Video summary
The speaker expresses significant concern regarding the potential implementation of a Black Market Auction House in World of Warcraft, noting that recent sightings of such an interface in Retail versions have raised immediate red flags. While acknowledging that this feature is likely still in a beta phase with unfinished elements like outdated filters and checkboxes copied from Retail, the core issue lies in what items could be sold on it. The speaker argues that placing incredibly rare and coveted mounts, such as Deathcharger's Reins or the Stratholme mount, on an auction house would drastically diminish their value and special status within the game world. Instead of preserving these items as unique achievements or rare drops that players strive for through gameplay, a Black Market Auction House would create another avenue for acquisition, effectively turning legendary items into commodities that can be bought with gold rather than earned through skill and persistence.
Beyond the issue of rare mounts, the speaker highlights how a Black Market Auction House would negatively impact the game's economy and social dynamics by allowing players to purchase end-game dungeon gear directly. Items like Beaststalker's Pants or the Vest of Elements, which are currently obtained by participating in challenging content with groups, could be bought from goblins on the auction house. This convenience would incentivize players to skip group play and farming activities in favor of simply buying gold and purchasing items, thereby draining the economy of gold sinks without fostering community interaction. Although Blizzard has stated they are cracking down on gold buyers, the speaker believes that a dedicated NPC auction house for rare gear would still tempt players to bypass the social aspect of the game, reducing the pool of active participants looking for groups to run dungeons and undermining the collaborative spirit essential to an MMO.
Ultimately, the speaker concludes that while the concept of gold sinks is vital for maintaining economic balance, a Black Market Auction House contradicts the necessary hands-on management required to keep an MMO alive. Instead of selling rare gear, Blizzard should focus on implementing other effective gold sinks, such as increased costs for respecs or returning convenience-based items like extra bag slots from Burning Crusade, which allow players to spend gold without creating a pay-to-win scenario. The speaker likens MMO communities to young children that need constant supervision and aggressive intervention to prevent them from "killing themselves" through unchecked economic trends. Therefore, the recommendation is to avoid the Black Market Auction House entirely in favor of vigilant economy management that encourages group play, preserves the value of rare items, and ensures the game remains a living, breathing world rather than a marketplace where everything can be purchased.
Read the full video transcript
Something that a lot of people have
talked about recently is the black
market auction house. Okay, so the black
market auction house apparently has been
seen. Apparently there is a black market
auction house from Retail. Wow. Uh oh, I
said the R word.
What the black market auction house is
for those of you guys who don't know. It
is basically a it's a neutral auction
house that is put up by Blizzard to get
really really really rare items. It
looks like Guzun mentioned it or he saw
it on stream, too. He does Classic Cast
with us. Our rebooted podcast. I
rebooted Classiccast and Guu and Amp are
joining me as my co-host for it. So, I'm
very excited about that. You guys should
make sure to go sub to the ClassicCast
YouTube channel. I used to post it on
this channel. Now, I'm going to post it
on uh on the separate channel and we're
going to do things a little bit
differently. Eventually, I'll get on
podcast platforms and everything else.
So, anyway, there's some immediate red
flags here, right? There's a big like
exclamation point that goes off. It's
like, right, death chargers reigns. I
think the second you see this, people
are like,
"Yeah." Now, I'm gonna talk about this
in two ways or from two different
angles, I should say. One is the angle
of the screenshot, and it's a little bit
reactionary, and it's the first thing
that you see. The first thing that you
see is very much, okay, I see the
screenshot, looks just like retail. You
see the death charges reigns. Not good.
Now, I will say there's a couple things
that I've noticed and I looked at this
with the auction house in classic plus
in classic forever. Wow forever,
whatever you call it. I think they just
straight up copy and pasted some things
for retail and I don't think they've
worked on them yet. Namely, with the
auction house, there's still like
there's checkboxes and filters for from
current expansion. There's an artifact
filter for item rarity. So, I do think
there's some things that they just
straight up haven't even looked at and
they've just copy pasted it just to like
put it in the game and it's like it's
being used as a placeholder in the beta.
