An evaluation of the GDKP ban on Anniversary

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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Hi,

Just to make one thing absolutely clear before I start - I am very much against real money trading (aka “gold buying/selling”). As a former forum community MVP with a heart for WoW’s community, it makes me sad to see how detrimental RMT is on this game’s playerbase. You can argue against a lot of my opinions in this post, but don’t tell me I am pro-RMT.

So, to the point. In phase 2 of SoD, and later in Anniversary, the GDKP loot system was banned by popular request. The arguments I saw frequently pop up against this loot system were the following:

  • GDKP encourages gold buying
  • GDKP leads to more bots
  • GDKP leads to inflation
  • GDKP raiders make a ton of spam in public channels

Now the first three are arguably linked, and the latter is most likely true (no GDKP = no one mentioning it in /trade). But let me break down my view on these points in retrospect after 9 months of Classic Anniversary.

GDKP encourages gold buying
You can argue that GDKP encourages gold buying, in that having more gold equals getting more gear. There is no denying that. However, and what I have come to notice, is that GDKP in one way or another redistributed gold from these big RMT whales and onto other players. Much like a way of whitewashing illicit gold. On the other hand, with GDKP out of the question, it is my experience that what was once one or two big gold buyers has now become ten or twenty small gold buyers. You see, GDKP allowed players to earn gold without going out in the world farming and competing with bots. With this opportunity gone, the same players now turn to said bots because they want consumables for raid etc. without camping black lotus sites.

GDKP leads to more bots
I’d argue the opposite. As an era player, where GDKP is allowed, I saw the bots swiftly move on to Anniversary because it seemingly is a much more lucrative market. Again, players who previously raided to earn gold now buy that same gold instead for their progression raids. Many find that hours of BWL/MC GDKP is actually fun, whereas two hours farming nodes to get flasks for the next AQ is not.

GDKP leads to inflation
The prices on Anniversary seem to be as high as, if not higher than, on Era. There seems to be no implication that GDKP significantly inflates the economy, I think the biggest reason for the high prices is this being 2025 and we play a ton (and people engage more in RMT). Not the loot system used.

GDKP raiders make a ton of spam in public channels
That’s true! And I hate the spam. Why couldn’t there be a separate channel for people who want to play GDKP?

Bottom line
People will always engage in RMT. Where there’s a game, there’s players who want to cheat. GDKP was never the culprit, but it was an easy target, seeing how much gold changes hands in communities using that loot system. The fact that bots moved on to Anniversary (we’re almost bot free on Era now!) speaks facts about how much gold buying there is going on, even with GDKP out of the picture. GDKP enabled rewarding raids on previous tiers for outgeared players, actually enjoyable raids, rather than hours of farming nodes and competing with pesky bots.

We will probably not see GDKP return on Anniversary now or in the future, for it would be a huge admitting to being wrong on Blizzard’s part. But pretending banning GDKP solved any problems with RMT is still wrong. It just shifted the market from one or two big whales, to ten or twenty small purchasers.

Thanks for reading the entire post! Remember that we are all entitled to our opinions, and a healthy and constructive discussion is encouraged :slight_smile:

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It’s crazy to say GDKP does not encourage gold-buying tbh.
Do you think that Naxx sword in Classic went for 198k of self-farmed gold?
Ya’ gotta be crazy to believe it.

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i dont want to defend gdkp but you clearly didnt read or understand what he posted. its a shame when such comments appear somewhere in the top comments, derailing a discussion

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They should have banned it from everywhere instead of giving message that its ok somewhere but here its not

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Pray tell, where did Lethan say GDKP does not encourage gold buying? Please quote the sentence or paragraph.

As for the topic at hand. I agree pretty much fully, very good analysis.
I’d like to add that in 21 years of playing various expansions, the only time I felt the pressure to go out of my way to get more gold for “consumables” was always in latter half of vanilla, specifically for AQ40 and Naxx. In all other expansions and even early vanilla you get enough gold to buy all consumes through normal gameplay, finishing quests at max level, dailies, boss drops, profession cooldowns etc.
Seeing as we go to TBC in 6 months or so, I believe the demand for gold will fall sharply. There will still be some, like buying epic flight for alts, but it will be much less, relatively speaking, than all warriors dropping 500g+ in consumes every raid.

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Hi Valkia, please read the post before making assumptions about its content. Here’s a quote from the OP:

I’d be super happy if people took their time and read what I wrote, instead of assuming my intentions and opinions.

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Does anyone really believe that gdkp is gone even they banned it? Even blizz not sell gold someone will for sure. That thing not going to changed for sure.

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That’s an interesting take on it, Scarash. Why would you want it banned from everywhere?

