I guess we just have different opinions on what “damage to the economy” is.
The WoW token creating gold out of thin air if the price drops below what it was when it was listed is what I consider damaging the economy.
Let me ask this, if someone just randomly gave you 1000g would you consider it damaging? You didn’t earn it and you got an advantage over people that weren’t handed 1000g by a stranger.
As long as that gold was legitimately earned (i.e. not using a bot to farm gold), I don’t see the difference between that and trading Retail gold for Classic gold.
If you want 1000 gold on Classic, farm 1000 gold on classic.
The whole point of classic is that things aren’t easy to come by.
I guess lazy people are gonna find ways around things though.
I also fully expect that there will be gold spammers, because people WILL buy gold because they’re lazy and they don’t care if it’s cheating.
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What server you gonna be on?
Ok, to use and extend your analogy somewhat, how about this : If a person walked up to another in RL, and gave them a million dollars ( totally legit money, just gifted it them ), can you see the economic impact that has ??
The person would quit their menial labor job, they would SHOP differently, INVEST differently, etc and all this has a knock on effect in economic terms.
Its the similar in the game, a player suddenly getting a leg up financially, changes the players further behaviour, and that has a knock on effect to other players. The very act of getting a leg up is the damaging moment, it doesn’t matter if the source was legit or not, the economic effects are there.
Large sum of money gets traded for nothing of value that makes sense within the economy gets flagged. You are investigated. Someone giving you the gold maybe a friend on your friends list or someone who you have interacted with. Obvious to tell a real social interaction based on the history VS. you traded with some random person who gave you a ton of gold. Both you and him are banned for real world trading.
I did a quick check of the terms of service and this is what I found.
“Buying or selling for “real” money or exchange, gold, weapons, armor, or any other virtual items that may be used in a Game outside the Game platform.”
So what we need is a clarification of the term ‘game platform’.
As far as I can tell there are two potential ways the ‘game platform’ can be interpreted.
The first is that World of Warcraft Classic and World of Warcraft are indeed different game platforms as they launch in to their own separate clients. You cannot access World of Warcraft Classic from World of Warcraft or vice-versa. Under this clarification such an exchange would be deemed a violation of the terms of service agreement.
Another possible interpretation of the game platform could be the Battlenet client as a whole. This would mean that the exchange would not violate the terms of service agreement. However as discussed the effect of this on the soon to be burgeoning economy of World of Warcraft Classic would be profoundly game warping and antithetical to the majority of prospective World of Warcraft Classic consumers. It would also have more far reaching implications such as also allowing these exchanges to take place between any two games that are accessible from the Battlenet client such as World of Warcraft and Diablo 3, Diablo 3 and ‘insert future game with method of exchange here’ etc.
Edit: From a purely logical standpoint it would make sense that the game platform refers to the first interpretation as they are two different games that can’t be accessed from each other.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree. To me, it just sounds like jealousy that someone has an (admittedly unfair, but perfectly legal) advantage.
Hopefully Blizzard will come out and clarify that it’s fine, unless they plan on making Classic the exception, so threads like this can be put to rest.
Because gaining gold is part of the game. Be it grinding, trading goods, professions, or social interaction that brings you gifts or gold from social services within the game. Blizzard bringing wow tokens made gold have less worth in terms of achievement. While some retail players may like it, I refuse to play a game with a cash shop or a token system.
Let me give you an example. Old School Runescape. Gold used to mean something. It meant you were good at farming, trading, dueling, pking, skilling. Now it can just mean you bought tokens. Tokens pissed people off in runescape. It pissed people off in WoW. People like to earn because it makes things less cheap. We play an MMO separate from real life. It doesn’t matter who you are in real life. In WoW classic, we all are given equal opportunity to compete.
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That’s capitalism, gotta leverage that dosh, you poors just hate that we can do it.
It shouldn’t be a violation, but you have no avenue for recompense if you are stood up by the other party.
It is a violation if you say “I’ll give you $100 USD for 1000 gold in Classic.”
It doesn’t matter if someone doesn’t have to work/go to school and can play as much as they want?
It doesn’t matter if someone shares a house with someone else and they can account share without being detected, letting them play a character more than any single person could?
Someone is going to have an advantage over you thanks to real life. There’s no stopping it.
Gold trading has…only every been against the tos if it involves real money.
Trading gold between the two different titles means nothing. As neither one affects the other.
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You literally had people trading gold in vanilla on a daily basis. None of it was against the tos unless it involved real money. Than it broke the rules.
I remember people trading gold all the time. Gold for services. This is the same thing.
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Look at this as an example then: In sports some people are more athletic. Those are your people that are allowed to no life WoW for whatever reason. However, taking performance enhancing drugs destroys the competition and is disliked by all. This is buying gold with tokens. However, no matter how athletic you are, you are able to work to improve within the game to the best of your ability. That’s earning gold within the parameters of the game without outside influence.
Performance enhancers are against the rules in most sports, as far as I know.
Trading gold between Classic and Retail isn’t (unless they decide to make it an exception).
I’m not saying it’s fair, just that it’s allowed. I suggest just enjoying Classic as much as you can and not worrying about what (allowable) advantages someone else has.
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What makes you say it is allowed. This has not been clarified. Please show your proof.
the very fact so many people are arguing about what is or what isnt is reason enough blizzard themselves needs to come in and verify it
Because you can already indirectly trade gold for in game items/services across different servers and regions in WoW. According to others in this thread, trading between WoW and other Blizzard games is also allowed (though I’ve got no experience with this part myself, talk to them).
What makes you think Blizzard would suddenly make an exception for trading between Classic and Retail?
Better yet, how do they even tell and where is the line drawn if they decide it isn’t allowed? Best case scenario, they force players to add an extra step that’s a minor inconvenience.
Person A: “I’ll run you through Deadmines in Classic for 1000g”
Person B " And I’ll run you through Nighthold in Retail for 100,000g"
Both prices are exorbitant, but they’re technically selling an in game service for in game currency which is 100% allowed and the gold still changes hands as if they said “I’ll trade you 1,000g in Classic for 100,000g in Retail.”
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“Buying or selling for “real” money or exchange, gold, weapons, armor, or any other virtual items that may be used in a Game outside the Game platform.”
If they are deemed different game platforms then it might not work that way.
Trading gold between retail servers is not the same as trading between classic and retail as they are different games.