I Will Gladly Pay You Tuesday...

One thing about WoW Classic Era that I've had to reacquaint myself with is just how poor a new player is in the game. 

Most MMOs don't have this issue. Creating a new toon on LOTRO or SWTOR, for example, will have a person poor, gold-wise, but they're still easily able to afford their training, regular mats, and their mounts. (Yes, even in SWTOR's original form, where you could select the Slicing profession and basically open lockboxes for free credits. #SWTORClassic)

My time spent in Age of Conan had limitations, of course, but most centered around mandatory grouping once you got out of the starter zone.* Other MMOs I've played extensively, such as Guild Wars 2, Elder Scrolls Online, and Wildstar, also don't have gold or monetary issues. Sure, there are other limitations to the games, such as gear or weirdness surrounding the auction house --I'm looking at you, ESO--  but money has never really been a problem.

WoW Classic Era, however, is an entirely different kettle of fish.

My first toon in Vanilla Classic, Azshandra, was so poor that she didn't get enough gold for a riding mount until L47-ish, and then I spent a lot of time fishing for lockboxes to open and sell the contents on the auction house. Before you ask, no, I didn't read "gold making" websites or watch any YouTube videos about it, because I wanted to experience Vanilla Classic without min/maxing my way to a ton of gold. Besides, I don't play video games to make a ton of virtual currency in the same way I don't work irl to amass a horde of cash.**

Progression raiding in Vanilla Classic did me no favors with my gold supply either, as the costs involved keeping Cardwyn raiding --particularly through Vanilla Naxxramas, where the potion/flask requirements for raiding were fairly high-- also kept me gold poor. I frequently found that scouring Azeroth for the mats myself was far more cost effective than being cute and trying to play the auction house as if I was some junior investor for Goldman Sachs. So when the time for TBC Classic --and my corresponding switch to the Shaman Briganaa happened-- I had little gold in reserve to afford mounts for her until well into Outland.***

Fast forward toward the end of TBC Classic and I'd created Cardwyn's clone, Deuce, on Atiesh-US. At first I thought that the ease of which I was able to acquire gold on a brand new toon on a new server had something to do with the knowledge I'd acquired over the years of playing Classic. 

Or maybe it had something to do with the population size. 

However, going back to Classic Era and creating yet another version of Cardwyn has disabused me of either of those beliefs.

Vanilla Classic is simply designed to keep a person poor so they will keep going out in the world.

There, I said it.

***

I mean, it's not a big surprise. The monetary rewards from quests are smaller, the costs associated with class training and everything affiliated with mounts are higher, and the failure rates at professions are also higher, so all of that adds up to a player having to pick and choose what abilities to train and level along the way. 

And if you select a profession such as, oh, Enchanting or Blacksmithing, be prepared to shell out gold**** for enough mats to finish the grind to max profession level. 

Now, there are some ways to generate gold that don't involve begging for gold in Stormwind or Orgrimmar --yes, that is very much a thing-- and they involve leveling a gathering profession. Herbalism and Mining do come in handy, but Fishing does give a player a good bang for the buck in the long run.

I'm sure I'm not giving out any secrets when I say that there's a trick to gaining access to Moonglade at a (relatively) low level if you're not a Druid. Why Moonglade, you may ask? Because the mythical home of the Druids and the Cenarion Circle is also the lowest level area where you can go fish up the Raw Nightfin Snapper. A cook can turn the Snapper into the Nightfin Soup, which is sought after by casters as a raiding buff, which is in demand on the Classic Era auction house. At the present, the Raw Nightfin Snapper is selling for about 6 gold per stack of 10 on the AH, and the Soup commands a higher amount for a stack of 5. You can put two and two together, of course: that's a pretty good gig for steady work. 

The thing is, there's only a few places around Azeroth where you can fish for Nightfin, and there's the issue of having to fish for it between the hours of Midnight and 6 AM Server Time. I mean, it is in the name: Nightfin. By far the lowest level area is in Moonglade, which if you're not a Druid is gated by having to run the gauntlet of tunnels commanded by the hostile Timbermaw Firbolg tribe. While you can eventually build your reputation with them, the Firbolg are all roughly Level 50 enemies, and the entrance to the tunnels is deep in Felwood, a L48-L54 zone, so if you don't want to roll up a Druid you'd either work on leveling a toon or... Get creative.

