Poll: Is WoW® Token morally the same as gold selling for cash to you?

Page 9 of 11 FirstFirst ...
7
8
9
10
11
LastLast
  1. #161
    Quote Originally Posted by Raelbo View Post
    And there is your problem right there. You're trying to apply a single simple economic principle without looking at the full picture. Because, for example, while what you say is certainly true and drives inflationary pressure, at the same time, other players who used to have more money, and thus would bid higher on things, now have less money and bid less, thus driving deflationary pressure.

    Of course the overriding simple economic principle that governs inflation is that of overall money supply. Since tokens don't add gold to the system, they are most likely to be inflation neutral. Token prices follow inflation. They don't drive it.
    No they move gold from those that dont need it in to the hands of people that do. There is no way thats inflation neutral.

  2. #162
    How is the thread about " should be ban cheaters" able to make it to this many posts?

  3. #163
    Token >>>> gold farmers. Many forgot how it was back in the day. You barely could do anything in the world...

    For me, I like tokens. I don't grind gold for them nor do I ever buy them with real money. Every now and then, when my gold fills up I buy a token for game time or fill the bnet balance. But if anyone just wants to spend real money on something like this and later for gear and items that get obsolete in couple of months... their life their decisions. People did this way before blizz introduced tokens.

  4. #164
    This poll is still awful.

  5. #165
    Both are bad, just because blizzard does it does not make it good.
    The act of selling gold in itself is a bad thing Not who sells it.

  6. #166
    Quote Originally Posted by Relapses View Post
    I'd encourage you to read my posts then because I'm not denying that the token has impacted inflation, simply that mission table gold had far more of an impact.
    To be fair, those gold reserves are dried up. Only a minority of players could no-life hard enough to have alts with Level 3 Garrisons in WoD to generate such a massive amount of gold that we are pointing to (myself included, was a hardcore mythic raider with 3 alts capable of doing gold missions by the end of Hellfire Citadel, even with my no-life-ing capabilities I only walked into Legion with about 500-600k in total). Not to mention gold generation from it was nerfed prior to Legion release (I think it was nerfed twice IIRC, with prepatch turning them into Garrison Resources).

    We're 3 expansions deep now, I'd likely assume that those who had the capabilities to farm gold en masse before the nerfs have at this point been hoarding those gains for 5-6 years, spent that gold, or sold it via RMT/WoW tokens. And the majority of players weren't no-lifers to the point of accumulating gold THAT much (and we have to assume that a significant portion of new and returning players came back AFTER Legion was announced/released meaning they didn't have access to such gold accumulation methods by then, if they had any at all). I'd be more inclined to think that raw gold from farming old content had much more of a detriment by this point than Garrison/Class Hall table missions.

  7. #167
    Elemental Lord
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    South Africa
    Posts
    8,389
    Quote Originally Posted by Empower View Post
    I assume the average wow player wouldn't be able to ever farm up 10k gold at one time.
    1) What is the basis for such this assumption?
    2) What is the point of this assumption?

    Quote Originally Posted by Empower View Post
    I have a very dim view of the population and am rarely if ever proven wrong.
    I doubt it. Far more likely is you're simply incapable of accepting or recognising it when you are wrong. Which basically means you're incapable of learning or growing....

  8. #168
    Buying gold is violating the rules you promised to follow when you clicked accept on the ToS.

    Buying a WoW Token is within the rules.

    In one case, you lied. In the other, you didn't. Seems a pretty clear moral distinction there.
    "There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
    "The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
    "Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"

  9. #169
    Elemental Lord
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    South Africa
    Posts
    8,389
    Quote Originally Posted by Shoukyatwo View Post
    Please enlighten us with how tokens have driven down botting and gold selling?
    By providing a safe and acceptable-within-the-rules-alternative for obtaining gold. I mean if even 1 person who previously resorted to goldsellers and or botting has shifted to tokens, then tokens have driven down the problem. I am not saying that tokens have solved the problem entirely, but they have made a noticeable difference.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shoukyatwo View Post
    Please list ONE source? Just one. Anything at all.
    How about you list ONE source claiming the opposite? Your demand is asinine because there are no absolute sources on this that can reliably state the actual state of play. Blizzard have steadfastly stuck to the stance that Tokens help with the problem. Conspiracy theorists refute it. What more is there to say?

