Would you buy gold if...

[LoLHellcy]

Gold is the center of the game, Like in real life- almost anything can be gotten with gold. Buying, selling, and trading gold for Real life values depreciates the value in game. If someone is hording gold, that gold is pretty much taken out of circulation, and thus the value of the coin goes up. When that gold is sold, it is almost immediately used, thus causing a depreciation of the value of the gold.

In short; Selling gold hurts the entire game.

Yea but ultimately the gold ends up on some guy's gold capped alt or in a gold sink, so the Gold inflation rate would essentially say the same / go up slightly (i.e. why Epic flying is just as hard to get now as it was in BC (for the most part))

[Spectral]

No, I wouldn't buy gold because I enjoy making it via the AH and crafting, and it's not that hard.

I would, however, sell it to my buddy that doesn't grasp how to make it easily...

[Nymphys]

yes but i have 2 points to that, 1) people already buy gold and mess up the economy by buying gold from hackers / scammers, and farmed gold atleast required some level of time and effort to acquire. 2) people who have 3 toons at gold cap have the same (and id argue more of) an effect on the economy than those who buy gold (just as could be seen from the failure of trickle down economics with the Bush tax cuts, sup w/ Ec 101?)

Thats right. People already do. The only reason it doesn't *completely* break the economy is because only a percentage of players do it. In your ideal "everyone buys gold" world, the economy would spin out so fast it'd make your head spin. Honestly.

[MrPistachio]

Think of it this way, its source...

Well, you know if you log on and someone on your server, or a guildmate, or even your friend gets hacked? Well... they're the source of your bought gold.

[adaptinee]

Buy gold? Pft, like its hard to get gold nowdays.

[Mad_Murdock]

just wondering but how is farmed gold bad for the economy?

Maybe it's an econmy to scale issue. I use to farm a fair amount, but at a certain I had to ask myself, why am I farming for 8-10 hours a week and only raiding 8-10 hours a week. For me, I got too much else going on in life to spend hours and hours farming gold.

If buying gold was considered normal, then you would have items that maybe Blizzard only picture selling for 7-10K, going for 50K. The battered Hilt might be a good example, here is a item Blizzard wanted the non-raiders to have a chance to get, but I'm guessing they didn't intend for it to ever sell for 25-35K, which would be priced out of many causual players range.

I really don't know how people say making 20-30K is nothing. I've heard playing the AH is the way, but I guess everyone must be doing on my server, because I never made the promised 15K gold in 30 mins like they claim. Which begs to question, if everyone played the AH like everyone says to do, how would there be any money left. It's about like half the GDKPs I went on, where everyone was there for the gold and no one bought anything

[Malthurius]

No.

[Umbrokill]

No, why support something that ruins the game
also, Gold is not hard to get... stop being lazy and get yourself a proffesion. or do daily quests, or play the auction house.
Goldsellers should all just go to hell,
damn spammers, %#¤%ing up the trade chat, thank god i have the anti-spam addon "badboy"
You should all get that one...

[LoLHellcy]

Thats right. People already do. The only reason it doesn't *completely* break the economy is because only a percentage of players do it. In your ideal "everyone buys gold" world, the economy would spin out so fast it'd make your head spin. Honestly.

i see what your saying, but my honest thought is simply this: how can we make it possible for a person to afford the cost of raiding or PvP (their choice) AND allow them to purchase some of the more necessary gold sinks (i.e. Epic Flying)? Right now what i see is that the WoW economy is quite similar to the U.S. Economy in that you have a small group of rich who stay above gold cap (alts), a large "middle class" with between 25 and 75k gold, and a far larger group at the bottom with under 25k at any given time. I know not everyone can be rich, and not everyone can have 25k+ at one time, but how can we make the economy work for the majority of players? (i.e. lower the effectiveness of the AH, but not make it useless).

