When did this become acceptable?

[Malania]

I admit in the past while boosts existed they were very rare compared to today... selling heroic ( back then normal) was nearly unheard of till mop. It used to be a few ah goblins every patch would buy a mythic mount it wouldn't be like today where we schedule in a dozen people for heroic.

Idk about that. Boosting to get the Amani War Bear was fairly common on my server back in the day (Draenor EU). What you're seeing now with boosting is a direct consequence of cross realm linking allowing more than a couple of the top guilds on a server to have total control of the boosting scene, if they even did it.

[zenzaliv]

Why you think Lego 5 and 6 are ridiculous expensive.

You do realize the cost of trade items is entirely set by the playerbase, right?

[Hctaz]

whale Andys had raid cleared with boost YEARS before token, since vanila...

Yes, except for the fact that you can literally purchase gold via the WoW token with real money thereby turning the game into a literal "pay real money to get carried to victory" adventure.

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You do realize that the only reason this exists is because there are a shit-load of people actively buying services like these, right?
You put the blame on people who literally only exist because the vast majority of the playerbase is so bad they actually need these boosters to feel better.
Why don't you hate on those people as well?

Also, as many said, LFG tool adverts are reportable.
Also also, boosting for gold is okay.

Boosting for gold isn't the issue that many people have with the game. It's the fact that you can directly PURCHASE IN GAME GOLD WITH REAL MONEY. Blizzard cracked down on spending real money for these services, but only if the real money you're spending on these kinds of services isn't going directly to them. If you're spending your money on the WoW token for gold to then buy these services, it's totally okay in their eyes.

[Krakan]

Idk about that. Boosting to get the Amani War Bear was fairly common on my server back in the day (Draenor EU). What you're seeing now with boosting is a direct consequence of cross realm linking allowing more than a couple of the top guilds on a server to have total control of the boosting scene, if they even did it.

I suppose that is true but I feel like the bear was an outliner.

[Nerovar]

That's also an assumption with no supportable evidence. Playing the AH does not equal game ability. Who says they have the talent reach 1.8K RBG naturally without being boosted or support the ability to mechanically adjust on the fly to mythic raiding. There's no overlap in any of these fields to earning gold in game. The overlap is: People who have gold buy boosts. There's literally a 50/50 chance that they earned the gold as bought the gold in boosts.

I don't even know what you're trying to communicate here. There's a difference between playing the actual game to get ahead in the game and paying real life money to get ahead in the game. Sure, they still might not be able to clear mythic but at least they worked towards something in the game to earn that achievement instead of getting an advantage over other players by spending real life money.

Don't get me wrong. I still think boosts were silly back then and obviously no one thinks these people are actually on the same level as people who cleared the same content without getting boosted but at least it was accomplished by in game means to which everyone has access. Spending potentially hundreds of dollars on having nice things or better gear on the other hand is not within reach for many players.

There's also the fact that this shit has gotten infinitely more prevalent since the introduction of the WoW token.

[Malania]

I suppose that is true but I feel like the bear was an outliner.

To be fair until WotLK the bear was the only rare raid mount with 100% drop chance. There wasn't much in the way of boosting back then because there wasn't much with a 100% drop chance which was rare in a raid. The first I noticed boost farming was 25HC LK for Invincible. Maybe they were doing it before that? Mim's head or Grand Crusader mounts but I always felt they were a bit harder to farm than LK's. Cata was pretty simple to sell 100% mounts.

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I don't even know what you're trying to communicate here. There's a difference between playing the actual game to get ahead in the game and paying real life money to get ahead in the game. Sure, they still might not be able to clear mythic but at least they worked towards something in the game to earn that achievement instead of getting an advantage over other players by spending real life money.

Don't get me wrong. I still think boosts were silly back then and obviously no one thinks these people are actually on the same level as people who cleared the same content without getting boosted but at least it was accomplished by in game means to which everyone has access. Spending potentially hundreds of dollars on having nice things or better gear on the other hand is not within reach for many players.

There's also the fact that this shit has gotten infinitely more prevalent since the introduction of the WoW token.

