By a show of hands, who here subscribes to WoW remote because they loved the mobile Auction House.

/raises hand.

Srsly, it's not as powerful as Auctionator or something like that, but being able to buy Flasks/Food before raid without going into Laggrimar or snatching up 50 stacks of herbs at well below market price while I'm at the Long Beach Grand Prix . . . Well worth it. Now, being able to pop in and tell my GM that I'm running late or had an emergency and won't be on for the raid is pretty awesome.

I also love it for scanning auctions based on "Time Left" and snagging all those items that people forget to fix the minimum bids on.

"Oh, you want 300g for five Volatile Airs, but the minimum bid is only 2g? I think I'll pay that price instead! YOINK!"

In the end, for me this just made me think about WoW as 20% more expensive when compared with any game that offers the same functionality for free.

Part of the reason I will be going over to GW2 as soon as it launches (remote AH and guild chat access will be standard, free features). Although not the whole reason by a long shot; instant travel, free respecs, classes that can fulfill all roles, gear color customization, non-random dungeon rewards, individual loot (no loot rolls at all), level field PvP, and some other things I have been asking in WoW's suggestion forums for a couple years mean that, unless ANet does an awful job, much worse than what they achieved with GW1, I will be happier with GW2 than I ever was with WoW.

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DarkWalker Apr 19th 2011 9:28AM

In the end, for me this just made me think about WoW as 20% more expensive when compared with any game that offers the same functionality for free.
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Usually I roll my eyes whenever we see posts talking about other games; selling them as solutions to WoW's short-comings. But I have to admit - you've got a nice list.

I'm also biased. I agree with the general concept concerning WoW's price. I get the feeling that Activision's influence has been working over the past couple years and we're seeing the ramping up of "monetization" and the start of nickle-and-diming the WoW customer base.