World of Warcraft's Trading Post has flung open its doors today (though not literally, because it's a stall and thus doesn't actually have doors), letting the citizens of Orgrimmar and Stormwind do a bit of shopping. The Trading Post sells cosmetic items, some of which were previously only available for real cash, which will be refreshed monthly.
The good news is that simply by logging in and taking a brief tour of the shop you'll have enough of the new currency, Trader's Tender, to clear it out, with the exception of a few of the more expensive items.
Owners of the Dragonflight expansion will be awarded 500 Trader's Tender just by hopping into the game, which you'll be able to grab from the chest next to the shop. That's in addition to your 500 Trader's Tender monthly stipend, which you'll continue to receive at the start of every month. So you'll actually find 1,000 Trader's Tender in the chest.
That's a decent amount, but with one more step you'll earn even more. You'll automatically receive a Trading Post quest, which simply involves talking to a couple of NPCs and reading a notice posted on the Trading Post itself. The reward for that is another 500 Trader's Tender.
15 items are on sale at the moment, ranging from a gaudy pink cloak for 75 Trader's Tender to the flashy Celestial Steed for 900.
If you work your way up from the bottom, you'll be able to afford 10 of the 15 items. Naturally, you're probably more excited by the pricier stuff, but while you'll have enough cash for the Celestial Steed, you won't then be able to pick up the next most expensive item, the Fury of the Firelord weapon cosmetic, which is 750 Trader's Tender.
Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to earn a bit more cash—500 Trader's Tender to be exact. The new shop comes with its own progression system where you'll earn Travel Points by completing a variety of objectives across six categories: Dragonflight, dungeons and raids, holidays and events, pet battles, professions, PvP, quests and, finally, special objectives. For every 200 points you earn, you'll be rewarded with 100 Trader's Tender. When you fill the bar you'll also unlock a bonus reward on top of your final 100 Trader's Tender, and this month it's the Ash'adar, Harbinger of Dawn mount.
Since unlocking neat cosmetics is increasingly the main reason I play MMOs, I'm pretty happy with the Trading Post, and the wide range of objectives suggests that it's not going to be too much of a grind to fill out the progress bar.
There do appear to be some teething problems, however, and as I was writing this I was booted out of the shop. On Battle.net, Blizzard has notified players that the Trading Post has been "temporarily disabled". Looks like we'll have to wait a bit longer to spend our free cash.