Besides, you're not old enough for the
shenanigans at Goldshire, Simba. And... Wait.
Why are they talking about Goldshire already?
Shouldn't Simba have "The Talk" first?
From imgflip.

That "get creative" means taking advantage of a glitch in the game where you enter into the low level zone of Darkshore, ride/run/walk all the way to the top of the zone --which abuts Moonglade's zone-- and swim north. Once you get far enough north, you enter into Moonglade's zone, and there you... die.

Seriously.

Once you die, the graveyard you respawn at is Moonglade's graveyard, so if you ask the Spirit Healer to rez you and accept the resurrection sickness debuff, you're smack in Moonglade. Go get the flight point, and you can fly to Moonglade whenever you want to.

Easy peasy.

***

So easy, in fact, it won't surprise you that I never used it.

Ever.

Yes, I drove my questing buddy batty by never taking advantage of this cheat to start fishing Nightfin at a much lower level but instead fished up Oily Blackmouth to sell at a much cheaper price, biding my time until I got to a high enough level to fish up Nightfin at another location.***** This, combined with me disenchanting every magic item in sight severely hampered my ability to accumulate gold for a long time. 

Why not take advantage of the glitch?

Because it's a cheat.

Sure, it's technically in the game, and no, people haven't been banned or anything for it, but to me it's against the spirit of the game in the same way that it's against the spirit of the game to farm mobs in Maraudon or Lower Blackrock Spire or Zul'Gurub for boosting purposes. If a friend asks me to run them through, say, Deadmines, I'm more than happy to. But I would never ask to have it done to any of my toons, and if offered I'm likely to refuse.

It's the same way why I won't go on Heroic Plus Plus dungeon runs, given the current Meta is to simply run past the initial bosses, allowing them to reset. 

I was chatting with my questing buddy the other day, and I saw (via a DBM alert) that she was fighting a boss. A few seconds later there was a "Zarlie has wiped on XXX Boss" announcement.

"Ouch," I responded. "Sorry about that [wipe]."

"It lies," my questing buddy whispered.

"What?"

"DBM. It lies. We ran right through the boss and it reset."

"Oh."

Why do this strat? Because the badges people want --and the loot people want-- only drop off the last boss. There is literally no reason, Meta-wise, to do any of the other bosses and most of the trash, so the bosses and as much of the trash as possible are skipped. 

I mean, at this point why even have the dungeon in place at all if people are simply going to skip to the end?

Impressive Clergyman: "Have you the wing?"
From imgflip.com.

And why do I get the feeling I'd despise Mythic Plus in Retail if it involved a metric buttload of skips and bypasses?

***

Ahem. I digress.

Where was I? Oh yes, about gold in Classic Era.

When you're that starved for gold, you have to be choosy about what abilities to train with when you level up. You start with your primary attack abilities --which for a Frost Mage those are Frostbolt, Frost Nova, Blizzard, and Cone of Cold-- and then select a few other critical abilities to keep current and then let everything else slide. So while the next rank of Conjure Food and Conjure Water may make the cut, Fire Ward and Frost Ward will not. On the original Cardwyn, I reached max level so far behind in a lot of my non-critical spells that I spent my first 120 gold after reaching max level just catching up on a lot of these missing spell ranks. 

This time around, however, I took the gains from my first few Nightfin sales on the Auction House and blew them all on catching up on my spell ranks.

ALL of them.

No, it wasn't ideal by any stretch, but it meant I had a full set of spells to work with. Such as, oh, Mana Shield, which might save my bacon in the Plaguelands. 

It was only after my training was complete and that I was caught up did I save up enough gold for a riding mount. But I haven't stopped there; I realize that I'm going to need enough gold to buy enough mats to finish Tailoring and Enchanting, so my Nightfin activities haven't stopped. If I want an epic mount it's going to take a lot more fishing than what I've accomplished so far, so I'm not in any hurry to get there. 

