So, I have come to the realization that some of those 700g items I see on the AH are usually purchased from people who "buy" gold at an online farming site. I would like to know others's opinion on this. Do you "buy" gold? Is buying gold considered "cheating"? Is it really worth it to drop $70-100 cash money for 1000g? While I don't know if I really agree with it, but I still can't fathom how I'd ever save up enough gold "in-game" for some of those uber-sweet items....

Buying gold is cheating as it is against the ToS. So is selling gold. one way to get those high items is to farm for them or raid for them. This becomes problematic for those of us who are casual gamers and do not have the time to raid. however, buying gold is taking the easy way out and only supports the activities of the gold sellers. Which in turn also ruins the in game economy. The more gold through gold farmers increases the prices of higher items like that making it nearly impossible for those of us who don't buy gold to purchase them without grinding for a long time to get that much gold. It is a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts. The more people that buy gold the higher the prices will go since the gold will not be worth as much. Which will entice more people to buy gold and so forth. This is one of the many reasons that Blizzard has made it against the rules and why they ban numerous accounts over it.

Buying gold and buying accounts off of eBay are frowned upon in numerouse soceities, even today.

I cannot say I wasn't tempted in my lower lvls. With all the spells, repairs, new gear, mount, etc etc etc. It was tempting.

I don't support it for a number of reasons, primary for me is that getting it is part of the fun of the game and to just have it handed over is kind of a waste of what I'm paying to do.

I do have to disagree with swearword a bit though. It's not like the farmers conjure this gold out of thin air. They grind, vendor, farm just like the rest of us do ( of course they have someone playing that char 24/7, so they have a bit of an advantage there ). They get the gold by getting the drops, just like I have.

Hell, I sold a pair of valor gloves for 200g recently, and that was on the low end of what they were going for on the server at the time. Prices of the upgrade items ( from tier 0 to .5 ) have gone stupid crazy. There was no warrior in our group when those dropped and I was lucky to win the greed roll ( whole group rolled on them ).

You also have to remember that when something is selling well, the gold farmers farm that item to death. They usually end up flooding the market with that item until the price drops and finally stabilizes. The real problem, IMO, is from people artifically keeping market prices high by buying out lower auctions only to relist them higher and higher.

What they don't seem to realize is that this will only drive up the prices of the mats they use to make their items thus making it so they have to raise their prices more and more.

Example, major healing pots were recenly as high as 20g for a stack of 5 on the server I'm on. Why? Dear god I have no clue really, a perceived shortage? But it seemed overnight and really didn't seem to be a shortage on the AH. It took about 2 weeks for the market to adjust, and they are back down to around 5 to 6g for the stack.

You bring up a great point niner about how the farmers receive their gold. The problem is not how they get their gold it is how they use it. They create a surplus of the currency which drives the value of that currency down driving prices up. In a perfect WoW universe no farmers would be there and everyone would have to work equally hard for their money therefore having a fairly stable market. I say fairly stable due to the point that niner makes about market manipulation. Someone will try to manipulate the market to their needs which BTW is also against the ToS though harder to spot with bank alts and such.

Another problem that I see with farmers is that they obviously farm the areas where things of high value drop which depletes that resource for those of us who can not be on 24/7.

I do agree with you though niner the farmers are not the only problem with the market in WoW. I do however see them as the primary one.

Farmers definitely don't make the game any better ( for the most part, but talking with them always gets me a chuckle ).

I think that the fact that Blizz made a game where the economy is able to function like any "real world" capitalistic economy is pretty cool, which comes with the same issues of a capitalistic society, the haves, the have nots, the have too much and the have not enoughs.

I completely agree niner :)

What also pisses me off is when people list items for 1silver less and drives the prices down for leather and cloths. Thick Leather used to be 90s a stack and now they're down to about 60s. I just vendor my thick leather now until the market goes back up. =(

I am very much against gold buying and selling, and it does inflate the ingame economy. However, I also have to say that the people constantly flaming IF/Og general with 'omg 750g for purpz ban the CGFs u no they sell so high so that only gold buyers can afford stuff' irritate me. One's wealth increases steadily in proportion to the amount of time one plays. I've been playing since release and am worth about 3k in cash and lord only knows, maybe another 2k in commodity items. Seems like a lot of people play for 2 or 3 months, get to 60, and feel entitled to the best and rarest droppable loot in the game, if only it weren't for corrupt CGFs and greedy uber players. Of course someone who's been playing 30hrs/week since release is going to have an easier time affording things. These games are all about time invested above anything else.

What also pisses me off is when people list items for 1silver less and drives the prices down for leather and cloths. Thick Leather used to be 90s a stack and now they're down to about 60s. I just vendor my thick leather now until the market goes back up. =(

So it's not just me, then. I used to be able to make a modest income selling stacks of Light Leather for 25 s buyout. Now the market's flooded with Light Leather, starting bid 2 or 3 s per stack. I do better running thru instances over and over again, selling the drops.

I am very much against gold buying and selling, and it does inflate the ingame economy. However, I also have to say that the people constantly flaming IF/Og general with 'omg 750g for purpz ban the CGFs u no they sell so high so that only gold buyers can afford stuff' irritate me. One's wealth increases steadily in proportion to the amount of time one plays. I've been playing since release and am worth about 3k in cash and lord only knows, maybe another 2k in commodity items. Seems like a lot of people play for 2 or 3 months, get to 60, and feel entitled to the best and rarest droppable loot in the game, if only it weren't for corrupt CGFs and greedy uber players. Of course someone who's been playing 30hrs/week since release is going to have an easier time affording things. These games are all about time invested above anything else.

Well said, what also bothers me is assumptions people make about you based on your gear. I am a casual player and don't have access to raid epics, so most of my best stuff are items you can buy or craft from buyable items (warden staff, chromatic cloak, orb of the darkmoon, etc...). Some people inspect me and accuse me of buying gold, but I farmed herbs for weeks to afford some of this stuff and I am not a twink.

For some of us the best stuff we will ever be able to reach are the BoE epics we can buy, it doesn't make us bad players or cheaters or anything. Its why I believe this stuff is in the game in the first place, for the casual gamers to spend open world time gathering and saving for, if we can't raid.

