Breakfast topic: What will be WotLK's gold sink?
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Dec 1st 2007 at 8:00AM
One of my guild's officers has taken up the dubious practice of "farming for Wrath of the Lich King." He has epic mounts for all his 70s, all the recipes he could ever want, and enough spare cash to pay alt support for an army of gnomes, but he's convinced there'll be some big, 20K or so gold sink in the new expansion.
The gold sinks for WoW have always been epic mounts: the epic ground mount in vanilla WoW, and the epic flyer in BC. I'm not sure what it could be for WotLK. I can't see that many people would spend a ton of money on PvP structures, which leaves a couple of options. There could be extremely expensive forms of character customization, such as tattoos, wings, or other adornments. There could be guild housing (finally.) My guildmates suggested that it will be submarines shaped like "sharks with frickin' lazer beams" and underpants "with rockets on the front", further confirming that my guild's sense of humor is stuck in 1997.
What do you think the gold sink will be when WotLK finally emerges from its cocoon?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Economy, Breakfast Topics, Expansions, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
galgameck Dec 1st 2007 8:07AM
I'm guess since they said we won't be able to use our flying mounts right away, there will be some expensive training in order to fly around in northrend.
Camaris Dec 1st 2007 8:08AM
The lamest would be to "pay 20k gold here to unlock your flying mount in Northrend!".
I can't really think of anything, since there is no indication of new class or style of mount. Character customization may be the sink.
BillDoor Dec 1st 2007 8:09AM
Designer haircuts.
SaintStryfe Dec 1st 2007 8:09AM
I was doing my Auctions on my AH Mule today and I looked and realized I had just crossed 5000g just by AH trading. I was as low as 500 last month when I was doing a big run of buying-to-resell.
I was so tempted to run and buy my Mount... I'll be smart and invest until I hit 7000 or so so I can continue investing... but it's nice to know it works.
Auctioneer plus CTMailMod plus Igor's Mass Auction plus 2.3 = teh Win.
Matthew Dec 2nd 2007 7:26AM
What about mounts that carry more than one person - like horse/cat/elekk-drawn carriages. Or blimps. Something for groups I hope but that can be owned by individuals.
Or chariots.
Or engineering tanks.
Fuzzfuzz Dec 1st 2007 8:19AM
How abou those siege weapons? I bet they could cost a pretty penny.
Clink Dec 1st 2007 8:34AM
My bet is on character customization. The new hairstyles and dances are probably going to cost an insane amount of money.
The article mentions "wings or other adornments" which sparked an idea in my head. Aren't class specific flavor graphics a nifty concept? I'm talking about things that are not tied to armor but rather to the character itself, such as randomly sprouting warlock demon wings, a halo of some sort for priests, arcane sparkles for mages or some such.
Now THAT would be worth saving up 20kg!
Dave Dec 1st 2007 8:35AM
My suspicions would be that it's just going to be another 5k for the next tier of flying. Clearly Northrend is all cold and crappy, so you're going to need to learn some new way to fly your not-too-happy-to-be-there mount, and of course since it's a skill, they'll make you have to be L78 at least to get it.
Money shouldn't be anything bigger. A lot of people don't realize why the money ratcheted up from Original to BC, and why it won't happen at the same rate. I believe we're at the economical plateau of WoW, and that there might be a slight increase to some things, but overall i think they're going to keep the economy functioning at the level it's at right now. There won't be a 10k gold sink mount, and they won't be tripling the quest reward money to make up for it. It's just that there was such a huge difference in the quality of the gear from Original to BC, rather than a smooth progression. They didn't have a good enough idea when planning the original where they'd need to be in the expansion, so loot didn't scale correctly. I'd like to think they've figured it out now, and the greens you get in Northrend won't be better than Black Temple loot and I'd like to think you wouldn't replace Sunwell loot until you're in L80 instances, at least not significantly.
Lich King is not going to be the same change as Burning Crusade was. If it is, I'm not too sure it'll be nearly as successful.
Velaegis Dec 1st 2007 9:34PM
All glory to the hypno-avatar.
Say, wouldn't it be cool if they added a bunch of new mounts that are cooler than what we have for a money sink? I wouldn't complain.
Rob Dec 1st 2007 8:44AM
It will be the Death Knight quest chain. I think the quests will be similar to the 0.5 Dungeon Set quests where you need to provide cash in addition to providing other expensive mats.
