Gold Selling: Effects and Consequences

NAPALM71 — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:35:00 GMT

A CGF

Gold Selling: Effects and Consequences

Icesnake — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:34:59 GMT

One of my guildmates was recently a victim of one of the account thefts (most likely caused by visiting one of the Web sites that installs keyloggers, along with serving banner ads). The gold spammers grabbed all of the high-value items they could from the Guild Vault and ran it through a series of mules to put it in the auction house, shareded my guildie's possessions, and stripped her own bank. As a result of this experience, she is (as soon as Blizzard has restored as much as they are willing to do) donating everything to the Guild and terminating her account; she's quitting WoW. The whole thing has left a bad taste with everyone who knows about it, also; we're all very sad to see her go, but an account hack is mentally a lot like a real-life mugging, so we understand.

Personally, if I ever learn of anyone buying gold or using a power-leveling service, I am absolutely going to report them to the GMs. Customers of account thieves are no better than account thieves themselves, and the sooner Blizzard bans them, the better.

Gold Selling: Effects and Consequences

totenkopff — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:34:58 GMT

Easiest way to put a dent in this is to not allow clients to connect from China. If you blackhole the entire Chinese IP address block the bulk of this crap goes away. I'm sure Blizzard has firewalls they should learn how to use them.

Gold Selling: Effects and Consequences

Kirgen — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:34:57 GMT

I have talked to a few people that have bought gold online and every single one of them said they did it for one reason. "I could not make enough money to get my artisian riding skill" So here is an idea for blizzard if you want less gold buying quit screwing the economy yourselves and kill the 5k gold needed for the artisian skill.

FYI I have never bought nor never will buy gold online.. but neither will I report someone that has done it (It's there money they can do what they want with it)

Gold Selling: Effects and Consequences

Wuttt — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:34:56 GMT

I understand this, but I have leveled my character to 70 through blood sweat and tears. Made alot of friends, and just about all of the whole deal. I bought gold once, for my epic flying mount. I never gave them my account information, I change my password monthly, etc. I know 5000g is easily done, depending on how much time you spend farming and grinding it away. I raid, I have repair bills to pay (I'm a tank, I die alot and plate costs +++)

I do not support gold buying or powerleveling, but even with the insane amount of time I play It would of taken an extreme amount of time to amount to anywhere near 5kg especially as a full prot tank.

I honestly, thing It is your own fault if you download something that you do not trust, or follow a link to an untrustworthy site. I will never buy gold again, simply because money can be made easily, I just didn't want to spend hours of my time grinding away for a simple speed boost while flying.

Blizzard makes the gold grind after all to make money, why would they support gold buying?

Gold Selling: Effects and Consequences

Wuttt — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:34:55 GMT

More than half of the people that play WoW are from asia, you want them to cancel more than half of their subs?

Gold Selling: Effects and Consequences

Llandru — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:34:54 GMT

F**k gold sellers, F**k gold farmers and most importantly f**k the players that utilize these services. The whole point of a game is to play it. If you're not going to go through the process that is the game then what the f**k are you doing here? I hope you get hacked. I hope you lose your house, your car and all your worldly possesions. You deserve it. I work for a living, pay my taxes and try to be a productive member of society. Gaming is a release. A nice diversion from the day to day bullshit that is RL. The last thing I need to deal with is the incessant barrage of spam and stupidity that is associated with this most insidious of activities. This sentiment is directed at all you assmonkeys that propagate gold selling and power leveling services either by being or using them. Why don't you go find yourself a nice dark corner and jerk off. You'll get more enjoyment and won't rob me of mine. My philosophy is you're either part of the solution or get the f**k out. That includes my life, my job and this whole plane of existence. May you rot in Hell.

Gold Selling: Effects and Consequences

bruticus99 — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:34:53 GMT

I don't believe there is an easy solution or right answer to fix this problem. I have been off WoW for about a year, just when burning crusade came out and now that i have come back , I have noticed a significant rise in costs of items including a item drop rate decrease. I don't bash people for buying gold, and really don't have an opinion one way or the other, but , even I am considering purchasing gold due to the costs of items, mounts and epic mounts, especially flying, are extremly high. It would not be a solution but i feel that the only way to curb this issue is if the game devs set a cap on items prices. (like I said I don't believe this is a right way to fix the problem). The only other thing that might help this issue is either by dropping the cost of completeing professions, quests, classes, ect or raising the amount of money dropped from mobs or completing quests.

