Banned for buying gold

[Earthspeed]

I don't deny it. I'm tempted to argue to get my account back, but I think that every point I could make would be selfish and counter to the longterm health of the nost community. Unfortunately, this is most likely a walk-away situation for me. I guess you could say that I was a casual player, with no burning need to play vanilla world of warcraft, as excited as I was to play endgame vanilla content for the first time.

I was spammed by gold sellers every time I played nost. I'm competing against people who can play 8 hours a day while I have a demanding job, so gold buying looks like an attractive option. I could compete against 10 level 60s (one of whom is probably a gold seller) for farming arcane crystals in Silithus for 4 hours a day, or I could just use some of my expendable income. You could say that grinding was a big part of the vanilla experience, and of course it was. But competing against 14,000 players online on the same server and a myriad of illegal gold selling services wasn't. At some point, spending some real money to get around what you can only be described as a real waste of your life is a good idea. It's probably still in the community's best interest to punish me for doing it, but I frankly don't feel bad about it at all. Just to be clear, I think that running around silithus competing for nodes on this server is a waste of time, not any other aspects of this game or this community.

I played for a few weeks of /played before gold buying was an option. I levelled blacksmithing, mining, fishing and cooking meticulously. After I bought some gold, I admit to once or twice feeling like I had cheapened the experience. I would never advise anyone to buy gold. It's against terms of use and it should be. In light of being banned, I would actually congratulate the GM team for their stance and advise anyone who considers buying gold that it really is a bad idea. Gold sellers want you to think that they're smarter than the nost staff, but they're only trying to get your money.

So good job, y'all caught me. Now will you delete all of the in game assets on my account and give me my level 50 paladin back? IGN Jørgen, PvP Alliance.

[Nelythia]

You already pointed out that its a serious and banable offense, they have never unbanned someone for doing this (confirmed cases only), even after someone did admit it.

Imagine if they start to unban cases like yours.

Everyone would came up with a "I'm so sorry" appeal after actual trying to buy gold and get away with it.

I'm sorry for the time you invested, but I guess you have learned a lesson on the hard way now.

[Earthspeed]

You already pointed out that its a serious and banable offense, they have never unbanned someone for doing this (confirmed cases only), even after someone did admit it.

Imagine if they start to unban cases like yours.

Everyone would came up with a "I'm so sorry" appeal after actual trying to buy gold and get away with it.

I'm sorry for the time you invested, but I guess you have learned a lesson on the hard way now.

Yep, you're probably right. For the record, I never said sorry.

[Eligius]

You should have made you alt on another account, btw now every account associated with your IP will probably under additional scrutiny.

[Earthspeed]

I was banned at the same time as “organized mafias” of gold sellers with more than $10,000 USD worth of gold on single accounts. Who's the real bad guy here.

[Lection]

I was banned at the same time as “organized mafias” of gold sellers with more than $10,000 USD worth of gold on single accounts. Who's the real bad guy here.

You. These goldsellers wouldn't exist if people like you didn't buy the gold in the first place.

[Dish]

You wasted your time and money and got what you deserved.

Now start over and stick to the rules.

Goldsellers (and the annoying spam) only exists because of people like you.

[Earthspeed]

Of course, I contracted all of these gold sellers to come to the server, so that I could compete against them for rich thorium nodes. I love doing that. I see your point, but it's only partially true. I don't want the gold sellers here either, but if the choice that nostalrius presents me with is compete against the gold sellers or spend a few bucks... well you know what decision I made there. For the communities sake, hopefully this massive illegal gold banning event has a lasting effect.

[Sharax]

Of course, I contracted all of these gold sellers to come to the server, so that I could compete against them for rich thorium nodes. I love doing that. I see your point, but it's only partially true. I don't want the gold sellers here either, but if the choice that nostalrius presents me with is compete against the gold sellers or spend a few bucks... well you know what decision I made there. For the communities sake, hopefully this massive illegal gold banning event has a lasting effect.

The more people like you, the more profitable it is for gold sellers and the worse the server gets.

Glad you got banned.

[Mencius]

Part of the problem is you're thinking only of yourself in this situation. Do you know where most of the gold those people sell comes from? Hacking. Stealing other people's account and characters. Scamming.

So consider the fact that you while you are moaning about how unfair the world is that you put so much time into this character just to have it banned, all that gold you bought likely came from someone else losing everything they had put into their own character. And for them, they did nothing wrong. You actively and knowingly broke the ToU.

You are not the victim here; you are the criminal.