In today’s WoW Forever Q&A, Blizzard has confirmed that GDKP runs will not be allowed in WoW Forever, a practice that’s continued from Season of Discovery and the Classic Anniversary realms.
When asked, Josh Greenfield gave a detailed answer, involving the protection of the social experience of Classic WoW, the artificial barrier of entry for new players, as well as a way to combat real-money transfers.
GDKP has been a controversial topic for all of Classic WoW, including being outright outlawed in Phase 2 of Season of Discovery. However, the topic remained a hot discussion throughout the existence of the Anniversary Realms, as the banning of GDKP runs did not stop botting and consumables from reaching an all-time high.
We’ve transcribed the answer below:
Randy Jordan: “GDKP. Is it going to be allowed in WoW Forever, why or why not, what are we doing there?”
Josh Greenfield: “This is a bit of an involved answer. I’m gonna bucket my answer out with a few different questions I’ve seen around this. So, I think the most important thing to us, the short answer is no, we are not going to allow GDKP. I think the most important aspect of that to us, is our first pillar, to nurture and protect social experiences. I think a lot of the concerns around GDKP start to get bundled up into that conversation, around things like that.”
Randy Jordan: “Real money transfers. Real money transactions.”
Josh Greenfield: “Yes. But, the actual main reason that we are not going to allow it in WoW Forever is, it has that sort of tendency we’ve noticed in the regions where (GDKP) has been popular for longer, to reach a level of ubiquity. That can kinda overtake the traditional guild structure, and that’s one of the kinda really difficult decisions about being a game designer, managing this game at this scale. Sometimes, you have to make difficult choices. We never really want to tell people how to play, at the same time, that is one of our pillars, to protect social experiences, which also includes the traditional guild structure. The other thing too that we kinda found, is that a lot of times, once (GDKP) reaches that level of ubiquity, it’s really a big barrier to entry for new players, or players that do not have that many resources. If you’re kinda the traditional carry, or someone that has a lot of resources, and someone who has been playing for a long time, it’s great for you. You’re gonna get into a raid and make some money on the side, but the barrier to entry for new players is often times, they have to buy gold. And that’s something we’re taking very seriously in WoW Forever.
And that leads me to the second part of the question, which is real money transactions and the economy. GDKP is an excellent way for bad actors to launder large sums of gold, and we do try, whenever we can, action accounts of buyers, or sellers, or bots. We try to haul that money back, and it makes it more difficult for us. And that’s why one of the things I’m really most excited about WoW Forever is that we’re going to be very, very actively monitoring the economy. One of the things we hear a lot with GDKP is like, ‘I need this to afford consumables’. We didn’t have GDKP in Season of Discovery, and especially once we get to Level 60, the economy was settled the way we expected on an original WoW server, the economy was excellent. It matched a version of the original Vanilla WoW that was very good, and that’s because we were constantly managing the inflow and outflow of resources.”
