Wednesday, May 6, 2015

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?

13 comments:

  1. Interesting. I'm going to do some research.

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    1. Check them out on your server. They might be slightly higher now, like the mythic warforged things are up to 50K now on mine form people that bought them at 20K to resell them and then some down marking. So over all they went up. But still WAY lower than they were before the token was released.

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  2. Selling by Blizzard would also have the added benefit of removing a large amount of gold from circulation thereby driving the price of the token up and further driving demand for token. A RMT'ers dream.

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    1. I agree and actually think it would be a good idea on blizzards part to remove gold from circulation. That would be another thing that could support this tin foil hat idea.

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  3. Wow dude. I just looked at 5 random mythic warforged BoE items from BRF. The Undermine Journal only shows realm data for the last month, so nothing to really verify or dispute this idea. But in every case, when you look at the whole US region, the quantity available SKYROCKETS in the week after the token was released. Either US guilds got much better at raiding that week (I don't recall a major nerf to BRF) or your friend is really onto something. I may have to do a related post with some of those graphs if you don't mind.

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    1. US guilds did not get much better at raiding, or if they did they sure as hell did not on my server. lol

      Go for it, tin foil hat and all, it is still a fun idea to talk about even if it is not true.

      Maybe blizzard has just not started selling in the EU yet or perhaps they only did it in US because it is a US company and they are here on these servers actively while not so much on the EU ones. Or so I have been lead to believe reading the EU posts. Seems blizzard does kind of treat the EU differently sometimes.

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  4. They could also up the drop rate of them too which would indirectly lead to the same thing. I swear we are getting a ton of boe drops. As the Loot master its starting to annoy me and I've def seen warforged Mythic BOE drop :)

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    1. But have you seen "only" warforged BoE drops that usually only drop off bosses (like necks) from the trash?

      I am going to go out on a limb here and say no.

      I'll add my anecdotal evidence here. We ran a trash run with a hand full of people last week, ran for 2 hours, cleared all trash we could except for the big guy as we only had one tank and we saw no drops, not even one.

      Yes, I have noticed that overall the trash drops seem up the last few weeks, but not up so much to suddenly fill the AH with all warforged pieces. If they were mostly normal 700 pieces than I would agree it was increased trash drops.

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  5. Grumpy, I would say you were crazy and paranoid, and that all blizzard has to do is quietly up the drop rates on the BOEs... except I saw a guy with 7 or 8 max level socketed agility necks on the AH a couple of weeks ago and trade chat kept talking about how weird it was.

    Next time I'll check the toon name and see if it is a real character.

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    1. I am crazy and paranoid, but what is that saying? Just because I paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't watching me. Or something like that.

      Seems a little suspect to see things like that popping up out of nowhere in bulk.

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  6. On the one side, now that the AH is cross-faction, the opposing faction could be doing awesome mythic raiding, but I assume you've already checked that.

    On the other hand, Blizzard wants the token to succeed. By keeping the demand for gold high, the token will continue to sell.

    Intrigued, checking AH tonight myself.

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    1. While there is no proof to it, it does make sense that blizzard would try to do something to boost the sales of the tokens. Heck, if I ran blizzard I would do the exact same thing. It is a sound business plan.

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  7. Of course it is Blizzard. And you hit the nail on the head. You got those who believe they are wow gold gods - I can guarantee you that everything is being control by Blizzard, even those who have the gold.

    -roo

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