I have never bought gold, but do know of those that have.

I am neither "FOR" or "AGAINST" gold selling &/or purchasing.

With this being a game, we all paid $39.99(ish) and $15 per month(ish) already. If this is your "hobby" or "favorite passtime", I could see someone spending an extra: $50-$1xx if it provides them some level of entertainment.

My real good buddy gets to play 2-3 times a week from 8pm-11pm(ish). He's married, has children and has a good job. Recently, he went in with two co-workers (both VERY casual players) and bought 1000g. With his 333g, he's working on his Dungeon2 Shadowcraft set. He wouldn't buy the SC - Bracers, Belt or Gloves because he likes to run the instances. He wanted the gold for the 120g brazier, etc. etc.

Purchasing the gold allowed him to stay on the quest series and run instances instead of just farming the mats. If he did not purchase the gold, his limited playing time would have been all spent grind farming endlessly because that dungeon2 set questline has some unique requirements (nearly 240g start to finish).

As for me personally, I am a sick, sick, sick personality and actually enjoy hardcore grind farming while watching TV. I have recently found how much I enjoy farming on my Druid now that I have much better gear and a MUCH better understanding of the class.

HOWEVER, I have some real life friends that re-rolled on a new server because they wanted to play horde. Their guild did not have a single druid, so once or twice a week I pop over and play my Level 25 tauren druid. I gotta tell you, starting from ZERO after having four level 60s with nearly 2000g combined definitely makes one consider dropping $25 or $50 just to get started.

Just my $0.02

Earn gold , dont buy it :) , that's my advice

I don't buy gold and would never consider it. I'm against it.

Here's a twist though. My primary character, my Druid is 41 and a Skinner/Leatherworker. I buy all the spells and Leatherworking skills. I don't generally spend money on armor or weapons as I use what I get in quests or drops or what I make. I only have about 37 gold and that is really only because I started to save up for a mount. Right up until I hit 40 I was always poor, usually 5 gold or less.

I decided to start an alt just for making money. I got a Hunter and made him a Skinner/Herbalist with Fishing/First Aid/Cooking. I'm actually enjoying the hunter and not just grinding for cash. Amazingly, at 24 my Hunter is at 36 gold already. This seems like a great way to finance my Druid and is strictly legal.

I wonder what you all think of this. I know it's not cheating but does it seem a bit like cheating to you to run an alt just to finance your main?

Blizzard allows you to mail stuff from one alt to another, and they could have *easily* prevented this. But they didn't, so I see nothing wrong in creating a cash-cow alt.

Anyways, you're just one person, so the time you spend on your alt is time taken away from your main.

Anyways, you're just one person, so the time you spend on your alt is time taken away from your main.

Not necessarily

Rest XP > Unrested XP

My "main" is a warrior. Along the path to 60, I got A LOT of blue BoE cloth that would never sell on AH (pre-twinks). So, I started Priest alt leveled him to 10 and parked him in an inn. I then read an article on how to solo farm BRD for DI Ore and DI Smelting. Leveled a rogue to 10 and parked him in an inn.

I only played my alts when they were fully rested and when they ran out of Rest XP, I logged off one and onto the other.

In the end, I leveled two (02) alts to 60 in the same "time" it took to level my warrior to 60.

I liked being a "tank", "DPS", and didn't mind "healing" in party...(drum roll please)..."I'll play a druid"

=)

***

As a side note, I've used a "bank alt" to effectively make money in the game with the use of:

www.auctioneeraddon.com

I leveld an alt to level 6 so that i could pick up enchanting. Every Green, Blue, and even the occasional Epic BoE that I don't use gets mailed to the bank alt. I list the item twice using Auctioneer. If the item doesn't sell after two rounds, I Disenchant it and mail the mats to my characters as they need them for enchants. If one particular enchanting mat stacks up, I sell the mats on AH.

I do not think it should be considered "cheating". I understand that people might consider it cheating but it is perfectly fair. If some people chose to trade their earned money for fake money in a video game. I personally think it is a really stupid thing to do, but if people chose to do it, that's fine with me. I would rather earn my gold but I will not oppose to people buying it.

Call it what you like it's against the rules.

If I found out for sure someone was buying/selling gold I would have no problem reporting them. I wouldn't feel bad if they lost their account and all their players. It's against the rules everyone that plays agrees to.

Well, yes, I bought some Gold and here are the reasons:

Wow is REALLY so time consuming, it's amazing, and I am a very busy man and I cannot afford to play all my free time to get good economy, level up, keep my professions up to date, etc. (due to responsabilities in real life, etc.). So well, I bought some gold to get my mount.

Also, it's a game, NOT real life and I just play it for fun and to relax. I do not want to take it too seriously. My caracter doesn't even exist, it is only virtual and I can delete it by one click so ya, I am not the kind of man to take this too seriously.

But overall, I think buying gold shouldn't be "abused". I mean, it can help sometimes if you are missing some gold and really have limited free time but buying thousands of gold to equip your caracter with purple items only is a bit too much if you ask me. Go play and make some instance instead.

But in the other hand, mount cannot be dropped and they do not really help in combat... So IMO, it all depends on why you buy some gold, for what reason and what you intend to do with it. It can be useful for people who have more " real money" but less free time, as long as they do it "wisely".

... mount cannot be dropped and they do not really help in combat... So IMO, it all depends on why you buy some gold, for what reason and what you intend to do with it. It can be useful for people who have more " real money" but less free time, as long as they do it "wisely".

I like the gist of your argument, but the only problem is where do you draw the line? You can say, 100 g is good enough for a mount; but what about the level 60 mount (1000 g)? Are we saying that it's okay to buy 1000 g? But once you've put 1000 g into the economy, you're affecting the game in some small way.

I like the gist of your argument, but the only problem is where do you draw the line? You can say, 100 g is good enough for a mount; but what about the level 60 mount (1000 g)? Are we saying that it's okay to buy 1000 g? But once you've put 1000 g into the economy, you're affecting the game in some small way.

How is buying gold putting more into the economy?

There is a world (the server) where each player has to earn his/her own gold. You get that gold through quests, trade skills, selling loot, etc. Once in awhile you may get a rare drop and sell it for big dough, but usually, it takes time to make money. That slows down your income generation.

