In World of Warcraft there have been bots for years trying to sell their services to players. Now, the providers are going even further and want to sell players content that will only come with Shadowlands.
What are these offers? In the group search tool, strange groups keep appearing with names like “WTS NY Full Heroic 500k” or similar. These are offers from bots, and less frequently from players.
The names stand for “Want To Sell,” meaning: “wants to sell,” and a specific dungeon or raid along with the amount of gold required. Players can buy a boost through a mythic instance or raid from these bots.
New offers are now emerging that offer a full run through Castle Nathria for a proud 800,000 gold pieces. However, Castle Nathria is not even in the game yet.
Nathria will be the first raid in the new expansion Shadowlands and will not open until December 9th. Nonetheless, the bots are already offering to buy boosts from them.
Is that allowed? Yes and no. Offering and buying a raid boost for gold is generally legal and part of the in-game economy. However, promoting these offers in this manner has been banned since 2018. Offers for real money are generally not allowed.
WoW to take stricter action against bots
What is Blizzard doing about it? In July 2020, Blizzard took stricter action against boosting offers in the LFG tool. There were reports from players who received bans for the corresponding offers:
In August 2020, Blizzard then announced plans to take action against the largest boosting provider Gallywix. The boosting community primarily offered level and other boosts for real money.
Gallywix even had large and well-known clients such as Method, who purchased gold from the provider for the World-First race.
This is how players are reacting: As the large fan site Icy Veins reports, players are fighting back with numerous reports to get the corresponding advertising accounts banned. In a relevant thread on reddit, users are having fun mocking the offers.
It says, for example: If the bot providers would at least not misspell their offers, they might have more success. The user Lightcloud9 even asks: “So, is there a pre-order bonus or what?”
What is your stance on this? Do you think such offers should be punished more harshly, or are they even good for the economy? Discuss with us in the poll on MeinMMO, whether boosting in MMORPGs is good or should be banned.
