Blizzard Hits WoW Gold Sellers in the Wallet

[Alluos]

"Oh woe is me, I can't break Blizzard's terms of service any more, oh noes!"
Seriously the less people like this playing the better, it hurts the economy* and they DID agree NOT TO DO IT and continue to agree every time a new patch comes in.

*of the server. gawd.

 

[Sarah Frazier]

It's nice to see that WoW is taking another step to slow down gold sellers, such as banning the use of say,emote,public and private channels, grouping, and using the mail system for those who want to try the game out before investing more seriously. Bravo.

/sarcasm

I never used PayPal, but I imagine they aren't very picky about giving people accounts. If the sellers really put any thought into it, they'll probably decide that they can use the same email tied to their gold gathering accounts to PayPal. If it gets banned from one place, it could still be useful for a while longer in the other and then repeat with the untild thousands of freebie emails made all the time.

What's the next step in this wild goose chase? Banning the use of PayPal altogether? Sueing PayPal for theft? Taking the attack to whatever places are giving emails to the spammers? Making their own system to buy/sell game goods and taking a share of profits?

 

[ViRi]

I like how SWG handled credit spammers. They allow certain players to mute other players, however if you are muted you do not know it and see your own txt in chat. Also newly created characters can hear muted players for a period of time i believe.

 

[Zamn]

I agree that this just going to start whack-a-mole with PayPal accounts and won't solve the gold selling problem.

The people arguing Blizzard shouldn't bother or even sell gold or items themselves, however, are well wide of the mark. Nobody playing WoW (well almost nobody) wants to see gold or items for sale for real money. Nobody wants a competitive advantage for whoever spends the most money and nobody wants to see their hard won item/mammoth/massive gold heap being diminished in value because anyone can get it from microtransactions.

 

[Lord_Nemesis]

Fuck the Gold Farmers! God, I love PvP servers where I can hunt them down at will

 

[Baldr]

Think about this way: it is only lazy people buying gold. If it is not convenient, I doubt that these same people are willing to go through the trouble of getting it.

 

[Popido]

And this solves...? Not that I really care.

Dont like how PayPal is bending their ass for this thou.

 

[Crazy_Dude]

Seriously why do people even buy gold?

I can easily make 1-2k gold an hour and that is plenty for raid flasks and enchants.

 

[thisbymaster]

If blizzard wants to kill all gold farming completely from everywhere then they simply need to under cut them by selling the gold/items themselves. It is win/win the players get cheaper gold and blizzard makes money.

 

[Nutcase]

Ban accounts taking part in EULA-breaking activity? Sure. But it's utter bullshit that Blizzard has legal standing to interfere with a business deal between third parties, or tell people who may and who may not hold a tournament where people compete at playing a Blizzard game. (Which Blizzard also does.)

"Intellectual property" is not compatible with civilization.

 

[Daemascus]

Blizzard is absolutely full of crap on this one.

I'm going to believe that more than likely this will hurt their fanbase a lot more than they know. There were probably other ways to do this but by enforcing this on Paypal, it's going to have severe repercussions on them.

Right... You do realize that most WoW players dont buy gold and wish the gold sellers would just go away?

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I've been playing for years, and it's NEVER been easier to make gold, the average quest gives you 20 gold + a 10g item to vendor, add that to your gathering while you're questing and random rare drops and money is just raining down on you.

All but the most casual of player are doing just fine for cash unless they're desperately in need of epic flying on all of 10 alts.

I try to make it clear that the guild is heavily against gold buying, as you're just opening yourself up to being hacked.

As for ...

Ban accounts taking part in EULA-breaking activity? Sure. But it's utter bullshit that Blizzard has the legal standing to interfere with a business deal between third parties, or tell people who may and who may not hold a tournament where people compete at playing a Blizzard game. (Which Blizzard also does.)

I know nothing about the tournaments, but when you sign the UELA in WoW, you agree that all virtual money and items remain the property of Blizzard, therefore all these companies are selling stuff they don't own. I'd say that's enough of a problem, legally.

I just wish people would STOP buying that crap, it fills the game with spam, it gets newbies hacked and puts them off the game, and it's not even a real advantage, any really decent gear, you've generally got to raid for. There's bits an pieces you can buy for 15-20,000 gold, but mostly just try playing the game.

 

[wulfy42]

Easy way to get around the problem would be to sell a FAQ (could only be a few paragraphs of simple tips) and have a FREE BONUS of x amount of WoW gold.

They are actually selling the WoW gold of course, but are advertising it as selling the FAQ and just giving the gold away for free.

Should let them sell to their hearts content.

 

[Daemascus]

If blizzard wants to kill all gold farming completely from everywhere then they simply need to under cut them by selling the gold/items themselves. It is win/win the players get cheaper gold and blizzard makes money.

No, they cant. For various legal reasons including by giving gold a real world value, it would be considered income when you got it and would be taxed. See http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/06/29/the-lawbringer-why-youll-never-buy-gold-from-blizzard/ for more details.

 

[Daemascus]

Ummmm... I don't get it. What's this supposed to achieve? As far as I know, opening a new PayPal account isn't particularly hard. So at best, this might turn into a game of whack-a-mole for Blizz, chasing down new accounts all the time. Unless it's a blanket attack against any and all people recieving money for virtual goods in WoW, in which case couldn't they simply not say they are selling stuff in WoW.

Admitedly, I don't know much about how PayPal works and the whole goldselling process (having never partaken in either), but I don't see how this might be anything more than an annoyance to the goldsellers...

Pretty sure its a bit harder for businesses to open paypal accounts. Or something.

 

[Archemetis]

I get what you're saying, but with that course of action comes new issues, If people can buy gold, then they have an easy route to the items and other assorted goodies that require effort and time to obtain, and as Blizzard make their main source of income from the time people put into their game making items easier to get without any time taken to do so removes that.

Its been a while since i played WOW i got bored to death of the grind. But gold doesnt matter much because from what i remember the armour and weapons were level dependant. So even if you had the gold to by a strong weapon, you still had to be the correct level to use it. Or have they changed that?

They haven't changed the level requirements, no. But the grind to said levels is incredibly easy compared to earlier years.

Only quest loot can used regardless of level, but the level requirement for the quest fixes that.

Since Vanilla WoW they've reduced the amount of XP required to reach end game content about three times.

A typical player can reach upwards of level 30 within 5 days of play now as opposed to how long it used to take.
(I personally on the character I recently levelled from 1-70 managed 27 levels in a 17 hour binge, I honestly had nothing else to do).

So not only have they made Gold much easier to get hold of with the re-worked quests but they've upped the chances of players reaching the adequate levels to use the equipment too.

So with level 85 being much easier to reach than 60 ever was in Vanilla, coupled with the gold people will be racking up by 85, there's really no need to buy gold from an outside source.