Blizzard’s World of Warcraft: Forever has already been met with brilliant acclaim and huge player populations, even as new-old MMO is sitting in a paid beta. As the studio returns to the WoW of the past, Blizzard officially announced that they will “very aggressively punish gold buyers” after decades of being “too lenient” in retail.
In the announcement, Blizzard explained that there would be a range of punishments for anyone engaging in gold buying as it threatens the in-game economy of the MMO. This would range from a removal of gold to suspensions all the way to full account bans.
Even before the game’s full launch in November, World of Warcraft: Forever has already suffered from gold buyers. In the MMO’s first week, players already noticed obvious gold buying within the MMO, and now streamers have been actively buying gold on stream with thousands of viewers witnessing the act.
Last week, popular World of Warcraft streamer Ziqo streamed themselves accepting extreme amounts of gold ahead of a PvP tournament with a $100,000 prize pool. In one clip, thanks Gamespot, the streamer accepted a sizeable 380 gold from a level one character, and in another he accepts an additional 175 gold from a second level one character.
Blizzard’s hard stance against the act of economy manipulation has already been enforced to some degree with this streamer. After fan complaints on the official Blizzard forums, every illicit gold transaction was removed from the streamer’s account. While fans are still hoping for an account ban for Ziqo, Blizzard has only removed gold at the time of writing.
While Ziqo has been let off easily, the same can’t be said for another gold buying streamer. Payo, another World of Warcraft: Forever streamer, was also caught buying gold to participate in the same PvP tournament, gunning for the same prize pool.
In one video, the streamer admitted to gold buying, even gloating their intention to continue manipulating the MMO’s economy. “I never hid the fact that I wanted my chat to buy gold for me,” the streamer said, even promoting the act of gold buying within the MMORPG.
In response, Blizzard has actively banned the streamer’s main account, removing his character and everything attached to it. However, this account ban has not stopped the streamer from creating another account, and it seems that Blizzard—while aware of the new account—has not banned the user’s new account for ban skirting.
Speaking to their chat, Payo told followers that they will not be buying or promoting gold buying anymore, and their ban shows that Blizzard are actively addressing gold buyers as per their promise. “I learned from my mistake, and I will never ever promote gold buying again,” they told followers.
Since Payo’s ban, World of Warcraft: Forever community manager Kaivax explained in a forum post that Blizzard has “been continuously actioning accounts that were found to be botting to amass gold… as well as the accounts of those who were found to have purchased or knowingly received illicit gold”.
“Our stance on RMT [real money transactions] in World of Warcraft is crystal clear: any account belonging to any player that is found to have participated in generating, selling, buying, or receiving illicit gold is subject to the gold being removed, account suspensions, or permanent account closures,” Kaivax said.
Of course, there are still fans pushing for more punishment for players with fans specifically calling for an account ban for the aforementioned Ziqo. RMT has been an issue in all forms of WoW for a long time, and there is a worry that Blizzard’s promise of aggressive monitoring for gold buying will not last long.
Just as a personal aside, gold buying in World of Warcraft: Forever has been rampant even before the announcement of a prize pool tournament, which is just silly. WoW Forever’s beta progress does not carry over to the full release in November, but gold buying is still occurring. What’s the point of that, ey?
Anyway, the long-term moderation of World of Warcraft: Forever is a promise that Blizzard has made to fans of the MMO. There will undoubtedly be some roadblocks along the way—many are calling for bans for a certain guild leader—but it does seem that Blizzard is at least making an attempt to fulfil its promise.
