World of Warcraft Paid Level 90 Boost Will Cost $60
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/132340-World-of-Warcraft-Paid-Level-90-Boost-Will-Cost-60?utm_source=news&utm_medium=index_carousel&utm_campaign=all

I thought that people might like to see this here, as I am sure a few people might well dabble with WOW.
I have to agree with the writer if this turns out to be true that it looks like they can no longer call these things micro transactions after EA started charging around £70 for Dungeon Keeper gems, then Blizzard pulls this one out.

If anyone here does play WOW, would you pay $60 just to quickly level up a character?



******** Disclaimer...
I checked back over the last 4 pages and Google, so I am sorry if I am retreading ground already.

I don't play WoW, and I would not have paid that much - or even $10 - to max-level a character when I played an MMO (Asheron's Call) way-back-when, even though my heavy business travel schedule had me sucking wind compared to the people I usually played with.

That said, "getting there is half the fun" might not apply the umpteenth time around for some players. For them, this is an option. No big deal.

I haven't played since Cataclysm launched, but even back in the days of vanilla WoW people paid to have others level characters for them which was against the terms of service. I guess this is Blizz monetising that identified consumer desire.

Frankly I never really enjoyed the endgame, it was all about the joy of levelling and experiencing the lore, but the more features the added to make it "more accessible" just took away from the enjoyment. No need to read quest text and work out what to do, no need to read the fluff and flavour text, just accept the quest and follow an arrow to get your XP, rinse and repeat until level cap, then look up a guide to min-max your build or forget about getting any invites to groups or raids...

They're bit by bit removing the game from the game.

Just cancelled my WoW subscription the other day, having played it for way too long (about 9 years on-and-off, although very little during the past year or so) and I have to say it's probably the best decision I've made in a long time. The game has lost its soul quite a few years ago, probably back in the WotLK and is but a shadow of its former self, back when the leveling process was a huge part of the game's appeal for a lot of people. Might as well get rid of all pre-90 content altogether if they're gonna implement something like this.

You get to pay to finish the game? I know you've got all the raids and stuff after that, but surely at that point you've just written off your game?

Here's the good stuff - play to level 90 (it was 60 when I packed it in) and then you get it.

I'm sorry for the forsaken that still find themselves enslaved to this mind, and keep mining these coins for it.

I play WoW and no, I would not pay anything to level a character to 90. The next expansion is going to allow all players to level one character up to 90 I think it is for free as part of buying the expansion. There are people who will gladly pay this though to skip the leveling content in favor of jumping right into the end game content. The nice thing about WoW is that it caters to all sorts of MMO gamers. Some like group content, some like raiding, some like solo, some like a mix of these and some like alternate activities like pvp, pet battles, crafting, gathering, making money in the AH, doing holiday events, pursuing achievements, fishing and more.

I am a casual player for years now and I enjoy leveling characters. I find it fun to play through the leveling content solo as well as doing a lot of other stuff I just listed above. So I've been wondering if I'll even use the free option to level one character. I might skip it or I might use it to level one up on the Alliance side since I normally play Horde side.

Anyway, it is nice for people to have the option to play however they want. The fact that it is monetized this way is probably a good thing on a number of levels for players of the game. The most basic being if the game continues to do well financially, it won't be going anywhere anytime soon and that's good news for those of us who enjoy it. New content is funded which is always good. I think too that the cost will keep the entire population from jumping on an instant endgame bandwagon which would leave the old world zones desolate and devoid of life. That would be sad. No matter where you go in WoW from the lowest level areas on up, you still tend to run into other players which makes the world feel alive and adds to the fun of being there.

It's about time really that all MMO companies offered this option to players. It's more money for them and for the players it allows some of them to play how they want to and save a ton of time that would spent doing something they just rush through and don't really enjoy.

I noticed when reading about this that Blizzard has implemented a tutorial system into the final levels such that a player with a newly leveled up character still has opportunity to learn how to play the character class. It is good they put that in to prevent issues when grouping, etc. although I suspect there are bound to be some compared to someone having leveled a character up and having done some dungeon content along the way. At least they are going to have some training wheels in place though.

For that price, just buy a better game <_<


Call me an outsider to MMO's if you will, but my philosophy is that when I sit down to play a game, I should be playing the game I want to play. If I need to pay an additional $60 to play the game I want to play, then my answer is to find another game.

Monthly sub is a no no for me.

Years ago I did play WoW for a short while. But even then I had issues with the concept of "paying to be able to play less". For me, it's all about the journey, you know? So, to answer the question: Hell no.

I do not know about all players, but I know that my little brother has played WOW for quite some time and has worked his way through as several different classes and races over the years.
I do look forward to seeing him next and asking if he would be willing to pay for this "experience". For me paying to win is a waste of the game, I would rather grind for 6+ hours for a level then pay to skip the fun part. I spent over two years on Diablo 2 to get a level 84 Necromancer and a level 60 Paladin.

Pointless side note...
When the panda expansion came out and I took a little interest (I liked the pandas in Warcraft 3). I remember watching my brother play for a couple of hours as he told me why WOW was so fun before I just got too bored.
During that time he showed me different race/class characters and explaining how it was to play with others. The only think I really remember was sitting there before I decided to leave and asking him if the character he had played with for the last ~20 minuets was a dwarf to be told it was his newest character a panda something. At that point I knew I would never get into another Warcraft game.

I only played vanilla (for about eight months) and stopped right before the first expansion came out, because it was eating my life. I enjoyed the game tremendously, but it began to feel more like an alternative existence to me, raiding and dealing with the constantly added new content got too much. It demanded more and more hours to keep up with events and stay level with everyone else.

Soloing quests and advancing my character while exploring Azeroth was one of the things that I liked most about WoW, I'd never have paid to have that experience taken away from me.

Honestly in terms of dollars per hour this is pretty good value.

If I still played and wanted to level an alt, this would be the way to do it instead of spending hundreds of hours on a character.

So they've found a way to make people pay for playing the game as well as for not playing the game. Genius!

Saw this the other day & roflkek`d.
I know some pay to get levelled, even had guilidies ask me to level theirs back when I used to play, but refused.

$60 for 0-90 is ridiculous, more then the price of the expac isn`t it?
Guess shouldn`t be too surprised, even moving servers was overly priced.

I like it how some uninformed people are all over this, saying how "WoW is dead"

Wtih the RAF people could get a level 80 Character in 10 minutes for YEARS yet nobody seemed to care about this

This will not change anything

The problem here is that this can lead to a slippery slope factor within the game, what's stopping blizzard from selling gear or "boosts" in the game later?

It's already complete bullshit that they sell mounts and pets as well as cosmetic items