We were told that banning GDKPs would reduce the amount of gold buying, botting, and all of the other problems that GDKP supposedly creates.
I play on Nightslayer, and, from what I can gather, botting and gold buying is even more of a problem than on any server I played on in 2019. Black lotus prices are out of control even after the increased spawn rates, I find bots running around the world in every layer and in every zone that I go to farm in, and all the inflated prices on the AH just show that RMT hasn’t gone anywhere.
I see no evidence that banning GDKPs has mitigated gold buying or the botting problem.
Thoughts?
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So like everything in these GDKP internet arguments this is only half true. Yes, Blizzard did mention GDKPs being a catalyst for RMT and that being a reason it was banned for SoD. However, when they carried that sentence over to anniversary realms i.e. nightslayer, they didn’t mention RMT as a reason. They talked about the social and guild dynamic and I invite you to consider that reasoning more than the RMT one. I made a post about this in a different thread but it was buried by 2 nerds shouting about RMT for the 50th time in a week.
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There have been a few rather intense debates regarding Blizzard’s messaging about prohibiting GDKP in SoD as opposed to their messaging about the same in Anniversary. I’m not convinced that they ever thought that banning GDKP would make an appreciable difference in the amount of botting and RMT taking place.
I would personally prefer they dole out permanent bans to anyone caught engaging in RMT and dedicate more resources to ridding the game of bots than banning a particular loot system, regardless of how much it entices RMT. I stated elsewhere and I maintain that people would be less opposed to GDKP if you could eliminate RMT altogether. Spend what you yourself earned.
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I’d love to explore this and hear from people.
I personally had the opposite experience of what Blizzard thinks. I’ve made quite a few friends and joined non gdkp guilds from gdkp communities.
I think it’s a very weak argument.
I stopped playing SoD and Anniversary over gdkp bans. Not everyones schedule and lifestyle conforms to a guild. Im speaking strictly from a pug perspective. I dont owe it to any guild leader to turn down offers from my family or friends over a video game.
I wanna raid when I feel like it, and gdkp is the best in this sense. I also work odd schedule(4 months on 4 off) and most guilds will not let you tank or give prio on gear if you are gone like this.
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I’ll give my insight. This is a repost from another thread since I’m too lazy to type it all out again.
In the very brief time before GDKPs in classic, what would happen if you wanted to seriously play an alt is you’d join another guild that didn’t conflict with your current guild’s raid times. This ended up being a trickle down effect, where alts of good guilds would play in mediocre guilds and in essence made them good. It was a positive feedback loop; bad guild recruits good guild alts, good guild alts make bad guild into good guild, good guild can find better players. For better or worse, this dynamic doesn’t really exist with GDKPs in the game; even if GDKP pugs become like a guild, they aren’t the same. The vibe of the overall game felt different.
Although I do appreciate blizzard’s efforts to restore that vibe, I think GDKP is a fine system in of itself and Blizzard should just ban the people who buy gold but that’s just me.
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I’m only asking about the botting/RMT portion of their reasoning, thanks.
I just want to know if there has been any reduction in RMT or botting. I think the answer is no.
If their only reason for anniversary is that they wanted to influence social and guild dynamics, that seems paternalistic to me. Let people organize and associate how they wish.
My hangup about the “social and guild dynamic” argument would be whether or not there is a good way of accurately measuring the impact that GDKP has on said social and guild dynamic, good or bad.
I have no difficulty believing that it could very well have some sort of impact but if it doesn’t do so to an appreciable degree, is it still worth banning GDKPs?
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There is no objective answer to this because it cannot be measured by us.
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People buy gold more now because they don’t get a payout to cover the cost of consumes IMO. People have been rmt in wow since before bots ever existed.
The younger generation that has started playing wow have been trained to spend money on micro transactions and I think this is playing part as well.
Then Blizzard is the only one who can factually answer that. And they aren’t going to answer you.
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I would say it is more social since you are interacting with many different guilds instead of one. On era there are about 7 different guilds i run gdkps with and my current guild runs naxx only reserve robin(non gdkp)which I attend on my warrior.
I have made several friends from many different guilds this way it seems very social to me.
This is true. And the gdkp ban has forced players that would normally pug gdkp’s to join a guild for smooth raids. The current state of pugs is a complete joke right now with all legendaries, boe’s, raid mats, choker, osg, accuria, etc. all HR and the group is so bad you’re looking at a 50/50 chance of 3 hour clear if they even clear at all. Making players join guilds for raids and raiding with the same people every week is a good thing.
But every thread about gdkp’s turns into people arguing about how the ban has helped with bots and RMT. While anybody that actually plays the game can see that RMT and bots are probably the worst they have ever been vs any previous version of classic.
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Imo no. Since these social and guild dynamics are intangible, it’s difficult to definitively say that the dynamic is X way. What we can do is look to behavior trends that we generally accept as true. As Heartshock pointed out, most people agree that the players categorically behave differently than they did on 2019 classic p1-p4~, 2004, etc. And if you accept this premise, you’re also going to be inclined to believe that players view guilds in a different way in 2025 compared to the past and in my opinion you’d be correct.
I think this is the real reason why GDKPs were removed. They wanted to drive player behavior in a certain way in hopes of changing their thinking and attitude revolving around playing the game but I don’t think you can just change mentality through policy like that. For better or worse, people think differently and approach games differently nowadays.
Why is this a good thing? What is wrong with being less regimented?
Nothing wrong with that. I’d prefer gdkp’s were still in the game.
But I don’t think anybody can argue that classic wow isn’t more enjoyable when you’re in a guild raiding with the same people every week, playing with and making friends.
Different strokes for different folks. I’m trying to understand why it’s good for the game to force people to play a certain way.
I like the availability of GDKP as an option but only if you were able to completely eliminate RMT and I scoff at the very idea of thinking that would ever be possible. If I were someone who was unable to commit to a consistent raid schedule, and I wanted to raid, I would sooner join a GDKP knowing that it would most likely be more productive and complete the raid in its entirety and in a timely manner than some random SR/HR PUG that has hard reserved everything worth rolling on and the possibility of it being able to complete the raid in a timely manner and doing so at all being in the air.
I don’t mind a long raid if I feel there’s some assurance that it’s going to be completed but I absolutely hate having my time wasted. I greatly value my time and if GDKP provided greater assurance that I was going to get the most bang for my buck (time) then I’d choose GDKP over HR/SR PUG every time. As it stands, I’m still a big EPGP fanboy so my thoughts on the matter are nothing more than that and not based on any actual experience with GDKPs.
i think its great. we have hundreds of active people in my guild and 4 raid groups. the social aspect of the game is the best i have ever experienced in wow, ever.
the problem is you joining guilds from the gdkp community. leave that trash community of gold buyers and just play the game.
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if they need it explained… i dont think theyll ever understand.