Blizzard Defends The Black Market Auction House

Written by: Carina Vossos (@Rinaxas) | June 22, 2012 12:25 pm

26 Comments

With the revelation that the Black Market Auction House will feature a few items from the current raid content, Zarhym took the time to hit the forums and talk to people about this move and clarify a few things.

“No one should count on this even being close to a viable option for gearing up a character. If you can raise that kind of gold in the game, you’re going to have much better success paying your way into raids for gear than hoping the right items appear for you in the black market AH (which doesn’t include set pieces), hoping you can afford to outbid everyone else on your realm, and hoping you’re the last one to bid before the auction ends.”

He makes a reasonable argument, that and if you can afford to outbid everyone on the entire realm, the game needs a gold sink. Having millions of gold hoarded in guild banks certainly requires a huge amount of effort and a goblin-like talent for playing the normal Auction House.

It is a touchy issue for a lot of WoW players, some see it as an ominous sign of things to come, while others are salivating at the chance to blow all their coins on the Black Market.

What do you think? Is Blizzard going too far by selling raid items on the Black Market Auction House, or do you support it? Let us know!

Blizzard Defends The Black Market Auction House

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http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1077858300 Luben Milchov Lambov

Why the hell do I get an add?! Isn’t this sponsored by Netflix?!
- http://twitter.com/viion Josh Freeman
  
  mebbe u got a virus, no ads for me.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1260066056 Steven Diaz
  
  Netflix is their sponsor but they put out adds to supplement their income.
- Old Ben
  
  > Why the hell do I get an add?!
  
  Probably the boss is transitioning to phase 2.
http://twitter.com/Deadalon Deadalon

Its obvious that Battlenet account is about money and WOW will be no diffrence. Its only question when it will happen that Real money will come in to Black market. They will do as when few billions gold have been removed from the game. Then they claim it was so “populare” that they want to do it with real money.

About comparing Black market to ppl buying their way into raids to get gear…. PPL ARE STILL PLAYING the game when going into raids. They are INTERACTING with other ppl. This system does not. Its Diablo 3 AH version. And its not good for WOW.
http://twitter.com/crocodilius ryan phillips

Blizzard should defend it, it’s a great idea. I have 20k gold on my account, so i wouldn’t benefit much from this innovation but i recognize that someone else can enjoy it. I’ve been one of those people doing mount runs in older raids for years without getting a drop, so if they can alleviate that it can only be a positive.
- Jay
  
  If you’ve been farming mounts for years, then you know how rewarding it is to get a rare mount after all that work. By letting people just buy those mounts, kinda cheapens the experience of having rare items. I don’t play WOW anymore, but before I left, I wasn’t happy seeing Raven Lord mounts being given out in random loot bags…
  
  Just my 2 cents
  - Old Ben
    
    It’s not “work”, it’s rolling dice. Each time you do it, you have a random chance, same as anyone doing it for the first time. If you fail to get the drop, you’re no closer than you were before.
    
    If anything, making it possible to buy them by amassing a lot of gold is closer to making it a reward for “work”.
    
    Which doesn’t mean everything in the game should just be a result of “work” (i.e., time spent playing). The rarity and randomness of certain items add variety and realism to the game.
    
    I think the main problem with the Black Market is its lack of personality. It could be a place to get items that are no longer in the game (like the Chimaerok Chops recipe, T3 sets, etc.), but instead they’re just adding random items that don’t seem to follow any consistent or realistic rules.
    - Jay
      
      You have to “work” to get a chance to roll the dice I understand how the guy I was replying to feels, in that it took a lot of time and effort attempting to get those rare mounts. I surely don’t think it’s a clear cut right/wrong decision…
      
      And yes, I agree that it lacks “personality” in the way you put it. Then again, a lot of WOW seems to lack personality these days. Hopefully majority of players benefit from it in the long run.
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/Z36GPOU3Q2QIQYBIDVNQAVGNGE Raul
      
      Waiting for a rare Mount to spawn is work, for Me.
      soloing the raven mount run for almost a year has been work.
      it was also a fun challenge at first, when I was a lower level.
      imho.
      Now someone can just buy gold, and get it.
      
      this is now a game truly best-suited for oceania markets.
      - Old Ben
        
        Waiting certainly isn’t work. And neither is triggering a random number generator and hoping to get lucky. “Working” implies that your actions result in some progress.
        
        Turning in obsidian warbeads in Nagrand so you can get a Talbuk mount can be considered “work” (because there is some progress), but random drops are just gambling. Failing to get a drop 10 or 100 times puts you no closer to your objective. Playing the lottery isn’t work, even if you buy a ticket every week.
http://www.facebook.com/bas.gunsing Bas Gunsing

Gold$eller$ will love this, more people in need of gold…
http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Johnson/1353890372 Michael Johnson

As long as the spawn rate of good items on the BMAH isn’t too high, this could be a good way to fight AH inflation
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Begging for gold has been a long time practice for making gold in WoW. I’ve seen many beggars go from player to player whispering they need gold so they can buy their flying mount. As soon as I log onto another character, theses moochers will immediately beg gold and cry they cant afford that flying mount.