So when you want to buy a special item, you will decide how much you're willing to pay for it, and you would consider how much time it took you to earn that gold in the first place.

Now, let's say you can just go to eBay and buy 1000 g. You spent no (playing) time to get it, and now you're willing to pay more gold to get special items.

The market will respond, and sellers will put higher prices on their items.

So if more people buy gold, it creates inflation, and players who do not buy gold will not be able to acquire the more valued items. So everybody has to buy gold to keep up with the higher prices (or just stick to the lesser items).

1) Blizzard doesn't want to punish the legitimate gold earners
2) Blizzard doesn't want third-party companies to profit from their intellectual property.

Well the rest of the server that doesnt buy gold could just....not buy the stuff that sellers are trying to sell for a higher price.

For example, stacks of Major Mana Pots went from 5g a stack to 15g a stack. Do you think anyone was buying them at that price? Hell no. Within a month or two, the natural economic trend of falling prices occured and it evened back out again.

I'm against gold/account/item buying and selling. For one, it's against the ToS, therefore it's something Blizzard clearly doesn't want, no matter how much it can be done using exploits and the basic game functionality. For another thing, this is just a game, sure, but it's also a social environment, so people's actions should be taken seriously. If a person is willing to throw RL money at the problem of not having enough in game gold, what does that say about that person (besides that they clearly have too much RL money).

I will staunchly remain against the practice.

My character's monatery high point was in around 1k gold, which has quickly frittered away with my Guild progressing in BWL. I too do not have a whole lot of game time that's not consumed with end-game raids, so farming for money etc is beyond me most of the time. I'm still not going to purchase gold. If i have to take some time off raiding, or borrow some cash from some guildies (which I have done in the past and ALWAYS pay back) so be it.

Fenrys, proud Druid with 17g to his name.

Here's an article someone posted about this subject on Blizzard's WoW forums regarding how gold buying affects the economy:

Recently there've been a spate of posts on and about Professional Farmers and their effect on the economy of WoW. I've noticed that a large number of people have posted regarding their feelings and intuitions about the effects of the Professional Farmer (one who trades in-game time for real world profit) and wondered whether those feelings were justified. Now, I don't have access to Blizzard's economic and character activity records, but the following gedankenexperiments will serve to illustrate the drastic effects of the presence of even one Professional Farmer on a server.

Note 1: Throughout this text, I use the term gold to mean WoW currency and money to mean currency in the real world.

Note 2: The word 'to farm', as used here, means 'to do those activities that are conducted for the express purpose of generating gold.' There are other types of farming, for reputation, for personal use consumables, &ct. And there are activities that are not generally considered 'farming' that are included in this definition - playing the auction house for example.

Firstly, we must cover what exactly it is that WoW's economic base is. It has some slight, but significant differences with real world economies. I'm not going to cover all of them, this is a -101 study, not -575. The idea is to give you an overview of how the economy in WoW operates.

For example, an item's intrinsic value does not suffer from depreciation due to use or time. This is a major impetus in real world economic situations to create more goods and provide more services, because many of the tools used in those goods and services aquire LESS value over time and when their intrinsic value has reached 0.0 (they broke) they are replaced or fixed. Money is actively lost through through time as well - as an object gets older, its value is decreased because of the reduced chance of operating at peak effficency. There is, of course, that segment of tools and services that increase in value over time (antiques and similar items), but they are a small segment, and in the economic world of WoW, comparatively so rare as to have little discernable effect on the economy as a whole. In WoW, this special segment would be covered by items that can no longer be aquired but can still be traded.

What does this mean? It means that the Silverleaf you gathered last week is going to have the same value as the Silverleaf you gathered last year, its price is only dictated by the current supply and demand for Silverleaf. This is an advantage to the individual, but an inflationary pressure to the economy as a whole, as depreciation is a primary means of lowering the overall flow of currency. Further, since depreciation does not exist, there are further inflationary pressures on the economy in that the provider of Silverleaf can wait until momentary lulls in the supply of Silverleaf appear to sell, keeping prices high over a sustained period of time and thereby artificially reducing the purchasing power of other players - in other words: inflation.

WoW uses a clever hack to get around the lack of depreciation in its economy: Service providers who are not, in their turn, consumers of goods and services themselves. The prime example of this would be the varioius Blacksmith NPCs that will repair your armor. The gold you spend is not spent by the NPC on things that the NPC needs. That gold has been completely removed from the economy, never to appear again.

On the whole, I would say that, despite the differences between real world economies and WoW's economies, left to itself, WoW is relatively stable and in little need of active economic correction.

What then, are the pressures that cannot be corrected for by the system itself? The primary one is, of course, the inhabitants of WoW's economy: the various sub-species of Homo economicus if you will. Note: Homo economicus is a term coined (probably - the origins are a bit obscure) by economist Vilfredo Pareto in order to define the characteristics that make up your average player in the economic field. The primary attribute of Homo economicus is that he will seek to minimise outlay and maximise gain, though not necessarily on a long term basis.

There are a couple of fundamental differences between the average player - Homo economicus belicosus (Warlike economic man) as an economic entity and the professional farmer - Homo economicus arcanus (Magic economic man). Why 'Magic economic man'? As we shall see, the professional farmer 'magically' creates gold, placing large inflationary pressures on the economy of WoW.

The first major difference is efficiency, a farmer is - of necessity - more efficient than your average player at the practice of earning gold. Their job depends on it.

Let's make some assumptions. These aren't going to be perfectly accurate, but that isn't important as they only serve to illustrate, rather than perfectly define, the economy in WoW.

1. The maximum peak efficiency of gold created per hour is 100g/hr. Possibly a little high, but the number is nice and round, and easy to manipulate. This is the maximum possible sustained earning potential of a 'Toon. If that 'Toon does everything possible to earn gold, and does not make any moves that will reduce their intake, then - over time - their gold/hr. intake will approach 100.0.

2. The average player, belicosus, will farm for about 3 hrs. per week. Belicosus does not play the game to farm for gold, he plays to kill things like mobs, raid bosses and other players in PvP. This is an assumption based on personal experience in a raiding guild and it may be high or low, but it matches closely with my personal gold outlay needs in terms of repairs and purchase of non-drop items. Different players will have different needs, but I am fairly certain that the average will approach 3 hours or so.