So, that's something to consider. Now,
although I'm like understanding enough
to know, okay, it's a beta. Okay, it's
not done yet. It is something to point
out because you don't want it to be
something that just still continues to
get put on the back burner for this
entire time. Let's talk a little bit
about the pros and cons of the black
market auction house. Okay, I'll start
with pros because I think I think if
somebody would expect somebody like me
to come in and just I'm a classic Wow
guy, right? Vanilla, Burning Crusade.
That's it. That to me that is like that
is the core. Vanilla and Burning
Crusade. The pros of the black market
auction house, it acts as a gold sync.
Now, what is a gold sync? A gold sync is
an avenue for you to be able to pay for
something, give gold to something, and
it's something of value that you get in
game and you're basically like pulling
gold out of the economy. Okay. respspecs
are a gold sync. epic mount, all this
stuff, like anything that's like a big
purchase or a recurring purchase, a gold
sync. Even something as little as like,
you know, buying regents, reagents,
reagents, whatever you call them. I
always call them reagents. Getting your
mats for raid, getting your consumes for
raid. Well, no, no, not consumes cuz
you're buying stuff from somebody else.
It has to leave the economy. Has to go
to a vendor. That's what a sink is. It
just deletes. It goes away. Uh auction
house tax, however, so in a small way,
the auction house tax does act as a gold
sync. So, anyway, these are all these
are all different gold sinks. Gold sinks
are good because they keep the economy
in check. They keep the economy in
balance. And gold sinks need to be
handled in a way that are they need to
be closely observed in order to maintain
the health of the economy based on the
different farming methods, the way that
people get gold, the way that people uh
just the way that money moves, the way
that gold moves within the economy. Gold
sinks are very important. And that is
like one of the pros of the black market
auction house. That auction house is
going to a goblin. Literally, it's going
to the Steamoodle cartel. They're taking
the gold. Outside of that, you're not
really getting a whole lot of pros out
of the black market auction house. You
could argue bad luck protection, bad
luck avoidance, cuz you're not really
just like being protected from having
bad luck by doing something a bunch of
times and eventually like it increases
your probability. What's happening is
you can do something else, farming gold
in order to get the thing that you want
or buying gold and get the thing that
you want. That's where I think the issue
really lies with something like the
black market auction house. So, let's
take it up a step, right? Let's let's
take one step back and kind of be a
little bit more bird's eye view with
this thing. And I talked about the pros,
right? It's kind of like a bad luck
avoidance thing. I don't necessarily
think this is a good thing. I think the
I think the cons will outweigh the pros
here for having the black market auction
house. But to be fair, it does matter
what you can get from the black market
auction house. So, I don't think
anything like death chargers reigns,
right? That's the Baron, the Strath
Undead Baron mount. If you have
something like that, and I'll show you
the screenshot again. Having something
like this, death chargers reigns on the
black market auction house is really,
really bad because this is something
that is so unbelievably rare, one of the
most coveted rare items in the entire
game. You're diminishing the value of
this thing greatly because now there is
another avenue for it to go for it to be
obtained. Now, sure, it might be
obtained. This might show up once a year
and it immediately gets taken off the
black market auction house. And if if
that was the case, then sure, it's still
incredibly rare and you could make it a
massive gold sink. It all depends on the
implementation, but I do think generally
speaking, it is not a good idea to have
something huge like that on the auction
house. If they do have that, then it
needs to be something where literally
it's as rare as one time a year. If
there's seven items on the auction house
and if it goes up every 24 hours, then
it would be like literally the
probability would have to be as low as
365
* 7. Like 1 over 365* 7. It would have
to be insanely low. It's the precedent
to imagine it's good gold singing. So
they put the black bug mount on. Yeah. I
mean, I think it's incredibly important
to have like these these insanely rare
special items not on there. Now, I do
think gold things are good, right? I
think the cons of having like the
incredibly rare special items being
added to the game and then diminishing
the value of those things and just
making it less special for somebody to
have that or even seeing it in the world
cuz it's special to even see some of
this stuff in the world. Even if you
don't have it, think about how cool it
is to to run into somebody who is
they've got like a Strath undead mount
or back in the day somebody had a
scarablord mount. It's still cool to see
somebody with a scarablord mount, but
there's a lot more scarablords now than
there used to be. Have you given any
feedback to Blizzard yet? Just imagine
anything that I ever say on stream or in
a video or anything. Just imagine it's
it's you can assume, okay? They watch
all the videos. They read the comments.
