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One of Blizzards greatest strengths
Cabe2323
Member Posts: 2,939
One of the things that Blizzard has done great to help their sales numbers is banning gold farming accounts. But wait you say there are still a lot of farmers? Well of course there are because the companies can make money. So it is a win win for both the farmers and Blizzard.
Blizzard is able to get good press by stating how aggressive their stance is against gold farmers while raking in the dough for selling new accounts. (you didn't honestly think all those boxes they sell each week are new players did you? 
) And the gold farmers are given a ripe marketplace filled with game mechanics designed to favor the purchase of gold. Want that great mount you need gold. WAnt to raid well you need gold for repair costs and consumables.
So in reality I don't think Blizzard really wants to get rid of the farmers. For while I think the dent in the subscriber numbers wouldn't be that high for WoW's current number ( it would be considered high I am sure by anyone elses standards, as I am sure there are at least 100-200K farmer accounts and that is on the conservative side) it would make huge dent in their boxes sold. 
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Comments
Did Blizzard piss in your cheerios this morning or something; Lol, what's with the hate Cabe?
Ico
Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
.
REALITY CHECK
* Blizzard had tons of Gold/PL spam on chat and tells. Tons of toons autobot farming. So that proved they were in bed with the Gold Farmers.
* Then, Blizzard gets rid of all the Gold/PL spam on chat and tells. Bans thousands of autobot Gold Farmers, and continues to do so. So that proves they are in bed with the Gold Farmers?
Maybe Blizzard sells thousands of new boxes every month because they have a fun, fast game and are actually doing something about Gold Farmers.
Strange logic train. I am thinking you just want cheap mats and potions from the AH and can no longer get them. And don't want to profession & trade for your own.
Good Hunting
The game isn't even the best Blizzard game, yet people with either short memories or maybe they are just younger and never played the great PC games back in the day seem to act like WoW is the best game there has ever been.
Similar to the great quote that:
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn't exist"
The same thing is what Blizzard has done:
They convinced the world that they had the best game.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Personally I agree with the OP.... I think Blizzard bans "enough" gold farming accounts to keep the player base happy and make them think they are aggressively combating the problem.
I also think they let a large number of farming accounts alone, not because they are "in bed" with the gold sellers, but rather because its costly to chase these folks down and truth be told... they offer a service that actually keeps many players paying for their subs as they would leave the game if they had to rely on boring farming to obtain cash for mounts or what not.
Of course, these are strictly my opinions based on my observations/experiences and claim no inside information that any of these theories are true.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
C'mon Cabe, I think you can admit there are FAR more haters on this board than outright fanbois.
People have to realize what WoW is; a basic run-of-the-mill themepark based mmo. If there's any 'greatness' to the game, it's WoW's stability. For example, I'd much rather play WoW than SWG, even though I enjoyed SWG's mechanics more.
Blizzard's success has nothing to do with innovation or creating a complex game. If anything, the innovation was creating a fun casual stable MMO for once.
Ico
Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
Actually, if you know how to play wow, you can farm 100g in an hour easily. This is enough to repair your gear for at least a week if you are not a hardcore raider who wipes 20 times an evening. Furthermore you don't need that much gold as many people think. Yes the epic flying mount costs gold but you can also buy a slower mount which gets you everywhere aswell only a few seconds later.
There is actually very little "real" travelling in wow (when you hit lvl 70) because of the flight paths and even more important, the summoning stones in front of every dungeon/raid, so your epic flying mount is kinda useless anyway.
My point is, you don't really need to farm for gold in wow, rather for reputation or something else
Actually, if you know how to play wow, you can farm 100g in an hour easily. This is enough to repair your gear for at least a week if you are not a hardcore raider who wipes 20 times an evening. Furthermore you don't need that much gold as many people think. Yes the epic flying mount costs gold but you can also buy a slower mount which gets you everywhere aswell only a few seconds later.
