Gold sellers have definitely returned for WoW Classic

The return of WoW Classic means the return of an economy where gold means a lot more than it does in the current version of the game. Making gold was just harder in the original game — and there were a lot more costs that devoured any gold you managed to make. Everyone will still be broke while leveling up for the first several months (at least), and inevitably the fastest way to make gold — so you can buy your mount and even your skills — will be to pay for it with real money. Despite Blizzard’s attempts to stop them, gold sellers have made their return. [Ed’s note: On Blizzard Watch, we’ve already seen them infiltrating the comments section in a way they haven’t since we were called WoW Insider.]

A quick Google search for something like “buy wow classic gold” will net you with a bunch of results. Although we can’t verify any of these, it seems like there’s a huge list of possible ways to get yourself an influx of gold for real money. One site sells 500,000 gold for $77.04, while another sells 55 gold for a similar price. It’s all over the place, especially if you start to look into forums where people sell it less professionally. It’s clear that if you take your time, you’d be able to find a way to get money without having to play the game.

If you consider what WoW Classic is compared to the live game, it’s clear why gold sellers are back. Not only does the original game start with a fresh economy where there will be a high demand for stuff that people simply haven’t had the time to gather, but gold is worth so much more in the original game. Gold funds your skills; your talents; your mount; your gear; your professions; and even your way around the world without all the easy travel options in Battle for Azeroth. (Remember, in vanilla WoW you couldn’t get a mount until level 40, there were fewer flight paths, and your Hearthstone was on a 60-minute cooldown.) Sure, if your only goal is to horde everything and sell it, you could find yourself rolling in cash — but you’re probably still sacrificing buying skills, mounts, and more to keep your cash reserves up.

People want gold and making gold isn’t easy.

Although the game reportedly has all the modern tech to prevent automated farmbots from roaming the world, it can’t stop people from normally grinding away for materials. The game is also has a much lower barrier to entry because you only need a subscription. You don’t need to buy the base game or any expansions — and that means it’s much easier for gold sellers to come in and do their job.

Even though the game is blocking skeletons from advertising gold-selling websites, gold sellers are still prevalent because of the nature of the game. There’s really not a way to avoid it without designing the game way differently than it was before. There will always be people trying to break the rules — and remember, buying gold, characters, and other in-game items with real money is against the rules. Even though the appeal of that shiny new mount may beckon, buying from gold sellers will get you banned.

We’ll have to do what we did back then and still do today: ignore them and patiently work at making gold on our own.