Blizzard don't ban boosting because THEY are the boosters...crazy

[Schizoide]

Boosting encourages purchasing tokens to pay for the boosts. Blizzard loves token sales because business. So Blizzard begins to design the game in such a way as to encourage boosting to, in turn, promote token sales.

Agreed, tokens are the problem here. They are the root of all evil.

That said, I haven't seen them design the game to encourage people to sell tokens; boosting for gold has always been in the game. If they were to (for example) sell XP potions or loot coins for gold, that would be an example of that. If you needed tons of consumables to raid, with some expensive components coming from vendors, that would be another example. If normal gameplay wasn't gold-positive, if they didn't give out thousands in daily callings, etc, I would buy that. So I don't think that's happening at this point.

[Biomega]

Why does the number matter?

Because if there's 10,000 people enjoying their boosts and 100 people who quit the game because boosting exists, it makes no sense to change the game.

I don't doubt that there's some detrimental effects from boosting - quite obviously there are, or at the very least there can be. No question. But when it comes to changing the game, it REALLY matters how many people are actually perceiving this as a negative, and to what degree. Just saying "this can be bad" is not enough for a decision of that magnitude.

Its too much to explain to someone who is hung up on the trivial details you're asking about.

If accurate information is a "trivial detail" to you, then I guess you just want to complain no matter what? You have no idea how big a problem this is, exactly - you couldn't possibly. So you're just assuming that your own personal opinion is a generally true statement of generally the magnitude you personally assume. That's an untenable position, and it's no surprise you're outraged if that's how you evaluate things.

[OrangeJuice]

This might surprise you but twitch VoDs can be deleted.

Are you insulting me, or are you saying that he literally deleted his VoDs but left those 9?

[Eosia]

Retail boosting just encourages the purchasing of wow tokens - noone is buying boosts with gold they've earned lmao.
Classic boosting just encourages RMT.

Both are bad for the game.

Not really. They do not affect ANY OF US as individual players. Period. If that's what some people want to do with the $15/mo they pay to play this game, so be it. The $15 anyone else pays does not entitle them to dictate the what others do.

[Schizoide]

I disagree, even if boosting for gold was somehow eliminated entirely, you could still use gold from selling tokens to buy BoEs off the AH for quick power and of course get all the cosmetics (which many raiders disdain, but are a major part of the game for lots of players). Tokens themselves are the problem, eliminate them and all this crap disappears.

Of course Blizzard's justification for adding tokens was to reduce fraud from ToS-breaking goldsellers. And I believe them, I'm certain it did help there. So you nuke tokens and people go back to bang4gold.cn or whatever, and get their accounts taken over or ripped-off, etc. It isn't an easy problem to solve.

Would the game be better without tokens? Yes, unequivocally, for me. I never sold a token in my life and I never bought from goldsellers. But many people do, and it would suck for them.

[Relapses]

Are you insulting me, or are you saying that he literally deleted his VoDs but left those 9?

I'm saying that you're probably reading a bit too much into the phrase "dozens of times," as the guy clearly streamed before becoming co-president of Blizzard and is under no obligation to keep his VoDs available to the public for any reason.

[OrangeJuice]

Because if there's 10,000 people enjoying their boosts and 100 people who quit the game because boosting exists, it makes no sense to change the game.

Ok then how many of those 10000 people made their decision to buy SL for the sole purpose of buying a boost, and is that number higher or lower than 100? I don't actually care and I'm not going down this route with you, just wanted to point out the glaring flaw in your logic.

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I'm saying that you're probably reading a bit too much into the phrase "dozens of times," as the guy clearly streamed before becoming co-president of Blizzard and is under no obligation to keep his VoDs available to the public for any reason.

Theres really only 1 way to interpret "dozens of times" especially when used in the context:

...to stream his raid as he had done dozens of times before that?

Are you admitting that you just made up your own facts?

[Chilela]

I hate boosting as much as the next guy, but they don't ban boosting because I'd wager boost whales are WoW's biggest source of income nowadays. Profit is pretty much always gonna be priority one, and getting the people who quit in at least some degree due to boosting back would be an uphill battle.

[Garymorilix]

Just to clarify the value of tokens.

