The TL;DR version: Could someone please be so kind as to point me in the direction of the ToS? I’ve tried to find it but I keep getting a 404 error (seems very telling LMAO). The reason I’m asking is because I feel like I have been duped and I’d like to review the ToS as I believe the fault is with Blizzards lack of commitment to their own ToS.
That said, the long version is this…
For the time being my raid availability is limited so I purchased a server transfer to a high population. I checked out the server (Benediction) prior to transferring and LFG chat was bounding, as was trade chat, so much so that if you blink, you’ll miss a world of communication if you don’t scroll quickly.
In my haste to start my vacation, the thing I overlooked is that there are NO pugs… at all… on benediction. The server has seemingly gone unmoderated for so long that Boosting and GDKP is the norm and they are the only raids that run. There is no organic gaming where people fight to down bosses, there’s no MS/OS, gargul or even SR. So there is no other option I joined a GDKP.
The GDKP: When you log into their discord you are greeted by links that direct players to an off site website where you are encouraged to swipe your card so they can provide you with gold so that you will have enough to participate in the loot bidding. The second link is to direct loot drops that you can swipe your card for. I didn’t understand how that worked but it seemed to be either digital counterfeits on BoP items or they must fudge the bidding process to justify the cash purchase of the item. On top of THAT, they had what seemed like gold seller companions within the raid who, even though he/she didn’t actually need, or even want the item, would outbid everyone in attempt to get everyone in the raid to swipe their cards. There was a small turnover of people joining, and dropping raid but the amount of people who stayed and fought for loot drops through the manipulation was incredible! After that experience… if you can’t get the loot drops you wanted… there’s another link… why not just purchase an already geared character of your choice? Or how about a full on boosting service?
It was ridiculous! The thing is, I’m a glutton for punishment it seems because after spending HOURS trying to find ANY MS/OS raid, I got tired of looking so I joined what I thought was a “guild run GDKP”, and as it turned out, it was a mirror image of the previous GDKP I joined, only the links lead to a different site.
I am on vacation this week (and next) and had the time to literally sit in LFG chat and group finder FOR HOURS AT TIME before, during and after peak raid hours, trying to find ANY non-gdkp raid and they literally don’t exist.
So then I decided to try and create one…
The language barrier is so profound and the manipulation tactics are so profound that the only people who would respond to my LFM, had either no logs or gray logs in the 1.9% to 12% bottom percentiles. The majority of them wanted to know what bidding started at even though my recruitment message said, “MS/OS no carries, checking logs” which is not an unusual pug recruitment message.
After locating another new server transfer to Benediction who was also chasing populations, like me, after three hours, we finally did put our raid together. We got everyone in discord and low and behold, the players we thought we weeded out, were abound! Not one of them would communicate in discord. Not one of them followed basic raid mechanics, and not one of them ever used their class mechanics. There were 5.4k Mages who stood in the same place for every fight, through the flames, dropping bad on the entire raid… tanks who ‘forgot’ to taunt, healers that had 0 heals, 5.4k dps who were doing 1.9k damage…
My new friend and I spoke about it in discord after the raid fell apart after only 2 bosses and we came to the realization that our raid had more than likely been deliberately sabotaged by gold sellers whose goal is to make sure there are no organic raids.
I have never in my entire WoW history experienced on any other server, and certainly not to this extent. Pagle, Westfall, Atiesh all have genuine gamers who report boosting/carries. Benediction on the other hand, it’s run by the gold sellers.
I feel I deserve the choice of either a refund on the cost of the transfer or reversing the transfer because while I admit in my haste to start my vacation filled with high pop server raiding I did not adequately investigate the server to see this kind of brazen gold seller rule of law on Benediction, you can’t know this is the case until you are actually there, and this situation can’t happen unless Blizzard allows it. It’s a violation of their own ToS and it’s not like it could be missed. Had I spent the same amount of time in LFG chat when I was scoping out the server as I spent while actually being on the server trying to find a raid, I would have seen that it’s a gold seller run server and not a high gamer population.
Please share your opinion.
I’m pretty sure Blizzard will not offer me any choices so I’ve already cancelled my subscription. There is no game to play for me on Benediction so this will end it for me right here if they don’t. I’m going to open a ticket to try and appeal to them but i think we all already know that it will be a no go.
Again, please share your opinion, and of course, the link to in-game ToS as I haven’t been able to locate it.