Maybe there's a purple kitty grind in my future, but I've already done that once. Not exactly the most fun thing in the world, if you ask me. But it is something that can't be skipped, so there is that at least.

*The starter zone, Tortage, is still probably one of the best starter zones I've ever encountered in an MMO. I suppose that the reversion to a "traditional" MMO once you leave that starter zone --not to mention the bugs-- was a huge part of the "bait and switch" impression I and a lot of other people felt the game gave to players.

**This is a US-specific issue, because most of my relatives died with barely a penny to their name. As their health declined, the federal government would only step in and support their stay at a nursing home or a hospice for their final months after they had depleted all of their savings. And the US healthcare system is perfectly happy to oblige in racking up fees and charges. Many of my relatives had a decent nest egg upon retirement, so watching all of their savings being sucked dry by a medical community that is at times part savior and part leech was disheartening to say the least. If nothing else, the lesson I learned from it is that if you die, make it quick so that the healthcare companies can't gain access to all of your money. 

***Trying to level fast meant bypassing extra quests and other activities --such as fishing or picking herbs-- that I could use to supplement Brig's income. When Brig crossed the Dark Portal, I had a total of 80 gold spread across all of my toons. Thank goodness for the Ghost Wolf form that a Shaman has, which allowed me to delay paying for a mount for quite a while.

****That's in addition to never selling any magic items ever again. You're always either keeping them to use, holding onto them to use later, or disenchanting them for mats to use for Enchanting. It's a grind that any Enchanter has to pay eventually, and in the case of the original Cardwyn I paid it later, after I reached L60. Going back and running low level instances just to get magic items to disenchant wasn't exactly a lot of fun, but at least I got to level weapon skills along the way.

*****There's a location in Feralas that worked, so Card needed to only reach the mid-L40s to safely fish there.

EtA: I corrected the grammar before posting but forgot to remove the "in". Oopsie.

Listening for the Whale Song

Let be be finale of seem.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

--"The Emperor of Ice-Cream", by Wallace Stevens

One of the things that irks me about the "do your dailies" crowd is that a certain subset revels in the amount of gold they're making while doing said dailies. 

Before they moved en masse to Atiesh, one guildie knew of my aversion to doing dailies and used to tweak it from time to time, using the promise of gold as a lure.

"Think of all the gold you're missing out on," I was told more than once.

"If I wanted gold fast," I retorted, "I'd spend a few bucks and simply buy it."

"And risk getting banned? No thanks."

That particular exchange stuck with me, because I happened to know people back in the heyday of Naxx who actually did buy gold just so they could keep up with the potion and flask demands. And I also remembered a conversation with a guildie from what was then the #2 raiding guild on Myzrael, who informed me about the insane gold requirements to keep up with the equally demanding raid schedule.

Given that I could put two and two together, I realized that there were likely a lot more people who were like those friends who bought gold. After all, somebody has to be buying the gold the bots were all farming.

***

So, I grew curious, and when that happens, ol' Red tends to get himself in trouble.

Yes, these sites do exist and
are easily found.

I guess there's no real surprise that these sites are right out in the open, easily found with a simple search. Back in the day, when I was once whispered at for seeing if I needed gold when I was passing through Ratchet, I presumed that these sites were on the Dark Web or something. Maybe they were back then, but they certainly aren't now. Blizz must have given up policing these sites at about the same time they decided they wanted a cut of the action and brought forth the WoW Token.

For what it's worth, I checked a site or two. No, I didn't click on any of the options. My Spidey Sense kicked in and I thankfully didn't click any of the links, AV tool or not.

So.... It looks like between $30-$40 US dollars for 3000 in-game gold.

My boast about just buying gold for immediate gratification isn't too far off the mark. And with these sites operating out in the open like this, it's very likely there's no repercussions in game either.

