So we have a problem here that is in relation to the removed bonus gold from quests at max level, and that is Devs speaking directly to streamers about changes, but deflecting when asked for clarity from the wider community.
The team has consistently reiterated that a core design pillar for WoW Forever is that “the world is the main character” and engaging with the world rather than rushing through it.
Removing the max-level quest XP-to-gold conversion directly undermines that core pillar. Questing at cap has always been a primary incentive to revisit zones, finish storylines, and explore the corners of the world you bypassed while leveling. Stripping that reward doesn’t make the world feel alive. It just turns questing at max level into dead content and pushes players straight into raw farming or worse, gold buying.
What makes this worse is how the community found out. A foundational economy change was stealth-dropped without patch notes or official clarification, confirmed casually by Zirene in a private exchange with a streamer Jokerd, and then met with “not my job to announce it, go to the forums” when players asked why while also stating that “I also do not control this change and if it was worth announcing or not is not on me”
If that is true, then he should not have confirmed or said anything at all, but this just proves that streamers still have direct access to devs about anything in the game, and devs will bend every rule to speak to them about changes, while the rest of the player base is left guessing whether core game mechanics are broken or deliberately nerfed.
If Blizzard wants us to treat the world as the main character, the team needs to respect the time players spend out in it and communicate massive systemic shifts openly through official channels, rather than deflecting when the community pushes back.