Cant wait for the end game raider to start begging for gold for that BIS tier piece.
http://twitter.com/ItsatrapLOL itsatrapLOL

Stop the presses. We missed an important thing here.

Carina’s voice is hooooooooooooooooot.

Ok, carry on with your WoW kvetching.
midx

Don’t know why so many people are rageing about this is. It only for 1-2% of the population, Anyone else who wants to get stuff of the BMH are going to have to bye gold form gold farmer web sights. It’s good to see Blizzard supporting the gold farmer.
http://twitter.com/Mantose Leo P

Are we sure there are chinese goldfarmers, or where aver they are from? With the addition of this black market, I get the feeling Bliz is pretending there are gold farmers when in reality Bliz guys are just pushing a couple of keys and selling gold to players through 3rd party websites.

Well played Bliz, well played.
Mr_Hades

think of wow as dish blizz is the chef , say the core ingredient is chicken. over the years blizz has come up with different dishes with good clean flavors,and we enjoyed every single moment tasting this different dishes. over the years and at this point in time we the customers want something different , eating the same dish over n over is getting really boring. We are looking for something new that we haven’t seen done before.but Chef Blizzard is sticking to the same core ingredient .they have manage come up with new flavors,which some of us have loved n some of us didn’t . at the end of the day the core ingredient is still the same “chicken” . chef blizzard has to change the core ingredient they do have a lot of talent and passion but if the don’t venture out try new ingredients to cook with the end is inevitable.

finally comes to personal preference do i stick with restaurant activision/blizz and keep eating there or venture out try something new .”cough” i hear there is a new restaurant in town Ncsoft n there chef arena net is cooking a beautiful dish with good clean strong flavors named Guild wars 2 .and they aren’t afraid to experiment with different core ingredients .
H S

The chinese gold farmers are going to love this. Blizzard not only loves them too, they go out of there way to make it a P2W game.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1361268513 Rick Chez Sanchez

Blizz should be defending D3 thats more of a tragic mess than the Black Market AH.
http://twitter.com/Tatlreach Mike S

Pretty sure, this will become a viable option for gearing up your character. Think of it like this. Most raiders go though many raid gear upgrades per slot. With the BMAH, every used piece can be resold for gold, this will flood the market with gear, dropping the price.
- A_KS
  
  Wrong. The BMAH is not an actual auction house. The players can’t sell anything on it. It’s basically a vendor with a huge randomized list of items that players have to bid on to get (as opposed to just “buying it out”). The gold you spend on the BMAH does NOT go to another player. It goes back into the system and disappears from the economy. It’s a gold sink. Nothing more, nothing less.
  
  That said, you can’t sell soulbound items even on the normal AH anyway, so your point is moot.
Deffizzle

Only guilds are really going to be able to take advantage of th BMAH an maybe some ppl with 20-40 gold. Guilds esp big ones are deff sitting on over 100k gold, blizz just wants an outlet for them to spend it.
pc11

This will make players buy gold from farmers for real money. Increasing the amount of hacked accounts and boting.

This + Auction House cash machine (aka Diablo 3) will pretty much make players walk away from Blizzard. Only the l33t, farmers or the ignorant (players that done even go online to check stuff on the games they play) will be left.

I for one am so happy to have left that ship before all this started.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003506182821 Eric King

This Auction house is pure failure. To fix the issue:Remove endgame raiding gear, put in three auctioneers that each have their own type of item they sell. One will sell tier gear and gear that is no longer in the game in general. The other will sell companions. The final auctioneer will sell mounts. To allow the poor to be able to get a chance at obtaining the gear that they wanted the gear vendor which I mentioned before SHOULD NOT be a real live auction where other players can bid. Instead, you basically pay 5k (10k maybe fine, although a bit expensive when considering that flying is 4.5k gold, vs 1 piece of gear for 10k?)- gold for which ever item you wanted. In my mind, they also need to make sure you will have a chance to get that specific gear you were looking for. To do that, they need to greatly increase the number of items that are available at one particular time.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003506182821 Eric King

To elaborate, I meant to say the companion & mount auctioneers would be like the current black market. Also… the reason behind not including the third (gear) auctioneer as one where people on the server bid and the price raises to ridiculous extremes in simple. The truth behind the gear that is no longer available, is that blizzard should have simply put them back in the game into their respective raids/dungeons. This is their own fault, and this whole Black Market Auction House thing is really a joke and a tease to players who want gear that they will never get with this current system, unless they check the Auction House often and happen to have large sums of money and then get lucky because no one on a server FULL of players did not happen to bid on it after you did. I agree in a way that Gold farmers (the rich) should have something to pour their money into, and that removing gold from the economy would deflate item prices in the AH. But, the companion/mount auctioneers can help with this issue, while transmog gear from the gear auctioneer will still drain their money supply despite having a set amount of gold you will spend to obtain a gear piece.

Blizzard Defends The Black Market Auction House

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