WOW boost to Level 90 costs more than the game ???

http://games.on.net/2014/02/world-of-warcrafts-instant-level-90-boost-will-cost-60-according-to-screenshots/

And people here bag other MMOs for their cash shops?

It's probably real, and they probably price it like that because any WoW fanboy would have no problem dropping even twice that amount of cash if it means they get more WoW-fun.

Blizzard probably figures:

A) They have this really old, archaic MMO that people still play and will likely play no matter how it's balanced - so they might as well milk them. At this point, the people who still play are the people who don't care.

Once upon a time WoW had a little bit of integrity in terms of gameplay: players earned their gear through playtime. For example, they used to deny character transfers between PvE and PvP, because they didn't want people to coast through the game and power level in PvE just to be able take their advantage over to the PvP server. Makes sense, right? Well - it only made sense for Blizzard up until they realize that money is more important than balance. Their strict perspective on gameplay balance eventually became blatantly replaced with a strict perspective on making as much money as humanly possible with disregard to game balance (or consumer respect).

People used to purchase automation software (bots) just so they could level 1-60 because they found anything other than the endgame dreadful (like most WoW fanboys, which is why they live at the level cap). Blizzard's strategy? Ban them all and then go "want to be max level? Buy our game again and fucking pay us more money you cheap fucks, don't pay those assholes who spend months creating intricate automation programs because they're the ones ruining the game by making it too easy to level"

B) They're missing out on all that phat black market MMO cash (people who are willing to pay directly for leveling, gold, and gear) - might as well milk the lame gamers (lamers) too.

All of this begs the question: why do people perpetually pay money to play games that they consider boring? And then pay additional money to have the game play itself? If everybody just wants to be at max level all the time (that or a PvP TWINK), why even bother implementing a leveling system at all? Blizzard might as well come out and say "yea, 9/10 of our game is a contrivance, but that last 1/10 is so good that it's worth getting paying $60 to instantly get there".

Eventually one day you'll just log in and Azeroth will be gone. Instead you will be simply asked "Queue for Raid" or "Queue for Battleground" - because those are the only popular aspects of the game that people have deemed to be fun since Day 1.

@FelipeInside: They charge £15-20 for mounts, are you really suprised by this?

Wow is basically just for children now anyway. Those children want everything now!

WoW in a way is like cigarrettes. Ive seen people need some serious AA for that game.. my decrepit neighbors are proof of that lmao

I just logged into Guild Wars 2 today and all 3 of my chars (as a Birthday present) got a free mini-pet, boosts, cloths and a free token for any new character I make to skip to level 20.

£30 for expansion packs, £9 a month and gods knows whatever mount/boost shit they are selling, Blizzard can piss off, basically.

If I recall correctly they were giving away a boost to 90 with the pre-order of the expansion pack. Sounds to me like this was a stunt to get more people to pre-order lol.

That is correct, but this is for characters apart from that free boost, which is just for one character with a preorder.

I think while expensive it sounds fine just to control balance and insure everyone doesn't do it. Bear in mind it may also boost professions as it was originally slated to do as well.

Seems like a LOT of people are complaining about this and the majority of them are people who wanted to boost their characters but will now give it a second though which seems fine.

i've played a lot of free to play games and so far non have offered an instant boost to max level cap... if this is true, then Blizz has become worse then all the f2p games i've seen... and they are a subscription game which is supposed to be empty of the pay to win advantages.

Blizzard has allowed people to pay for bonuses in WoW forever now...mounts for example.

I remember when Blizzard first introduced micro-transactions to WoW, the sales pitch was that it would all be cosmetic changes that didn't affect gameplay at all (pets, mounts, etc). Wow is such a cash-grab game now. I'm glad I stopped playing it 3 years ago.

Eh, with a game like WOW - max level is where the game really starts - not ends. I have to disagree that boost to max level is "pay2win".

Now if you could go and buy the best gear through their services to clear that raid that's been giving you trouble, i'd agree with you.

Wouldn't it just make more sense then to shorten the length of time it takes to reach level cap so that everyone can experience end-game? The problem I see is that Blizzard chose to charge for convenience of seeing end-game instead of just shortening the time it takes to get there.

They're probably doing it because people will do it anyways by buying multiple WoD copies for the instant 90's and merging them to their accounts (more complicated way). And that way they have to buy every expansion too so it would probably cost more than 60$.

Considering that all the best characters have the most time put into the game - paying money for an instant level boost to the new level cap pretty much allows players to be the best and "win" by allowing them to redirect all their time into endgame. How is that not pay 2 win?

Haven't they? Maybe not to the extent that players would have wished, but it took a lot longer to get from 1-60 in vanilla than it does now to get it from 1-60.

You know a game is boring when your willing to pay 60 bucks to skip like half the game.

It's 10 years old and still has 7 million players....must not be too boring. Fact is most players have leveled multiple characters and don't want to do it again....I mean after 10 years you do tend to get burned out.

It forces people to think twice, is your time worth leveling, save $60 or would you rather just get it instantly and pay $60.

If someone has leveled multiple characters to 90, why would they need another level 90 for the expansion? Why not just play the expansion with the 90s they already have? I mean, they already took the effort to get these characters to 90...why can't they put up with any of them for another ten levels?

After 10 years you tend to want to try other classes.

And by trying other classes, you mean try only the last 10 levels of one other class. And if you haven't made it to 60 on the other class, you don't even know if you'd enjoy playing that class. You'd think it would make more sense to spend the money on a class that you know you'd like playing at least...$60 on a gamble? Yikes.