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WoW tokens
Asheram
Member EpicPosts: 5,071
| "Need some extra gold? Try trading a WoW Token, a new in-game item that lets players exchange gold and game time between each other. To get started, buy a WoW Token from the in-game Shop for $20 USD and put it up for sale on the Auction House. Once another player buys it, collect your gold and get back to your adventures!" |
So Blizzard finally figured out how to raise the sub fee to $20, lol ;p
Comments
How's the sub fee 20$? People are buying and selling game time. It lets older players who have more than enough in game currency to play whenever they want, like myself since I dont feel blizzard deserves anymore money from me now that I can do it this way.
There's fashionably late, and there's so late I missed the party.
Then there's this post.
I really hope that *insert game name here* will be the first game to ever live up to all of its pre-release promises, maintain a manageable hype level and have a clean release. Just don't expect me to hold my breath.
But Blizzard still got $20 for 30 days time instead of $15.
I don't read about WOW much, but I do read my emails, which I received yesterday. So as far as I am concerned I am right on time. ;p
LOL... having a lot of in-game gold makes you richer...
That's rich
What is hard to understand? Wow is a business. They are letting people "safely" buy and sell gold. And pay for their subs with in-game gold. For that option you pay them an extra 5 dollars premium over sub fee they have now.
They make more off the premium service. And people that wish to take part in it pay a bit extra, Over people that use credit cards or game time cards. If you do not want to use service...don't.
it is just another premium service they can make more money on from people that wish to use it. Same as the mounts/pets and what not they charge premiums for.
the part i didn't understand was selling many hours worth of effort for a $15 sub token when it effectively only takes arguably 2 hours to obtain. i don't play WoW, so i don't know how much gold drops at max level on the upper mobs so i don't know if 30k gold is pennies or diamonds. that being said, it doesn't make much sense to throw away gold willy-nilly for something that's not worth as much time as you spent accumulating the gold to begin with. "now i can do it like eve where i can buy plex for in-game currency" seems pretty dumb (for somebody who is legitimately using the tokens for sub time and not as some form of quick flip investment or gold buying)
i understood the gold selling thing pretty quickly. it wasn't exactly subtle.
Honestly, you can make 30k just leveling up and not farming anything at all. Anything under 90 you can just npc for like 30-50g each. That plus questing and dungeon rewards nets you enough money. in no time. However, Blizzard did try to add expensive ingame elements like upgrading heirloom gear and building your garrison which can easily cost over 30k. People with multiple characters to max level should know how to manage their money effectively at least. Plus there's always the chance of getting a rare mount or pet that sells for a bit, so money is only as difficult as the effort a person puts into it. I paid 20k for my token like 3 days ago and already made that back in a day so its not tough.
ah, well then i concede. if cash is made so easily and without effort, then nevermind.
Both sides are pretty valid though. It might not be as easy for a new person to the game in general or someone new to a server to first make money, so a token remedies that without having to turn to gold sellers. On the flip side, someone might have more gold so buying token is easier or more convienent so I think blizzard is taking a step in the right direction with this. It shows that even the game with the largest playerbase (or at least one of the largest player-bases) can learn from other games.
I don't understand how you feel the difference in treatment is unfair. You acknowledge that differences in game mechanics is important, but I also think expectations also played a large role. When GW2 was in development there was the expectation that the game would have a functional economy and that PvP was " the endgame ". At that time a gold:money conversion is the exact definition of P2W.
Did everyone miss the :P in the OP? so serious!
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
"No, the sub is still $15."
"The OP has been living under a stone somewhere and missed the huge threads that we had some weeks ago."
"Missed the discussion about Blizzard setting the $$$ price of a token at more than a sub to discourage people from buying $10 worth of gold from a gold sellers in the hope that the token cost falls; price will go up and down but token buyers are not going to accept that big a discount".
"You can still pay $15; OP is talking rubbish."
Agree about the stupid claims of fanbois!
Clearly the reality is that "lots" of people have been buying gold for years.
All this is doing is bringing "the service" in-house in an attempt to replace "dedicated gold farmers" by the massed ranks of the subscription base. And nominally every token purchased is one less purchase from a gold seller company; which ultimately should take its toll on them.
The major point no one mentioned is its much cheaper still to buy gold from gold sellers. 20 bucks is around 50K gold. Thats checking the first 3 websites that sell wow gold when you google it.