    Quote Originally Posted by Shoukyatwo View Post
    Because I can make a toon on ANY SERVER ANY TIME OF DAY and go to LFG and find COPIOUS amounts of gold sellers. You literally have to weed through it all to find real people.
    I literally just tried that and I couldn't find any goldsellers. To be fair, I didn't try particularly hard, but if your BS anecdote was true, I shouldn't have had to. Regardless, the continued existence of goldsellers and botters in the game doesn't prove that tokens haven't reduced the problem.


    Quote Originally Posted by Shoukyatwo View Post
    What is it with people addicted to WOW and not being capable of being reasonable on any level or critiquing even a singular thing Blizzard does. It's astounding.
    What is it with haters resorting to Ad hominem instead of coming up with an actual argument. It's almost like you can't. It's astounding.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by MrFawlty View Post
    No they move gold from those that dont need it in to the hands of people that do. There is no way thats inflation neutral.
    And if you'd been paying attention to what I was saying instead of cherry picking, you'd have picked up the actual argument I was making, instead of dodging my rebuttal entirely (which suggests you have no counter).

    I already acknowledged your point when I stated "what you say is certainly true and drives inflationary pressure". My counter is that tokens have other effects which drive deflation. And just because I only mentioned one, as an example, doesn't mean or even imply that there aren't more.

    And the simple fact is that no one here has even close to the required data to make any more than a purely speculative guess as to what all the factors are, or the individual effect each has, in order to calculate whether tokens have a nett inflationary effect. Which is why I suggested that a more useful way to make such a determination would be look at whether there is any evidence to support the notion that tokens have, in fact, caused inflation in the game. Of which there is of course, none.

  10. #170
    Quote Originally Posted by Raelbo View Post
    1) What is the basis for such this assumption?
    2) What is the point of this assumption?



    I doubt it. Far more likely is you're simply incapable of accepting or recognising it when you are wrong. Which basically means you're incapable of learning or growing....
    I am gonna assume that over the course of 3 expansions people buy things.

  11. #171
    Quote Originally Posted by Triceron View Post
    The rest of the forum is pretty dead. Nothing interesting or new worth discussing right now, that's why.
    I guess thats true. Everyone else I see is just complaining about things.

  12. #172
    Quote Originally Posted by Raelbo View Post
    By providing a safe and acceptable-within-the-rules-alternative for obtaining gold. I mean if even 1 person who previously resorted to goldsellers and or botting has shifted to tokens, then tokens have driven down the problem. I am not saying that tokens have solved the problem entirely, but they have made a noticeable difference.



    How about you list ONE source claiming the opposite? Your demand is asinine because there are no absolute sources on this that can reliably state the actual state of play. Blizzard have steadfastly stuck to the stance that Tokens help with the problem. Conspiracy theorists refute it. What more is there to say?



    I literally just tried that and I couldn't find any goldsellers. To be fair, I didn't try particularly hard, but if your BS anecdote was true, I shouldn't have had to. Regardless, the continued existence of goldsellers and botters in the game doesn't prove that tokens haven't reduced the problem.




    What is it with haters resorting to Ad hominem instead of coming up with an actual argument. It's almost like you can't. It's astounding.

    - - - Updated - - -



    And if you'd been paying attention to what I was saying instead of cherry picking, you'd have picked up the actual argument I was making, instead of dodging my rebuttal entirely (which suggests you have no counter).

    I already acknowledged your point when I stated "what you say is certainly true and drives inflationary pressure". My counter is that tokens have other effects which drive deflation. And just because I only mentioned one, as an example, doesn't mean or even imply that there aren't more.

