At what point does a microtransaction stop being a microtransaction? This is a question my brain has been wrestling with for years. But now it’s finally answered, I think: when it comes at the price of an entire game. It has been known for some time that World of Warcrafts Warlords of Draenor Expansion will also include the option to get a character to level 90 right away, but what if you don’t want that expansion or need another boost (come on, man – just one more, it’s the last one, I promise it)? Now, have $60 on hand and are you ready to spend that amount Blizzards hellishly greedy account to transfer? Are… are you sure?
The recently published one Wow Patch 5.4.7 includes the option in question. On the one hand, I understand this approach: it takes a long time to get a character to level 90 – and time, as we all know, is money. And Blizzard I don’t want every character to jump up to level 90 just like that. This would mean that entire zones would suddenly be empty and many people would no longer have anything to do. That’s the curse of MMOs that thrive on plot and new content: they live on this content and also die because of it. WoW’s endgame is robust, but it can’t keep many people entertained – especially those who play primarily to level up characters.
In any case, the level 90 boost is currently incredibly expensive. It costs more than an entire expansion that includes a free boost, dammit. I’m sorry, but this is just plain silly. There has to be a better way to handle this because this gives thrid party leveling providers a lot of ammunition. “Cheaper than a level boost!” Etc.
This offer seems random, haphazard, almost like a test to see how players will react to it. Maybe will Blizzard Reduce the price a little over time, but at the moment it seems excessive. And Wow? Well, it clearly shows its age. I’m not sure there’s a proper way to bolt a feature like this onto a game with such a grinding, crashing framework. The Level Boost is a band-aid on top of a band-aid, but it doesn’t make the wound go away. (That doesn’t mean Wow would be a bad game now. It just gets old slowly and this fact causes more and more strange/unexpected problems.)
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