Tin Foil Hat: What if Those Aren't Duped, They Are Blizzard.

Keeping with the topic from yesterday about the recent flood of duped items appearing for sale around the game instead of just the few we usually see here and there I want to delve into the tin foil hat zone.

Please keep in mind there is absolutely no proof of anything blizzard may or may not be doing, it is pure speculation.  It is made up from the minds of people that make things up just to talk about.  I was first approached by this tin foil hat idea in the days before the wow tokens was released and then received follow up messages from said person, while also looking on my server for comparisons to what he was speaking of, and it made me think, what if it he is right.

What if all these items we are seeing for sale lately are not the product of dupers, or not completely, and instead they are items that blizzard themselves are selling in game in an effort to get people to buy gold in the form of the wow token?

Strap on your tin foil hat as I bring you down the road I was recently taken down and maybe when all is said and done you too, like me, might think, even for a moment, maybe this guy is on to something.

Lets call my informant Bob, just because I like to use Bob as my name of choice for any and all topics.  Bob told me a few days before the wow tokens were to be released that I should look for some good deals on the auction house.  I asked him why and he said that people will be selling like crazy to take advantage of the buyers who never had gold that will now have it at hand.

This actually made perfect sense.  Say you had a high priced item that was not selling.  Now many people who might have wanted to buy it will have the capability of getting the cash to buy it.  As long as it was in the 20K range, as that is what the US token was expected to get and it seems to be the round about number it has stayed at, slightly higher actually.

I said to him that was a good pick up, to notice something like that.  Good gold makers pick up on future trends like that before they happen.  That is how they get ahead of the pack and make lots of money.  He said, it was not just a good pick up, he knows it for a fact, that I should take a close look at the market in the weeks after the token is released and be prepared for things I never expected to see being there.

Now is when we enter the tin foil hat zone.

He said to look for mythic BoE items that sell for exactly what the wow token sells for.  Knowing my server I knew the chances of that were slim to none.  Mythic BoEs were selling for 80K minimum before the wow token came out.  But over the years he never lead me wrong and this time was no different.

By the Saturday after the wow tokens were released mythic BoEs were all over my server, dozens, maybe even more, all warforged, every last one of them, on the auction house for 20-25K each.

I am not shitting here.  He nailed in on the head.  Not only were mythic BoEs selling on the auction house for the price of a wow token, but they were all better than the average BoE.  Every last one of them was warforged.

I asked him about it and he said that is blizzard releasing them on the servers and selling them themselves.  They are trying to entice people to buy more tokens so they listed items that they knew people would want at a price that made buying a wow token to get it seem worth while.

Could he be on to something here?

Like I said, on my server mythic BoEs were always 80K minimum.  Warforged or with a gem slot, depending on the piece you could be looking at upwards of 150K for it on the AH and here we were not just days after the token was released with massive amounts of BoEs, all warforged, for 20K.

One might think that someone was just selling their "stash" now.  But there are a few reasons I have to believe that is not true.  One being the fact they were all warforged.  What are the odds that there are 18 sets of mail boots on the auction house and every last one of them is 706? 

I farmed mythic trash, friends have farmed mythic trash, none of us has ever seen a warforged drop from trash.  Sure it is one small sampling, but where are all the normal versions?  Even if some people got really luck with some warforged drops, where are all the listing for the normal version?  For that many warforged ones to drop there has to be 10 times as many normal ones, wouldn't you think?

The second reason I disbelieve this is that one of the pieces I look for, the agility neck piece as it is BiS for me suddenly appeared, as in 22 of them suddenly appeared, all 706 on the auction house and all for 25K.

That BoE does not drop from trash, it drops from a boss kill.  And there was, at the time, only one guild on my server that had killed a few bosses on mythic and only 2 others that might be capable of it.  Yes, bad server, lets move along. 

So I ask you this, what is more likely, this one guild had been lucky enough that every single person in the raid was setting their specialization to get agility loot and had been winning them each week, every one was warforged, and then after the token was released they all decided to sell them on the auction house for 125K less than they could reasonably get for them or blizzard released the items themselves to try and spur people to buy wow tokens?

Lets not forget that there were also over 20 intellect necks, 20 spirit necks, 20 strength necks and 20 bonus armor necks also on the AH.  All were warforged too.  That one guild that had been downing the bosses must have been really lucky.

So the tin foil hat seems to lean really far to the side that blizzard released them.  I duper would not have undercut them from 150K to 20K.  At least I don't think they would, but how would I know.  I don't do that stuff.  But what I do know is that my friend called it.  The same one that has in the past told me some other interesting information that came to be true.

Was he really that good at guessing what would happen or did he have some inside information that blizzard would be releasing items to spur sales of the wow token?

Put on your tin foil hat and you decide.  There might be absolutely zero proof of it, but looking at my server alone there seems to be some reasonable thought that it "could" be true.  Or maybe the only reason I am starting to believe it is because my hat is on too tight.  What do you think?