Gold Token Currencies

Obligatory WoW SelfieWoWScrnShot_030215_181047

With the launch of patch 6.1 I have to admit I was mildly frustrated that  I had not managed to get the selfie camera to appear on my main character.  Instead it showed up in the garrison list of my hunter, so it took me a few days to notice.  Even then the default form of the camera is not a toy yet until you receive the follow up garrison mission to upgrade it.  Now that I finally have it sitting in my toy box…  I guess I have to do the obligatory picture.  Now I have seen so many of these now that I decided not to tweet it, but nonetheless I think its cute and charming.  I am surprised by just how little control over facial expressions you have, so I guess to get the picture you want to take would involve an extreme amount of patience.  This makes the folks who have posted essentially little story vignettes using the camera all the more impressive.

I know that Blizzard has caught hell from a certain brand of player over this patch not having any “tangible” content.  I for one am plenty happy with the results, namely because we got the content that goes with this patch ahead of time.  Traditionally Blackrock Foundry would have been delayed until a patch rather than put in ahead of time and unlocked at a specific time.  Do we really want to fault Blizzard for being proactive?  While it might be stupid, little features like the selfie cam, twitter integration, heirloom system and color blind system breathe life in the game for a lot of players.  While the raiders and pvpers tend to be very vocal groups, they don’t represent the “average” player.  I would imagine that the average player runs LFR and is happy to be doing so, and things like the garrison and heirloom systems really add to their enjoyment.  What I see is a blizzard that is trying really hard not to fuck up the gains they got with Warlords, and a very jaded community that is almost happy to see them fail.  The rabble over this patch is precisely why we can’t get nice things.

Gold Token Currencies

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Some time ago Blizzard teased the introduction of a monthly subscription token currency that can be purchased and sold to other players for in game gold.  At the time I dubbed this “BLEX” since it seemed to be based on the Eve Online Plex concept.  Some time has passed and I think many of us had simply forgotten about this until yesterday when an official blog post appeared talking about the “WoW Token”.  Firstly I disapprove of the boring name, and I also disapprove of it being wow specific…  but both of those are beside the point.  It seems like we are now going to be getting the chance to purchase a subscription token and then sell that token on the open market.  Unfortunately many of us are questioning just how open said market will be given that the FAQ states that systems will be setting the price of the currency not the players.  That honestly concerns me a bit, because it makes me think that Blizzard will be trying to manipulate both sides of this equation.

I’ve played several other game that had something similar to the WoW Token, and in all cases played the game at the moment they introduced it.  Generally speaking for the first month it is a buyers market, with a bunch of players trying to play “catch up” and purchase in game currency for real world money.  Then things shift a bit, and the value of the currency goes up significantly, as the ready supply of folks jumping on the RMT bandwagon slow to a trickle.  Ultimately the amount of a token needs to match the value proposal given by third party gold sellers.  Based on some quick googling it looks like $15 gets you around 20k to 30k gold.  So in order to stem the tide of third party gold selling Blizzard has to make sure that the token currency is worth at least that much, essentially that it is easier to use official systems than to risk the danger of unofficial ones.

The positive effect is if this works, the gold selling and gold hacking are in essence going to be a thing of the past.  In the games that have had these token systems, there is still gold selling but nowhere near the levels that existed before hand.  Essentially having a legitimate system drives the price down so much that it is simply not profitable for anyone to bother with.  Unfortunately from the standpoint of players hoping to play for free…  this is more than likely going to be out of reach.  The price of a monthly token seems to rise with inflation, meaning that as it becomes easier to get money in game… it also starts costing you more of it to purchase your token.  I feel like only the most dedicated of players with the most free time, or the best auction house schemes will ever be able to actually play World of Warcraft for free.  In any case… I still think this is largely a positive move.

Final Boss Music

ffxiv 2015-03-02 20-24-45-73 Last night I experienced a bit of a baptism by fire, as it seems that my raid group in Final Fantasy XIV skipped turn 8 and went straight into turn 9 the week I was out sick.  The awesome thing is that it seems like they made serious progress that first night of attempts, and last night in spite of me having to play catch up and seeming to stand in the wrong place at the wrong time…  we made forward momentum.  This is the epic boss fight at the end of the second coil of bahamut, and just like turn 5, this one seems to be a guild killer.  I know groups who have been working on learning this one for over six months.  Knowing this I have to admit I went into the fight with a bit of a mental block about just how difficult it might be.  Turns out just like everything else in Final Fantasy XIV…  it is a rather predictable pattern that just requires lots of precision and execution.

Most of the wipes were absolutely due to me doing the wrong thing at the wrong time.  However as the night drug on I started to grasp the dance and we all got considerably more precise at doing it.  We actually managed to make it to the final phase which is no small accomplishment.  Unfortunately unlike turn 5, the final phase here really does seem to be the hardest.  That said we do seem to finally have a firm grasp on the “meteor” and “golem” phases and we were pretty much executing those flawlessly.  Now we just need to get back in there and start working on that final phase.  I am hoping within four nights of attempts we will have killed us a turn nine and be able to official move on to “current” content.  I love my Final Fantasy XIV raid group and Free Company, for keeping me engaged for roughly seven months now… which admittedly is somewhat of a record.

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