I have a question about the morality of banning gold farmers and wow tolkens.

[exochaft]

Blizzard tried for years to eradicate gold sellers and botters and boosters. But they just kept popping up like mushrooms. Tokens have literally helped to reduce every one of the issues he listed more effectively than any other strategy deployed in the past.

Read your entire post, just snipped for space.

Besides from the gameplay and social damage instantly purchasable gold has on the game, there's huge assumptions with your deflation argument, and I'm coming from a similar place as you that has had zero efforts making millions in the game (to be fair, we're a very rare breed).

First of all, as I mentioned earlier, a huge assumption is that WoW tokens are 1-to-1 generated from someone using gold to purchase game time or B.Net balance and that they cannot just be created out of thing air. We know for certain they can just be made out of thin air, because Blizz did this in WoD. What we do not know is the exact volume of transactions either way, nor do we know exactly the price calculations based upon said volume. If Blizz was heavily focused on money and don't care about inflation that much, just generating WoW tokens out of the air would be a massive amount of revenue compared to even a 1-to-1 scenario makes them money.

Another assumption is that the mere existence of WoW tokens (aka, easy and legal way to buy gold) doesn't influence prices. In the sales run community, prices are heavily influence more with the token existing versus natural inflation of the game over time... actually most things are, but that ties into another point to be addressed next. Even if we assumed 1-to-1 WoW token creation was what's going on and nothing else, it's still influencing prices due to how easy it is to access that amount of gold compared to the old fashioned way.

Another assumption is that inflation in the game is mostly due to the natural increase in gold sources as the game goes on, but the rate of increase in costs of goods and services has been exceeding the natural gold source inflation... which would point to WoW tokens being just created outside of the assumed market forces creation. While it's admittedly easier to generate more gold natural in the game, it still takes time and effort to do so. One of the natural checks to the game having infinite sources of gold is the amount of time and effort to gain gold limiting what's feasible, both of which the WoW token circumvents.

However, the honest truth is that neither of us know with 100% certainty the entire extent of the WoW token's workings because Blizz will never tell us. There are so many variables we both don't have for and against our arguments, but there's nothing we can really do about that. I could be wrong, you could be wrong, we just have information that could go either way based upon assumptions. However, based upon Blizz's behaviors when it comes to metrics such as these, I don't think the benefit of the doubt is earned. Their history is to spin the facts into a positive narrative or never admit they were the source of an issue or that their cures are worse than the disease...or worst case, hide their malfeasance until they get caught with their pants down. Basically, I'm at the point where I don't trust their decision-making to be sound.

Want to know the honest truth from my end? I honestly thought the exact same arguments and assumptions you did back in WoD, but after watching the long-term effects from various aspects of the WoW community and the economy over time I changed my tune. Blizz's increasingly terrible decisions and revealed motivations over the years are also a major driver in my change of view and construction of new assumptions. I wanted the system to work as advertised, but Blizz is not known for their systems to working as advertised.

Basically, this.

The WoW token is obviously a form of gold selling (that is the explicit purpose, to allow players to trade game time for gold); however, not all gold selling is equal. The difference is evident on TBC Classic where the major problem with Gold Sellers (which includes botters and whatnot) is that they simultaneously inflate the economy (i.e.: increase the amount of gold in circulation and decrease people's purchasing power) while also devaluing some resources (i.e.: heavily farmed resources or items become less expensive due to the economy being flooded with them). A good example of this are BoE epics like the Blade of Wizardry, which are valued at a fraction of what they should be due partially to targeted farming of lucrative instances like Slave Pens.

TL;DR: WoW Token > Gold Sellers, but would prefer neither.

All the WoW token has really done is shift where the botting and scam activity occurs in the game, as all that's basically been done is allow the exact same illegal behavior as long as Blizz gets a cut. For actual numbers? Yeah, as I stated above, Blizz will never tell us. All we have are anecdotal evidence for our experiences, and my experience in retail has been just as bad as it always has been... the activities just change in how they ultimately achieve their same goal. Gold selling still occurs, the prices just tend to be based upon the WoW token's value. Heck, the WoW token is even used in the illegal activity to either facilitate the activities in various ways.