    And the simple fact is that no one here has even close to the required data to make any more than a purely speculative guess as to what all the factors are, or the individual effect each has, in order to calculate whether tokens have a nett inflationary effect. Which is why I suggested that a more useful way to make such a determination would be look at whether there is any evidence to support the notion that tokens have, in fact, caused inflation in the game. Of which there is of course, none.
    To suggest however that that the token doesn’t increase inflation in the first place and perhaps actually cause deflation is ridiculous. They give gold to the people that will use it, that will always increase spending and when you do that you increase inflation. The very reason these people have all this gold is because they don’t spend it and don’t bid on things - but the sucker that has buys the gold will be bidding. So your argument is self-defeating.

  13. #173
    Quote Originally Posted by Raelbo View Post
    By providing a safe and acceptable-within-the-rules-alternative for obtaining gold. I mean if even 1 person who previously resorted to goldsellers and or botting has shifted to tokens, then tokens have driven down the problem. I am not saying that tokens have solved the problem entirely, but they have made a noticeable difference.
    Think further than one step. If you stopped botting because you buy your gold where does that gold come from? You merely outsourced botting to another player. Its nice if your goal is to offload the risk but it doesn't have any impact on botting since it doesn't change the demand for botted gold.

  14. #174
    The Patient Chakah's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Location
    In my Garrison
    Posts
    300
    My solution:
    Ban the gold sellers and the gold buyers.
    Ban the botters
    Remove the AH for tokens. Allow only gold -> game time.

    Boosters are gone. Spammers are gone.
    Auction house prices normalize.
    PvP is much improved. Raid recruiting is much improved.
    Tada! WoW is fixed for gamers. (Yes, Blizzard won't make as much easy money - boo hoo)

    I've been playing this game for almost 17 years now and have never once felt the need to buy gold.
    Gold buyers are universally cheats and Blizzard had almost ruined the game by endorsing it.

    Financialization has ruined many real-world businesses and its doing the same thing for gaming.
    It's time to stop it.

    Stand up for yourselves and don't buy gold or boosts.
    The game is better without them.

  15. #175
    Elemental Lord
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    South Africa
    Posts
    8,389
    Quote Originally Posted by mbit View Post
    Think further than one step.
    Cringeworthy. Just cringeworthy. Especially given your own example of "thinking" which follows.

    Quote Originally Posted by mbit View Post
    If you stopped botting because you buy your gold where does that gold come from? You merely outsourced botting to another player. Its nice if your goal is to offload the risk but it doesn't have any impact on botting since it doesn't change the demand for botted gold.
    Absolute nonsense.

    Botting is not a requirement to make gold in this game. It is simply a shortcut to doing so. Now I won't pretend that no one buying tokens is botting. I am sure some do. But that doesn't mean that all or even most do. Gold is being generated by players constantly, just doing stuff in the game, some more effectively than others.

    Token sellers aren't looking specifically for *botted* gold. And your assertion that they are is ridiculous. They are simply looking for gold. Period. And there is more than enough gold available from honest sources than is needed.

  16. #176
    Quote Originally Posted by Chakah View Post
    My solution:
    Ban the gold sellers and the gold buyers.
    Ban the botters
    Remove the AH for tokens. Allow only gold -> game time.

    Boosters are gone. Spammers are gone.
    Auction house prices normalize.
    PvP is much improved. Raid recruiting is much improved.
    Tada! WoW is fixed for gamers. (Yes, Blizzard won't make as much easy money - boo hoo)

    I've been playing this game for almost 17 years now and have never once felt the need to buy gold.
    Gold buyers are universally cheats and Blizzard had almost ruined the game by endorsing it.

    Financialization has ruined many real-world businesses and its doing the same thing for gaming.
    It's time to stop it.

    Stand up for yourselves and don't buy gold or boosts.
    The game is better without them.
    Is a lovely dream but your talking about slashing blizzards profits by likely 10-20%.

  17. #177
    Elemental Lord
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    South Africa
    Posts
    8,389
    Quote Originally Posted by MrFawlty View Post
    To suggest however that that the token doesn’t increase inflation in the first place and perhaps actually cause deflation is ridiculous.
    The fact that you still aren't paying to attention to my argument is what is ridiculous.

