[Speculation] Boosting is going to be banned fully

[AwkwardSquirtle]

I couldn't care less if people want to boost. I just don't want my trade chat and group finder clogged up with ads.

[xuros]

Sure but boosting for money has always been bannable. And that has been going on since the dawn of time and they have never even come close to addressing it. I had a guild mate back in the day who would literally just buy a glad boost every single season because he wasn’t the mounts and never got banned. This happens on a super regular basis so I guess I’m just saying I don’t see how this will slow boosting.

Either way I mean that’s good if they are at least looking into it.

So they are going to tell people who have fuck tons of gold what they can and can't spend it on? Gold they made legit in game with no RMT of any kind? I don't see that happening as long as it stays in game between the players. Now the seller who sells the gold after the run for real money can/will/maybe will/should be banned for sure. Next would be them going after those raid geared tanks selling their "tanking services" to groups who can't find a tank lol.

[rhorle]

No gold selling was ever as epidemic as boosting is. Simply because boosting is perfectly legal. Hopefully not for long anymore.

I take it you never played when gold sellers were hacking the servers to advertise with corpses were you? Gold selling was worse then boosting by far. Though boosting spams trade as much as gold sellers.

[rhorle]

And here we got the fallacy one evil is better than another. Sure, gold selling was bad. Sure it created criminals. But boosting also is bad. As it creates incentives for the devs to create whales. As it turns a game where you should play together with friends into a marketplace. Last is one of the main reasons the community is as toxic as it is nowadays.

That still doesn't change that you said gold selling was never as bad as boosting. Stop moving the goal posts. Boosting has always existed. Auction runs, gold dkp, and other variations exist. Gold for in-game services isn't bad. Making gold soulbound and only usable with NPCs would cause enchants, potions, etc to all go away as well. You are gutting a fair amount of the game in order to fix something that doesn't really need fixing.

It just needs moderation. The easiest way to do so would be for Blizzard to create a boosting interface. All boosting is advertised there. Gold transfer is handled by the game. That alone would fix most of the issues impacting day to day players because the advertising was a big part that.

[oplawlz]

I think this is unlikely to happen. I would fully support banning advertising for boosting for gold I am just skeptical blizzard will hire moderation staff or find a way to automate a system functional enough to do so.

It's actually not as hard as you might think, since the % of accounts engaged in providing boosting services is quite small. Pretty easy to automate a system to monitor players engaged in high enough levels of gameplay to boost, flag them internally if they are in groups that meet certain criteria, then manually review those flags and act accordingly.

[Katchii]

Banned? Highly doubt it. More regulated so chat channels aren't clogged with it constantly? Absolutely.

I'm not convinced they're going to try and tell players what they can and can't do with their in game gold when using it to pay for in-game things, or what players can and can't do with their time on the server, so long as it is within the limits of the terms of service.

[rhorle]

I did not talk about "bad", but about "epidemic", which means, gold selling was toxic in every way but not happening as much as boosting does nowadays.

Another way to say "not happening as much" is to say it isn't as bad as something. The mosquitos were not as bad this year means they are not happening as much as they in a previous year. It is a pretty common phrasing in the US so I'll just chock this up to a cultural thing.

No, you are not, as i would allow everyone to learn every profession. You want potions? Learn Alchemy. You want potions in a raid guild? Bring the mats and let the guild alchemist create guildbound potions for you.

So changing the core of the game just to combat boosting. When much simpler ways like an official boosting tool would work. The problem wouldn't get worse if boosting was required to use a specific tool for advertising or runs. It would contain it to that tool so trade chat and the normal LFG tool don't get bogged down by boosting. It also makes moderation of those channels easier.

Selling a dungeon run is playing together. People trading gold for in-game services is being social. lol.

[Relapses]

Oh yeah. Demand dictates supply. Where have you been while economics lessons?

As long there is no supply, there is no demand. And if the demand is against TOS as the supply is, the market goes down close to flatline. No gold selling was ever as epidemic as boosting is. Simply because boosting is perfectly legal. Hopefully not for long anymore.

Yeah dude, all they have to do is enforce the rules and then people stop doing it. Tell me, how'd that war on drugs turn out?

[rhorle]

Just accept you did not really get what i was talking about. But nevermind. And sorry for a possible confusion. Epidemic simply means it spreads like a virus and is as dangerous, and gold selling was spreading way less than token sales and boosting nowadays. If the gold selling had worse effects in older days is not really a question, nonetheless nowadays golld selling is bad as well, just in another way.