There is actually very little "real" travelling in wow (when you hit lvl 70) because of the flight paths and even more important, the summoning stones in front of every dungeon/raid, so your epic flying mount is kinda useless anyway.
My point is, you don't really need to farm for gold in wow, rather for reputation or something else
Yes of course you do not need gold. Just like you do not NEED the Epic gear. Just like you do not need the best enchants. Etc Etc.But people want it and want is a bigger motivator to break the rules then need is. The fact remains that Blizzard created a game with a design that promotes Gold farming. Only one game that I have played had a design that didn't promote buying currency and that was Asheron's Call 1. The loot was so random and money was pretty worthless. Pretty much everything was done in a Barter system which in my opinion is a much better system for building an online community. Even in a game like World of Warcrat there are only around 3K people on each server at a time. The barter system would still work great.
But instead they put such value into the currency which allows for an easy to exploit system. Then they combine with this ease of a singular currency to sell by adding in massive money sinks.
Of course the farmers and people who buy the gold aren't even the biggest cause of the problem. The number 1 cause of the problem are the "power gamers" they are the ones that drive the prices up on everything and cause the developer to design a system to combat their massive time invested into the game. It is hard for a developer to design content that is appropriate for more casual players when the "power gamers" will blaze through it too quickly. That is why we see the prices of items inflate so much. 1K for an Epic level 60 mount, but 5K for an epic flying mount. Inflation caused by the powergamers having amassed massive amounts of wealth already.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Actually, if you know how to play wow, you can farm 100g in an hour easily. This is enough to repair your gear for at least a week if you are not a hardcore raider who wipes 20 times an evening. Furthermore you don't need that much gold as many people think. Yes the epic flying mount costs gold but you can also buy a slower mount which gets you everywhere aswell only a few seconds later.
There is actually very little "real" travelling in wow (when you hit lvl 70) because of the flight paths and even more important, the summoning stones in front of every dungeon/raid, so your epic flying mount is kinda useless anyway.
My point is, you don't really need to farm for gold in wow, rather for reputation or something else
Yes of course you do not need gold. Just like you do not NEED the Epic gear. Just like you do not need the best enchants. Etc Etc.But people want it and want is a bigger motivator to break the rules then need is. The fact remains that Blizzard created a game with a design that promotes Gold farming. Only one game that I have played had a design that didn't promote buying currency and that was Asheron's Call 1. The loot was so random and money was pretty worthless. Pretty much everything was done in a Barter system which in my opinion is a much better system for building an online community. Even in a game like World of Warcrat there are only around 3K people on each server at a time. The barter system would still work great.
But instead they put such value into the currency which allows for an easy to exploit system. Then they combine with this ease of a singular currency to sell by adding in massive money sinks.
Of course the farmers and people who buy the gold aren't even the biggest cause of the problem. The number 1 cause of the problem are the "power gamers" they are the ones that drive the prices up on everything and cause the developer to design a system to combat their massive time invested into the game. It is hard for a developer to design content that is appropriate for more casual players when the "power gamers" will blaze through it too quickly. That is why we see the prices of items inflate so much. 1K for an Epic level 60 mount, but 5K for an epic flying mount. Inflation caused by the powergamers having amassed massive amounts of wealth already.
Well, I guess you would be right if there was more then the (almost useless) epic flying mount to farm for.
Your examples are very bad, you cannot get epic gear (except some crafted stuff for some classes) by farming gold and the best enchants don't cost much gold but I guess getting everything for free would make the game much better in your opinion
Also, inflation is not bad aslong as people earn more aswell (more drops/loot).
Actually inlfation is bad for the farmers and powergamers as their "massive amounts of wealth" will be worth a lot less
They also introduced daily quests which easily generates enough gold for the casual gamer in a quick way
They do somthing else I have never seen. They keep their retail boxes updated. Difference between 584mb downloads and 52mb downloads is a happy noob now playing the game
lol true but who cares honestly