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Well i think it like If you start banning something from game because they think its not good for game or that is how i think why they banned it. They should ban it totally from everywhere on game retail, mop and so on. Now it kinda says that its not ok here but its ok elsewhere. Kinda mean that they just created another problem or well let it continue and didn’t actually resolve anything with that ban. Just my opinion.

Why i would want it banned totally well seems to be quite shady loot system that i would take apart, im totally happy raiding and items drop If drops. I understand idea of gdkp but how can you tell that there is no bidding just to get item price higher? In perfect world sure no but i rather stay away from that hoodoo

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I want to thank all egoistic lazy pArSSes who are ready to even buy gold with real money just to avoid term that fears every lazy pArSSes in this game „farming“. Yeah sure, you have 3 jobs, 10 wives, 30 kids, you surely don’t have time to farm but you have time to waste time in wow by other means.

Thanks to you I can enjoy era

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They never said GDKP was bad for the game per se, but they banned it on fresh versions of the game due to popular demand. It was also an experiment to see if it could get rid of RMT. As I argue in the OP I think the ban didn’t resolve anything in that regard, so there would be no literal harm in reintroducing it if most players want it back. However, if people on said realms don’t want it back in, that’s another case entirely - just don’t say banning it got rid of RMT, since clearly the bots are thriving on the non-GDKP realms, even more so than the ones where it’s still legal.

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Well i say GDKP create RMT because there is noway that those gold sellers would miss oppotuunity to dig in system what actually is like made for them. First they can sell gold for cash then they can even get it back with setting GDKP runs.

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My game time is limited. I enjoy a quick 2 hour raid with my guild in the evening, it is fun hobby for me. I wouldn’t enjoy farming some mobs mindlessly for 5 hours to buy all the consumes I wanna use in the guild raid. In those 5 hours I make so much money I can buy gold to last me for a year of raids. It would be silly, even idiotic of me to spend those 5 hours solo farming ST or something for 100g an hour instead of taking on one more afternoon freelance project this week and buying 20k gold on a bot website, no?
I don’t buy gold, but I can TOTALLY understand a thought process like I described above. Frankly, I feel like a complete idiot sometimes when I farm gold. It’s just my account is 21 years old and has nostalgic value to me. If I was playing on a new one I just made, I wouldn’t even think twice before buying couple 10k gold, I even checked, it’s like 120g per euro, it’s laughably cheap.

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What you say there, Nicolay, is precisely why the GDKP ban leads to more gold buying, and it proves my point. I think a lot of people are thinking likewise - they want to earn gold, but farming for hours on end for a short guild raid is not tempting. With GDKP in place you could do some lower tier raids and earn your gold while having fun for those consumes, instead of farming alone for hours on end or going down the RMT route.

Also, I am glad you are theoretical about buying gold here and do not engage in such practices yourself. Please remove any references to illicit sites, those have no place on these forums.

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Nope. The bots are back in Era. A lot of them.

Yes it does.

Not necessarily. Other factors such as new possibilities to exploit like in Anniversary are stronger motives.

Unlikely. It’s basically linked to the amount of new gold created, since gold sinks are sparse and static.

Who cares. A filter addon takes care. If it really should be an issue, just drop the chat in question.

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Where do I say he said that?
It’s a statement not a quote from him.

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I dont see bots linked to gdkp ban.
Era got low population with around 10k and anniversary got 70-80k and a healthy population.
Obviously bots will bot on a popular server rather that a low pop server.
Era had higher inflation than anniversary when it was popular. Yes price on era is low nowdays due to low demand.
But last time i checked era rigtheous orbs in era they were 250g and in anniversary they are 40gish. (for exampel)

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GDKP is always a bad idea because it ties your in-game progress to how much gold you have / earn. It means the optimal strategy becomes to just farm gold non-stop every day to maximise your loot. This is terrible game design, even if we pretend that RMT does not exist

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GDKP ban was correct. P2W should not be the prevalent way to play the game, as it is on Era. I’m not against some people using GDKP, but when most people use it for pugs, it’s a problem.

Another important issue is boosting. It has to go.

That said, modern way of raiding requires too much gold which is another problem. In non-Era realms, I think that the proper way to address it is to add wow token. It’ll mostly solve the problem. Some players with excess time will have free subscription and some players with limited time will be able to enjoy the game. Spending gold on consumables is not P2W.

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and then

These two together make little sense to me. Surely with the token in place you can buy gold for real money, which you can then use on consumables, gear, boosts and whatever in game? That sounds like P2W to me.

With that said, the vast majority of players engaging in GDKP raids on Era do not, and have never bought gold. GDKP is a great way for top geared players to enjoy lower tier raids, while also getting something out of it. Without that loot system allowed, it is my experience that many people turn to RMT to get their weekly consumes since they don’t want to farm solo hours on end, competing with tons of bots.

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