General Discussion

Blizzard has posted a statement reminding players of the negative consequences of buying gold and using power-leveling services.

We would like to make a clear statement here about the negative impact of buying gold and using power-leveling services. Every day, we encounter players who have been negatively affected and targeted by companies offering these services. So, we hope to raise awareness about the practices they engage in and the detrimental effects they have on all players, including their own customers, as well as on the game environment as a whole.

What many people don't realize when buying gold is the large impact it has on the game economy, and also how the companies selling gold obtain it. Our developers, in-game support, and anti-hack teams work diligently to stop the exploits these companies use and help players who have become victims of their services. We regularly track the source of the gold these companies sell, and find that an alarmingly high amount comes from hacked accounts. These are the friends, relatives, and guildmates you may know who have gone through the experience of having characters, gold, and items stripped from them after visiting a website or opening a file containing a trojan virus. Our teams work to educate players and assist them in avoiding account compromise, but the fact remains that the players themselves are often these companies' largest target as a source for gold, which the companies then turn around and sell to other players.

Through our normal support processes and the assistance of players, we also find that many accounts that have been shared with power-leveling services are then hacked into months later, and all of the items on the account are stripped and sold off. Basically, players have paid money to these companies, sometimes large amounts, and they're then targeted by these same companies down the road. We come across stories every week of the aftereffects of players using these services, and some players now have to deal with long-term repercussions -- in addition to consequences such as possible account suspension or closure, in many cases the companies they paid use their personal information to perpetrate identity theft and credit card fraud. These are long-lasting effects on players' personal lives that can take years to recover from.

Read more here.

I actually give Blizzard a big-ass thumbs up for this effort. I especially love that little banner down the bottom of the page.

I think if a company like Blizzard can help to promote the idea that RMS is a bad thing, make it appear more criminal and seedy, then perhaps they can start a a popular opinion that it is simply uncool or wrong to engage in RMS. Perhaps developing such a culture of thought within the general gaming populace is one step in phasing out this crap. Then again, maybe not...

One reason I stopped playing WoW was because many times I went to mine a node or kill a certain mob, I would find 'RandomBrazilianBot001' camping the nodes on auto-pilot. So yeh, my enjoyment was affected by money-hungry assholes...

I always thought the companies could go after gold sellers themselves for violating the rules, but this post pretty much screams "There is nothing we can do outside of the game, so please don't do it." I seem to remember threats of lawsuits and whatnot towards these gold sellers before, though I am quite possibly mistaken. If its true that Blizzard can't do anything against the gold sellers themselves, the economy is screwed. Hell, the future of the MMO genre is screwed. I always wondered why gold seller sites were so prominent with like no threat of action taken against them. Sad, sad virtual world we live in.

Good announcement by Blizzard.

I like the fact that they imply that these companies are, by their very nature, shady, and you should NEVER share your account information with them.

They are greedy, unethical, and they will rip you off.

There really is nothing Blizzard can do to instil common sense into their customers except by publishing announcements such as this.

Power leveling outfits are so damn lame.  They nullify the entire reason to participate in online gaming: to play the game.  Power leveled toons are worse than useless in the endgame, because the entire point is that XP is abstract, but ACTUAL EXPERIENCE is needed to play the endgame properly.

Why not just make a game that doesn't support/require gold farming?

Anybody ever notice that Bliz never states that actually BUYING gold is against TOA and/or EULA ?

And before you shout out that it does, or this press release states that, please go back and read all three carefully.

Oh come on, most of the gold sellers are hosted in countries where you have no legal ability to stop them.    Blizzard does go after those companies it can.  Anyone using a powerleveling service is beyond stupid and paying for anything using a credit card is also braindead, services like Paypal are your friends.  

The really dumb thing is that gold has gotten so plentiful in these games that only the most extremely lazy players find it hard to get the gold they need.

This problem is not going away so get used to it.

I am not going to comment on the right or wrong of gold selling. That is a whole new thread topic. I will say this about the issue. Games like WoW are heavy in the gold selling and buying for one main reason. The game does not reward for skill or creativity. The basic mechanics of WoW rewards players for time put into the game. It does not really matter how skilled you are the ones who can play the most hours get the rewards. What this means is that players who love the game but can not play endless hours will never achive the items and gold those that can play all day can. So these players buy gold to keep up with the rest of the players. When a game that offers more to the players then rewards purely based on time spent in game, you will see gold buying and selling weaken.

You did not see a lot of gold selling in pre-nge SWG because there were so many ways to find success in that game. I would love to see another game that rewards player creativity and skill over time spent playing. When developers figure this out we will see far less gold selling going on.

I agree with Blizzard on their article..

But

To NOT have so many people buying gold, outside the game, why doesn't Blizzard raise the amount you get per quest.

My god..

When you are very young and work hard to get that quest done, you get ALL of what - 20copper? If you're lucky that is.. And - it goes like this for several lvls.

Pffftt..

This is the only MMO I have played that the quest rewards on money were so slim in the early stages of your adventuring!