Warcraft Economy
by Paul Rone-Clarke on Jan.29, 2010, under Warcraft
Warcraft’s economy is becoming unbalanced. Initially there was a natural progression of wealth that existed alongside character and profession progression. This is no longer the case.
The reason as I see it is the economic weight of so many level 80 characters paying the way for their ‘toons.
I doubt if I’m the only one to have reached a server full of level 80′s (I multibox, So 5 at a time in about 6 week’s real world playing time with multiple refer-a-friend bonuses). But I know I’m not alone. Several guild buddies have four or more level 80′s, achieved the more usual way “one at a time”.
But I still start new toons, and this follows a pattern.
First, I level up a class or combination I have not done before. I get to a certain point, perhaps level 30, and then decide to give them professions. Of course, having stacks of gold I just buy them ingredients from the Auction house, getting them from 0 to say 225 in twenty minutes of making (and then generally vendoring or just throwing away the items)
Then – having done this, I will quite often get bored of the character and have to decide whether to carry on levelling.
More often than not, I don’t. I might even delete them. So I never buy the mid range crafting materials for them. But the problem remains for Blizzard. Whenever I start a new alt, I can (and will) just buy my profession skills. Why not?
This is adding to the imbalance of the game. Crafting is now a huge gold sink. Until you max these professions out they make little that sells and are pretty much a universal waste of time. Especially when you compare them with gathering professions that will make you an absolute fortune. Blizzard know this, so expect a big change in patch 4.0
The Warcraft economy is going to change with Cataclysm. I predict the following.
Crafting professions will be overhauled. Items at low level will be tweaked to make them more attractive to buy. They will cost more to make, but the good ones will offer more than one skill point towards the crafters profession.
Huge gold sinks put in game to stop the rampant inflation that is becoming a real issue. Expect to pay huge amounts for the right to fly over Azeroth and even more for speed perks for your mount.
The new profession of Archaeology will provide ingredients that can be used to improve existing crafted items – but they will need to be used at the point of crafting, and may not be added later like an enchant. Expect different versions of many crafted items depending on what extra archaeological item was added at the point of manufacture.
Consumables will go up for level 81-85. Not just the graded step that they went up with Wrath of the Lich King, but a huge increase. Food, Drink, Ammo, repairs and in game flights (which you may well have to take before getting proficiency to fly over Azeroth) will cost exponentially more than the current equivalents in Northrend
The game will be altered in such a way as to make each characters “right of passage” from 81-85 unique. We multi boxers may well come across obstacles which mean we are forced to split our parties up for the duration of levelling.
Blizzard has the choice to either totally revamp the economy of Warcraft, or at some point in the future get rid of the idea of an in game economy altogether. The current system is uneven and is getting more out of kilter by the day. The laws of supply and demand have become unbalanced in a way that would not happen in the real world.
Luckily it seems they are initially looking to fix the economy. However, if it doesn’t work, then patch 5.0 may well be the end of it.
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