Simply put, the WoW token just legalizes an illegal activity that has been shown to have negative impacts on the game. One can say that the WoW token has helped protect people from getting scammed... but you're still engaging in an illegal activity, it's just safer and legal because Blizz gets a cut, still keeping all the negative impacts on the game.

[mbit]

Cringeworthy. Just cringeworthy. Especially given your own example of "thinking" which follows.



Absolute nonsense.

Botting is not a requirement to make gold in this game. It is simply a shortcut to doing so. Now I won't pretend that no one buying tokens is botting. I am sure some do. But that doesn't mean that all or even most do. Gold is being generated by players constantly, just doing stuff in the game, some more effectively than others.

Token sellers aren't looking specifically for *botted* gold. And your assertion that they are is ridiculous. They are simply looking for gold. Period. And there is more than enough gold available from honest sources than is needed.

The only cringe is your Alzheimer. Botting was never a requirement to make gold but your initial premise was "thanks to token i dont have to bot" which is garbage until you can ensure you ain't buying botted gold. And stop strawmaning to justify your nonsense. Reading your posts gives me second hand embarrassment.

[Raelbo]

The only cringe is your Alzheimer. Botting was never a requirement to make gold but your initial premise was "thanks to token i dont have to bot" which is garbage until you can ensure you ain't buying botted gold.

Firstly that was never my initial premise. The premise you were answering to was that tokens provide a safe alternative to buying from goldsellers and/or employing bots. Nothing you have said counters that. You've simply created a strawman here that you can defeat without addressing what I actually said.

Secondly, whether or not I can ensure that I am not buying botted gold is utterly irrelevant to the premise I stated in that even if only some of the gold is not botted, that is an improvement over buying gold from goldsellers which is 100% botted.

As I already acknowledged, there is still botting in the game. I have no doubt that there are players who bot in order to get gold in order to buy tokens and play for free. But if you're being honest, the incentive to do so is far less than for a goldseller trying to sell gold for cash. And that was always the problem with actual goldsellers - they had a much stronger financial incentive to wreak havoc on the game in their efforts to sell as much gold as possible, whereas the incentive on the token buyer is a lot weaker since they can never actually get money out. If all you are doing is just trying to farm enough gold to pay your monthly sub then you really don't need a bot to do that. And if you're botting to buy Blizzard balance to buy other stuff, then that likely means you are more invested in your account and less likely to do something that could get you banned.

And stop strawmaning to justify your nonsense.

That is hilarious given the blatant strawman you just made preceding this statement. lol lol lol.

Reading your posts gives me second hand embarrassment.

Yeah you should be embarrassed, but it has nothing to do with me. lol

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By reduced your mean made exponentially worse right? There has never been more p2w,adds, or bots then now.

I honestly don't know what you're talking about because - and I hate to grammar police - but in this case what you wrote is literally incomprehensible. What are p2w,adds? I am assuming it's shorthand for something, but you can't assume that your audience understands your code.

As for the existence of bots, I can tell you with absolute certainty that when Blizzard introduced tokens, that problem saw a significant improvement. I will agree with your assessment though that over the last few years the problem has been gaining traction. But what is the basis for laying the blame on tokens? If anything I would blame this on poor policing by Blizzard. It is a known fact that they have cut significant costs in their GM department, and many have complained in recent times that Blizzard don't act against botting as proactively as they used to. And while you might try and claim that Blizzard complacency in this regard might be the result of the success of tokens in reducing the problem, that simply proves the point I am making

[SinR]

I really don't give a shit, spend all the money you want, but you can't buy skill.

But those 27 that think its WORSE? come on

[Empower]

Firstly that was never my initial premise. The premise you were answering to was that tokens provide a safe alternative to buying from goldsellers and/or employing bots. Nothing you have said counters that. You've simply created a strawman here that you can defeat without addressing what I actually said.

Secondly, whether or not I can ensure that I am not buying botted gold is utterly irrelevant to the premise I stated in that even if only some of the gold is not botted, that is an improvement over buying gold from goldsellers which is 100% botted.

