Last post

As I alluded to in a previous post I've been thinking about whether the violation of Blizzard's EULA and their strong stance against selling any sort of in game items or gold is too big of a hurdle toward my goal of making real-world dollars in WoW. In short the answer is yes.

Stories like this where Blizzard pushed EBay to ban a legitimate seller of a strategy guide are not comforting to me as I hoped to eventually sell a guide myself. Furthermore account bans are being pursued more and more aggressively. While I am not in favor of automated 'gold farming' using bots or other tools, which I suspect makes up the majority of bans, I see no reason why a legitimate player shouldn't be able to sell their gold and items. Sure I'm familiar with the reasons regarding disruption of the in-game economy, creation of the rich have's and poor have not's, and other such arguments but I think the trend to virtual economies in online worlds is inevitable. In any case, Blizzard (and Vivendi?) doesn't seem to think so.

My short time playing the game and writing this blog was fun and challenging. I appreciate all of the readers who contributed to the blog and encouraged me to write on with all of your insightful and helpful comments. This blog wouldn't have been the same without you (nor would I have made as much gold!). World of Warcraft really does have a great community of players, but the powers that be over at Blizzard are clearly dead set against my original goal of making real world money from the game. Other online games like Everquest and Ultima Online are more receptive to this so perhaps I'll switch over some day, but until now I'm hanging up my hat. Good luck to all and farewell.

Playing time - 8d 10h 3m
Final gold - 423
Main character level - 41, with mount

Technorati Tags: World of Warcraft WorldofWarcraft WOW