On EU the token price currently circles around 300k.
We are in a version of the game where there isn't really a cheap and fast way to make gold.
Token price used to be like 160-180k (upper 100's but below 200k) during Nathria.
As the token price is directly affected by player demand this means that not many people actually use Tokens currently.

Back in Legion I paid 0 money to Blizzard because doing 5 minutes of mission tables every day during 7.3 got me a like 1.5 or 2 tokens monthly (using my many alts) so the game was basically free for me. And tokens back then cost like 350k BECAUSE you could make gold out of thin air with ease even tho there was a way bigger demand.
I mean for a few clicks a day on my phone it was really easy, I didn't even have to "play" the game.

If tokens now cost almost as much as they did back in legion that means there is a way smaller demand for them.
And also, as many people have already pointed out, tokens don't generate gold. The gold that you get for the token has been farmed by an actual player so you don't ruin the economy either.

So by "banning" or controlling the price of Wow tokens you literally achieve nothing. Just to be clear. This is just something you can easily point to to gather sympathy for your cause but when you actually think it thru it doesn't work.

[Biomega]

Ok then how many of those 10000 people made their decision to buy SL for the sole purpose of buying a boost, and is that number higher or lower than 100? I don't actually care and I'm not going down this route with you, just wanted to point out the glaring flaw in your logic.

That's just proving my point, really. Clearly you aren't interested in actually understanding the real numbers, you have your mind made up based on things other than data. You think you know how everything works, and you're not interested in actually finding out if you're right or not - you just want to hear yourself talk. Which, fair enough I guess, that's your prerogative.

Just don't expect anyone to take your position seriously if you come at them like this.

[Rozz]

Problem is that there isn't any really good way to curb boosting, especially when it's been ingrained into the community's culture for years.

Lengthy systems that demand x amount of hours before they pay off, limited time awards, unbalanced populations, the expense to stay competitive, and boe's are some of the naturally occurring incentives for the average booster.

Like other issues, the devs built an environment that can encourage and reward certain types of people to do these things.

[Relapses]

Ok then how many of those 10000 people made their decision to buy SL for the sole purpose of buying a boost, and is that number higher or lower than 100? I don't actually care and I'm not going down this route with you, just wanted to point out the glaring flaw in your logic.

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Theres really only 1 way to interpret "dozens of times" especially when used in the context:


Are you admitting that you just made up your own facts?

I'm sorry I didn't keep record of every single time Qwik turned on his stream so I could verifiably substantiate the claim that he had streamed "dozens of times" because clearly that was the only part of my post worth discussing.

[Ringthane]

I'm so glad somebody made another thread about how horrible boosting is. The other 30,000 just didn't get the point across.

[OrangeJuice]

Clearly you aren't interested in actually understanding the real numbers, you have your mind made up based on things other than data.

I would hope its clear considering I told you twice its trivial information that we don't even have access to. You're just attacking me without giving a reason why its so important. You're asking how many people quit specifically because of boosting, I don't know. I know when it comes to PvP, the negative impact boosting has brought has caused a lot of players to quit. For example, someone trying to gear up in PvP getting destroyed by r1s who are boosting people in the 1600 bracket, might quit because they can't gear up, and then cant get into groups. I would consider boosting the cause, but they might not see it as that because they don't understand. Someone might give up because they can't find anyone to q with anymore. To them, they could think the game is dead. I might consider it because nobody is interested in playing for fun anymore, since they're so preoccupied with boosting.

Theres just a lot of variables that I can tell you haven't thought out, you're just intent on attacking me for whatever reason you want. It would take all day to go through every reason why boosting is "bad" but I'm not here for that, I'm looking for conversation at a higher level between people who already understand that. Thats why I called it trivial. Sorry if that offended you.

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I'm sorry I didn't keep record of every single time Qwik turned on his stream so I could verifiably substantiate the claim that he had streamed "dozens of times" because clearly that was the only part of my post worth discussing.

Fair enough, but are you saying that you were personally in one of his deleted streams?

Also he has over 25k tweets, but only 1 to advertise a boost as far as I'm aware, can you link others to back up what you're saying?

I also asked about this too so I covered both of your points. I just want proof to what you're saying because the evidence I'm shown contradicts what you're saying.

