BC RAF Yes or No?

WoW Classic Cataclysm Classic Discussion
1

TL:DR RAF is broken as Boosting. What are your thoughts? For or Against and why? Keep it civil. Would prefer a blue boost to bump often be friendly and genuine.

Yo, so i googled and searched a bit and figure there wasn’t much traction around this Subject.

What I found, so if I’m double posting. My mistake as much as we dislike it or love it. Boosting to 58 is 99.9% going to be a thing. But I haven’t heard much on RAF which is possibly more broken. (Depending if they end up which selling boost which I honestly think they will. But that’s neither here nor there.)

My good sir What is this RAF? Are you talking in URGURAGANGA??? Or… French? No! R A F Stands for Recruit a friend! What is Recruiting a friend… Well my mom said WoW was a cult. But! In blizzards own words!

“Recruit A Friend allows you to play Blizzard games with friends and receive exclusive in-game rewards. For specifics on how Recruit A Friend works”

Here’s a list I got from MMO-Champ that they saved. If anyone wants to use wayback machine for the O.G links i’d love that and would edit the op with it. But for now.

–Our new friend referral system allows you to recruit some of your friends to join you in World of Warcraft by sending them an invitation email containing a trial activation key. With this key, your friends will be able to set up their own trial accounts.

To start this process log on to the Account Management section and click the Recruit-A-Friend button. This will take you to the actual friend referral page, where you can enter a friend’s email address and name one at a time. If you want, you can also enter a message that will be included in the invitation email.

What in-game benefits do we get while the accounts we play are linked?

  1. Characters on both accounts can summon each other once per hour.
  2. While adventuring with your linked friend/family member, you will each gain triple experience.
  3. For every two levels the new player earns, the new player can grant one free level-up to a lower-level character played by the veteran player.

How long will I be linked to my recruit?
The link between the accounts will last for 90 days from the date that your recruit creates an account. Remember that for the link to work properly, your recruit must create a new World of Warcraft account using the 10-day trial key in your invitation email.

When my friend/family member upgrades from a trial account to a full version of the game, will that break the link between the accounts?
Nope! Your friend/family member will have to upgrade to continue playing past the 10-day trial, and the accounts you play will stay linked until the full 90 days have passed.

If my friend/family member recruits another friend/family member, am I linked to that person too?
No, these benefits only apply to the person that you referred directly.

Are there any limits on when and where I can summon my friend?
You and your recruit may only summon new characters of equal or lower level to the character you are playing. There is a one-hour cooldown on this summoning ability. Also, once one of the characters reaches level 60, the summon will no longer function.

Do I always gain triple experience while I am linked to my recruit?
No, only when you are partied with a character on the linked account and both players are present when slaying the monster or completing the quest. Also, if the two characters are not the same level, only the lower-level character is given the experience boost.

Is quest experience tripled too?
Yes, but only if the quest was not trivial (gray difficulty) for either character.

Do normal experience rules apply?
Yes, if a monster is trivial to either player, no experience boost is given.

How does this affect / stack with Rest State experience?
While you are partied with a linked recruit, any Rest State you have accumulated is not consumed. Only the tripled experience from the Recruit-A-Friend program is applied.

What if I’m partied with multiple recruits who I’m “linked” to? Do I get quadruple, sextuple experience?
No, you can only ever gain a maximum of triple experience regardless of how many linked recruits you are partied with.

Are there any limitations to granting levels to characters played by the veteran player?
Yes. The recruit may not grant a level to a character that is equal to or higher than the current level of the character he or she is playing. Additionally, the recruit may not grant a level to a character that is level 60 or higher.

How can I earn the free 30-day credit?
For each person you refer who upgrades to a retail version of World of Warcraft and purchases his or her first month of game time, the account you sent the invitation from will receive a free credit of 30 days of play time.

Can I use the free 30-day credit on a different account or at a different time?
No, the 30 days of play time are immediately applied to the account you sent the invitation from once your recruit pays for his or her first month.

How can I earn the exclusive in-game mount?
For each person you refer who upgrades to a retail version of World of Warcraft and purchases two months of game time, you will be able to give a character on the account you sent the invitation from an exclusive in-game zhevra mount. This unique mount can be claimed through the website, is only available to Recruit-A-Friend participants, and can only be applied to a single character.

Can I earn multiple 30-day credits and mounts with Recruit-A-Friend?
Yes! These rewards will be given to you for each account you refer that meets the criteria listed above.

If my recruit cancels the account before purchasing subscription time, can I still earn the 30-day credit or the in-game mount?
If the recruit later comes back, reactivates the account, and purchases subscription time, you will still be eligible for the rewards. Additionally, you can always invite more friends/family members to try World of Warcraft through the Recruit-A-Friend system.

