The Black Market

Well, according to MMO-Champion, we now know what the Black Market Auction House is really going to be. Unlike the current auction house, as far as I can tell you will not be able to place things for sale on it. Instead, various NPCs will periodically list various items for huge amounts of gold. The exciting thing is that these items are things that are either extremely rare or are not even attainable anymore.

Examples include Ashes of A'lar (the super-rare Phoenix flying mount off Kael'thas in Tempest Keep,) faction-specific Argent Tournament pets (though with pets going account-wide, this shouldn't be as much of an issue, unless you only play one side,) and even - cue the triumphant music - Tier 3!

That's right, for the first time since Wrath of the Lich King came out, you can get your hands on real, genuine Tier 3 armor. Though before you start celebrating, remember that despite the fact that Dreadnaught is the best Death Knight set they've ever made, it's still technically restricted to Warriors (Tier 13 for DKs is probably the best armor tier for them that is actually for Death Knights, but I still think that the black metal with glowing blue and all the skulls really just screams Death Knight, and it totally would have been a DK set had the class existed when the original Naxxramas came out. I have to imagine that the concept for it was "hey, let's let Warriors dress up as if they were Death Knights, which at this time is not a class, and is therefore basically just the Scourge equivalent of any heavy-armored soldier.")

I'm sure a huge number of people are going to be screaming that this somehow "dumbs the game down," or one of those other stock cliches for players who are desperate for a reason to complain. While this won't be an issue for reasons I'll get into, one could make the argument that by making these things more available, it decreases their specialness. Remember when having a Nether Drake was really cool, because everyone (except Engineers) only has access to the Gryphons and Windriders (well, and Nether Rays, but how many people have really pursued the whole Shat'ari Skyguard grind?) Nowadays, however, you can hardly find anyone who doesn't have a wide assortment of Drake mounts (it doesn't help that Blizzard's default concept for new flying mounts is always, always "make it a dragon, but this time it's ___")

Now, on one hand I reject the "special snowflake" attitude in an MMO. Another person's accomplishments do not demean your own. If you're dedicated to being the hardest of hardcore, the only thing that should matter to you is the cutting edge of heroic raiding. What should it matter to you if a group of casual raiders head back to Molten Core and put together a Thunderfury? Or a pug goes to ICC and gets everyone Kingslayer? If you're obsessed with being recognizably the best at something, you should be working on "Savior of Azeroth," at least until something newer and more prestigious comes around.

Also, remember when people were complaining about one being able to get replicas of the old dungeon sets? What did those people think about the fact that, at level 80, before Cataclysm came out, you could go solo the dungeons where you found those pieces? Did it enrage them that the stuff it took them so long to farm that stuff in a full group, people were then able to get it on their own? Would they advocate just removing every cool item that drops anywhere in old content because of the fact that as we grow more powerful with each expansion, it's easier to beat the bosses?

Another thing to consider is that just because these things will be made available on the Black Market does not mean we're suddenly going to see entire fleets of people roaming around on A'lar, rocking their tier 13 transmog sets. These things will be available, I believe, only once in a while. A'lar might show up once and not be back for over a month. That means that one person on the entire server gets it - which, compared to the drop rate and the server population, is probably not much more than is theoretically possible by just farming the raid.

The one issue that I can think of is that this might encourage gold sellers. Other than the (frankly fairly cheap given the flow of gold these days) upgrade to 310% flight, there aren't many gold-sinks in WoW's economy these days. Now, however, you'll have people bidding on things with a starting price of 20,000 gold. Granted, we don't know what our Pandaria-level income will be, but across all my Alliance characters, that's like a third of my total gold, and I'm really cheap. In a sense, an auction-style pricing scheme does manage to adjust to the economy - if everyone's got tons of gold, everyone will be willing to bid higher - but it does provide a big advantage (albeit a cosmetic one, as I doubt they'll be selling any currently useful gear on the Black Market) to those with tons of cash. That means either serious AH-manipulators (which, to be fair, is a legitimate gameplay decision) or gold-farmer customers (which is not) are going to always have first-pick. Frankly, it might not even be realistic for the average player to ever expect to win anything on the Black Market, which is a problem.

Overall, I think it's a cool idea, and I'd love to get my hands on some of the cool, no-longer available stuff (Amani War Bear, for example?) but I hope that enough thought is put into it that this won't be more trouble than it's worth.