The Day WoW Accounts Stood Still

It’s almost 3 years since I started playing World of Warcraft and there are already two expansions launched by Blizzard. Last November 2008, Wrath of the Lich King expansion was released, and luckily for those players who had their copy reserved, they were able to upgrade their WoW accounts. 

Expansions in WoW are made to expand the gameplay it currently offers. New level cap, quests, raids, items, gear and events to name a few. But for Blizzard, it’s one way of gaining an additional profit. They currently have 11 million WoW accounts that are subscribed. Just imagine those numbers buying a $40 expansion set.

 Although upgrading an account for an expansion has always been an issue for lots of players. It involves certain factors:

v      Willingness to pay for an additional fee.

v      Type of player (e.g. casual gamer, hardcore gamer)

v      Schedule (e.g. school, office)

v      Trading of WoW accounts (e.g. buying and selling of accounts)

Maintaining a WoW account is not an easy task. For an avid gamer, spending $15 every month just to be able to play, then here comes the expansion, paying an additional $40. It’s all about the money.

 Then, there are two types of players:

The casual gamer - Most casual players only play where there’s an available time for them to relax from work or those who are in vacation from school.

The hardcore gamer - Hardcore players are those who have all the time they want. They dedicate themselves in playing the game. Most likely, these types of players  are the ones who are willing to spend some extra to be able to have access with the expansion’s latest features.

 And with the vast growing online gaming community of WoW, buying and selling of WoW accounts also play a big role whether those accounts are going to be upgraded or not. Those players who stopped playing pre-expansion will probably sell their accounts and buy one that is already upgraded when they decide to play again in the future.

Most players especially the core raiders of a guild decided to stop playing pre-expansion. I, for one, did too.  Raiding end game instances like Black Temple, Hyjal Summit and Sunwell Plateau are very challenging, and even though most guilds farm those instances already pre-expansion, most epic or legendary equipments are hard to obtain. Obtaining those especially the legendary swords from Illidan Stormrage like the Warglaives of Azzinoth serves as a fulfillment for a core raider especially to the rogues of the guild.

And then here comes the expansion, making all of the top tier equipments in the game a lower tier now since the level cap is already 80. That made most raiders quit raiding and stopped playing for they know that their hard-earned equipments will be obsolete once the expansion goes live. Those who stopped playing WoW tried Age of Conan and Warhammer Online. But they weren’t satisfied. With the release of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, somehow, it made a way for other players to come back and play, possibly try the new content or so. And that made WoW, with those 11 million accounts, stood up among the rest of the MMORPGs.