3. Effiency - A professional farmer is going to be significantly more efficient at generating gold than an average player. A farmer has an overwhelming interest in maximising gold/hour, where as a player is only playing a game. Let's say that a professional farmer operates at 95% efficency and the player at 85% efficency. The farmer does 95% of all things possible to do to generate maximum income - he has extensive knowledge (or his bosses do, the difference is invisible to the game) of the systems of WoW in regards to generating gold and has much more practice at it than someone who is playing the game for enjoyment.

Those are our assumptions. Now, let us consider what these assumptions mean as applied to the economy of WoW.

All individuals in the WoW economy, whether they be farmers or players generate gold according to this formula:

[TotalGoldGenerated] = ([MaximumPossibleGold/hr.] x [Efficency]) x [TimeSpentFarming]

For players, this is

(100g/hr x 0.85) x 3hrs. = 255g per week

For farmers, who's 'toons are active 24 hours a day, 7 days a week or 168 hours a week, (this is a simplification, in reality farmer 'toons are given 'breaks' to place their time within WoW more in accord with the average player, though the people behind the 'toons are not) generate

(100g/hr x 0.95) x 168hrs. = 15,960g per week

That's right, a professional farmer generates 62.59 TIMES more gold per week than a player does. Each and every farmer on a server is the monetary influx equivalent of about 63 regular players. That's a BIG difference. Consider that there are dozens of farmers on a server and you begin to see how much of an effect on the economy they can have.

That's the first difference between farmers and players. The second difference is how they spend their gold earned.

Astonishingly, a player has zero net effect on prices in the game, they simply serve to provide economic lubrication - more people on a server means more gold in the system which means products and services are minimally impeded in their application and delivery. How does a player have zero effect? Because players, while producers of currency, are also consumers of it. Over time, the average amount of gold a player has approaches 0.0. Every time they buy a piece of equipment, money disappears from the system, every time they repair their armor or purchase and then use a consumable, money disappears from the system. A player has no interest (literally, there are no banking institutions in WoW) in keeping gold lying around because it does nothing for him. Players of the game make money dissapear from the system as quickly as they generate it. The only thing that should be driving up prices is the introduction or discovery of new, more efficient ways to generate the gold needed to purchase items from the game or other players.

A farmer on the other hand, after an initial outlay of gold to gear up for maximal farming efficency, consume almost nothing. They don't buy pots, they repair far less often than players do, &ct. Now, if that's all they did, then the economy of WoW would be unaffected, because gold, in and of itself, does not generate more gold (no banks, remember?). But that's not what happens. Farmers trade money for gold so that unscrupulus players don't have to trade time for gold.

Well, so what? That doesn't sound like a big deal. It is. Because, from the point of view of the WoW economic system, a player who buys gold with money has effectively conjured it from thin air. The amount of gold in the economy per player has effectively increased and this is a significant inflationary pressure. Players have more gold, they spend it more freely, driving prices into a vicious upward spiral.

Again, so what? The ultimate outcome of this is that eventually, unless farmers are checked, players will be entirely unable to purchase certain classes of items without resorting to the farmers who are selling gold in the first place. In other words, allowing 'free' gold to be generated by farmers makes farmers necessary to play the game, driving up the incedental cost to players to merely play the game. And that is not a good thing at all.

Edit: Edited because I fail at spelling. Thanks Kes!

Here's an article someone posted about this subject on Blizzard's WoW forums regarding how gold buying affects the economy:

... from the point of view of the WoW economic system, a player who buys gold with money has effectively conjured it from thin air. The amount of gold in the economy per player has effectively increased and this is a significant inflationary pressure. Players have more gold, they spend it more freely, driving prices into a vicious upward spiral.


That's what I said. :elfbiggri

Yeah, I bought myself a few gold back around level 40.
I've regretted it ever since. It was stupid.

Anyways:
Goldselling isn't going to be directly stopped, ever.
Why?
Loopholes.
Farming for gold is perfectly legal. You can sit at your computer and monotonously kill monsters or run instances all you want, and Blizz can't do anything about it, as long as you're paying your $15 a month.
Giving gold to other players is perfetly legal also. There's no rule against sending large sums of money to other players.
What is against the ToS is paying legal currency for gold in the game. You can't legally buy $100 worth of WoW gold.

The catch:
When one buys gold, you're not paying for the gold itself, but the delivery of it. You're basically paying the goldselling company to make a character with a name like "Adfjhasd". That character then just happens to send you a large sum of gold. Paying to have a character made, and that character sending you gold, are not against the ToS.

If you want an example of what goldfarming/buying can do to a game, look at FFXI. Anyone who ever played that game can testify that the economy was royally ****ed. 17 million gil (the FFXI currency) for a single material for a piece of gear. Then you had to buy the other mats, and find someone to craft it for you. And in FFXI, when you failed to craft something, you lost your mats.
The cheapest way to get what you wanted was from a short trip to a gil selling website and mommy's credit card.

I am very much against gold buying and selling, and it does inflate the ingame economy. However, I also have to say that the people constantly flaming IF/Og general with 'omg 750g for purpz ban the CGFs u no they sell so high so that only gold buyers can afford stuff' irritate me. One's wealth increases steadily in proportion to the amount of time one plays. I've been playing since release and am worth about 3k in cash and lord only knows, maybe another 2k in commodity items. Seems like a lot of people play for 2 or 3 months, get to 60, and feel entitled to the best and rarest droppable loot in the game, if only it weren't for corrupt CGFs and greedy uber players. Of course someone who's been playing 30hrs/week since release is going to have an easier time affording things. These games are all about time invested above anything else.