This all boils down to a player leveling to max level on a megaserver such as Atiesh or Pagle, going out and buying 6000 gold for $60-$70, and jumping right into GDKPs to get geared. No grinding needed. Hell, that second site even sells boosting, so you could use the L58 boost before it vanishes, buy a boosting service, and probably pull all of this off for less than $100.*

Sure, this all defeats the purpose of the game, but when an MMO is basically saying "the game begins at endgame", you're letting basic economics (and the black market) dictate how you get to endgame. And what you do once you get there.

***

To be perfectly honest, all this makes me want to puke.

Subverting the intent of the game like this is disheartening, but not surprising. After all, the entire intent of GDKP runs is to be a raid for "high rollers", who have a lot of gold available to bid on gear. But even then, the intent is subverted by the ability to buy gold so easily and without repercussions. And Blizz can't ban GDKP raids either, because bidding gold for gear is allowed in game. Even it was explicitly banned, Blizz can't stop the transfer of gold between players without wrecking the in-game economy. And let's face it, Blizz wants the money from subscriptions, else they'd be more aggressive in their enforcement of bans.

But I can't decide what's worse: that players feel that the only way to get geared up is to enter into GDKP runs (buying gold to do it), or that the game's timeline is accelerated enough so that players feel the pressure to get geared to catch up with everyone else. The entry to GDKP is the new GearScore, but one that's easily rectified by opening up your wallet and pulling out your credit card.   

Yes, you can say --and I definitely would-- that you cheated the system if you took part in buying gold for these purposes, but my opinions don't matter here. In game morality and ethics are only present in a game when the players create it and enforce it. And when they don't --or won't-- it evaporates under the weight of money.

#Blaugust2022

*Hell, you could probably find people to run the raids for you, just so you can stand around in Dalaran and look cool with your Tier gear. 

What was that about Old Dogs?

I tend to be, well, a bit hidebound in how I do certain things in MMOs.

I'm not a big fan of "gaming" things for exploitative purposes. I don't mean illegal cheats/loopholes, but taking advantage of a weakness in game to obtain a lot of a certain item. Such as a Mage taking advantage of how mobs track to farm immature venom sacs, for example. I've seen the YouTube videos, and I get the how it is done, but I still grumble at the poor design of how aggroed mobs go after you that I have a hard time in game of actually taking advantage of the poor design. 

For the uninitiated, you can stand at a certain spot in LBRS, aggro a whole bunch of spiders, and right before they get to your toon you can jump up to a stone walkway beside you and that same mob turns around, runs allllll the way back and then gets up on the stone walkway to chase after you. Do this enough times while AOEing, and you can burn down the entire mob.

Yes, it's legal, but it still bothers me that these elite mobs --and spiders at that-- don't understand the basics of climbing a 3 foot wall.

Or the basics of doing single pulls in Maraudon. Again, not a fan of taking advantage of similar weaknesses in Mara to farm Mara.

***

Some other exploitative runs, such as Lasher runs in Dire Maul East, I just don't get. 

I've done Lasher runs before, and after I'm done I sit there and go "That's it? That's all the gold you get for this? That's all the useful herbs you get?" And I shake my head. I was expecting a ton of useful herbs, but all I ever got were a ton of Heart of the Wild, which any Auction House affictionado will tell you doesn't sell that much. I mentioned this to a friend of mine who loves Lasher runs, and he said "it's the grays you get that are worth it."

/sigh

By contrast, I farm herbs in Eastern Plaguelands and Western Plaguelands, and in most normal times I can get some stacks of Plaguebloom, Dreamfoil, and Mountain Silversage and make 90 gold every couple of hours' worth of farming. 

Well, that was before the Mountain Silversage market collapsed a month ago.

***

I look at some people in WoW who accumulate a lot of gold, and wonder just how cutthroat you have to be in order to amass that much gold. How sweaty do you need to be? It's not like there's such a thing as compound interest in MMOs*, so you have to actively go out and sell things in order to obtain gold. Whether it's your services (such as selling water, boosting**, or ports), mats, or finished items, you have to sell something if you want to keep up with the increasing demands of raiding and other activities. 

