Tobold's Blog
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
 
Profiting from Tankard O' Terror design flaw

I don't know if it was because they had to hotfix it in, or whether somebody at Blizzard had been celebrating Brewfest too heavily in RL, but now the current holiday event boss has a serious design flaw: Among lots of bind-on-pickup trinkets, mounts, and a dagger, Coren Darkbrew now also drops a bind-on-equip iLevel 226 dps mace, the Tankard O'Terror. What's the flaw you ask? Well, it is the ONLY iLevel 226 bind-on-equip weapon in the game.

Now the only boe weapon with that kind of stats should be extremely valuable. Which it probably would, if it wasn't so dirt common. Whoever designed the drop rate made the Tankard O'Terror "rare" compared to a typical drop from a typical raid boss. But apparently forgot that any given player is looting a typical raid boss only once a week, but is looting Coren Darkbrew 35 times a week, because he resets daily, and can be summoned 5 times for every group. Even on my underpopulated Horde side I was able to pick up a tankard for just 4k gold, and then we went and bought one for my wife's Alliance shaman for a measly 1.5k gold on another server. That is cheaper than iLevel 200 crafted weapon!

I did spend the gold now because I was afraid Blizzard would hotfix the tankard again to be bind-on-pickup. If they don't do that, we'll probably see the price for the thing drop even further over the next 10 days. That opens up the possibility for serious and easy profit: Supply of Tankards O'Terror will stop when the Brewfest ends. Demand for the best boe weapon in the game should remain solid. Thus by just banking the tankard for a month, you'll probably be able to sell it for 10k gold or more easily. Unless of course Blizzard is planning a deluge of welfare epics, with the Headless Horseman dropping the next iLevel 226 boe weapon this year, and similar event bosses and epics getting added to more holiday events.
Comments:
Thanks for the advice Tobold I'm gonna give this a try, got 3 so far and looking to pick up more in the 500-600g range.
 
Note that I did mention the possibility of Blizzard changing the tankard to bop. I don't want you complaining when you find 10 bop tankards in your inventory that day. :)
 
Blah, I'm out of touch. Once upon a time, measly and 1.5k gold did not go together in the same sentence.
 
How common is this? I've never seen it drop. In my defence I've only ran brewfest three times. Time to start running it on my alts as well.
 
Surely this was an oversite and all, but that this didn't send alarm bells at HQ points to an overall huge game design flaw - that everyone expects to be wearing 'epic' gear at 80 with very little effort.
 
I don't think it is unreasonable to assume that the icecrown 5 man will be dropping items around 226 level if not even 232.
 
I don't think it is unreasonable to assume that the icecrown 5 man will be dropping items around 226 level if not even 232.

Possible, but it is unlikely that these items will be boe. The highest level of boe items available determines what kind of equipment you can get *without* visiting dungeons.
 
What if it's not incompetence, but intentional?
 
Noone cares about the tankard thing after the whole censorship in Europe topic came up...
 
I think they do want a lot of those weapons around. The only mistake I can see is it being BoE.

Unlike original Naxx and Sunwell they want as many players as they can get to fight Arthas and company.

Easiest way to ensure people meet the gear check: welfare epix.
 
Hi Tobold,

I picked one up for 800g this morning as the market is being flooded with them. (prices ranged from 1700-5K last night).

I'm concerned that Blizzard will keep this as a BoE but will "nurf" the mace down to a lower level or change it's stats to make it less attractive.

Since my Shaman's off-spec is Enhancement, this was a great purchase.

If I get one from the daily runs I'll be doing in the next few days, I also plan on keeping it until the supply runs out and hopefull sell it for 5K++.

K.
 
Why take it as a design flaw?

The entire direction of the game has been to make everything as easy as possible.

Why not flood the market with cheapo epics every once and a while. Helps people gear up their alts!
 
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