So, then the casual gamer need not apply? Just playing devil's advocate here, but what if you don't have the time/desire to commit your entire life to WoW? I am a casual gamer, in the truest sense of the word, as I maybe login for a couple hours every 5-7 days. I get sick and tired of seeing high AH prices just as much as anyone, but find it hard to fault someone for buying gold, when it's impossible for them to buy say, an epic mount without devoting all of their free time to the game :ohwell:

One could easily make the argument that you don't deserve to have an epic mount unless you are willing to sell your soul to WoW, and farm gold until the cows come home. But then Blizzard doesn't make most of their money from the 24/7/365ers, they make it from mostly casual gamers, who want a quality gaming experience - regardless if they might not "deserve" it. Both arguments are valid. If Blizzard wants to dramatically shrink their subscribers, and consequently their bottom line, then they should somehow ban gold farming/selling... this would make all of the die-hards very happy people indeed. It would also eliminate most of the n00bs and PUGs everyone seems to complain about.

I would wager that Blizzard doesn't care so much about the AH prices - because they are retaining subscribers. If the market is willing to pay the price, then that's the true market value...nuff said.

bottom line, then they should somehow ban gold farming/selling...

It is banned hence the thousands of accounts that get banned for doing just that. It seems they ban around 30000 accounts per quarter.

I am a casual player, and as such need those really expensive epic items for sale, so that I can gear up.

Since I don't have access to raid gear I need good stuff I can buy. I don't do it by buying gold, bu by saving. Anything in the game that can be bought can be acquired by a casual player eventually. When someone says they can't afford something because they are a casual player, they are just saying they are too impatient to wait to earn it, and want to cheat to get it now.

It is banned hence the thousands of accounts that get banned for doing just that. It seems they ban around 30000 accounts per quarter.

Dont believe everything you hear.

I would wager that Blizzard doesn't care so much about the AH prices - because they are retaining subscribers. If the market is willing to pay the price, then that's the true market value...nuff said.


One thing that you may not be looking at is Blizzard and others do set examples and ban accounts, but the accounts that they ban are accounts that do hacks and cheats to farm gold. They even say that when they post their messages about the bans. Verant, Sony, Blizzard and all the others allow the gold farming and item selling because it keeps the casual gamer to keep playing and allow for the 15 dollars a month to keep coming in. I.E. They make their real life money and could careless about the virtual money. Now, I really could careless if someone buys gold,earns,farms it or what ever. This is a virtual world and we all pay to have fun. So paying for gold is no different then smoking a cigarette, drinking a beer or doing a drug.. It produces the same response of gratification and it produces nothing tangible in the log run. Except addiction.

If someone wants to pay 500g for that purple item then let them do it. It only affects the economy so far. It’s a one time sale and in a matter of time the price will drop or you do what I do. If I see something I want and I know its way over price. I wait until it’s been on the AH a few times and then I will send them an email in game offering them a reasonable price. Most of the time I get the item far less then what it actually should sell for. Also, for every server you may see a 100 farmers farming gold and 5000 or so regular players. Now if you take into effect the people who actually buy gold there numbers maybe 250-500. Who knows, but if you do the math it breaks down to a similar number as above in the thread where the average player will earn the same amount.

The difference is they casual games are doing it by ways of paying real life money for it. Reason is because they can’t be in the game 20+ hours a week like the regular player. I would be willing to bet that the player who buys gold are the players who play less then 15 hours a week and just want to keep up with guildies and so on. Also, don’t kid yourself that some of the purple items you have picked up and priced way out there and sold. Most likely some guy who bought gold probably is who bought your item. We all benefit in some manner and the economy always stabilizes to a degree and the die hard players go out and get the items they want by farming an instance. So really doesn’t this really only hurt the casual gamer?

There are a couple of reasons why, beyond being against the rules, gold buying is bad.

First in game, it encourages more farmers to come to your server. On the farmer's side of the world its all about supply and demand, if more people are buying gold on X server, then you will have more of your gatherers build their gold supplies there. This means that there is more competition for the same resource nodes or rare spawns, and less are available for the legitimate gamer looking to make his money honestly.

Second there are the market impacts, although as has been pointed out these are not all negative. Consummables that give good buffs to make farming more efficient sell pretty well when there is a high farmer quotient, which will actually help alchemy players etc...But in general, with mor farmers there will be more gold in the market to buy things and prices will rise, again making it more difficult for the typical game player.

Third is the social side. farmers don't group with non-farmers for quests and instances typically, perhaps to avoid using English or ninja loot situations. However having a significant group of the population that will not cooperate makes finding groups for certain activities more difficult.

Finally there are the actual ethical considerations for the living conditions of the workers that gather it. In the real world, some of these kids are near slaves and live in abject squalor to farm gold to make westerners not try so hard when they play their games. Its disturbing if you think about it. There is not a lot of difference between buying gold and keeping some kidnap victim chained in your basement to do your bidding.

There is not a lot of difference between buying gold and keeping some kidnap victim chained in your basement to do your bidding.


Ok, that is a bit of a reach!!!

Finally there are the actual ethical considerations for the living conditions of the workers that gather it. In the real world, some of these kids are near slaves and live in abject squalor to farm gold to make westerners not try so hard when they play their games. Its disturbing if you think about it. There is not a lot of difference between buying gold and keeping some kidnap victim chained in your basement to do your bidding.

GW, that is a little ridiculous, and quite an assumption. Following that line of thought, everyone who wears nike shoes, or has ever bought anything made in china, or eaten food imported from another country is essentially a slave trader. Granted buying gold is bad, but wow... the comparison of buying gold in wow and holding hostage a kidnap victim against their will is quite the stretch.

GW, that is a little ridiculous, and quite an assumption. Following that line of thought, everyone who wears nike shoes, or has ever bought anything made in china, or eaten food imported from another country is essentially a slave trader. Granted buying gold is bad, but wow... the comparison of buying gold in wow and holding hostage a kidnap victim against their will is quite the stretch.

Well obviously I used hyperbole for effect, but because it is illegal there is even less oversight than the other sweatshops, and people should consider that as a deterrent to gold buying.

GW, that is a little ridiculous, and quite an assumption. Following that line of thought, everyone who wears nike shoes, or has ever bought anything made in china, or eaten food imported from another country is essentially a slave trader. Granted buying gold is bad, but wow... the comparison of buying gold in wow and holding hostage a kidnap victim against their will is quite the stretch.

Well obviously I used hyperbole for effect, but because it is illegal there is even less oversight than the other sweatshops, and people should consider that as a deterrent to gold buying.

