There are ongoing discussions about World of Warcraft. This time, it’s about a community that offers its services for gold. They claim to have been penalized by Blizzard, as the developer of the MMORPG removed 5 billion gold from the players.
What kind of community is this? Specifically, it is a boosting community. Such a group is dedicated to offering help, called boosts, in the game for gold. This help ranges from dungeon runs to raids for various items and achievements.
These organizations also offer their services across servers by taking players into raids for gold so that they can obtain specific achievements or certain items, often over multiple runs.
Check out all dungeons for WoW: Dragonflight here.
Why are these unauthorized services? Last year, Blizzard changed its policy, allowing guilds to offer such services. However, they can only advertise them in a specific trade chat.
Moreover, the service across multiple servers is generally prohibited (via Blizzard). Additionally, services of any kind that are offered for real money are also prohibited.
However, there are still outliers in the chat, and advertising continues in other channels. Players are free to report this advertising accordingly.
What happened with Nova-Boosting? The community has particularly focused on the EU, offering corresponding services for World of Warcraft here.
As announced on their Discord channel, Blizzard apparently deducted 5 billion gold from the responsible individuals of Nova-Boosting and set the accounts of the players to 0. A severe blow for Nova (via Discord).
They further explained via Discord that it is no longer possible for the community to continue their service. The statement was followed by the closure of the offer.
On Reddit, screenshots of a supposed exchange with Blizzard’s support were shown. Among other things, text excerpts indicate that due to the use of exploits, the gold or other items are permanently gone.
In addition, Nova stated that they have paid out players with a gold fee of 10%. What these players did with their shares of gold – meaning whether they also sold it for real money – is something Nova cannot say, as it is not their responsibility to determine what the players in the community do with their gold (via Discord).
Reddit User: Would expect Blizzard to also ban the accounts
How much money was lost? Assuming that 1 WoW token, which can be purchased for €20, currently brings 333,671 gold, it would be nearly €300,000 that one would have to invest in tokens to obtain 5 billion gold (via wowtokenpieces.com).
What was the community’s reaction? Some users, however, have a particular suspicion that it was not Blizzard who acted here, but the responsible individuals themselves, regarding why the gold has disappeared (via reddit.com):
- Reddit user norielukas:
Why should they be the ones targeted and not another community? Without any announcement from Blizzard (as they did with gallywix). There is a good chance that some guy thought, damn, I can sell all that gold and make real money
- Reddit user raginglovecat agrees:
Why does Blizzard still allow them to log in and play? I would expect them to permanently ban all those accounts and not take the gold from them one by one.
Thus, further comments similar to these can be found in the Reddit thread that assess the situation in a similar manner. Whether it was actually Blizzard who took the gold or if it was an excuse from Nova to perhaps sell it further cannot be verified at this point.
What do you think? Do you believe Nova’s statement or suspect something else behind it? Let us know in the comments.
If you want to read more stories about WoW, you should not miss the following article: “Ridiculously expensive” – player complains about shop services in WoW, demands better alternatives for active gamers