---------- Post added 2010-10-07 at 11:35 PM ----------

Maybe it's an econmy to scale issue. I use to farm a fair amount, but at a certain I had to ask myself, why am I farming for 8-10 hours a week and only raiding 8-10 hours a week. For me, I got too much else going on in life to spend hours and hours farming gold.

If buying gold was considered normal, then you would have items that maybe Blizzard only picture selling for 7-10K, going for 50K. The battered Hilt might be a good example, here is a item Blizzard wanted the non-raiders to have a chance to get, but I'm guessing they didn't intend for it to ever sell for 25-35K, which would be priced out of many causual players range.

I really don't know how people say making 20-30K is nothing. I've heard playing the AH is the way, but I guess everyone must be doing on my server, because I never made the promised 15K gold in 30 mins like they claim. Which begs to question, if everyone played the AH like everyone says to do, how would there be any money left. It's about like half the GDKPs I went on, where everyone was there for the gold and no one bought anything

Thats the thing, my Hypothesis is that the population of MMO-Champion (a WoW fan site after all) has a far higher percentage of elitists than the demographics of the rest of the Game. Im not bashing Elitists at all, i just believe that we don't properly represent the majority of the player base.

AH'ing only works for a certain percent of the population, any more than that percent and the Economy suffers....badly (a.k.a its generally bad advise to give since its essentially like shooting oneself in the foot)

[Calon]

Gold could come from a hacked account, or from ligament AHing farmed items. The answer still would be no. I created a new alt recently, and only gave myself 4 bags and 10 gold. By the time I hit 80 I was up to 10,100g. Skinning, mining, questing and instances are a limitless, free, gold supply.

[LoLHellcy]

Example:

No, why support something that ruins the game
also, Gold is not hard to get... stop being lazy and get yourself a proffesion. or do daily quests, or play the auction house.
Goldsellers should all just go to hell,
damn spammers, %#¤%ing up the trade chat, thank god i have the anti-spam addon "badboy"
You should all get that one...

1) Dailies don't provide enough gold to buy anything worthwhile (unless you do insane numbers of them, in which i would be sorry for the immense suffering that is 25 daily quests....each day)
2)Play the AH: only so many people can do it, after that there isn't enough farmers and the economy collapses (a better model for this would be an Ecosystem that has more consumers than producers, it will fail)
3) Get a profession: and flood the market like everyone else?

[Mad_Murdock]

Gold is not hard to get... stop being lazy and get yourself a proffesion. or do daily quests, or play the auction house.

You know, I always thought that was such a funny statement. "Stop being lazy" playing a video game. Skip the yard work, skip the extra hours at the office, skip studying, because that's being lazy. No, spend that extra time sitting on your ass, pressing buttons to farm up mats, so you can have your 150K gold, that's not being lazy at all.

[Nymphys]

i see what your saying, but my honest thought is simply this: how can we make it possible for a person to afford the cost of raiding or PvP (their choice) AND allow them to purchase some of the more necessary gold sinks (i.e. Epic Flying)? Right now what i see is that the WoW economy is quite similar to the U.S. Economy in that you have a small group of rich who stay above gold cap (alts), a large "middle class" with between 25 and 75k gold, and a far larger group at the bottom with under 25k at any given time. I know not everyone can be rich, and not everyone can have 25k+ at one time, but how can we make the economy work for the majority of players? (i.e. lower the effectiveness of the AH, but not make it useless).

What you've described IS how a stable economy works. That's normal distribution of wealth. As to - how can we make it possible for people to afford the gold sinks and raiding at the same time? Quite easily - I farmed up the 5k gold for each of my 70s in only a couple of weeks. The fact everyone wants on-demand instant-gratification NOW rewards instead of having to work for them is what instead drives gold sellers. It's not that people can't easily afford epic flying, and raiding, and pvp. Its that people want the rewards without the effort. Pure laziness. The same thing that drives people to run Fishbots, etc. They think they're smart because "hey, I can get the reward without working for it", but they're just cheapening the reward.

