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

[Relapses]

Example: Let players get a mythic item level loot from a quest chains. This will eliminate the ilevel elitism because literally everyone will be running around in the same item level, people won’t be denied in lfg due to I level, from the casual to the mythic raiders. Let skill really be the determining factor in player prestige. Imagine if the current store mog was the reward for mythic sylvanas? That would be awesome and turn heads in any major wow city.

Right now you can’t tell the difference between someone who earned their gear/mount/title and someone who was boosted

Wow, you think it'll be a good idea so now all Mythic raiders are legally required to agree with you!

How dare anybody enjoy gearing in a video game where the core gameplay loop has been grinding gear for two decades? Fuckin' elitists.

[psyquest]

Currently you can flick your credit card and get:
60 character for 60 euros
1 boss last raid tier with 5 boosters: 3-4 tokens ~ 60 euros

and in 4 hours you have what took some guilds and players many weeks to achieve.

Ain't it great?

[Raelbo]

When I was still gold farming in BfA the best farms produced a maximum of about 15k gold per hour, usually somewhat less. I've looked and nothing in Shadowlands is any better. And this is the best method of introducing gold into the game, flipping on the AH just moves gold around and does not produce gold.

I am not going to disagree with you about the rate at which it is reasonable to able to farm gold. However I am not sure why you think the distinction between introducing gold into the game, or just siphoning it yourself via the AH is relevant.

Given the cost of most boosts gold farming is not an efficient method of acquiring the gold to purchase a boost, at all. By the simple rate at which gold can be produced it would take days of grinding a gold farm to be able to afford a boost.

Which is precisely why most people who buy boosts do so with gold they made on the AH.

Every MMO that has a method of converting real-life currency into ingame currency has a similar production rate, it's simply inefficient to create currency in a game, itself. You work for pennies an hour, at best, by producing ingame currency.

True. However, try to bear in mind that gold is a by-product of playing the game. If I am spending time doing stuff I enjoy in WoW, time that I can't spend working anyway, then effectively the gold I make this way is a bonus.

That is why game currency purchasing with real-life money is so ubiquitous. It's just so vastly more efficient to even work a $7/hour job and buy the gold than it is to work for it in the game.

Unless you are good at playing the AH. And if you add on top of that, as I mentioned above, that this is earned during your recreation time which cannot be turned into wages anyway, and is entirely tax-free, it's actually quite a lucrative enterprise.

And again, I want to note, that making massive gold from flipping on the AH is completely irrelevant because I am talking about the rate at which gold is introduced into the game, not how it is moved around.

It's entirely relevant. What difference does the fact that you're not introducing new gold into the game make to the point at hand? I mean aside from the fact that introducing more gold into the game economy via active farming actually causes inflation, and devalues the gold you have - meaning that playing the AH is actually a better way to make loads of gold anyway.

Also, you need to note that tokens also do not introduce gold into the game. They simply move it around.

- - - Updated - - -

Currently you can flick your credit card and get:
60 character for 60 euros
1 boss last raid tier with 5 boosters: 3-4 tokens ~ 60 euros

and in 4 hours you have what took some guilds and players many weeks to achieve.

No. You will NEVER achieve what those guilds and players achieved. Unless you get a time machine thrown in for free with those tokens.

I honestly cannot understand the fuss you guys like to make about the ability to arrive at the party 4 months late. It's not any kind of achievement. Seriously, if people want to spend some of their money to tick off a few arbitrary game objectives from a list, that really doesn't affect anyone else in the slightest.

[Clozer]

No. You will NEVER achieve what those guilds and players achieved. Unless you get a time machine thrown in for free with those tokens.

I honestly cannot understand the fuss you guys like to make about the ability to arrive at the party 4 months late. It's not any kind of achievement. Seriously, if people want to spend some of their money to tick off a few arbitrary game objectives from a list, that really doesn't affect anyone else in the slightest.

Well, you get the same loot, the same mount, the same title, the same achievements. Now because anybody can swipe credit card and get these things, they lose a lot of value, don't you think? Killing bosses early looks fun and at all on wowprogress but outside of that? Hm.. boosting has a huge negative impact and provides no benefit.

[Mardux]

Fanboys gonna fanboy. Never change, MMO-C.

You can't come up with a rational argument, so you resort to namecalling like a 5 year old...

Its not about being a fanboy and its not about players who happen to work for blizzard doing what they want in their free time. Its about logic and using your brain. You want people banned for something you don't like even though it is nonactionable because it does NOT violate the EULA. And since you can't accept that, you keep crying on your burner account.

[Cthulhu 2020]

I knew a GM that worked in player services, i.e. when you make a ticket, they were one of the ones to handle your ticket. They worked at the Blizzard offices, so they weren't one of the low tier "filter" GMs who either escalate a ticket or give it an automated response.

This Blizzard employee I knew was a multi boxer, and had a ton of fun doing it. They also told me that basically everyone around the office multi boxed.

I've said this before, but it always gets lost in the rabble. If you want to know why it took so long to ban multi boxing, it's because Blizzard reps and other employees loved to multi box.

And of course, boosting is here to stay precisely because it's something Blizzard likes to partake in. Plus boosting pushes WoW token sales, and rather than making a good game that lots of players can enjoy, they're making a profitable game that appeals to whales and people who play 16 hours a day. The people who buy tons of WoW tokens and the people who farm the gold for the whales to buy. WoW is tone deaf to players that don't exist in one of these brackets.

