Griftah has now been exiled to the outskirts of Shattrath in Patch 2.2.
Players complained loudly on the forums after realizing they paid over 30 gold for an amulet that allowed them to resurrect when they died and were not mollified when informed that they should have shown a bit more caution before buying items from a character named after another word for con artist. Everyone (including me) assumed that Griftah was being exiled from Shattrath because of these complaints.
His creator, World Designer Kisirani, says otherwise. Though we don't know how the story is going to unfold, Kisirani says that Griftah is kind of a progressive content guinea pig. He explains:
It's a shame you're unwilling to believe what is, in essence, the truth -- that Griftah has been a small foray in progressive content as we gauge certain things.
I'm the person behind making the content. I've no reason to deceive you.
It's one of the goals of my job, at the heart of it, to make the world feel more alive. The larger parts of it primarily contain holiday content and world flavor; this was a small bit of the latter.
Griftah's story is incredibly small in the extensive lore of the Warcraft world, but many of us have grown fond of him and his delightfully redundant amulets. He began by selling his wares unmolested in the crafting area of the Lower City in Shattrath. Then Peacekeeper Jadaar started harrassing him and warning potential buyers of alleged fraudulent claims. And now, in patch 2.2, he is hanging outside of the Lower City, up the hill from where the Darkmoon Faire appears. He sells some of his former wares plus a couple of functionless offhands.I hope to see a lot more significant progressive content in the future to make the world seem less stagnant. I particularly would like to see the older worlds change when expansions come out. I hope the moving of Naxxramas and Dalaran are just two examples of the kind of old world changes we'll see when WotLK is released.
In the meantime, if Griftah is supposed to be progressive content instead of a reaction to people spending a lot of gold on useless amulets, then I hope his story unfolds with each new major patch.
Did you get grifted by Griftah?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
9-26-2007 @ 11:10AM
Liel said...
I found the descriptions rather funny and to be honest it's a nice way to teach kids about the importance of reading comprehension.
But then again seeing how horrible the English language gets slaughtered in trade and general I see no hope j/k.
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9-26-2007 @ 11:14AM
Thunderhide said...
I agree w/ Liel.
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9-26-2007 @ 11:20AM
Dewey said...
People really bought stuff from him? That's hilarious...
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9-26-2007 @ 11:22AM
sephirah said...
A title Blizzard could introduce is "dumb", given to people who bought stuff from Griftah...
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9-26-2007 @ 11:35AM
Kahja said...
I bought something off of him once. Soap on a Rope or whatever it was. I laughed. The tried to link something else and ended up with the most expensive item there was... and a new keyboard with a working shift key. lol Good times.
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9-26-2007 @ 11:35AM
Syd said...
Soap on a Rope FTW
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9-26-2007 @ 11:37AM
Ryan said...
@4 'Mark' or 'Sucker' would probably be more apt.
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9-26-2007 @ 11:41AM
Vestras said...
I am a big fan of progressive content, and I hope that it is somethign Bliz sticks with. As for the people who got con'ed, sucks t be you. I think it's hillarious.
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9-26-2007 @ 11:45AM
dcmetrocoaster said...
It would have been nice to request to get rid of Griftah through a petition in game to Peacekeeper Jadaar. Then it would seem more like a story line.
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9-26-2007 @ 11:47AM
Golgothen said...
LOL...When I first arrived to Shat and was a big noob I bought an amulet that stated something like "Wearing this amulet, you will find rare items in the most mundane of places". Me being a noob, I spent 40G on the dang thing and exuipped it while killing things. Of course nothing ever dropped and I soon found out that I had been had. Good one Blizz. Once again you screwed me outta money. Lesson learned I guess.
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9-26-2007 @ 11:47AM
Ryan said...
Progressivity should definitely be a part of the world, as it makes it feel like something that lives and breathes, rather than an amusement part ride. Now, how bout some progress on that Lakeshire bridge?
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9-26-2007 @ 11:51AM
Thunderhide said...
@11.
Tell me about it! It's been 3 years already! They must have the same construction company that builds most of the bridges here also.
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9-26-2007 @ 11:52AM
Brasson said...
I picked up Soap on a Roap for my lowbie alts, but I haven't bought anything else from him. Considered the Tikbalang charm, but it didn't double as protection from Grues. Alas.
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9-26-2007 @ 11:54AM
Razhlok said...
@11 ROTFL
...or how about the roof at the inn in Westfall? Those guys have been fixing that damn roof for 3 years now. I hope they are not charging by the hour.
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9-26-2007 @ 12:18PM
Devilfish said...
He is like a more expensive version of "Cut Me Own Throat" Dibbler. It's too bad that they didn't make him sell sausages that give you a little boost in statistics but make you randomly sick, instead of expensive crap jewelery.
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9-26-2007 @ 12:19PM
Hollywood Ron said...
@14, That's what happens when you hire a union construction crew! VC wasn't hiding out because he's a wanted criminal, VC was just on strike!
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9-26-2007 @ 12:29PM
Epiny said...
I almost bought Soap on a Rope just cause.
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9-26-2007 @ 12:31PM
Ooglie said...
I hope they do lots more development on this kinda thing. There are SO many more things that could be done to further the notion that it's an alive world. Especially since nothing we do seems to make an impact.
But there are basic things they could do. The NPCs could respond to changes in the happenings of the work. Like the bridge, and roof mentioned earlier. They could finnish those and move on to other jobs.
They could comment more on recent happenings like Boss downings, etc.
The NPCs in the cities could travel to others with perhaps short stops in towns along the way.
Merchants in the Azeroth towns and cities could talk about how slow it is since the portal opened and/or how they may have to move/change to stay in business. They could add, remove, change buildings.
More of these changes scheduled in (so it didn't always have to be done with a patch), just to make the place seem more alive.
Of course the big one would be player/Guild housing. They would probably want to avoid the clutter of the housing situation that occurred in UO, but it doesn't have to be invisible either. And NPCs could talk about it, like "You see that the [Guild Name Here]s have moved in over by the blacksmith" or something like that.
There's lots more they could do to liven up the place and I, for one, hope they invest some of the fortune we are paying them into doing just that and not just build more dungeons and levels to grind.
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9-26-2007 @ 12:46PM
FutureDanish said...
Stratholme... still on fire.
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9-26-2007 @ 12:57PM
Todd said...
I bought the lucky charm amulet, which helps increase your chances of finding rare drops, and sold it for a huge amount of money on the AH.
Yeah, I grifted.
One would love to see such cool new, changing content like this in the old lands. However, I highly suspect that old Azeroth (and eventually Outland) will be forgotten by the Devs once the next expansion comes out. The old worlds, old content, will fade away as the Devs move on and on.
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