Once such could be based on warband size, or how many characters one has gotten to max level.
They could all be basically free. There is zero reason to charge anything for them.
I pay a sub. I buy expansions. That should be more than enough reason for them to provide a QoL option for nothing. But they arenât doing what would effectively be hitting a switch to turn it on, because they need to suck enormous amounts of gold out of the game being held by some players by including a system that disadvantages all players.
The economy is theirs to control. That they canât do it except by acts like this is a rather sad indictment.
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I mean theyâre priced that way for a reason though.
The first three tabs are a non-issue as far as Iâm concerned. Even if you were a fresh WoW player amassing 126k gold to buy those three tabs (something you wouldnât even need to do given youâre fresh without a horde of alts) is a trivial feat.
Blizzard could halve the gold on the last two tabs if they really wanted to because the cost is a bit arbitrary and really just there to separate the wheat from the chaff as those tabs are meant to be meaningful gold sinks for the majority of players who arenât gold barons sitting on tens of millions of gold. My assumption is that for the vast majority of players having 3 tabs is probably going to satiate the bulk of the players, and if they want the 4th tab we are talking about an investment, but not a crazy one.
As far as Iâm concerned thereâs exactly a 0% chance that the existence of the WoW token does not influence game design. Itâs just not possible, it makes them money and companies are for profit.
That doesnât mean everything they make that involves gold is inherently tied to trying to push token sales, itâs just that developers ultimately have to be cognizant of its existence any time they create something tied to gold and the people who are managing a company that just happens to make games are going to ask questions about how they can influence token sales.
I agree the token is certainly part of the deal. But honestly, I would have been more impressed if theyâd just openly charged for them. Provide the first tab for free and then put the remaining tabs up on the shop for $. At least that would have been up front, I could almost respect that.
I mean gold sinks have been in the game since literally Vanilla, itâs not exactly new tech for them to drop. But the game has been around for 20 some years now so gold is basically out of control so at this point these kinds of sinks likely do little to nothing in the grand scheme of handing inflation.
I donât really agree with the fact that because we pay a sub and buy expansions we are entitled to things in the game. I have no problem âpayingâ for them as it gives us reason to stay subbed to their game, but my real beef is that because the WoW token exists massive gold sinks these days are likely less to handle with gold inflation and more likely tied to a desire to encourage token sales.
The name of the game is to detach people from the price they are paying. P2W games do this all the time; itâs why they have 50 different currencies. You and I understand the value of a dollar, but we donât understand the value of 300k gold without looking it up, and then when you talk blatant P2W games they sell you gems, crystals, gold bars, etc for all their difference systems and it gets very confusing very fastâŚand thatâs intentional. Diablo Immoral, Blizzardâs P2W baby, does disgustingly well.
Itâs why my sub expires in less than 30 days now. Blizzard has joined them and itâs only going to get worse as time goes on. I loathed the introduction of the Classic expansion perk packs they found justification for after they realized Classic actually had legs, and then later justified the WoW token. All done in the name of a better player experience and also give us more money.
I find far more enjoyment in games that are straightforward sales with little to no cash shop capabilities. You can wishlist games on Steam and pick them up for 20-50% off pretty regularly, some by indie companies that are already cheap as it is, but still worth hundreds of hours of play, and others that are very much so full price games, but donât try to milk you after you buy their product.
OK, thats something we can disagree on.
ESO is very monetized, yet if you are a subscriber you get the Craft Bag included in your sub, and its literally bottomless. If a game that uses a very large shop can manage that, not sure why Blizz canât do the same.
I agreed that the token is part of the problem. It was created not just to make them money (which it obviously does) but to help with a reduction people buying gold outside the game getting hacked and it also allows people to earn gold and use it for their sub and other game purchases. For those reasons its a positive thing for the players and a positive thing for the company (and any company is entitled to make a profit). But when they seem to be pushing things ingame that bait people to buy tokens to pay for them, that disturbs me.
