The policy is pretty new.
You’re cherry picking. There is usually 1-3 whales per run who use credit cards, but the majority of time it’s just friends.
yes those 1-3 whales per run are the problem and are why your precious rmt inflated payouts are going away. thank you for self reporting that gdkps are in fact just an avenue for whales to buy gear, you absolute dolt.
Do you know when it was introduced? Before or after classic wow launch?
It was during Wrath Classic IIRC.
Anyone who takes this post seriously just look at home boys topics history lol
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I tried to warn everyone…Banning GDKP is useless. First of all the ban won’t work, and second it doesnt at all fix gold buying/selling. It’s literally a pointless move by blizzard, other than it panders to a vocal minority.
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Showing gold is to prove you’re a true buyer not a leeching. Leeching plagues the GDKP community and some are penalized with cuts being withheld in the higher GDKPs but usually in the mid or lower tier, they skate buy and get free gold for grey or green parsing.
The wow token is bitter sweet. The biggest crime is how insanely expensive they made the base white item for legendary crafting in Shadowlands. Shadowlands did a lot wrong but Blizzard got greedy and seized the moment, and it really turned me off the last 2.5 tiers of raiding.
I don’t think the people against GDKPs is minor. You sound like a green parser for life, frankly. Most people in GDKPs are required to do mechanics flawlessly while purple parsing on average and if they don’t they lose their cut. GDKP is for over performers, which you aren’t so I get why you’re so against it, and it’s for people gearing fresh characters quickly, and finally for people with no skill, very little time for the game, but still wish to enjoy it and want to be carried and are respecting the time of those doing the carrying by paying for raid consumeables/alt gear/chase piece. I myself will use gold from GDKPs to buy a chase piece I can’t get on my main run.
Individuals and guilds selling boost or assistance in raiding, dungeon, or PvP activities for gold is allowed but can only be advertised in-game through the Trade Services chat channel.
You must admit, it’s certainly not easy to understand that this is actually banning pugs using GDKP as a loot system from advertising in LFG channel.
Especially as this is based around their almost silent distinction that GDKP suddenly turns the run into a ‘service’.
It’s a shame blizzard can’t be explicit and use some examples, a large amount of their playerbase (outside of classic) are young gamers.
assistance in raiding
youre squarely in the grey area as far as this part goes, and blizz apparently disagrees with your interpretation if they let the ban stand
Their policies are truly Swiss-Cheesian, I’ll agree. They really make it flexible so they can choose to act on the letter or word of the policy at their convenience.
Individuals and guilds selling items and profession services for gold is allowed but can only be advertised in-game through the Trade chat channel.
Guilds (groups) selling items for gold is unambiguous enough IMO
I haven’t commented on my own interpretation, only on theirs.
Even the most staunch and rabid anti-gdkper must admit that using gdkp as a loot system is not ‘boosting service’ or ‘assistance in raiding’. A GDKP is no more well equipped to clear a raid than any other loot system.
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Isn’t this part of why GDKP advocates say GDKP is better? Because the quality of its members is higher?
It’s purely an advantage from a social and motivation perspective, GDKPs are typically more successful because players are encouraged to complete the run, or they don’t get their split of the pot.
No such motivation exists in other systems, this results in lower effort or even early leavers when things don’t go well.
There is no difference in capability, only the organization.
Because that proves my point of needing gold to join a pug wrong…
“I don’t have an actual argument let me just insult how you play the game”
I’m glad I wasted my time reading your reply.
if you are buyers/carries gdkp you are assisting them by taking their gold for loot while they do no dps or essentially afk.
i would agree like a small friend run gdkp with a mostly non rotating roster is much less grey area, and i have much less problem with them than i do the industrialized gdkp orgs running 10 groups a week
I’ve seen it said often that the composition of a GDKP has more fully geared players than that of any other PuG because there’s a gold incentive. That definitely aligns more with the raid assistance as a service angle.
My take has been that GDKP at its most egregious is a raid boosting service for pure buyers (leeches/swipers), and at best it’s a service that allows you to turn gold into BoP epics.
I suppose at its actual best it’s a loot system based on legitimate gold, but unless you’ve got a super insular trustworthy guild that’s not the case. Definitely not in PuGs.
I agree that an afk buyer should be categorized as a boosting service of some kind. People usually didn’t like AFK buyers unless the raid was mega easy or late phase, as you are literally going 23/24 man.
In my experience, AFK buyers are fairly rare and only owned by RMT whales, no one else can really justify doing this, as you get no/reduced split for afking.
This is one angle, another part is that those geared players choose to attend the runs as it helps them target bid on the last couple items they need, instead of rolling against 5 other people. In my opinion, this is just player agency in action.
As said in the post above, if there are people attending who are literally naked / afk for the entire run, buying gear and doing 0 damage, I will definitely agree that is a boost. Simply being undergeared, but participating in the run, shouldn’t be classified as a boost.
The problem, though, is that these kinds of AFK buyers are not typically discussed with the rest of the raid beforehand, only the admin and maybe a small handful of others will know about it, the other 90% of the raid is just there to play the game, not knowing they are now participating in a “boost” for someone, this is especially true for 25/40mans.
That’s all fine, GDKP is a spectrum in how much of a service it is, but ultimately it’s supposed to be advertised in /trade.
Based on this bluepost, this TOS change was made in 2018, before classic launch.
I guess hundreds of thousands of groups over the past many years have been breaking TOS without knowing, oopsie
It’s also very clearly targeting true boosting services, even giving an example of such services interfering with the formation of PUG groups.