It wasn't until about 7-8 months ago that I became aware of the concept of the GDKP raid. The "G" in front of the more traditional DKP term means "Gold", as in people bid gold to win items in raids. To join this "raiding of the rich and well heeled" you have to have a certain minimum amount of gold, and the raid leads inspect you to determined if you've got enough gold to play. Which sounds more than a bit like Casino Royale, but in WoW. Just let that sink in a bit: there's raids out there only for those with enough gold to join in.

Still, it's not like I'm the only perpetually poor person in our raids. I know a Warrior who barely makes enough gold to repair his gear between raids.*** And apparently there are a lot of people in our raid who need enchants, which means needing the mats + gold as well. 

***

I realize that this sounds like whining, which is why I'm talking about it here rather than on Discord or in WoW. But I believe a lot of this due to my approach to playing the game. If I wanted to earn gold, I'd do it the Gevlon way, which would likely earn me gold but also have some of my in game friends disappointed in my greedy methods. And while I'd like to think that changing my approach to farming in WoW wouldn't change me, I'm not so foolish as to believe that. 

How we play is a reflection of ourselves. That doesn't mean that we don't learn or grow while playing a video game, but it does mean that how we approach the game, how we interact with people in a game, and the emphasis we place on in game activities are a window into our own psyches. People who say "I play to blow off steam" and then proceed to act like an asshole in game are showing to the world what they are really like without the constraints of society.****

***

Nevertheless, I have begun changing my approach to farming gold in WoW. 

Instead of farming for raw materials, I've instead begun to focus on the finished items. I used to dip my toe into the tailoring market, but my lack of sales there dissuaded me from that approach. But potions? That's something I can work with. I know way too intimately just how much potions cost for raiding, and now I'm taking that knowledge and applying it to Az's potion making. Potions such as Greater Firepower, Mageblood, and Greater Shadow Protection sell well on the Auction House, and I'm focusing on what I can sell based on what I can farm. Sure, the market will change, but if I can can do this, I'm sure I can change with it. I don't need to go crazy while farming, spending all of my spare hours just trying to get enough gold for the next Naxx run, but I do need to be mindful of the lure of gold.

Now, let's just see if this old dog can internalize these new tricks.

*At least ones that I play, anyway.

**Another service I find distasteful. If you already know how to play your class that's one thing, but boosting to merely get to "where the game begins" misses the point. The leveling experience gives you the opportunity to learn to play a class, and you apply those lessons at endgame. Having to learn tanking at L60 when the only times you set foot in an instance were when you were being boosted is, well, a lost opportunity.

***Or so he claims. It's gone on long enough that its now a meme.

****Or maybe within societal constraints. After all, the past four years have been very educational in how people behave when they realize they can get away with anything.

Blizzard discovers that time is actually money

One of the best of The Far Side comics was this one:

Gary Larson, 1985. For some reason my copy wouldn't
scan right, so thank goodness for the internet.

I think it's safe to say that Blizzard has discovered the same thing. And, unlike Einstein, they're building their WoW token system based on another's work: EVE (and Wildstar, too).*

Another thing that's certain: Blizzard believes that few enough people will be taking advantage of this option for them to absorb any subscription losses involved. By setting the real world cost for the WoW tokens themselves --and allow only the token to change hands once-- they can tinker with the corresponding end price on the AH without becoming directly involved in the gold farmer black market.

I'm with Rohan on this; I'd prefer that Blizzard just turn into any other cash shop and sell gold directly to players. Blizzard isn't going to eliminate subscriptions, and the high end raiding guilds will likely recruit players just so they become gold farmers to subsidize the raid team's subscriptions.

For the majority of WoW subscribers, this announcement isn't going to change a thing. They'll still pay their $180/year (more or less) and get their gaming on. For those who play the AH and amass a lot of gold, however, they'll be able to live off the fruits of others' money.




*I suppose Newton and Calculus would have been a more apt comparison than using Einstein, but Einstein is easier to draw.

