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Monday, May 21, 2007
Who is buying all that WoW gold?
As I'm mostly playing Lord of the Rings Online nowadays, I only log on my WoW characters occasionally to do things like alchemy transmutes, jewelcrafting, or auction house buying and selling. This means I usually log on my level 70 warrior alchemist and my level 70 priest jewelcrafter only as long as it takes to do their craft, then send all the stuff to a level 42 shaman who is my auction house mule. The level 42 is on longer than the level 70s. Nevertheless the level 42 never gets any tells or spam WoW mails advertising gold. Only the level 70s do. Apparently the gold sellers assume that mostly the level 70s are buying gold.
Now when Blizzard bans gold farmer accounts, they ban over 100,000 of them at one time. I'd say that nearly all of these are playing on US and European servers, players on Chinese servers are probably less rich and less interesting as customers. Divided by about 400 total servers that makes 250 gold farmers per server. Each of them making in excess of 1,000 gold per day this produces a *lot* of gold. Who is buying all this? Some of it is certainly bought by casual players not wanting to grind money for their various mounts. But I would figure that casual players don't need that much gold in total, 2,000 covers the essential first three horses, and casual players buy very little of the high-end consumable stuff, like potions and enchants. Playing solo usually produces more gold than it consumes.
Raiding on the other hand is a money sink, it consumes far more gold than it produces. A single Gruul raid can cost over 1,000 gold in potions and stuff. And it is the raiders who need all those expensive primals and other materials for enchantments to keep on the very top of things. Now there are certainly raiders who have the time to grind for all that gold or materials themselves. But not everyone does. The fact that gold farmers target level 70 players with their advertising suggests that it is them who buy most of it. Raiding itself and preparing for it with attunements and grinding reputations is time-consuming enough, I wouldn't be surprised if many raiders "outsourced" their gold farming to a gold seller. Of course they'd never admit it, the hardcore players are a lot more concerned about their image than the casual players. But I just don't see casuals consuming all that much virtual gold, while the cost of raiding is well-known and often discussed.
Makes me wonder how much of the upcoming changes to Alchemy, reducing the number of potions used in a raid significantly, are Blizzard's way of fighting gold farmers.
- posted by Tobold @ 9:46 AM Permanent Link
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100,000 at one time!!! Wow, that's a lot of accounts banned. Gold farming is a real serious business, eh?
# posted by 
: 21/5/07 10:23
: 21/5/07 10:23
it's funny, because it's almost like the IE vs "small browsers" war.
IE always get the exploits/virusses etc. why? because they have the biggest share of the market. same with WoW. biggest piece will attract the dirt of humankind.
not to mention, it's pretty cheap to buy gold lately (reading the spam, i see 1buck for 100g or so, that ain't much)
btw, i think everybody is capable of buying gold, simply because people find it boring to grind.
and to end, it's pretty much pointless to ban the gold-pharmers/sellers since they will "respawn" always, as long as there is a profitable market.
IE always get the exploits/virusses etc. why? because they have the biggest share of the market. same with WoW. biggest piece will attract the dirt of humankind.
not to mention, it's pretty cheap to buy gold lately (reading the spam, i see 1buck for 100g or so, that ain't much)
btw, i think everybody is capable of buying gold, simply because people find it boring to grind.
and to end, it's pretty much pointless to ban the gold-pharmers/sellers since they will "respawn" always, as long as there is a profitable market.
I think this is the way for Blizz to sell more cheap WoW copies :)
Besides, there is a request for lots of money. Think about getting elite flying mount in the expansion. 5000 gold is not a triffle, though i can be gathered through professions and such at a decent amoutn of time. Still this will be a reason for casual players to dish out the cash.
Besides, there is a request for lots of money. Think about getting elite flying mount in the expansion. 5000 gold is not a triffle, though i can be gathered through professions and such at a decent amoutn of time. Still this will be a reason for casual players to dish out the cash.
I am currently trying to achieve 375 in Tailoring, and I can tell you the amount of Netherweave cloth required, as well as Primals of Water & Fire is huge.