As I already acknowledged, there is still botting in the game. I have no doubt that there are players who bot in order to get gold in order to buy tokens and play for free. But if you're being honest, the incentive to do so is far less than for a goldseller trying to sell gold for cash. And that was always the problem with actual goldsellers - they had a much stronger financial incentive to wreak havoc on the game in their efforts to sell as much gold as possible, whereas the incentive on the token buyer is a lot weaker since they can never actually get money out. If all you are doing is just trying to farm enough gold to pay your monthly sub then you really don't need a bot to do that. And if you're botting to buy Blizzard balance to buy other stuff, then that likely means you are more invested in your account and less likely to do something that could get you banned.



That is hilarious given the blatant strawman you just made preceding this statement. lol lol lol.



Yeah you should be embarrassed, but it has nothing to do with me. lol

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I honestly don't know what you're talking about because - and I hate to grammar police - but in this case what you wrote is literally incomprehensible. What are p2w,adds? I am assuming it's shorthand for something, but you can't assume that your audience understands your code.

As for the existence of bots, I can tell you with absolute certainty that when Blizzard introduced tokens, that problem saw a significant improvement. I will agree with your assessment though that over the last few years the problem has been gaining traction. But what is the basis for laying the blame on tokens? If anything I would blame this on poor policing by Blizzard. It is a known fact that they have cut significant costs in their GM department, and many have complained in recent times that Blizzard don't act against botting as proactively as they used to. And while you might try and claim that Blizzard complacency in this regard might be the result of the success of tokens in reducing the problem, that simply proves the point I am making

Ads* perils of being on a phone sometimes autocomplete takes the wheel.

[draugril]

Eesh, this thread is a painful read. In short, you can't directly translate your personal dislike for something into an ethical stance. There's a degree of detachment required here to be objective.

[mbit]

Firstly that was never my initial premise. The premise you were answering to was that tokens provide a safe alternative to buying from goldsellers and/or employing bots.

your fist post :

I mean if even 1 person who previously resorted to goldsellers and or botting has shifted to tokens, then tokens have driven down the problem. I am not saying that tokens have solved the problem entirely, but they have made a noticeable difference.

You literally claimed people stopped because of token. And of course pls ignore anyone who might be motivated to bot now for free sub.

[Cthulhu 2020]

The WoW token is just legitimized gold buying. It's greatly compromised the quality of the game in numerous ways.

It's only MARGINALLY better than allowing hoards of gold sellers to fill your game up with gold selling ads. But allowing your game to be overrun with gold sellers is just what happens when policing that shit means you actually have to hire people to police it. And we know Blizzard doesn't like spending money to make their game better unless they know it will make them more money.

And of course, Blizzard saw the huge market for selling gold and rather than thinking "Hey this is bad for the game, we should probably police these gold sellers" they went "Hey let's allow players to pay us to sell gold to each other for game time and get in on this gold selling biz"

[Raelbo]

Ads* perils of being on a phone sometimes autocomplete takes the wheel.

Ads for various things have *always* been in this game. Stop pretending this is a token induced issue. Hell, people don't even advertise to sell tokens, they advertise for stuff that they are charging gold for, something that you are falsely assuming only happens because of the token.

That advertising increased when Blizzard clarified that selling boosts for gold was not against the ToS. And there is zero reason to believe it wouldn't continue to happen with or without tokens.

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your fist post :

That wasn't my first post. I guess you're just a bit lazy.

But even if you're looking at that post, I started it with an initial premise of (tokens reduce goldselling activity and botting) "By providing a safe and acceptable-within-the-rules-alternative for obtaining gold."

Seriously, you're trying to cherry pick what I said to misrepresent what I said in some quest to win an argument? May as well just admit that you don't have an answer to what I am saying...

You literally claimed people stopped because of token.

Yup, and you literally said that my premise was "thanks to token i dont have to bot" and proceeded to attack that statement. That statement barely even resembles what I actually said, let alone provides an accurate summation thereof. This is known as strawmanning, and by choosing to resort to such a tactic, you're basically, again, admitting you lack a real argument.

