Man, imagine a company trying to make money… What a concept! 
But there is one thing WoW players are guilty for in their misery about it:
They still pay in the hopes this game can be made better, instead of leaving it and forcing Blizzard to make this franchise evolve.
Overwatch 2 exists, World of Warcraft 2 should, but only if players would not pay for the 1 and demand 2.
Companies are risk averse, so if this one is giving money, why should they “make it better” ?
Except these ignore some of the fundamentals of how battlepasses work. Battlepasses are meant to be bought, as a whole, a value pack of items which then needs to be grinded for rewards. These rewards are not targetable, the point being is to hook you with the value of the whole pass and then keep you grinding for the specific items you want, with FOMO being active from the fact battlepasses have an expiration in which the cosmetics will leave forever. If the item you want is at level 40, you cant skip 1-39 and just grind the level for the reward you want.
The current trading post is antithetical to the system i just described. You gain access to it just by having a sub, which may seem similar, except that every single player must sub to play the game. Furthermore you can not only target items you want, you can even save them so they roll over to the next month. If that wasn’t enough all items eventually return. The trading post wasnt even designed in such a way that you even can get all the rewards in a given month.
In order to make this a battlepass you would have to change literally everything about it, which isnt going to happen.
The reason it wont happen is because the sh!tstorm it would end up creating is much larger than if they just dropped an actual battlepass RIGHT NOW. So its silly to believe theyll convert the trading post into one at a later time.
Yall are literally freaking out over a menu format, and don’t actually seem to understand how battlepasses actually function.
I suppose this is the cardinal sin that we are all guilty of. Let us only hope that we can yet be forgiven.
nah, tbh i think that this is just something for them to add into the game for us to enjoy. ik they like our money but I think they are seeing we are not putting up with it. even OW2 stuff is dropping cuz ppl are not putting up with it.
Don’t you quote me saying “I’m freaking out” about it. I couldn’t care less if they turn it into a battle pass or not. You and the other person keep acting like “Blizzard won’t do it because of it is a subscription game” or as you put it “Would cause massive backlash.” Well I have to ask: did you play WoW during Wrath when the store was introduced? It was met with a lot of backlash. You wouldn’t understand that if you’ve only started playing within the last 10 years.
People hated the store, called it every from “Pay to Win” to “Greedy Blizzard” etc… There were people just like you that said “Blizzard isn’t introducing a store” while using the same arguments your using regarding the Battle Pass.
History repeats itself and I would bet, in the long turn, that someday they will turn the Trading Post into a Battle Pass. All I’ve been saying is that the Post is very similar in functionality to a Battle Pass. That is a fact. The opinion is whether or not they make you feel like paying money. Do you not think if Blizzard offered 5 dollar purchase to double your coins per month, or double the amount of save slots you get, people would line up in droves to do it? I personally wouldn’t but would not get angry at those who choose to do it.
My point to all of this has been that the Post is a foundation to the implementation of a Battle Pass in the future, will they do it now, probably not, but in the future? Given the history of how the item store was introduced during Wrath, I bet it will some day in the future.
It won’t bother me either way, it’s just optional.
And the store is here.
Hence why it makes no sense to do this.
If they want to charge you money for Pink Cloaks, the pink cloaks would be on the store, not in some Trading Post.
Ive been playing on and off since vanilla, the point isnt that backlash necessarily does anything, the point is that they would experience CONSIDERABLY LESS backlash if they just dropped a battlepass now. The whole crux of OPs argument is that they are trying to “ease” us into a battlepass, but that would be insanely counterproductive. Why would they “ease” us into a battlepass when that would cause more damage than dropping it now?
The reason i said you’re “freaking out” about it is because you are taking a menu interface similarity to diablo immortal and extrapolating that to mean that they are rolling out a battlepass when, functionally and philosophically speaking the trading post is practically the opposite of the core principles that make a battlepass a battlepass.
It makes perfect sense to do it because it is another source for income to Blizzard. They don’t care. They already do it in other games, they don’t care if it is free to play or subscription based. They will do it because they are a business and business’ like money.