Not only that, but the areas where you need to get the Primals are always over-farmed, even at 2 in the morning.
Kill mobs to get Netherweave cloth, turn it into bolts, then when you have enough bolts turn it into Imbued Netherweave bolts, then when you have enough of them, turn it into (for example) Imbued Netherweave Tunic, and maybe you will be lucky enough to get a skill-up (but don't count on it).
Rinse and repeat every time you log on.
Once you have got a high enough skill, you can start producing Primal Cloth; either Frozen Shadoweave, Mooncloth or Spellstrike. 4 day cooldown for this, and of course every time you do it you consume Imbued Netherweave and Primals of Fire, Water and Shadow.
I can't imagine just how much cloth I have had to grind for this so far, as well as the time spent doing it
. How much simpler to have bought some gold, and gone to the AH for the raw materials.
I have an alt on Ghostlands server, and I have never seen so many bots as I do at the moment.
No matter how many I report, it seems there is an endless number of them, which can only indicate that the demand for gold must be at an all-time high.
*Vlad*
Not only that, but the areas where you need to get the Primals are always over-farmed, even at 2 in the morning.
Kill mobs to get Netherweave cloth, turn it into bolts, then when you have enough bolts turn it into Imbued Netherweave bolts, then when you have enough of them, turn it into (for example) Imbued Netherweave Tunic, and maybe you will be lucky enough to get a skill-up (but don't count on it).
Rinse and repeat every time you log on.
Once you have got a high enough skill, you can start producing Primal Cloth; either Frozen Shadoweave, Mooncloth or Spellstrike. 4 day cooldown for this, and of course every time you do it you consume Imbued Netherweave and Primals of Fire, Water and Shadow.
I can't imagine just how much cloth I have had to grind for this so far, as well as the time spent doing it
. How much simpler to have bought some gold, and gone to the AH for the raw materials.
I have an alt on Ghostlands server, and I have never seen so many bots as I do at the moment.
No matter how many I report, it seems there is an endless number of them, which can only indicate that the demand for gold must be at an all-time high.
*Vlad*
# posted by : 21/5/07 11:42
: 21/5/07 11:42
Well, I play a level 18 druid and receive about 15 gold spam whispers per hour so in my experience level does not determine who gets a whisper. Oft times the first chat line when I log on is filled by a gold spammer :(
# posted by : 21/5/07 13:33
: 21/5/07 13:33
My highest character is 39 right now (I paused to grind pvp for gear). Before I downloaded spam sentry (which is the best add on EVER), I couldn't have told you how many whispers I got. Now I'm able to say that just in one hour yesterday morning, I received 5 whispers (I just didn't see them).
I'm not sure the targeting of 70's is the case at all. My guild is made up of RL friends, and we all get spammed constantly ... and yet none of us have a 70.
I'm not sure the targeting of 70's is the case at all. My guild is made up of RL friends, and we all get spammed constantly ... and yet none of us have a 70.
Maybe its just my server, but I only get one, sometimes, two whispers a session, and I play quite long hours on my 70. I've never seen it on my lower level characters.
The Gold farmers don't just target lvl 70's. They target everybody on the server now. From 0-43 or so iwhen i started at the tBC release i never got spammed. For last 2 months Spammers has gone Wild with gold spamming.
When i log in i can get about now at least 3-4 gold spamms every 10 min as a whisper so its been sent to everyone. Its just crazy! The other day i was on early in day and for like 3 hours i go no spam at all, i though to my self wired kinda, got no cooked spam in a while. Then it started and for the rest of game play it was non stop spamming.
This got me thinking. SOMBODY in WoW is buying a heck load of gold or lots of high lvl players are outright buying gold to ehance their raiding habbits or something. There may never admit that they do, but sombody is buying it as there is apparelty a pent up demand for it. If they were no demand for gold from gold farmers they would not be spamming this much and that oftem. People are buying gold plain and simple.