OK, maybe we're just misunderstanding each other here. Let me boil my statement down to basics. Gold is gold. How they got is irrelevant. That they played the game to earn it via legit means and chose to use it to buy a boost doesn't give them any sort of moral high ground. As you say everyone can earn the gold so buying it is not a distinct advantage other than time spent.

Personally I feel it wasn't tokens that sped up the boosting scene. People/guilds have always done it. Not every server supported it however in the past.

I personally think it was the introduction of x realm linking which gave you access to a thousand times more methods of being boosted as well as a 1000 times more consumers that caused this. Sure tokens have exacerbated the situation but they weren't the major cause of it.

[Nerovar]

OK, maybe we're just misunderstanding each other here. Let me boil my statement down to basics. Gold is gold. How they got is irrelevant. That they played the game to earn it via legit means and chose to use it to buy a boost doesn't give them any sort of moral high ground. As you say everyone can earn the gold so buying it is not a distinct advantage other than time spent.

Pay 2 skip is pay 2 win as it creates an unfair (albeit temporary) advantage for those willing to spend more money. So I disagree with you there.

[Malania]

Pay 2 skip is pay 2 win as it creates an unfair (albeit temporary) advantage for those willing to spend more money. So I disagree with you there.

Fair enough mate. I understand your reasoning behind your thoughts.

[Minikin]

whale Andys had raid cleared with boost YEARS before token, since vanila...

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why dont you show us what you searched for in LFG? is that bcs your keyword was "boost" or something?

i dont know what OP might have searched but personally, every day when i put in a search for "+15", or even "select dungeon [mythic keystone]", i have to take a good 5min at the start reporting hordes of these listings just so my list can repopulate with proper groups that i want to go with.

[Sialina]

To be fair until WotLK the bear was the only rare raid mount with 100% drop chance. There wasn't much in the way of boosting back then because there wasn't much with a 100% drop chance which was rare in a raid. The first I noticed boost farming was 25HC LK for Invincible. Maybe they were doing it before that? Mim's head or Grand Crusader mounts but I always felt they were a bit harder to farm than LK's. Cata was pretty simple to sell 100% mounts.

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OK, maybe we're just misunderstanding each other here. Let me boil my statement down to basics. Gold is gold. How they got is irrelevant. That they played the game to earn it via legit means and chose to use it to buy a boost doesn't give them any sort of moral high ground. As you say everyone can earn the gold so buying it is not a distinct advantage other than time spent.

Personally I feel it wasn't tokens that sped up the boosting scene. People/guilds have always done it. Not every server supported it however in the past.

I personally think it was the introduction of x realm linking which gave you access to a thousand times more methods of being boosted as well as a 1000 times more consumers that caused this. Sure tokens have exacerbated the situation but they weren't the major cause of it.

The first time I ever boosted someone was in Vanilla, our guild leaders sold the content of the Majordomo box every reset as it was possible to loot without being part of the raid that killed him. Sales were up on the EU wow forums and we had plenty of customers. Especially anathema and Lok'delar were big ticket items, and we had 20+ hunters and priests queued up at one point.
After the kill I would stay to summon our customers to the box together with the guild leaders and the rest would clear on to Ragnaros.

[dacoolist]

i dont know what OP might have searched but personally, every day when i put in a search for "+15", or even "select dungeon [mythic keystone]", i have to take a good 5min at the start reporting hordes of these listings just so my list can repopulate with proper groups that i want to go with.

This is exactly what I do as well!

I know it likely doesn't stop them but at least it blocked them from my view haha

[kneehidude]

because now the norm to pug anything ppl expect u to have ahead of curve and higher ilvl than whatever it drops, forcing u to either create ur own pug - and ppl who have mentality to lead pugs are busy leading guilds in first place - or gave up on trying to catch up to raid scene or buy tokens to get gold to buy boost to be able to start raid for current tier, assume u don't take break and drop from next tier race, sorry next 'season' since we are now mmo diablo

Then raid with a guild? People always try to overcompensate in pugs to make sure they have the best chance of downing the content. You don't have next week to come and try again with a pug. You have 1 night, and 1 night only. If you don't down the content, you don't down it.

Guilds take lesser experienced/geared players because they can build you up and you can get better with them week after week.