Someone mentioned not being able to afford, say, a mount because they can't devote endless hours to the game. Well, mounts are one thing that have a level requirement, so if you can get to that level without living on the computer 24/7, you can also get the required amount of gold. I'm known for being broke in any game I've played that has currency, and even I'm managing to get together a nice stash for when I hit 40. Mind you it's for an ugly overgrown lizard, but either way.. lol. I've noticed as I level more, gold is more available to me. Quests give more and, stuff I find killing mobs gives more.
Not being able to devote your entire life to the game isn't an excuse for buying gold, in my opinion.

That aside, you're paying per month to play this game. If it's too difficult and time consuming for you, play something else. (excuse me if that offends people who have lots of money to spare and want a "quality game"... earning money is part of that game, and having a lot of people willing to pay money for gold, and in turn willing to pay rediculous amounts of gold for items ruins the experience for people who either can't afford to take the easy way, or would just rather not)

Someone mentioned not being able to afford, say, a mount because they can't devote endless hours to the game. Well, mounts are one thing that have a level requirement, so if you can get to that level without living on the computer 24/7, you can also get the required amount of gold.

When I hit 40, I had nowhere near the required amount of gold for a mount. If it weren't for the assistance of my guild, I'd probably still have no mount today, lol. Each time you pay to upgrade your Druid spells, it's around 15 g or more. I have friends in a similar position, lvl 40+ and still no mount.

So you really need to spend the time whoring the AH, selling trade goods or finding under-priced items and re-selling them. That time you spend is therefore not spent on the fun stuff: questing, PvP or instances.

Hitting 40 is one thing; hitting 40 and having 100+ gold at the same time is another. :sumo:

Hitting 40 is one thing; hitting 40 and having 100+ gold at the same time is another.

I just don't understand this. When I first started playing, a friend gave me gold to help get me started, a whopping 20g. Instead of squandering it on useless stuff that I didn't need, I invested it into the AH by using Auctionner to scan for low priced goods. I would buy them and then resale them. I only do this maybe 30 minutes at a time every couple days. Doing this has allowed me to now <u>at level 20</u> have 40g. So I've doubled what he gave me. And it's not that I hold on to every single copper piece either.. I have actually bought myself a seperate set of healing gear just for grouping, as well as several other things.

Having an AH alt is <u>imperative</u> if you want to make money. It is by far the easiest way. Another thing is to make your main have 2 gathering professions, such as mining/skinning or herbalism/skinning. I've made plenty of money off this as well. Leave the professions for after you have hit higher level and have a better established source of income.

No matter what though... to be more on topic, not having gold does not validate buying it. My opinion, its lazy and the cheap way out. And don't complain to me about not wanting to spend hours upon hours playing. I'm in Iraq, working 12 hr days, so I get very limited playtime, and I've still managed to do this.

When I first started playing, a friend gave me gold to help get me started, a whopping 20g. Instead of squandering it on useless stuff that I didn't need, I invested it into the AH by using Auctionner to scan for low priced goods. I would buy them and then resale them.

No matter what though... to be more on topic, not having gold does not validate buying it. My opinion, its lazy and the cheap way out. And don't complain to me about not wanting to spend hours upon hours playing. I'm in Iraq, working 12 hr days, so I get very limited playtime, and I've still managed to do this.

OK first of all let me start by saying each person pays to play this game and they can imho do what they wish in regards to the moral decision of whether or not to buy gold...

Now on to your post...It's hard for me to "take" anything from your post when you start out saying you started your wow life with 20g. 20g to a lvl 5 char is the equivalent of 500g or possibly more to a lvl 60. So basically you never had the struggle of killing stuff JUST to make sure you had enough money to train your skills like some of the rest of us have had...I remember having 2 gold and being really excited and then hitting that next training level and going to train and leaving the trainer with 20 silver.

As turned off as I was by how your post started, I didn't really lose all respect for the post until I read the part that says you took the 20g that you didnt "earn" and used it to buy items at the auction house and resell them for higher amounts...this is EXACTLY what is wrong with a lot of the servers and the prices of items...as has been stated in several of the above posts.

I assume from the last sentence of your post that you are military? I too am US military and having been stationed overseas I feel that you are very fortunate to even have the ability to play wow in Iraq...I also fail to see what your schedule has to do with other people's schedules.

Lots of people work 12 hour days and then go home to wife and kids.

After spending time with their family and getting the kids to bed, they might log on for an hour to wind down just before bed.

If this person says he doesnt have or want to spend his one hour a day online farming for gold I wouldnt blame him...

Luckily I get to play for several hours a day and can make the decision on raiding/questing/pvping or whatever else I feel like doing for that day...I won't however criticize someone else on how they want to spend their time online.

erm.. is it just me or wasnt the poll about bying gold from gold sites?
When theres a poll about "Do your wife/girl-boyfriend/social life allow you to grind gold 24/7" the discussion could be intressting, in this context I frankly care @#%! about your/my/our social life.



Finally there are the actual ethical considerations for the living conditions of the workers that gather it. In the real world, some of these kids are near slaves and live in abject squalor to farm gold to make westerners not try so hard when they play their games. Its disturbing if you think about it. There is not a lot of difference between buying gold and keeping some kidnap victim chained in your basement to do your bidding.

Gwmort points out the fact that the southern hemisphere/ non-western/3rd world make the s@#%ty job that you dont want to do by buying gold.
Regardless if its about bying cheap sneakers, grinding wow gold or buying cheap fast food, the burden is at someone elses shoulders - fine buy that gold but do keep in mind what Gwmort posted and deal with it or just lower your voice about "my social life", tbh, it sickens me to hear it when those grinding this gold could only dream about haveing a couple of hours aday to go to school, not to mention time spare for a social life.

Im not sure if I brake any forum rules here ... guess its worth it tho.

EDIT; in general Im just as "guilty" to my accusations as anyone else, even tho in this case I dont buy gold.

So if you have 2 lv60's with epic mounts, is it wrong to buy your third gold so they, too can have an epic? After having already earned and spent over 1800 gold?