Just admit it. You have an irrational hatred of the token which you can't really explain, and it upsets you that it exists. Maybe it's time you started to listen to people who talk sense and stop fixating on it because it really isn't this evil thing that is ruining your game in any other way than what you make it do with this obsession.

[mbit]

Yup, and you literally said that my premise was "thanks to token i dont have to bot" and proceeded to attack that statement. That statement barely even resembles what I actually said, let alone provides an accurate summation thereof. This is known as strawmanning

"person who previously resorted to goldsellers and or botting has shifted to tokens" = "thanks to token i dont have to bot"

The amount of denial you operate on makes you perfect for a career in politics.

[Ringthane]

The MMO-Champion word of the day is:

Strawman.

Repeat:

Strawman.

I swear, some of you saw an Imgur jpeg about logical fallacies and it's like it's your life preserver in the middle of the ocean.

[Empower]

Ads for various things have *always* been in this game. Stop pretending this is a token induced issue. Hell, people don't even advertise to sell tokens, they advertise for stuff that they are charging gold for, something that you are falsely assuming only happens because of the token.

That advertising increased when Blizzard clarified that selling boosts for gold was not against the ToS. And there is zero reason to believe it wouldn't continue to happen with or without tokens.

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That wasn't my first post. I guess you're just a bit lazy.

But even if you're looking at that post, I started it with an initial premise of (tokens reduce goldselling activity and botting) "By providing a safe and acceptable-within-the-rules-alternative for obtaining gold."

Seriously, you're trying to cherry pick what I said to misrepresent what I said in some quest to win an argument? May as well just admit that you don't have an answer to what I am saying...



Yup, and you literally said that my premise was "thanks to token i dont have to bot" and proceeded to attack that statement. That statement barely even resembles what I actually said, let alone provides an accurate summation thereof. This is known as strawmanning, and by choosing to resort to such a tactic, you're basically, again, admitting you lack a real argument.

Just admit it. You have an irrational hatred of the token which you can't really explain, and it upsets you that it exists. Maybe it's time you started to listen to people who talk sense and stop fixating on it because it really isn't this evil thing that is ruining your game in any other way than what you make it do with this obsession.

No one is saying it never existed but you though...you understand that right?

[Raelbo]

The WoW token is just legitimized gold buying. It's greatly compromised the quality of the game in numerous ways.

In what way is the quality of the game compromised?

Again, let's compare the difference between giving people a legitimate way to trade gold for some sort of monetary value with what people will resort to in its absence:

With tokens you have a safe way to exchange gold without the risk of a scam. With goldsellers there is always the risk of getting scammed, not only out of wow gold but also of real life money, having your credit card details stolen, and your wow account hacked and cleaned out and used for botting.

With tokens the incentive of buyers to resort to dodgy methods of gaining gold is low. With goldsellers, they were getting real money out their endeavor, so they would resort to all sorts of things that harmed the game and its player, including stealing accounts and using bots to farm massive amounts of gold (economy breaking amounts)

WoW is a multiplayer game. Being able to obtain resources from other players is a perfectly legitimate part of the game. The problem with goldsellers was never the fact that some players were gaining gold from other players. It was the nature of the activities that the goldsellers engaged in in order to obtain that gold, and the dodgy shit they got up to in terms of scamming and hacking.

It's only MARGINALLY better than allowing hoards of gold sellers to fill your game up with gold selling ads.

You mispelled MASSIVELY.

But allowing your game to be overrun with gold sellers is just what happens when policing that shit means you actually have to hire people to police it. And we know Blizzard doesn't like spending money to make their game better unless they know it will make them more money.

While I agree, this has bugger all to do with tokens.

And of course, Blizzard saw the huge market for selling gold and rather than thinking "Hey this is bad for the game, we should probably police these gold sellers" they went "Hey let's allow players to pay us to sell gold to each other for game time and get in on this gold selling biz"

Not really. That's just conspiracy theory talk with only a small element of truth.

