Recent Action Against Real-Money Raid Clears

[off3nc3]

Killing the game even more , oh but wait it's already DEAD just stick a fork in it !

[Hotmail]

Blizzard can't keep the free market down. It's a tough world out there, gotta find ways to make a buck.

[BellicoseAxe]

Killing the game even more , oh but wait it's already DEAD just stick a fork in it !

What's a LIVELY MMO to you? WoW still has double the amount of active players of its closest competitors, which are Final Fantasy XIV and Guild Wars 2 (and Runescape if you want to count browser games)

I'm not seeing any more Nightbane carries in the Looking For Group tool, so the banwave must already be bearing fruit.

[Charge me Doctor]

Blizzard is absolutely, 100% selling gold for money. You go to the store, you spend money to get a token, which turns into gold.

That's why this whole thing is hypocritical. If you buy your gold from Blizz and use it to buy a boost, that's ok in their book. But if you buy your boost directly it's horrendous!

The only thing they really care about is that the money ends up in their hands. Can't honestly argue that this distorts the game when it seems that the only thing you disagree with is who ends up with the money.

It's really not, you don't increase total gold # ingame by buying tokens, you trade token for gold, more tokens you buy - cheaper tokens become. Less buying power people have IRL - more gold you have to pay for a token. Now blizzard made tokens more liquid (by allowing to return 50% of its cost into bnet account) and their cost skyrocketed, now even more gold go away from gold hoarders into auction, more gold gets "cut out" due to tax and it deflates economy quite well compared to what we had in draenor.

It's not about blizzard getting players to spend more money on the game, it's about fixing their ingame economy and reducing amount of scammers

- - - Updated - - -

I'm not seeing any more Nightbane carries in the Looking For Group tool, so the banwave must already be bearing fruit.

Couple of guilds i know who do this shit actually didn't learned any lessons. The conclusion they had after getting their GMs and all officers banned was "well we'll have to rise our prices to make up for loss of staff". Fucking ridiculous

[PowerOfTwo]

Couple of guilds i know who do this shit actually didn't learned any lessons. The conclusion they had after getting their GMs and all officers banned was "well we'll have to rise our prices to make up for loss of staff". Fucking ridiculous

Ow i'm sure they learned a lesson , just not the lesson blizzard and for some reason most of the comunity wanted. Turns out if you mess with someones income they don't react kindly, or sheepishly, who'da thunk? And unless they're willing to do physical adress bans nothing will realy change, it'll just get worse. The good players who were just making some money on the side MIGHT stop, and the people who do this for a living will just get more agresive and raise costs to make up for buying new accounts....

[Ponky]

What ppl are actually profitting from this?

Boosters (hardcore players)? nope, casuals? nope
For what player is this good? it will only result in less players between raid because why rerun stuff when you may not boost ppl for a little profit.

Dunno, maybe re-run stuff because it's game and it is intended to be like that? Since when this mentality became normal that "you have to profit from playing a game"? Why can't people make groups together in mmo for gaming purposes? Why do you have to take someone's money to play a game together with them? If you want profit, go make an online store...

[Deleted]

Well I'd also hope you consider going back to school.

Yeah. Tell me which was your school so I can be educated in telling companies they should share their revenues with the costumers.

[Teri]

The hypocrisy in this thread is staggering. With mounts and pets on sale, paid boosts, gold available for sale - which then can be used to purchase gear, the game integrity has long gone. If you accept any of that shite, then why the hell should someone selling boosts through raids for real money bother you?

Its the same old story, if Blizzard cant profit from it they take action against it, but of course its OK to do it for in game gold because there a potential for them to profit from it.

All these fanboys hiding behind the "ToS" and "Blizzard is a business" bollocks seem to forget that its them they are taking the piss out of along with every player stupid enough to still play this shell of a once great game.

There's a huge difference between gold which we can convert to Virtual "BlizzardDollars" only valid on Digital blizzard products, or REAL money you can buy everything with or make a living from.

Blizz can control/monitor the gold going in and out the game.

Selling virtual property for real life money isn't allowed unless done by blizz themselves. We don't own ANYTHING in WoW, we just buy a license to use their servers.

[Arganis]

Banning behavior likes this is short-sighted. I'm sure both the supply and demand keeps people playing and that should be considered a win-win for Blizzard. Trying to prevent those who waste away in-game from making a cent because they don't get a cut is pathetic. As if WoW needed any more reasons for people to stop playing.

