The GDKP Problem

[silvanobi]

Ive never really seen this answered.

I just have a few questions.


- What exactly are you winning by buying gear? Im so confused by this.
- Do people really think that the only people doing GDKPs are credit card swipers? I farm about 12-13k a week in strath / zf lol. And this is on the low to mid-effort side.
- Why is player A concerned about what I do with my gold or my time when it has no impact on them whatsoever? No, your ability to find a pug isnt an impact. There are plenty of pugs still ran. There are also things called guilds.

Gold buying is the root of the problem. GDKP indirectly fuels gold buying.
Gold buying is supported by Bots, ruining the gaming environment for legitimate players.
Due to the excessive gold generated by bots which is then bought, the economy inflates effectively making legitimate gold earning less rewarding - if a daily quest returns 10g and a flask costs 10g, it takes 1 daily to pay for a flask - if the flask costs 50g, now need to do 5 daily quests to pay for the flask. If nobody can afford the 50g for a flask, the price drops - market forces.

Without gold buyers, GDKP would be significantly less lucrative. Active players able to earn 10k a week generally would have gear already from their guild runs - since they are a very active player. GDKP works for inactive players/people with jobs who can then get the same gear by buying gold and spending it in GDKP runs. Therefore, GDKP fuels negative behaviour (bots and gold buying), hence the negativity towards them.

[Ryzeth]

Too bad it is for the many reasons that were listed in this thread. And then we wonder why things stay stagnant for years. It's okay to move on and change.

Nah, just because people who hate WoW say something about it, doesn't make it true. Sorry again.

[crewskater]

You cannot start classic as a new player with no connections and gear up to raid at this point.

Too bad I hit 70 on my shaman in October/November and now one of the best geared people on the server. Amazing what joining a guild can do.

[kranur]

???? Thats exactly what I am saying. Only that if we were in a hermetic world without RMT, then gdkp wouldnt be p2w.




Too bad it is for the many reasons that were listed in this thread. And then we wonder why things stay stagnant for years. It's okay to move on and change.




It goes away for you because you close your eyes from it. But the community is still very affected by it.

Wouldn't call it closing my eyes but whatever floats your boat to argue for your point.
More like focusing on trying to enjoy the game myself instead of focusing on how others enjoy it and getting mad if I can't do it their way.
People seem to be more focused on the fact that others have a lot of gold to spend on GDKP and they don't, instead focusing on what can they do to dodge the GDKP.
Also a little fun fact, if GDKP did not exist, 90% of those pumpers carrying it wouldn't be doing that content at all.

[Garymorilix]

No you're not. Person A is buying a WoW Token and putting it on the AH. Person B is using gold to buy the token and Person A gets gold. That isn't P2W.

There is an official definition to P2W... when the first MMO or online game allowed users to use real money to buy gear and you can say as much "olympic-level gymnastics" all you want but I was around when those games started doing P2W and what WoW is doing is not it. You are changing what the original premise of the concept was to suit the way YOU want to see it but you are wrong.

I'm sick and tired of letting you "I have to win at all costs" people constantly push your non-sense until someone gets bored and let's you win so you feel like you can keep doing this crap over and over and over.

You're wrong.

The reason why the "original" definition of it is changed because of people like you who can't handle being wrong.

You are fighting a lost fight, mate.
I tried telling these people the same thing like twice now but they will not understand.

Just how everything is a retcon now when they don't like a story-beat, everything is P2W now for them when gold is involved.

They don't go far to understand terminologies, they just wanna cry.
That's all that this is about.

Edit:
Also, they will always go about anything the wrong way.
"I don't like GDKP runs, so therefore, they should be banned... Also inflation smth smth big words."

They go against such easy, simple game mechanics as "you can trade your gold to other players".
Instead, they want Blizzard to manually monitor WHAT people trade gold for, yes, hundreds of thousands of players, manually.

These people cant think things through. They don't bother. They rage.

[Dequanacus]

Gold buying is the root of the problem. GDKP indirectly fuels gold buying.
Gold buying is supported by Bots, ruining the gaming environment for legitimate players.
Due to the excessive gold generated by bots which is then bought, the economy inflates effectively making legitimate gold earning less rewarding - if a daily quest returns 10g and a flask costs 10g, it takes 1 daily to pay for a flask - if the flask costs 50g, now need to do 5 daily quests to pay for the flask. If nobody can afford the 50g for a flask, the price drops - market forces.

