Monday, April 28, 2014

Should We Sell Glyphs in Warlords of Draenor?

End of the World of Warcraft Warlords of Draenor removing glyphs

     The world is ending! Warlords of Draenor will officially be removing all glyphs from the game, and inscription is going to be completely useless! ...That's if you believe what everyone is saying in guild chat. What is actually happening is a little more realistic. Blizzard announced a week or so ago in the Alpha Patch Notes that 86 glyphs would be removed from inscription crafting, and will be learned automatically when you reach a certain level. This will speed up the ease of learning WoW professions like inscription, give scribes fewer recipes to manage, and make it easier for new players to get up and going without requiring them to shell out 900 gold just after they bought their first mount. I have two main problems with this new system though: 1) Blizzard is removing even more glyphs than the list of those learned automatically, and 2) It's a massive decrease to demand.
     First, if you search through WoWHead, you'll see 444 Mist of Pandaria glyphs currently available to craft whereas if you head over to the WoD.WoWHead, there are 311 active Warlords of Draenor glyphs in the list. Luckily, Blizz gave us exactly what items they were changing so you can go through, compare the two with the announcement, and find the ones that they took out. Of the 86 announced autolearned glyphs, 3 are still craftable in the Alpha: Glyph of the Harsh Word, Glyph of Totemic Recall, and Glyph of Demon Training. An additional 47 have been removed (or will also be automatically learned) and are listed below


     This is just Alpha though and everything is subject to change. For instance, there are two Lightwell Glyphs, rather than having Lightwell (385) and Lightspring (255)...not gonna work. On the other hand, rather than having two glyph of Stampedes like we currently have (1 hunter and 1 druid) along with 1 Stampeding Roar, they're consolidating the Hunter one into a single better named Glyph of Stampeding Roar. While this type of consolidation is user friendly, it does mean fewer glyph sales for scribes.

     But really, take this list with a grain of salt because it could be further removals or just that WoWHead couldn't grab everything from the official database. It's Alpha. Everything is just a preview. What I'm really curious about though was their choice of glyphs for removal.

     It seems like Blizzard was going with the idea of removing the least essential glyphs, but it was worth checking to see if this was actually the case, so I did a test. I went through Icy-Veins and compiled a list of what glyphs each class requires and then cross-referenced that with the Alpha patch note announcement list to see what kind of an impact this would have on sales. Of the 86 announced, 31 were considered recommended or required for progression raiding; these are the ones people search for and buy. After the additional 47 listed above were added in, 28% of the glyphs recommended by top-tier raiders are either free or removed from the game. If any developers are reading, one problem that might need some immediate attention is Druid glyphs, as all four specs are currently only left with Grace, Stampeding Roar and Survival Instincts as viable choices for raiding.

Glyph of the Orca Killer Whale World of Warcraft Glyphs Inscription
...well, that and Glyph of the Orca.
So, we'll probably see a 30% initial drop in prices. Kathroman said it best on the Consortium Forums
Stage 1: DOOM! Scribes abandon the glyph market because it is sufficiently "ruined".
Stage 2: Plunder! Remaining scribes reap the rewards of an abandoned, but not "ruined" market.
Stage 3: Scramble! Scribes come flocking back to inscription when they see prices aren't in the toilet.
Stage 4: DOOM! Market is saturated with supply and prices DO fall. Fairweather scribes, believing their worst fears have been confirmed, leave the market again.
Stage 5: Normalization - Supply and demand stabilize, and the glyph market once again proves to be a reliable source of regular income.
     Whether you go with the flow or maintain your market is up to you, your competition, and your realm size. Although I'd like to point out that while supply and demand will stabilize, goldmakers will still leave the market whenever the opportunity cost is too high, so with so many fewer glyphs, and a set amount of gold per hour that we're expecting to make, we'll either be selling glyphs more rapidly in WoD or selling them at a much higher price. Otherwise, everyone would be a miner.


Conclusion
     So that's my gloom, doom, and rebound. With fewer glyphs, we will spend less time posting on the Auction House. Also, remember that in Warlords of Draenor every account on your server gets to level any of their lowbie alts to 90 and that those alts need a full set of glyphs. Additionally, think of all the scrub players who would have never opened their glyph tab before who will now have the pleasant reminder of "new glyph earned" and the joy/practice of switching out glyphs, so that they are now primed to buy where they otherwise would have just had blank glyph tabs. Yes, Blizzard is removing almost 50 more glyphs than they said they were and it will severely impact your raiding and goldmaking. However, as "dead" as inscription may be according to your guildmates, it might also be one of the most profitiable professions come WoD.


Thanks for reading my little WoW blog! You can follow me on Twitter here and Twitch here. My YouTube channel is growing and has lots of great guides over here. I recommend that all goldmakers download the TSM Suite and the UndermineJournalGE addon for all goldmakers. You can read my setup guide if you'd like. And remember that the key to making gold in WoW is just to 

Search. Craft. Post.
Every Day.

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6 comments:

  1. Nice analysis and it makes sense. I'd also expect a few new glyphs to enter the game. As you said, it's just an early alpha.

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  2. It looks like Blackfallow Ink will be used in WOD to create 31 glyphs.

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  3. thank god I have a full tab of Blackfallow ink doing nothing....

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  4. Of the 47 glyphs that are supposed to be listed above, I'm only showing names of 5 of the glyphs. The other 42 just say UNDEFINED, and when I click on that link it takes me to a page that says the glyph has been removed. Is this normal? I think when I first came on to this page, all 47 showed names of glyphs, then a few seconds later, 42 of them changed to UNDEFINED. Is this just my computer acting strangely, or is everyone seeing this UNDEFINED for 42 of the glyphs?

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the heads up. Looks like now that 6.0.2 is like, and all the glyphs are out of WoWHeads system, they send back an undefined. I'll get it fixed.

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