[Biomega]

Problem is that there isn't any really good way to curb boosting

That's kind of at the heart of the matter, yes. At the end of the day there really isn't anything you can do to really stop people from getting boosted, any guild could just invite you or whatever and take you along for a run; how'd you ever prove that was a boost and not just you trying out with a guild and sucking at it? No way to realistically do that. And rather than leaving a quite obvious demand to be fulfilled by shady people with incentive to scam (because people are more reluctant to report something if it's the result of their own illegal activity) they chose to make it legal but regulated (in the form of the WoW token). Not a perfect solution, but a practicable one.

IMO their focus should be on minimizing the negative fallout from boosting, rather than trying to somehow kill boosting itself. Boosting isn't going to go away. But the negative effects it has on other players could (at least conceivably) be addressed in some way. Probably also not perfectly, but in some way at least. They could for example redesign the dungeon finder in some way that doesn't allow advertising, or at least makes it much harder - what if for example you couldn't write messages in there, and everything was just done through inbuilt options. You could select M+ level, maybe even select what role you're looking for, in a way that doesn't even show groups to you that you can't fill. Something like that. It wouldn't 100% eliminate boosts (people could still do things like set up an autoreply message that they're a booster group, or whatever) but it'd significantly cut down on the spam for "regular" people. Solutions of such a nature or similar are at least conceivable, and would do a lot to reign in the negative aspects of boosting.

===== EDIT =====

I would hope its clear considering I told you twice its trivial information that we don't even have access to. You're just attacking me without giving a reason why its so important.

Sorry, you don't understand why knowing just how many people are ACTUALLY quitting over boosting is relevant? You think that this kind of data is "trivial"?

That's exactly what I'm saying: you're not interested in accurate information, because you think you already know everything about the problem. Without data, you CAN'T know, though. In fact you even admit yourself it's information we don't have access to, yet your entire argument is made AS IF YOU KNEW ANYWAY. You don't. You can't.

I know when it comes to PvP, the negative impact boosting has brought has caused a lot of players to quit.

This is what I mean. How many is "a lot"? And how does that stack up against people who DIDN'T quit because they can boost their way to 2,500 rating or whatever? YOU DON'T KNOW. You can't know. But you're constructing your argument in a way that at least implicitly (and in many places explicitly) portrays it as though you knew for sure that this is an overall net negative. Which, again, YOU CAN'T KNOW.

Nobody is saying boosting doesn't have some negative side effects. That's self-evident. But how much these side effects ACTUALLY effect people's purchase/subscription numbers is VITAL to what Blizzard decides to do about it. And to just claim that kind of information is "trivial" because we all know how bad it is or whatever other subjective assessment you favor over data is foolhardy at best and staggeringly ignorant at worst.

[Relapses]

They could for example redesign the dungeon finder in some way that doesn't allow advertising, or at least makes it much harder - what if for example you couldn't write messages in there, and everything was just done through inbuilt options. You could select M+ level, maybe even select what role you're looking for, in a way that doesn't even show groups to you that you can't fill. Something like that. It wouldn't 100% eliminate boosts (people could still do things like set up an autoreply message that they're a booster group, or whatever) but it'd significantly cut down on the spam for "regular" people. Solutions of such a nature or similar are at least conceivable, and would do a lot to reign in the negative aspects of boosting.

I know you said you quit but they kind of did that in 9.1.5. They removed the ability to change the description of a M+ key if your account doesn't have an authenticator.

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Fair enough, but are you saying that you were personally in one of his deleted streams?


I also asked about this too so I covered both of your points. I just want proof to what you're saying because the evidence I'm shown contradicts what you're saying.

Both of your objections are completely immaterial to the point I was making. The guy made a harmless Tweet about what he was doing in the game and the community's outrage machine blew the whole thing out of proportion. He obviously wasn't "advertising sales." To suggest otherwise is hilariously out-of-touch.

In retrospect, the Tweet was dumb as fuck, given his position; but if anything the gaffe proves to me that he's a human being and not a PR robot installed by Kotick.

[OrangeJuice]

Both of your objections are completely immaterial to the point I was making. The guy made a harmless Tweet about what he was doing in the game and the community's outrage machine blew the whole thing out of proportion. He obviously wasn't "advertising sales." To suggest otherwise is hilariously out-of-touch.

