Battle.net balance from an NPC for gold? A new proposal lands in an old split over Tokens

Forever has no WoW Token in anything we've read, and nobody quoted here has announced one. Players keep arguing about it anyway, and on 2 November the argument produced a new idea: what if an NPC sold you Battle.net balance for gold?

The proposal

Faraal laid it out on the EU forums. As they describe the WoW Token, it comes in two forms: a silver one bought with Battle.net balance and sold on the Auction House for gold, and a gold one bought on the Auction House and exchanged for Battle.net balance. They had already said the silver version shouldn't be anywhere near Forever, because it's the one that turns real money into in-game gold.

Their idea keeps only the gold version and takes the other player out of the deal. An in-game character would sell it for gold. The time spent farming that gold is the price, and the gold leaves the economy, which they argue would counter inflation. Since no one would be funding it with real money, they'd limit it to one token per account per month.

That's the design and its stated aim. Whether it would work is not something the post can show. Sylvare's later reply found it "very interesting" as a gold sink, but doubted Blizzard "would keep providing the battle.net balance part of the token while removing the part where someone else is paying for it". Earlier, answering another poster about the Token in general, Sylvare had argued that letting players cut corners is "a giant net negative on everyone else".

The split underneath

The same disagreement ran through a Reddit thread on 29 October, when ForsakenLemons asked whether people would quit if Blizzard introduced a Token or real-money trading to Forever. They'd be out themselves, they added.

Two replies get at the question underneath: is earning gold part of the game? For -Halfhorn-, it is. "Earning gold in game is part of the gameplay loop," they wrote, and being able to buy gold with real money "breaks the immersion for me". LeniVidiViciPC sees it the other way. Gold farming "has never been gameplay to me, it's a chore", and they'd sell a Token "in a heartbeat" so they could actually play.

Faraal's NPC sits awkwardly between them. It would let a player turn farmed gold into Battle.net balance without anyone buying gold with real money, which is -Halfhorn-'s objection. It would not spare LeniVidiViciPC the farming they call a chore. None of this tells us what Forever's economy will look like, or that Blizzard is considering any of it.