When your game is the most popular thing to come along since color TV,
you are bound to pick up your fair share of critics and naysayers.
While I myself have plenty of critiques, suggestions and outright
flames for the folks at Blizzard, I also have the good sense to know
that about 90% of their ideas and mechanisms are damned good.
One of the best aspects of World of Warcraft is its economy if you
have played any other MMOG for any length of time you know how
precariously perched in-game money systems can be and for a game to go
six years with such a stable virtual cash flow is no mere happenstance.
No economy can ever be 100% perfect, what with gold sellers running as
rampant as they do, but Blizzard has done more to simultaneously create
in-game wealth and farm it back out than any other developer. In this
weeks Top Ten List we take a look at some of the major components of
that system.
10) Flight paths
With the release of Cataclysm
this systems days may be numbered, but for much of the games history
this slight nickel and dime operation removed a ton of excess
coin. If you have seen the movie
style="font-style: italic;">Office Space then
you are no doubt familiar with the thought process of getting rich not
by taking a large sum from one person, but by taking lots of very small
amounts from everyone. While most of Blizzards cash grab mechanics
operate on this principle none were as subtle as this one that lined
the pockets of Flightmasters everywhere.
9) Faction and Reputations
One of the few real grinds in WoW, raising your status level amongst
most of the games factions can net some very desirable rewards. While
the lions share of work is done via quests or the relatively new
tabard system, there are many factions that use a turn in system to
help speed the process. It is possible to farm either the cloth or turn
in items, but it is usually much easier to farm the auction house for
them and Blizzard banks on that to help fight inflation. A
secondary money grab is in place in the form of the item costs for the
various mounts, pets, gear and item enhancements that are unlocked by
your new found popularity.
alt="WoW Pets"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/93794">Their
taunt is always resisted.
8) Companion pets and
Mounts Operating on the theory that folks love
achievements and the incessant spamming of my screen with them is proof
positive, companion pets and mounts have been a successful way to move
gold from players to merchants. Most of the pets that are available
from world vendors are fairly inexpensive but the sheer volume of them
makes them a fast way to pad numbers and, while mount costs have
dropped over the years, they are still a lucrative proposition. Of
course faction related pets that can be sold on neutral Auction Houses
have created a nice additional farming opportunity as the house always
gets a cut (this is called foreshadowing by the way) and lets not
forget the real world money grab of Sparkle Ponies and Panda Bears gg
Blizz.
style="font-weight: bold;">
7) Professions
The good game giveth and the good game taketh away. One of the best
means of generating income is also one of the most expensive
propositions for most players to level. Many players will
choose a complementary farming profession to feed their primary one,
but if you are in a halfway serious raiding guild you know it takes two
real trades to tango and that means spending some cash. The money
spent in leveling professions is largely a player to player affair but
adding in vendor components assures Blizzard that some of that dough is
coming back home. To all the Enchanters and Engineers, my deepest
heartfelt sympathies.
6) Gear
Oh the most golden of all the carrots swung in front of MMOG players
the never ending progression of greens, blues and purples that show the
world the full measure of your self worth.
style="font-style: italic;">Cataclysm has
brought a return of world drop BoE and useful crafted items not seen
since The Burning
Crusade. I dont think its a coincidence that
purchasable gear has made a return, after the near limitless stream of
free epics doled out in WotLK players bank accounts swelled with coin
coin that needs to be farmed out of the system to stave off
inflation. While early scarcity of resources leads to
astronomical prices on the AH, the long term strategy for keeping the
money cycle healthy appears to be by replacing the easy epics of last
expansions heroics with BoE versions in this one.
5) Enchants
- Working hand in hand with the vicious cycle of upgrading gear comes
the enchant market. Even though enchanting is the oldest form of gear
enhancement it wasnt until Blizzard added a mechanism to allow
enchanters to peddle their wares on the Auction House that they became
another in the long list of effective means to siphon off gold. There
are rumors that some unscrupulous enchanters still make house calls to
cut out the middle man, hopefully they can live with themselves.
alt="WoW Gems"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/93793">
Epic gems FTW
4) Gems
While diamonds may be a girls best friend, socketable gear has made
everyone a fan of precious gems. Nothing is worse than being
ridiculed for having an empty socket, or heaven forbid one that has the
wrong stat for your class or spec. I dont know if Blizzard had any
foresight into the upgrade storm that the theorycrafting phenomenon
would create, but it has certainly paid big dividends when it comes to
increased AH transactions.
3) Consumables
Ill take Potent Potables for $200 Alex. Not just for raiders
anymore, potions, elixirs, flasks and food have become an integral
component of many players daily lives. Few other aspects of the game
touch as many players with alchemists, herbalists, fishermen
(fisherpersons to be politically correct?), cooks and even the great
unwashed who simply sell hunks of meat they find on the rotting
carcasses of their dead prey getting in on the action.
alt="WoW anvil"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/93792">
Please deposit 86g for repairs.
2) Repairs
Equipment repairs are a gold mine of keeping virtual inflation under
control. Serving as the games only real death penalty (unless you
count the time it takes to run back to your decaying corpse),
durability loss and the need to spend some greenbacks to fix the
damages is the most obvious gold sink in WoW. A younger version of me
would have scoffed at this and declared that experience loss or
something meaningful should serve as death deterrent, but Im older now
and could really care less kudos to Blizzard for finding a stable way
to keep the economic wheels turning.
alt="Auction House"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/85049">
There's an app for that - farming gold from the economy one smart phone
at a time.
1) The Auction House
As I alluded to in number 9, the Auction Houses that exist in Azeroth
are one of the prime examples of a well-played economic balancer. The
huge upside to the AH cut is that players are still making money, even
after paying the virtual vig. While Blizzard may not appreciate
equating their fee to a gambling term there really is no guarantee
that you will sell your item so Ill let you decide if its
appropriate. Either way, every day there are millions of
transactions taking place and a small percentage of gold goes to the
house almost every time (three cheers to you if you only sell items
that have no fee).
If you have played WoW for more than a few minutes then you have no
doubt felt the influence of one or all of these forces. How many other
seemingly benign aspects of the game can you think of that also serve
as a means to regulate the virtual economy? Let us know in our forums
and be on the lookout for more top ten lists in the future.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our World of Warcraft Game Page.
