Page 7 of 12 FirstFirst ...
5
6
7
8
9
... LastLast
  1. #121
    Blizzard created the problem when they allowed people to cash tokens in for store $$. It will not go away now unless they go free to play which would devalue tokens. But then they would actually need to make WoW a good game again so that won't happen lol.
    Lead Game Designer

    YouTube Channel

    https://www.youtube.com/@Nateanderthal

  2. #122
    Free Food!?!?! Tziva's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Cretaceous Period
    Posts
    22,793
    Quote Originally Posted by arkanon View Post
    I agree with you and believe you, but just wondering if its the same PLAYER listing the group? I know some players use a random low level toon or even alt account to advertise their group, but i suspect many of those are actually asking for real money at some point
    Yes, the same characters over and over again.

    I don't expect Blizzard to be able to remove all players representing boosting sites when some of those making listing might have never listed a key before, but unfortunately that isn't even what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the same boost groups with the same players that can be seen in the group finder habitually and over long periods of time.

    (you also can't do listing on low level toons anymore; they broke that ability in Shadowlands. You can't even use the Tool now until you're 50 or higher)


    for moderation questions/concerns, please contact a global:

    TzivaRadux SimcaElysiaZaelsinoxskarmaVenara

    | twitch | bsky
    |

  3. #123
    Quote Originally Posted by Marxman View Post
    They are implicitly giving their approval by not banning the accounts spam advertising it all over the place. This is not a grey issue. Either ban the accounts, like the rules say you should, or create a channel that is strictly for boost spam. What we have now is a middleground that is the worst of both worlds.
    They. Ban. In. Waves. How many times must people be told this?

    I seriously get sick of the "I don't see you fighting something therefore you must approve of it" mindset. Friend of mine got beaten up by a right wing nutjob on his own college campus when he walked past a bunch of them without wearing the same "antifa must burn" t-shirt as the crazies. There's a line between implicity and conspiracy theories.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Unholyground View Post
    Blizzard created the problem when they allowed people to cash tokens in for store $$. It will not go away now unless they go free to play which would devalue tokens. But then they would actually need to make WoW a good game again so that won't happen lol.
    And allowing the black market gold sellers and boosters who thrive off stealing the accounts and credit cards of their naive customers, causing Blizzard no end to headaches both ingame and legal, is totally the better option.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Crimson Spears View Post
    With a live monitor they could easily shut down those accounts to the point it couldn't be profitable to keep creating them.
    I shudder to think of all the "I dindu nuffin!" tickets Blizzard would be buried by if they had live ingame people who could ban you. The bots would bring Blizzard itself down simply by spamming tickets for all their bots they had caught.
    The most difficult thing to do is accept that there is nothing wrong with things you don't like and accept that people can like things you don't.

  4. #124
    Free Food!?!?! Tziva's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Cretaceous Period
    Posts
    22,793
    Quote Originally Posted by cparle87 View Post
    They. Ban. In. Waves. How many times must people be told this?
    They ban botting in waves. They do this out of necessity because it allows them time to track and monitor the bots so they can teach their backend processes to better identify them for future, and because those usually result in account closure. It isn't their approach to all varieties of suspensions and bans. Other violations don't operate this way because it isn't necessary and doesn't make sense in most other contexts, such as for violations that result in temporary suspensions rather than an account being closed. Spam/advertisement bans have historically always been handled on a regular, ongoing basis, not in waves, as have other account actions focused on social/community harm which is what misuse of the LFG tool would fall under.

    But even if it was the case that they'd address LFG abuse in waves, they haven't done a single wave since they implemented the policy, to the great detriment of the players that use it. I think it's a little naive to think they are just waiting months and months pooling a massive list of players who misused the group tool at some point to do some kind of super ban wave, especially when this is the kind of infraction that they'd normally do escalating actions for with short suspensions of increasing length before they outright closed their accounts.


    for moderation questions/concerns, please contact a global:

    TzivaRadux SimcaElysiaZaelsinoxskarmaVenara

    | twitch | bsky
    |

  5. #125
    The Insane rhorle's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    Michigan
    Posts
    19,487
    Quote Originally Posted by Tziva View Post
    But even if it was the case that they'd address LFG abuse in waves, they haven't done a single wave since they implemented the policy, to the great detriment of the players that use it. I think it's a little naive to think they are just waiting months and months pooling a massive list of players who misused the group tool at some point to do some kind of super ban wave, especially when this is the kind of infraction that they'd normally do escalating actions for with short suspensions of increasing length before they outright closed their accounts.
    Waiting to do it in waves also allows them to track for potential RMT transactions and other violations. Just because we don't hear about it often doesn't mean it doesn't happen. There was the gallywix incident. It could also get lost if the ban wave includes people who did other illegal boost related stuff. But just from a brief glance of stuff it does seem like they do both waves and individual action. There were reports around the launch of the expansion of a lot of people getting hit with action. Then there is "A new, unannounced rule change just cost me over 100m gold" which if you search for the reddit thread on r/wow you'll see the implication of a ban wave though no proof of one.
    "Man is his own star. His acts are his angels, good or ill, While his fatal shadows walk silently beside him."-Rhyme of the Primeval Paradine AFC 54
    You know a community is bad when moderators lock a thread because "...this isnt the place to talk about it either seeing as it will get trolled..."

  6. #126
    Free Food!?!?! Tziva's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Cretaceous Period
    Posts
    22,793
    Quote Originally Posted by rhorle View Post
    Waiting to do it in waves also allows them to track for potential RMT transactions and other violations. Just because we don't hear about it often doesn't mean it doesn't happen. There was the gallywix incident. It could also get lost if the ban wave includes people who did other illegal boost related stuff. But just from a brief glance of stuff it does seem like they do both waves and individual action. There were reports around the launch of the expansion of a lot of people getting hit with action. Then there is "A new, unannounced rule change just cost me over 100m gold" which if you search for the reddit thread on r/wow you'll see the implication of a ban wave though no proof of one.
    The Gallywix thing at the start of the expansion was the only actions they took, and they took it when they announced the policy. It was clearly performative because nothing has been done since those. (I did reference it a couple times in other posts fwiw)

    And, yeah, I'm pretty comfortable saying that if I dont hear about a massive ban wave on MMOC (or reddit, or social media, or in-game) then it didn't happen. I've been a mod here long enough to now how extremely unlikely it is that they'd do a wave of bans on something as prolific as boost/sale runs in the Group Finder and you'd hear about it no where. I also know that if they were actually addressing these reports, I wouldn't continue to see the same people listing the same groups on the same characters for weeks or months at a time.

    I'm not a person that typically makes sweeping statements or broad generalisations but in this context? There is zero evidence to suggest they have taken absolutely any actions to address these groups in the Tool other than what they did when they first announced this policy, and I'm not going to tell myself the bedtime story about how despite that they actually do care and actually are doing things. If that's what people need to tell themselves so they aren't frustrated with the scenario then fine, but I just feel like that is deluding ourselves.

    I'd love to be wrong. I'd love for Blizzard to prove me wrong tomorrow. All I know is that right now when I open up the group finder, fully half of the groups are garbage advertising and it is exhausting to try to find real people to play with, which is the entire draw of this game to me.


    for moderation questions/concerns, please contact a global:

    TzivaRadux SimcaElysiaZaelsinoxskarmaVenara

    | twitch | bsky
    |

  7. #127
    Quote Originally Posted by cparle87 View Post
    They. Ban. In. Waves. How many times must people be told this?

    I seriously get sick of the "I don't see you fighting something therefore you must approve of it" mindset. Friend of mine got beaten up by a right wing nutjob on his own college campus when he walked past a bunch of them without wearing the same "antifa must burn" t-shirt as the crazies. There's a line between implicity and conspiracy theories.

    - - - Updated - - -



    And allowing the black market gold sellers and boosters who thrive off stealing the accounts and credit cards of their naive customers, causing Blizzard no end to headaches both ingame and legal, is totally the better option.

    - - - Updated - - -



    I shudder to think of all the "I dindu nuffin!" tickets Blizzard would be buried by if they had live ingame people who could ban you. The bots would bring Blizzard itself down simply by spamming tickets for all their bots they had caught.
    Blizzard overvaluing their IP isn't something new, it is pretty hard to crack an authenticator, if you don't have one you are a fool.
    Lead Game Designer

    YouTube Channel

    https://www.youtube.com/@Nateanderthal

  8. #128
    Quote Originally Posted by TheRevenantHero View Post
    Because of tokens, more people have more gold because now the people who hoard gold can use that gold for game time and the people who don't want to farm gold can just sell tokens. So tokens have a direct impact of boosts because now more people can afford them.
    It doesn't work like that. Gold value is dependent of effort that is required to earn it in game and everything scales with it. While token is literally auto scaled with demand/supply.

    Boosts on the other hand are purely demand driven. You cannot artificially create demand on boosts out of thin air. Just like you won't make millions selling broken toilets.
    There has to be actual value in that.

