Why doesn't blizzard crack down on boosters abusing lfg?

[OokOok]

Because Blizzard doesn't give a flying fuck about WoW anymore. Just look at the quality of Shadowlands.

Saying BLIZZARD means you're throwing it in as a whole, all employees all investors, no one cares about wow. Which just isn't true.

I'm sure majority of the employees care, i'm sure majority of the higher ups also care. It's hard to watch John Hight in all his interviews and say he doesn't care when he has more enthusiasm and excitement then all of MMoC combined.
But there's nothing they can do, orders come from the very top.

[Lochton]

Saying BLIZZARD means you're throwing it in as a whole, all employees all investors, no one cares about wow. Which just isn't true.

I'm sure majority of the employees care, i'm sure majority of the higher ups also care. It's hard to watch John Hight in all his interviews and say he doesn't care when he has more enthusiasm and excitement then all of MMoC combined.
But there's nothing they can do, orders come from the very top.

Not to mention the staff doing the moderating and support are in the low numbers when it comes to in-game handling. They need players to be the guard dogs, to sniff out and report what they do not see.

[rhorle]

Except they do supply the gold because it's their coding that makes the gold. They create the sources for grinding the gold. Saying they have no hand on it is utterly asinine and is just you trying desperately to avoid saying anything negative about Blizzard.

The sources for grinding gold still do not magically cause a token to be bought. It requires a player to farm the gold and purchase a token. Code supplying gold doesn't change that the token does not create gold and thus it isn't supplied by Blizzard in the transaction. The only one desperate here is yourself who is moving the goal posts to lines of code.

I don't care if you speak negative about blizzard just use facts. Instead of weird hate logic.

[TheRevenantHero]

The sources for grinding gold still do not magically cause a token to be bought. It requires a player to farm the gold and purchase a token. Code supplying gold doesn't change that the token does not create gold and thus it isn't supplied by Blizzard in the transaction. The only one desperate here is yourself who is moving the goal posts to lines of code.

I don't care if you speak negative about blizzard just use facts. Instead of weird hate logic.

I have used facts. You blatantly disregard facts each time someone says something negative about Blizzard. I haven't moved any goalpost. Blizzard has crippled their own in game chat system with the tokens. Because now more people than ever have ways to extract gold from people who hoard it. Blizzard has essentially encouraged boosters to invade chat channels because they only say that you can't advertise in LFG, knowing damn well chat channels are spammed with boosters.

[Temp name]

No - they buy the token from another player, that's the way the system works. Blizzard is the FOREX trader.

First someone buys it from blizzard for 20 dollars
Second that person lists it on the ah
Third a second person buys it from the ah
Fourth that person redeems the token for 15 dollars

In this, blizzard makes at least 5 dollars, and up to 20 if the person who redeemed it otherwise wouldn't have subbed/used that service

[Marxman]

Botting has been out of control since TBC.

I've played this game since Dec 2004. Botting has never been as bad as it is in the past ~2 years. Never.

[Lochton]

I've played this game since Dec 2004. Botting has never been as bad as it is in the past ~2 years. Never.

Played since launch, botting was hell in TBC and Wrath. The least botting I've seen was MoP, but MoP was hell with multi-boxers. As for current content. I do not see much botting myself on the EU server I play on.

[cparle87]

All it would take is one intern banning people spamming WTS groups and they could easily make the system far more useable without their games grouping tool resembling a gold selling site.

Why don't they do it?

Because boosting people for ingame gold isn't against the rules. You can report them if they spam too much but boosting is not against the rules.

[Coldkil]

Because boosting people for ingame gold isn't against the rules. You can report them if they spam too much but boosting is not against the rules.

It's against the rules posting ads groups in the LFG tool. The funniest part to me is that Blizzard itself changed the name/description of the groups to a protected value so addons cannot interact with that. We had filters working (you could just filter our WTS/boost/sell keywords and most of the groups would disappear), but now they don't work anymore.

I'm kinda against boosts because in the M+ ecosystem especially you find lots of people with boosted rating gating out people that are working to increase it in the "normal way", but in the ned it's not like you cannot play. It's annoying as hell to have to report manually all these groups to clean the interface and actually see the groups i'm interested in, more than half the groups are just boosters spamming the tool.

