First up, I’m a fan of the ban on boosting communities. Trade chat was just ridiculous and just the announcement of this has completely changed that. I’m sure these communities will still exist but they’re underground and people will use them less. I’m completely fine with all that.
You’ll note this is a ban on cross-realm communities. So what will be the response? People will move even more to the mega-servers (eg Stormrage for Alliance, Illidan for Horde). I’m sure Blizzard will make bank on the server transfers that will result from this. I wonder if it will hurt WoW token sales.
If you think about it, with sharding (and even layering which was and is a big thing with Classic) there’s really no need for more than one server per region and ruleset (eg PVP, PVE, RP-PVP, RP-PVE).
The only reason, really, is character names. People are rabidly attached to their names. After 17 years try and find a reasonable name on any big server and you’ll see the problem with so many “dead” names (ie names of level 1 characters for accounts that haven’t been active for 10+ years).
I think the server concept is now outdated and would actually welcome merging all the servers (in one region and ruleset) into one.
Boosting is still allowed. So mythic guilds can now do sales runs with less competition, and without a middle man. So prices will go up and token sales will follow.
I don’t even know if the advertising in chat will change all that much.
Honestly I would have preferred to see the random trolls in trade chat be dealt with rather than legit advertising.
One does not simply ban boosting communities… Its black gates are guarded by more than 2.1k io score Orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep. And the great Ion is ever watchful. Our trade chat is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire, ash, and dust. The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume. Not with ten thousand bans could you do this. It is folly.
They clarified yesterday that the only real change is that “escrow” based communities are no longer allowed.
So as long as the communities provide direct payment they are good to go
If I was a business man, I would get players that do carries to pay for community membership or maybe a “finders fee” and then let the buyers directly pay the carry group. Fits the rules as explained in this blue post
That J.R. R. Tolkien like narrative depicts a very realistic vision of things to come. They will not go easy. Rather, they will look for ways around, like they always have, the Terms of Service. It won’t be long before they find a way. As it is much more difficult to secure the game from boosters than it will be for a boosting community find a way in.
The player base are a pretty remarkable community and I wouldn’t be surprised if many of these enterprising individuals aren’t already concocting work arounds that will be emulated by others.
The only real change I see will be what Microsoft imposes once the deal is settled and their people put in place. Assurances will be made that nothing will change in the beginning. It reminds me of training in n survival training where you pet the rabbit to calm it down before it was whacked and then dinner.