    And if gold is harder to earn, price of boosts goes down (deflation) because ultimately the only reliable variable to compare service price (at least in WoW) is time spent.

    In other words, your understanding of economics is lacking.

    The only direct impact token has is that some people that used to buy gold off 3rd party now buy them from blizzard and blizzard takes a cut. There might be a bit more people buying gold now but there are also way less amount of people playing.

    Much much much more impact on the boost demand is that now you get mount for KSM. And you can expect even higher demand now that it requires doing both tyranical and forti.
    Ship has been abandoned.
    ---

    NextUI for XIV


  9. #129
    Quote Originally Posted by rhorle View Post
    Blizzard doesn't supply the gold though. Another player supplies the gold when they purchase it from the AH. If no one purchases the token then no gold is given to the player that posted the token on the AH. Blizzard has a hand in it but they do not supply the gold. Simple facts.
    Only partially true. If you get quoted 200k gold when listing a token, then you get that 200k even if the price tanks to 150k right after. The system, aka blizzard generates the difference.
    Quote Originally Posted by Jtbrig7390 View Post
    True, I was just bored and tired but you are correct.

    Last edited by Thwart; Today at 05:21 PM. Reason: Infracted for flaming
    Quote Originally Posted by epigramx View Post
    millennials were the kids of the 9/11 survivors.

  10. #130
    Stood in the Fire Krimzin's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Fort Worth, TX
    Posts
    455
    Quote Originally Posted by Crimson Spears View Post
    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 the turds who buy Carries are same ones buying tokens to pay for the carries. Its a winning combo for Blizzard.
    Just because I'm a gamer doesn't mean I drive a Honda.
    Best Duo Ever
    Go Fast or Go Slow

    Lets see your Battle Stations /r/battlestations
    Battle Station Light or Battle Station Dark




  11. #131
    blizzard doesn't care. did you read any of their recent earning reports? they make more money off token sales (and services) than actual subscriptions. they. do. not. care.

  12. #132
    The Insane rhorle's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    Michigan
    Posts
    19,487
    Quote Originally Posted by Tziva View Post
    I'm not a person that typically makes sweeping statements or broad generalisations but in this context? There is zero evidence to suggest they have taken absolutely any actions to address these groups in the Tool other than what they did when they first announced this policy, and I'm not going to tell myself the bedtime story about how despite that they actually do care and actually are doing things. If that's what people need to tell themselves so they aren't frustrated with the scenario then fine, but I just feel like that is deluding ourselves.
    It is a bit silly to say there has been zero evidence to suggest they taken action. While some of those links are just statements the wowhead one at least references the reddit article of my last post. Where a person, and a reference to others in a "wave", got banned for advertising in-game.

    It is no where near enough but there is still stuff being done. I like what the one customer service rep said in one of my links. It isn't as simple as zapping them with a lightning bolt. Blizzard is slow to respond to a lot of stuff. I wonder how the pandemic impacted the hacks and other teams related to what action happens in cases like this.

    https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...group/906002/9
    https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...sing/847237/16
    https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...inder/993728/4
    https://www.wowhead.com/news/blizzar...-320341?page=7
    Last edited by rhorle; 2021-06-22 at 04:56 AM.
    "Man is his own star. His acts are his angels, good or ill, While his fatal shadows walk silently beside him."-Rhyme of the Primeval Paradine AFC 54
    You know a community is bad when moderators lock a thread because "...this isnt the place to talk about it either seeing as it will get trolled..."

  13. #133
    Quote Originally Posted by NotTrolling View Post
    blizzard doesn't care. did you read any of their recent earning reports? they make more money off token sales (and services) than actual subscriptions. they. do. not. care.
    They do care long term but yes short term they are raking in money. Long term it is not sustainable because boosting undermines progression for legit players. The reduced pool of players also makes it less fun for those that did boost so it is a vicious cycle. Less players available leads to more players feeling they have to boost as there are less players to group up with and progress gear wise. Rinse and repeat.

  14. #134
    Quote Originally Posted by Steelangel View Post
    They could stop or slow boosting in PvP by simply disallowing characters who have earned a maximum CR of 1400/1600/1800/2100 from queueing with anyone below those cutoffs.


    Such a shortsighted suggestion. What happens when hardcore pvp henry plays with his main team to a huge rank, then wants to casually play with his friends that barely ever pvp? Now they cant play the game together because of a stupid idea to "fix" boosting. Your fix would stop most boosting sure but the cure is worse than the disease...

