Returning after a Very Long Period of not playing, and seems this is rampant behavior now (it was around back in the day, but super frowned upon and no where near as brazen as I feel it is presently). I don’t see how it’s healthy for the game, and while I appreciate the addition of Trade (Services) so I can mostly avoid having to see the constant advertisements without an addon, it’s still… I don’t know, soul-sucking? Part of me suspects it’s allowed to boost token sales, which seems super underhanded. I don’t know, game’s been throwing bad vibes since returning.
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Boosting token sales is almost certainly the reason why Blizzard is willing to look the other way.
Blizzard was happy enough to ban GDKP runs in Classic Season of Discovery where they didn’t have a token to sell.
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Boosting, carries, powerlevelers are allowed because you literally cant ban it?
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It was a lot worse in systemlands to be honest. But yes that is a big problem still because it undermines players that want to progress with in game means through game play.
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Because it’s a basic action that has been in WoW and MMOs since ever. Would have to completely remove trading and even then it would just encourage 3rd party RMT.
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How? If you want to level the normal way, how do these things stop you?
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But by who, would be the important question there. IDK anyone personally that frowns upon them. Most of my wow friends I’ve met in boosting discords. When they shut them down in shadowlands it broke my heart. It gave me something to do. I don’t personally boost anyone above what would be a portal sale. Anything above that I consider someone buying io, and I’m not ok with that.
In game services provided for in game currency aren’t exactly against the ToS, so there’s nothing to really say on the matter. If they are being provided for real money, then that is obviously not okay to be doing. I do think that they have come to expect the token sales for end of expansion AoTCs though, among other things. It’s easy cash for them. Put a cool reward behind a time limited achievement and players will gladly pay up.
Outside of PvP, how does it undermine others who want to play normally?
It only effects those players because it removes players from the playerbase. For every person paying for a boost, its 1 less player running dungeons, helping to kill world content, buying and trading materials etc.
Does it matter in the slightest? No.
They only shut them down due to the way that players were focused more on advertising the sales rather than running the content with the players.
I know a few players that were earning 500k gold per day from just advertising boost services. So many advertising only accounts that only existsed for the purposes of advertising to a point that it became a detriment to other players with chat spam and the loss of a large chunk of players that would once run pug keys and populate the m+ world simply stopped doing so. Causing a ripple effect that the only way someone could play m+ content was via boosting.
hm. are you familiar with the concept of an echo chamber?
Because people like the sense of achievement or progress without having to apply all the effort and I personally don’t see an issue with it, it’s what they want to do… they aren’t hurting me or anyone else.
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i don’t believe it’s directly harmful or that it undermines anyone in any way. i just think it’s a bad look for the company, honestly, and that allowing it is shortsighted. i’m quite happy with my little red riding goat - don’t much care what anyone else has or hasn’t earned. but i don’t really see the purpose of these aotc achievements if they don’t require one to actually be ahead of the curve. the concept of earned rewards can be a good motivator for players to actually engage with the content, so long as they’re… well, earned. at this stage, they should just offer the aotc mounts in the cash shop and cut out the middlemen.
Well no. Im happy to be rewarded in game via a gold payment to allow someone to buy something i earnt. Im not happy for those to just buy it directly from the shop completely invalidating my time invested.
Buying something within a player traded economy only lessens the value of my time, buying something from the shop completely removes my value.
It’s allowed because actioning it would be significantly more impactful (negatively) than anything you’d gain for it.
You’d basically have to figure out a way that skilled/geared/leveled players can’t play with unskilled/undergeared/underleveled players.
I don’t think the “umm ackshully boosting is bad” is as important a stance to people as being able to play with a buddy who just started/came back to the game.
it would be different if you lost access to what you earned, but you don’t. your time invested would be invalidated because you couldn’t charge people to ferry them through content they’re not equipped for?
having a few geared players in your raid is different than a cross-realm run-selling community that advertises ad nauseum. i’m of the opinion that skilled/geared/leveled players should very rarely play with unskilled/undergeared/underleveled players if at all.
There’s a bit of a “chicken or the egg” question there.
While paid boosts/carries existed well before the token (and I think they were gaining relevance & popularity in the years leading up to it being added)… things REALLY started to take off with boosts when the token was added to the game.
The token was actually added to undercut the gold-sellers who operated illegally before then, and I think Blizz decided to give themselves a nice little cut through the token sales. Boosts weren’t really a “thing” at the time.
Then boosts became a “thing”, facilitated by the token.
It’s entirely plausible that Blizz read the writing on the wall and took advantage of the situation… and I’m more inclined to think that rather than think it was all pre-planned. They aren’t devious masterminds, they’re sharp opportunists.
Now, the other thing to consider is that WoW has changed considerably over the years. It’s far more focused on endgame progression than it used to be. It’s always been important, but now it’s pretty much all-consuming.
“Pay to win” isn’t frowned upon, because it’s now about “winning at any cost”.
Is it soul-sucking? Yes. Yes, it is. I’ve only come back for a short while recently… but yeah, I have no intent to engage with this system or its supports. Good thing I’m effectively a solo player when it comes to WoW.
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Boosts and carried have existed in this game since it launched. I remember specifically selling UBRS clears for people to aquire their Ony attunements for ingame gold. I remember selling access to dungeons that required a key for 50g. I even remember myself as a warrior, selling clears of strath/scholo/lbrs/dm all wings (including tribute runs)/mara (NR gear farming) - with 2 of my friends (priest and a mage).
Did it negatively impact anyone else who earnt their ony neck without paying for help? No.
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I’m saying what happened is the token facilitated the change to make boosts & carries POPULAR, that’s the “thing” being referred to.
Hell, read the start of the post:
In any case, the biggest problem with boosts is players robbing themselves of the experience of overcoming the challenge themselves… but the time players cared about that is LONG since passed.
I disagree. Im saying that boosts only grew in popularity due to discords and boost communities - and the increased accessability to them. It also grew due to additional players taking in interest because they could now earn gold from simply advertising a carry.
What tokens did do was allow a safe means of RMT for gold, so players that didnt trust shady sites had increased accessability to purchasing gold.