Again you clearly didn't play when gold sellers would advertise with corpses in the cities. Boosting is no where near as bad as gold selling was back in its prime.

The "core" of the game is simply to handle one currency like any other. And really, that is no argument. If you argument with your subjective understanding of what is "core" or not will not adress the problems a system does create.

Professions are a core system of the game. Changing them so everyone can learn all of the professions is a big change for WoW. Removing the ability to trade anything with other players is a core change. You stated that everything would be soulbound yet already are making exceptions for consumables. It just shows how silly your changes are when they have to be modified from the get go.

You forgot to adress the effect on the community. As you continue to do. Simply because you have no argument or idea how to fix it. People do not play together anymore nowadays, people buy services. Instead of playing with friends, people buy boosts for tokens. That cannot be what a game should be about.

People play together all the time. The people who sell boosts are often friends and play together. You can pug +15s with strangers and play together with people. You have no idea what you are talking about if you think everyone in WoW just buys a service. You also have no idea about people that sell boosts if you think that none of them do it to have fun.

[Celement]

Hiring moderation staff to attack the problem is approaching the issue from the wrong angle. Blizzard approached it from this angle with gold sellers for over a decade until the token was introduced. The problem isn't the boosters or even the people advertising the boosting (though the latter is annoying and I'm sure nobody would complain if it went away). The problem is that players want to be boosted and will do whatever it takes to get boosted. And until Blizzard removes its vertical progression systems from the game (extremely unlikely) boosting will exist. Bans like the one mentioned in the OP would only cause people to stop using the word boost, it'd do nothing to address the underlying issue which is the demand for boosting.

The thing about a black market is the less visible it is the better it is for everyone.

Just because people want to do something they are not allowed to isn't really enough to convince me we should make it easy to do so or risk free.

[Relapses]

Is heroine legal yet? While we are at apples and oranges?

It's an example where attacking the problem from the wrong angle resulted in the problem getting much, much worse. Again, the issue isn't that boosting exists, it's that people want to get boosted. There's no amount of enforcement from Blizzard which will change this. And as long as vertical progression systems exist in WoW, so will boosting. So either you have a fundamentally flawed view where you think that just banning boosting would make boosting go away or you want the game to function in an entirely different fashion than it does currently to fix a problem that most people don't even care that much about (outside of the advertisement spam).

- - - Updated - - -

The thing about a black market is the less visible it is the better it is for everyone.

Just because people want to do something they are not allowed to isn't really enough to convince me we should make it easy to do so or risk free.

Pushing it into the black market doesn't solve the issue. Why does it need to be in the black market, anyway? Most people don't give a shit about boosting, they just hate the advertising spam.

edit: It wouldn't even make it less visible. The people who advertise could give a shit about the ToS. The cost of new accts is less than what they make by advertising so they'd still advertise just as much.

[rhorle]

Thanks to phases, gold sellers can hide their bots way better nowadays. And hey, do you really believe gold selling from 3rd parties was defeated using the token system?

I have never said it was defeated. Stop moving the goal posts and focus only on what is said.

I guess it is not as the devs already announced they think about it, even if not for Dragonflight.

I think the fact they are devoting as much resources to them as they are is proof that it is a core system of WoW. Changing gold and everything to be BoP drastically changes the core of the game. If you make exceptions for "guild effort" then doesn't that just open up boosting again by having people join the guild first?

Oh yeah, i am sure the "LFG M+15 640k" guys on the group finder are your friends.

I never said they were my friends. I said that those who do the boosting are often times friends. Hence why they are boosting together as a team. With the changes Blizzard made in January boosting is required to be more sociable because you can't have cross realm communities and it is supposed to be an individual group choosing to boost. It is also false that the people buying boosts are doing so because they can't find any groups to pug with or guilds to join. It isn't because guilds are full of people doing boosts.

It is simply because some people would rather boost then do the effort. If you don't want to pay your way then you can still easily find groups or guilds recruiting. You don't seem to have any understanding of how the game currently works or why people boost yet act as if you are some expert on the subject. It really is quite strange.

[BossManRoth]

no you can safely boost now for gold, with this they will not allow you to do so anymore or as i understand it theyll limit it in some way

you've been able to boost for gold since vanilla. and its been happening that long.

