From reading what they have about gameplay out, it is more of an RPG where your choices as your character effect how you play the game to broaden the experience on of well… the game experience on multiple toons. Effectiveness of armor has a hard cap easily reachable after max level, and any stats from one gear piece and be removed and place on another, giving choice based on solely looks.

The combat itself places importance on positioning (if an elementalist puts a wall of fire on the ground, you probably want to stand behind it to light all your projectile attacks on fire before they reach their targets!) and dodging. The MMO trilogy of tank, healer, dps is gone, you can chose dps in 8 different flavors and you get out of the way and heal yourself (or even use abilities that spread to your allies for a diminished effect on yourself if you are the kind of person that doesn’t… you know, normally play a for yourself only rogue-type like me ).

I’m a hard core WoW lover for a very long time (my first and only tattoo is a horde symbol hehe), but the grind of the MMO is one of many reasons I’m excited about Guild Wars 2′s take on a RPGMMO.

Having decided that they can’t stop it directly, this is an experiment to see if they can attack the problem another way. I’d be happier if the proceeds went to charity, but that might skew the result by encouraging people to buy more than they might otherwise.

It’s an interesting experiment, and I’m curious to see how it turns out.

Cool pet though

I agree that this is Blizzard’s way of easing into the gold business. Maybe we’ll be able to add pretty collars to our mounts or let hunters dye their pets’ fur/feathers/whatever with one time use scrolls. I’m all for it. I don’t think we’ll ever see Blizzard openly sell gold or give us many more items like this pet. It’s one thing to spread out the gold that’s already in the game. If the game gets flooded with gold then the prices will jump. Or maybe they won’t. I’m sure Blizzard has it under control. On a side note, the pet looks cute.

That would even things out, right?

Of course, from the perspective of the game company, that’s a terrible idea. If they can convince people to spend more money, that’s a Good Thing. The only reason why they object to gold farming is because they don’t get a cut of the action.

Actually, one important point that Blizzard mentioned is that this item creates no new gold. It only redistributes it.

However, having gold does give you an edge in game. There are lots of armor/weapons I’d love to get off the AH to give to various alts, but don’t have the gold to spare. With that time is money creed, is there really a difference between farming the mats for something you want crafted, and just buying it with cold hard cash?

I think whatever direction Blizzard takes is probably going to determine the path other developers take with their online transactions. It’s been interesting seeing where this free to play model is going, and Diablo III’s real currency AH will be an interesting experiment.

GDKP.

Gold can get you whatever you want.