But this tread is about real money transactions, account sharing and Blizzard not punishing enough the people involved in said practices.
Oh, my bad then.
Blizzard should act, for sure, but it’s not like they’ve been showing up thier willingness of doing so…
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That is how gold sellers compromised a lot of accounts in the past. Players would willingly hand over all sorts of data that allowed them to hack the account at a later date. This is partly why the token has managed to combat a lot of account fraud.
People who want to play WoW on whichever day they feel like it and in whichever amount they feel like it, obviously.
If I could just farm gold then I wouldn’t have a problem. If I could just skip 5 days, then play for 10 hours for 1 day, etc., then I’d have had a great time.
But I’m not going to do that thing you suggest. Never. Go here to see why I quit raiding (and really playing at all mostly): I'm done. I tried
The exact same ones are still standing? Run by the exact same people using the exact same accounts? I think you’ll find that isn’t the case. Whole boosting communities have come to an end as a result of investigations and bans, but of course new ones have come forward to take their place. That’s inevitable. Some people see a way to make a lot of money by setting these things up so they do it. It’s an endless cycle.
A good real world comparison is drug dealing (I’m comparing the approach needed to tackle it, obviously not the damage done to people’s lives). There’s no point in going after the guy who sells drugs to users on the street. He is easily replaceable. The same goes for the people who are selling the boosts directly to players. You need to trace the networks back and take out the accounts that are running the organisation, exactly the same as with drug dealing networks. That takes time.
There’s also another challenge and that’s taking out the point of sale. Out of curiosity, I googled the name of a well known boosting organisation that was shut down a while back because their gold boosting services were actually a ‘front’ for real money trading. The original website and discord community no longer exists, but someone else has registered a domain in the same name and is using it to sell real money boosts. Finding out who is behind it is likely not straightforward (I didn’t do a whois lookup, but it will almost certainly be a proxy) and the host isn’t likely to shut it down just because Blizz says ‘but they’re breaking our ToS’. Again it’s going to take a lot of work and time to track down the accounts that are behind it.
Stopping boosting isn’t simple.
You’re (still) complaining about gold boosting (which is allowed) being advertised in LFG? From what I’ve seen, that’s barely an issue since they introduced the autheticator requirement. I used to spend a couple of minutes every time I opened it reporting the boost listings. Now there are rarely more than one or two and they take a few seconds to report. If you’re complaining about that, I think you’re doing it for the sake of complaining.
So, mythic raid loggers only. who can play for years of 1 token amount of gold for their consumables. I don’t see them buying tokens for boosts. When these guys want to do a +15 dungeon they can do it themselves. No need for boosts.
I find this very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very hard to believe.
Needs? No-one needs to. I buy tokens occasionally because I don’t want to spend my time doing daily callings and mission boards on multiple characters. I play WoW to have fun, not to do ‘chores’ to pay for occasional fun. I’d rather pay for it out of the money I earn from my job.
No. Not raid loggers, darnit! Just people who have other things going on in their lives. Casuals.
Why can’t I just play WoW like the hobby activity it is? When I’ve got time in my calendar and want to have some social fun in a virtual world, I’ll just log in, play as much as I have time for, and then log off. Why do I need to set egg-timers and alarm-clocks and notifications on my phones to disrupt my daily life constantly just so I can play WoW “properly”? It’s ridiculous, and it represents everything that the original WoW devs set out to leave behind. That’s why early versions of WoW don’t have power in their dailies farms or even having them bet he best source of gold. It’s just some questing for those who like questing and getting a bit of rewards out of it. It shouldn’t be this thing where I need to log in every day.
And yeah, I can do schedules. You know, 3 hours twice a week and stuff. But I can’t do daily schedules. Once we’re at the point where you have to log in for 2 hours to do your dailies and callings every day to do well at the game, that’s when the game actually becomes truly hardcore. At that point you might as well join a 7-nights a week raiding guild, it’s effectively the same type of deal.
But because it is, therefore casuals are buying tokens, and because they buy tokens, they can afford boosts. Blizzard makes a lot of money but the gameplay experience becomes noticeably worse once enough people do it.
I’d love to know how someone who mythic raids and runs M+ can ‘play for years’ on 2-300k gold. The base legendary items (likely different for both types of content) for the first season would eat that instantly.
I am a casual. A lot of callings do not cost any time since they even auto-complete by just doing M+. And the missionboard is tops 5 minutes before logging out.
No, you’re not. Anybody who plays a game literally every single day is not casual.
I am not playing every day.
You just told me you did.
Callings are 3 days available. Missionboard can be done on your phone in bed before going to sleep.
You forgot about Korthia and the Maw which are both big deals, and it doesn’t matter if you log in on a phone or the PC. You’re still fundamentally addicted. You’ve made Azeroth part of your daily routine - like eating breakfast or going to work. This is obviously what Blizzard wants, that’s why they implement this stuff, but I absolutely do not want it. Not even a little bit.
I am not doing korthia or the maw. So you do you. I am not doing those things.
When someone really only wants to raidlog they can also play with a 10k leggo.
Only if they’re getting carried, which brings us back to using the gold to pay for boosts. (Although I believe plate base items are pretty cheap, so there is that.)
Nobody is getting carried by having a bit lower ilvl leggo. It is about the effect. it is 1 slot…
If that were true, why are you wearing a 262? A 190 would be plenty good enough.