[Unholyground]

People are still shitting on this view I have but I know it will happen, I see based on some of these changes they have been making/working towards and with the Microsoft acquisition they will retire the WoW token as it is a primary incentive to boost and go against the tos. MS wants gamepass subs and the WoW token actually hurts thier subs if you can make money by playing a game to buy other games. Also you can already get free gamepass by doing quizes playing games and getting the microsoft rewards app.

3 years from now battle.net and gamepass will be merged making it the largest online player base in the world. Somewhere in there retail WoW gets added to consoles and gamepass.

[Relapses]

Oh i exactly understand how the game currently works. It works by selling tokens to casual gamers making them whales turning them into "customers" for raiding guilds who then give their raidleader the gold to buy free gametime. I am sure that is what Ion meant when he talked about "playing with friend".

This is a conspiracy. You have no idea what portion of Blizzard's revenue comes from boosting. We do know that an admin from Gallywix, one of the largest boosting communities to ever exist, said that even if they RMT'd every boost that it'd only be a few million. Considering Blizzard's current revenue is in the hundreds of millions, it's safe to assume that whatever amount Blizzard takes in from boosting through token sales is peanuts compared to traditional subscriptions and other value added services.

[rhorle]

People are still shitting on this view I have but I know it will happen, I see based on some of these changes they have been making/working towards and with the Microsoft acquisition they will retire the WoW token as it is a primary incentive to boost and fo against the tos. MS wants gamepass subs and the WoW token actually hurts thier subs if you can make money by playing a game to buy other games. Also you can already get free gamepass by doing quizes playing games and getting the microsoft rewards app.

The token makes Blizzard an extra $5. Also Microsoft has rarely messed with the existing subscription models for the games they've purchased. For example they only gave a 1-month trial to the premium Fallout 76 subscription with game pass. They won't sacrifice the money generator of WoW just for game pass subscriptions.

[Schmilblick]

No it won't, banning boosting means banning subscribers.

[Unholyground]

The token makes Blizzard an extra $5. Also Microsoft has rarely messed with the existing subscription models for the games they've purchased. For example they only gave a 1-month trial to the premium Fallout 76 subscription with game pass. They won't sacrifice the money generator of WoW just for game pass subscriptions.

Ya but those games all suck in comparison and are mostly free to play, Warcraft is the biggest IP as far as recognition and having it under gamepass makes gamepass impossible to not have... anyone who plays WoW has no choice but to accept the merge and changes. In many cases people around the world will also pay less monthly for WoW at that point. My guess is you will still have to buy the current expansion and that is fine.

[rhorle]

Stop twisting words. Debate fairly. If you try rhetoric tricks i will adress them. And sure, gold selling always was and is bad. There are still hackers which compromise accounts. There are still 3rd party services which sell gold. Ontop of that, Blizzard created their own gold selling services, adding an incentive for organized groups to sell boosting runs for gold they could turn into gametime. All of that combined is even more worse than anything ever before.

Again. I have never said gold selling doesn't still exist. For someone focus on twisting words you keep inventing things. It still doesn't change that boosting is currently nowhere near as bad as gold selling was in its prime.

Yeah, but being a "core" system is no argument not to change it.

I never said it was an argument for not changing the system. Only that there are better ways to combat boosting then changing core systems of the game. It takes a lot of work to make those changes and you are already saying exceptions will be made which makes those changes pointless to begin with. Just combat boosting rather then trying to reinvent the wheel just for the sake of it.

No, they are not. They spam your groupfinder, and you do not know them

Again I am talking about those doing the boosting and not those buying the boosting. In a M+ boost it is very likely that the 4 members doing the boost will know each other and be social.

Oh i exactly understand how the game currently works. It works by selling tokens to casual gamers making them whales turning them into "customers" for raiding guilds who then give their raidleader the gold to buy free gametime. I am sure that is what Ion meant when he talked about "playing with friend".

You 100% do not understand how the game works. You keep trying to claim that no one can join a pug, join a guild, or do any social activity with out buying a boost. This is easily verifiable if you actually play the game. You don't play it so instead you conjure up your fantasy of what the game is like. And 100% believe that it is how the game actually works.

[rhorle]

Ya but those games all suck in comparison and are mostly free to play, Warcraft is the biggest IP as far as recognition and having it under gamepass makes gamepass impossible to not have...

Lol. So proof that what you say is likely to not happen is just dismissed. But it for sure is going to happen they way you say because you say so.