GoldBuying
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Who's buying all that gold, anyway?
Really, I'm curious. Who's buying this stuff? I've seen goldsellers advertising gold in amounts of up to 11,000 -- for over $1600. Perhaps you're doing a double-take at that number, but it's not a typo -- I do mean sixteen hundred dollars. Now, I paid $50 for the game itself, another $50 for the expansion, $15 a month to play, and the occasional $25 to move characters around, which means I've spent over $500 on this game in the two years I've played it. That already seems like a huge amount of money to me -- but if gold sellers are out advertising $1600 worth of gold, that must mean that at least a few people are interested in spending that much. All I can think of are the cries of agony that surely follow when the buyer is inevitably banned from the game. Blizzard does keep track of gold transfers, and I imagine that transfers in such high amounts set off red flags in their system. So what happens when you've just spent $1600 on virtual property that Blizzard has politely reminded you belongs to them? (Yes, Blizzard does hold on to the idea that all in game items are their property, and thus cannot be bought or traded for real money.) I can think of less risky ways to invest!
Is real money for game items in our future?
No, this isn't something Blizzard is telling us -- they're still out there fighting with the issue of people buying and selling gold. However, Jeffrey Steefel, executive producer of Lord of the Rings Online, who seems to think that in the future, how MMO's handle the secondary market of gold, item, and character sales is going to have to change. In an interview with Eurogamer, he says:But, we all know that something will happen in the next two to five years to business models in general, so we're paying attention to what's going on [with the secondary market]; watching what's going on with Sony Station whose servers support and manage this.Does Steefel have a point? In the long run, is the only way to fight the secondary market to legalize it and integrate it with our games? But even if you look at Everquest II, where Sony provides an official method for selling gold, items, and characters for real cash, there's still a secondary market. And I've got to say, if Sony's method doesn't stop secondary market gold sales, I've got to wonder if any method of legitimizing the trade will. And while we wait to see what Steefel decides to do with Lord of the Rings Online, we can watch Blizzard approach the problem in their own way -- in the courts.[Via Joystiq]
The pacing of the new endgame
So Illidan met his match yesterday in the form of Nihilum, which means that since the Black Temple is the last and latest bit of content to show up on the live servers, the game is effectively beaten. That's it. We're done. Time to go home.Didn't that seem a little fast? The original WoW content took a few years to "beat," it seems, and now Burning Crusade (and the 2.1 patch) has been beaten by players in a matter of months. Is the endgame going too fast? From Boubouille's wrapup of the Illidan defeat yesterday, we get this post on the Elitist Jerks forums by Tigole. He says Blizzard is very happy with the way Black Temple is tuned. He also takes a look back at Naxx, and says the Four Horsemen were an example of an encounter that was well-tuned, but players at the time didn't have the gear they needed, so it took much longer for guilds to finish them off. The biggest hole in WoW content right now, Tigole says, is the lack of options after Karazhan for 10 man raids-- but, he says, "we're fixing that." So /cheer for more 10 mans to come.But is the endgame dropping too fast? In my estimation, not at all. In my estimation, Nihilum is not a normal guild. If you're willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on gold buying (and frankly, I am not-- I believe they're cheating), they clearly play the game more than anyone else, driven by both their own determination and the fact that they are basically raiding celebrities in Azeroth. They are the hardcore. And if you're asking me whether hardcore players should finish the endgame content quickly, I'd say they should.Why? Because that means it will be that much easier for casuals to get there, too.
Blizzard fights ingame spam (and the addon meant to stop it)
If you've been using an addon like Spam Sentry to quickly and easily report ingame gold whisperers, it turns out Blizzard might not be completely happy with you.You'd think Blue might be happy players were helping them get gold spammers out of their game, but apparently Spam Sentry isn't actually helping... at least in the way Blizzard wants it to. Blue poster Kaone says, in a thread repeatedly linked to by Coreiel, that reports need to be submitted as soon as possible (Spam Sentry collects gold spammers, and then either lets you report them when you click to do so, or all in one go at the end of the day-- apparently more players have been going for the easier option). Addons, Blizzard says, aren't cutting it, because they aren't hearing about the spam quickly enough to catch the accounts while they're logged on.Which is kind of understandable. But what's not understandable is that Blizzard is going to remove the ability of addons to create a GM ticket as of the next patch. So as of 2.1, we can pretty much say goodbye to Spam Sentry in its current form.The good news is that Slouken (the addon CM, if there is one) promises that Blizzard is working on a "much easier-to-use method" of reporting gold spammers in 2.1. However, as we all learned from the LFG system, what Blizzard thinks is easier doesn't always match with what the players want to use. And my guess is that if Blizzard is getting "spammed" with Spam Sentry warnings now, their system will be a lot more full when everyone has access to a quick-reporting ability. It seems like a better plan to help Spam Sentry fix itself by building functionality into the addon system, rather than remove that functionality for a tool that players aren't familiar with.
