All the things money can buyFollow

I've heard money can't buy you happiness, so I guess I'll just have to rent it.

I think I like the situation as it stands. I think the average player still can find items he would want to work to earn gold towards and there is a good selection of items that can be bought both for raiding and for fun. Right now, people can enjoy raiding without feeling like they have to spend several hours a week actively farming gold but those who do enjoy farming gold (whether through actual farming or through playing the AH games) can still find fun things to spend their gold on.

Certainly there will always be people who amass so much gold that they don't know what to spend it on but then again, people like that often are a bit reluctant to part with that gold even when there are cool things to spend it on. I kind of think many of those people play the game as a sort of a race to see who can get the most gold and spending it kind of hinders that goal.

Even with gold being so easy to earn right now, there are still many people who always seem to spend all of theirs and who are often heard complaining that they can't pay for their raid repairs or can't buy their own flasks. I suspect that even if the need for gold was drastically reduced in game, many people would still never have enough.

I would like to buy a chariot with 6 horses and a fishing boat for me and my friends to hang out.

I'm happy with its current role. Its easy enough to get that you don't feel like its a horrific chore. At the same time, those who are lazy don't have a lot of it so its not trivial.

I think the current level of purchasable gear is good. If you have too much gear that can be bought it will reduce the value of BoE's and also trivialize content much sooner. The last thing any of us need is fewer people running things because they bought the gear. The result is an overall degradation of the community. Fewer people playing for smaller durations results in more people who lack the natural skills you learn from experiencing the content.

I'd also like to see things in the Blizzard store become available through gold. Make it an obscene amount, but still make it possible to purchase it with gold. It'd be a great way to include a gold sink.

I'm also mostly satisfied. You don't HAVE to have a lot of it to succeed, but if you do need or want it, it can be easily obtained with a reasonable application of intelligence and elbow grease.

As a fall-back, it'd be nice if there was a little more useful stuff you could buy with it. I'm quite frustrated with the Firelands rewards system, i.e. you spend weeks running the same dailies over and over, and then they unlock the specialty vendors (I'm assuming this was meant to be a reward)and other than a bunch of plans and recipes only a tiny minority can use, the crap they're offering isn't as good as what you walked in with. From the first two "special" vendors I was able to buy exactly one usable RING (big whoop!).

Its my utilitarian streak - if it isn't useful I don't want to waste time on it. Cutesy companions just get in the way when you're trying to do most anything, and junky trinkets like a "mushroom chair' - only 330 gold - just waste a slot in your packs.

Oh well. you can always burn excess gold by nerfing your alts - unless you're dumb like me and they're on a different server.

Or a different faction. There are soooo many things that I loot I would love to pass on to my level 20ish Pally...except she's Horde and my main is Alliance. I created the Horde character first, not knowing anything about the game, because I have always played elves on EQ and the BE looked the best to me. Then I find out she's Horde...great. I then create a Human Pally with Alliance and didn't realize there would be a barrier between alts in different factions.

I'm still REALLY steamed about Blizzard GMs' total disregard in answering one easy question/request in support tickets, so I'm not a huge fan of anything Blizzard does at the moment.

*Mutters darkly and heads to SecondLife*

It is not a game, it is a virtual world that is completely resident-built. Anything one enjoys: any hobby, activity, sport, etc. one enjoys can be found "virtually" within this environment. The animations are amazingly realistic and those who enjoy rp dressing in WoW would LOVE the endless variety of clothing styles (again, anything one can imagine) within SL.

People enjoy SL for various reasons: Some enjoy building and then go on to sell their virtual creations. (As a sidenote, the monetary exchange denomination in SL, lindens, can be converted into actual USD. A woman with the avatar name of Anshe Chung was the first person to become a millionaire via her SL business endeavors and was featured on the cover of Newsweek Magazine. More info here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2007/07/29/alternate-universe.html.)

In addition to building, selling, possibly earning RL money, it is a very social world, but again that socializing can be in the form of anything from ballroom dancing to role play environments. Although SL is not a "game" there are games *within* SL. For those who enjoy the battle/killing type of games, they exist. Enjoy questing - many, many, many questing areas within SL. It is difficult to explain and those steeped in MMORPGs and desiring to reach "the end game" will either not enjoy this environment or find something within it to pique their interest. The friend who suggested I try WoW, who I initially met in EQ said he didn't realize how many things there are to do (endless) in SL until he began talking to me and will shortly be coming to SL for my personal "tour."

Beer, boobs and bacon make me happy.

You can't see the beer but it's there. http://www.fustilugs.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/fat-person.jpg

I've said this before, but Skyrim made me obsessed with housing. I don't mind a pointless money sink if it's a FUN pointless money sink.