Source - https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/611369-Recruit-a-friend-and-get-a-Zhevra-Mount-!

Further reading https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/2008-04-28-blizzard-may-be-considering-granting-levels-to-recruit-a-friend.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAABcYV6N6Ss_rLkFkkB5AiYWhACzOhqIvQyBIvWDU_EVfwDJQ5XDbz9YOBgA3l7ofP8Dc8XmYtp6QBs996dRLL1QEemd1dn7bkAdeUa_JlAOtbSCfcCUtHDkG-pX156EVYI59M-9_r6Si00kS3W077hg_Jd6caOvkhbCIqGXoqVN0

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/ref/arts/warcraft-journal.html

2

I brought this up myself.

Common replies I got were

  • “It was a WotLK thing” (or so close to WotLK that it didn’t count)
  • It’s not a boost, you have to earn the levels and play the character (conveniently ignoring the granted levels)
  • RAF brings in new players (you could boost yourself then and new players can come in now)

Basically a bunch of nonsense so they could pretend the new boost is some weird transgression that is completely different.

1 Like
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Whereas paid 58 boost is not economically beneficial to botters over multiple accounts and leveling, RAF would just be a huge boon to them

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It’s how folks are who doesn’t want honest argument. I hope to engage people this time around, and hope both sides are honest and fair. Pro’s and cons are to both. So we shall see if this lands anything.

Yea that’s a fair point Bot’s would gain a ton for sure. RAF Also has that Summon built into it. I wonder if Modern friends list API could supprt it.

Honestly bot’s are going to happen to matter what, we’ve seen from classic that blizzard can’t or won’t deal with that problem.

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Oh I 100% agree about the bot issue being present either way. Just that many of the same people arguing against boosting because of “bots” (although mathematically unrealistic from a cost/benefit point of view), tout RAF as a better solution cause it somehow fits their idea of #nochanges, although it is factually worse.

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Add RAF, let them see how that will blow botting up ten fold, I’ll just have an army of alts for doing dailies.

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While I agree with you, as the risk reward isn’t worth it. Other’s do not. Bots leveling time / Investment Vs Boost / botting makes no sense to me. But let’s keep it on RAF if we can :smiley:

Question, what is stopping Botters from doing this now? And or yourself? Just because it’s easier with RAF or. I’m sure everyone who’s digging into the Bot Gold mine now is already slamming that pickaxe hard so to speak. I would go with this will normally benefit players.

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Absolutely nothing bar the fact I don’t care to bot and fight with TOS agreements, I just want to play.

Botters CAN do this now. This is what people don’t get, This whole endgame of “Botters ruining the world” is here! It has come and gone. Wow classic is riddled with bots! So, what exactly are we fighting if it’s already here? A good question.

A human in wow classic leveld 0-60 (hunter, no mage boosting) in 3 days 7 hours. A bot can clearly do this even faster
Now, we add in the prepatch 1-60 XP nerf
And then we add in mage boosts

Botters can easily level up at least 4 fresh 60 bots in a few days already WITHOUT the 30% xp nerf 1-60.

The simple answer is it won’t harm nor help botting in a way that average player notices.

EDIT: Botting ALSO is directly tied to the want/need of RMT. Botting will increase naturally, despite boosts or any other factors, as player populace increases. This is basic supply and demand. More people buying RMT gold, more bots. Unless you have a magical way that can, with 100% accuracy, determine who is and is not a bot. Blizzards fighting a losing battle. I’m not gonna say they’re for the players here, but from an IT standpoint, I don’t see a good way to combat this without scewing regular players over.

As for why I want RAF over paid boost

Useable as many times as I want
Free mount
Free teleport to any RAF friend, 30m CD
+1 free lv for every 2 lvs they gain, so I get free 60 alts per every 2 people who reach 60. Pretty good vs 1 free 58.

RAF is infinitely better than the boost for both bots and users alike but if you truly do want to fight against botting, RAF is by far the WORST option to pick.

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For players who want to reduce bots and gold sellers, RAF would be a nightmare situation, it not only would make it easier for botters to level up their own accounts, but their services would be in higher demand, as they could then sell boosting services to the people using the RAF to get them to 60 even faster.

This compared to the blizzard boost which will remove customers from the boosters and gold sellers, and which wouldn’t be practical for botters to use it both for technical reasons as well as cost reasons.

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I agree that RAF is better for the normal joe for reasons you pointed out. RMT is a player made problem As if gold buying. But there really isn’t anything to do about it, because people are well gonna get ahead of someone else. trust me I’ve reported my fair share of bots. Got two banned this week, but i know it does very little.

