Forum post of the day: Purchasing raid epics (poll)

Back in March, Mike Schramm reported on a player who paid 20,000 gold to ensure that she would receive the Amani War Bear from the Zul'Aman raid instance. It is not entirely uncommon for players to run their guildmates' alts though low level dungeons for fun or profit or purchasing raid runs or arena points. Any of these may be considered cheating by some players, some more obviously than others. Angona of Hellscream (obviously an alt) had the opportunity to purchase Black Temple gear, though her guild is currently running Serpentshine Cavern, Tempest Keep, and Mount Hyjal .

Her guild leader disapproves of this transaction. Angona quoted him as stating "Only lazy noobs buy gear, that's not what this guild is about. If you want to buy gear, then I suggest you just /gquit right now." This attitude suggests that players should earn their gear, even if a gear upgrade would be good for the guild's raiding efforts overall.

I can appreciate both sides of this argument. I have never turned down an instance run, and rarely say no to a friend who needs one (especial Wailing Caverns, I love WC). In one respect the ability to purchase these rewards is earning it, in the sense that the player earned the gold to buy them, but that is not the way they were intended to be awarded. I also respect the guild leader's appeal to a moral high ground. We've gone round and round about "Welfare Epics," I think in this case that title applies?

The thread has several pages of discussion and a few analogies of varying degrees of relevance. I thought we should put it to a poll:

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