Blizzard put a lot of effort into trying to police goldselling. But it's a continuous, costly exercise that is only semi-effective. Banning the trade of gold between players makes about as much sense as the alcohol prohibition in the USA. All it does is drives those activities underground. Tokens give players a safe alternative using a method that is devoid of the problems associated with traditional goldsellers. It is literally a win-win-win situation for the gamers and the devs alike.

Unfortunately though, because Blizzard decided to make a bit of extra revenue out of this feature, it triggered you lot. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with what they did, you guys simply like to have a cause to whine about. But yeah whatever. Believe what you want to believe. I guess that's the world we live in these days.....

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No one is saying it never existed but you though...you understand that right?

To be honest, I don't understand what you're trying to say. Too vague. I don't what you're referring to because you're literally dropping one liners in lieu of actual arguments. Not that anything you've said thus far was particularly rational to start with even...

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"person who previously resorted to goldsellers and or botting has shifted to tokens" = "thanks to token i dont have to bot"

That still isn't what I said. Why do you guys choose to insist on trying to paraphrase what I said when it is easy enough to just quote me on what I actually said in my words. I'll tell you why, because in the rephrasing you're adding nuance and subtle changes in meaning, context and emphasis that open up possibilities to attack my argument based on stuff that I never said nor implied.

The amount of denial you operate on makes you perfect for a career in politics.

Like I say, if you're going to quote someone, quote them. Don't change the words. It's disingenuous. It also makes your above statement somewhat hypocritical.

[Azerate]

Completely scuffed, biased poll.

WoW token is the official way to get gold in exchange for real money. The company responsible for the game is directly benefitting from the token transactions. There's nothing "morally" (or otherwise) wrong about it. It's certainly not "the same" or "about the same" as paying illegal 3rd party slave drivers who exploit poverty in developing countries to illegaly farm for the gold.

Wow tokens are just another in-game feature to be used for players who want to do so. By comparing it to illegal shady activities you're just showing your true "gamerr" side. Do you also compare goods sold in real life retail shops to stuff sold by thieves in black alleys? Gamers are getting stupider by the day.

[mbit]

Completely scuffed, biased poll.

WoW token is the official way to get gold in exchange for real money. The company responsible for the game is directly benefitting from the token transactions. There's nothing "morally" (or otherwise) wrong about it. It's certainly not "the same" or "about the same" as paying illegal 3rd party slave drivers who exploit poverty in developing countries to illegaly farm for the gold.

Wow tokens are just another in-game feature to be used for players who want to do so. By comparing it to illegal shady activities you're just showing your true "gamerr" side. Do you also compare goods sold in real life retail shops to stuff sold by thieves in black alleys? Gamers are getting stupider by the day.

You don't know the difference between legality and morality.

[Tarba]

Gold farmers are legit. Else they would be quickly banned. That's why you can report many times bots for months and see "ban waves" sometimes.
That's the moment blizzard think it's a good fiscal time to make a quick large amount of new sales.

[Azerate]

You don't know the difference between legality and morality.

Neither do you, apparently, if you claim that optional additional purchases in a game are immoral.

[mbit]

Neither do you, apparently, if you claim that optional additional purchases in a game are immoral.

moral or not has still nothing to do with legality. Try to deflect better

[Blackmist]

Sorry, where is gold deleted with WoW tokens?

It's literally players paying $20 for $15 of gold, and other players paying $15 of gold for a month of WoW. It's free extra money for Blizzard.

[Geckoo]

As long as there is a currency that can be exchanged between players for multiple uses, you'll have people interested in buying and selling said currency, just as you have the same kind of interest when it comes to services such as boosts, gear or other items.

The token is an acceptance of that reality, at least partially. They are the ones who created the currency and the ones that enable the different uses it can have, so it actually makes a lot of sense that they also want to be the ones capitalizing the exchange market for it and as a consequence also want to protect it. So honestly, i don't think there is nothing morally wrong with it unless you are willing to advocate for an MMORPG without trade between players. The real issue is that the 'unofficial' market has more potential to create a worse experience for everyone than the official market has.