I'd never buy gold, but this third time around, tbh its looking pretty tempting

I voted no because so far in my 50 levels of WoW i've had no need to buy anything I could not afford. I've been playing WoW for about 2 months now , roughly 15-20 hours a week. When I reached 40 I had about 130gp from quests, skinning, and selling drops from my grinding sessions. Doing quests in my home city and reaching rank 3 in PvP made my mount and training cost 80gp. with the remaining 50gp I bought a nice blue blackhands stout (i botched the spelling i know it's a 2h mace i'm sure most druids are familiar with). I even saved up enough in the next week to buy the 20gp of materials required to Icy enchant it, mostly cause I end up meleeing still at my level in BG's when i'm OOM and that darn mage is at 10% health. Perhaps I've been lucky in my drops but since I've never seen a blue I doubt it.

I am a gatherer though, I saved all the cloth stacks, mageweave stacks, and random herbs off the cactus men in tanaris and sold them. Every 2 levels I always had enough to buy my druid spells cause I saved, never been a problem. I don't play the AH, I just sell what I find in the wild. I have no epics to my name and only 2 blue items but I feel that I do just fine in the wild and PvP.

So there's a story of a druid who's new to WoW and will probably never buy Gold.

Most of the issues with buying gold have been covered. And the economics lessen Rougenoir reposted hits the nail on the head as well. Two things that I noticed weren't covered, I will. so grab some popcorn and enjoy. :epopcorn:

1) Latency. We all get it. No one is immune to lag; I don't care how good your rig is. Some may have a forseen notion of what Latency is, so allow me to clear it up for you.
Latency is, put simply, a time delay between the moment something is initiated (attack, spellcast) and the moment that action first begins. That's why it's always better to have as low of a latency value as possible.

What causes high latency is the server getting bombarded by requests for actions. I haven't taken the time to look up Blizz' server specs, but I'm sure they all can handle hundreds of thousands simple little requests from all us users. You'll experience more latency near a group of people or in certain high graphic intensive areas than you would sitting alone with npc's in an inn. Plain facts we all should know. The biggest cause of latency then, is the number of people actually doing something. Since farmers stay on 24/7, albeit not the same toon or even account, it doesnt matter. We're counting users logged in. Their constant farming causes another problem with latency and that's created internally on the server. What do I mean? Every time a mob is killed, the server goes through several things before you even know that mob is dead. It's already calculated what is looted, what exp is gained, special conditions like changing flags to allow skinning or activating quests, updating your quest, if available, etc, etc, etc. It then starts a timer and has the mob respawned for your killing pleasure.
Now take our "harmless" farmers on a full server. How many could there be? I counted 173 servers (if I'm off, it won't matter much). Blizz claims to have banned 30,000 accounts in a quarter. That's an average of 10,000 a month, to make it roughly only 57 accts a month per server.

:bs:

I would place my money on the amount of farmer account to be closer to 1,000 per server (If Wow had 1 million users, it would be roughly 5700 users total per server). Plus banning one does nothing to the "farmer" they simple buy another copy of the game and move on. I doubt their feelings are hurt. Back to latency.

Ok, so our 1k in farmers are busy bashing in mob's heads and low and behold, the server has a lot to do! So it slows a bit to catch up and low and behold again, you die because the tank didn't get his heal in time and died before you. Or you ran off a cliff and went splat. Or you ran out of breath. Or your client froze up completely and your whole party wipes cause you went LD.

In easier compact terms: Farmers=Lag=sucky time playing.


2)Availability. Here's where I somewhat support farmers. They make things available that would normally not be there for us. Even 2-3 of something purple is to be considered "available". The problem, though, is the farmer not only gets the gold from mobs, but from players (and not just those that buy gold). This is where I have the problem; where players honestly making their way through the game lose their money to the "golddiggers" causing all the problems in the first place. But hey, the items are there.
Another issue with item-selling farmers is they don't feel the pinch of the higher prices. In fact, they press the economic thresholds in order to squeeze every copper they can to fatten their business. Many have mentioned outlandish price raises and the slow crawl to normalcy. You cannot say that during that time those overpriced items were not sold. You can, however, almost garantee that during that week's period the farmer received over 200-500% net gain from the "price Jack).

Again in compact terms: Farmers=High prices=self farming=sucky time playing.

I may be new to WoW, but not the the world of mmorpgs. Farmers in all online games increase prices due to cash flow influxes caused by their transactions, yet make very rare items less rare for the end-user due to their exploits of mob farming and item selling. Is it worth the pains regular players have to forgo? I wouldn't think so.

I'd like to see a game where you couldn't trade money to other players, only items. Not only would farming be pointless, but so would auctions (another waste of RAM for the servers to deal with, but I won't bash that right now.) And before you try to debate me on how dumb not trading cash would be, think of this:

player 1 wants to help player 2, but can only give her an item. P2 could use a new wep but P1 has the wrong type for her class. P1 trades P2 an equal or greater value wep and P2 sells it, then buys what she wants.

Not as easy as tossing out gold to someone, and farmers would not find it lucrative enough to hand someone 10-20 items to cover the 1000 gold. In fact, you could even have all the high-end items bound when picked up. There are hundreds of ways to make it so cold cash can't be traded and still give the players a way to pass it.

Personally, I'm waiting for the game check system. :elfbiggri

My total earnings in WoW have been over 2000g for sure but I spent a lot more when I hit 60 and ... the darn repair bills. I thought about eitehr getting an alt powerleveled to 40 or buy gold but I stayed firm in not doing so. It's a game, earn your fun.

ive thought about it. I have friends that have. but then i think about every time i needed alot of gold (like my epic mount) and how i got it. It really doesnt take that long to earn it yourself. If i took the time it took to make that money to buy that gold, and the time it would take to just get the gold myself, it ends up being fairly even. So i dont really gain anything by buying the gold.

Also because of how the end game in WoW works, having alot of gold doesnt really give you any major advantages. You cant just buy full tier3 or full warlords. All the things in the game that would give you a significant advantage in the game is not things that can be bought.

in the end, i just dont see the point in it. I guess its good for people that dont really play wow alot, or alot anymore, but want to get some niceties like epic mounts n such. So i dont really mind if other people buy and sell items/gold.

I voted "perhaps" but I found that in reality, I wouldn't go buying gold. I thought about it for getting my epic, but in the end grinded and AH'ed myself to the money. Not very fun, but it didn't take that long time (in-game) and that's how the game "is supposed to" work. Just felt wrong, and a waste of money.