[cFortyfive]

educated

I know the situation over there got a bit of a third world vibe but maybe you should get some spelling going before telling others to go to their communist countries

Banning behavior likes this is short-sighted. I'm sure both the supply and demand keeps people playing and that should be considered a win-win for Blizzard. Trying to prevent those who waste away in-game from making a cent because they don't get a cut is pathetic. As if WoW needed any more reasons for people to stop playing.

Sounds a bit salty over a lost account. As if those banned would - they'll just come back creating new accounts.

[Deleted]

I know the situation over there got a bit of a third world vibe but maybe you should get some spelling going before telling others to go to their communist countries

Oh ok your best counter argument in this discusion is that I don't write correcly. What an amazing discusion you bring to the forums. English is not my main language and I took less than a year of classes 20 years ago, I have learned alone english all this years, and although I misspell I'm here discusing ideas, that is the function of a forum. I'm proficient and native in 3 other languages. If you cant stand some mispells and they are your brilliant arguments in discusions you are screwed in the internet.

[Raziella]

haha i could go and buy a 12 pack of pepsi and sell each can to whoever i want on a street corner or craigslist or whatever and nobody is going to do shit

And if you were selling them at a mark up inside the store you bought them from you would be kicked out, and cut off from buying any more. Which is in line with what happens in WoW. If you're trying to profit off of their property, they have the right to cut you off.

Also, if you're a known reseller, you actually CAN get cut off from buying stuff at stores and selling for a profit. It happens to small restaurants all the time. It's not illegal, but it IS against the stores' "terms of service" and they can and will cut people off if they find out.

I've seen a-holes go into Target before xmas and buy all the Hatchimals and try and resell them in the parking lot before; it took about 5 minutes before the cops showed up and the person was served with a trespass that meant they couldn't be on ANY Target's property going forward.

[wowaccounttom]

from blizz's blue posts with some paraphrasing ...

yesterday
"HI GUISE!!! we found bad people so we are going to tear them all apart"

today
"HI GUISE!!! we cant ban all the mythic raiders, so we just banned those we dont care about"

[cFortyfive]

Oh ok your best counter argument in this discusion is that I don't write correcly. What an amazing discusion you bring to the forums. English is not my main language and I took less than a year of classes 20 years ago, I have learned alone english all this years, and although I misspell I'm here discusing ideas, that is the function of a forum. I'm proficient and native in 3 other languages. If you cant stand some mispells and they are your brilliant arguments in discusions you are screwed in the internet.

Yeah sure bring me more of your insightful arguments like companies care for money . You should write a book about it and call it conquistador obvious or something.

What is the "functional" difference between this and the CS GO lotto scandal?

Pretty sure the biggest part of that particular scandal was the part where they didn't disclose their ownership of the site. Also gambling still is a bit different than buying boosts.

[huldu]

This is just stupid. If people want to spend their money on YOUR time dragging their sorry arses through a raid then that's our business not blizzards. I see this will have a devastating effect on the game in the coming future people will mass drop because what's the point of even playing now? This is a pretty good side income for us more serious raiders. This is just unacceptable and we will not let this slide.

[Queen of Hamsters]

EDIT: I had to log in to throw my own 2 cents into this matter, because i dont want to go to sleep fuckin angry.
I usually despise MMO Champ community, always writting those pleasant adn sweet comments when Blizzard makes stupdi class changes or cant balance shit in this games or makes us force to play some stupid grindy shit, that encourages sitting by the game 24h/7, it drives me nuts everytime people justify this brainless crap. (Before anyone says, i play this game, cus i hae Faith in future, and i have friends to play with -_- )
But we all fuckin agree to their terms of use of their fucki nsoftware, so respect the fuckin LAW. I can go by some stupdi comments regarindg game chagnes, but this is gross, all people who jsutify theft, crime, should be jailed or punished. This is disgusting and i lost my fuckin temper. Get your fuckin shit togheter, people.

I'd say it's pretty disgusting wanting people to go to jail or get punished for having opinions on a game's TOS...
I always find it hilarious when people like yourself confuse Blizzard terms of service for their games with laws in every country on this planet where the games are played.