Would a chopper be special if everyone could buy it for 10g? No - almost nobody would even use one because they'd be sick of how common-as-mud it would be. In a game where the majority of people have to work to earn the gold for it, it's still special(ish - getting to the end of life thesedays, but the point is illustrative). If everyone could simply buy gold to "have it now", firstly, it wouldn't be cool - Anyone who could afford it would have one. Secondly, you'd be excluding everyone who couldn't afford to buy gold. So you've still got a tier'd economy and player-base.

Look, this has been argued over and over and over. Blizz themselves have made some excellent posts on the issue. It appears you're simply trying to justify buying gold - something demonstrably, provably, wrong.

[smabell]

Have none of you heard of the TCG forums? TONS of gold buying and selling goes on there everyday.

Step One: Buy TCG mount card or pet card off ebay
Step Two: Advertise in OFFICIAL TCG Forum about said product
Step Three: Buyer contacts you and sets up a realm meet to exchange goods
PROFIT!

I bought a Spectral Tiger for 300k gold this way ^_^

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/bo...26146637&sid=1

[-Rain]

Boohoo gold marketing ruins the game omg stupid gold sellers Q_Q

if it's ruined, why are you still playing? Quiet down kiddos.

[LoLHellcy]

What you've described IS how a stable economy works. That's normal distribution of wealth. As to - how can we make it possible for people to afford the gold sinks and raiding at the same time? Quite easily - I farmed up the 5k gold for each of my 70s in only a couple of weeks. The fact everyone wants on-demand instant-gratification NOW rewards instead of having to work for them is what instead drives gold sellers. It's not that people can't easily afford epic flying, and raiding, and pvp. Its that people want the rewards without the effort. Pure laziness. The same thing that drives people to run Fishbots, etc. They think they're smart because "hey, I can get the reward without working for it", but they're just cheapening the reward.

Would a chopper be special if everyone could buy it for 10g? No - almost nobody would even use one because they'd be sick of how common-as-mud it would be. In a game where the majority of people have to work to earn the gold for it, it's still special(ish - getting to the end of life thesedays, but the point is illustrative). If everyone could simply buy gold to "have it now", firstly, it wouldn't be cool - Anyone who could afford it would have one. Secondly, you'd be excluding everyone who couldn't afford to buy gold. So you've still got a tier'd economy and player-base.

Look, this has been argued over and over and over. Blizz themselves have made some excellent posts on the issue. It appears you're simply trying to justify buying gold - something demonstrably, provably, wrong.

I see what your saying, but i personally think that the time commitment shouldn't be as steep for near-necessary gold sinks (i.e. 280% is in all practical purposes necessary for any gathering profession), Gold-Selling isn't a great idea, but i think that if its honestly acquired it wouldn't have as large of an effect as your suggesting.

(p.s. fishbotting is more to keep one sane, leveling fishing as is is insane imho)

[Garam]

Only read the title and can safely say 'No.'

[Keylogger Sheriff]

I only bought gold once and I felt it was a mistake. I've spent a lot of money on this game (particularly race / faction changes and transfers, although I got the sparkle pony and Lil' XT because I thought they were fun), but for some reason buying gold just doesn't sit right with me. I don't knock others for doing it necessarily but I don't agree with how the people providing said gold come into the ownership of it in some circumstances.

[Lionhearte0]

No, and there is nothing to justify buying gold. Anyone who does this deserves maximum punishment from Blizzard and have their IP back-traced and the cyber policed called on them, cuz they dun goofed.

[Peanus]

You know, I always thought that was such a funny statement. "Stop being lazy" playing a video game. Skip the yard work, skip the extra hours at the office, skip studying, because that's being lazy. No, spend that extra time sitting on your ass, pressing buttons to farm up mats, so you can have your 150K gold, that's not being lazy at all.

So true. You gotta love those elitists.