Warcraft’s Economy and Gold in Cataclysm. The Changes We Can Expect.
Long term players may well have become aware of changes in the way Warcraft’s economy is working over the past fifteen months or so. The progression of wealth alongside character progression and profession is now completely out of balance.
The system is being swayed by the huge numbers of level 80 characters on most servers.
My situation is not unique. I have 16 level 80 characters (I level characters up by multiboxing 5 at a time) That may seem a lot, but I know several guild buddies who have three of four level 80′s levelled the normal way – and often a level 80 Death Knight as well.
So what happens when you start a new toon?
Well, if you’re anything like me, you are trying a new class, race or combination of the two. At some point you give your character a profession, then, using the huge piles of gold from your main characters you level them up to say 225 in about 90 minutes. Buying stacks of low level items in the process.
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?
I know I’m adding to the imbalance problem. Crafting is a gold sink. Until you get a crafting profession to 450, you are pretty much pouring gold down the drain. Sure the odd item sells, but most are destined to be vendored for a fraction of the production cost – or just thrown away. Apparently it costs over 5000g on most servers just for enchanters to level their rod. Just the rod! Never mind the 450 enchants they have to perform as well.
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.
New huge gold sinks will be added. The biggest gold sinks ever. It is rumoured that there will be a skill needed to fly across the ashen wastes of Azeroth, and that might set you back between 5000g and 10000g. New speed perks for flight will also cost a fortune. More than your epic cost in the first place.
Archaeology will provide crafting materials that can be added at the manufacturing stage to alter the stat bonuses of many items made by the existing professions. These perks will improve the saleability of these items still further, and will provide some real variety and choice for both the crafter and the potential user.
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.
Cataclysm is perhaps the last chance for Blizzard to fix the economy. Sure it works now, and many don’t see the real world warning signs of hyper inflation and manufacturing redundancy being relevant in a game. But they are. These two economic problems are rife in Warcraft, and they will eventually grind the economy to a halt. The laws of supply and demand need a helping hand in WoW. This is Blizzards last chance.
Thankfully it seems they understand this, and are looking to fix the economy. If it fails – and it might. Be prepared for the end of the economy altogether by the time we hit patch 5.0.
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