Introducing the WoW Token

[MiRai]

Update:

A handy site for tracking the token:

https://wowtoken.info/

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Update:

Token will be available in the North American region starting April 7th, 2015 for 30,000 gold:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/18390557/wow-token-coming-april-7-4-6-2015

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Update:

Blizzard finally released more information on the WoW Token:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/18390557/wow-token-coming-soon-additional-details-3-23-2015

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The latest blog post revealing more details about buying subscription time with gold:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/18141101/introducing-the-wow-token-3-2-2015

[JohnGabriel]

Some things I wonder why.


Q: Can I resell a WoW Token after I’ve purchased it for gold?
A: No, each WoW Token can only be sold once. After you purchase a Token for gold, it becomes Soulbound. At that point, it can only be redeemed for game time.


Q: I need gold! How do I sell a WoW Token to another player?
A: You’ll be able to sell WoW Tokens through a dedicated Token exchange in the Auction House, located in a new Game Time section. WoW Tokens cannot be traded or sold any other way.


In Rift (they call it REX not tokens), three things I do are stock up on REX when they are cheap in AH, trade them to my alts when needed, or relist them in AH if prices go way up.

I wonder why they just couldn't make tokens a regular item to be bought and sold for whatever reason I want?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Some things I wonder why.






In Rift (they call it REX not tokens), three things I do are stock up on REX when they are cheap in AH, trade them to my alts when needed, or relist them in AH if prices go way up.

I wonder why they just couldn't make tokens a regular item to be bought and sold for whatever reason I want?

Because some intrepid souls would figure out how to use it beyond the scope of the original design, causing complaints or other undesired behavior.

[pinotnoir]

Hmm. This may get me back into wow. It would depend on the cost of the tokens. If I can pay for game time like I did in eve with in game money I may have to dust off my wow isboxer configs and relearn the game again.

[MultiBear]

Some more info on the matter, including some statements from Ion Hazzikostas: http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/02/world-of-warcrafts-new-real-money-for-gold-effort-brings-more-free-to-play-to-blizzards-cash-cow/view-all/

Some highlights from the article:

Slated for patch 6.1.2, a small update that will hit the Public Test Realm in the near future
Region-wide exchange, not limited to your realm(s)
Reactivate lapsed accounts from the character selection screen (provided you have enough gold)
Blizzard will set the starting price, after that it's up to supply and demand
Changes are considered with regard to BoE epics (from raids as well as the BMAH)

[Lyonheart]

Changes are considered with regard to BoE epics (from raids as well as the BMAH)

Does this mean they are going to nerf BoE epics?

[Mercurio]

Does this mean they are going to nerf BoE epics?

I certainly hope not. It is the most reliable way to make money for my teams and, more broadly, provides a great way for people to gear up their alts. The number of trash runs being advertised (especially when a raid is fairly new) means a TON of players enjoy them. This would eliminate a significant percentage of game time for a lot of folks if they did away with them.

[luxlunae]

Anyone have a price guess? I'd say this is worth it at 30k for me.

[JackBurton]

I wonder why they just couldn't make tokens a regular item to be bought and sold for whatever reason I want?

Because Gold Goblins would buy them all up with TSM snipe and control the prices. The intention of this tool was to allow normal folks a chance to buy the tokens. I can see a need for multiboxers to activate secondary and Tertiary accounts that cant use the AH to purchase items though. I'm sure that you can work with customer service to gift excess time to your other accounts.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIlanFt72a4

[ebony]

don't look like we got long to wait on this one

The patch already has hit ptrs

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/4752-Patch-6-1-2-PTR-Build-19711-CC-DR-Changes-Blue-Tweets-Patch-6-1-Known-Issues

[Shodokan]

One of the main reasons they are not allowing the items to be traded after being purchased is the after market effect it would have. Knowing there have been quite a few dupe methods since WOD has launched gold has plummeted in value and websites/dupers/currency flippers would just buy them and re-sell them for less than blizzard is asking for their normal gametime vs real world money.

Its not really anything to do with the economic impact it simply is a measure taken to prevent this third party market. They wouldn't really care because people are buying the tokens at their price to begin with but it subsequently would possibly have very harsh repercussions on the sale of game time to those who actually pay for the game themselves. Why buy from blizzard for $15 when you can go buy a token from XYZ site for $8? If one doesn't want to spend their gold and would rather use $.

[luxlunae]

Despite being a gold goblin myself I'm ok with the restriction although I wish it would accommodate multi-account players a little bit better. The last thing we needed was dozens of scammers barking to sell tokens in trade.

[Meathead]

Yea I have 50 level 100's got them to that level in the month then after spending $250 for WOD I did not want to renew my sub along with WOD was so boring and I said its not worth $90 a month. So now with this I might play again I have so much damn gold I dont know what to do with it, about time they did this.

Also I am with Lux if this was BOE it would destroy the market with gold sellers holding it all once again.

[Shania]

Love the Game Token, waiting for it!!

If I can save myself, x5 sub fee's actually 6, 1 is my daughters then I am all for it.

I have alot of gold, nothing much to do with it, and this will help me, keep my accounts active, since in a few months my finances will slow down for a short while and I soooooooo want to RAF 1 more account for the mount, so saving money on sub fee's can go towards a new account, 2 month sub fee for it and obtain the amount and then leave the raf account die off.

I have 12 lvl 100's dont think I want anymore, I still have a tonne of lvl 90's on another realm, I cannot afford to xfer to where all my active 100's are.

I plan to wait, and camp the AH as soon as these tokens are going live and buy maybe 20 straight off, if there will be any in there and at around 30-40k each and stack game times onto my accounts and be all merry!