[Atrea]

Sure must suck to be so bad at socializing and playing the game that you can't get these things by playing with your own social group.

What did you people do before the cross-realm group finder?

[fruitbasket102]

This isn't even a game anymore.


https://ibb.co/PtvtzCJ


https://ibb.co/F75gMDJ

who cares ? seriously in the end wow is just a game those people advertising won't affect you in any way

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This is shame and the one major problem in the game. Communities are formed not to play the game anymore but for selling boosts to clueless noobs. They should make this their top priority if they ever want to fix the game.

This is not even possible to have a fun chat in game anymore because everything is filled with spam.

fix the game ? what fart free world you live in, these boosts not affecting you unless you are a social retard

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[Nize]

The root of this problem really comes down to ActiBlizz's greed.

Years ago when the token was introduced, I was afraid of how this would affect the game as putting in something like this typically affects how the game is designed, in particular around gold. For the years after, those fears were quelled a bit because I hadn't seen how Blizzard was abusing the token to garner more money. Now, it's far more clear how they're achieving this. It was a friend of mine that helped show me how this happening. While a decent player, he was anti-social and disliked being part of a structured raid team and having the patience to get to and kill Sire Denathrius. Denath had loot he wanted, so he bought an H Denath clear every week in hopes of getting the item(s) he wanted off Denath. And every week, to manage the gold purchase, he bought gold. I'm sure this is actually a fairly rampant issue, and it's why sales and botters aren't being dealt with by Blizzard. It BENEFITS Blizzard immensely to have these sale runs going. As I feared many years ago, the gold economy has now become the Blizzard dollar economy. THAT is why these sale runs are acceptable.

[Ryzeth]

Badboy spam blocker.
Premade group finder and use the 'age < 10' search parameter (will filter 95% of those 'WTS' ads, just report the rest)

Tada, now you can have a spam-free trade/LFG.

[Lolites]

Yes, except for the fact that you can literally purchase gold via the WoW token with real money thereby turning the game into a literal "pay real money to get carried to victory" adventure.

you could pay with real money for gold or boost before, without token... i should know, i earned more than my classmates with part time jobs by selling gold and items back around wrath
that was actualy one of reasons they introduced token, to make it safer and get their cut of profit...

[Dristereau]

It's a problem from my POV, especially how big this has become during BFA. I really started to notice it on my Horde server in 8.3, now if you go there as soon as you log in its spammed constantly, it's really horrible to see. Thankfully my Alliance server is dead enough that it doesn't happen there, but there is no way it's healthy for the majority of players to see that spam when they log in.

Unless Blizzard does something about it, I feel it will get eventually to the chinese servers with spam, whispers and more. I don't agree with the way 'communities' work, with how much gold they get. Does anyone actually feel that it's really gold only?

Thankfully I have a Guild that I've been part of for years, so I've been able to achieve most of my WoW goals and I'm happy I've done it with people. But with Blizzard making stacks from the tokens this will become a bigger problem until the game dies.

[Couchpotato2013]

The list of low pop servers proves you wrong. Just the facts please not the blizzard announcements I mean what good are they anyway they were also claiming to be equal opportunities employers.

EU realms have like 10 full and the rest are dead smelly carcasses. Why would you think that I try to make an impression here? I mean let’s face it people don’t just complain because they have nothing better to do they complain because acti/blizzard took a godly game and turned it into a p2w shit.

Next time you log please check the servers list and you will understand the problem.

The irony in the situation is when EU considers their realms dead, meanwhile gameplay in NA/OCE, at least for simple litmus test, characters during bfa s4 and SL s1 at all 15s or higher were basically half of EU.

But it doesn’t matter for over here, we should hush up and buy more pigs to cover the loss of population.

[Lolites]

i dont know what OP might have searched but personally, every day when i put in a search for "+15", or even "select dungeon [mythic keystone]", i have to take a good 5min at the start reporting hordes of these listings just so my list can repopulate with proper groups that i want to go with.

well then it must be really weird difference between realm groups bcs whatever i searched for in dungeon part of finder i never seen more than 2-3 booster groups there...
raid part while searching for sylvanas only shortly after reset is different story, as most groups are not at her yet