Yay bag, questionable RP, interesting Blizz.

[thistlechaser]

I finally, finally, finally found a good bag for my iPad. If you'll recall, I spent way too much money on assorted bags after I got it, but none of them were right and I ended up lugging it around in a backpack. I've only had it a day, but this bag seems perfect. It's as tall and long as an iPad, just wider, which is exactly what I wanted (if you look at the additional views on the image at that link, you'll see the pad in the bag). There's a safe, secure place for the iPad, plus room for extra things, like a notebook, wallet, camera, all that good stuff.

While wandering Silvermoon, I saw something that I have never seen there before. Oh, rapes happen all the time in SMC, but I've never before encountered girl-on-girl rape. Thistle didn't ICly see it, but I was in hearing range of the posts (yes, this was all out loud on public channels, /say and /emote). Alliance attacked in the middle of things, and while I'd usually just let them do what they like, for some reason today I felt like getting involved, so I rode off to defend the city. By the time I was done and back in the Row, things were wrapping up between the two. To their credit, at least they didn't end with cuddling and words of love, as so often happens with WoW IC rapes... (Edit: On checking the log, I see it did in fact end with cuddling/words of love. Blah.)


And the last thing is the really interesting thing that Blizzard is doing: Official RMT. (Real Money Trading, pay RL money for in-game money.) At the moment, they're going about it indirectly: buy an in-game pet for $10 and you can sell it on the in game auction house for in game money. However, this is just one step in things. (This post started out with the title 'how to boil a frog' and I was going to use that folklore example about boiling frogs, then I realized how disturbing that was, even as just an example.) The point of that folklore tale is that people accept things in small steps. In-game pets with a RL plushie for RL money. Only in in-game pet for RL money. Now an in-game pet that you can sell, bought with RL money.

I'm not in any way, shape, or form saying this is a bad thing. Blizzard is a company. Though this idea boggles most official forum users, Blizzard's goal is to make money. This step, as well as the eventual direct offering gold for RL money, should not surprise people.

I find it very, very interesting. All the gold-making blogs are atwitter about it. I would never ever ever buy one to sell to make in-game money, I would never buy in-game money myself. The very idea boggles me -- it's so easy to make money in game, why would I? Though I know others have a hard time of it, and so the option is there for them.

I do wonder what effect this will have on the economy. I find it really, really interesting. I almost hope they'll start selling gold directly soon, just so I can watch what will happen to the markets.

I was going to wait to post this until Terra Nova ended, but I find that even though I have nothing else to do, I'm paying no attention to it.

Comments

[gconnor.livejournal.com]

I don't really like the idea of Blizz selling virtual gold for real money... but really, I'd much rather they do it themselves than to have goldsellers wrecking the game for everyone. And, I do think if Blizz sells their own gold, that will put goldsellers right out of business, along with ending 90% of the fraud/hacking/stealing that goldsellers do. As much as Blizz tries to crack down on goldsellers using other means, I really think nothing will put them totally out of business faster than Blizz getting into the game itself.

I remember Second Life that people could buy game credits for real money; I'm guessing that's still true though I haven't checked lately. It didn't seem to be all that scandalous.

What would really be cool is if they outright sold their own gold, and then turned around and donated the proceeds to a charity. Let the buyer pick the charity.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

That's a good point, too.

What would really be cool is if they outright sold their own gold, and then turned around and donated the proceeds to a charity. Let the buyer pick the charity.

I'd love to see that (or at least some percent of it).

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

I think the boiling frogs is a good example. I look at it like this:

WoW is an old game. In terms of the type of people who are the "lowest common denominator" it's amazing that they still play it considering how old it is (this is thanks to graphics which stood up pretty well to the test of time and cata rebooting most of the zones).

The big thing in MMOs now adays is the Freemium model. Which basically takes advantage of RMT type activities as well as offers a subscription (or premium) service if you are willing to pay for it. Usually what happens is the premium players pay the standard $15/month and get access to some of the content without having to buy it. They also tend to get extra points every month that can be spent at the RMT store. Where as the Free players don't get access to some of the content unless they are willing to buy it for real life cash.

Most MMOs I know that have made the switch to FTP have seen increases in revenue. Now, those obviously were never as popular as WoW so it's hard to say if the numbers will scale the same all the way up to 10+ million subs (or whatever). If it does translate, I don't see how Activision wouldn't take advantage of it.

It's an interesting system and it's definitely something I can see happening to WoW in the future. The issue comes in that often the Free players are looked down upon and treated as a "disease that's killing the game" (you know, as opposed to the current subscription players who are...wait a minute...). I'm pretty sure a Freemium model is going to be on the way for WoW in the next year or so. You'll be able to tell it's close when the "Play WoW for free" system starts to get increases to it's level cap.

Regardless I don't think WoW will ever be able to get rid of the gold sellers (at least not while the servers are still running) since they will probably be willing to offer lower prices then Blizz would and there will always be people willing to save that extra $0.50. But they can certainly cut into the RMT's bottom line and probably make some nice coin themselves in the process.

