obviously MS does not support this and I believe is taking steps get control of this black market economy.
my point is a lot of the negativity on the forums is created by people who exploit the game economy for real money and they are ferocious
Blizzard does not support it either. They can’t “get control” of criminal organizations using stolen credit cards, malware, phishing, fraud, botting, account theft, spamming/advertising, etc - when that org is outside the reach of US law. Some countries really don’t care that people are committing crimes in the US if it brings money locally.
The only way to totally shut down third party RMT is to remove any ability to trade in-game items/currency or services. They can limit it using in-game changes such as binding some things to the account, using software to find accounts meeting a specific set of cheating parameters, using player reports to start investigations, educating players so that players don’t buy goods and services that feed these criminal groups.
Stopping it though, without the legal ability to go after them, and without crippling the interactivity in the game is …tough.
If game companies could just nuke the RMT folks from orbit I am sure they would. They want nothing more than for all the fraud, cheaters, con artists, botters, and other ilk to go away forever.
i know right? just yesterday i was playing with my new alt. void elf priest when this guy started spamming invited to me for no reason.
naturally i decline because i don’t know the person and i see no reason to accept such invites, the dude got mad at me and in spanish yelled at me “son of (Bee)” (if you get what i mean)
don’t know why he invited me without saying anything but way back then people would atleast introduce them self and explain why they want to invite me to something.
people have become way to rude and way to mean, Blizzard really need to start punishing these individuals like idk a warning or something?
do people forget that there is a real leaving person behind the monitor? seriously why? just why?.. 
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Blizz is not in a position to do much, I agree.
but MS has almost infinite resources including setting the standard for operating systems.
I look forward to see what MS can do.
my point is that a lot of negativity on the forums comes from defenders of gate keeping and RMT exploiters and the damage they do to the play experience is almost unmeasurable.
My transmog has been fixed and I’ve left the 50’s behind.
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maybe it’s apropos for the 1750s?
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Possibly. The mask I just added does make it look like I’m heading to a fancy dress party in Victorian England.
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It’ll be interesting to see what happens. I think the old systems will remain. Whether you call it a monarchy with nobility or not the basic formula is: They with the most money have the most access to advanced toys/resources. I’ve seen more and more valuable information getting locked behind hefty subscriptions -because the scientific community doesn’t want AI being able to reguritate and reproduce studies and throw it into the open source realm. Those funding the research also want to make a buck; so if anything they want to use the AI to achieve specific results that’ll further increase the return on investment via asking for high dollar access into the newly forming higher tiers of research.
It’s stratifying already. Libraries from the time I’ve been in undergrad to now as I start pursuing my PhD have lost access to great expanses of information. They don’t have the funds to provide general access to the public. As an undergrad you had to pay a ‘student library fee’ that go you able onto some of the databases (JSTOR, MEDLINE, PsychInfo) to research papers & articles. As a graduate student, that access diminished and the fees doubled to get access to medical and scientific journals and studies. There are still some places you can get access to okayish publications. ERIC is probably still the most popular. Project Muse is alright, PubMed Central.
When you hoard resources and need to feel special/have special access to things, you’ll always have the potential for a sense of injustice. That’ll breed resentment. That’ll breed negativity.
Anyways. We’re straying way off topic here into a different rabbit hole.
Main point:
Negativity isn’t the only option. It’s just the one we lean into.
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you’re the star of the masquerade
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But if you know this, why do you still have one? If you do…I’m just assuming based on your defense. <3
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Sorry, Still have one of what?
I’m of the mind that it takes an inflated ego to believe you have beaten your ego 
We all have one. Can minimize it to a certain degree. Can’t really “defeat” it though.
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Can think you’re a good person without flaunting or bragging. Yet a lot of people do in WoW, esp over rating or IO lol. I find it adorable.
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Positive reinforcement the anodes of life are here for you
Better then being toxic positive (Not actual positivity, that’s fine in my books), so… 
If we as humans know all this, why do we still have an ego? Is that what you’re asking?
If so, it’s again an enigmatic phenomena of how we strive and plan.
Birds migrate every single year, but they never really plan where they’ll land or nest. But as the seasons change they instinctually know they have to follow food sources and more forgiving climates.
Humans on the other hand don’t have to just go and do per our environment. We can usually plan our every step. We can very fairly accurately know everywhere we want to rest our heads along the way. We can book all our hotels in advance, estimate miles and travel times. Work the three months and save all the money necessary to ensure our expenses are covered. A bird doesn’t think, “Okay. How many worms do I have to eat in order to have enough calories to fly 17 miles? How fast can I do it?”
But a human can in fact think that specifically. That gives us a firmer sense of needing to hoard or consume things to achieve each individual goal.
Then you add into the mix every single human has different goals. Some want to race to beat the clock and see how fast they can get from point A to point B. Others have goals to see as many types of flowers along the way. Each of us projects out our futures based on those goals.
Which is why, if we could all come together and have somewhat aligned goals (like hive survival), but not exactly the same instincts (some want to tend queens, some want to build/cap honeycomb, some want to feed young etc.) we might find harmony. In fact, raiding in general is supposed to somewhat mimic this. We all want to succeed and beat the raid boss. We all want to engage different unique roles we’re drawn to.
Where’s trouble come in?
Resources. Limited drops. It means that not everyone gets the same amount of value for striving towards the end goal. That makes some feel like their time is wasted. That breeds resentment. They tried to actually balance for this by giving out augment runes. However, people were chain running so frequently and collecting so many they became worthless clutter in bags rather than worthwhile resources. Same with crests and flight stones. The token rewards weren’t/aren’t enough; particularly when our performance is linked to our gear stats. We’ll always want that better gear. Thus, our goals become individually focused by design.
If you really want to try and undo your connection to ego, Buddhism and some yoga practices will point you in that direction. I listen to a lot of podcasts about Vendanta Yoga, it’s a good way to get out of the brain box we trap ourselves in. It’s not perfect by any means and it’s not for the faint of heart. Trying to unravel everything you know, or you think you know but isn’t really so (because it’s just a social structure you’ve been conditioned to accept) is a wild ride. There’s some excellent books out there. There’s also a lot of penny-novel level nonsense books too. It’s important to find the teachers/authors you like and follow their bibliography to see where they got their sources. It’ll usually lead you to more enthralling material.
Edit: I’ll also tell you how I’d structure raid. It’s not going to be a popular opinion, but if we really wanted to get more cohesion out of the experience it would go like this…
Do the easiest level raid and everyone gets the gear from every boss. That way everyone gets their transmog bits. Then, increase the difficulty of the raid, but no more gear will drop. Each time you complete a new level of difficulty, your gear gets a +2% stat buff.
Now everyone has all the pretty items they want. AND they have the combined goal to do their best to work together to down a boss and improve their player power. Make it so all players complete content in their own bracket - no taking overpowered players to lower levels or boosting lower stat players into higher levels. If you can only raid up to level 6, you got a +12% stat buff across all your gear. But if you can get to 10 or 12, you’re up 20-24%
This system would eliminate the smashing head against wall chain runs to get mog and BiS items to drop. And if you only raid for mogs, you’re a one and done then out the door. You’re not dragging down more competitive players that wanna build their gear power.
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You type like you think highly of yourself.
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That’s interesting. I don’t actually think highly of myself. I’m more apt to post silly gifs across the forums or engage in self depreciating humor. This particular topic and the questions posed are more intricate than what we normally get into. So. Perhaps it’s that you’re asking sophisticated questions, of a deep intellectual nature that sets the tone?
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Which is why we click and I love you <3
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