Gold, WoW's New Currency

So an 2 days ago an interesting thread popped up on the battle.net forums about Blizzard's decision to use gold as a currency to purchase Seal of Tempered Fate, the first tier of bonus roll in WoD.

In the current beta build there are a few ways of obtaining these:

• Apexis Crystals: 100
• Garrison Resources: 300
• Honor: 500
• Gold: 500g

You can obtain 3 per week just like MoP, so this provides a nice outlet for us gold makers, who enjoy our own forms of grinding over others. Of course, there's more to this story than on the surface, a blue comment popped up on that thread, from Watcher:

Watcher

What will be going away is Justice and Valor. Over time, they've moved away from their original purpose, and given how widely available they'd become (awarded from quests, scenarios, dungeons, raids, etc.), we'd rather return to the original universal currency: gold. The final values aren't hooked up yet, but the old Valor rewards for completing your daily random dungeon or an LFR wing will be replaced with a hefty sum of gold, which should make something like the gold turn-in for a bonus roll seem far more attainable even for players who currently don't have much gold. (Source)

Now this is quite an interesting change. Obviously they're still tweaking the numbers, but a large sum of gold at the end of a daily dungeon could create inflation in ways we haven't seen before, but if it's balanced correctly, and people use it to buy tokens (or even gear!), it would be offset. At the time of this post, Watcher has added another comment that I find interesting:

Watcher

Just to clarify, I'm not saying that players should expect to see a vendor with a full set of endgame gear for gold as a one-to-one replacement for the Valor vendors from Mists. For the initial Warlords content, Apexis Crystals will largely fill that role, and you can see most of that structure already in place in the Beta today.

But when it comes to heirlooms, old legacy gear, elements of garrison progression, or something like the Seal of Tempered Fate turn-in that was the original topic of the thread, gold can work just fine as a universal currency. We want to offer more ways of earning gold that don't rely on repetitive activities (killing fast-respawning mobs in a field somewhere) or playing the Auction House, so that a gold cost like the weekly Seal turn-in feels fair and accessible to the average player through the natural course of play. (Source)

Kind of interesting, but again depending on the pricing, this could turn into more of a gold sink than a source of inflation. If people now have to spend a reasonable amount of gold to purchase heirlooms (which I love by the way), if priced right, it can take a lot more gold out of the market than is put in by this daily dungeon reward.

On the second part, namely "We want to offer more ways of earning gold that don't rely on repetitive activities (killing fast-respawning mobs in a field somewhere) or playing the Auction House, so that a gold cost like the weekly Seal turn-in feels fair and accessible to the average player", I must say it seems like Blizzard is once again looking at the gold maker in a negative light. It's not a comment damning gold making in any way, but suggesting that their demographic has no interest in it, which from a statistical standpoint is probably true. This quote also verifies my hopes that these gold rewards from dungeons will mostly be able to cover the cost of seal turn ins, and not much more.

All in all, quite an interesting development, and I think it's great that we will have something other than the occasional ridiculously overpriced mount, BMAH item, etc. to spend our gold on. I've got 4 million right now just waiting to be spent, and I'd love to do it to make elements of the game less grindy, and take part in the activities I enjoy. I really like this model, I just hope that Blizzard does it right.

If you're interested in discussing this further, there's a discussion thread about this topic going on in The Consortium.

Cheers,
Phat Lewts

@PhatLewtsGold
  PhatLewtsGold

Thinning Out the Beta Transmog List

Hey guys!

So it's been about a month since I released my beta transmog list, and you've all had time to mess around with it, and see what you did/didn't like. I've already gotten some useful feedback, but due to time restraints, I haven't had the time to go through and thin out my list. This is where you guys can come in and help.

I'm asking that you make a subgroup within your transmog list, and move items that you think do not belong in my list, or just make a list of comma separated item numbers (importable ie. 4937,33998,19940) that you think don't belong, or are grossly misclassified. When you've compiled your list, leave it in the comments of this article, or wherever you found me posting this article. This is an easy way that I can compile everyone's different ideas, import into my TSM and cross check to my personal taste, and come up with an ultimate list, by the people, for the people!

Example Format:
Remove: 9093,39184,16448,33435
Add: 22089,24539,11231,78654
Reclassify: 4413,36714,12953


Just some clarification as to what I'm looking for. I know that some items may be misclassified based on their current price. The ranges are not particularly fixed, and are representative of where an item was at the time of classification. It is mainly to provide a rough guide as to where an item belongs. If you find something way over or undervalued, add it to a list, but I'm not going to be correcting just one group up or down, if I did, I'd be updating the list weekly. Please let me know what your intent is to do with a particular list!!!

So please, if you have seen any items while making the group that you think just don't belong let me know! Note that the group is to be deleted, or if you have suggestions of things to add, to be added.

Thanks in advance for participating using the initial version of this list, and thank you for any and all of your suggestions for the list!

Cheers,
Phat Lewts

@PhatLewtsGold
  PhatLewtsGold