    Quote Originally Posted by MrFawlty View Post
    They give gold to the people that will use it, that will always increase spending and when you do that you increase inflation.
    False. That assertion is entirely contingent on (at least) three assumptions:

    1) That they are putting that gold back into the economy
    2) That they would not otherwise have acquired the gold
    3) That the person providing the gold would not have spent the gold on anything else

    Consider this scenario:

    Jim and Bob have been playing WoW since forever. Jim enjoys making gold and is reasonably good at it and as a result he always a bit to spare which he will spend on luxuries when he has enough. Bob struggles to make gold and doesn't really enjoy it, so he grinds what he needs to pay for repairs and consumables which he buys from the AH.

    Then one day Blizzard introduces the token. Jim decides he would rather save a bit of real money and sacrifice the luxuries he normally spends his excess gold on. Bob decides he makes enough money IRL that he'd rather pay for a token in order to skip the tedium of making gold to pay for his necessities.

    The nett result is:
    1) Less gold being generated between Jim and Bob and entering the economy (because Bob no longer generates)
    2) The same amount gold still gets sunk into repairs etc
    3) Less gold being spent on the AH (because Jim buys less)

    ----> Deflation


    Quote Originally Posted by MrFawlty View Post
    The very reason these people have all this gold is because they don’t spend it and don’t bid on things
    Not true. The very reason these people have all this gold is because they are good at making gold. Some of them may be hoarders, sure, but that doesn't mean all, or even most of those buying tokens are.

    I can use myself as an example: I buy tokens with gold. But I have never been in a position where I don't have something I would want to spend my gold on if there were no tokens. My motivation for being effective at making gold was to buy mounts. First the vendor mounts, then the TCG mounts, then the BMAH mounts. And when I finally acquired the Swift Zulian Tiger for a cool 10M, I already had a long list of other stuff that I wanted to spend my gold on.

    The simple fact is that my spending gold on tokens slowed my spending on other stuff like Xmogs and pets and mounts. It still does today. Hell I even record my spending, so I can tell you that between January 2019 and December 2020 (two years) I spent 19M gold on ingame collectables (including a mix of gold sink items and items bought from other players) and 5.5M on tokens (used to pay for game time and shop collectables). Another thing: During those two years, my gold stockpile decreased by 5M.

    That 5.5M wasn't gold that was sitting outside of the economy. It was gold that would have been spent, by me, on more collectables.


    And do you know why I know that the gold would have been spent rather than sitting gathering dust? Because of inflation. Inflation that predated tokens btw. Inflation literally kills the value of gold stockpiles. When I started collecting TCG mounts I think I spent 70k on the white rhino. That was early in WotLK. Near the end of Cata I finally acquired my spectral tiger for a price of 1M gold. You look at the price of those mounts today, if I had sat on that gold instead of spending it, I would not be in a position today to even come close to buying those items. This is something I realised very early on, so I was always buying my next mount as soon as I could afford it. There is just no good sense in sitting on gold.

    So your narrative of token buyers being these WoW billionaires who simply don't ever spend their gold is nonsensical if we're being honest. It just doesn't make that most of the players who are smart enough and driven enough to make huge amounts of gold would

    1) do so for no reason at all
    2) watch it erode away to inflation

    Most people are driven to make gold because they have objectives and things they want to spend it on. And even if they somehow landed up with more than they could spend, watching it all devalue due to inflation would be a very strong reason to stop bothering. And again, I am not saying that this doesn't ever happen, just I think it happens a lot less than you'd like to believe (and have us believe).

    Quote Originally Posted by MrFawlty View Post
    but the sucker that has buys the gold will be bidding.
    How do you know that? How do you know that the "sucker" didn't buy that gold in order to acquire a mount from a vendor? How do you know that the "sucker" isn't selling tokens because he literally cba to grind the gold he needs to repair his gear while raid-logging? How do you know that prior to the advent of tokens, the "sucker" didn't go out and grind for the gold he needed?

