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Blizzard Co-Lead Takes Part in World of Warcraft Raid Boost Run
For many years, some World of Warcraft guilds have participated in a controversial practice called raid boosting–selling their mastery of difficult endgame content to solo players in exchange for in-game currency. Mike Ybarra, newly-appointed Blizzard co-lead, recently tweeted an advertisement that he would be streaming his guild carrying a player they were boosting through Heroic Sanctum of Domination, an endgame raid, reigniting a new storm of debate within the community.To get more news about buy wow gold safe, you can visit lootwow.com official website.
In World of Warcraft, endgame raids have multiple levels of difficulty, with the higher Heroic and Mythic difficulty taking large amounts of coordination, practice, and commitment from multiple people, as well as time and gold for gear and consumable items. Some players lack the time, resources, or interest to put towards clearing these difficult challenges, but still want to experience the fights, see hidden stories, or collect rare items or gear that are only available in those difficulties.
Raid boosting has been a hot subject for as long as World of Warcraft has existed. Detractors of the practice believe it trivializes the hard work of actual raiders, and it clogs up the group finder–a tool meant to help people find like-minded parties to clear content–with raid boosting advertisements. Proponents, on the other hand, use the gold they get from selling runs to fuel progression through World of Warcraft's Mythic raids, as potions, runes, food, and other items erode guild coffers.
However, one thing complicates the matter even further, made even more murky by the involvement of a high-end World of Warcraft developer like Ybarra: the WoW Token. The tokens can be used to buy a month of World of Warcraft subscription time or traded to other players for roughly 200,000 in-game gold, but they can also be purchased for $20 from the cash shop. This created a direct link between real and in-game currency, legalizing real money trading, a practice otherwise against World of Warcraft’s Terms of Service.
It is not hard to see how people have taken poorly to this raid boosting revelation. After all, since Ybarra’s guild, Denial of Service, sells Heroic Sanctum of Domination runs for just under 400,000 gold, a player could purchase this service by handing Blizzard $40 only to then hand the gold right back to one of its highest-ranking World of Warcraft developers. Worse yet, by participating in raid boosting, Mike Ybarra has essentially endorsed the practice itself, which could encourage more people to participate on both ends of the controversial transaction.
However, some people are happy to see someone at Blizzard engaging in raid boosting in World of Warcraft. These players, mostly high-end raiders, take this as proof some Blizzard devs play their own game, and by immersing themselves in the struggles of endgame raiders, they may eventually see positive changes implemented for them in the future. Regardless of one’s viewpoint on the matter, one has to wonder why Mike Ybarro would draw this kind of attention while Blizzard is mired in bad press from this summer’s lawsuits.
The Wall