I see them using a new tactic as of yesterday now. Gold farmers who may be getting banned by Blizzard are now using the trade channel to spamm gold messages, so now they tying up the already cluttered trade channel. Yesterday i ssaw no less than 4 gold spamm messages in less than 1 minute. Talk about spamming. Its out of control. Blizzard need to fix it as its ruining the game and people actually playing the game can't get to gather the stuff they need as they are been out done by who else the damm gold farmers.
When i log in i can get about now at least 3-4 gold spamms every 10 min as a whisper so its been sent to everyone. Its just crazy! The other day i was on early in day and for like 3 hours i go no spam at all, i though to my self wired kinda, got no cooked spam in a while. Then it started and for the rest of game play it was non stop spamming.
This got me thinking. SOMBODY in WoW is buying a heck load of gold or lots of high lvl players are outright buying gold to ehance their raiding habbits or something. There may never admit that they do, but sombody is buying it as there is apparelty a pent up demand for it. If they were no demand for gold from gold farmers they would not be spamming this much and that oftem. People are buying gold plain and simple.
I see them using a new tactic as of yesterday now. Gold farmers who may be getting banned by Blizzard are now using the trade channel to spamm gold messages, so now they tying up the already cluttered trade channel. Yesterday i ssaw no less than 4 gold spamm messages in less than 1 minute. Talk about spamming. Its out of control. Blizzard need to fix it as its ruining the game and people actually playing the game can't get to gather the stuff they need as they are been out done by who else the damm gold farmers.
Well good news for you guys who havn't heard....in the new patch there will be spam protection. Simply by right clicking their name in chat you will have the option of report spam(this works for mail too). Once reported you will no longer recieve messeges from that accout(that account, not just that character name). Then the report goes to GM who maybe/maybe not will investigate furture.
Ever since I can remember I'd get spam every now and them...mostly through email, maybe 4-5 per month. Now spam is getting out of hand. I counted 6 spam messeges between queue'n up for AV and getting in(about 2 minutes). The prices in these spam messeges seam unreasonable. $2.99 for 250g I saw. $50 for 1-60 power level. I'm guessing people are just going to loose their cash....lets hope paypal comes through for them.
Ever since I can remember I'd get spam every now and them...mostly through email, maybe 4-5 per month. Now spam is getting out of hand. I counted 6 spam messeges between queue'n up for AV and getting in(about 2 minutes). The prices in these spam messeges seam unreasonable. $2.99 for 250g I saw. $50 for 1-60 power level. I'm guessing people are just going to loose their cash....lets hope paypal comes through for them.
Here are some of the new spam-prevention features going into the new patch.
Reporting abilities:
* Players will now be able to report chat and mail spam with the click of a button. A "Report Spam" option will now be available by right-clicking on a player’s name in a chat channel, whisper, or mail. Using this option will quickly and easily report the player to our in-game support department for review.
* When you report a player, he or she will automatically be added to your ignore list for your current session. You won't see any chat or mail from that layer until you log out and back in.
* These tools function on a per-account basis, meaning that reporting one character on an account will ignore all chat text and mail from that entire account until you log off.
* You will not be able to report players on your friends list or in your guild.
Message throttling:
* Players will no longer be able to send large amounts of text at one time, filling a chat screen with a repeating message, large blocks of gibberish, or text that could disrupt an entire conversation. This throttling, along with the new chat-reporting feature should make it much easier to keep unwanted text off your screen before it becomes overwhelming.
Reporting abilities:
* Players will now be able to report chat and mail spam with the click of a button. A "Report Spam" option will now be available by right-clicking on a player’s name in a chat channel, whisper, or mail. Using this option will quickly and easily report the player to our in-game support department for review.
* When you report a player, he or she will automatically be added to your ignore list for your current session. You won't see any chat or mail from that layer until you log out and back in.
* These tools function on a per-account basis, meaning that reporting one character on an account will ignore all chat text and mail from that entire account until you log off.
* You will not be able to report players on your friends list or in your guild.
Message throttling:
* Players will no longer be able to send large amounts of text at one time, filling a chat screen with a repeating message, large blocks of gibberish, or text that could disrupt an entire conversation. This throttling, along with the new chat-reporting feature should make it much easier to keep unwanted text off your screen before it becomes overwhelming.
