It is a shame. The ‘Spirit of Classic’ and the ‘love letter’ described to us as what Classic was supposed to be is no longer a thing.
The problem in my eyes is that it feels as if barely anything was done in the first place against gold buyers, gold sellers and bots. The problem is endemic to the community and I have seen no rigorous attempts to actually crack down on it. Rather than robustly moderating the game the introduction of the WoW Token is abandoning any pretense that they were even doing so to begin with and makes it acceptable to indulge in something which is and always has been against the ‘Spirit of Classic’ which Blizzard has previously invoked to not implement features which were part of the core game at the time.
I would like to see proper enforcement, not giving up and deciding that it’s a lost cause.
67 Likes
Random Dungeon Finder was in WotTK but they left it out to “preserve the classic experience”.
Yet here comes the WoW Token to this preserved classic experience?
Not cool bruh.
60 Likes
Well, we’ve finally received official reasoning for the implementation of the WoW token.
If I had never heard Kaivax or Aggrend make appearances and talk in interviews, live chats etc. I probably would have just called BS at this point. But my impression is that both Kaivax and Aggrend are both pretty reasonable people who would not easily make bold-faced lies to the public. And furthermore, I used to think the Classic team was all about money-grubbing, but I’ve actually changed my view on this. I think there was a very clear opportunity for them to make money by offering race change earlier on in Wrath, but they didn’t for a long time, to my great surprise. Because of these reasons, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they are not lying and that they actually think this is good for the game even though I still ultimately am not sold on it.
With that out of the way, I am seeing a glaring issue with Kaivax’s post. Kaivax is making it out to seem like this is done with players’ best interest in mind, citing that the side-effects of RMT (account theft, fraud) are harmful to the game. This is the only positive aspect of the WoW token mentioned in the post. Well, if your goal is to combat the side effects of RMT, then why is Blizzard taking a middle-man cut of a whopping 25%?! And what about people who would otherwise pay for a 6-month plan for $13 a month? In that case, it’s a middle man cut of 35%!!
When you analyze this post and Blizzard’s actions from an economical aspect, the situation just doesn’t add up. RMTing will still be very attractive from both the buyer and seller PoV, as there is a middle-man cut of 0% when engaging in traditional RMT. If the goal really is as selfless as Kaivax is making it out to be, then why does Blizzard not make the WoW token cost the same as a monthly subscription? Surely this would have a much more powerful effect on reducing the side-effects of RMT.
I certainly have more to say on the subject, but I thought I would get this out there as soon as possible.
13 Likes
