No one here can do anything about people who wanna buy gear. Blizzard selling gold is the better option. Keeps some of the gold money in house. They have only seized a certain share of the gold market. They didn’t invent the gold market, and they can’t stop the gold market.
If Blizz didn’t have their little share of the pie with tokens, it would just be 100% in the 3rd party seller’s hands again. Some MMOs have tried just not having player trading at all and people still find a way to have paid services. Often more so, considering not having an economy takes away many different play styles people might leverage to farm. It is a balance to strike, with no black and white solution.
What would be different for you if your friend, instead of buying gold for cash, sat up all night doing all his weeklies and callings and gathered up a few thousand elethium ore, and bought a set of conquest gear with that instead? Your friend say, I would rather burn a benji and sleep those hours instead for the next few months. That is like, a personal private decision someone would have to make for themselves I think. It is not that interesting.
those arnt the rules anymore clearly . besides just buying gear doesn’t magically make you good and if buying a boost to kill the boss makes you feel like you won the game then man your buddy’s must live a sad life.
You reported your friends for buying tokens that are sold in the licensed Blizzard store. That is a false report. Hopefully they don’t take action against your account.
People responding to this thread like this is a true story. I’m convinced the same 4 or 5 people post things just to get reactions. None of it constructive and always mightier than thou tone. I really wish Blizzard had a system where you post on your battle.net name so you can’t have alts all spewing the same thing.
Obvious troll. However, many people (especially after certain Youtube videos) believe that wow is pay to win. True pay to win, in my opinion, is being able to pay real world currency for items unobtainable otherwise. An example would be a legendary weapon that is exclusively acquired via paying $50 in a cash shop. What we have now is not true pay to win, while in theory a lot of gold can earn you carries if paid to the right people, it is all stuff you can obtain without spending anything. In fact, with loot lock outs you could even argue it isn’t even faster, just lazier. Consider the following things that have and will always happen that result in people getting gear with less effort, which is essentially the same as what you claim to be pay to win:
The good friend / significant other of guild lead who can pick up gear regardless of performance.
Paying cash for services anyway, because it has always been around.
Paying gold for services (I sold arena carries in wrath for gold, it was a thing back then too)
These are all unavoidable things that always have and always will happen in any online game. At least with the token wow recovers some more money. It doesn’t really concern anyone but the people buying/selling the service. Sure, maybe X amount of gladiator mounts are awarded to carries who couldn’t get it on their own, but that doesn’t stop me from getting it. If I was good enough to get a gladiator mount, then I shouldn’t have a problem beating 1 or more person carry teams, and it shouldn’t be that special to me since it is easily obtainable to me.