Gold Selling: Effects and Consequences

DocHoof — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:34:52 GMT

I, personally, have not bought gold nor do I condone the practice. I played the game through devotion, time and lots of both to get my hunter AND warrior to 70. Hard to believe that after almost two years of not so much as a warning for inappropriate language, my account gets banned for talking to a gold farmer in private chat. Sad thing was, I terminated the conversation AND reported for spamming after learning the person wished to sell me gold. He then e-mailed me in game and that e-mail became the basis for my account closure. I did not reply to it nor delete it. It sat in my box for three days while I was not on to report the guy, but yet I am banned for exploiting the game economy??? I cannot believe the level of customer support they give to PAYING customers. I now play on my own private server with my own rules and the experience is WAY better than what Blizz offers on their servers. So, I suppose am thankful for the gold farmers...I don't have to play for five hours a day to accomplish the everyday, mundane tasks. In closing, I have but two words for Blizzard Entertainment, "You will never see another penny of my money, you greedy, arrogant, inconsiderate, we-are-always-right-no-matter-what-the facts-say," butt holes.

Gold Selling: Effects and Consequences

hypershadow272 — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:34:51 GMT

I knoticed alot less gold spammers lately =)

Gold Selling: Effects and Consequences

dietx — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:34:50 GMT

You really didnt prove much except that you think your an important guy that needs all the attention. WoW has 10 million players, your one of them, and playing a private server is just as bad as buying gold, you support yet another rebel cause. Kudos to you.

Gold Selling: Effects and Consequences

dietx — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:34:49 GMT

We will always have gold farming, keylogging and what not in any internet software. If you listen to people telling their individual stories about how they were victims to this attack, its true. You have to take it lightly though, millions of people get killed in car accidents, yet they still happen with all the safety measures we've taken. This is the same thing WoW has done, people are taking advantage of a market and even with all the precautions, and measures taken, it still happens.

Accounts are stolen, mainly due to negligence, but sometimes due to random attacks. The problem with the stories that are being told, is there are people out there that take it way to far, and blame blizzard for this problem. The real answer is that blizzard cannot help everyone, its just not possible. There are 10 million players out there, and they cannot help all those victims that grow on this vulnerable attack surface.

I truly feel bad for all these people falling victim to these attacks, but as a software developer and coder, even a huge company like blizzard, cannot do everything. Protect your computer and don't click every site you see and its alot safer out there, but stop blaming someone just because your paying them $16.

P.S.: I was a gold buyer, i took advantage of a market out there that existed. (I no longer do) But I used it to buy 200g so I could buy a trinket for my wife as a present for making it to level 70. Just FYI :P

Gold Selling: Effects and Consequences

dietx — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:34:48 GMT

Go ahead and run your own game with more players then you can count within a day, and see how great you can do, its not easy. So please, before you state and opinion you seriously need to sharpen, make sure you know what your talking about, and have a valid point farther then what seems to be self-righteous anger.

Gold Selling: Effects and Consequences

eyhk — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:34:47 GMT

I am not a power-leveler, nor a gold buyer since I've played long enough to know that leveling is easy, enjoyable and also teaches you how to play your class (not always as some pug runs have taught me lol), and farming is also easy, just mind-numbing. However, Blizzard has to some extent, brought this upon themselves. To Blizzard, time = money. The more time it takes to level, to farm that gold to get that flying mount to do the heroics to get attunement to wipe in raids to get the epics to beat the game, the more money they earn. For us, time may be a lot more than money. Time can be spent with family and friends, on hobbies, education and careers. If i can save 7 days played of my life to level to 70 or get 5k gold by paying up $200~$300 bucks, it may be a lot more economical to me. Heck, I pay $30 just to save an hour time of mowing the lawn so I can do something more constructive or valuable. Some people enjoy mindless killing hour after hour to grind rep or money, most don't. Of course if we go into ethics of the innerworkings of these companies, things get more complicated. The point I'm trying to make is that I play games for fun and grinding is not fun. Blizzard inserts grinding so that they can earn more money, hence the gold farmers and power levelers. If Blizzard wants to do away with them, ease up the grinding (faster leveling at lower lvls and heroic keys at honored is def going in the right direction, good job bliz!), ease up the need for epic flying (60% regular flying speed WTH? 200% reg, 280% epic would put less strain on trying to get epic) and do away with BOE epics (purple makes people greedy) and that might change a lot of people's minds. Of course not all, since we always find ways to be lazy.

Gold Selling: Effects and Consequences

MobiusMuse — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:34:46 GMT

Any computerized system that involves money changing hands or includes the exchange/barter/trading of electronic/imaginary/specialized commodities is going to be subject to hacking, exploiting and other misbehavior by people don't respect the rules and laws that govern the system.

So, while everyone can get their knickers all in a twist and rage against the injustices of rulebreakers, h4xx0rz, and the unwashed malcontents of the world, it really makes no difference to the big picture.

People steal cable.
People defraud the IRS.
People lie on resumes.
People hack the user accounts of people who don't take enough precautions to not get hacked.

Blizzard is certainly in their rights to complain about the work it creates for them, and users can certainly lament their lost gold and gear, but neither is going to change the economy that has built up around and the black market that both supplies and leeches off all subscription MMOs.

But enjoy your ranting.