Just sharing my feedback from a thread I created before it was brought to my attention that this one exists
I am but a mere forgotten relic who was looking to relive some great child hood experiences in the beloved world of Azeroth a wee lad that experienced original Vanilla and TBC with green eyes awe struck by the adventure, vastness and endless opportunity for friendship and camaraderie.
While my return was extremely short-lived due to unforeseen account restrictions forcing my hand. As a farewell I felt remis to not share the feedback I provided in my customer ticket in hopes that future change is possible to better the experience for legit returning/new players:
I will preface this by saying I understand the golden era is gone back when the devs, GMs and support were intertwined and connected to the heartbeat of the game and the players. A true conduit that could action change and assist the life blood of the game (the players) with a genuine strive to do so, as in large players them selves that shared in our love and passion of the game. It saddens me that the support experience has been relegated to a mere formality now.
I digress and would be remiss to at least not provide feedback (despite knowing it will fall on deaf ears). While I applaud and wholeheartedly stand by any action to combat RMT and bots which absolutely destroy the experience for legit players the current implementation is poor and completely destroys the playability for legit returning and new players which are such an integral part for the health of the game.
Points to consider:
It is possible to target RMT in a more elegant way that would still leave the game playable for new players
Mail:
a) Allow sending earned items and gold unrestricted only to characters on the same account. Which is an absolute necessity as not being able to inventory control with bank alts in classic is effectively akin to the game not being playable period.Drastically limit any gold and items sent or received on a sliding scale based on level to other players.
This effectively targets RMT the same way but leaves the game still playable for new players.
AH/Trades:
Given above trade restrictions new accounts would no longer have a way to acquire RMT gold so the following makes sense:
a) Allow restricted trades and purchasing from the AH in both quantity and value on a sliding scale based on level. Since the mail restrictions enforces only earned gold being used. The above trade restrictions also enforce only earned gold.b) There also is a huge gap now cause accounts can sell items in the AH so that means bad actors could list cheap items for huge gold amounts to acquire illicit RMT gold then wait 26 days to further propagate the cycle. A restriction on quantity and value of listed items would need to be imposed on a sliding scale based on level.
New player experience:
a) Unable to give items to alts bank alts which makes the game unplayable as inventory management is integral.b) Unable to legitimately trade and buy from the AH makes progressing infinitely harder unable acquire simple things like bags, items for quests, basic consumables, etc
c) Can’t even at the very least give things to friends/party members which have marginal to no value in the initial leveling curve of the game.
A clear and explicit disclaimer should have been provided when buying gametime indicating the account falls under these restrictions. I am not even sure how you are able to retroactively do this without the consumers prior knowledge in essence completely blind siding them and altering what should be a contract.
An honorable point I would also like to add is that these restrictions also go against the fundamental social construct of the game of why most of us love the original iterations of the game in the first place. These restrictions effectively relegate me to a beggar with a sheer reliance on my friends gifting me things without any means for legitimate reciprocation and this bothers me to the core. I derive sheer joy from being a contributing member to my friends and group instead of a liability and this was the tipping point for me.