But I wouldn't object if someone I knew did it; some people have lots of time and can keep money/rep grinding and raid. If you like me work most of the days, you don't have the time but instead can put extra money into the game that way.

Just a crazy thought that popped up when I wrote this: "rested" status doesn't mean sh!t when you enter 60; what if it instead increased money income/rep then? Rested people would gain extra money from mobs and maybe extra rep. Just like xp, it wouldn't be as profitable as if you're online every day, but it would close the gap a bit.

Also because of how the end game in WoW works, having alot of gold doesnt really give you any major advantages. You cant just buy full tier3 or full warlords. All the things in the game that would give you a significant advantage in the game is not things that can be bought.


That is a key point. The "bind on pickup" gear you get from running instances is usually better than similar stuff you find in the Auction House. So you just need to be a good team player, and do those runs to get nice items.

Side note: those farmer bots really p*** me off. :sumo:

To be honest I think buying gold is really retarded and I game is loosing everything thats good by doing it.I don't wanna insult someone so please don't think I have something bad about peeps who are doing it.

Save yourself some RL cash and roll a hunter or warlock to grind out gold...buying virtual items (NOT REAL) for cash(REAL) is stupid. On the flip side selling virtual items for real cash when you find someone stupid enough to do it, hard to argue with that =(

In total I have made 500g in the last month just leveling up pets on my hunter while grinding texts/runecloth in Silithis. It really isn't that hard to earn your own gold. Run a few instances if you want gear since there isn't much you can buy off an AH that is better than most of the 5man instances anyways.

... Run a few instances if you want gear since there isn't much you can buy off an AH that is better than most of the 5-man instances anyways.

... just to add to that, research Thottbot for nice blue (rare) gear that are given as quest rewards. At lvl 38, you can comfortably wrap up the Scarlet Monastery quest to get a nice reward, then at 39 you can try your luck at the Razorfen Downs quest to get that reward (and whatever drops from the boss).

The Princess quest in Maraudon gives a nice reward, and there are plenty of nice drops. Lots of mini-bosses to keep you interested.

Just getting into Blackrock Depths now, lots of good drops.

There is also a plus side to farmers/bots (I know bots are off topic but i cant help saying about them) I love bots, someone stupid enough to make their computer go 24/7 on the same routine.
Go to Burning steppes and head north from the FP to a dragon camp and ull see wat I mean. all you have to do is grind of them and I get about 50g per hour (decent for my lvl) and some nice xp.

Im not gonna defend those buying gold but think about this;
You have a full time job demanding 8 hours + travelling 5 to 6 days a week, you have a relationship you need to tend and friends to hang out with. You have kids. Well where im getting at is that the time you have to play per week is rather limited, now would you want to spend those few hours on grinding/farming gold, or having fun with friends ingame?
I for one find that grinding/farming is IMMENSLY boring, but the WoW world demands of me to have gold to have fun.
So my point of view is, if u can afford it and dont have the time to play like a maniac every day then fine, go buy gold.

I find that grinding/raiding for stuff gives you so much more satisfaction when you do get it. Plus you get added XP! I HATE it when I see stuff at the AH for extritionate rates, I always sell my stuff there for a few silvers over the price the bid price the AH suggests.

I know I could make more money but I always sell my stuff and I hope that peopel don't feel ripped off.

Well i have a lvl 62 warlock and a lvl 50 Priest also a hunter who is a miner and my tip to make money is Bags lots and lots of netherweave bags pots and ore my warlock is a tailor and my priest alchemist, i am a casual gamer not a raider but during the week i farm netherweave and occasonally buy it from the ah never pay more than 3gold a stack.. come the weekend i make loads of bags and i sell them same with pots i farm herbs during the week and come weekend i post all i can i also have ran a few low lvl instances and places where u get some nice green drops they sell the weekend too now over the past 6- 8 weeks i can honestly say i have easily made 1000g.. i never buy gold and it just goes to show a fairly casual gamer can make money the legal way, and its fun :smile:

Im not gonna defend those buying gold but think about this;
You have a full time job demanding 8 hours + travelling 5 to 6 days a week, you have a relationship you need to tend and friends to hang out with. You have kids. Well where im getting at is that the time you have to play per week is rather limited, now would you want to spend those few hours on grinding/farming gold, or having fun with friends ingame?
I for one find that grinding/farming is IMMENSLY boring, but the WoW world demands of me to have gold to have fun.
So my point of view is, if u can afford it and dont have the time to play like a maniac every day then fine, go buy gold.

hmm I've been always against buying gold and I m not but anyway your post is a lil different and I ve never been thinking that way. If you can afford it than why not.

Ok..here is my take on the situation. I have been playing for over 2 years, I have char's on 4 normal servers & 2 pvp one for alliance & one for horde. All of them are set with thousands of gold, not from buying gold, but by working the system with which wOw has created. I buy for dirt cheap & sell for lil under avg, aka ah manipulation. Example buying a "bringer of death" for 25g & selling for 125g under avg. You get the point. I have never bought gold & never will.
Now my take on Wow vs gOld farming varies a bit. I think publically they have to vehomently frown upon it, & ban a few known acct's from time to time. Realistically i think it benefits them & the ban's are a charade. Economy will stay the same only grow as more ppl play. If ppl buy gold they will stay around longer with money invested, new gear or goodies & keep shelling out the 20$ monthly to the smiling wOw gods.
Now when wow was growing & i first started they held the reigns a lil tighter, even banned ppl for rude gestures to eachother or vulgar names. Exp- Friend of mine got banned for 2 days for saying f@g to sumone in general chat. Now i have had ss's of sumone saying f-bomb's directed at someone, & ppl stealing materials for hi-end enchants & bliZZ does nothing. Gm's macro the same regulations, basically saying they r not responsible for anything & will not do anything, hava nice day.
And names have gotten rediculous & gone unchecked. I believe because of popularity of the game & massive #'s that play now, too much to regulate.
Only time i have seen any action from blizz, is when it involves $$$, they dont want to jeopardize their 20$ a month.
Sorry for the banter & rave, but my 2 cents has been served, keep the change..........JJ