[mark356.livejournal.com]

I thought that WoW gold is already worth a lot more than many real-world currencies. This step doesn't surprise me.

[quistie.livejournal.com]

I don't pretend to pay a lot of attention to Blizzard these days (I used to be a pretty big fan), but I still hope Blizzard does not go down that road.

Of course I understand that Blizzard's goal is to make more money. Just like McDonald's or Wizards of the Coast or Major League Baseball. They are all out to make money. But that doesn't mean I should be reminded of that fact every time I am eating a Chicken McNugget or playing magic or watching baseball. If anything, I want to be reminded how much the corporation in question cares about the product. Especially for a video game, where immersion is supposed to be important.

I am not exactly thrilled with the micro transactions, but at least it's an effort to provide some additional content to the game. But for Blizzard to sell virtual gold for money feels a bit like Blizzard just doesn't care anymore.

[mel-redcap.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure Blizz will ever get to the point of selling gold... and I hope they don't, actually. One reason they keep coming up with money sinks is because they need to drain money out of the game economy in order to prevent rampant inflation. Quests and dailies and so forth put money in, player-to-player sales move it around, and money sinks like fast flight, expensive purchased mounts, repair costs etc etc pull it out. As things stand right now, gold sellers count as player-to-player; they get their stock by farming for sale (and hacks, but it's still coming from another player). They do affect the game economy, because people who buy gold are more willing (I think) to pay high prices on the AH than people who had to earn it, but it's a fairly low-key influence.

The proposed pet sales will probably move a lot of gold around, but it'll be player-to-player still; the pets will be selling for gold that other players have earned through normal means. If Blizzard sold gold for RL cash, though, that would be a new input to the game economy, which would need to be balanced with new outputs, and would probably still cause inflation. Inflation is bad, yo - if you want an illustration, roll a baby toon on Thorium Brotherhood, Alliance side, and try to find sub-Level 15 green armour on the AH that isn't 99g and being sold by a Night Elf named Ceyhil. :P (Horde side AH is similarly ruled by his alt Stehil, but his coverage isn't as complete.) He can rule the AH, buying out auctions listed by other people and relisting them at his favoured price, because there are enough level 85s with Lots Of Gold willing to pay his prices to gear alts and powerlevel enchanting. (I had a Dorf pally on that server for a while, and regularly cussed him out in Trade channel, in-character. "Long-eared knock-kneed scunner" isn't a reportable epithet. :3)

Er... that got long. Sorry. Point is, Mel says gold sales iz bad and ick, she thinks. :P

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

I predict that there will be a surge of them the first couple days for astronomical prices, and then the demand will die off and there will be TONS of people trying to get ANYTHING on them.

But they did make a valid point, they have done this before already with TCG mounts.

I still want it. D=

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

Oh, and so far, they're still not as bad as the first MMO I played, Ultima Online. Before I fully quit, they had put in a thing where you could pay to have your character near leveled out.

Thing to note about UO though, it doesn't rely on a set level. They've changed this a bit since I quit so I don't know the full details of it all, but you got 700 skill points to associate with the various skills, 100 cap in each (Later there was a 740 cap to allow crafters only to get 120 in two crafts). You had to level each skill. It was so hard, even I had to cheat and download a program to run a script to level a couple things.

I never had a character higher than 4x 100. Close, but some of the skills were near impossible to level unless you were deliberately trying, and even then...

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I think you're right on all of this. And happily, since mostly all I do is RP, the free level of things would likely be just fine for me. (It would be annoying if you had to pay for a higher level cap, but I don't really need to be higher level...)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yep. Last I heard (which was a couple years back) its currency was worth more than a good handful of real countries and a number of US states.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I am not exactly thrilled with the micro transactions, but at least it's an effort to provide some additional content to the game.

Yeah, and (at this point) at least it has no real effect on things. The pet is "useless", it does nothing in game other than stand there and look cute (I find them ugly as heck, but others think they're cute).

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, so much envy for that Ceyhil guy! It's so cool to be able to control a market like that. ...wait, I'm totally missing the point here, aren't I? :P

But seriously, yeah. It would be nice if they would put some good, cute, expensive pet in the game for sale from a vendor. That would be a handy drain.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

The TCG pets/mounts are a good point. And I hope you're right about tons being listed! If one showed up cheap enough (couple hundred gold) I'd buy one. I don't like them, I'd never use them, but it would be another number for my pet collector.

[kaelash.livejournal.com]

Since the RMT bit really doesn't bug me either way:

Oh, rapes happen all the time in SMC, but I've never before encountered girl-on-girl rape. Thistle didn't ICly see it, but I was in hearing range of the posts (yes, this was all out loud on public channels, /say and /emote)

Dude, report that shit ASAP. If they were ERPing in a public channel, worse that it's rape, they should get smacked for it. c_c You don't ERP in public channels. Ever! (... Instances don't count. :3c)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Actually, yeah. I kind of didn't, I don't know what I was thinking other than I was RPing at the time and so my mind wasn't on OOC stuff, but someone saw my post and smacked me upside the head to do it.

(... Instances don't count. :3c)

Ha! :D