In retrospect, the Tweet was dumb as fuck, given his position; but if anything the gaffe proves to me that he's a human being and not a PR robot installed by Kotick.

I've asked for clarification to all of your points all day long in this thread and you've only responded to each with either I'm misunderstanding, misinterpreting, or something along those lines. You haven't provided any proof going back as far as showing where you came up with numbers that you were arguing about earlier. Where is your proof that hes streamed/tweeted boosts dozens of times before being President at Blizzard? I went through his vods, he has 9. You then claimed he deleted them or you were just trying to insult me with that line, but anyway I went and checked his history and sure enough that was another lie. He doesn't have a past stream history, in fact his account is only 2 years old. I'm not going through his 25k tweets to verify your claim he tweets his boosts all the time, but I went back quite a ways and not only was it incredibly boring, but it turns out that once again you were lying. In fact, every argument every point you've made in this thread is verified to be a blatant lie. I would say every post you've ever made is a blatant lie but I haven't verified everything, only the comments you make in threads I've been in.

Why do you insist on acting like this in every thread you join and why haven't you been banned for trolling yet? Or a better question is, if you feel Blizzard and more specifically Mike Ybarra's actions are fair and justified, then why is the truth not enough to be justification so you have to make up blatant lies to defend them? The reality, in most cases, are the literal opposite of what you're lying about, so if your lies are considered "good" in your mind, then the truth which is literally the direct opposite of what you say, would obviously be considered the "bad". So by extension you are admitting that Blizzard/Mike are both "the bad guys" which was the summary of the OP's original point.

[Relapses]

I've asked for clarification to all of your points all day long in this thread and you've only responded to each with either I'm misunderstanding, misinterpreting, or something along those lines. You haven't provided any proof going back as far as showing where you came up with numbers that you were arguing about earlier. Where is your proof that hes streamed/tweeted boosts dozens of times before being President at Blizzard? I went through his vods, he has 9. You then claimed he deleted them or you were just trying to insult me with that line, but anyway I went and checked his history and sure enough that was another lie. He doesn't have a past stream history, in fact his account is only 2 years old. I'm not going through his 25k tweets to verify your claim he tweets his boosts all the time, but I went back quite a ways and not only was it incredibly boring, but it turns out that once again you were lying. In fact, every argument every point you've made in this thread is verified to be a blatant lie. I would say every post you've ever made is a blatant lie but I haven't verified everything, only the comments you make in threads I've been in.

Why do you insist on acting like this in every thread you join and why haven't you been banned for trolling yet? Or a better question is, if you feel Blizzard and more specifically Mike Ybarra's actions are fair and justified, then why is the truth not enough to be justification so you have to make up blatant lies to defend them? The reality, in most cases, are the literal opposite of what you're lying about, so if your lies are considered "good" in your mind, then the truth which is literally the direct opposite of what you say, would obviously be considered the "bad". So by extension you are admitting that Blizzard/Mike are both "the bad guys" which was the summary of the OP's original point.

...what on earth are you on about mate? I just said the poor dude didn't mean to ignite controversy with his Tweet. Relax.

[OrangeJuice]

...what on earth are you on about mate? I just said the poor dude didn't mean to ignite controversy with his Tweet. Relax.

Of course not, he meant to inspire more token sales, thats obvious. It just blew up in his face and thats why he hasn't done it since.

[WowIsDead64]

First Mike Ybarra gloats about raid boosting in retail, and now lead WoW Classic dev Brian Birmingham admits to doing GDKP runs with his guild and enjoying it.

We are all aware that Blizzard profits from boosting via wow tokens, but it genuinely never occurred to me that key figures in Blizzard were actually just...also boosters. I wonder if any of them engage in RMT on the sly?

(I can't post the source because I haven't posted much - but its in an interview posted on Wowhead.)

Unfortunately, as subs seem to be very low now, "hidden" microtransactions - is major way to get profit for Blizzard. So, there are just two ways to play this game properly. You either work for Blizzard, i.e. provide boosting service, and then you get all rewards for free, including cash shop ones. Or you pay $$$ to buy gold and get boosted. All other players are pushed out of game, even if they pay sub fee. Just sub fee no longer enough for Blizzard.