I use SpamMeNot for WoW. It is quite amazing. I set the threshold to have players higher than level 10 be able to message me.
# posted by : 21/5/07 16:01
: 21/5/07 16:01
It doesn't matter what type of protection Blizz puts in because gold spammers use trial accounts to advertise their services. Go ahead and ignore/report them, they are already gone before the GM reads the report.
# posted by : 21/5/07 16:10
: 21/5/07 16:10
The statistics on gold spammers would be very interesting, though I would imagine difficult to determine. It must be like email spamming, where it costs nothing to send, and so depends on a very small number of positive responses to make it worthwhile. It's not the account that matters; all of the spammers direct you to a website where they want you to do business. I don't know all that much about how they trace accounts through IP, but obviously this is where the marketing efforts/easy signup system of WoW interferes with the annoyance level for current players.
# posted by : 21/5/07 16:30
: 21/5/07 16:30
The 2 week free trial is the main reason for this for sure, although between the amazing amount of gold spam and the gold sellers who actually brought down the scheduled dev IRC chat last week it's reaching critical mass in a hurry. I've found that the spam increases quite a bit every time I step in Karazhan. I dealt with it about 2 days before I gave up and downloaded one of the spam addons. Seeing that I had a choice of 10 or so made me realize exactly how bad the spam must have gotten for so many people to put time into creating ways to kill it.
I'm fairly certain they're using the armory as well. I logged on some of my old 60's who I hadn't played in a year and their mailboxes had 5-10 gold-buying mails.
Even my level 2 auction mule gets goldselling tells, however.
Even my level 2 auction mule gets goldselling tells, however.
# posted by : 21/5/07 16:40
: 21/5/07 16:40
I used to buy gold when it was $50 for $1000 for raiding costs.
I quit buying over a year ago, main stream casuals drove the price up too far.
I don't buy anymore. You can farm about 150g to 200g an hour in Outland.
I quit buying over a year ago, main stream casuals drove the price up too far.
I don't buy anymore. You can farm about 150g to 200g an hour in Outland.
# posted by : 21/5/07 17:17
: 21/5/07 17:17
Unfortunately as long as Blizzard continues down the wrong path by creating only raid content in the end-game they are practically inviting the farmers. It's their own doing and they boast and take pride in banning 100,000 farmers that they themselves created.
The only way I see for Blizzard to beat the gold spammers is to put them out of business. Do what SoE did in EQ II and sell their own gold to players. While it's pretty easy to make gold over time in WoW, it's impossible to compete with FREE and UNLIMITED gold that Blizzard could make. Like it or not, Blizzrd needs to understand that there is a market for this and to be honest, they could kill it very easily and make money doing it too!
# posted by : 21/5/07 20:37
: 21/5/07 20:37
A member of Nihilum all but admitted in an interview that there would be no world firsts for them without massive quantities of purchased gold. The reason these world first guilds are thrilled with the new consumables limits is that they will be saving themselves real-world money.
Cheaper gold prices reflect the success of botting despite Blizzard's best efforts in 2.0 to kill the ability.
Cheaper gold prices reflect the success of botting despite Blizzard's best efforts in 2.0 to kill the ability.
L2Ruggs :)
http://wow-en.curse-gaming.com/downloads/addons/chat/wrugs-anti-spam/
greatest addon EVER, no more gold spams for me
http://wow-en.curse-gaming.com/downloads/addons/chat/wrugs-anti-spam/
greatest addon EVER, no more gold spams for me
They spam you by guild- that's why level doesn't matter. Next time you get a gold spam, all of your online guildmates got it as well.
I suspect that's why your mule never got a spam and your 70's did.
I suspect that's why your mule never got a spam and your 70's did.
Not sure about that either Andrew - my unguilded lock just got 3 this afternoon while I was out messing around. She hit level 10 when I logged out ...
Well, I do know that by guild is one way they do it.When I get one (you know, like every 2 minutes) my guildmates do too.