Calaana Dec 1st 2007 8:50AM
Goggles to remove the snow effect.
Argent Dec 1st 2007 9:26AM
player housing is the most logical moneysink, imo.
i've been 'farming for WotLK' for a few months now. my goal is 100k.
Dabura Dec 1st 2007 9:51AM
Only the souless chinese have that much :D. Back on topic I reckon inscription will be a pretty big sink. But as most people have said some sort of new flying mount. Maybe the death knight q line.
Juliah Dec 1st 2007 2:46PM
I agree that player housing is a possible "money sink" candidate. Inscription, and possibly the Death Knight quest, as others have said, as well as some form of new mount/riding skill ... I think there will be multiple gold sink factors, but I like your suggestion that player housing could be a new additional factor.
Psychosis Dec 1st 2007 10:21AM
I think i heard something about water mounts...
Baluki Dec 1st 2007 11:54AM
Probably not until the next expansion, which will probably be all about the Maelstrom and Naga and Goblin cities and all the other little islands out in the Great Sea that they haven't added yet.
PeeWee Dec 1st 2007 11:05AM
Blizzard being the #1 "Let's do the same mistake again, and again, and again"-company of the world, they will find a new glorious idea that will make the gold sellers rejoice.
Blizzard, when will you learn that gold is SHITE. There are other ways to make people stay in the game. Reputation grinds, or grind for BOP items (much like Glowcap, only have them BOP) instead.
But we all know, Blizzard will never do that. And the reason is quite easy. As long as you need gold, there will be gold sellers, that employ gold farmers, that supply Blizzard with money with their accounts. Blizzard would never kill off a cash-cow like the gold farmers.
Stormtamer Dec 1st 2007 11:50AM
There is some sort of currency in nearly every MMO out there, maybe even every game, so eliminating gold is gonna make the game even more boring than grinding money and rep.
Three main things i see in WoW are, leveling, PVE End-game and PVP.
Without the need for gold i wouldnt need to do anything extra to pay for my skills, my professions, my repairs or new items.
So im pretty much just having eveything given to me for free, and doing leveling, instead of working the cash/rep for it and also doing the leveling.
Dont know about you but a game where theres very little challenge outside of the comabt system isnt fun to me.
Also the PVP and PVE.
I spent alot of time in the game, and if i had the skill probably enough to do raids everyday to get somewhere as good as SSC and arena long enough to get a good rating.
If i only logged on to do that id get bored of it quick, because all the uber raid bosses and great arena teams arnt alone gonna keep me happy playing the game because eventually id find that boring and repetative if it was the only thing i had to do to play the game.
Where now doing abit of PVP between grinding, and gathering mats and money between raid days keeps me in the game through the time sink, but i still get to do the fun stuff.
Also PeeWee, Blizzard didnt add currency/rep into the game once they realised that goldfarmers would be a huge source of income. It was in the game from launch, when Blizzards goal for subcribers in there first year was 250k people. I wouldnt want to risk that low number (compared to actual subscribers now) by having gold farmers running around, so makes you goldfarming point kinda silly, seeing as the money was always there for farming.
Mats Dec 1st 2007 12:17PM
Look, basic economy lesson for you:
There is money in the game. You need money for all sorts of things, not just flying mounts. Potions, regents, enchants.. whatever.
If people have lots of money, inflation will make normal items cost more. So a potion of healing will cost more if there is lots of money in the system, rather then if it's a small amount.
If people end up getting to level 80 and have nothing to dump there cashflow into, potions and other normal AH stuff will skyrocket, since they can be sold for a outrages amount without any problem, since a large majority of players have that sort of cash. This will end up in a server economy crash, where a small part of the server has huge amounts of gold, and the other parts have little or no gold.
Having a gold drain at endgame balances out the system, so that people who have lots of money get a item that has no real value besides looks and speed and people with little money can still buy the needed items for there professions at a price that is not outrages.
There is no way to remove this system, unless you put in a whole new economic system where gold, for AH activities repairs and everything gold related, is replaced by another thing.
Lupo Dec 1st 2007 12:10PM
Most likely it will be more then one thing this time. People have been begging for a Eng Flying mount. We got it. What other mount have people been begging for? Boats or some kind of water craft. I think that will be a money pit. Also the flying training as some one else pointed out. They have also said there will be new custimization for our toons. That will most likley to it too. Many things because not every one will want all of them.