Your opinion is that they won’t do it, but based on facts from their history of outside game real money stores and the fact they do both monetizations with their current line of games, there is a much better probability they will do it rather than not.
1 Like
You perform the same actions in both systems: do random things from a list of tasks, get points for completing those tasks that in turn fill the bar, after each milestone in the bar you get a reward, fill the entire bar in a span of 30 days (or a Season in DI) you get the big reward.
They function exactly the same way. You’re going into this “philosophical meaning” of a battle pass when all you need to do is look at how they function in game. You may act like people “feel” like they need to put money in a battle pass because of the rewards, but you will find people who “feel” they need to fill that bar in the Post to get that Warden Mount.
But again, they already have a store.
Making a whole new UI is wasted dev time. If they want income, throw the Pink Cloaks on the Store for 9.99$. Your entire premise makes no sense because the store exists and they sold us mog before. There’s no reason to be subtle and try to “ease you” into it.
Citation Needed.
The way the current trading post works, you basically get all the reward for a month from playing a few hours and its free. Here is how the trading post is fundamentally different from a battlepass:
The first core idea of a battlepass is double dipping. Basically the company in question sells you said “value” pass to generate revenue, while simultaneously incentivizing you to grind the game because of it. They do this in two ways, 1. A soft guilt trip to grind out the full value of your “purchased” but unearned rewards(on a timer) and 2. Specifically sought after rewards(theres a reason why the best rewards end up being near the end.)
Lets talk about specific rewards because thats part of core idea number two: general aquisition. All “battlepasses” that im aware of operate on a principle of general aquisition. That is, you grind levels one by one, and each level has a specific reward. The only soft exception to this is fortnite which has “pages”, you’re still locked to certain rewards at intervals, but granted a little bit more choice. Again the reason its organized like this is to keep you playing day in day out, not a mere few hours per month. Which leads into the motivation that incentivizes this frequency of play and the third core idea of battlepasses, FOMO.
Again as far as i know (I play 5+ games with battlepasses) battlepasses all exist on a timer, when the timers up all the
rewards get retired. Meaning you can never get them again, even if you have the battlepass in question but didn’t finish it you lose access to it forever. The trading post on the other hand totates items in and out AND has a save/rollover feature. These are pretty anti-fomo features and the only thing more ideal would be all items being present at all times.
Lastly i don’t understand what you intent to prove with the warden mount? Its an achievement. You could leave the game for years and pick up right where you left off.
OH NO A WOW BATTLE PASS… WOE IS ME… FREE cosmetics for playing the game… THE HORROR… What a bunch of jerks for possibly bring back FOMO items.
BOYCOTT BLIZZARD!!! No more free stuff for our already in place subscription fees…
The first post explicitly outlined my worry being how this ‘free’ battle pass may become another predatory monetization method in the future. I don’t care about free stuff. But the way they packaged it is extremely suspicious to me.
Why would they not just do a fully monetized battlepass right now?
Then don’t pay for it.
Y’all act like Blizzard isn’t a company trying to make money off you. If they put out a battle pass that has cool 
in it you know people will pay money for it.
I think if it were going to be a paid battle pass, it would have just been a paid battle pass, its not like they are scared to sell in-game items for real money already.
People really don’t remember Diablo 3’s real money AH where Blizzard got a cut. And it shows.
1 Like
Allow me to be real in return: a paid battle pass would be absolutely fantastic for the long-term health of the game. With one presumption, of course: that the game otherwise goes free to play. Or “buy to play,” as they say.
I hate to tell you guys who are clutching pearls about this, but in a free-to-play game you can buy a battlepass for, say, $14.99 a month to get free perks on top of stuff that you can grind for or get a lucky drop on.
In WoW, now your $14.99 a month is getting you free perks on top of the stuff that you can grind or luck out for. It wasn’t before! If anything, the subscription model is just catching up to the current trends in gaming companies.
1 Like