Again with the GDKP crowd acting as if Blizzard doesn’t actively police it already. We know they prefer to do ban waves. You’ll suddenly see an uptick across fan sites/these forums of people claiming they were falsely banned. Can we please stop trying to push the narrative that virtually nothing is being done?
Would it be nice if it were more frequent? Absolutely. I think the problem is they are actively investigating and trying to learn the bot behavior to detect where those bots are congregating and what activity they are exploiting.
For example(s): I watched a troll mage bot get stuck on a fence in Silverpine. It would run up to the fence, get stuck, turn, stay stuck, back up and repeat the process. Another that was a human mage in Darkshore standing near a cave. I pulled the mobs in the cave near the mage, and the mage started to actively move about 10 yards away. I moved closer, it moved another 10 yards. Reported both. Got the “thank you” message for reporting bots. Meaning they have taken action against those bots and hopefully the next ban wave will interrupt the bots abilities to do these things going forward.
I struggle on these forums when I try to get fancy with my quoted responses here also…
Agree with you here. I hadn’t really thought about the fact that you don’t leave raids completely empty handed if you don’t win rolls on gear. Its a fair point, although it seems like you’re admitting that the amount you get isn’t enough. Blizz effectively admitted the same by increasing rewards and adding gear tokens in later phases. Something you seem to agree with.
Your first line in point two: “The incentive to raid shouldn’t need to be monetized.” - and a line from your point one: “I do think Blizz should do what they did in later raids and actually make raiding somewhat profitable in itself.” Of course raiding should come with rewards aligned with the time and effort put in. GDKP accomplishes this.
If you find the encouragement of bidding “cringe” then WoW may not be the game for you. For 20 years the auction-house has been integrated into the fabric of WoW; an entire in-game system dedicated to bidding. We’ve been letting the market (and direct bidding) decide prices of gear and every other tradeable item in the game forever, and this undoubtedly influences rule-breakers to buy gold, but we don’t ban the AH. GDKP just brings this bidding aspect into raids. Its is not “gambling” anymore than listing auctions is gambling.
You point out several times that GDKP supporters keep saying “enforce the rules” and are saying Blizz does enforce the rules. I just disagree. The streamer Soda is the best of many examples. He would buy gold, on stream, and very publicly lost all gold on his account because of it, but he was not banned. Sure there are waves of bans of bot accounts, but its not enough - bots are still far too prevalent (even with the GDKP ban in place). Blizzard is not enforcing these rules, or not to the degree they’re effective, and is instead throwing out a loot system that they freely agree has many benefits. Its the perfect baby/bathwater scenario.
Again man - I disagree with you here, and I don’t think we’ll ever change each other’s minds, but I really respect that you have well though points and arguments, and I enjoy the debate. Cheers.
1&2. I meant monetized in the sense that the only goal is to make money. The idea was to offer other incentives that do largely the same thing, without the need for GDKP.
3. Saying the AH is exactly like a GDKP is fundamentally stretching the truth. The majority of items are set to a buyout price. Not to mention, as I stated before, the sales on the AH are monitored by Blizzard since back in Vanilla when they started to delay the gold you’d receive so they can make sure it is legit. While I can’t speak to how effective it is, it’s been the norm for nearly 20 years. It also isn’t every single drop in a raid. Add in the fact that BOEs aren’t always good makes this argument even more flimsy. You might buy Taran Icebreaker for 10g because it’s better than what you have and works decently in PVP, it isn’t intended to be an item for the entirety of a phase which BIS items in raids are. Which brings up another point, you could have an AH full of the same BOE from multiple people who ran it, you can only get drops off a boss once every 3 days (soon to be week).
I don’t know or really care about Streamers. That said, I think Blizzard should reverse the judgement on this person and give them the appropriate ban. Nobody should be above the rules or be given special treatment like that. I don’t think that would be up for debate really, but I am sure there is the argument of the streamers who get their viewers involved in-game probably are good for the game in some way, but as a long time WoW player (since Jan of 05), I wouldn’t be granted the same treatment despite the fact, so why should they (even though I’ve streamed in the past including the WOTLK PVP tournament I was in)? The exception doesn’t really disprove the rule either though as again we see people banned often for this.
Don’t have to change each other’s minds. Debate that doesn’t devolve into ad hominem attacks or other silly games is the sign of a good argument regardless of how we feel about the other’s position.
The AH is completely unregulated and it’s where most of the RMT happens. On every single server, there will be the same bots posting thousands of fish and herbs daily. Add them to your friend’s list for cheap mats
It’s not unregulated. While the little transactions are harder to catch, any time there are some items that are posted for hundreds/thousands of gold that shouldn’t be (i.e. greens/mats), we know those are flagged. Again, that is why they added in an hour long time between selling on the AH and receiving your gold.