It's against the TOS, they can (and should) ban people for breaking it. But no, nobody's going to jail for it. As angry as I can get from seeing level 1's camping the BMAH and sniping shit for 10 million gold max bid within a second of it appearing, I wouldn't wish jail time upon them or the buyers...

[Pull My Finger]

In other words.. "Some players were doing a job and getting paid on the outside and us, Blizzard, were not getting our due cut. Now we're going to more closely monitor these players to make sure the bads actually purchase WoW tokens from us so we get our money, then they can pay those players for their time with make believe digital currency"

Bohooooo.
You probably also expose fake news all day.

[Hablelol]

And if you were selling them at a mark up inside the store you bought them from you would be kicked out, and cut off from buying any more. Which is in line with what happens in WoW. If you're trying to profit off of their property, they have the right to cut you off.

Also, if you're a known reseller, you actually CAN get cut off from buying stuff at stores and selling for a profit. It happens to small restaurants all the time. It's not illegal, but it IS against the stores' "terms of service" and they can and will cut people off if they find out.

I've seen a-holes go into Target before xmas and buy all the Hatchimals and try and resell them in the parking lot before; it took about 5 minutes before the cops showed up and the person was served with a trespass that meant they couldn't be on ANY Target's property going forward.

That's literally the worst comparison ever xD. Blizzard doesn't offer the same service, this is more like you offering to open peoples Pepsi for them once they've purchased it.

That's exactly why I don't get why Blizzard has a problem, long term this is good for them. People expect AotC for invites, buying a run (sometimes for as low as $5 for AotC!) allows you to do SOMETHING in that next tier even if you're not the best player in the world (honestly, even if you're fucking awful AotC + decent Ilvl is enough for an invite), these bad-mediocre players that might eventually un-sub because they can't group finder now that they don't have AotC is going to cost them money, even if it's only a few hundred subs that's still likely thousands of dollars a month (which I understand doesn't matter to them at this point). I just don't see why this would get them banned, I understand it always has (anything to do with selling in-game services for real money is against the ToS) but this specific way of selling in-game services for money shouldn't bother them in the least bit). Honestly can anybody name one SINGLE reason that this negatively effects Blizzard? Something that actually has some merit.

[Jinpachi]

<img src="http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2012/july/wowmini.png" style="margin-bottom:-2px; margin-right:0px; vertical-align:bottom" /> Patch 7.2 PTR - Build 23708

Recent Action Against Real-Money Raid Clears

We’ve recently taken action against a number of accounts that were actively participating in and/or advertising the sale of in-game raid or dungeon clears in exchange for real-world currency. Such behavior is a clear violation of the World of Warcraft Terms of Use.

Of the players affected, many were members of top raiding guilds. We want to be clear that everyone we’ve taken action against had illustrated full knowledge and intent to violate the Terms of Use. Going forward, in order to ensure fair play and competitive integrity, we’ll be monitoring these activities much more closely in order to make sure that the rules are being followed. This includes selling services for real money, account-sharing, and other violations.

Note that while selling assistance with obtaining items, achievements, PvP rating, or other in-game benefits for real-world currency is against the Terms of Use, selling those things in exchange for in-game gold is perfectly legitimate. Players should not feel as though participating in a “gold run” is going to result in negative action taken against their account.

If you see people advertising these services, please help us keep the game clean by reporting them. If you’re unsure, here are some common warning signs:

• A “broker” is offering to match buyers with service-providers. Commonly, a broker will collect real-world currency from a buyer while offering gold to a guild or group that will actually provide the service.
• Someone offering a service is unwilling to discuss terms of payment via in-game tells, and insists on using a non-Blizzard application to communicate.

Also note that Patch 7.2 includes some improvements to our reporting features to add clearer categories for reporting listings in the Premade Group Finder. We’re disappointed to see members of the raiding community participating in behaviors that clearly violate the Terms of Use, and want to be clear that such activities will not be tolerated.

the market for this will just go deeper underground, and will be more difficult to find/take action against. Can't do shit about people who organize these strictly over TS/vent/discord

[judgementofantonidas]

Blizzard selling gold for money is totally fine.
Players selling boost runs for money is BAN!

Guess blizzard wants to have all the money and is greedy and now want more WoWtoken money in there pockets.

Do you really want to stop boost runs blizzard? then maybe you need to do the same thing as the gold and sell packages.

its wow's digits. they decide who can profit, which is them. period.