Friday, July 8, 2011

One Idea To Kill Gold Sellers

While doing a search yesterday I came across a site they sells items, not gold.  While I am not the type that would buy the stuff I did spend a few minutes there looking around to see what they had to offer.

Most of the newer stuff was priced over 200 dollars which seems like quite a bit if you ask me.  I have no issues spending money, I do quite well for myself, but paying 200 dollars for something that drops off firelands trash seems a bit crazy to me.

Oddly enough I see a few players on my low population server that are all decked out in the best new BoEs a week after firelands was released including the ones you need embers to make and that makes me think that sites like this must get a hell of a lot of business because I doubt there are that many people that are that lucky or that there are even enough embers on my server.  Either that or there are a lot of unemployed people that have way to much time to sit in trash runs all day long every day to get the stuff, which to be honest makes me a little jealous. And that still does not explain how they got that many embers already when no guild on my server have even finished firelands yet, never mind have enough embers to have geared out a few people.

I can believe luck, it happens, but not that lucky and not that often and not to the point that 3 days into firelands there were people sporting 4 BoEs already and only friendly with hyjal and the top guild on the server only had 1 boss down.  Again, low population server.  Getting into a raid is hard enough and there has still never been one of the new BoEs on the market for sale.

Where did all this stuff come from?

This makes me think that people are just buying the BoEs from sites like the one I mentioned or buying the gold from other sites to buy the item in game when they do finally appear on the market.

Why not cut out the middle man?

I am not talking about Blizzard selling gold or items itself but Blizzard removing the desire to buy BoEs and gold by removing BoEs complete from the game.  At least the raid type ones like this.

Now there will be some flaws in my idea but any solution will have some problems.

Each tier of raiding they will add a raid vendor.  Like a T11 vendor, a T12 vendor, etc.
The raid vendor will sell all BoE's, patterns, etc, that would have dropped in their tiers trash.
The BoE's would no longer be BoE they would be BoA.
Each vendor would open up new levels of stuff you can buy, something like rep requirements or honor kill requirements.

Example:

I want the BoE (will be BoA) polearm.
I would have to amass 2000 kill points in a T12 raid to be allowed to purchase it.
Small trash awards me 1 kill point per kill.
Medium trash give 2-5 kill points per kill.
Large trash gives 6-15 kill points per kill.
Bosses give 50 kill points per kill.
All items you would have to be at a certain level of kill points to buy it.

This would be a good way to do things for many reasons, some on which include:

1) You actually need to work for your gear, even if it is grind work, instead of just getting lucky.
2) You can farm to open things up on your tank or healer and get stuff for your DPS.
3) There will be no sites selling BoE gear because there is no BoE gear.
4) It would be a minor gold sink.
5) There is less pressure on people that might normally buy gold if they can buy the pieces they need for 1K gold instead of 50K gold on the auction house.
6) You can add kill points to all levels of raiding making all level of raiding having a reason to do again.
7) You can have your main buy things and pass them down to all your leveling characters if you have kill points in all tier levels.
8) No more loot drama over who gets what when it drops because everyone gets the kill point and everyone can buy what they want when the time comes that they have enough kills.
9) It makes for more people willing to do trash runs.
10) Being they are BoA it makes people more willing to do the trash runs on an alt tank or alt healer because they can pass the stuff to their main DPS.
11) It gives the ability to add some more stuff at higher kill points just for fun.
12) It gives an option to make more achievements for people to go after.
13) It helps people feel like someone else is not getting an advantage because they are breaking the rules and just buying it.
14) It helps people feel like they can get what they want and not have to wait on lady luck.

Something like this makes people actually play more and discourages gold buying and more so item buying.  I can't see a down side to making people work for their gear.  Some might cry that people are getting easy 378 items like this but in the end they are not getting easy gear, they are still working for it.  They are grinding for it. 

There is no difference between making me grind firelands to get to 2000 kill points to get my polearm from making me grind hyjal to exalted for the 391 ring.  They are both grinds that get me gear.  The only difference is that at 2000 kill points now I might never see the polearm drop or might never win the roll on it compared to just buying it once I reach that level.

If I stumbled across a site that sells these while not even looking for anything like that I am sure other will as well and I am sure there are a lot of people that would buy them.

I do not want to take away what people earned by winning a roll and being lucky.  I do want to take away people being able to just buy their way to gear.  I do not think it is fair.  Yes, I can afford it.  No, I won't buy it. 

Why should I have to suffer the waiting game to get my gear because I have morals?

Remove the opinion to buy gear from the people that have no morals and let the people like myself work and earn my gear.  I have no problem with that.  Not to mention, it is only a matter of time before we replace those BoEs anyway.  So why let some gold/gear seller make a fortune off something that is fleeting anyway?

Defeat the gold sellers, remove BoEs, changing it to my idea would still allow for giving out loot but there is no way a gold seller can offer it.  It will require the person to work, to some extent at least.

Any step in the direction that limits the power the gold sellers have is a good thing, don't you think? 

Right now, the gold sellers are offering some serious items.  I could get all my characters the boots and legs that are crafted, all the BoEs I need, as many embers as I want, all for some real cash.  That just seems wrong.  It seems even more wrong that the guy standing next to me in stormwind has all the gear it is possible to get, even the crafted stuff and he has never stepped foot into firelands on any of his characters.  It is just not fair.

2 comments:

  1. Aren't there such things as power-levelling services and the like? The gold sellers would then just switch to offering point-farming services or whatever. To be honest I think that the last thing the game needs right now is more points of whatever sort to grind for gear.

    Also, maybe I'm misreading you, but you kind of make it sound as if those sellers can conjure BoEs out of thin air. I would think that someone still had to work for it and get the actual drop. You can work for it right now as well, by earning in-game gold and buying the items off the AH.

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  2. I think the way to item sellers do it is farm the materials on more progressed servers and then just server transfer over a low level character with a bank full of items to sell.

    That is how people can be wearing stuff that requires downing bosses for embers without anyone having had downed bosses on my server as of yet.

    Personally I am all for points for gear. Gives a feeling of earning it. It people that do not deserve it can't get it unless they do the work that way.

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