- - - Updated - - -

Yep, just give players full Mythic gear for logging into the game. There's absolutely no way that'll have any negative consequences whatsoever.

Naw that's a bad idea. Instead, the WoW store should sell upgrade tokens that can take your gear from LFR to heroic to mythic quality. Just cut out the middle man, the boosters, and make getting carried to gear easier than ever before!

After all, boosting is unfair to those who don't want to deal with setting up a deal with the boosters. Give em an avenue to buy directly!

Bobby Kotick are you reading these forums? Please hire me, I'm sure I'd make a great marketing employee.

[Mardux]

Dont waste your latin with this dudes.
They clearly never played a team sport or activity.
In an amateur activity (competition is more fair and for all skill lvls).
These folks think they play for recognition and fame, so everyone out of their league is a little rock on their shoe that they have to carry all the time.

Speaking of shit attitudes... Thinking people should do a job for you for zero profit is right up there with the best of them. Hell, you're not even advocating expecting free labor, you're advocation that people spend their own gold (on consumables, repairs, enchants, etc.) so that they can not be paid for doing the job for you.

[Relapses]

Naw that's a bad idea. Instead, the WoW store should sell upgrade tokens that can take your gear from LFR to heroic to mythic quality. Just cut out the middle man, the boosters, and make getting carried to gear easier than ever before!

After all, boosting is unfair to those who don't want to deal with setting up a deal with the boosters. Give em an avenue to buy directly!

Bobby Kotick are you reading these forums? Please hire me, I'm sure I'd make a great marketing employee.

Here's a better idea: Find a solution that doesn't involve dismantling the entire game's core gameplay mechanic.

[Mardux]

Yep, just give players full Mythic gear for logging into the game. There's absolutely no way that'll have any negative consequences whatsoever.

Nice hyperbole. I'll take lack of critical thinking skills for 400, Alex.

[Swnem]

Not really when it's a personal response to "noone is buying boosts with gold they've earned lmao". Besides no one here really knows how many or what percentage of token sales are used for boosts. That's one reason why these threads are so annoying; people stating as fact stuff they have no way of knowing as a fact.

Obviously when someone makes a general comment, it is a general comment, not a literal one.

There is no statement you can make that everyone literally every single individual does something. There are always exceptions. A majority is always implied, not a literal absolute value.

It's just knit picking and a waste of time. Everyone understood what the guy meant. Of course not everyone is the same, but a great deal. Or at least that is the impression of the poster.

[Relapses]

Nice hyperbole. I'll take lack of critical thinking skills for 400, Alex.

lol -- the dude literally clarified that he meant exactly that in his next post. So much for critical thinking, eh?

[Swnem]

I would like to invite you to learn that context matters. My post in the context of the comment I quoted is meant to illustrate how the poster's argument is not sound.

The thing is, that is his impression. That much was obvious. No one can literally know, cause the numbers are not known and never will be known to the public. So it is ridiculous to hold it to that level of scrutiny. If we can only speak of the absolute known data and not allowed to give our opinions and personal experiences, well... there is no point in these forums cause Blizzard does not release any info anymore, cause they obviously don't want us the wiser.

So, lets take a grain of salt and stop taking everything in absolutes.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Here's a better idea: Find a solution that doesn't involve dismantling the entire game's core gameplay mechanic.

I won't deny it's a better idea to not make the core path of progression NOT monetized.

But it's not as if Blizzard has been going with "The better idea" for awhile now. It's pretty clear they have been slowly encroaching on a profitable model, and making players slowly more comfortable with more monetization methods.

Call it cynical, call it delusional, call it whatever you want, but from a top-down perspective of how the game has been evolving, I would not be at all surprised if they added monetization methods that directly assisted in the core progression method of the game.

When they first added sparkle pony, I had a bad feeling that they'd seek to monetize more and more of the game. People told me I was wrong and that wouldn't happen because... reasons. Mostly because they had faith in Blizzard I guess.

And boy do I feel vindicated.

[Relapses]

I won't deny it's a better idea to not make the core path of progression NOT monetized.

WoW's current model isn't. Glad we had this talk.

[Cthulhu 2020]

WoW's current model isn't. Glad we had this talk.

Not officially.

I hope people still aren't pretending that WoW token -> boost isn't all but explicitly endorsed by Blizzard at this point. Lol

[Relapses]

Not officially.

I hope people still aren't pretending that WoW token -> boost isn't all but explicitly endorsed by Blizzard at this point. Lol

It isn't. Again, good chat.

[Torgent]

You literally can't buy more than a single token a time my dude. You have to wait for each one to be sold before you can buy another.

This is not even remotely true. You can have multiple in your inventory at once.

[Relapses]

This is not even remotely true. You can have multiple in your inventory at once.

Two important caveats:

• It still takes time for the tokens to sell
• You'd be wasting your money buying multiple tokens instead RMT'ing the same service

For the specific example I was referencing it was especially silly given that you can still only buy 20 tokens a week and you'd have to wait for the week-long cooldown to afford the service he was suggesting.

edit: I went back and corrected my post.

[Infernoxas]

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.)

Selling boosts isn't the problem. It's the people that buy them.

[Drusin]

Why would anyone care about boosting

Because some people place value in their video game items based on how many other people have the item lol