Yeah. That’s something that most people won’t have to worry about. It’s probably at least mildly incovenient for those who pay their sub through gold though and have been since then.
Those are always fun to watch. It’s incredibly satisfying watching scammers get played and hearing them get mad.
I haven’t used real money to buy anything since the token came out, so before 2017. On the fence on whether I should buy two years of game time with tokens before they put this in effect or buy game time with cash ( 29.99 for cheapest option I see on the store) now and hoping that it counts come the patch and that I can still buy tokens. /shrug
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The issue I think most people that fall into using tokens to pay for game time is they also use those tokens for expansions and other games. People who like to play the game just because they can play for free will likely stop playing but I’m sure it’s a much smaller part of the population, weirdos like myself
Considering it’s a one month sub ($15), and it’s one time, at least for now, I doubt those who are THAT invested will quit over over having to pay like everyone else just this once. Could it happen again in the future? Probably, and I’m guessing it will. But this is really, really insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
Paying $15 once is insignificant in the grand scheme of things, sure. But to even say that much is a complete guess because they didn’t give us any information. That’s what I’m irritated about.
Imagine they wrote a post that said “in order to make things more fair we’re charging $15 to every card we have on file.” And that’s all they said. And then they locked the thread. Would you be writing “everybody calm down, it’s probably just this once”?
if it was a month of play, but I don’t know how we are going to know who is in that category and who is not, as it was in the last patch I don’t know if it counts.
You can check transaction history on website
100% this is the reason
It definitely could have and should have been less vague. Can’t really argue that.
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Not if people are buying gold on the black market or running bots to get it. Seems like a move to detract users from boting or buying cheap gold to pay for sub. Seems like a good move to me that won’t impact your average player doing the right thing
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i find it kind of suspicious. like they KNOW it wont go over well. just like unpopular videos on youtube get comments disabled. HMMM I WONDER WHY.
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I’m sorry if you are 5 , I am not talking to you
7 years now. Soon a new rule for buying game time at least once a year.
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Also to prevent botting from people who just use gold and having this means they’ll find botters who buy tokens to keep going and shut 'em down.
TLDR: Blizz wants MORE money from its players.
Basically, from what I understand (take that as you will) a good number of players have not been using any subscription plans for a long time since they naturally are really good in the game for making gold. So, they have just been buying tokens for game time.
Maybe there is some legal requirement that I am not aware of as someone else mentioned. But it does seem odd that they just want a player to purchase 30 days of game time.
But to state “In order to preserve the integrity of the game” seems really stupid as I dont see making players just purchase 30 days of game time would help with the wow economy slowly ballooning out of control.
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This seems to run counter to their goals. A completed token cycle nets them $5 USD more than a regular subscription for one month.
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I wonder if it’s a regulatory thing. A lot of things changed in 2017 with regard to financial regulations. Could be something Patriot-Act-Ey, where restrictions were put on banks that required them to verify who they were doing business with and that they weren’t citizens of countries that the US had embargos against. Could be something money laundering-ey. Could be something about virtual currencies that came about from all the blockchain currencies.
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Speaking of tokens, anyone wanna spare some gold for one? My subs about to run out 
Once, ever, since 2017. It’s so botters cant use gold in a compounding manner by buying the game, gifting it to a new account, and sending them gold to buy tokens to get game time. Every time they do this they get more bots to farm more gold to make more accounts to make more bots. It’s exponential growth. Requiring real money game time at any point will mean they have some sort of money trail leading back to that account.
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