Episode 11: Fly On The Wall
October 12, 2011
After the whirlwinds that were our busy last few episodes, we take some time to kick back and chit chat the way that we always do when we’re on the phone with each other. Except that we had the record button on, which led to a podcast episode.
Instead of a theme and a relatively organized plan, we ramble on about Blizzcon, our current gaming status, buying pets with WoW gold from people who bought them with IRL gold and, more importantly, whether it’s appropriate to hook up with your Twitter/blog followers.
And!
You might notice some music at the beginning of the podcast which isn’t our usual Bond theme. You might also notice a voice that belongs to neither Oestrus nor I. That’s because it’s nomination time for the Stopies!
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Like our show? Nominate us for a Stopie!
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The Double O Podcast 
Hello, cool podcast 🙂
Just thought I would drop in a different perspective on the whole real money for gold thing.
Part of the problem I think people have isn’t so much the economy itself going to shit but that you gain turn real money into an actual ingame advantage. The cub is possibly the first step towards Blizz actually selling gold from their store. Personally I don’t think the Cub will do this itself as it is a limited interest item you can easily buy for a few pounds instead of 100s or 100s of gold.
However, this could be Blizzard testing the water for crossover products that are bought with money and sold for gold (such as BoE items that are not vanity) or simply for selling XXXg for £XXX.
Scenario:
2 hunters in a good raiding guild (they generally clear normals pretty fast to get to HMS). Both basically geared the same, roughly equal dps and so on, nothing to choose between them in game.
Hunter A has a crap low paid job but can support his broadband and £8.99 a month for WoW. Hunter B has a good job and a lot of disposable income.
New patch hits. 4.2 for sake of argument. The guild wants to clear normals asap to start HMs. So the RL tells his raiders to try and get as many BoEs as possible to make it quick and easy.
The FL trash mobs dropped 3 good items for hunters – bracers, polearm and crossbow. To begin with they were about 150k for the 3 (on my server). Hunter A looks on AH and goes “meh”, Hunter B looks and sees the price, then pops over to Blizzard’s official gold store and pays £100 for the required gold. Suddenly he has 3 nice bits of gear that Hunter A doesn’t. A couple of weeks later when there are the crafting orbs (living embers) for sale at 10k each he nips back to the gold store and picks up enough gold to buy the 8 embers for the crafted gloves and boots, giving him a further boost to dps etc.
Therefore Hunter B has a gained an advantage over Hunter A that would not have existed if he couldn’t have purchased the gold. yes you can say just go farm, but honestly which is quicker? Go farm 230k+ gold or enter the credit card details and press “pay blizz for gold”?
As soon as this happens, IRL money becomes a force within the game. Two people with equal skill and equal gear – but one has the IRL income to buy the gold to purchase the ingame BoEs to give him the edge. The less well off player is then at a disadvantage as his rival is better geared and therefore potentially loses a raid spot or whatever because IRL he doesn’t have as much money spare as the other player.
Blizzard have shown with the Diablo III stuff (and now the Cub) that they are not averse to crossover stuff and that they are happy to have at least some way of converting £££ into ggg.
The question isn’t will they do it, it’s already done, but how far will they go? Vanity pets? Mounts? Epics? Gold? Where will it stop?
Kat
Hi Kat,
Thanks for the praise and for stopping by!
With regards to your comment, I feel that the sticking point to your argument is assuming that gear automatically means better performance.
You’re assuming that the hunter who spent all of his money on gear would outperform the other hunter, based on gear alone. There are many examples of people who appear to have fantastic gear that simply don’t perform. There are examples of people who would be considered to be lesser geared that can put better geared rivals to shame. Like I said in my post about this, on my blog, gold can’t buy skill. It can’t buy awareness. It can’t buy manners, etc.
Other than that, I do agree with what you’re saying, about the potential ways that a gap in income can affect different people.
hmm, rereading my comment I didn’t make it clear enough but when I said “nothing to choose between them in game” I was meaning they are basically equally skilled and know what they are doing, so the only difference between would be gear based, which isn’t an unlikely scenario in a large (or even small) guild.
I know that it maybe wouldn’t happen often or be a major problem, but currently it isn’t an issue at all, and if it did occur I am sure that the less IRL well off player would certainly feel angry/annoyed/pissed off that he was missing in game opportunities due to not having spare money IRL. I know I would.
After listening to Oestrus on the Rift Rider’s Roundtable, and following you on Twitter for a while, I finally managed to download AND listen to your podcast. Note, the difficult part is actually finding time to listen. I guess that I can add a few miles to my weekly workout schedule to make sure that I can fit this one it. So listening to you will help me get in better shape! Sounds like a double win to me!