We are going to assume for just a few minutes that Blizzard has just announced a new service. They haven’t, but I would totally pay for this one if they did.
This hypothetical new service would cost , we’ll say $5. Not that it matters, but just to have a number in case someone from Blizzard actually finds this post and thinks it’s a useful idea. Lets just say it would be a greater service than the sparkle pony, and would not change the balance of the game in any way.
Nothing I am talking about cannot already be done, in fact I have done it.
What the hell am I talking about you ask?
Sending a care package.
In our hypothetical scenario you pay $5 to get a single mail that can be sent cross realm, cross faction, and/or to other accounts on the same battlenet account. Kind of like what I did when I made a level 10 alt and transferred it, but with less work and far less carrying capacity.
We will say that this mail can contain the amount of gold transferable at level 10-30 as its maximum, so 300G. We will also say it will have 12 slots for gear just like any other mail.
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Here is what I would put in my care package, assuming I was going to start another Hunter alt on a fresh server and took the time to farm all this up. For example if I wanted to go play a bit with some friends, but did not want to transfer a toon.
- 300 gold in cash.
- Champions Deathdealer Breastplate
- Prized Beastmasters Mantle or Champion Herod’s Shoulder
- Charmed Ancient Bone Bow or Upgraded Dwarven Hand Cannon
- Balanced Heartseeker
- Balanced Heartseeker
- Discerning Eye of the Beast
- Swift Hand of Justice
- Dread Pirate Ring
- The remaining 4 slots would be either high capacity bags or high value items I could sell for more cash, depending on how much time I planned to spend there.
Now, things would be different if I were planning to send over gear to support a hybrid, but even then it could be made to fit. Lets take a Druid as an example, one that needs to be able to spec for anything.
Keep in mind I am just looking at the leather gear for this little thought experiment. Sending over cloth spellpower gear would give more versatility for future alts as well, in the same way that sending leather instead of mail in the Hunter example would have allowed a Rogue or feral Druid to be played with the same gear.
- 300 gold in cash.
- Preened Ironfeather Breastplate
- Stained Shadowcraft Tunic
- Preened Ironfeather Shoulders or Lasting Fearalheart Spaulders
- Stained Shadowcraft Spaulders or Exceptional Stormshroud Shoulders
- Repurposed Lave Dredger
- Dignified Headmasters Charge or Grand Staff of Jordan
- Discerning Eye of the Beast
- Discerning Eye of the Beast
- Swift Hand of Justice
- Swift Hand of Justice
- Dread Pirate Ring
- The remaining slot would be a high value item I could sell for more cash, since there is no real room for anything else.
If you were to use a service like this what would you send to yourself?
Would you use it like me to load up on heirlooms, big bags, and cash for a new alt on another server?
Would you use it to mail some BoE epics you made on your Alliance characters to your Horde alts? (or vice-versa)
Would you load it down with high value items to transfer them from server to server to bring much needed cash to your alts?
Would you use it at all?
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Filed under: World of Warcraft |
Dechion's Place 
Like you said – heirloom items, cash and some bags.
Maybe some pets as well!
Pfft, Blizz decided to go with the $$$ game. They ask $ to transfer chars, to buy rare pets, to change name, to change race.. And when Starcraft II will launch you will have to buy the 2nd and 3rd campaigns (zerg and toss).
Blizzard, stop eating all our money, please!
As long as they keep making the pay as you go stuff convince or vanity stuff I am good with it.
As to Starcraft II charging for the additional campaigns. Well, I suppose thats not much different than selling expansions to Wow. By the time Cata hits we will have picked up a new class and four new races since Vanilla. (plus lots of new content to explore)
Assuming of course that the Battlenet PvP is included in the basic game I don’t see an issue. Then again I always did prefer the Terrans.
(yes, I’ll get the short story posted soon, likely next week.)
Sooo… does this mean you’ve GOT a Dread Pirate Ring?
Well done!
Lol, I wish.
My Saturday afternoons are pretty well booked with family type stuff. I actually have 2…. or is it 3 now… max level fishermen and have yet to be able to compete in the tourney, let alone win it.
I do hope to scrounge one before Cataclysm though.
This would be an awesome feature, much cheaper than paying for a character xfer just to grab the last of my gold from an old server. I would also use it to get my heirlooms to my new server 🙂
Same kinda thing I was thinking.
The way I look at it a level 10 alt takes all of an hour to level. Packed with 16 slot bags you could transport 220 bag slots worth of stuff. That works out to 11.3 cents per bag slot. Just letting me send a 12 slot mail over works out to 41.6 cents per bag slot.
Plus they don’t have to worry about transferring a character history, potential name conflicts, none of that. Something like this actually makes pretty good sense.
I think this is a pretty staple answer across the board. Heirlooms, Bags, Gold, and then any filler would be either starter crafting mats for the professions or other items you can sell to get more gold.
Oddly enough I likely would not send bags. I can pick up 16 slotters in any AH for 10G a piece or less, and that is plenty for a new alt.
If anything I would send things that would take less bag spece but return a decent profit. Things I could be reasonably sure would sell quickly. A stack of greater cosmic essences perhaps, or if I wanted to send a larger amount then a stack of uncut epic gems. If I was going hog wild I could always send a mechano-hog over to make sure they were take care of all the way to 85 (with epic flight thrown in)
I wouldn’t use it, as there is currently one reason for me to play on another server. And that would be to avoid people. But I play to stay in touch with folk, so that would be kind of self-defeating there.
So yeah, I think it’s a fine idea. But it also might be “shooting themselves in the foot”. Some people could/would just re-level a toon instead of transferring servers. So, from some folk, they might make money on this. But from other folk, they might lose money, too.
I actively play on two different servers plus I have chatting alts on a few others. For me it is about the folks I hang out with as well, unfortunately they don’t all play on the same server. Thats why I am Alliance on Draenor and Horde on Keal’thas.
Also, they mentioned that they might allow the cross server mailing of heirlooms during one of the developer chats a while back. With the way they have been nickle and diming folks for other similar services I expect it to be a paid feature. I would actually love it if it was not, I have a few odds and ends my little Tuaren Druid would like to have, but my Night Elf is holding out on him.
Your NElf is a jerk. 😉
I can just see some people taking the “cheap route” and power-leveling on a new server than bothering with the [more lucrative for Bliz] server transfer. Not all, but likely some.
But like your case, there are plenty of people who would make use of that feature as intended. I am curious if it would balance. I suspect it would, but I’m overthinking and speculating all sorts of crazy stuff this morning.
I would send heirlooms, a cold weather flight scroll, gold, and any spare pets I’ve collected, (ie. oracle egg items.)
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