GRRRRR...Costs of playing this game.. I'm venting

[Azzrazzah]

Has Blizz ever said why it cost's so much for a person to duel spec or get winter flying or any of the other ways to progress through the game? I mean come on 1000 gold to duel spec and the rediculous costs riding in vanilla and BC or of flying in Northrend?? Or even restricting gold to faction side only???
Christ, how is a low level supposed to be able to afford the costs of this supposed game... Blizz is playing right into the hands of the Gold Farmers.. Even though they say it's against the rules at least their prices(the gold farmers) have come down... Can't even buy your own characters wares for sale in Neutral AH... They purposely put things out of reach to secure the so called game economies?!? That's crap!! It's a game for heavens sake...
Low to mid level quests pay caca.. Dailies at 80 pay 13 gold on average...
My main is Horde and has a very nice nest egg of gold.. Any newbies that I start on horde I can take care of.. What about my Alliance characters??? They are my characters; I should be able to take care of them also!!!
I can move gold across faction lines, but trying to get someone you trust enough to give thousands of gold to, to buy something from neutral AH's are few and far between...
I have started a new character, from the ground up Alliance hunter...Geez the costs of progressing!!! I, all ready have used a Guild mate from my Horde guild to buy a leather leash for 4000 gold so my Alli could have some gold.. But hell that's even running low now... Grrrr...
Well ok, I guess I'm done venting... Any other disgruntled's out there??? Vent the hate away!!

[Saturo]

I actually like the prices as they are right now. I guess it feels like a bit of an achievement to grind up to say Mechanohog prices. Maybe just me tough.

[Vephriel]

There needs to be gold sinks in the game to help curb inflation. If people were able to continuously build up huge reserves of gold and not have to spend very much on anything to progress in the game, eventually the costs of everything would skyrocket. Everyone would just have mounds of gold to sit on and nothing else to spend it on. AH prices would go up and people would buy at those prices since they had the gold and didn't care. Meanwhile newbie players would find themselves unable to afford any of the costs for auctions, materials, etc. Gold sinks are there for a reason - epic flying, repair bills, vanity items, mounts, crafting.....it's all to keep down the relative pocket money of the individual players.

Also, as Saturo said, finally saving up enough to buy some of those things really does feel like more of an achievement. Dual speccing and epic flying aren't required to play, they're a nice bonus and convenience. Naturally you have to work to achieve those.

Obviously there are people who excel at making money in the game, and if you really do apply yourself to doing it (gathering professions, playing the AH, etc), it's quite easy to save up enough to buy all those things. Trust me, I know where you're coming from since I've never been very good at making and keeping gold, but nonetheless it truly isn't too hard to come by if you just dedicate yourself to it.

[Karathyriel]

I must say, I don't understand your problems.

It's true that, now that you have to kill less mobs for the starter quests, you sometimes have not enough money to pay for your trainer. But this is only for the first 5 levels, then it's back to normal. How you could have spent 4.000 Gold on a new toon, I can't even imagine. What did you do? Buy all the resource for leveling you profession? And never forget: What is incredibly expensive on one realm is easy to get on the other!

Yes, this game is strange in some ways. Yes, some things Blizzard does do help the gold sellers and I think, Blizzard gets money out of that, too, so they are in no hurry to "adress this problem" But, to be honest, while 5.000 gold just for flying faster is a very bad joke, 1.000 to fly in Northrend wasn't even a bother for me and I have 2 toons with epic flying in northrend, that's 12.000 gold without the mounts!

What drives me crazy is: There are some things you can't get, no matter what! As a casual, there is almost no way to get a protodrake for a mount. The eggs take 7 days and will probably never drop one, to find the rare you have to be lucky (and know how to get it into combat without dying from the fall) and those you get for achievements are so hard to come by that I, as a casual, have abandoned the thought of ever having a protodrake.
Remember netherdrakes? There is a version wearing armour that was given to the top 5% of all PvP-players. You weren't one of the top 5% in this particular year? To bad, so you're never gonna have one! THIS makes me angry, this drives me crazy! Or what about the pets some people have that are now untamable? It's just not fair that some can keep theirs while others have no chance to ever get one!

Gold is easy to come by in WoW, just farm some stuff and sell it. It's the stuff you can't buy that is driving me insane, especially if it is something I really need to have, just like said protodrake for my Tauren warrior, who looks so incredibly stupid on his windrider, even the armored version. Yeah, I know about the CoT4-drakemount but that is already my hunters mount. No repetitions!

[VelkynKarma]

It's not really that bad. I mean, the grind is pretty crazy, but by the time you're level 80 you can make a lot of gold pretty quickly. Just doing dailies alone can net you 200g or more. Factor gathering professions into that, and you can sell most stacks of ore/herbs for between 50-100G a pop. You can also get a thousand gold or two just by going to a Northrend zone you haven't completed yet and just do all the quests there; you get an achievement, and you get money. Not to mention cash on any green/blue drops that pop up.

It's just a matter of patience. Personally, I find that while the grind can be annoying, I still prefer the prices as they are. Having an epic mount, or dual spec, or a mechanohog, or any other number of expensive items, is like a badge of honor. Yes, I earned this. I EARNED this. It's nice to have, because it rewards you for your efforts, which I think is good.

For example, my BE Rogue main is my moneymaker. I had a friend help me transfer some of his gold to my NE hunter though, because I wanted epic riding for her. I hardly cared about the griffon that i had, except as a mode of transportation. Then I ran Occulus, and it was really though but I manged to pull through. And the blue drake dropped. I EARNED that drake. I love it. I ride it everywhere, it's like a badge of honor to me.