@louvian
it works for soe and eq2 because they have a low playerbase.
you will never ban goldfarmers/sellers/buyers when you have a market of 8million people.
there is always a sucker who buy it and there will be always opportunities to make a profit of spamming.
it works for soe and eq2 because they have a low playerbase.
you will never ban goldfarmers/sellers/buyers when you have a market of 8million people.
there is always a sucker who buy it and there will be always opportunities to make a profit of spamming.
Blizzard makes 2 million dollars everytime they ban 100,000 gold farmer accounts.
# posted by : 22/5/07 18:08
: 22/5/07 18:08
Bingo, you're bang on the money again Tobold. It's dead certain gold farmers have a lot to do with the alchemy changes.
On the topic: Will people please STOP saying gold farmers are using Trial Accounts. Blizzard has had a limit on tells, gold, mailbox usage, etc. on Trial Accounts since 2005. The Blizzard CMs have confirmed numerous times that virtually none of the tell spam comes from Trial Accounts. Instead, the majority of the accounts used are full acccounts hijacked from real players.
On the topic: Will people please STOP saying gold farmers are using Trial Accounts. Blizzard has had a limit on tells, gold, mailbox usage, etc. on Trial Accounts since 2005. The Blizzard CMs have confirmed numerous times that virtually none of the tell spam comes from Trial Accounts. Instead, the majority of the accounts used are full acccounts hijacked from real players.
You have a point there, mmorg.
I tried mailing a friend who was using a trial account, and it couldn't be done; actually I posted the item to him and he couldn't use the mailbox - I didn't get the item back.
On the subject of hi-jacked accounts, there was someone spamming offensive comments in General Chat in Stormwind a couple of days ago. I checked who they were, and they were maybe Lv 60 and in a guild. The first thought I got was that perhaps they had had their account stolen, as I couldn't believe someone would willingly broadcast such stuff without expecting it to be reported. Maybe I was wrong.
I tried mailing a friend who was using a trial account, and it couldn't be done; actually I posted the item to him and he couldn't use the mailbox - I didn't get the item back.
On the subject of hi-jacked accounts, there was someone spamming offensive comments in General Chat in Stormwind a couple of days ago. I checked who they were, and they were maybe Lv 60 and in a guild. The first thought I got was that perhaps they had had their account stolen, as I couldn't believe someone would willingly broadcast such stuff without expecting it to be reported. Maybe I was wrong.
# posted by : 23/5/07 11:25
: 23/5/07 11:25
"Anonymous said...
I use SpamMeNot for WoW. It is quite amazing. I set the threshold to have players higher than level 10 be able to message me."
I receive 1 message almost every 10 mins, since the release of TBC. It's caused me to go so stir crazy that I just got tired of reporting them and downloaded SpamMeNot. That mod is fantastic, now all I see is Gold Farmer "Name" was blocked. Best mod ever!
I use SpamMeNot for WoW. It is quite amazing. I set the threshold to have players higher than level 10 be able to message me."
I receive 1 message almost every 10 mins, since the release of TBC. It's caused me to go so stir crazy that I just got tired of reporting them and downloaded SpamMeNot. That mod is fantastic, now all I see is Gold Farmer "Name" was blocked. Best mod ever!
# posted by : 23/5/07 12:50
: 23/5/07 12:50
Hijacked accounts ? Dunno, I would suspect (for the bigger players) there is a far more complex structure. These guys are not stupid, they may well create guilds, and "viable" characters. Making many many AH transactions at over the odds, but under the radar to stealth the gold around.
Whilst 8million players make gold selling more viable, it also makes hiding it easier. If you want to "hide" in RL, where do you go, a tiny village or a capital city ?
How do you tell the difference between someone who is always in the AH, making money "playing the market" and someone who is there buying inflated items from a host of related sellers ? Tricky.
Whilst 8million players make gold selling more viable, it also makes hiding it easier. If you want to "hide" in RL, where do you go, a tiny village or a capital city ?