  15. #135
    Quote Originally Posted by Mafic View Post
    They do care long term but yes short term they are raking in money. Long term it is not sustainable because boosting undermines progression for legit players. The reduced pool of players also makes it less fun for those that did boost so it is a vicious cycle. Less players available leads to more players feeling they have to boost as there are less players to group up with and progress gear wise. Rinse and repeat.
    Why would that undermine progression for legit players?
    Any competent player can get keystone master with a group of other competent players.
    Any competent player can with his guild of competent players get cutting edge.

    Nobody who is competent, I am not saying good, just competent, can easily find other competent people to do the content in-game. And such people neither need nor desire a "boost".

  16. #136
    Quote Originally Posted by T-34 View Post
    Why would that undermine progression for legit players?
    Any competent player can get keystone master with a group of other competent players.
    Any competent player can with his guild of competent players get cutting edge.

    Nobody who is competent, I am not saying good, just competent, can easily find other competent people to do the content in-game. And such people neither need nor desire a "boost".
    When a population reduces even a competent player has to make a hard decisions regarding finding other competent players. It is not so simple on less populated servers. This problem with less populated servers always existed but now is accelerating to other realms.

    High pop servers don't feels such pressures right now but that could change.

  17. #137
    The Undying Lochton's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    FEEL THE WRATH OF MY SPANNER!!
    Posts
    37,509
    Quote Originally Posted by Marxman View Post
    They are implicitly giving their approval by not banning the accounts spam advertising it all over the place. This is not a grey issue. Either ban the accounts, like the rules say you should, or create a channel that is strictly for boost spam. What we have now is a middleground that is the worst of both worlds.
    Well. There have been some accounts banned. Remember? We had a few articles popping up now and then about people whining that they got banned because they advertised on a secondary account, or their main gold mule got banned because it was spamming in the LFG system. A lot of crying over a lot of gold. It was a good laugh when they thought they could get sympathy by being interviewed or making posts on Reddit.
    FOMO: "Fear Of Missing Out", also commonly known as people with a mental issue of managing time and activities, many expecting others to fit into their schedule so they don't miss out on things to come. If FOMO becomes a problem for you, do seek help, it can be a very unhealthy lifestyle..

  18. #138
    Quote Originally Posted by Mafic View Post
    When a population reduces even a competent player has to make a hard decisions regarding finding other competent players. It is not so simple on less populated servers. This problem with less populated servers always existed but now is accelerating to other realms.

    High pop servers don't feels such pressures right now but that could change.
    I agree on mythic raiding. That is a big problem except for the biggest servers. But on the other hand people that like to raid flock to the biggest servers, so Blizzard gets its cut from all those server transfers.
    Heroic raiding and M+ isn't a problem due to cross-realm.

    We can only hope for that Blizzard will open up for cross-faction and cross-realm mythic raiding soon.

  19. #139
    The Undying Lochton's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    FEEL THE WRATH OF MY SPANNER!!
    Posts
    37,509
    Quote Originally Posted by NabyBro View Post
    How fucking hard is it for people to type in "/leave trade" my god?

    There is literally NOTHING else in Trade chat ever. So if you don't want to see boosting shit just leave the channel.

    Boom, your problem is solved.
    Except, the topic is about Looking For Group system, not trade. Advertisement is meant to go there in the first place.
    FOMO: "Fear Of Missing Out", also commonly known as people with a mental issue of managing time and activities, many expecting others to fit into their schedule so they don't miss out on things to come. If FOMO becomes a problem for you, do seek help, it can be a very unhealthy lifestyle..

  20. #140
    The Insane rhorle's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    Michigan
    Posts
    19,487
    Quote Originally Posted by Mafic View Post
    When a population reduces even a competent player has to make a hard decisions regarding finding other competent players. It is not so simple on less populated servers. This problem with less populated servers always existed but now is accelerating to other realms. High pop servers don't feels such pressures right now but that could change.
    You are over looking how the people providing the boosts are competent players. The problems of finding competent players remains the same. Because either they stick around regardless of boosts (or stick around by providing the boosts) or the stop playing the game until new content is around. Boosting doesn't really change that because there were always others doing the same as you.

    It can potentially help as well since less competent, but higher geared, is better then low competence and low gear. Most guilds that struggle are likely already hitting a wall of skill. So gear helps more then competency.
    "Man is his own star. His acts are his angels, good or ill, While his fatal shadows walk silently beside him."-Rhyme of the Primeval Paradine AFC 54
    You know a community is bad when moderators lock a thread because "...this isnt the place to talk about it either seeing as it will get trolled..."

Posting Permissions

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