If you guys leave comments and stuff on
the videos, somebody's out there reading
it. So So leave comments, you know,
obviously like the video, subscribe, all
that. That's great. I appreciate it when
you guys do that. But leave comments,
you know, talk about stuff. Somebody's
reading it. Kind of back to the original
point, talking about cons for the black
market auction house. You're reducing
the value of everything. That's like
super rare. But what else? Well, let's
look at what else is just in this
screenshot and it'll help just it'll
immediately get the cogs turning.
Beastalker's pants, devout crown, vest
of elements, shadowcrafts balders. What
are these things? These are all items
that are dropped in like the endgame
dungeons. You know, you have the pants
that drop off of Baron in Strath Undead.
You know, you have the chest. The chest
drops off of the last boss in Upper
Black Rock Spire, Tracath, right? You
have these big items and sure, somebody
can just come buy it with gold. So, if
I'm like, man, I would rather just farm
gold in my free time and get these items
off the black market auction house
whenever they show up, then I'm not
going to be joining a group to do that.
You know, there's going to be people
that are just like, "Yeah, I'll just get
the gold." There's going to be other
people that are just like, "Swipe the
credit card. Let's buy some gold." Now,
Blizzard said they're going really,
really hard on people buying gold. Like,
I I think they're at the point of like
perma banan. I think they're at the
point of wanting to peraban people that
are gold buying. So, they're they said
they're going real hard on gold buyers.
Um, we'll see how that goes. I think
this is still going to act as something
that is like, hey, people are going to
feel tempted to want to try and buy
gold. I think they won't actually perman
them. They said they're going hard hard.
So, I think this kind of hurts the
social aspect of the game and as far as
people finding groups, uh, having a
player pool of people that are actively
looking for people to group with and
wanting to run these dungeons. So,
you're taking these people out of the
economy by having gear like this. Now, I
think these reasons alone and and it we
can probably keep going on and and keep
nitpicking and finding a lot of stuff,
but I think the discussion kind of stops
there. And I think for a lot of people,
a lot of people probably don't want to
see the black market auction house in
the game. Myself included. I think the
black market auction house is a bad
idea. What I think is a good idea is
gold sinks. Gold sinks are a good idea.
Actively monitoring the economy is a
good idea. being handson and having the
real people get rid of bots is a good
idea. Stopping the gold selling, the
gold buying, all this stuff. These are
all great ideas, you know. So, let's do
that. I think the black market auction
house goes against some of that because
I I do think people are going to be
tempted to buy gold, you know. Now,
unfortunately, that's the same logic
that they use against GDKPS.
But the difference between this and GDKP
is GDKP the gold cycles within the group
and it stays in the economy. Black
market auction house deletes the gold
from the economy because it's going to
the Steam Wheel cartel. It's going to
the goblins, right? It's not a real
auction house. It's like an NPC auction
house. It's black market. Um, now this
isn't a video talking about GDKP pros
and cons. Should they have it? Should
they not have it? Like I'm not going to
get into that whole thing, but uh cuz
that's a that's a completely separate
subject and there's there's a lot of
other stuff to talk about. Um, I used to
be a GDKP hater, but then I I I joined a
few GDKs and I started to understand.
Okay, so I can I can kind of see both
sides of the argument now. There's a
video on it from like 5 years ago.
There's a video from Old Burning Crusade
from if you want. If you're interested,
you can go watch that. So, my suggestion
would be to not have the black market
auction house. I don't think it should
be in the game, but I do think there
should be gold syncs, and I think there
should be other gold syncs. I mean,
respspec cost, dual spec is another one.