How do you tell the difference between someone who is always in the AH, making money "playing the market" and someone who is there buying inflated items from a host of related sellers ? Tricky.
# posted by : 23/5/07 14:24
: 23/5/07 14:24
About the ways they do it. I remember a goup of 5 hunters, all in the same gear walking past me in STV. All had similar names and were dressed the same, however all of them were in different guilds, oh and they were walking like a train. So one player handling 5 accounts soloing as a group.
# posted by : 23/5/07 21:09
: 23/5/07 21:09
Haha, it's funny how many theories people have about gold farmers and buyers.
Just a quick note that I have not seen a single gold spam since patch 2.1 came out yesterday.
Just a quick note that I have not seen a single gold spam since patch 2.1 came out yesterday.
I'm disappointed Tobold. This is quite a loaded, uneducated pile of rubbish to post.
Do you even have any evidence of who is buying gold? Any evidence of how much gold is bought on average? How do you know Chinese players are poor?
There isn't any good research done on who buys gold or why they buy it. Your blanket statements are just a little tough to believe. You basically state; if you do something that costs gold in game then you are a gold buyer.
With TBC, many players find themselves sitting on piles of gold at level 70. Some grind out a bit more for a flying mount. Some raid with it. Some blow it all before they have a chance to realize how much gold they've made.
The only thing you may be close on is that there is a ton of gold being farmed. However, don't assume for a second it actually all gets sold. The farmers farm and sell to third parties. These third parties are the ones selling through filters.
My guess is that there is and always has been a large store of gold floating around. The markup on it is insane.
Do you even have any evidence of who is buying gold? Any evidence of how much gold is bought on average? How do you know Chinese players are poor?
There isn't any good research done on who buys gold or why they buy it. Your blanket statements are just a little tough to believe. You basically state; if you do something that costs gold in game then you are a gold buyer.
With TBC, many players find themselves sitting on piles of gold at level 70. Some grind out a bit more for a flying mount. Some raid with it. Some blow it all before they have a chance to realize how much gold they've made.
The only thing you may be close on is that there is a ton of gold being farmed. However, don't assume for a second it actually all gets sold. The farmers farm and sell to third parties. These third parties are the ones selling through filters.
My guess is that there is and always has been a large store of gold floating around. The markup on it is insane.
And I didn't even mention that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the gold message spammers are BOTS! They don't care what level you are. They only care that you were online at one point when they ran a name sweep and recorded an entry in their contacts database.
I used a virtual army of alts when I went around collecting census data for various realms. Leave any character online for any amount of time and you will find out that it doesn't take very long to start getting the messages. Once it starts everytime you log on that character you are liable to start getting spam.
I used a virtual army of alts when I went around collecting census data for various realms. Leave any character online for any amount of time and you will find out that it doesn't take very long to start getting the messages. Once it starts everytime you log on that character you are liable to start getting spam.
Heartless, stop trolling! I haven't had anything but insulting and very negative comments from you for some time. Spill that hate on your own blog. I'm trying to keep the discussion to a civilized and polite level here. You can disagree without insulting people.
How do you know Chinese players are poor?
GDP per person in China is 1/8 of GDP per person in the USA. You're telling me that doesn't affect the purchase power of US WoW players vs. Chinese WoW players? Check out Nick Yee's surveys to see that gold is sold by younger and poorer people, and bought by older and richer ones. That the gold is sold via third-party middle men doesn't change that, nor does that change the amount of gold being bought and sold.
How do you know Chinese players are poor?
GDP per person in China is 1/8 of GDP per person in the USA. You're telling me that doesn't affect the purchase power of US WoW players vs. Chinese WoW players? Check out Nick Yee's surveys to see that gold is sold by younger and poorer people, and bought by older and richer ones. That the gold is sold via third-party middle men doesn't change that, nor does that change the amount of gold being bought and sold.
Nick Yee's look at Gold Buyers came to one conclusion.... there is no distinguishable difference between who or why people buy gold. Even then he hasn't really attacked the situation thoroughly.