People can chirp all they want about how you can do this or that. But you can buy gold for less money somewhere else and then buy the token for that gold. That way a token then ends up 'costing' about 12 bucks. So buying third party gold makes a WoW sub (if you pay 30K for the token) 12 bucks. If you pay less than 30K for one then its cheaper. Obviously if you an buy one for 25K and you can buy 50K gold for 20 bucks that is 10 bucks per token and thus 10 bucks for a month game time.
Gold sellers will always under cut the game itself, been that way forever and most people are always going to try and mix in some math and do what s cheapest.
Personally, even though blizzard did say (I think they said at least) that part of the reason for doing it was to combat rmt but honestly I think its more to keep the subs consistent as I mentioned in a earlier post. They've admitted to knowing that subs dip from time to time and people dont want to waste money on content they probably wont enjoy, so people will be more inclined to waste in game money to keep testing the game. Token buying imo is more aimed at people newer to the game or server verses people who have actually become more established in the game.
To lvl up sure, but once you have leveled to max....gold is very easy to get. Just go to highest area and trash mobs will drop stuff that sells to npc's for lots of gold. And if you get a rare..then you can make 20-30k in one item.
Or run around and skin, mine, gather herbs. An hour or 2 of about any of the above will net you just about the price of a token, on AH once sold to other players, If anyone can not spend one or 2 hours a month doing that..then they really just do not want to at all>P
The reason no one mentioned it is probably because we have had the discussion already; and then there was a banner article about how the price of a WoW token had dropped to just above 20k before subsequently rising again to near 30k - about the same price as gold from gold sellers at that time.
Summary of the thread from some weeks ago:
LOL thanks, I think I worded my post wrong and ruffled some feathers. It should have read more like:
"Looks like Blizzard figured out how to get $20 for a 30 day subscription ;p"
I can see how my OP makes it sound like they raised the actual sub fee, sry.
If there were no associated risks, that would undoubtedly be the case, except, there are numerous risks associated with every single transaction made with an RMT company, they are;
1. Pay real money get nothing, always a possibility with RMT'ers, there is after all no legal recourse to recoup losses
2. Possible compromise of game account, especially if the buyer is stupid enough to use the email address associated with their game account in the transaction. There is also the possibility that just visiting the website of the RMT company will enable them to infect your PC if you lack the appropriate level of protection for your PC, so that they can either use a keylogger, or some other varient of a 'man in the middle' attack.
3. Possible compromise of Credit Card, you buy from them, they use your CC details to create multiple game accounts for even more farming, or just add a few more transactions maybe, though hopefully nobody is dumb enough to use a Credit Card to buy from an RMT'er, they are criminals at the end of the day.
4. Possible loss of game account or game assets, or other punitive measures if transaction detected by game company.
Or you can buy a Token and gain gold legitimately and at no risk, it may appear to cost a few $$ more, but realistically, its far cheaper when you take into account the commensurate risks associated with the distinctly less legitimate alternative.
Its simply not a case of just doing the math, its more a case of risk assessment
People buy gold all the time, if they didnt they wouldnt sell it, and these tales of stolen credit cards are non existent these days. More like stories of the boogey man trying to scare people who dont know snything about anything and just trust everything the internet is. As far as compromised accounts it happens and it has nothing ot do with buying gold. Thats why I dont play the game anymore every time I went back my toons were naked and my money all gone. I even had an authenticator and the email and passwords I used were nothing like anything else I udr fr anything else. Yet despite all that my account was hacked every single time I went back after some time off. Now I just dont even bother anymore.
Also when was the last time someone had an account banned? Especially for buying gold. I dont remember the last time I heard it.
In regards to them lowering or raising prices. Or getting put out of business (eventually) never going to happen. They may lower prices short term but so what its still all free money. These guys have no lives, or run programs or whatever. Thats why games themselves dont bother selling in game currency for real cash because they cant compete. Or they do and some the gold selling companies are fronts for the game itself (not as big a conspiracy as one might think).
Its a gimmick nothing more nothing less. I am sure they had a few people resub in the hopes of either making enough gold to play for free going forward or resub to buy some tokens and sell them to make some gold to finish something they werent able to do before.
I am sure there was amini sure in US and euro subs because of it, but like every other game out there this surge wont last in those areas, because these peopel view WoW like they view every other MMO that gets released. And they simply dont stick around for very long.