Dual spec is another gold sync. Now,
it's a one-time gold sync that you pay
for once, uh, instead of the the
recurring respec cost if you only play
two specs. Now, I play I play the class,
not the spec. I play a paladin, so I'll
have dual spec and I'm still respecting,
right? Because I'll play holy, I'll play
pro, I'll play red, I'll play different
types of red, I'll play different
builds. So, I'm still respspecing, but
that is a good gold sync. I used to be
against the dual spec years ago and uh
as time went on I realized that the dual
spec is there's a lot of good gameplay
actually that came out of the dual spec
and there's some cons but the pros
definitely outweighed the the cons of
the dual spec but having these gold
sinks are good. Now a good example of a
good gold sync that I don't know if it
exists in the game. I haven't seen it.
In Burning Crusade, our beloved, our
beloved Burning Crusade, that beautiful
dark portal, there's these Harris Pilton
bags in Shatrath where it's like, hey,
you want a couple extra bag slots, fork
over 2,000 gold. It's something that is
a convenience. It's very much a
convenience. It is not like a pay to-
win situation. It is not a pay for
status situation. Is a straight up pay
for convenience situation. And that's
having more bag slots. It's a really
good one. I think the Harris Pilton bag
should be brought back or some form of
it where you can get a little bit bigger
bags and then but you have to spend a
ton of gold for it. I think a reasonably
large amount of gold in Burning Crusade
for the Harris Pilton bags is probably
about 2,000 gold. Yeah. Where it's a lot
that's a lot of gold. I mean, I think it
should be even a little bit less, but
that's because I'm I'm broke all the
time. You need to have these gold sinks
because that's part of managing the
economy. And I think if they're
vigilant, I think if they're uh hands-on
with managing the economy, managing the
kind of social aspect of the game and
and everything that goes within it,
because that's what an MMO is. MMOs are
a living, breathing world that need to
be taken care of. An MMO and its
community are like a 2-year-old child.
Okay, it's great. You love it, but this
thing is trying to do every single thing
it possibly can in order to get itself
killed. Okay? And it doesn't know any
better. It's just gonna go do those
things. You give it a stick, you give it
a fork, it's gonna go put it in a power
outlet, okay? It's gonna just pull
things, it's gonna try and grab
something from the shelf and it's going
to drop it on its head. That's just what
kids do. And MMOs do the same thing. MMO
communities do the same thing. You have
to be really, really hands-on with it
and make sure that the game isn't kind
of killing itself by managing the
economy and watching for trends and
seeing, hey, there's like a farm that
people figured out that they're getting
way more gold than anything else. And
now now everybody in the world is just
hanging out at the spot so they can they
can farm up gold gold. It's like if
that's too much, we got to pull it out.
We got to get rid of it. So long story
short, black market auction house bad.
Uh I don't like it. I think there's an
argument for it. But the things that you
can get off the black market auction
house have to be so different. I think
getting gear, getting these really,
really rare items, you just have to be
careful with it. Now, I think if you're
like an endgame vanilla, there's an
argument for like, hey, like we're in
the next patch. And I'm talking about
vanilla, not classic plus. We're in the
next patch. And I can't even find groups
to run UBRS for the chess piece. I think
I think now you have an argument to add
stuff like that. Again, you have to
handle an MMO hands-on. MMOs are so
important to take care of, to monitor.
You just have to be super vigilant and
just aggressive. That's it. You just
have to be aggressive with the things
that you want to do in an MMO in order
to keep it alive. That's my thoughts on
the black market auction house. A lot of
that talk is going on. We always have a
lot of stuff to talk about here. Classic
Plus is the big news is the big fun
right now. So, uh, we're going to keep
doing a lot of Classic Plus stuff. You
guys have been unbelievably supportive
lately. So, thank you guys for all the
nice comments, liking the videos, hyping
the videos. Like, I I don't really know.
I don't really know much about this, but
apparently you can hype videos. I don't
know if it's mobile only or what, but
you can hype videos and it helps like
push them in the algorithm. So, if you
guys believe in the things that I'm
saying, if you guys want to hype my
videos so that more people see them,
more people talk about it, I would
really, really appreciate that. Please
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