I don’t entirely disagree with most of your post, but I do want to comment on this part. This isn’t really as it seems. Yes, you can make a lot of gold using gathering professions. In fact, I’ve done this very thing. Since I started playing Era again I’ve managed to pool a good amount of gold (over 5000), owed entirely to the massive inflation the market has seen as a direct result of RMT.
On the surface, this seems like a lot… I mean, that’s a epic mount for 5 alts, right? Then you go look at the price of consumables, or hear what people are spending in GDKP runs, and you realize that it’s not very much at all. I was talking to someone last week who was saying they spent 10k in a GDKP run and got a whole bunch of gear. Awesome for them, but that’s twice as much gold as I’ve farmed in 6 months or so? You can maybe start to see why GDKP is fueling RMT purchase.
I’m not saying you buy gold, or that the GDKP runs you participate in are RMT. If you tell me that you and your friends value this practice and you treat it as is, I will take you at your word. As I said above though, sometimes you gotta let things go.
Personally, I would have chosen a different route first here because I absolutely agree with your statements here:
… I really have trouble understanding why this is such a challenge for Blizzard. Especially when their GDKP post says they have methods of detecting GDKP activitites. If they have that, do they not have methods of detecting gold purchase? It’s a mystery to me, and one that Blizzard isn’t sheeding any light on, so I guess it just is what it is.
The other side of the coin here too though is that I do agree with Blizzards comments…
This is largely true. The motivations of a GDKP group just aren’t the same as a guild group. A GDKP run sees the more benefit by prioritizing profit over the benefit of the group because most of those folks won’t see each other again. By contrast, a guild group sees bigger gains in prioritizing group progression because those folks are coming back week after week to help the guild move forward.
People are viewing WoW differently than they did even 5 years ago, more as a way to profit and less as a way to bond with other players and overcome challenges. Whatever good aspects GDKP brings (and I do believe it brings some), I think they’re outweighed by that shift in motivation that takes a lot away from what it means to be playing a game with others.
Maybe if humans could just stop humaning for a hot minute, we could all have nice things 