Blizzard just made a big change to the way the economy of World of Warcraft Classic: Wrath of the Lich King operates, and the community is absolutely furious. Yesterday, it introduced WoW Tokens into Wrath Classic.
On its face, Notification looks relatively innocuous:
“WoW tokens are now available in Wrath of the Lich King Classic,” it wrote. “This in-game item is a great way to conveniently and securely exchange gold for game time.”
Blizzard introduced for the first time WoW . Token to the World of Warcraft retail store in 2015, during the Warlords of Draenor expansion. Here’s how it works: players can buy WoW Tokens for real money, then sell World of Warcraft WoW Tokens to other players for in-game gold, allowing them to “buy gold” effectively in a legal and authorized manner. Players who purchase WoW Tokens with in-game gold can then redeem the token for one month of gameplay, allowing them to effectively spend in-game gold to avoid registration fees. Sign normally with real money.
The idea at the time was to curb illegal gold mining by providing a legal way for players to sell in-game gold, while also allowing those with time to play but little money in the world. The real world continues to spend time on WoW. Although the move was controversial in the community at the time, it could never completely stop the economy from illegally selling gold. In addition, there was a significant system volatility again in 2017 when Blizzard started allowing players to exchange WoW Tokens for Battle.net balances, temporarily sending the in-game economy into chaos.
Not so classic after all
WoW tokens eventually became a normal and accepted part of the World of Warcraft community and economy, and the economy stabilized around them. But now, with the introduction of World of Warcraft Classic: Wrath of the Lich King, the community seems to be even more contentious on the issue than when the token was first introduced.
While the WoW Token in Wrath of the Lich King Classic works exactly the same as it does in the retail version, there are a few key differences that leave the Classic community in turmoil.
First, Blizzard has not hinted or announced in any other way that this change will come – many players have expressed feelings of being blinded by the news and angry that the in-game economy is going through a rough patch. such significant fluctuations without prior warning.
But the bigger problem is that many players feel “integrity” of World of Warcraft Classic being thrown aside for a make money fast from Blizzard. Blizzard gets a cut of every WoW Token purchase, so adding the token to Wrath Classic is a pretty obvious source of additional revenue for the developer. But the original Wrath of the Lich King expansion, released in 2008, did not have WoW Tokens. And while Blizzard has made some changes to the way the expansion works for the Classic release, its most important changes by far have been largely quality tweaks. the amount of life that the player base is (mostly) satisfied with. But it seems that not many people claim WoW Tokens.
Oh – in response to the token added to Wrath Classic, the mods of /r/classicwow are now allowing advertising and the use of unofficial private servers: pic.twitter.com/mYvLJCAsLi
— Tyrsenus (@Tyrsenus) May 23, 2023
Rule 4, Suspended
The frustration was so obvious that yesterday, the official World of Warcraft Classic subreddit “officially suspended” Its rules forbid discussion of private servers and cheat on older versions of the game, leading to a wave of advertising for alternative gameplay methods. A little ironic, since World of Warcraft Classic originally started as Blizzard’s answer to players creating their own servers because the original version of WoW wasn’t available in official form.
All that said, not everyone is angry about the tokens. Some people in the community are pointing out that World of Warcraft Classic has had a serious bot problem for a while, and since bots tend to be involved in plowing gold, this is a reasonable way to mitigate the problem. there. They also point out that if gold farms are so successful that they need to be restricted, the people playing the game have clearly bought enough gold to secure them in the first place. However, angry people countered that Blizzard didn’t seem to have done enough to solve the previous major bot problems, and were frustrated that it seemed the developer’s first solution was to introduce monetization. instead of using other methods.
While the previous upheavals surrounding the WoW Token have finally been resolved, the problems with this particular version of it seem poised to change the Classic community for a long time, though Exactly how remains to be seen. We’ve reached out to Blizzard for comment on this and will update if we receive a response.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
