Blizzard has promised to be less “lenient” with gold buyers in World of Warcraft: Forever to make sure the classic-style MMO’s economy is not ruined.
Currently in beta, World of Warcraft: Forever is a new version of the MMO set within WoW’s first year, and expands on the original’s Azeroth with new content. Releasing later this year, the MMORPG will have a strict moderation team to ensure the game isn’t broken by players.
In a recent livestream, caught by PCGamesN, community manager Randy Jordan and senior game designer Josh Greenfield explained that the team is paying close attention to the in-game economy. While players are using to selling off high-end loot drops to other players for in-game gold, this ends up changing the way guilds are approached, and makes the experience a hassle for newcomers.
While gold buying is popular, so much so that it’s already happening in a beta that will be wiped before release, Greenfield explained that it creates “a really big barrier to entry for new players, or players that just don’t have as many resources”.
The game designer explained that the activity “has a tendency, we’ve noticed in regions where it has been popular for longer, to reach a level of ubiquity that it can overtake the traditional guide structure”. Instead of dishing out drops and gold based on real-life transactions, Blizzard wants World of Warcraft: Forever players to share as needed.
As such, Greenfield explained that gold buying will be taken “very seriously” and the team will be monitoring the economy “very actively”. Furthermore, “if the balance feels wrong”, the game has been designed with easily tweakable behind-the-scenes options for developers to push resources in a particular direction and increase replayability.
Greenfield explained that there will be little leniency on gold buying when World of Warcraft: Forever releases. In fact, the team is “going to very aggressively punish gold buyers”, he explained in the livestream. Furthermore, the game designer noted that this has been a major issue in other forms of WoW, hinting that the stance on gold buying might change there as well.
“Being frank, we’ve probably bee too lenient on gold buyers, and it’s been a little easy to get around some of our actions,” Greenfield said. “We are taking this very seriously, and as someone who’s got a 22-year-old World of Warcraft account, I can tell you it’s not worth losing it permanently. It’s not worth losing any of your accounts permanently. So, I would very strongly recommend that you don’t do it. It’s not worth it. I promise.”
World of Warcraft: Forever is already seemingly a huge success for Blizzard with massive player counts in the game’s beta. Right now, it seems that the MMO will be another massive release for Blizzard with fans immediately gravitating towards the game.