WoW Moviewatch: The BBC on WoW
Proving that World of Warcraft is a big enough phenomenon for even the most mainstream media to notice, this three-minute clip features BBC reporters attempting to explain gold farming and buying to a non-gamer audience. While the information may not be terribly informative to those of us who already play and understand the game, it's usually interesting to see how exactly the media attempts to portray gamers to the larger public. Previously on Moviewatch...
Guildwatch: A long struggle with raid cancer
I would say that I'm sorry that Guildwatch is running a little late this week, but you didn't really notice, did you? No worries, we're here now, with all the drama, downings, and recruiting that any one man (or woman, or orc, or undead) can handle!And please-- please!-- remember that this column runs on your tips, so throw any and all news you have about drama going on around the servers, guild progression, or recruiting notices in the box at wowguildwatch@gmail.com. You do it-- we just report on it, right after the jump.
5000g is just too much for an epic flying mount
I've hit 70. I bought my flying mount (and spend way too much time exploring the air around Outland). I'm even attuned for Karazhan, and my guild is working through it. And yet I feel no pressure at all to raise that 5000g for an epic mount.Like Moonfalin, I'm pretty "meh" about the whole thing. Yes, flying around at high speed would be cool, but is it really necessary? I'm the highest level, and I'm keyed-- where do I need to go so fast? I know that some of my guildies farmed for cash and have already picked theirs up, but I'm not bothering with it-- I've already earned about 1000g just from my normal questing and instance running, so I assume I'll hit 5000g at some point, and I'll just get there when I get there.The exception to this, of course, is the nether drake mounts that are coming. Those I really want, either from PvP (although the PvP one is hard-- as a resto shaman, I'm really terrible in the arenas) or PvE, and I'll be willing to farm whatever I need to to get one of those. So what about you-- did you farm your way up to 5000g quick (it wasn't that hard when BC first came out), or are you taking your time for a reward that just doesn't seem that great?
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Breakfast Club: Gold buying is naughty
We have had a lot of Breakfast Topics over the course of the past year. Some subjects are more popular than others. Some topics only appeal to certain classes. Some only to PVP junkies or the Naxx raiding crew. And then some topics completely explode and become the most commented on Breakfast Topic thread of the year. Gold buying and you is the topic that inspired more comments, and more arguments, than any post this year. It started innocently enough. One of my guildies mentioned he had bought gold, was promptly tossed from my guild, and I wrote a post about it. You guys took it from there. There seemed to be three camps of folks in the comment thread... People who don't condone gold buying under any circumstance. Shadowbrand hopes that those that buy gold get "ganked until the end of time." Pretty harsh! They blame the overpriced economy on gold farmers, and ultimately on the gold buyers. Gold buying is bad! Another, more neutral group, that while they don't buy gold, can see why someone might. Lykaon makes the point that gold farming equals time and time equals money. He thinks gold is easy to get, so he doesn't buy any, but he could see the rationale behind those that do. If you don't have the time to farm it, why not buy it? A rather vocal minority who believe that buying gold is just fine, and that everyone else is on the wrong page on this issue. Forsaken points out that he has bought plenty of gold, and having a wife and kids makes it too time consuming to spend hours and hours mindlessly farming. So there you have it. If you haven't read the comments in the gold buying Breakfast Topic, you really should. A lot of our readers went out of their way with some really excellent comments. Of course, some of the conversations get a little heated, but hey, it's still fun to read! And if you have any new opinions on gold buying, by all means, leave your comments right here!
Money can't buy me uber
William Beamish sends along a link to an article over at NotAddicted called "Can't Buy Me Uber." They tried to work out, Mastercard style, exactly how much it would cost you, in real dollars, to make the most pimped-out, l33te57, uber-est character ever-- use gamecards, hired someone to level you to 60, and then a guild to run you up to Naxx to get all the best gear (until the expansion anyway). The figures aren't much more than random guesses, but it's a mildly amusing thought experiment-- especially the bits where they try to figure out how much gold it would take to get a Naxx guild to hook you up with their server first stuff.So how much money would it take to become TEH UBER? They land on a figure of $23,015 (not counting the $100,000 they say you'd have to pay to get everyone on your server to treat you with the respect you'd actually get if you were that uber). Which seems high, of course, not to mention that you're missing out all the good stuff-- the leveling and raiding you'd be doing while playing your way to the top. Would you pay $23,015 to have the absolute best character on your server? I sure wouldn't.But I'd take it. If you want to give me $23k and six months, I'll be happy to quit my job (later, WoW Insider!) and get you exactly the character they describe. But then the question is, as NotAddicted says, what would you do if you really were the uber-est character around? Rock the battlefields? Gank newbies? Dance naked in front of Orgrimmar?