Nothing players can do outside of already breaking TOS by buying gold and helping RMT’s will stop the bots. The company’s the bot already have there 60’s there plans to push out more bots with OR without RAF. Will Botters use RAF and it’ll make them get to 60 in a few days. Yes. Will not having RAF honestly cut down on the ammount of bots being made? No.

RAF in general would favor the adv player.

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I think RAF will be in TBC and I think the mount in the game files, now renamed to Reawakened Warp Stalker, is the RAF mount.

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You DO have to earn the levels. Only the new player can grant levels to the veteran player, and only up to his level, AND only 1 level for every 2 levels the new player gains. This only applies until the new player reaches 60: at that point, the new player cannot grant levels to anyone 60 or above. He could grant levels to any character belonging to the veteran player below 60, but only a maximum of 30 levels can be granted.

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Wrong. You get 1 level per 2 levels the recruit earned. Level 2 characters with the recruit, you can dump 59 levels onto the same character. I know because I’ve done it. You have 90 days and triple exp; make the main account a mage booster, the “recruit” everything else. You’ll have as many 60s as you’d like in no time and every 2 “recruits” you level, you get a bonus 60.

Veteran vs recruit is meaningless when the “recruit” is just the veteran multiboxing themselves, which was 100% allowed, I know because I’ve done it (and then moved the toons off the “recruit” account later.) With the free month for the recruit purchasing game time, it’s cheaper than the price that’s being floated for the 58 boost.

You earned the levels on the toons you’ve played. You’re given bonus levels on top of that to grant as you see fit. It’s a direct boost.

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I hate both but if i have to choose i prefer the 1 time boost.

RAF is way worse than everything else.

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Yeah… they still have to level those 2 characters in order to boost a character from the veteran account from 1 to 60. Sure, you have triple experience, but those characters still have to be played and leveled.

I’m assuming you mean that you’re moving the toons off the recruit account to your main one. How would you do that?

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So it’s perfectly fine to have a toon you’ve never played and levelled at 60, as long as you have 2 toons at 60 with only 2/3 of the time it normally takes to get 1 60. As in, the act of levelling the 2 recruit characters somehow justifies you getting a completely unplayed 60, but it’s unacceptable to get an unplayed 58 for cash.

And again, “played” is a stretch when you can just mage boost the 2 recruits in the first place. There was also no restrictions on how many RAF you could have going at once, so you could “recruit” 4 toons and powerlevel them on your mage at the same time.

https://wowwiki-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Character_Transfer#:~:text=In%20mid%202006%2C%20Blizzard%20Entertainment,owner%2C%20subject%20to%20certain%20restrictions.

Paid service implemented in 2006. TBC came out in 2007, for reference. Recruit a friend was 2008.

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Yeah. At least you’ve put in some time instead of just swiping a credit card. And leveling two characters to 60 even with triple experience is still a tedious process to many: a lot of players want the character boost because they can’t stand leveling a character in classic for even one second.

And even if you mage boost your own toons, you still had to level a mage to 60 and put all the time, money, and effort into learning and executing mage boosting. These are all transactions that are occurring between legitimate players (or yourself if you’re multiboxing).

But besides all that, you couldn’t do any of that today because if RAF existed now, you wouldn’t be able to get the toons from the recruit account onto your main account.

Character and Account Restrictions

  • You can transfer a character only once every 90 days
  • You cannot transfer a character that isn’t at least level 10
  • You cannot transfer a character with active auctions on the Auction House
  • You cannot transfer a [character with mail in the mailbox]
  • You cannot transfer a character to another World of Warcraft account

I’m not trying to argue that RAF is an acceptable alternative to boosts, by the way. I’m just saying that it’s not as effective at getting “free” 60 toons as you might think.

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RAF is far worse, because you can abuse it to level up a dozen alts on new accounts.

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I’d rather not have the boosts but I’d take the boosts over RaF.

In the past I advocated for RaF over boosts but when factoring in what that would mean for bots I’ve done 180.

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Ok, then I have no qualms with you.

The topic is about comparing RaF to the proposed 58 boost. My post was stating if you’re ok with RaF, but not the 58 boost, you’re either not aware of how RaF worked, lying, or a hypocrite.

For the purposes of that discussion, what blizzard has decided to change since regarding account transfers is pretty irrelevant; I was talking about how RaF was,not how an imaginary RaF would work today.

Oh, and I just checked- the restrictions between accounts? Only applies to WoW classic. You can do it in the shadowlands client, and there’s no reason to believe it would or wouldn’t apply to TBC classic.