Don't be a Dick!

Let me tell you a little story about Dick.  Dick is a WoW player that most would call a casual player.  He plays once in a while during the week and mostly on weekends.  Because of that he does not get a lot of raiding time in outside of the occasional PuG.

Dick resides on a relatively smaller server making PuG raids few and far between so he never really had much chance to gear up.  Being he is on a small server is it not as progressed either, so getting someone to carry him is even harder.

One day Dick was reading on the forums about gold runs.  They are runs put together to let people like Dick gear up.  Where skill and normal lack of time to play usually would hold him back he can now buy his gear with gold.  This idea appealed to Dick.

Being Dick's server is a smaller server he never saw anyone advertising in trade for gold runs.  He wanted gear and he saw this as his only way to get it so he started to look around for another server where he could transfer to join in on a gold run.  That was when he noticed there was a gold run on his server every Saturday.  He was so excited about that being he was able to run on Saturdays.

Dick sent a mail to the person that was setting up the gold run to get more details.  Dick was very upset when he got the reply.  Dick thought he was doing good having almost 2000 gold on his character but the minimum to join the run was 5000 gold.  Dick didn't even know how to begin to make that type of gold.

So Dick did what many people do, he turned to google and went looking for gold making help.  Site after site appeared with ways to make gold with professions, with farming, with buying and selling but they all took time.  Dick wanted to run on the gold run this Saturday and needed gold now.

Dick never saw any gold advertising on his server so he did not know which sites offered gold on his server.  So back to google Dick went.  Dick found a site that sold gold on his server for a good price.  He had the money to spare so he ordered 50,000 gold.

Less then 24 hours later Dick had 50,000 gold and an invitation to the Saturday gold run.  In the following weeks Dick ran with the gold run and he got some gear.  Dick bought more gold, bought more gear.  Dick bought more gold each time he needed more gear. 

In this time Dick started seeing gold sellers advertise in trade and noticed a few cheaper then the one he used.  So he would start to bargain shop.  Dick was happy he did not need to search for gold sellers now.  They were on his server adverting now.  Making life easy for Dick.

Dick got almost all the gear he needed except for a piece or two but he continued to go on runs so he could buy them when they dropped.  He made sure to always have 100,000 gold on him at any point now.  Dick was a high roller now.  When the item Dick needed didn't drop and he got his share at the end of the run Dick came up with a brilliant idea.

Dick started to run his own gold runs on Sunday nights.  Dick had almost everything he needed and saw how much money he could make running in a gold run without buying anything.  So he would never need to buy gold again.  Dick knew that the people coming would need gold so whenever someone asked him he would say "I don't buy gold but I know some people do, I would suggest against it" and the circle began again as people started to buy gold to go run with Dick. 

You notice that Dick never admitted to buying gold right?  Most Dick's will never admit it.  So if you say you do not know anyone in your gold run that buys gold then I have some bad news for you... Santa is not real.  Sorry I had to break that to you, but you seem to believe everything everyone tells you if you think no one in your run bought the gold they are using.

A few weeks later Dick had 5 people missing from his gold run.  The next week he got a mail from them saying they were hacked, they were sorry they missed the run.  Dick noticed this was happening more and more often.  Every week at least one person missed the run because they where hacked.

Dick noticed that trade was now being spammed almost all the time with gold sellers, people were complaining about bots in Icecrown picking their nodes before they could even land and people where getting hacked all the time.

Dick had heard of hacking but never knew anyone that was hacked.  Now it seems Dick knows at least 30 people that where hacked.

Dick had never known where to buy gold because there were never dead bodies floating in the air and sellers spamming trade but now there are.

Dick made this happen because Dick wanted to go on a gold run.  Dick did something he thought was innocent just to get some gear but it now seems to be having a snowball effect on the server.

The gold run made Dick do what he did.  Dick now runs gold runs himself so now there are two gold runs going each week on his server.  Dick has people joining his runs now that are buying gold.

Gold runs made Dick buy gold.
Gold runs bought the sellers, hackers and bots to the server being Dick was their customer now.
Gold runs that Dick needed money for are now getting innocent people hacked.

DON'T BE A DICK!

Do not start a gold run, do not join a gold run.

DON'T BE A DICK!

Even if you are making your money honestly you joining means one less slot to fill which means the run fills faster which means the people who buy the gold can get in there to use their gold.  If none of the honest people with gold where in the run there would not have been a run at all for Dick to buy gold to join.

DON'T BE A DICK!

Even if you participate in a run to make gold you should remember that the gold you are making is coming directly from someone who bought gold.  So you taking that money means you are taking it from a gold seller.  It means you are taking it from someone that got hacked, it means that you are getting the money from that node that disappeared before you landed on it.  It means you are now a gold buyer, by association.

DON'T BE A DICK!

The next time you hear of someone being hacked remember that it is Dick's fault.  If Dick did not buy gold, if you did not run with Dick to take Dick's gold, then your friend would have never been hacked.

DON'T BE A DICK!

Gold runs are the #1 reason for people buying gold.  Do not run one, do not join one, do not support one.

If you do, well you are a DICK.

DON'T BE A DICK!