Some of the biggest news to come out from World of Warcraft lately has been Blizzard‘s recent decision to ban input-broadcasting software’s use in the title. As an important note, this change affects both World of Warcraft: Shadowlands and World of Warcraft: Classic.
To be clear, the software being banned is input-broadcasting software that makes it so that players with several clients open at once can insert a command on one of the clients and have it mirrored through each of the clients mirroring the title.
This is dominantly used by bots, but has seen popular use by gold farmers and powerlevelers as well, often having five accounts following one and using the software to quickly kill enemies, as well as receiving five times the items and rewards.
Given that it’s used by gold farmers and those that spend much of their time farming materials to sell on the in-game auction house, it’s important to look at – as well as easy to see – how thoroughly this change is expected to affect the economy of the title.
The general consensus is that players can expect to see most materials increase in their cost, as far as trading and auction houses go. This is because the items will be less plentiful with farmers having this option removed.
The latest #Warcraft economy wrap-up with @SamadanPlaysWoW discusses the nerfs to multiboxing, following Blizzard's changes to policies regarding Input Broadcasting Software.https://t.co/OPZ3cCWP90 pic.twitter.com/wnjAZbhCNs
— Wowhead💙 (@Wowhead) November 8, 2020
This especially affects farmable profession items like herbs, ore, and leatherworking leathers. There will likely be an increase in the prices of the materials farmed for tailoring and enchanting as well, though those items are more universal to farm, not requiring a profession to do so.
As a result of this, players can expect to see an increase to the prices of the items made by these professions as well. Primarily, this is because the cost to make them has increased, so they’ll become rarer and more expensive in turn.
That isn’t to say that everything is bad, though – because prices are increasing, players will likely seek out other ways to make gold. This might include “raw gold” farming – farming for currency drops and vendoring all items – or rendering services for others.
Another common way will likely be purchasing WoW Tokens, an in-game item bought with real money to sell on the in-game auction house for gold. Since these might be more plentiful, their price will likely go down, making buying them with gold a cheaper task and effectively lowering subscription costs.
It’ll likely be a while before the economy settles down from this, so expect some tumultuous prices and fluctuations if you’ve been working to make some gold. Still, an equilibrium will eventually be reached as we head into a new expansion that was already set to upset the economy anyway.