Without gold buyers, GDKP would be significantly less lucrative. Active players able to earn 10k a week generally would have gear already from their guild runs - since they are a very active player. GDKP works for inactive players/people with jobs who can then get the same gear by buying gold and spending it in GDKP runs. Therefore, GDKP fuels negative behaviour (bots and gold buying), hence the negativity towards them.

If you take out gold buying, me and many others can still easily farm thousands of gold a week using any of the several means already posted in this thread, and the many that haven't. As far as raid consumables go, unless your guild progresses by only fighting one boss all week and does not go back to prior raids to get more gear, I'm not sure how the gold you get from killing bosses isn't self sufficient in of itself.

Wiping on a boss and pulling again takes a fair amount of time. You can only fit in so many attempts in a night. Flasks do not even go away on death so unless you're potting on every attempt you shouldn't be using that much gold more than what you earn from raiding and once you add in doing dailies every day, you 100% make more than it costs to buy consumables.

Again, as I have said multiple times in this thread. People bemoan GDKPs and inflation but do not actually stick around to counter any of the many arguments to the contrary. I do not think you people argue in bad faith, I just think you simply do not care about whether or not it's actually a problem, but just see it as an easy way to vent general discontent for the game.

- - - Updated - - -

Too bad I hit 70 on my shaman in October/November and now one of the best geared people on the server. Amazing what joining a guild can do.

That requires being social which, despite many people claiming GDKPs and gold selling helped ruin the social aspects of the game, isn't something those same people actually seem to want to do.

[Rori]

Gold buying is the root of the problem. GDKP indirectly fuels gold buying.
Gold buying is supported by Bots, ruining the gaming environment for legitimate players.
Due to the excessive gold generated by bots which is then bought, the economy inflates effectively making legitimate gold earning less rewarding - if a daily quest returns 10g and a flask costs 10g, it takes 1 daily to pay for a flask - if the flask costs 50g, now need to do 5 daily quests to pay for the flask. If nobody can afford the 50g for a flask, the price drops - market forces.

Without gold buyers, GDKP would be significantly less lucrative. Active players able to earn 10k a week generally would have gear already from their guild runs - since they are a very active player. GDKP works for inactive players/people with jobs who can then get the same gear by buying gold and spending it in GDKP runs. Therefore, GDKP fuels negative behaviour (bots and gold buying), hence the negativity towards them.

This only applies to raw gold earners as the person making and selling the flask receives the 50g. If they farmed the materials they made a full 50g profit if the materials were cheaper they make profit and therefore i do not agree that inflation is an actual problem.

[silvanobi]

This only applies to raw gold earners as the person making and selling the flask receives the 50g. If they farmed the materials they made a full 50g profit if the materials were cheaper they make profit and therefore i do not agree that inflation is an actual problem.

This is true, you can make more money and benefit from people buying gold unintentionally because things you sell will sell for more.

This does not compensate for the level of gold being bought if you are legitimate player though, just as a seller, you can offset it somewhat.

All gold earned from normal gameplay is still devalued by inflation from gold buying.


I don't want GDKP banned, that's not necessary, just suspend accounts for a suitable amount of time for buying gold from 3rd parties.
GDKP will fold in upon itself without gold buyers to fund it.

Edit...
To expand on GDKP folding in upon itself, people who put in the time to farm 10k gold a week won't want to be spending that on gear they can get for free from guild raids.
People doing the boosting to earn gold only have that gold because of gold buyers.
If they aren't getting a gold reward, they won't want to boost.

If all gold is earned legitimately, GDKP is fine and probably a really good loot method for pugs. The problem is, the story of Joe who earned loads of money boosting GDKP runs so he can afford to spend 200K on Glaives isn't real - if you make money by boosting GDKP runs you are getting most (i accept there is the odd person who goes to GDKP with self-earned gold) of your gold from RMT supported by bots - without that, the gold from GDKP runs wouldn't be available to earn.

[Dequanacus]

This is true, you can make more money and benefit from people buying gold unintentionally because things you sell will sell for more.

This does not compensate for the level of gold being bought if you are legitimate player though, just as a seller, you can offset it somewhat.

All gold earned from normal gameplay is still devalued by inflation from gold buying.


I don't want GDKP banned, that's not necessary, just suspend accounts for a suitable amount of time for buying gold from 3rd parties.
GDKP will fold in upon itself without gold buyers to fund it.

I still do not see how the average player is effected by inflation. Your only argument was for consumables which I pointed out was poorly supported and nonsensical.

To expand on GDKP folding in upon itself, people who put in the time to farm 10k gold a week won't want to be spending that on gear they can get for free from guild raids.
People doing the boosting to earn gold only have that gold because of gold buyers.
If they aren't getting a gold reward, they won't want to boost.

If all gold is earned legitimately, GDKP is fine and probably a really good loot method for pugs. The problem is, the story of Joe who earned loads of money boosting GDKP runs so he can afford to spend 200K on Glaives isn't real - if you make money by boosting GDKP runs you are getting most (i accept there is the odd person who goes to GDKP with self-earned gold) of your gold from RMT supported by bots - without that, the gold from GDKP runs wouldn't be available to earn.

In response to this portion of your post, again, if you actually read the thread, you will see this is already countered by posts that have gone unargued. A large number of items go for under 1k and most others don't reach much higher. People repeatedly over emphasize 100k+ items as a fallacy when those are extremely uncommon relative to the overall number of items dropping.

Based on how much gold the average item goes for, even simply doing dailies, joining a gdkp, and buying a few items with that gold is, in of itself, enough to keep the run afloat. That also does not rule out the people who go out of their way to farm thousands, make alts, and spend thousands gearing those alts in GDKPs with self earned gold.

I really genuinely believe an argument does not exist against GDKPs and these thread simply exist by people making them, posting until somebody forms a retort they cannot argue, and these people adamantly against GDKPs then vacate the thread until another crops up. Many topics are like that, being flooded with people saying "bad because bad" "good because good" and leaving as soon as a real argument is made in opposition, but it's really obnoxious to see these same threads over and over where, despite so many people dropping in to say something is good or bad, none of them can actually support that opinion despite how vocal it is.

[Dorothyjean]

Nah, that's still not what p2w means. Sorry.

Thank you.

At least someone else gets it...

[munkeyinorbit]

lmfao If the punishment is never proper then it's just "cheating". Nice attempt at not calling WoW p2w. You're wrong.

Thanks for repeating my words back to me. I guess this is what you call an "argument". At this point you are agreeing with me. You are welcome.

[Dorothyjean]

You are fighting a lost fight, mate.
I tried telling these people the same thing like twice now but they will not understand.

Just how everything is a retcon now when they don't like a story-beat, everything is P2W now for them when gold is involved.

They don't go far to understand terminologies, they just wanna cry.
That's all that this is about.

Edit:
Also, they will always go about anything the wrong way.
"I don't like GDKP runs, so therefore, they should be banned... Also inflation smth smth big words."

They go against such easy, simple game mechanics as "you can trade your gold to other players".
Instead, they want Blizzard to manually monitor WHAT people trade gold for, yes, hundreds of thousands of players, manually.

These people cant think things through. They don't bother. They rage.

Oh no, I know I was fighting a lost cause because people who think and act superior to others always think they're right even when they're wrong. I wasn't trying to troll either but I'm just fed up and sick and tired of people ALWAYS having to back down to appease peoples insecurities.

I even gave proof about how people still think both ways but it still starts somewhere and has an original definition.

*shrug*

Thanks though and as of last night I pretty much put it to bed anyways. Biomega gave up and I can also.

I've never understood peoples obsession with other people in an MMO doing or getting better than they are/have and pissing all over them for it. They keep saying it's ruining the game but you can't ruin what is do-able by anyone in WoW with enough time and effort. *shrug*

[silvanobi]

I still do not see how the average player is effected by inflation. Your only argument was for consumables which I pointed out was poorly supported and nonsensical.


In response to this portion of your post, again, if you actually read the thread, you will see this is already countered by posts that have gone unargued. A large number of items go for under 1k and most others don't reach much higher. People repeatedly over emphasize 100k+ items as a fallacy when those are extremely uncommon relative to the overall number of items dropping.

Based on how much gold the average item goes for, even simply doing dailies, joining a gdkp, and buying a few items with that gold is, in of itself, enough to keep the run afloat. That also does not rule out the people who go out of their way to farm thousands, make alts, and spend thousands gearing those alts in GDKPs with self earned gold.

I really genuinely believe an argument does not exist against GDKPs and these thread simply exist by people making them, posting until somebody forms a retort they cannot argue, and these people adamantly against GDKPs then vacate the thread until another crops up. Many topics are like that, being flooded with people saying "bad because bad" "good because good" and leaving as soon as a real argument is made in opposition, but it's really obnoxious to see these same threads over and over where, despite so many people dropping in to say something is good or bad, none of them can actually support that opinion despite how vocal it is.

So would you be against lengthy suspensions for accounts that purchase gold?

I obviously don't have time or enough characters available in a post to list every impact of gold buying - i find the idea you can't understand how gold buying affects the economy to be deliberate ignorance since you are clearly capable of reading and constructing arguments.

I haven't seen one argument that shows inflation isn't real - i know it's real because i have a job (meaning i can't play all day every day) and don't buy gold. I just don't buy the bit where people go out of there way to farm thousands of gold to gear their alts - its nonsense. Their mains are geared by the guild, as are alts in split runs.

I already said in my previous post, i have no issue with GDKP as a concept, but the unpoliced negative consequences are an issue. And anyone talking about, i don't buy gold, i make gold boosting GDKP runs is not valid as the gold being made is from gold buyers. The evidence i see is people being laughed at for only having 5k as a budget for GDKP - if items are being bought got less than 1k, that doesn't seem right - i'll admit i would not join a GDKP to gather first hand experience.

[Dequanacus]

So would you be against lengthy suspensions for accounts that purchase gold?

No

I obviously don't have time or enough characters available in a post to list every impact of gold buying

You could try making even a single argument that hasn't already been disputed in this thread.

- i find the idea you can't understand how gold buying affects the economy to be deliberate ignorance since you are clearly capable of reading and constructing arguments.

I explicitly said "how the average player is effected by inflation" not "how does gold buying affects the economy" and those are two entirely different concerns. Gold buying will clearly raise the price of parrots on the AH. Now how that effects the average player in their day to day playing is a completely separate question.

I haven't seen one argument that shows inflation isn't real - i know it's real because i have a job (meaning i can't play all day every day) and don't buy gold.

I never claimed that inflation isn't real so I'm not sure why you felt inclined to state that. If anything, I tacitly acknowledged inflation is real in asking what effect it has on players. I also work full time but am further aware that one can easily make hundreds of gold an hour and also that you actually need gold for very little in the game and it is therefore easy to accumulate.

I just don't buy the bit where people go out of there way to farm thousands of gold to gear their alts - its nonsense. Their mains are geared by the guild, as are alts in split runs.

Well, when, like I said, you can buy most items for under or a little over 1k, and you can farm thousands of gold a week, it takes very little effort to gear an alt which I can then use to make gold as well.

I already said in my previous post, i have no issue with GDKP as a concept, but the unpoliced negative consequences are an issue. And anyone talking about, i don't buy gold, i make gold boosting GDKP runs is not valid as the gold being made is from gold buyers. The evidence i see is people being laughed at for only having 5k as a budget for GDKP - if items are being bought got less than 1k, that doesn't seem right - i'll admit i would not join a GDKP to gather first hand experience.

So you have no idea what you're talking and have done no research on GDKPs.

Look I swear 100% to you that I genuinely do not see how inflation impacts the average player. What does the average player spend gold on to make inflation a problem? Consumables? I already explained to you how consumables are not an issue for the average player and you completely avoided responding to that argument which only gives the impression that I am right.
What else? Mount training? That's a fixed price and inflation would only make it easier? Getting gear? Like you said, you have no idea how much items actually go for in a GDKP. Most are a pittance. I can link you a spreadsheet showing the average prices over an entire server for every item in all the GDKPs being run. It's nothing.
Going further on the 'getting gear', for the hundredth time, many people including myself have already explained how GDKPs do not create a problem for gearing up and none of those posts have been argued by any of the posters who swear up and down that GDKPs and inflation are causing problems.

Really, I do not see a single argument being made. If you genuinely think inflation is a problem, you should be able to articulate a single actual problem faced by an average player. Otherwise, you seem to be more interested in believing it's a problem than whether or not that's actually a reasonable opinion to have.

I don't care if GDKPs or gold buying are a problem or not. I'd happily take the stance that gold buying is a serious problem if someone articulated why. But nobody does. I don't have anything against the idea, I just think that a majority of the people who have that opinion, as we can see by you and most of the people in this thread, cannot actually, and do not actually, support that opinion with reasoning.

I mean for christ sake,

I obviously don't have time or enough characters available in a post to list every impact of gold buying - i find the idea you can't understand how gold buying affects the economy to be deliberate ignorance since you are clearly capable of reading and constructing arguments.

is textbook strawmanning. That is clearly no argument I ever advanced and that is made explicitly clear from simply reading my posts. Even just the one you replied to. Let alone unironically going "I could make all of the very many arguments but I don't have time" when parodies use that verbatim as a means of saying "I can't raise an argument but I'll pretend I could if I wanted to"

[silvanobi]

Just because something is disputed doesn't mean what is disputed isn't valid.

Do you think the majority of gold spent in GDKP's is not bought via RMT?
The first and obvious impact of RMT is bots to generate the gold which immediately impacts anyone legitimately farming materials - due the abundance of bots.
You acknowledge inflation then also dismiss it, i find this confusing as to what you are trying to say - consumable on the AH are 10% (if only it was only 10%) more expensive but this doesn't effect you because??? buy gold?
I don't believe anyone has a spreadsheet containing all GDKP purchases on any given server unless you are on a tiny server which therefore probably doesn't have a significant GDKP community.

Can you explain what the benefits of GDKP runs are?, beyond the boosters getting paid by gold buyers for boosting.
Do you honestly believe people putting in the time to earn thousands of gold a week (that isn't earned boosting gold buyers) are spending it in GDKP runs?

[Dequanacus]

You acknowledge inflation then also dismiss it, i find this confusing as to what you are trying to say - consumable on the AH are 10% (if only it was only 10%) more expensive but this doesn't effect you because??? buy gold?

If you're going to explicitly ignore reasoning I already provided, I'm not sure how we are meant to proceed in this back and forth. My post, already made in this thread:

If you take out gold buying, me and many others can still easily farm thousands of gold a week using any of the several means already posted in this thread, and the many that haven't. As far as raid consumables go, unless your guild progresses by only fighting one boss all week and does not go back to prior raids to get more gear, I'm not sure how the gold you get from killing bosses isn't self sufficient in of itself.

Wiping on a boss and pulling again takes a fair amount of time. You can only fit in so many attempts in a night. Flasks do not even go away on death so unless you're potting on every attempt you shouldn't be using that much gold more than what you earn from raiding and once you add in doing dailies every day, you 100% make more than it costs to buy consumables.

Again, as I have said multiple times in this thread. People bemoan GDKPs and inflation but do not actually stick around to counter any of the many arguments to the contrary. I do not think you people argue in bad faith, I just think you simply do not care about whether or not it's actually a problem, but just see it as an easy way to vent general discontent for the game.

provides a response to what you just posted. Furthermore, I have already made several posts in this thread that directly respond to questions you make to me, and points you attempt to raise. Hell, you end the post by asking if people who grind gold spend it in GDKP runs when I already explicitly answered that in the affirmative.

Again, what is gained from arguing in bad faith? Who cares who is right and wrong? What matters is the reasoning supporting our differing opinions and I have posted pages at this point that you explicitly ignore. Hell, you ignored the entirety of my last post and the reasoning I provided in making your most recent post.

What do you gain from that? Poorly supported opinions with no foundation? I genuinely want to see my posts challenged while you seem more interested at finding ways for your brain to avoid acknowledging the reasoning of my posts while maintaining a feeling that you are 'right.' What's the point in believing that gold buying is negatively effecting the servers if you have to flee from counter arguments when you encounter them? What value does that opinion have in of itself if you have to hide it away from opposing arguments?

