Professional Farmers

[fractaled]

You may have misunderstood, or taken my concerns out of context.  I have no problem buying any of my mats from *players* who use their time to raise money for mounts, etc.  I have a *HUGE* problem buying anything from professional gold farmers who then sell the virtual gold for real world money.  And, I have a *HUGE* problem with anyone who buys virtual gold for real world money.  To me, either buying or selling gold, toons, etc for real world money is tantamount to cheating.  I don't want to support anyone who cheats.

But, how can you tell the *players* from the *professionals*?  Sometimes you cannot.  Therefore, often when I suspect all the available materials at the AH are being sold by professionals, I pass on the AH and farm my own.  I boycott them.  You might not, but then IMHO you contribute to the problem.  Like, spam, or internet porn, someone keeps them in business.  I just don't want it to be me.
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They aren't duping, I don't see why you have a *HUGE* problem with them.

While I would never buy gold to make a game more "fun" (I'd think the game would be fundamentally flawed if that was required), but obviously other people have decided for themselves that it is a fair trade; there's nothing immoral about that.

For buyers, farmers reduce prices. And for sellers, farmers are their competition, they're all farmers. WoW is hardly so skill intesive that allowing someone to buy their elite mount or get an epic item really makes any difference. Instead of time for gold, they're paying time for dollars for gold.

Do you boycott email and the internet as well? Boycotting the AH is boycotting the medium, not the materials. Come up with a way to only buy from non-professional farmers if you want to hurt them.