They may be gold sinks but, as I said, if they are thatâs an issue of economics which they donât seem to be able to deal with in any other way.
And I agree with you that my own interaction with Wow is starting to wind down. Not just because of personal health issues, but also my ongoing dissatisfaction with what Blizzard is doing to this game I very much love. I have other games I can play (most non MMOs) and I will likely be seeking my amusement there sometime ahead.
Good luck with your gaming. 
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I donât disagree. Iâm a big proponent of multiple avenues to rewards.
Though Iâd still reduce those last 2-3 tabs cost in that scenario myself.
This is kinda what I think whenever people try to tell me the gold sinks need to exist at all like this or that it should be used to bar people from a QoL in some capacity.
WoWâs economy needs to be better handled if this is all they can muster to do it.
Are they?
I donât think they really are beyond a gold sink. Which has never worked in the game to really do much.
I think they last 2-3 tabs are very much a crazy amount of gold to be charging for a mainline feature of an expansion. Now I donât think they should be easy or really cheap (Though I wouldnât say no if they offered. lol) but I think the price should come down.
Yeah like I agree with this. I donât think every thing they add that costs money (especially a lot of it) is inherently meant to push token sales, and by their nature they do move gold around the in game market mostly so I imagine theyâre actually not a huge issue for the economy overall save for being massive infusion of capital into a single individual at a time.
But sometimes when I see an exceptionally high price like that last tab I wonder a little bit if theyâre really maybe pushing it on purpose for that end.
I know its likely not logically.
Iâm not against that either. GW2 and a few other games offers the ability to use real world money to pay for gems to buy bank expansions and stack expansions. Which Iâll admit Iâve bought plenty of in that game. lol
An âexpansion featureâ absolutely should be available to everyone⌠even new players.
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Just a heads-up the bank itself is free, you just have to buy the extra tabs with the last one being the gold sink.
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a new player literally has zero need for it when they start because they have a character bank and no alts. By the time they have alts they can afford a tab or two. World quests in DF give them enough from doing 2 flying ones for a tab.
The last bank tab is meant for auction house goblins. They stockpile tons of stuff. Someone that just plays the game normally isnt going to use 5 guild bank sized bank tabs.
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How do you buy the tabs now? Someone on my realm said the warband bank isnât working right now.
Correct, they took it down atm due to issues.
as a non gold farmer , gold does NOT come easy for me even with 60 toons total , i do not play on them all . i recently got excited after i surpassed 100k for the first time since i started playing 20 years ago. I dont really care about gold and have no friends . EVERYTHING needs to be price reduced . i am also in favor of price locking in the AH as sometimes the hoarders really ask WAY too much for things like crafting materials , especially when a new xpak comes out , the try hards take everything and absolutely fill the AH with stuff that is so expensive i can hear my real life wallet crying as i sit and look at the prices of these pixels . it makes me feel left out as a player, and i dont really like farming , this game ruined that for me back in wrath, trying to make the motorcycle and getting ganked mining ore, or having a shadow player steal the ore ( before that was fixed )
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It is available, just because YOU canât afford it doesnât mean it isnât available.
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Its a gold sink to deal with the stupid amount of currency in circulation. That aside those wow tokens arenât gonna sell themselves. 
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Its really ridiculous that 20 years in and we still see these off the wall pricing for things that we know will be reduced later with some AI generated apology.
Less than 1% will buy the last tab, of a feature that is suppose to help with alts yet they basically lock part of it out except for those that buy gold.
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Blizzard has already said the high amount gold sinks have never worked because less then 1% would buy them. Thats why we saw in DF a ton more items for 100k-500k gold. Basically gold sinks that are far better to handle.
Extravagant gold sinks are so damned silly.
A gold sink doesnât work when 99% of players will never purchase it.
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God forbid that â99% of the playersâ see those initial AH prices leading into the raid tier rush at the start of the Xpack. End of the day people will dump the gold/tokens on those slots Day1 without a second thought.