If you know they are bots, you should report them.
What i read is i could not get all i wanted and dont feel like running the raid more. They took the only way i could get geared by buying gold and just buying the items on 2 or 3 runs.
I don’t actively monitor the AH on every single server across SoD. I am stating what Blizzard stated years and years ago. The AH used to be instant. Then they decided to add the hour long wait to do some sort of verification of the item/gold transaction.
Whether or not that is catching some or any of the bad faith actors is not really something I or anyone but Blizzard can attest to. Other than the occasional person banned from doing this practice.
You can run a quick experiment. Post an item for 1 copper and see how fast it’s bought out by a sniper bot. Try it a few times. Do it again in a week to see if it happens with the same sniper bot. Try it again in a month.
The Blizzard 20 years ago isn’t the Blizzard it is today, but I commend your faith in the company.
Correct me if I am wrong, but aren’t there also addons that people use to streamline/alert for items that are significantly underpriced? You can’t say every single item that is put in undervalued and bought up immediately is a bot doing it. I am sure there are plenty that do, but again, per the topic of the thread, getting rid of GDKP gets rid of the major reason people will buy gold: because they can buy gear with that gold.
My faith in the company is not that high, I assure you. I would hope that they are doing what they say, but sitting there saying “they don’t do what they say” without proof is silly. A few guildies of mine have been banned several times for buying gold. One guy has been banned like 6 times and from what I had been told recently, he had spent upwards of $30k on wow gold. While I have no way of verifying if he did, the time I’ve known the guy it wouldn’t surprise me. He thankfully doesn’t play anymore from what I can tell, but I had left the guild a long time ago and only recently been back. Fairly certain he hasn’t played since P2 of WOTLK.
While I would like to stay on topic of GDKPs, it is indeed difficult to separate from RMT, where much of the AH is involved as well (where else would these bots liquidate everything they farm?), and so I believe that much of the problem lies in an unregulated AH.
All of this debate proves that this topic is worthy for discussion, and so I would like to stay away from statements such as “this is how it is because Blizzard said so”.
The thing with the AH is that real players use it and underbid bots as well. While I agree that it should probably be updated with more protections, I don’t know how that would work out without placing a limit per account on how many auctions you can place a day. This would negatively impact those that love to just do AH stuff all day. It may be the best compromise though.
Well, yes there can be discussion on it, but at the end of the day, that is all that matters. If you disagree with something Blizzard chooses to do, you should unsub and vote with your wallet. I am of the belief that GDKP is one of the most harmful things that has ever been invented for WoW with how it became the norm. Which is why I ask what GDKP advocates would state is an alternative so maybe that can be a compromise that everyone is happy with and that everyone who prefers a guild or MS>OS or SR runs also benefit from so it’s even across the board.
I completely agree that restrictions should be placed on the AH, even if it limits those regular players who enjoy the AH (such as myself), but this would open up opportunities for other AH’ers as well when a few players aren’t posting/undercutting on the AH every few seconds. I would absolutely LOVE more restrictions on the AH to help promote the in-game economy, rather than a completely unregulated AH that caters to the top .01%.
As far as GDKPs go, I believe that at the end of the day, it’s a system where players can raid X amount of times and end up with mostly BiS gear, and end up with no difference in gold, as long as they carry their own weight, no different than the traditional GDKP system where players spend their hard-earned DKP points on gear and end up with mostly BiS with their DKP spent.
I believe that GDKPs gained popularity over the traditional DKP system is because the DKP system is restricted to guilds, while GDKP system can be applied to any GDKP raid, where the currency is retained and used for future runs.
People seem to focus on the most negative aspects of GDKP without realizing that the gold earned in GDKPs is meant to circulate back into the GDKP itself, and so ideally, one way or another, everyone gets what they want.
What I think you are failing to understand with GDKPs are that it’s large amounts of gold that are being laundered through them. If someone buys gold, spends it in a GDKP, gets their items, the damage is done. Unless everyone in the GDKP is banned for the illicit gold (which I advocate for), by the time Blizzard has caught up with the gold, it could have been offloaded as you said, into several GDKPs. As they could take that money and send to an alt and go into another GDKP (whether it be the gold buyer or the attendees) and now that gold is spread out even further.
Blizzard themselves have said this is the reason why they made the choice to put an end to GDKP in SoD right now.
The part I’m failing to understand is why the focus on laundering gold is in GDKPs. When I buy thousand of herbs from the bots daily, that is where the gold is already laundered. That is where the damage is already done. Gold isn’t laundered through GDKPs, it’s laundered far before that, in numerous steps. There’s no more laundering required before the gold even reaches GDKPs.