    The fact is you have no clue how that token gold is being spent, or whether the spending habits of the "sucker" changed at all. You're just so fixated on this hypothetical idea that if some gold transfers from a player who wasn't ever going to spend it to someone who would that this would cause inflation, that you've completely failed to analyse the problem space. Critically you've also ignored the most obvious form of validation - namely looking to see whether there has been this massive surge in inflation that correlates with the introduction of tokens - which again - is conspicuous by its absence. That alone should be a hint that your theory cannot be accurate.

    Quote Originally Posted by MrFawlty View Post
    So your argument is self-defeating.
    At least I have an argument. All you have is a bunch of baseless assertions and simple principles that you think prove something they do not. Not even close.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Empower View Post
    Is a lovely dream but your talking about slashing blizzards profits by likely 10-20%.
    And that is just the first flaw in his dream...

    Blizzard tried for years to eradicate gold sellers and botters and boosters. But they just kept popping up like mushrooms. Tokens have literally helped to reduce every one of the issues he listed more effectively than any other strategy deployed in the past.
    Last edited by Raelbo; 2021-09-14 at 03:04 PM.

  18. #178
    Pit Lord Magical Mudcrab's Avatar
    7+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
    Location
    All across Nirn.
    Posts
    2,422
    Quote Originally Posted by Gehco View Post
    The token is, from what I see, better than having swarms of gold sellers. It makes safe transactions, doesn't strip someone else's character, nor get you banned.

    As well, this thread will most likely be closed due to the topic of gold sellers.
    Basically, this.

    The WoW token is obviously a form of gold selling (that is the explicit purpose, to allow players to trade game time for gold); however, not all gold selling is equal. The difference is evident on TBC Classic where the major problem with Gold Sellers (which includes botters and whatnot) is that they simultaneously inflate the economy (i.e.: increase the amount of gold in circulation and decrease people's purchasing power) while also devaluing some resources (i.e.: heavily farmed resources or items become less expensive due to the economy being flooded with them). A good example of this are BoE epics like the Blade of Wizardry, which are valued at a fraction of what they should be due partially to targeted farming of lucrative instances like Slave Pens.

    TL;DR: WoW Token > Gold Sellers, but would prefer neither.
    Sylvanas didn't even win the popular vote, she was elected by an indirect election of representatives. #NotMyWarchief

  19. #179
    It's a bit more complex than that. The morality of gold sellers was not great. For years they threw the game off balance by causing problems in the economy, impeding regular rule-abiding people's gameplay and opening channels for people to cheat.

    Tokens on the other hand are a different issue. There is no one to attach morality to here either, it's more a question of business ethics. Was it ethical for Blizzard to flat out remove and fill the void of gold farmers and sellers themselves? Is it ethical to design the game with gold as a more impactful currency? Is it ethical to profit off whales? Is it ethical for Blizzard to give cash-to-gold boosting its blessing? are any indirect (often deceptive) cash-to-currency systems in any video game ethical? is it ethical to profit off people that don't have the intellectual capacity to even understand such a link?

    The questions are endless really, and people will have very different answers to them. One thing is for sure though: Blizzard's business ethics changed dramatically over the years. They would've never pushed for such changes to WoW during TBC or Wrath, if anything it was part of their extremely effective PR strategy to champion against these business practices and contrast themselves against all other games that did succumb to them. Even in Cata when they first opened a channel for people to buy gold from them with the guardian cub they were extremely cautious and patient, and made sure to lube us up before shoving it in very slowly. They played the long game.
    Last edited by Thelxi; 2021-09-14 at 03:39 PM.

  20. #180
    Quote Originally Posted by Raelbo View Post
    The fact that you still aren't paying to attention to my argument is what is ridiculous.



    False. That assertion is entirely contingent on (at least) three assumptions:

    1) That they are putting that gold back into the economy
    2) That they would not otherwise have acquired the gold
    3) That the person providing the gold would not have spent the gold on anything else

    Consider this scenario:

    Jim and Bob have been playing WoW since forever. Jim enjoys making gold and is reasonably good at it and as a result he always a bit to spare which he will spend on luxuries when he has enough. Bob struggles to make gold and doesn't really enjoy it, so he grinds what he needs to pay for repairs and consumables which he buys from the AH.

