WoD's It Worth?

The Warlords of Draenor pre-order is now available! I was very excited yesterday afternoon when I found out and when I got home I wasted no time loading my battlenet launcher. The store was a little wabbly but it finally loaded...


So there I was really excited about the deluxe collectors edition and the Reins of the Dread Raven mount and Dread Hatchling pet and then I saw the price and it was well a bit of an anti-climax to be honest. I was thinking more along the lines of £30 and £40 for the standard and deluxe/collectors editions respectively. Whilst the standard version is only £5 more than my expectation the deluxe version is a whopping £10 more... aka a months subscription.

This got me thinking about value for money. I'm not a penny pincher, well I am, but when it comes to gaming and in particular WoW I'm not afraid to flash-the-cash - after all I have several store bought pets and mounts!

The digital deluxe (aka collectors) edition will net you the mount and pet aforementioned, some StarCraft 2 portraits and a Diablo 3 Warsong Pennant - neither game I own or play. Meaning, for me personally it's all about the mount and pet which I am rather fond of...

And of course not forgetting the level 90 boost! Each game, standard or deluxe, comes with a single boost to 90. This service can also be purchased independently from the store for £40. I know there was a lot of comments on the leaked $60 pricing but I think £40s about right. The service has to be both affordable but pricey and when you consider that the other services vary from £12 - £20.

What's my logic behind £40 being reasonable? Well it's safe to say that there are people out there that would go to great lengths for a level 90 boost if it weren't available as a service or if there was a cheaper way around.

Imagine this - you buy a second account, you might even have one, so we'll just say you're upgrading to WoD standard at @£35. Boom a level 90. But you don't want to be running 2 accounts (i.e. 2 subscriptions) so you want to transfer your new 90 to your main account and already you've spent over £40. Hence I don't think it's that bad a price for the boost.

Having thought about the boost to 90 price in this way has made me think differently about the standard and deluxe game prices (£35 and £50 respectively). In reality, most if not all of the standard game cost is the level 90 boost meaning that the extra £15 for the deluxe version is the mount & pet - not bad really.

I was also curious how the pricing held up against other new Blizzard expansions such as Diable 3's Reaper of Souls and it's fairly similar.

All in all I have essentially come-round to the pricing and well essentially talked myself into purchasing WoD. At the end of the day - who was I kidding - of course I was going to buy it eventually!!!

Right now the only reason I haven't already pre-purchased is, well, convincing myself that buying it now is better than later but I'm sure that won't take much effort and the more I see that mount & pet...

Oh and where's my Beta!?! Surely it's got to be soon.