Coming soon to WoW: Buying game time with gold

Jordan said:

213,577g in the Taiwanese Realms. Damn.

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Massive gold farmers over there.

Jordan said:

213,577g in the Taiwanese Realms. Damn.

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Lol to control all those gold farmers.

I think this is perfect. It's seriously cut back on scamming(at least, it seems like it has). I have been paying for my wow sub since I was 14, and it is really nice to finally be able just to use my gold to keep my subscription running.

I don't think this does anything to cut down on scamming or gold farmers. If anything it encourages it. Why do you think Blizzard has had 2 major crack downs on botters since it's introduction? Plus, Blizzard can't compete with the cheap gold prices offered by 3rd party with the whole selling tokens for gold option. This encourages people to buy cheap third party gold to fund subscriptions which in turn lowers the already shrinking subscriber base numbers because tokens or gold used for subscriptions are counted as a trade for virtual property, not as a subscription. In the USA virtual currencies are treated as property rather than money by the IRS for tax reasons.

nytegeek said:

I don't think this does anything to cut down on scamming or gold farmers. If anything it encourages it. Why do you think Blizzard has had 2 major crack downs on botters since it's introduction? Plus, Blizzard can't compete with the cheap gold prices offered by 3rd party with the whole selling tokens for gold option. This encourages people to buy cheap third party gold to fund subscriptions which in turn lowers the already shrinking subscriber base numbers because tokens or gold used for subscriptions are counted as a trade for virtual property, not as a subscription. In the USA virtual currencies are treated as property rather than money by the IRS for tax reasons.

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I'm not sure what second major crack down on botters you're speaking of(however, I may just not have noticed it) but the first one was before they even released the WoW token buying ability. I only know it in regards to that I happen to know a guy in real life who botted and farmed gold with about 8 different accounts, and remember him telling me about getting blanket banned from the crackdown. I think it's created a gold sink, rather, for the people that have way more gold due to the inflation, and considering the price of tokens has gone up from what it originally was, as well, I actually feel like the price is still similar to the sites you can buy it from, and obviously it's the safer option. I don't think it's encouraging anything, unless you happen to know a site that sells extremely cheap gold, and is somehow still safe. Considering the sub is only 15 a month anyway, I don't feel like somewhere else is a better option.

Then you just aren't in the know @Maelalove because what I described is exactly what is happening and there was a second major ban wave that is well known that happened in December. The first came after Blizzard lost a major court case with a bot developer.

That's actually a pretty good idea to get people to play more. I've been thinking about trying WoW again, and this gives me a pretty good incentive. This seems like a great idea from what other people are saying, also.

I think this is a really good idea. I have always found it quite outrageous that they force you to pay a subscription fee AND pay for the expansions. I think it should be one or the other. At least this gives the dedicated players a way to get out of spending all their IRL money on the subscription fee.

lunarsilkdragon said:

I think this is a really good idea. I have always found it quite outrageous that they force you to pay a subscription fee AND pay for the expansions. I think it should be one or the other. At least this gives the dedicated players a way to get out of spending all their IRL money on the subscription fee.

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And then they added a cash shop too. I find it a bit much to buy to pay, pay to play, and be expected to buy more items. Once they started selling gold, boosts, etc. I knew the game would never be the same.

I played with gold for a while, until I ran out. I'm not sure how much tokens cost on any of the servers I play on or how long it would take to farm enough gold to play for a month. Maybe I'll sub a month this summer and have my kid grind some gold, ha ha.

If nothing else, at least maybe it slowed down the gold spammers.

This was a god-send to me. I haven't payed for game time since it happened! I am still a millionaire in WoW though just barely and that doesn't mean what it used to with inflation. Still, I have been riding high on the hog. Blacksmithing is now literally like printing money. Only $15 a month's-worth, but still.

I honestly don't know how people make crazy amounts of gold in WoW. I had several hundred thousand, but I gained it over the length of time I played. Of course, I was never shy about spending it either. I mean, I didn't just blow it on whatever, but I always bought whatever I needed (if I couldn't make it myself or have my husband make it) and some stuff I just wanted. I guess having lots of alts gets expensive, lol.

Zyni said:

I honestly don't know how people make crazy amounts of gold in WoW. I had several hundred thousand, but I gained it over the length of time I played. Of course, I was never shy about spending it either. I mean, I didn't just blow it on whatever, but I always bought whatever I needed (if I couldn't make it myself or have my husband make it) and some stuff I just wanted. I guess having lots of alts gets expensive, lol.

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There are lots of methods and most of them are no longer viable. Forsaking your own need for better gear by selling important craftables is the most reliable way but it's only going to work in the earlier stages of an expac. There's also soloing raids from Cataclysm. I used to be able to make 8k gold per toon just running those for a few hours a week. Blizzard nerfed the drop rate of items and the gold amounts so it's only half as profitable now. Warlords of Draenor's treasure hunting garrison missions made lots of millionaires too! That was game-breakingly easy for a time, and even after the mechanic was patched to be less generous it was still very lucrative.