Blizzard Store for in-game gold. This just removes the scam opportunities.

[Sprucelee]

It's fun to see the brilliant minds here at MMO work, this thread is hilarious. For anyone to be angry with Blizzard at finding ways to divert people from gold farmers/sellers, they would first have to believe that it is possible to stop them in the first place. It isn't, we all know this, and Diablo 3 is the culmination of the fact that Blizzard accepts this reality. So knowing that they can not be stopped, providing a safer way to do this and take away from account hackers and farmers makes sense. Honestly, Blizzard has already had the ultimate stop out in place for most of this, making 90% of items BOP. Withstanding a few every tier, you still have to actually go and get items yourself to ever be competitive. You might have a BOE weapon or bracers, but you will never get a full set of gear. Now you may say.. well that's an advantage... The point is that anyone who would do that with this method would with a current "illegal" gold seller. So nothing changed in-game, just less profit and incentive for them and less hacked accounts. Ultimately the only way to stop an in-game advantage from gold is to remove all BOE gear..... it has nothing to do with Blizzard providing a safer avenue or not.

[Notos]

I doubt these things are going to be worth very much. The old ones barely went for 10k on my server, and the supply of these is looking to be even greater since a lot of people will undoubtedly get them to try and make some quick gold. I still don't understand why people are making a ruckus over this. It's just another store pet, except you can use the AH to sell it instead of advertising in trade chat... big whoop.

[retpally]

Grats Blizzard, your subscribers can officially legally buy gold. If you can't beat the gold farmers, join them?

[AVPaul]

Pets and mounts, that has a half-addon price, makes developers more and more lazy and causes qulity of content to became lower and lower, as they know, that if they lose some subs, they can always get their profit back by selling some cute pixels, which takes about 10 minutes to be designed and thousands of which can be purchased with new addon or obtained for free with new content patch. And they like to do it more and more. They want us to pay for every higher quality model they make. They don't want to make cool models for free anymore. They think that paying sub is not enough. I don't want to see donate and premium secrvices in a sub-based game. This game diappoints me more and more.

[Marxman]

I'm ok with this. I wouldn't buy a companion pet (or a mount, for that matter) for any amount of real currency. It's a cosmetic item that in no way affects my gameplay. Waste of money. I don't blame Blizzard for taking advantage of stupid people. If you're willing to pay $10 for a stupid little lion thing to follow you around... well, more power to you.

[Ademptio]

So this pet is 1 time use only right? But werent the other pets account bound meaning you had the pet on all chars for same amount of money? I mean I rather spend 10 dollars on my panda knowing all my toons will get it. Instead of 10dollar for just my main. :P my opinion anyways

[MasterHamster]

Let's summarize the average post. "Raah, my buttcheeks are clenched with anger as something that can only affect my gameplay if I allow it will be added to the game."

[FireBorne]

So basically you people loved stupid online store mounts and pets so much that now they will be pay per toon instead of all of your toons on your account getting free stuff in their eyes. How bad do you want your alts to have that new pet or mount? This is actually a pretty smart move.

[Pann]

I agree that this pet won't do much to farmers because the market is too small.

However, what would happen if they decide that the pet was a success and go the EVE route, which means trading gametime on the AH. The market for that would be huge and there are so many people with a shitload of gold and nothing to spend it on. Put the gold sellers in competition with the entire community and you may just put them outta business.[COLOR="red"]

I don't see this being the success Blizzard are hoping for, in the long term I believe it will cost them more than it will bring in. As some have already stated the pet is not that cute, plus it will carry the stigma of being the first item that allows a player to essentially purchase gold for cash which I think will make many potential in game buyers think twice.

EVE is a completely different beast from WOW, multiple accounts are more prevalent in EVE and many players that bought game time with ISK were doing so to fund their 2nd or 3rd account. Although the market in WOW that would be interested in this kind of service is much larger than that in EVE just due the larger player base, I can't see it working.

EVE, as a game, is more economically focused than WOW, ISK is much more integral to game play than gold in WOW, the more ISK you have the more PVP you can indulge in, etc.

In order for game time for gold to be a success in WOW you need it to be worthwhile for a seller to purchase the game time for cash.

Which means;

1) There must be enough players that are willing to purchase the game time with gold and have enough gold to make it worth the seller's while. For example assuming a retail price of €30 for 60 day game, the seller must be able sell of about 25-30k or they may as well just buy gold from a farmer. Therein lies the problem, the people that cannot afford their flasks and repairs are far more numerous than those that can make 30k every 60 days.

and;

2) As you said there are players that have more gold than they know what to do with. Once you reach a certain amount of gold you simply don't need any more. So sellers would be limited to those that need some quick gold.

You also run into the problem that EVE is just one world, one server; WOW is not. You run the risk that sellers will not be able to sell the game time as there are no buyers on their server and vice versa or you run the risk of destabilising realm economies.

As far as putting Gold Sellers out of business, EVE has had RMT for several years and it hasn't managed to put ISK sellers out of business.

[deathonabun]

They should make this thing so instead of being consumed on use, it becomes bound to your account.

[helheim]

People are complaining about a stupid pet, its not gear.

yet. 10chars.

[sylveriemoon]

All I see in this post by blizzard is "It's ok to buy gold with RL money, as long as we're making the profit".
Its wonderful to see blizzard finally caved....sigh!