So yeah. It's frustrating sometimes, but I don't think it's really bad.

~VelkynKarma

[Jadvya]

Gathering professions.

Seriously, when I was hunting King Krush, I made enough gold for my sister's epic flyer easy with mining. Took less than 2 weeks. I'm a herbalist now, and with Adder's Tongue going for around 20g a stack on my server, it's easy to make money. 100g to me is pocket change. I'm slowly working on my druid's epic flying, a little more than halfway there, but I'm going about it at a slow pace--if I put my mind to it I'd have the rest of the gold in 3 days. I also find that lower-level reagents, especially stuff around 40-60, stuff like Rugged Leather and Thorium, those sell great, because people are power-leveling their alts' professions.

The fact that we can't transfer gold between factions easily, and that we lose a sizable chunk through the neutral AH, annoys me. But when lost, it can easily be remade.

tl;dr: Gold is super easy to make in WotLK from farming materials and just killing mobs/running heroics, gold sinks are an awesome necessity, dual-spec and epic flying are privileges, not rights (especially since normal flying mounts got a speed buff a while back)... yeah.

[Mania]

I don't think you people are understanding the whole venting thing ...

[Azzrazzah]

Snickers

[Telsek]

Gathering professions really are the fastest way to stack up some cash early on. Once in Outland, the quests and vendoring rewards can net you some quick money as well. My latest toon started doing the cooking quests in Dalaran in her early level 60's, so getting in the habit of doing a few dailies every day is good for cash flow as well as rep.

I just purchased dual spec ability and epic flying for character #5 and it seemed far easier than it was to scratch up the cash for epic riding on my first character pre-BC.

[Epicfail]

I don't think you people are understanding the whole venting thing ...

Yep. You're exactly right. Anyone in your position would be justifiably angry and need to vent. You are so very right that this game is so very wrong.

Can I has a cookie, now?

Actually, they need more "prestige" items in the game that cost tons of money. I think they should lower the fast flying mount and put in more prestige mounts, prestige tabbards that "disguise" your character to look like different things... etc. The traveler's tundra mammoth is a perfect example of what a prestige reward should be. Faster flying is almost necessary to compete with other the gatherers. You know, paying a million gold for a black rocket that seats 5 ain't a bad thing for the WoW Moguls to go after. If you really ground up that much gold or played the market, whatever, you should have that kind of toy to have fun with. Just think about "old world flying" charges will be at level 85? I bet it 3-5k gold just to fly in the old worlds... and you know what??? I'll pay that. You know why??? Because I am a wow consumer whore and THE MERCH MUST BE FED!!!!!

[Mania]

I'd love to see more mounts available to anyone for gold. There are so many mounts I'll never see because I don't group or raid ... and that's fine, but I would love more for me as well.

Same with mini-pets as well.

I'm actually in an odd spot now. I do dailies (for Champion Seals so I can buy mounts ...) and a few other assorted quests, and I tend to gather herbs and mine along my path, but I don't have any real expenses. No repair bills, you know? So I've taken to giving money out to anyone I run into who is reasonably helpful and needs some extra help to get their fast flyer. Or, for that matter, any lower level characters I run into while I'm doing low level quests.

[Vephriel]

I love making care packages to hand out to genuine newbies. Stuff like some bags and a few gold to get them started.

Or, if I'm just in a generous mood and want to help someone who's a good person, I will occasionally create a brand new character and ask a simple question in General Chat that would make others assume I'm brand new at the game. Ignoring the typical 'l2p noob' and cruel responses, if I find someone who goes out of there way to 'show me the ropes', I'll surprise them by giving them some gold or something. x)

[Ryai]

Low to mid level quests pay caca.. Dailies at 80 pay 13 gold on average...

And you times it by 25 = 325 gold. My friend, who manages to do dailies every single day, where they just make my brain hurt from repetivenes, has 30k+ gold.

The other thing is, dual speccing isn't so important when you can get it. I thouyght it would be for my Mage [frost/fire] but there's not really that big of a difference and pre 80 it's most likely just a big flippin waste of money.

And I don't think you understand honestly, about not buying your own auctions. It's more so you don't bid to help raise the price up.

IE a person puts an item up for 1g. Another person bids on it. The same person who put that item up, bids on that and just.

I'm sorry but you're quitting the game over gold prices?

[Arisia]

I'd love to see more mounts available to anyone for gold. There are so many mounts I'll never see because I don't group or raid ... and that's fine, but I would love more for me as well.

Same with mini-pets as well.

I'm actually in an odd spot now. I do dailies (for Champion Seals so I can buy mounts ...) and a few other assorted quests, and I tend to gather herbs and mine along my path, but I don't have any real expenses. No repair bills, you know? So I've taken to giving money out to anyone I run into who is reasonably helpful and needs some extra help to get their fast flyer. Or, for that matter, any lower level characters I run into while I'm doing low level quests.

I would love, no wait, adore-- or whatever comes after that, the ability to buy, at the tournament, the other side's mounts, and mini pets. After all, we are ostensibly working TOGETHER, and all the quest giver's can speak to both Alliance and Horde... why not allow me, a nice and friendly Hordie to buy a kitty mount; make me pay 2X or 3X the cost, if you will, ((and vice versa for those nice alliance who would love, say a kodo or a raptor)) but let me have it, please. And heck, if they're worried about getting the mountain of mounts thing too easily, make mounts of the other faction NOT COUNT.

Now that sort of a gold sink would get me each and EVERY time.