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Blizzard Sells Gold In Patch 6.1.2
Mama’s got a lifestyle to maintain.
I’d like to read a question that I may or may not have actually received via email.
Dear Rokk,
Have you ever purchased gold with RL currency?
Sincerely,
Some Dude.P.S. You’re awesome.
Now regardless of whether I actually received this email (ahem), I will answer the question.
Yes, I have bought gold online, through a third party site, for real cash money.
But not in WoW. It was in Everquest.
Why would I do such a thing? Well, I had the disposable cash and no real skills that I could use to make gold (or platinum, in this case). I had nothing to sell, nothing to offer. I decided that I would rather give someone ten bucks for a bunch of platinum so I could play the game and buy gear, rather than sit by the second torch in the East Commonland tunnel repeatedly shouting (but not spamming) “WTS (some arbitrary item).” Oh, and bonus points for you if you get the very old-school reference.
It wasn’t easy to make platinum in EQ.
World of Warcraft is another story entirely.
I’ve probably got about 90k gold spread across all of my characters. Most of that gold was made through selling tradeskill items, the occasional transmog doodad, and by farming and/ or questing. While I’ve been working on making gold, a few things had popped up on the AH that I wanted to buy but couldn’t afford. I just learned to live without it. I never considered buying gold because a) the gold came from hacked accounts (blood money) and b) I’d rather not have my account banned. So I stayed frugal and decided I wouldn’t buy gold.
Until now. Sorta. Indirectly.
In Patch 6.1.2, Blizzard is going to be getting into the gold-selling business. Kinda. They will have a WoW token in their store, which can be used to buy a month of game time. You’ll buy the token from the Blizzard store using real greenback-style money, and it will show up in a special slot on the Auction House. It can then be bought for a predetermined amount of gold (a pricetag that will be set by Blizzard).
Everybody wins in this deal. You’ve got the WoW Millionaires with more gold than they know what to do with, who can now use their fortune to pay for their WoW time. You’ve got players with a little disposable cash who might be looking to pad their character’s pockets, that can buy these tokens and sell them for gold. And Blizzard, well they get to makes more money, because they don’t have enough gold-plated toilets in their big WoW mansions.
It has yet to be determined just how much the tokens will sell for (either in gold or dollars). The speculation is that the prices will be determined by whatever gold is being sold for on third party websites. I poked around and what I came up with was roughly 1000g for one dollar. If a token is sold for $15, which is roughly the cost of a month of WoW time, then the token will sell for 15000g. Math stuff.
So going back to the question of buying gold (re: buying tokens and selling them for a fixed price on the AH)?
I’ll most likely buy a few tokens. Probably for some seed money so I can create and flip some more expensive tradeskill stuff. Or maybe I’ll just blow the gold on hats or something.
Are you going to be taking part in the token market, as a buyer or seller? Tell me in the comments below, if you would be so kind.
Paying Respect
It’s that time of the year when thoughts of Christmas dance through our heads. Maybe that’s why I’m feeling so masochistic. That would certainly explain why I’ve been thinking about Everquest.
During Chris Metzen’s “Geek Is…” speech at Blizzcon 2010, he showed the crowd a screenshot from Sony’s very own Everquest, one of the first successful MMORPG’s and the place where many of WoW’s Game Developers came from. Seeing an Everquest screenshot during a Blizzard presentation seemed a little weird. It was kinda like seeing your friend’s Mom naked. You feel awkward because it’s off-limits and something you really shouldn’t be checking out, but it’s still pretty cool to peep.
No? Just me? Fine, prudes.
Metzen was dead on when he said “None of us, and none of this, would be here without Everquest. Respect must be paid.”
Damn rights. World of Warcraft is Everquest done right. Or done better at least. I laugh when I hear players bitch about how WoW is being made too easy, because that was the same gripe EQ players made about WoW back in the “Hardcore, Vanilla” days. Why in EQ, there was no exclamation mark over a quest giver’s head. There was no identifying mark at all. Good luck finding that NPC in the city, Carebear. Still, the fact that Blizzard keeps “borrowing” concepts from Everquest (and yet I say they’re not borrowing enough) shows just how snug the bonds remain between EQ and WoW.
As I’ve said in many previous posts, I used to play Everquest (Or Evercrack, as it was accurately called back in the day). My favorite class was the Berserker, which just goes to show that I played a Fury Warrior before there even WAS a Fury Warrior. I happened to feel a little nostalgic yesterday (and there was nothing worth watching on Television) so I checked out the Berserker boards to see what had been going on with the class. Berserkers being the red-headed stepchild class, I was not surprised to see very little action on their forums.. However, I noticed a post where someone referred to a comment made about the class at the recent Fan Faire.
The SOE Fan Faire? That’s like a Blizzcon, yeah?
Well yes and no. It’s the same in that there’s panels, game demos, and swag to buy.
There’s also the players. EQ and WoW players are very much alike.
It’s also different in a few ways:
First, it’s in Las Vegas. Kinda hard to compare Anaheim attractions –
– with Las Vegas ones –
Unlike Jay Mohr hosting Blizzcon, the Fan Faire host, Jace Hall, actually has serious gamer cred while still being quite entertaining –
To be fair though, Blizzard has the more popular titles and can therefore throw alot more money at their events. Fan Faire is more grassroots in a way (as in poor, cost cutting, or whatever you want to call hanging a banner over a curtain as compared to a multi-monitor background setting), as evident in their costume contest –
However, FF does do something that I wish Blizzard would consider, and it involves the ticket sales.
Cold sweat time – damn those Blizzcon tickets were expensive. They went for $150 per, and what did the ticket buyer get for that price? It gave them access to the Convention Center. That’s pretty impressive. They also received a “Swag Bag” that by most accounts was less amazing than last year, when the price was 25 bones less. Hard to tell where that extra money went.
Fan Faire has many different tiers of tickets. The most expensive one ($135) is their Platinum pass, which grants full access to the event, as well as VIP events (like the Grand Banquet). The next is the Gold pass ($109), giving you everything but the VIP goodness. After that is the Silver pass ($89), yet another step down. But the real gem is in the Friday and Saturday Day pass ($39 per day). You don’t get any swag or frills, but if a person just wanted to catch a few panels it’d be much less painful to spend forty bucks for one day.
Given my Blizzcon experience, if the option would have been available, I could have seen myself getting a Blizzcon day pass. I don’t even know where I put half my Blizzcon giveaway stuff, but I know where all my Wootloot goodies are. I’m not about the frills. I had much more fun after ‘con hours, sharing beers and stories with folks. Besides, it’s not like you can’t see all the convention displays in one day. Or just buy two day passes and forego the useless crap, save some cash that can be spent with friends and guildmates after hours.
That’s what I’d like to see for the next Blizzcon. They raise the price every year, and while I know that people are going to pay, I think they’d get more money if they made Blizzcon a little more like World of Warcraft – accessable to more people.
C’mon Blizz – go back to the Everquest well one more time. Steal that idea.
Respectfully of course.
Rokk Talk 