I copied this from the worldofwarcraft forums, as I felt it was well thought out. I know it's long, but it makes great points. And to be honest, how often do you come across a good post on those forums?
I apologize ahead of time; this is going to be a dissertation.
Up until this point you have done a brilliant job of catering to the high level player and the casual player. Most quests are able to be done solo and you get decent gear but nothing elite. If you’re a casual player who likes to quest and level you can’t expect much more out of the game as far as gear goes. The high end intense gamer expect more from the game i.e. instances, epic items, good blue items. With the proposed “professions” blurb on the web page you are taking three steps back.
Blizzard has addressed the wrong problem. The real problem is the economy. What would happen if the United States started printing dollar bills continuously with no regulation? Inflation, plain and simple, that is strait out of Econ 101. In the current state of the game there is no functional way to remove money from the game.
Current “make believe” money sinks:
- Gryphon flights (the 6 silver it takes to get to BRD hardly touches the amount of money I make in the instance.)
- Buying Food/Drink (haven’t bought food since about level 40-ish, ask a mage it is free)
- Buying spells (unless you re-train you only have to do that once)
- Mounts (again, once unless your crazy)
- Minimal supplies i.e. heavy silken thread, coal etc. (reflected into the sale price ultimately)
-Vials (the one and only thing I still do buy)
-Stamps and auction house deposits (LOL 30 copper for stamps)
Since the advent of the auction houses nobody in there right mind would buy equipment from a NPC. So the stores in the vast towns that you worked really hard to create have been reduced to a worn down path between the mail box, the auction house, the bank, and the occasionally trip to a trainer and the anvil/forge.
Back to the mindless money printing analogy; Every time a mob is slain in the entire world at the current level average of all players around 2-5 silver is added to the economy. Is it any surprise that the Staff of Jordan sold for 585 gold last week in the auction house? (congrats btw to who ever landed that). That 585 gold that somebody spent on that staff is now in some players backpack, and the economy remains inflated. Blizzard you need to find an effective way to take money BACK from the players, not limit the amount of trade skills one can have pretending that fixes the problem. Money in = money out = minimal inflation. Obviously a dead lock on this would be stagnant and hinder over all growth and progression of the game. In the current state of the economy the money just floats from rich player to rich player.
Possible “real” money sinks:
- Provide items in shops people really want to buy.
- Have a Gm or blizzard employee create “rare” around the level of quest strength items and put them on the auction house at competitive levels with the current economy. This was attempted with the “rare spawn” weapons in the mage district in SW but fizzled after about level 10. This at least sucks money out of the game for items that already exist in the game.
- Gaming houses, I read this on a thread the other day, and although it is not exactly PC for blizzard to promote gambling, they did put a race track in the middle of nowhere (why it is not used). The thread suggested texas hold em’ and black jack, this would never happen because I don’t think Blizzard would be able to live with themselves if little 12 year old Billy became a black jack addict and started maxing his parents credit cards because of WoW.
- THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS remember that blizzard
- Implement that coliseum arrange dueling tournaments with buy ins and allow the winner to wear “the champions tabard” for a week or something.
Limiting players “professions” will ultimately stop people from “paying to play” in retail. The casual gamer that pays to play for the most part only has time for one character. They don’t have time to have three separate mules to cover all the trade skills. In general even players that have “alts” have a primary character that they dump hours into and eventually money to blizzard. That primary player should be able to do multiple trades. Ultimately player will hit the cap in retail. If a level 60 player with decked out artifact items has the best gear in the game but is unable to combine herbs into a potions because of an arbitrary trade cap this wouldn’t make much sense. Trade skills are just that, if u put in the wrench time you deserve to be able to be a jack of all trades. Changing the name to “professions” is just a copout. Arbitrary caps in this game to urge people to cookie cut their characters into identical copies of each other. A player should be able to explore every aspect of this wonderful game on one character if they put in the wrench time.
Now for a brief plea on how this is devastating to already gimped “hybrid classes”. Warriors need blacksmithing cause they can wear armor (mage/priest tailoring etc.). Hybrids depend on a wider variety of abilities and trades cause as a race we are a jack of all trades and a master of none. Further more allowing every player to get back up first aid has really lowered the need for back up healers and forming well rounded groups (bad idea). Warrior/3 mages/ and a priest will now be able to farm the emperor in 15 minutes flat if all classes will have first aid.
This is a little more than my 2 coppers. I have read over 15 posts today on the same exact subject. I urge all concerned players to add to this post. All immature flames, and pointless rebuttals to please abstain.
They gave us the forums because they wanted us Beta testers to voice our opinions. Exercise your right to vote, though its not exactly a democracy. Thank you if you read the entire post.