[Tziva]

Whether Blizzard is okay with boosting as a concept because it sells tokens is irrelevant in this context, because there are other permitted venues people can use to sell boosts and perpetuate the gold machine that way. Blizzard made a point to state it wasn't allowed in the group finder anymore, they just have actually failed on any level of enforcement outside of a performative example when they made the policy. If they really didn't care at all, they probably wouldn't have bothered with the policy change to begin with and just let it be allowed everywhere. But instead they consciously made and announced a new rule, but are completely incompetent at putting any teeth behind that rule.

No one is really expecting Blizzard to ban boosting entirely and stop milking that cow. Pushing the groups out of the group finder isn't doing that. Hell, Blizzard could make a tab just for selling boosts and carries if they really wanted to encourage token selling and I guarantee it would both get use and alleviate the issue at hand. Blizzard could rake in more cash and the rest of us who PuG a lot would be delighted to have the spam garbage stop clogging up the queue when we look for real runs.

There's also a point where you're losing sub money because regular players find it exhausting to find real groups because they are inundated with garbage listings when they try. There is certainly a middle ground out there where they rake in their token gold without regular players cancelling their subs in frustrating, and that middle ground is probably found by making some degree of effort to push it into /trade chat where it's actually approved. I personally don't give any fucks whatsoever if some rube wants to buy KSM because they don't realise they can PuG it for free, I just don't want to have to dig through four dozen sale runs to find real keys every goddamn night.

[crusadernero]

All it would take is one intern banning people spamming WTS groups and they could easily make the system far more useable without their games grouping tool resembling a gold selling site.

Why don't they do it?

Because they dont give a shit and it makes them money. Think about it. They sell wow tokens - players sell runs that rewards gear, mounts, achivs & titles. Why should players bother farming gold via proffesions/WQs etc if they can just "LUL TOKEN" and get carried for achivs they need/want?

It would be highly interesting to see the amount of tokens being sold.

If Blizzard did a helluva job and removed the lfg spammers, what would be the point of getting the token? Most stuff needed on your character (enchants++) costs nothing. High prices are on carries(early in a patch, becomes cheaper) and obsene mount prices (tailored to tempt people to buy token).

In the end, this is working as intented.

[SugarPunch]

In this, blizzard makes at least 5 dollars, and up to 20 if the person who redeemed it otherwise wouldn't have subbed/used that service

Why would anyone's decision to sub be based on buying a token, especially since you will lose money if you use the token instead of a sub. You could also just use your gold to sub, so no token needed at all.

[Lochton]

Because boosting people for ingame gold isn't against the rules. You can report them if they spam too much but boosting is not against the rules.

That is not the point.

It IS against the rules to advertise in the LFG system. Just like it IS against the rules to advertise in channels on a secondary account while you play a primary account.

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Why would anyone's decision to sub be based on buying a token, especially since you will lose money if you use the token instead of a sub. You could also just use your gold to sub, so no token needed at all.

Well, the token IS needed to sub for gold, though.

[Malania]

Because Blizzard doesn't give a flying fuck about WoW anymore. Just look at the quality of Shadowlands.

Looks fine to me.

[Kralljin]

Hell, Blizzard could make a tab just for selling boosts and carries if they really wanted to encourage token selling and I guarantee it would both get use and alleviate the issue at hand.

I think the big crux here is that Blizzard does not want to give their seal of approval to boosting and carries with an "official" channel.

Let's not forget, a lot of boosting companies have RMT & goldselling as side avenue, those companies sure as shit aren't as organized just to play WoW for free and there is no way to make real money out of boosting services without breaking the ToS (as the WoW Token / Blizzard balance cannot be converted back into real money).
After all, they sit on a mountain of gold and surely don't just use it to buy stuff off the BMAH.

Secondly, "banning" boosting for gold is frankly also not exactly the most wisest decision, at the end of the day, boosting is service between players like any other.
In Classic / TBC, people also paid Tanks to do a dungeon for them - is that also "against the rules" then?
People paying mages for a portal?

The concept of buying a service from another player with an ingame currency is fundamentally not bad in an online enviroment, the issue is that previously there was no way without breaking the ToS to acquire a lots of gold in the game.