[Morthos]

Quite a fascinating thread. I'm not going to argue against what anyone has actually stated in this entire thread, just going to add what I've always understood over 40 years of gaming to be the concept of P2W. Again, NOT arguing against what others understand it to be, just adding what I understand it to be.

P2W is if the start of the process is spending real in life money for an advantage in the game.

So in relation to WoW. Buying gold from a gold seller OR via the now available WoW Token. Since the start of the process is spending IRL money then it's P2W. Whether there is a method in the game itself to directly buy an item that increase power OR advantage IN-GAME someway, if the process begins within spending real life money it is P2W.

If there's an intermediate step in that process (WoW Token bought = gold in-game), that gold still gives an advantage in-game that can be converted to in-game items to increase power, so it would be P2W. That there's an intermediate step doesn't mean it's not P2W as the process still began with an IRL money transaction to get that gold in the first place.

If the process didn't start with spending IRL money, for example a person who actually does farm IN-GAME for that gold and then buys item via GDKP or from the AH then that is not P2W as the process didn't involved IRL money.

I think sometimes people try to overstate things or redefine what something means just for the sake of argument but for me over many years of gaming it would be common sense that P2W would have to start with an IRL money transaction or it wouldn't be P2W.

[silvanobi]

The irony is deep given you didn't answer anything

I don't see any of the questions answered in previous posts - please elucidate on the spreadsheet you have


Edit...
So i was having a think about your spreadsheet....

It's well known that boosters bid against buyers to force the price up on items (many many testimonies of such behaviour)
So, how do the boosters know what is a sensible price to boost to - as they don't want to actually end up with the item, just extract as much gold as possible from the buyer
Well, the various GDKP runs share data on items bought so they know when an item is going cheaper than it normally goes for and how hard to push the bidding.
I suspect most of the pro GDKP posters in this thread run GDKPs or are boosters and don't want their customers to feel like they are paying to win since it rightly has negative connotations.

[Dequanacus]

The irony is deep given you didn't answer anything

I don't see any of the questions answered in previous posts - please elucidate on the spreadsheet you have


Edit...
So i was having a think about your spreadsheet....

It's well known that boosters bid against buyers to force the price up on items (many many testimonies of such behaviour)
So, how do the boosters know what is a sensible price to boost to - as they don't want to actually end up with the item, just extract as much gold as possible from the buyer
Well, the various GDKP runs share data on items bought so they know when an item is going cheaper than it normally goes for and how hard to push the bidding.
I suspect most of the pro GDKP posters in this thread run GDKPs or are boosters and don't want their customers to feel like they are paying to win since it rightly has negative connotations.

Again, you have my posts to quote, respond to, and explain how they fail to provide a response to the points you've raised. I gave you the courtesy of having acknowledged and responded to the entirety of your 2:30 post. If you're going to avoid doing the same for me, especially when I reiterated my consumables post, I'm not sure how we are going to continue this back and forth and I have no interest in a bad faith back and forth where we just ignore 90% of the contents of each other's post because we cannot argue them. Refer to my prior posts, and quote and refute them, otherwise, your argument is argued and nothing is left to be said.

As far as the spreadsheet,
here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=2096669831

[Dorothyjean]

I don't care if GDKPs or gold buying are a problem or not. I'd happily take the stance that gold buying is a serious problem if someone articulated why. But nobody does. I don't have anything against the idea, I just think that a majority of the people who have that opinion, as we can see by you and most of the people in this thread, cannot actually, and do not actually, support that opinion with reasoning.

I've always asked that question as to why because the only difference in doing Option A and Option B is a matter of chance and time spent playing. You can do GDKP and get the items you want... and I can join a raiding guild and get the exact same layout as the people doing GDKP and there is nothing to "win" because when the next raid hits all of your gear is irrelevant anyways and you start over again.

I've always stated that it's just someone who sees someone else getting loot faster than them and being selfish and spoiled about it and hating on the process "because" but as for a real argument or statement... zero over all these years playing MMO's.