"Now before people say "quit being lazy and level another one", it was way more economic and time efficient to pay 100 bucks to have a level 60 than to sit for 6-8 days total played time to level another."

I won't say that - I'll say thanks for supporting these parasites - you paid someone else to earn credit for you in a game. Enjoy level 60 - you didn't earn it.

Well, you were dumb enough to use a power leveling service.

I hope your account get hacked soon, WoW don't need people like you. Be gone, pest!

What people don't understand is WoW is a game. People get too wrapped up in playing that they can't see that everyone's experience with World of Warcraft is not the same as theirs. The executive making 200k a year is not going to blink an eye at 50 USD for 1000g to buy a flying mount. Especially when his son is so happy to have his dad playing his favorite game with him.

Blizzard is being a bit over dramatic in blaming people who buy gold as the cause of all the game's problems. They could easily set up a legal Blizzard sanctioned gold buying site.

There is a right way to play it, and a wrong way. If you play a boardgame with friends and don't play by the rules, do you seriously expect those friends to continue to play with you in the future? So why do you expect Blizzard to allow you to play when you break their rules?

Thanks for sharing honestly about your experience. For those who flame--keep in mind some folks are adults with careers, spouses, children, etc. and while time is not something we have droves of, often spare cash is something we do have.

I fully understand why this person used the powerleveling service.

@anonymoose

Nice logic there "We're adults, so we don't have to follow the rules" I'm sorry, but you're far from an "Adult" if you think this is true. You may be an old baby, but you're not an adult.

"Nice logic there "We're adults, so we don't have to follow the rules" I'm sorry, but you're far from an "Adult" if you think this is true. You may be an old baby, but you're not an adult."

I didn't want this to get ugly, but apparently you sophmoric (look it up in the dictionary) teens think you are in a place to judge because your home, your clothes, your transportation, your internet, your WOW is fully subsidized and you have limitless time to while away doing whatever you want because you have no real life obligations. That's fine.

What is not fine is namecalling and flaming. I did not say "I'm an adult I don't have to follow rules". I did say I understand the time pressures this person may have been living with because I myself have them.

Resorting to namecalling is like swearing and is often the bastion of those who know they really don't have anything worthwhile to say. Trust me, you really don't have anything worthwhile to say.

Put down the hotpockets, leave mom's basement and let the grownups continue the conversation please. Children should be seen and not heard.

"Resorting to namecalling is like swearing and is often the bastion of those who know they really don't have anything worthwhile to say. Trust me, you really don't have anything worthwhile to say.

Put down the hotpockets, leave mom's basement and let the grownups continue the conversation please. Children should be seen and not heard."

Excellent use of irony.

Personally, I understand that there are people who enjoy the game who don't have much time to play. I've been that person in the past, and I know many people in-game who are in that situation.

For a time, I quietly supported the notion that such people should be allowed to buy gold. It didn't seem particularly harmful, especially considering the best stuff in the game wasn't accessible through gold anyway. There wasn't an issue for me.

My opinion on the matter has since changed. I was working under two faulty assumptions. First, I assumed that the gold sold was obtained through arguably legitimate means (teams of farmers going at it 24/7). Second, I assumed that playing WoW was necessary. Neither of these assumptions hold up under scrutiny.

Much like "Blood Diamond" we have no guarantee that the gold we purchase wasn't stolen from an honest player. Given the current outbreak of account thefts, it is becoming increasingly likely that the majority of gold on the market is stolen. Barring Blizzard opening their own service, there is no way to guarantee "ethical" gold.

I also must challenge the idea that playing WoW, or at least progressing to the high end of WoW, is a requirement. It may be a strong desire for a player, but at the same time it may not be a realistic one. Like chess, how high you can climb is determined by talent and time. People don't complain they can't equal the Grand Masters, they either enjoy the game as they are able to play it or find another more to their taste.

Thus, I do not think buying gold is appropriate.

@Anonymoose

I didn't mean that to be name calling, and I apologize if it were taken that way.

However, your generalizations and assumptions are FANTASTIC. You assume I'm a teen, I'm not. You assume I live off my parents, I don't. I'm a college student, who works a full time job, pays for his tuition/car/gas/food/rent/travel and hobbies while holding down 5 classes and an active social life.

I have many real life obligations (Though I've yet to squirt out a kid, so perhaps you do have one thing to lord over my head.) Those obligations prevent me from getting to endgame content, or even making enough gold to keep my characters well geared and yet, I follow the rules. I follow them because they are put in place by the people who are kind enough to drive themselves mad trying to moderate the forums, and the game, to keep out people like you, apologists and self-righteous hypocrites who click the "I agree to these terms" button every patch when you do not, in fact agree.

You keep telling yourself that everyone who disagrees with you is 13, scream and whine and tell yourself you're older and wiser than them, that your time constraints make rules more of a guideline. I'm sure your kids are learning a great lesson from it.

lawls hot pockets.

I got 2 epic birds on 2 different characters.
all grinded it fair and square through dailies and selling stuff on the AH.
really, it's not as hard as it looks.
you just have to make sure you don't waste money on stuff if you can't make a profit out of it.

This FAQ was insanely stupid. It reminded me of those "your SUV supports terrorism" commercials. I don't buy or sell gold but don't care if others do.

OTOH, getting 5,000g for an Epic mount is easy.

"If we assume 75g/hour as a base line for legit moneymaking (questing,grinding,dailies), then epic flying skill takes over 65 hour to obtain - a long time! Now blizzard wants you to play (that is how they make money) - but because the cost is in gold, not rep or honor etc, it can be bought(with dollars) from gold sellers."

This analysis is faulty. First, you should be able to push to 100g/hour easy with gathering professions (it took me about 50 hours of grinding to obtain mine, and was well worth it). Second, Blizzard doesn't make any more or less money from me if I'm on for 10 hours or 50 hours this month. In fact, I imagine the ideal would be like my wife who maintains an account but hasn't actually played in a few months.

Personally, I'm glad it is a gold grind rather than being some reward for an end-game instance. Blizzard seems to use items like this as a way to take gold *out* of the realm economy, so the point seems to be anti-inflationary, though given how easy it is to earn lots of gold in Outland, it seems they created the problem in the first place.

Then it's Blizzard's greed not gold buyers that cause all the headache. ;)

They make the same amount whether you're running a 60 or leveling thru Duskwood. To say that Blizzard is intentionally causing the gold sellers is just asinine.

Blizzard won't sell gold for real money because they would have to remit sales taxes to the thousands of taxing authorities around the world where their players live. It's as simple as that.