And You Thought the Brawlers' Club Was the Seedy Underbelly of MMOs

One day last year, I was goofing off in Ratchet while waiting for the BG queue to pop.  Every so often I get the urge to check out the Steamwheedle Cartel's Auction House and see what items people are trying to sneak across the Faction DMZ.  Most of the time they are pets, but once in a while you see some low-priced raw materials or a nice piece of gear go through the WoW Black Market.

Anyway, I'd been perusing the miscellaneous items for a minute or so when I got a whisper from someone.

"Hey, what are you doing here?"

Whatever.  Since I've been known to drop in on low level zones on my max level toons from time to time, I've grown accustomed to such questions.  Some people seem genuinely perplexed that I'd not be spending all of my time in the Firelands or Icecrown Citadel, I suppose.

"Just loitering around, waiting on a BG."

"k."

After a few moments longer, I closed the AH window.

"Yr not waiting on a delivery, are u?"

I blinked.  "No," I replied.  "I'm good."

"U sure?  I've got some gold here for u."

"Yeah, I'm sure."  I then took a flight path to Org and marked the toon as a gold seller while on the way.

***

About a little over a year ago on Age of Conan, I spent a couple of hours teamed up with a pair of players, a Guardian and another Barbarian, while working our way through Conall's Valley.  There are quite a few stretches of the valley where safety in numbers is essential, and I was grateful for the company.  The conversation was good, and we had fun really sticking it to the Vanir.  Over the next couple of weeks, when I'd login to Age of Conan I'd find one or both of them online, and we'd group up and chat.

Then, for a few weeks there was silence, but that didn't surprise me much since the three of us had families and jobs.  I never saw the Barbarian again, but one Friday I logged in and saw the Guardian and whispered a hello.

I was ignored.

Puzzled, I whispered a hello again, and then I saw it.

The account started spewing Gen Chat with gold farmer spam.

***

What exactly is the amount of money that the gold farming industry makes?

Back in 2006, the BBC estimated that the industry made $900 million, but that was well before WoW's current popularity.  I'm not exactly sure whether you can directly translate the increase in WoW subs from 2006 to 2013 to corresponding increase in gold farming, but it seems reasonable to say that MMO gold farming is at least a billion dollar business.

While that's not iPad dollars, it's still a big chunk of change, in the realm of such non-IT brands as Heinz ketchup.  Think about that the next time when you see gold farmer spam in Gen Chat:  gold farming is big business, and people are willing to skirt the law for it.

But at what cost?

Everybody knows somebody who has had a hacked account.  Sure, you may get your virtual stuff back, but you really never get over the sense of violation.  And the company involved has to spend time and money in getting your stuff restored, never mind attempting to prevent it in the first place.

All of that costs money, and affects a company's bottom line.  Security one of those hidden costs that you never see in a company's balance sheet --the lengths a company goes to protect itself from the Black Hats, and the costs involved in successful hacking attempts, user accounts or otherwise-- but it does exist.

MMOs are a game, but you can't say that they are just a game.  That's like saying that the New York Yankees or Manchester United aren't worth much because they both are organizations that play kids' games.  Good luck trying to say that to a sports fan.

***

I suppose I ought to explain the trigger for this post.

A few weeks ago, a dormant account from a fellow WoW guildie who'd passed away from an illness over a year ago suddenly became active and refused to respond to tells.  An alert guildie informed Blizz, who quickly shut the account back down, but the sheer brazenness about it still sticks in my craw.  The Black Hat had to find out about and hack the account, reactivate it with (most likely) a stolen credit card, probably upgrade the account with the same, and only then could they go on their merry way.

Just a game, right?

The Power Behind the Throne

Funny how things work.

I was sitting around on Friday, wondering what to write about this week, when the Activision earnings call dropped the bomb that WoW's subscriber base had dropped to 9.1 million, down 1 million from the previous quarter.  Couple that with TOR having dropped to below 1 million subs, and you've got an interesting week's worth of MMO data.

My first reaction was that the numbers would have looked even worse were it not for the annual pass subs, because the WoW base remained flat for the previous two quarters while I noticed a distinct dropoff in the number of people logged into a server.  As I've said before on several occasions, there are days when I think that 90% of the people logged into WoW are gold farmers, because I see very few people in the capital cities on an average evening* and what people I do see are out farming mats or working the auction house.  Actually seeing a leveling toon out in the wild is a rarity.

