Hearthpwn

Coming Soon, Maybe: Buying Hearthstone Packs with World of Warcraft Gold

The WoW Token. Introduced back in early 2015, players in World of Warcraft were able to purchase 30 days of game time that they could then sell on the auction house to other players in exchange for their in-game gold. This legitimized and protected the purchase of in-game currency from other players, something which outside of this transaction is against the usual Terms of Service.

It's not rocket science! Unless you're an engineer..

So, why are we talking about this? Because soon, WoW players may be able to turn their in-game gold in World of Warcraft into Hearthstone packs, and that is kinda awesome. This will be done by purchasing an in-game item in WoW and converting that into Battle.net balance.

The Beginning: BlizzCon WoW Q&A

During this year's BlizzCon, the WoW team has a Q&A panel, which was excellently recapped by MMO-Champion, and was the first time that the team mentions they wanted to do something more with the WoW Token, allowing players to instead use it for other in-game services and.. Battle.net Balance!

Quote from Blizzard

• They're looking into making the WoW Token be able to be used for other services as well like Character Transfer, Faction Change, or Battle.net Balance.

It looks like that investigation didn't take too long...

Action: WoW PTR Patch 7.1.5

This evening saw the first patch of the new 7.1.5 PTR cycle and included were some strings that pointed toward players being able to redeem their WoW Tokens for Battle.net Balance. It hasn't been stated if this is going to be active on live with the 7.1.5 patch, but it certainly is a step in the right direction for those that want to use WoW Gold to buy Hearthstone packs.

We are confident that this will make it to the live servers in some form though, so get grinding that WoW Gold!

Quote from MMO-Champion

• TOKEN_COMPLETE_BALANCE_DESCRIPTION (New) - %s will be added to your Battle.net Balance. You will receive a confirmation email shortly.
• TOKEN_CONFIRM_BALANCE_DESCRIPTION (New) - %s will be added to your Battle.net Balance.
• TOKEN_CONSUMABLE_DESCRIPTION_30_DAYS_BALANCE (New) - Use: Adds 30 days of game time to your World of Warcraft account or %s to your Battle.net Balance.
• TOKEN_REDEEM_BALANCE_BUTTON_LABEL (New) - %s Battle.net Balance
• TOKEN_REDEEM_BALANCE_DESCRIPTION (New) - Add %s to your Battle.net Balance?
• TOKEN_REDEEM_BALANCE_ERROR_CAP_FORMAT (New) - |cffff2020You can't choose this option because your Battle.net Balance (%s) is near or at the maximum.|r
• TOKEN_REDEEM_BALANCE_FORMAT (New) - Current Balance: |cffffffff%s|r|nNew Balance: |cffffffff%s|r
• TOKEN_REDEEM_BALANCE_TITLE (New) - Battle.net Balance

Should You Start Playing WoW?

If you aren't a fan of the game or MMOs, you should just keep chugging along at Hearthstone. Others that have previously played or have been interested in checking it out, this could be an interesting part of the game to pursue, but don't let it burn you out.

In order to get started with WoW, you'd need to buy the base game and the current expansion, which in USD is going to run you $70. Then every month you're looking at $15 for your subscription fee, or at current WoW Token Rates, 47,881 Gold to maintain game access. $70 could get you at least 55 Hearthstone packs right now, more if you take advantage of deals such as those through Amazon Coins.

Certainly ain't cheap! Price rose during print.

You'd then need to level your character up to 110, but at least you do get a level 100 boost through the Legion purchase so that helps. Once max level, you'll want to obtain some gear to help get through max level quests faster so you can some initial gold which means running dungeons, battlegrounds, and even raids! All of those things will take up time which could otherwise be spent playing Hearthstone.

Assuming that WoW token prices don't change, which they will with increased demand, then you're going to need to crank out another 48k on top of that monthly sub to start getting those card packs. Gold isn't very hard to come by in WoW, but you will want to read up online about keeping your gold making efficient (/r/woweconomy on reddit is a good starter resource). Those that master the art of the Auction House could make some killer Battle.net Balance!

How Much Battle.net Balance for Those Tokens?

Unfortunately, one of the current unknowns is how much players will get in their Battle.net balance account should they choose to redeem the token for it instead of game time. I would assume that you get the equivalent of the cost of game time, which is $15 USD. This is what you can buy on Battle.net for a single WoW Token at $15.

• 9 Hearthstone Packs (7 + 2).
• Three quarters of a full adventure such as Karazhan. Two wings if bought individually.
• 16 Overwatch Loot Boxes
• A 10,000 Gold Hero in Heroes of the Storm and a 2,000 Gold Hero.
• Some Starcraft II in-game content.
• Any of Blizzard's Legacy Games. (Warcraft III is awesome!)

Not too bad, but it certainly isn't anything too crazy, not when you consider time investment. If you're enjoying WoW though, a little extra something in other Blizzard titles is great!

Personal Bling

As a WoW player who started playing in The Burning Crusade (10 years ago), I don't go too crazy anymore making gold but I am still able to churn out somewhere in the realm of 160k - 200k Gold per month by being a "filthy casual".

You'd be lucky to get this Tabard these days for 200k.

I play battlegrounds and arenas with friends, have enchanting to break down old and useless gear into materials that I can sell for a pretty penny, and do my fair share of World Quests to get my gold. There is a lot of room for improvement, so don't take my experience as the same as everyone elses, but looking at the numbers I can buy $60 worth of content a month if I dump it into WoW Tokens. 

I'll continue spending my gold on more important things, like maxing out my achievement points so I can get into nerd fights on the internet about who has the bigger number. You know, things that matter.

What Do You Think?

This is the first time you can trade currency in one Blizzard title for essentially what is currency in another. Although you won't be buying arena or heroic tavern brawl entries, you will be getting those sweet card packs. 

Should Blizzard extend this into other titles? Consider trading your Hearthstone Gold into WoW time.
Are there any downsides? WoW Tokens are surely to go up in price. They already have while working on this post.

Extra: Lady Liadrin in the WoW Trial

If you haven't yet obtained the extra Paladin Hero in Hearthstone, Lady Liadrin, maybe now is a good time to give that WoW Trial a go. If you level up a new character to 20 in World of Warcraft, this Hearthstone hero is put onto your account! A quick look into the game with a guarantee of phat lewts!

Lady Liadrin was added to the game in Patch 4.2.0, the same patch that introduced more deck slots back in March.