In addition to the return of Joyous Journeys to Wrath of the Lich King Classic, there was this little ditty hidden below the top of the news section:
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| Woah. |
The WoW Token has come to WOTLK Classic, which means you can pay money to buy a WoW Token for Wrath Classic, and in turn sell the token to buy gold in game. You don't need to go spend money on a third party site, just give it to Blizz instead.
The details upon clicking are this:
So the Token is for Wrath Classic only --for now-- but I guess you can go out and buy your way into Ulduar runs legally via in-game gold you purchased by selling said WoW Tokens.
To say there are some unhappy people is an understatement. Reddit's r/classicwow has suspended their rule banning promotion of private servers, and it wouldn't shock me if Blizzard gets ClassicWow suspended shortly for promotion of basically pirated content.
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| This won't end well. |
I kind of presume that Blizz is adding the Wrath WoW token to not only boost their bottom line, but they figure that people will come back when Icecrown Citadel opens and they'll want to gear up as quickly as possible. Or, to be blunt about it, to pay people to get them geared as quickly as possible.
Or to put it a third way, the Kingslayer title is now officially for sale via GDKP runs and carries, with Blizzard approving. For Blizz to keep the Random Dungeon Finder out and bring the WoW Token to Wrath Classic, I have to wonder who Blizz was listening to. Most of the heat generated over Wrath Classic was from the RDF, not from any lack of the WoW Token. But the Token directly generates profit for Activision Blizzard, and the RDF does not.
Oh well.
I have to say I'm enjoying the popcorn-worthy drama some Wrath Classic players are experiencing because of this. Every day Wrath Classic gets closer to the things about Retail people say they hate. ^_^ (Though the ones that say 'screw Blizzard profits! buy from gold-sellers!' are contemptible to me given gold-sellers have often stolen accounts to generate their gold.)
ReplyDeleteI'm kind of glad Wrath Classic had no real pull for me since I did so much back in Wrath Retail. Normally I'd want to level a character to max level just to dink around, but my rose-colored glasses are broken when it comes to Wrath. Maybe Classic Era, but I'd have to overcome my inertia to start playing those characters again.
Still, I enjoy your (and Shintar's) posts about Classic. It's cool to read the observations and various enjoyments both of you find in the game. :)
I suspect that if Dragonflight had performed better that the WoW Token would have likely held off until Cataclysm Classic at the very least. But given the problems Activision Blizzard suddenly has in getting the merger with Microsoft approved, it's likely that this is one of those "cheap and easy" boosts to profits to get financials up.
DeleteThe one thing about Classic Era is that the people most likely to push hard on progression raiding --and consequently the people most likely to need the gold from the WoW Token-- have left Era in the dust. The hardcore servers aren't going to get a plethora of people who will use the WoW Token because of restrictions on the HC mode, and far more people are interested in the journey than the destination in Era, which kind of defeats the purpose of instant gold. In my time on the Mankrik-US Era cluster I've seen exactly one GDKP in the various chat channels. Contrast it with Atiesh-US, where there's several GDKP runs per day there.
I'd much rather have players buying the wow token to get gold than paying it to the gold sellers. I won't buy wow tokens for gold myself, but I'd buy some FOR gold to get game time, depending on the cost. Let's face it, some people are *going* to buy gold. This strikes me as less harmful to the game, overall, than the professional gold farmers/account stealers.
ReplyDeleteI'm very much torn on the idea for any of the Classic servers. I figured that when the decided to not roll out the RDF, Blizzard was going to keep the WoW Token away until much later in the "Classic" cycle. I also think that it is a cheap and easy way out of combating the bots and the gold farming business in Classic, because Blizz is trying to get blood out of a turnip by not hiring enough support staff to effectively combat the problems in game.
DeleteHaving had my account hacked in the past I have no sympathy for the gold sellers, but I also think there has to be a middle ground rather than going full P2W via the WoW Token. Gold sellers will always be able to undercut the WoW Token on the AH, so anybody who has received "service" from a third party still doesn't have to get it from Blizzard. Given Blizzard's seeming inability to care about gold sellers enough to actually throw more resources at the problem, I don't think the gold sellers are going away. The WoW Token is basically a way to entice people who wouldn't deal with an illicit gold seller to deal with them instead.
If the way to "play Classic properly" wasn't defined as the way it presently is, there likely wouldn't be a need for the WoW Token in Classic. I remember being told by a person on one of the top guilds on Myzrael-US that during their Vanilla Classic Naxx raids they were required to have roughly 1800 gold worth of mats per week. Unless you want to spend all of your waking hours playing Classic, people would simply buy gold to cover their consumable requirements. Since large numbers of Classic players bought into this system, they also had extreme demands on consumables.* So GDKP runs notwithstanding, the hardcore raiding subculture in Classic encouraged gold buying just to keep up with the minimum raid requirements.
At least in Classic Era, that style of raiding --and the general approach to the game-- are different enough that gold sellers are going to have a much harder time plying their trade in Era.
*You could tell almost to the day when the top guilds on Myzrael stopped raiding Naxx hard because the price of consumes on the Auction House plummeted due to the drop in demand.
i'm kind of glad Wrath Classic had no real pull for me since I did so much back in Wrath Retail. Normally I'd want to level a character to max level just to dink around, but my rose-colored glasses are broken when it comes to Wrath. Maybe Classic Era, but I'd have to overcome my inertia to start playing those characters again.
ReplyDeleteEra has a relaxed atmosphere that I kind of enjoy. The HC people go nuts, and there's always people who think they need boosts, but they're definitely in the minority.
DeleteLet me just say that I am glad you're here and doing what seems to be much much better.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Matt. I appreciate it a lot!
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