[MiRai]

They're starting it off at $20 (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/18390557/wow-token-coming-soon-additional-details-3-23-2015), but we'll have to wait and see how much gold it's going to cost in game after the initial rush to the AH calms down, which will probably be a few weeks.

Updated the OP.

[Mosg2]

Any guesses on how much gold it'll cost?

I'm ball-parking 20-30k per token.

[MiRai]

It will be available in the North American region starting tomorrow (April 7th, 2015) for 30,000 gold:


Update: The WoW Token will be going live in the Americas region (North America, Latin America, Australia, and New Zealand) on April 7 when maintenance concludes, at approximately 10 a.m. PDT. The WoW Token will be available for $20 USD/$25 AUD from the in-game Shop, and will be set at a starting price of 30,000 gold in the Auction House across the Americas region. From that point forward, the gold price will automatically fluctuate based on player supply and demand. To start we’ll be limiting the number of Token purchases to 10 within a 30-day period, but this limit may be adjusted over time. While Tokens will be available immediately from the Shop, please note that there may be a delay before Tokens put up for sale on the Auction House become available for purchase with gold.

We’ll announce additional regional details closer to the launch of the WoW Token in other regions.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/18390557/wow-token-coming-april-7-4-6-2015

[Fat Tire]

30k......

I dont believe I would ever have to pay for wow again. Only question being do i want to play wow again. hmmm

[Mosg2]

Starting at 30k, not staying :) I'm interested to see how it trends over the first month or two.

[Fat Tire]

Starting at 30k, not staying :) I'm interested to see how it trends over the first month or two.

Sure prices will change, but blizz sets the price based on supply on demand. We have no idea on how high or low they are setting those price points. Guessing by a starting price of 30k that 15k is the low end and 45k is the high. So the total fluctuations are not that large.

[JohnGabriel]

I wonder if there is a college course on manipulating mmo economies. Something like ECON 318 (http://www.usfca.edu/catalog/artsci/econ/courses/)

[luxlunae]

I think that prices will drop dramatically over the course of the first day because people needing subs is a consistent thing that happens over time, and some portion people who are poor in wow gold have been poor forever and are likely to want to rectify that immediately.

[zenga]

I think that prices will drop dramatically over the course of the first day because people needing subs is a consistent thing that happens over time, and some portion people who are poor in wow gold have been poor forever and are likely to want to rectify that immediately.

I make 2-3k per day on 1 account from the gold follower missions alone. And that takes like 5 to 10 minutes per day on average.

[MiRai]

A handy site to track what the token is going for:

https://wowtoken.info/

[Meathead]

I just activated 5 of my accounts for 25k each, this is awesome I love it. But I do have to say WoW is not worth my money but it is worth my gold :)

[luxlunae]

I ticketed to get a day of game time on my account 4 in order to get the money out of my mailbox and in my ticket they said they granted it half an hour ago but no time has actually shown up on any of my three expired accounts. I'll give it another 6 hours before opening a ticket.

They did say that this wasn't a guaranteed process in the future:


I'm pleased to inform you that we are crediting the license with 1 days. However, please keep in mind that these credits are granted on a case by case basis and are no guarantee of any further compensation in the future.

[luxlunae]

Update (because I'm hyper). That account is now showing up as "canceled" with one day of time left, but it hasn't actually activated such that I can use the mailbox. Maybe it is on a different time zone and the free day hasn't kicked in yet.

[Alex66]

Update (because I'm hyper). That account is now showing up as "canceled" with one day of time left, but it hasn't actually activated such that I can use the mailbox. Maybe it is on a different time zone and the free day hasn't kicked in yet.

Blizz actually specifically said they will allow lapsed subs to sub with gold goins, provided gold amount held by lapsed account was sufficient to pay for WoW token. The option to sub with gold will just show up on your log-in screen in WoW (click bye-bye gold and play again etc).

[MiRai]

Well... I'm good.

http://i.imgur.com/835fWAw.png

This isn't real.


Blizz actually specifically said they will allow lapsed subs to sub with gold goins, provided gold amount held by lapsed account was sufficient to pay for WoW token. The option to sub with gold will just show up on your log-in screen in WoW (click bye-bye gold and play again etc).
I think the fact that it's in her mailbox is the problem.

[luxlunae]

Four hours later and the account is still locked down. Annoying but nothing has actually been lost. I'll keep an eye on it.

[posatronic]

Good to know. So is it me or can anyone else tell what dotted lines mean?
lol on your next post 2038, :)

[luxlunae]

Resolution:

I opened a second ticket, at which time the representative thought he had given the game time to the wrong account and he gave another courtesy day to account 5 (we started on account 4.)

This morning I could not get into either account at the "use the mailbox" level, so I opened a third ticket.

A different gm said the accounts just needed to be synced, and that she'd done that, and so I got 120k gold distributed to accounts 4&5. I think I'll just pay the $15 for account 3, however, to avoid this headache again and keep from confusing them.

Not today though, today I have to keep plugging away at my final final project for the semester.

[Shania]

I love these Tokens, best thing ever!

x6 accounts all subbed now until around Dec lol
And my new Raf account, 1 linked to main, subbed until July or so, noidea if I will keep that account, only did it for the new mount.

Now if only there will be some form of Token for realm transfers, etc.

[MiRai]

Now if only there will be some form of Token for realm transfers, etc.
There was some talk that this might happen in 6.2, but I don't think there was any concrete evidence to that information just yet.

[Shania]

There was some talk that this might happen in 6.2, but I don't think there was any concrete evidence to that information just yet.

One can only hope.

With the amount of level 100's I have now, noway would I pay with real money anymore to server transfer.
With gold sure, easily done, have no other use of it anyway, and game tokens, well I amstocked up on game time more then enough for now!