Blizzard recently unveiled the new World of Warcraft Refer A Friend program that offers brand new rewards and different progression. They have also managed to enrage a portion of the fan base with a simple backpack in the process.
World of Warcraft's new Refer A Friend (RAF) program is offering game time and up to eight unique new rewards that will be activated on an account as soon as certain thresholds are reached. Referred players will no longer need to play out a bunch of time for their friend to be able to redeem the rewards - simply purchasing game time will activate them.
An account can be linked with up to 10 other accounts, which will bring several bonuses for each of them. Linked accounts can earn 50 per cent bonus experience when playing together and they can teleport to each other using an item with a 30-minute cooldown.
Regardless of whether one new account buys six months of game time or six accounts buy one month of game time each, the base account will receive rewards for six months. In essence - every month purchased by linked accounts grants rewards for the account that referred them.
The unique rewards are:
- Rikki, a monkey pet awarded at one month
- Explorer's Dunetrekker - a camel mount awarded at three months
- Renowned Explorer title that comes at four months
- Enchant: Stinging Sands - enchantment appearance awarded at six months
- Renowned Explorer's Tabard, awarded at seven months
- Explorer's Jungle Hopper - a flying aircraft mount awarded at nine months
- Renowned Explorer's Rucksack - a backpack cosmetic awarded at 10 months
- Renowned Explorer's Attire - a cosmetic appearance set awarded at 12 months
Months two, five, eight and 11 will award game time for the referring account. Players can earn points from referrals to either completely new accounts or ones that have not purchased game time in two years.
Blizzard
What Blizzard didn't account for is how seriously the back cosmetics are taken. The backpack is sparking a bona fide revolution on the company's forums because referrals are the only way to get it. People really want that through in-game means.
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