There really is no evidence to support that Chinese players, due to a lower GDP, don't buy gold. Chinese players can live on a far smaller income than their western cohorts. If a Chinese player is playing, it is on a Chinese server. If they are buying gold, it is for a Chinese server. The price of Gold is not the same on a Chinese server as it is elsewhere. So, let's just throw out the Chinese debate here.
Another picking point is that Blizzard does not reveal what the breakdown of accounts is when they announce the bannings. I would wager that a good amount of them are filtering accounts that get caught actually selling the gold.
That is still a lot of gold, but as I said earlier, it is bought out at wholesale prices from the farmers to be resold. It can be determined then that a lot of it is banked away for times when Blizzard does actually ban farmers. Prices go up after bannings which supports the idea that the seller accounts are getting caught and the sellers lose out on a large quantity of gold. Farmers don't hold onto their gold for more than a day so they lose out on nothing more than a max level character.
As I said Tobold, I am disappointed that your objectiveness has been lost as of late. This post should of ended at the ? .
PS: I've left a couple negatively charged posts here. It's a blog. It's opinion vs. opinion. If you don't like negative responses, then don't blog or worse ... become a comment Nazi.
I will cut out my obvious Troll posts, but those were all made in good fun.
We've always gotten along Tobold, so I don't know why you suddenly can't stand me :/
There really is no evidence to support that Chinese players, due to a lower GDP, don't buy gold. Chinese players can live on a far smaller income than their western cohorts. If a Chinese player is playing, it is on a Chinese server. If they are buying gold, it is for a Chinese server. The price of Gold is not the same on a Chinese server as it is elsewhere. So, let's just throw out the Chinese debate here.
Another picking point is that Blizzard does not reveal what the breakdown of accounts is when they announce the bannings. I would wager that a good amount of them are filtering accounts that get caught actually selling the gold.
That is still a lot of gold, but as I said earlier, it is bought out at wholesale prices from the farmers to be resold. It can be determined then that a lot of it is banked away for times when Blizzard does actually ban farmers. Prices go up after bannings which supports the idea that the seller accounts are getting caught and the sellers lose out on a large quantity of gold. Farmers don't hold onto their gold for more than a day so they lose out on nothing more than a max level character.
As I said Tobold, I am disappointed that your objectiveness has been lost as of late. This post should of ended at the ? .
PS: I've left a couple negatively charged posts here. It's a blog. It's opinion vs. opinion. If you don't like negative responses, then don't blog or worse ... become a comment Nazi.
I will cut out my obvious Troll posts, but those were all made in good fun.
We've always gotten along Tobold, so I don't know why you suddenly can't stand me :/
Heartless, if I couldn't stand you I just would have deleted your posts. I value your opinion, but you and me use a very different style of language, and your's is a bit rougher around the edges. That might be okay for your blog, but not for the comment section of other people's blog. You don't start a good discussion by calling what the other guy wrote an uneducated pile of rubbish.
All I'm saying is that both casual players and raiders buy gold, and that there is a lot of that going on. Last press release from Blizzard said In our continued efforts to combat cheating in World of Warcraft, more than 114,000 accounts have been closed across Europe in the month of April for the use of “bot” programs. And that is just in Europe. And they don't mention banning re-sellers or buyers, just 114,000 bot accounts.
I don't really understand what relation that has with my objectiveness. Are you telling me that all that gold is being bought by casual players and the gold sales have nothing to do with the high cost of raiding, because raiders would never buy gold? Then I have to wonder who is not objective here.
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All I'm saying is that both casual players and raiders buy gold, and that there is a lot of that going on. Last press release from Blizzard said In our continued efforts to combat cheating in World of Warcraft, more than 114,000 accounts have been closed across Europe in the month of April for the use of “bot” programs. And that is just in Europe. And they don't mention banning re-sellers or buyers, just 114,000 bot accounts.
I don't really understand what relation that has with my objectiveness. Are you telling me that all that gold is being bought by casual players and the gold sales have nothing to do with the high cost of raiding, because raiders would never buy gold? Then I have to wonder who is not objective here.
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