So, here is a post taking those clarifications and putting them in bullet-point form for easier digestion. There's a lot of info here, but most of it is fairly important, especially if you're looking to use the system yourself.
If you purchase a WoW Token with real world currency:
- you cannot:
- use the token yourself to add game time to your account;
- set the gold price of your token (you either list it for the going rate or don't list it at all);
- trade the token to another player via the trading interface;
- mail the token to another player via the mailbox;
- deposit the token into a guild vault;
- vendor the token; nor
- destroy the token;
- you can only:
- move the token around in your own inventory; and/or
- sell the token for the current set gold price via the Game Time tab on the auction house.
If you purchase a WoW Token with in-game gold:
- you cannot:
- resell the token you purchased via the Game Time tab on the auction house;
- trade the token to another player via the trading interface;
- mail the token to another player via the mailbox;
- deposit the token into a guild vault;
- vendor the token; nor
- destroy the token;
- you can only:
- move the token around in your own inventory; and/or
- use the token to add game time to your account.
Regarding the involvement of the Auction House:
- WoW Tokens are bought and sold via their own system that is not like the WoW auctioning system with which players are currently familiar:
- there are no individually set prices;
- there is no real "auctioning" involved;
- there is no bidding;
- there is no up-front deposit to list a token;
- there is no Auction House cut taken from the sale price;
- there is no expiration time on token listings;
- token listings cannot be cancelled;
- the system is region-wide (Americas, Europe, Taiwan, Korea, China) and not limited by realm;
- the system is more akin to NPC vendors
- anyone selling tokens puts theirs up at the currently set price, like vendoring an item except you have to wait a while for your gold to be mailed to you;
- anyone buying tokens purchases theirs at the currently set price, like buying from a vendor;
- the only choice players have is to:
- buy / sell at the current price;
- refuse to buy / decline to sell at the current price.
Additional important stuff:
- Real world currency cost for the tokens will not be cheaper than monthly subscription rates;
- Gold prices for tokens
- will initially be set by Blizzard on a per-region basis (because gold value varies by region), but
- will eventually be taken over by an algorithm that looks at the historical supply and demand of tokens to balance prices per region;
- Gold can be created or destroyed in the system, as
- buyers will only ever pay the current gold price for tokens, regardless of the price at which the tokens were listed;
- when a token is sold its seller will receive the gold price quoted at the time of listing regardless of the token's purchase price; thus
- if the price goes up after a seller lists a token, the buyer will pay that price but the seller will not receive extra gold; conversely
- if the price goes down after a seller lists a token, the buyer will pay the lower price but the seller will still receive all of the gold they were quoted at the time of listing;
- Blizzard is okay with gold being created or destroyed as prices slowly change if it means that sellers don't have to guess about how much gold they will actually receive once their token sells;
- Tokens will generally be sold in the order that they are listed;
- If you run out of game time but have enough gold on a character to buy a token, you can do so directly from the character select screen and it will automatically add the game time to your account;
- The WoW Token system launch likely won't launch everywhere at once - it will likely be a staggered release to allow Blizzard the opportunity to troubleshoot problems before it becomes available worldwide.
FRAUD PREVENTION and PROTECTION:
- Blizzard will protect both buyers and sellers of tokens from fraudulent purchases, so
- if a buyer uses illicitly-obtained gold to purchase a token, that gold will not be taken away from the innocent seller; and
- if a seller uses fraudulently-obtained tokens to make gold, the tokens / game time will not be taken away from the innocent buyer.
- Like current auction house systems, buying tokens for gold will likely be instantaneous, but selling them will likely include a delay while Blizzard performs a fraud review, though
- players with established credit histories with Blizzard may have a shorter delay.
- Additional limitations, such as a limits on the number of transactions allowed per account, may also be a factor.
I think one of the interesting aspects of the WoW Token system is that tokens that are purchased with real world currency can only be sold for gold, and tokens purchased with gold can only be used for game time. That seems to be a feature designed specifically to combat players who might otherwise try to play both sides of the market and thereby wreak havoc on exchange rates. Combined with the fact that tokens will cost at least as much as a single month's subscription, this means that each token transaction will require a fairly decent profit margin just to keep up with the discounts given by 3- and 6-month subscription options.
