So, uh, I guess there just wasn't really botting before gdkp, right?
You can't think of any reason to amass gold except gdkp, or any reason to rmt except for it, so you think it MUST be the cause? Am I wrong? Meanwhile, wow is filled with whales (and so are many games) that will pay for their shit one way or another. Also meanwhile, not everyone is an impulsive autist who NEEDS items that drop and will do anything to get it like buy gold if that's the system.
Bots exist wherever there is a 3rd party market for gold which results in a profit. Gdkp is not the exclusive source of desire for gold, even if you personally can't think past it.
PvP twinks that cost hundreds of gold, mounts, prebis and bis gear. Random ass gear while leveling to have fun, the list goes on and on. Hell back in wow classic me and some friends all spent a couple hundred on gold just to twink our characters while leveling. Always wearing new blues and purples. Didn’t even make it past 50 cause EQ or something launched.
I mean speaking of EQ, it’s not like GDKP is a big thing there except mischief. People spend hundreds on krono all the time.
Played eq with plenty of people who paid for items such as having people run their non-raid alts through raid zones and give over loot. Paid a lot; well over 100 (dozen kr or whatever). In wow, I know this is a thing, because the world first racers have openly talking about the big money that was made from it. So there were people doing it. I saw people advertising stuff like wc runs where you'd just chill at the ent and they'd stealth bosses to get your item - people paying gold for that service. I think some of the rarer items like the hat from hillsbrad were going for high amounts of gold, maybe not 100 but that ballpark?
People who want to rmt are going to rmt if its convenient to rmt. Gdkp is just a means to an end for them. The only way it increases the rmt side is if it in and of itself causes people to buy gold who would not have bought gold except for gdkp's existence.
Man that's a lot of words just to say that I am right and you agree with me. Thank you. tbh i'm kinda embarrassed for you that don't realize this and think this is some sort of "gotcha".
in WoW or any other half way decently designed game the only reason RMT exists is because people want to buy loot. The fact that the entire genre is designed around the buildup and accumulation of loot/shinies/sparkles and is psychologically engineered specifically for that. I'm sure there's some ultra grindy korean mmos out there with super predatory cash shops that make you grind hours a day just to unlock resources or whatever needed to actually just play the game, so maybe ppl might RMT in those games just to play or splerge in their cashshop for "convenience". But for the most part, RMT exists solely to buy loot. I'm glad we are in 100% agreement.
"Buying loot" manifests itself in different ways in games with different loot systems. In old school EQ for example with virtually no items being nodrop/everything being tradable, people RMT for plat to buy tradeable gear. Hell you can probably skip a few steps and just buy gear directly. The chinese dude selling you plat on his website is most likely the same dude sitting in the EC tunnel selling you the fungi tunic you buy with that plat, just save yourself some steps and offer the dude RL cash from the get go (or in modern EQ, krono).
This holds true in any game where gear is mostly tradeable, even tradeable until equipped like early WoW. Once BOE tradeable gear is no longer good/valid/useful (like WoW after about lvl 40 or so, once quest/dungeon/raid loot surpasses it, a few rare items not withstanding) then yeah, people sell runs instead. Dungeon runs early on but as the game matures it ends up being raid loot being sold, with strong guilds able to carry ppl selling "raid slots." This kind of behavior used to be taboo and shunned, akin to RMTing.
The advent and rise of GDKP popularized and mainstreamed this behavior, the selling of loot. When gold is the sole determiner of who gets the loot then obviously the incentive then becomes to just buy gold via RMT so that you can be the one to acquire the shinies. The rise in popularity of buying loot correlates directly with the rise of RMT and the rise in botting behavior and disintegration of server economies due to said botting.
Whenever there is any kind of community enforcement to deter this kind of behavior, whether its public shaming or vocal minority (majority?) abusing automated reporting tools, the end result is that reducing GDKPs has a direct impact on the reduction of bots and RMT, improvement of the server community and the health of its economy.
Saying "people don't GDKP in games that don't require GDKP because loot is tradable" is the most retarded statement i've ever read. No fucking shit dumbass. If I don't have to carry your scrub ass to sell you loot why would I when I can just sell you loot in the AH instead.
