The current auction house prices in World of Warcraft: Season of Discovery highlight the significant and urgent issue surrounding third-party gold buying in the game.
Buying World of Warcraft gold online has been a thing for nearly as long as the game itself. Over the years, accruing enough currency to sell has become big business, and the methods used to acquire it have become increasingly complicated.
Where there were once impossibly dedicated players running through lucrative dungeons for 18 hours a day, there are now bots farming valuable mats and selling them on the Auction House. This increase in sophistication has subsequently made the problem far more difficult for Blizzard to deal with.
Now, Auction House prices are underlining how prevalent the issue is and the size of the job the developer has to make it a problem of the past.
Sky-high Auction House prices caused by the third-party market in Season of Discovery
In a post on Reddit, one user shared a screenshot of the Auction House on their server in Season of Discovery.
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In it, the Elder’s Cloak of Fiery Wrath is on sale for a bare minimum of 88 gold. While this is a totally insignificant number in retail World of Warcraft, in the Classic version of the game it is a significant amount of currency to farm legitimately.
Though it is important to note that the item is arguably a best-in-slot choice for many, acquiring it this way is hugely expensive. Before gold-buying had a chance to bed in further, the item was available for less than half of the current price.
With Phase Two set to release on February 8, many questioned why anyone would spend this much on gear for the current level cap. One said: “Everyone buying BiS greens this late is severely underestimating how irrelevant all of our gear will be a week or two into phase 2. Even RFK, questlines, and Scarlet Monastery gear will blow BFD gear out of the water.”
It’s important to note that the developer has banned thousands of accounts. That said, there is little reason to expect that prices won’t continue to inflate as the game proceeds through the phases, if Blizzard is unable to find a way to turn the tide.