It's just this dilemma of
1. Management would never ever agree to a removal of the WoW Token / increase efforts to crack down on goldbuying / RMT
2. The Devs do not want to honor boosting with an official channel because it has taken on such a highly questionable scale and also is a huge factor for RMT

The way i see it, it's a stalemate situation, hence why Blizzard won't do anything but remind people that the LFG tool is not supposed to be used for boosting advertisements.

[Lochton]

I think the big crux here is that Blizzard does not want to give their seal of approval to boosting and carries with an "official" channel.

Let's not forget, a lot of boosting companies have RMT & goldselling as side avenue, those companies sure as shit aren't as organized just to play WoW for free and there is no way to make real money out of boosting services without breaking the ToS (as the WoW Token / Blizzard balance cannot be converted back into real money).
After all, they sit on a mountain of gold and surely don't just use it to buy stuff off the BMAH.

Secondly, "banning" boosting for gold is frankly also not exactly the most wisest decision, at the end of the day, boosting is service between players like any other.
In Classic / TBC, people also paid Tanks to do a dungeon for them - is that also "against the rules" then?
People paying mages for a portal?

The concept of buying a service from another player with an ingame currency is fundamentally not bad in an online enviroment, the issue is that previously there was no way without breaking the ToS to acquire a lots of gold in the game.

It's just this dilemma of
1. Management would never ever agree to a removal of the WoW Token / increase efforts to crack down on goldbuying
2. The Devs do not want to honor boosting with an official channel because it has taken on such a highly questionable scale and also is a huge factor for RMT

The way i see it, it's a stalemate situation, hence why Blizzard won't do anything but remind people that the LFG tool is not supposed to be used for boosting advertisements.

Well, there is trade chat. That is how official a channel they'll get. And yes, there are still many RMT ToS breaking services out there, so they shouldn't be given better access in the first place.

And I agree. Banning boosting for gold is not a great idea, as boosting for gold has been a thing since Vanilla, and is even done by the most innocent of players.

The dilemma is, that Blizzard has cut so far into the bone that they cannot enforce their rules efficiently enough to keep the problem in check. They rely too much on players to report other players, or to find issues. It has been a growing problem since the end of Wrath.

[Kralljin]

Well, there is trade chat. That is how official a channel they'll get. And yes, there are still many RMT ToS breaking services out there, so they shouldn't be given better access in the first place.

Of course, trade chat is technically the "correct" chat, but due to its nature, it's a fringe case.

Again, using Classic / TBC as an example, a tank advertising a tanking service belongs technically in trade but makes due to its nature more sense in lfg.

[Lochton]

Of course, trade chat is technically the "correct" chat, but due to its nature, it's a fringe case.

Again, using Classic / TBC as an example, a tank advertising a tanking service belongs technically in trade but makes due to its nature more sense in lfg.

Due to the nature of it, it breaks the general rule. No advertisement in LFG. Boosting, role-services, sales, anything, trade chat.

[Raisei]

All it would take is one intern banning people spamming WTS groups and they could easily make the system far more useable without their games grouping tool resembling a gold selling site.

Why don't they do it?

Because it is not against the rules until real money comes into the equation, that's why. They will and have acted on violations of the "real money" rule.

People are offering their time and skill to carry others through content they would not usually be able to do for ingame gold. Not very different from selling a BoE on the Auction House. I don't see a problem here, both sides get what they want.
You don't have to participate if you don't want to and the listings in the Group Finder are not limited, so it does not take anything from you. It offending your eyes is simply not a valid reason for bans.

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Because Blizzard doesn't give a flying fuck about WoW anymore. Just look at the quality of Shadowlands.

Do you really have nothing better to do then stalking this WoW forum for opportunities to spread lies about the game? That Final Fantasy you are praising so much must not be holding your interest a lot if you still feel the constant need to come back here.

[Pretorian]

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Do you really have nothing better to do then stalking this WoW forum for opportunities to spread lies about the game? That Final Fantasy you are praising so much must not be holding your interest a lot if you still feel the constant need to come back here.

He's been spouting anti-WoW venom everywhere on these forums just because he hates it.
Fingers crossed he gets banned at some point.

Claiming the developer doesn't care about their biggest product is extremely narrow minded and moronic.