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

[Coldkil]

What you said, that I quoted, was:



Your statement suggests that the amount of gold you get via a token is negligible because people have "tons" of gold, basically.

This is not the case. Raw gold production is, at best, a 10k per hour affair. That means to afford a token a raw gold farmer has to work at it for over 20 hours just to afford one token. And given that raw gold is the way in which new gold is introduced into the game that means that every token sold is 20 hours of effort on someone's part ... regardless of how much gold any individual purchaser may possess, possibly due to AH flipping.

So, no, the amount of gold acquired from a token is not small at all. It reflects, in reality, 20+hours worth of effort. This means that a token actually represents quite a lot of value, regardless of your personal ability to purchase one.

I've been, in the past, quite involved in the gold farming/making side of WoW and the truth is that very, very few players possess the vast amounts of gold you imagine. The average player typically has much less than 100k at any one time across their entire account. And you don't even have to trust my knowledge on the subject, the Pareto Principle alone suggests that this is the case.

I agree with this, yet boosting is rampart. So, if most players don't have enough gold to buy a boost, this also means that to get the gold required they're buying tokens.

It still means most of the gold is in the hands of few players (the ones that boost and ah flippers) while average joe either doesn't really do anything related to raid/m+ or buys a token to get a boost.

EDIT: however i also think that the actual "swipe the card to get ksm/curve/CE" is very limited. Most token transactions are from actual average players buying them to get gold at patch release to get their craft/consumables etc high as fast as possible. A sort of one time purchase to get a little boost (pun intended) at the beginning.

[Aleksej89]

not exactly unusual that the "cops and robbers" are in league with one another.

if morale at blizzard is truly as low as suggested then its no wonder everyone there is clawing at an opportunity to get extra $.

[Aedruid]

When you play an off meta class, it's almost impossible to get a team together for a +15. Really pigeon-holes you into a boost if you want the loot to go into mythic. I'm pretty guilty of it. Also, sometimes M+ gets super boring, but you still desire the loot. I'd rather get carried.

[Xath]

Didn't one of the latest world first guilds admit that they bought millions of gold from Gallywix or something like that? Yeah real aggresive stance from Blizz there enforcing their ''rules''.

The token was Blizz telling the world that they can't beat gold sellers, so they will just join them, and the game has bee adjusted accordingly since that decision.

Selling for real $$$$ is what matters also blizzard has always handled echo/method with kid gloves for some reason.

[Relapses]

Now, I don't know for a fact whether these casual "poor" players are using tokens to get the gold for boosts or not, but I believe the reward design decisions in the game hint that they may be doing so in greater numbers than you suspect.

You're free to think whatever you want to think but as somebody who boosted before the token and knows people boosting now after the token, it doesn't seem like there's been a marked increase in the number of people buying boosts. This is just a guess on your part. There are more things to boost nowadays but it's incredibly cynical to think that Blizzard added more things to boost just to sell tokens.

The emergence of boosting communities through the popularity of Discord is what has changed. These boosting communities are often run by ex-Chinese gold farming organizations (hence why most of them have Chinese names). Before the token, guilds would have to spam /2 themselves to find buyers for boosts. Now the boosting communities have bots spamming their communities 24/7 and act as a middleman for the boostees. That convenience is what has caused the advertisement of boosting to increase tenfold. Which brings me nicely to my second point...

Whales don't tend to be AH players, so they alone could be really pushing the token/boosting economy in accordance with the Pareto Principle, rather than the more casual "poor" players.

The whales aren't buying tokens, or if they are...they're kind of dumb since the same services that the boosting communities offer for gold are available for RMT at prices much, much lower than what you'd pay in equivalent tokens.

[Raelbo]

I think this about the principle.

Back in the day before the Btoken, people were also boosting, but they had to either earn their gold or buy it via 3p websites, which was against TOS so you risked a ban. It was much less common and most people used hard earned money to get a boost, which is within the game RPG element if you will. The game still stayed a believable game, the magic was still there.

Its a bad look today as the CEO advertises boosts while at the same time Blizard sell you the means to buy them. This is like a local government that used to forbid gambling but now allows it because they run the casino.
This just ruins the thin "RPG" magic veil and more players see the bare bones mechanics where anyone with cash can become from 0 to mythic geared hero in no time or effort. There is no fear of ban anymore, you are free to "progress" with your cash.

You're quoting a theoretical scenario of what can happen without considering some critical factors and as such you're imagining a situation to exist that really doesn't.

Firstly, there is a world of difference between "anyone can" and "everyone does". The simple fact is that aside from anything else, not everyone can even use tokens to buy gold by simple virtue of how the token system works. And while it is convenient narrative to make that most boosts are paid for by tokens, I have yet to see anyone provide any kind of evidence thereof. The only first hand accounts I've ever heard from people who might have an accurate picture of this (ie boosters themselves) would actually indicate that token boosts are relatively uncommon. Also, it really is a dead giveaway when forums like this are filled with people who like to claim that everyone else is spending money to buy tokens in order to get gold for boosts, yet I have never seen anyone here state that they actually do this themselves. And you can't claim it's because people are shy to admit they buy boosts, because I have seen several posters state that they have spent money earned in-game to buy boosts.

