A gold booster in WoW had his account banned. There was over 100 million gold on it. The player says it is due to a quiet change of rules in World of Warcraft that Blizzard has not made public. However, the community shows no sympathy but is gleeful.
This is gold boosting: In WoW, it is common to buy into strong groups by offering gold to the group leader. Such “gold boosting” offers are openly advertised in the game.
Advertising the offers is tolerated by Blizzard as long as you write these offers in the trade chat and not in other channels:
- In practice, relatively weak players buy a WoW token for real money from Blizzard
- Then these players sell this token in WoW to “rich players” in the auction house and receive gold for it.
- With the new gold, they then buy a service from “boosting services” provided by strong players in WoW that they would not otherwise achieve. Boosts are available for PvP, Mythic+ runs, raid clears, or mount runs.
Blizzard game master lifts the penalty, bans the player immediately
This is Ghormor’s problem: The player Ghormor is a gold booster and very successful in what he does. He is an experienced veteran in gold boosting, who regularly has contact with Blizzard. Because time and again, nasty competitors interfere with his business and silence his account when he makes his offers in the trade chat.
He then turns to the game masters and tells them: “Please unmute me in the trade chat. My competitors reported me again.”
At the beginning of 2021, he did it again. But he encountered the wrong GM, who then told him:
I have been playing Blizzard games for over ten years, and it would completely break me if something happened to my account. So I took extra time for your case.
Upon closer inspection, we discovered that the WoW account was created solely to advertise boosts. While it is okay to advertise boosts for gold in the trade channel, we have changed our rules to state that it is not okay to create a WoW account just for that purpose.
Therefore, we have decided to lift the silence on your account but to ban your account.
A Blizzard GameMaster
This was the player’s reaction: He was completely flabbergasted because he was not aware of this rule and contacted Blizzard again. Now he wanted to speak to another game master who had helped him very well in the past. This can’t be true. The change hadn’t even been announced.
However, he received a cold shower from Blizzard: The ban would remain in place and they considered the case closed.
WoW players have no heart for boosters
This is being discussed: On reddit, Ghormor shares his story. He feels absolutely unfairly treated by Blizzard. The game master responded to him quite cynically by turning the mute into a permanent ban. Meanwhile, Ghormor always followed the rules.
The account was not only meant for advertising boosts but was also created as a bank character and to monitor the auction house.
Unfortunately, Ghormor can expect little understanding from the community on reddit. In general, “gold boosting” is frowned upon by many players. The constant spam in the trade chat is considered annoying.
Many of the comments on reddit are therefore more gleeful than understanding. The banned gold booster can hardly hope for community support.
Comments like:
- Nice to see it works when you complain about advertising!
- I feel like you’re feeling discouraged now and considering giving up gold boosting altogether. That would be such a shame. LOLZ
- Fuck yeah! Finally!
- Just imagine you invest so much time and energy for a post in the hope of getting the “troops to gather” and thousands come to help, all supporting your cause… only to quickly realize that no one cares, and no one likes what you’re doing.
“Boosters” apparently cannot expect any sympathy in WoW.
Blizzard had already tightened the rules for gold boosters in 2020 and wanted to ensure that the constant spam in all channels would stop. Apparently, the rules have now been tightened again, which became Ghormor’s downfall:
