In the World of Warcraft as in most games you sometimes hear some pretty strange complaints.  I heard an odd one a few weeks ago and this week’s editorial brings it to mind.  The complaint was basically, that it is unfair that people with lots of gold have such a huge in-game advantage in WoW.  I dismissed it as yet more inane Barrens chat, and continued on my way. 

It got me thinking though; do the rich get richer in WoW?

In this article, I will look at the issue surrounding gold being able to buy power in WoW.  Can it?  Does the economy work that way in WoW?  Does money really equal power in our favorite MMO?  If it does, is it fair to grant that power?  Can the economic end of the game effect the play end of the game?

Is it fair that money can grant power?

I am starting with this one first to evaluate if it is fair one way or the other that wealth can equate to power.  My first gut reaction to this is, “Why should a game be any different than real life?”.  In real life money equals power all the time, it is how our society works.

Looking at the game though, there are some issues with this.  The biggest being that as a game it should have a semblance of being fair (life rarely is though).  If gold equals power in a game then the incentive to use the black (secondary) market would be too great for many to resist.  Also a luck drop early on in your characters development, like a level 40 epic BOE (bind on equip) weapon, could give you enough gold to become a powerhouse over all other characters your level.

It comes down to a split, gold should equate to some level of advantage, but should not be enough that you are untouchable compared to others of your level.

Can you get richer by having money?

This is not a difficult question to answer.  Yes, they can.  Not in the way you would think though.  The most obvious though would be that money can buy you good equipment and thereby allow you to farm better equipment to sell and make more money faster.  This never seems to work out though.

The best way to make money (with money) in the World of Warcraft is to buy items on the auction house when someone puts expensive single items up cheaper than they should (BOE Epics for example) or when people give a really good bulk deal on expensive items (essences, mooncloth, shards, etc).  Depending on the number of other people watching your auction house it can be either very easy or very difficult to make money in this method.  It is far easier though if you can afford to buy the very expensive BOE epics.

I have turned 500 gold into 1500 gold several times in less than a week, by buying cheap and selling high on the auction house.  It is possible even at lower levels or without as much gold, it just takes far longer.  It is not uncommon to see a BOE epic up for 200 – 300 gold less than it should be, and be able to buy it out and resell it quickly.

How does WoW attempt to balance the Gold = Power equation?

Blizzard uses many different things to try and limit the gold = power equation.  The biggest two are that the best epics require raid groups, or require gaining reputation, rank or faction points to gain access to them. 

While many people have recently been complaining that the best items are only available to raiders or long time hard-core PVP’ers (for rank rewards).  This is likely one of the things that has saved WoW from rampant escalation, as it limits the number of the high end items available, by limiting who can get them.

Blizzard also makes many of the best items BoP (Bind on Pickup) so that they can’t be sold to those with money, they must be earned yourself.  It also limits the number in the system, by not allowing you to pass it along when you are done with it.

Can money buy power? - Conclusions

In the end I am not sure if money can really bring you that much power in WoW.  All of the best end-game items are BoP and found in raid instances.  There is almost no way you can pay to get those items.  Oh, I’m sure you might be able to bribe a guild into taking you through a raid instance until your piece drops.  I am assuming that this is rare enough to not matter in the big picture though. 

This means that at level 60 the economy of the game limits you to buying a few BoE epic armor pieces and a few weapons.  They are almost all inferior to the end game raid items though and no amount of gold can change that for you.

If there is any serious advantage given to those that have gold, I feel it is in the low and middle levels of Warcraft. Lots of gold handed down to a low level alt can severely shorten the grind to 60, by ensuring you have the best equipment.  There are many rare and epic middle level pieces of equipment that are BoE and can give you a huge advantage.  Almost all of the epic drops up to level 60 are world drops, not raid drops, and therefore almost all BoE.

At level 60 though, most of the high-end epics can only be found without gold, with a group that works together in the raids.  In raids money doesn’t mean anything, it’s all about how much you have raided (DKP loot system) or how useful and consistent you’ve been (Merit loot system).

Overall I feel that the in-game economy of WoW does a fairly good job at balancing power and money.  The middle game can become a bit skewed on older servers where everyone has an alt sending middle level characters tons of gold, but they quickly move past the levels that it is a huge advantage.