However, when I turned things over in my head for a while, I began to wonder just how many subs WoW has that are actual players versus gold farmers.  The reason why I bring that up is because, unlike some other MMOs, I keep turning over how gold farming will work in TOR outside of actual account stealing.

Most people buy gold to get a leg up on the competition or to help themselves in other fashions, but with TOR designed the way it is, I don't see the need to buy credits to assist you in the leveling game.  Sure, manipulating the AH can be done, but I haven't seen the TOR AH to be quite as cutthroat as WoW's AH is.  Perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but it seems to me that TOR doesn't really need the gold farmer industry very much.

If that's the case, then perhaps that 9.1 million figure that Activision put out in their earnings call is actually lower --a lot lower-- when you remove the gold farmer accounts**.

WoW is the big dog of the MMO world, and the gold farmers will flock to it like bees to honey.  Their numbers will only decline when their demand declines, and given the amount of announcements you get in the big cities, I doubt that's going to happen anytime soon.  TOR, by comparison, is conspicuous in its lack of gold farmer spam.  Other MMOs that don't have a large population, such as Age of Conan, still have plenty of gold spammers, but TOR doesn't.  Part of that is due to no major city-spanning communication system like WoW's Trade Chat, but other than that I don't really know why TOR has less gold farmer spam.

The scenario that TOR has fewer proportional gold farmers than WoW is significant, because that means that the actual number of true, playing WoW subs is a lot lower than people realize.  Which also means that if it's the actual WoW players who unsubbed, then WoW is in a bit more of a world of hurt than we believe.

Still, this is all water under the bridge since the definition of "true, playing WoW subs" probably is defined by Blizz as "a paying subscription."  They can't afford to discriminate, unless the behavior of the sub is deemed malicious in intent.  I'd argue that acts that participate in gold farming are "malicious in intent", but where you draw that line is kind of hazy.  Merely farming mats like mad isn't enough for malicious intent, because anyone farming for a rare item would be guilty.  Stealing accounts is malicious intent, but Blizz has to either be alerted to the theft or notice a pattern that tips them off that the account was stolen.

What all that means is that WoW needs gold farmers to keep their numbers up.  Other MMOs do too, but none more than WoW.  We can only conjecture as to how many accounts are gold farmer accounts, because Blizz itself probably doesn't know.  You can bet that if they did know, they'd point that out in an earnings call, particularly if it was the gold farmers leaving the game.

Investors, however, aren't interested in gold farmers***; they only care about subscriptions.  If subs go down, they want to know why.  If they stay down, they want to know what Activision is going to do to bring them back up.  People are slamming EA over TOR's subscription loss, and EA announced some major changes to the game in response.  Blizzard's response to its sub loss is "Mists will fix this."

But will it?

Blizz hasn't had subscription loss like this before.  At this time last release, Blizz was still riding high from the success of Wrath, and subs were either relatively flat or trending upward heading into Cataclysm.  Whether you played or took a break is irrelevant, because the subs themselves only changed by a couple hundred thousand.  Right now, things are going in the wrong direction for WoW, and if Mists only halts the bleeding, the investors will still be up in arms and demand a better response to the problem.

Higher sub prices?  Maybe.

More gimmicks?  Maybe.

More gold farmer friendly changes?  Maybe they will.  Subs are subs, no matter where they come from.

The saying goes to not bet against Blizzard, but Blizzard is now fighting its reputation as always being a 'safe haven'.  These are uncharted waters, and even Blizzard can't see what's ahead in the fog.  Maybe they'll find salvation in Pandaria, but maybe they'll just strike some rocks.




*Averaging about 45-55 a night on the two capital cities on Ysera, and about 100 in Org on A-52, which is 8:1 Horde dominated.  I have poked into Stormwind on A-52, but it'd make you cry at how empty it is.

**That's both toons created for the purpose of gold farming as well as stolen accounts.

***As long as the farmers aren't engaged in illegal activity, that is.