Secondly, there are practical limits as to what players can buy from other players. You literally cannot do any content that other players don't have on farm. If you're relying on boosts to gear up, get achievements and mounts etc, you're going to be late to the party.

That as well as other such changes erode the playerbase

This just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Why would being able to buy gold for cash make you more likely to quit?
Why would being able to get other players to boost you through content make you more likely to quit?
Why would being able to get gold and/or Blizzard balance by boosting other players make you more likely to quit?
Why would being able to play for free by spending a bit of gold make you more likely to quit?

On the contrary, all of these things are reasons to keep playing.

In short preditory tactics, even subtle, lead to thinning of the playerbase

True. The problem with this statement though is that you haven't really made a case to establish tokens or boosting as "predatory tactics". That's just an assumption you started with.

- - - Updated - - -

Your statement suggests that the amount of gold you get via a token is negligible because people have "tons" of gold, basically.

Close enough I guess

This is not the case. Raw gold production is, at best, a 10k per hour affair.

Ok, since you clearly somehow missed it the first time I said it: "Since when was the ability to acquire gold in-game contingent on generating new gold?"

Raw gold production is patently not the only way of acquiring gold in the game. It's actually one of the least efficient means of doing so. Players who tend to have a lot of gold generally acquire it from the AH, either by playing the AH game, or by providing goods to sell.

That means to afford a token a raw gold farmer has to work at it for over 20 hours just to afford one token. And given that raw gold is the way in which new gold is introduced into the game that means that every token sold is 20 hours of effort on someone's part ...

False. You're making the incorrect assumption that each token requires someone to go out and generate that amount of gold. You're forgetting that there is already sufficient gold in circulation that farming for more is almost entirely unnecessary. I could make a bunch of flasks, and put them on the AH. You then spend $20 to buy a token and buy enough flasks for your guild to raid for a month. I use the gold I obtained from selling the flasks to buy a token and pay my monthly sub. Next month the process repeats. No gold needs to be farmed.

So, no, the amount of gold acquired from a token is not small at all. It reflects, in reality, 20+hours worth of effort. This means that a token actually represents quite a lot of value, regardless of your personal ability to purchase one.

Again, this is false. Tokens reflect different value to different people. To someone who farms gold in the way you've described, yes, it represents 20+ hours worth of effort. But to someone who knows how to play the AH well, it might only represent 1 hour's worth of effort. You also forget that a lot of gold can be acquired simply by playing the game. Typically that kind of passive income isn't as great per hour as actively farming for gold, but for example, I might be able to get enough gold for a token by means of 50 hours of just playing the game, which to me would represent 0 hours of effort.

And if this wasn't true, the token system wouldn't work. Tokens are traded because of this differential value that different people will attach to the gold value they sell for. To someone who views the gold cost of a token to be worth 20 hours of effort, $20 is likely to be quite an attractive value proposition. On the other hand, for someone able to make that gold in an hour, getting $13 of BNet Balance for the gold is likely to be quite an attractive value proposition.

I've been, in the past, quite involved in the gold farming/making side of WoW and the truth is that very, very few players possess the vast amounts of gold you imagine. The average player typically has much less than 100k at any one time across their entire account.

You're speculating.

What is not speculation is the fact that every token sold for gold requires a buyer and the price of the token is governed by the equilibrium that has to exist between buyers and sellers. Thus the price of the token must always tend towards a point that is very much affordable for a sizeable portion of the playerbase.

And you don't even have to trust my knowledge on the subject, the Pareto Principle alone suggests that this is the case.

Firstly, the Pareto principle cannot be used as proof of anything. And even if it did, it doesn't even prove your point. If we were to go with the Pareto Principle, that would suggest that 20% of the playerbase are those who buy tokens for gold, and for them, the amount of gold a token represents is relatively small.


The fundamental problem with your argument is that you're trying to speculate how much gold people make in the game in order to try and gauge the value that a token's worth of gold represents. What you miss is that the mechanism that governs the price of the tokens ensures that the token price will always be neglible to a not insignificant portion of the playerbase.

[TomGreen]

All the matchmade content (LFD/LFR/Random BG) and solo content (WQ/Korthia) possess absolute trash rewards for both gear and cosmetics. All the worthwhile rewards that drive progression or fashion are found in Heroic/Mythic raids, M+ and Rated BG's, all the content that is gated by the social element i.e. other players.

Or maybe because it's more difficult content not just because of the social aspect? What would be the fucking point of raiding then if bis gear drops from korthia.

[Diaphin]

Or maybe because it's more difficult content not just because of the social aspect? What would be the fucking point of raiding then if bis gear drops from korthia.

That sounds like conspiracy thinking. Whats next, that this content may have a "social gating" due to the fact that its difficulty requires higher levels of player coordination? lool.