    Then one day Blizzard introduces the token. Jim decides he would rather save a bit of real money and sacrifice the luxuries he normally spends his excess gold on. Bob decides he makes enough money IRL that he'd rather pay for a token in order to skip the tedium of making gold to pay for his necessities.

    The nett result is:
    1) Less gold being generated between Jim and Bob and entering the economy (because Bob no longer generates)
    2) The same amount gold still gets sunk into repairs etc
    3) Less gold being spent on the AH (because Jim buys less)

    ----> Deflation




    Not true. The very reason these people have all this gold is because they are good at making gold. Some of them may be hoarders, sure, but that doesn't mean all, or even most of those buying tokens are.

    I can use myself as an example: I buy tokens with gold. But I have never been in a position where I don't have something I would want to spend my gold on if there were no tokens. My motivation for being effective at making gold was to buy mounts. First the vendor mounts, then the TCG mounts, then the BMAH mounts. And when I finally acquired the Swift Zulian Tiger for a cool 10M, I already had a long list of other stuff that I wanted to spend my gold on.

    The simple fact is that my spending gold on tokens slowed my spending on other stuff like Xmogs and pets and mounts. It still does today. Hell I even record my spending, so I can tell you that between January 2019 and December 2020 (two years) I spent 19M gold on ingame collectables (including a mix of gold sink items and items bought from other players) and 5.5M on tokens (used to pay for game time and shop collectables). Another thing: During those two years, my gold stockpile decreased by 5M.

    That 5.5M wasn't gold that was sitting outside of the economy. It was gold that would have been spent, by me, on more collectables.


    And do you know why I know that the gold would have been spent rather than sitting gathering dust? Because of inflation. Inflation that predated tokens btw. Inflation literally kills the value of gold stockpiles. When I started collecting TCG mounts I think I spent 70k on the white rhino. That was early in WotLK. Near the end of Cata I finally acquired my spectral tiger for a price of 1M gold. You look at the price of those mounts today, if I had sat on that gold instead of spending it, I would not be in a position today to even come close to buying those items. This is something I realised very early on, so I was always buying my next mount as soon as I could afford it. There is just no good sense in sitting on gold.

    So your narrative of token buyers being these WoW billionaires who simply don't ever spend their gold is nonsensical if we're being honest. It just doesn't make that most of the players who are smart enough and driven enough to make huge amounts of gold would

    1) do so for no reason at all
    2) watch it erode away to inflation

    Most people are driven to make gold because they have objectives and things they want to spend it on. And even if they somehow landed up with more than they could spend, watching it all devalue due to inflation would be a very strong reason to stop bothering. And again, I am not saying that this doesn't ever happen, just I think it happens a lot less than you'd like to believe (and have us believe).



    How do you know that? How do you know that the "sucker" didn't buy that gold in order to acquire a mount from a vendor? How do you know that the "sucker" isn't selling tokens because he literally cba to grind the gold he needs to repair his gear while raid-logging? How do you know that prior to the advent of tokens, the "sucker" didn't go out and grind for the gold he needed?

    The fact is you have no clue how that token gold is being spent, or whether the spending habits of the "sucker" changed at all. You're just so fixated on this hypothetical idea that if some gold transfers from a player who wasn't ever going to spend it to someone who would that this would cause inflation, that you've completely failed to analyse the problem space. Critically you've also ignored the most obvious form of validation - namely looking to see whether there has been this massive surge in inflation that correlates with the introduction of tokens - which again - is conspicuous by its absence. That alone should be a hint that your theory cannot be accurate.



    At least I have an argument. All you have is a bunch of baseless assertions and simple principles that you think prove something they do not. Not even close.

    - - - Updated - - -



    And that is just the first flaw in his dream...

    Blizzard tried for years to eradicate gold sellers and botters and boosters. But they just kept popping up like mushrooms. Tokens have literally helped to reduce every one of the issues he listed more effectively than any other strategy deployed in the past.
    By reduced your mean made exponentially worse right? There has never been more p2w,adds, or bots then now.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •