Blizz, time to add in old reward tracks

Community Discussion
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Ok, so I won’t bury the lede here. The idea is to let us swap reward track bars.

So the first rewards track was Darkmoon Faire. Since then there have been 15 reward tracks. So 16 total, 17 when Cataclysm comes out.

So the idea is that you can choose any of the tracks, just like you choose expansions for looking at your card collection. A simple drop down menu.

So, you swap to the track, and there you are. You do things, you move forward on it, earn all the free stuff.

And oh, look at that, you have the option of buying the paid upgrade? Wow, you mean I can get all those hero portraits and golden legendaries that I missed and have been wanting for years, for a mere 15 bucks?

Yes, like always you would have to warn players that it’s all wild stuff, except for the cosmetics, which would be the main appeal for most people anyway.

So free to play, new players will get 17 rewards tracks to explore and conquer.

New whales will have the ability to spend up to $255 that they have no way to spend at this point.

You get bonus PR points for removing FOMO from the game.

So, my pie in the sky stuff.

It would be fantastic if you rewarded your long term paying customers by giving them the paid tracks they already paid for.

Something like that could actually bring people back to the game. Someone paid for a track but didn’t finish unlocking all the stuff, and those premium end of track rewards that they paid for but don’t have have been haunting them for years. I should have that! But I got busy in the last month and just couldn’t get to the end.

Tears fall, hearts forever broken.

But now, wow, you mean, I can go back and fix past mistakes? A second chance to set things right? Well sign me up.

So the questions remain. Would all that 101-400 gold still exist, or would the track just stop at 100? I think the tracks should be as they were, end of track gold and all. But I could see the penny pinchers at Blizzard fainting at just how much gold that would give players access to.

Oh well, you have to finish the track to access it, and it still runs out eventually.

I think that about covers it.

Let new players collect the half a decade worth of stuff they missed. Let people with money give the money to you. Like, realistically will every player plunk down cash for old reward tracks? No, but some will. Some will pay for one, complete it, then pay for the next one, complete it, and bam, you just made $300 bucks for flipping a switch.

I am wagering that most players will buy 2 or 3. Everyone wants stuff that they missed because they just weren’t playing at the time. Everyone wants to finish the tracks they already paid for, and could return to the game to do it.

This is a no lose situation for you Blizzard. You get extra money, new players get some core cards to dip their toes into wild, and yeah, it’s an evergreen feature. In 7 years, you could still be making money on the United in Stormwind rewards track, because people will really want that amazing Tamsin Triumphant portrait for their warlock.

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I think only Level 1-100 for the old tracks would make sense, since you can just earn gold from the latest track post 100.

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What Jonius said.

When you buy a tavern pass, you are buying access to the premium content from that track. So, if you buy access to an old rewards track, you would only get the premium rewards from it (all the premium rewards, not just the cosmetics). Since there is no premium content after level 100, you would only get rewards up to level 100, and of course this would not affect your ability to earn gold from the current rewards track after you reach level 100.

I guess that means a player would lose out on any cosmetic rewards from the free track that they didn’t pick up first time (including all uncraftable cards), but it would be very easy to add those to the premium track for old expansions. There’s loads of empty space on the premium track.

Also… once you have purchased a tavern pass (whether current or historical), it doesn’t have to disappear when the current track is replaced. Just have an option to see all historical tracks, with filters for unpurchased, incomplete and completed tracks, so players can buy any previously unpurchased tracks from that screen, or just look at the rewards.

Also, I think that it might be “optimistic” to expect to get the XP boosts from historical rewards tracks to stack with those from the current track. But buying a tavern pass does mean a player gets more gold. TBH, if it weren’t for the extra gold, I wouldn’t buy the tavern pass. I aim to make 12 reward track levels per week (on average), or 15 with the bonus XP.

So, that’s 3 levels (150 gold) each week. With 17-18 weeks in each expansion (52/3) that makes 2550-2700 gold over the lifetime of a tavern pass. That’s a very significant amount of gold, and for me, it makes the difference between buying the tavern pass and not doing so.

So, I would consider replacing the old XP boosts with some gold, or maybe some packs (or golden packs) from that expansion, or simply reducing the cost of the tavern pass.

So yeah. Its a great idea, and I can’t see a downside. They really should do this.

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Any XP bonus would be locked to tracks that have it, so if you swap tracks, you get that tracks XP bonus status. Everything would swap when you swap.

And everyone would get all the free tracks for free. No need to buy them, you buy the premium stuff, just like you would have when the track was current, because for you, it would be.

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I think swapping tracks would be a bad idea. You would lose access to the current free and premium reward tracks until you completed the old ones. Catching up on stuff you may have missed shouldn’t come at the cost of waiting longer to get the current stuff.

I’m going to repeat myself here: when you buy a tavern pass, you are buying the PREMIUM content.

You are NOT buying the free content, because its free. So you wouldn’t get the free content from a historical rewards track. Any cosmetic rewards from the free track could be added to the premium track, because you can’t get duplicates of cosmetic items, so you can’t get the same free rewards twice.

Being able to get the free rewards twice would mean being able to collect 5600 gold, plus packs, plus dustable cards. The free track would be much more valuable than the premium track would, in terms of playable cards, gold and dust.

That is just wishful thinking. Its not going to happen.

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No, you would be able to swap any time. You wouldn’t be locked in on any track unless it’s your last one.

The gold at the end is obviously me asking for it. I understand that Blizz would definitely stop them at 100, but you’re supposed to ask for more in a negotiation.

Maybe a compromise would be you can go to 200 if you pay. Or something.

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Fair enough. TBH, I would go with ALL incomplete tracks getting full XP, so there’s no need to switch, so the system would be easier, and getting rewards from the current track wouldn’t be slowed down by older tracks.

Yeah, I guess that’s a point. I hadn’t thought of that :rofl:

I don’t see the point. You can reach level 400 on the current track, in theory, but its very hard to do in practice since they killed AFK XP grinding.

Paying to be able to grind another 100 levels (for another 5000 gold) on a different reward track wouldn’t be worth it unless you already completed the 400 levels on the free track, and it would complicate the issue of players only having access to one FREE rewards track at any time. You might as well just pay to extend the current free track to level 500, and I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do that.