|
Alright fellow TLers, I am completely ignorant to World of Warcraft in general and need some answers from people who know about the scene or have played it recently, for a good cause.
My friend recently moved to Texas from South Florida with a mutual friend of ours, his best friend. He is -broke-. He cannot find a job to save his life. He's not an idiot, and in general a good hire. But that's besides the point, the point is he's a good guy who's fallen on hard times and I'm trying to help him out in the minor way that I can. He has a bunch of high ranking WoW accounts. I know, the thoughts are "oh another WoW loser with no job". Not the case, he moved away from here with a really good job, but he just <3s WoW... so much he lost his gf of years over it.
So my question to you, TLers, is this:
Suppose you had 8 level 85 "toons" (he said it, don't know what it means) on an account and you were interested in seeing if it had any value.
1) Is this something that has been sold before?
2) If accounts have been sold on WoW, hypothetically what would his character be worth?
3) If there are websites where this is commonplace, could you link me?
So this blog is short, but it's self-explanatory. I don't know a damn thing, and I want to help my friend out. I'm willing to take general advice, given that it's constructive. And if someone has done this before, can you go over it with me?
Clueless,
LRM)Game
 
|
I expect this blog might be closed because selling accounts is against the Blizzard ToS and TL kind of likes Blizzard. 
|
|
|
I'm pretty sure that selling your WoW/Battle.net account is against Blizzard's terms, so this isn't something you should be doing. That said, it makes sense to me that an account with 8 lvl 85s probably would sell - the question is for how much. Unless one or more of his characters have rare achievements, titles, mounts, etc. it shouldn't net all that much.
|
You guys are scaring me. I'm actually concerned that my ignorance of Blizzard policies might get me a warning :/
|
It's possible to sell an account, though I wouldnt know how to do it exactly (never actually done it myself). These days, a max level character or even 8 max level characters is not terribly valuable, so it's going to depend on what sort of items/achievements the characters have.
If he has some really rare items or skill-demanding achievements on one of the characters, he could definitely sell it to some sad, sad person who will pretend he got those items/achievements himself.
|
Damnnnn TL Moves fast these days. Check the PM I sent you though.
|
MarqueeDragon used to be the premier Wow account selling site, but with a cursory google search, I found that it was replaced with MMObay. Characters can go from $140 for a decent geared 85 to insane amounts of money if he has rare mounts/titles/gold/gear.
That said, it is hard to quite wow. Right now, considering the lack of good content, it might be easier to quit than in a few months, after blizzcon and 4.3. Are you trying to force his to quit or is this his idea?
|
Does he want to sell it for the sake of money? Or, to quit the game? Tbh, If he is somebody who can not control himself and MUST indulge into the world of azeroth, I HIGHLY recommend that he rids of his account in some shape or form. Not saying he should go against the TOS and sell it, but rather just convince himself to quit the game. I have a couple of friends who are also big WoW gamers. Normal people, pretty smart...had good jobs....girlfriends...friends..etc... but WoW just consumed their lives and now they barely live hand-to-mouth while fulfilling their WoW drive.
|
I've sold some characters ranging from 200-500. It's unlikely for him to get more than 500-1000 for his account unless he had some mega good stuff like spectral tiger, tip top raid gear, or tons of gold (which is worth like 1$ per thousand). Also I'm not really sure if selling his hobby for that kind of money is worth it if he still enjoys WoW.
|
Selling accounts is a violation of the Blizzard terms of use.
That being said I don't think there's much of a market in selling world of warcraft accounts anymore. The only real reason people paid much for them back in the day was because the gear was so hard to obtain and made you a god in PvP,
Not so today.
|
Wow, thank you guys for your answers thus far.
@tests he really needs the money, he said he'll end up just leveling up more accounts.
I guess I need to just look up the best sites for such a thing and check out their backgrounds.
|
Time invested helping him on his job search would probably be a better option tbh. Aside from it being against ToS and very high chance the acc will just get scammed during the selling process the low worth due to ease of gearing and leveling means it's not even worth the hassle of selling a WoW account these days.
|
On September 16 2011 16:53 Vindicare605 wrote:
Selling accounts is a violation of the Blizzard terms of use.
That being said I don't think there's much of a market in selling world of warcraft accounts anymore. The only real reason people paid much for them back in the day was because the gear was so hard to obtain and made you a god in PvP,
Not so today.
Yeah that last part is especially true. The value of an account has gone down a lot.
|
I've heard of a fair number of people selling accounts, although it is against Blizzard ToS.
What I'm wondering is, I don't think selling WoW accounts would give him enough money to last very long, and seeing how he enjoys WoW so much, perhaps it might be worth it just to keep the account, unless WoW is interfering with the job search too much.
Point being, if might be too much to quit WoW completely when you're already going through hard times. You need something enjoyable in life, and I don't think WoW is (relatively) too expensive. Perhaps keeping just one account.
edit - 8 lvl 85 toons is a little crazy amount of time played, just imo
|
http://news.mmosite.com/content/2007-09-18/20070918012258124,1.shtml
Thats a really one time scenario though, I wouldn't expect to get much from a normal account especially if you're using one of those cheesy third-hand sites. Never bothered selling mine when I quit and I did have top PvP gear/Gladiator mounts back then but not worth the hassle. You shouldn't get much from a normal account, if you're unlucky or careless you get nothing or worse.
|
United States22883 Posts
On September 16 2011 17:07 cryL wrote:
Time invested helping him on his job search would probably be a better option tbh. Aside from it being against ToS and very high chance the acc will just get scammed during the selling process the low worth due to ease of gearing and leveling means it's not even worth the hassle of selling a WoW account these days.
Yep. Accounts used to go for a lot more than they do today and even then, the earning was pathetic when you calculated it as an hourly wage. I'm talking well under $1/hr, and usually closer to 10 cents/hour (not including subscription cost and cd keys.) Now, people get much less for their accounts and the risks are high.
It's probably a good idea for your friend to quit WoW anyways, and in that case he's not really losing anything by trying to sell the account but he's probably not going to get anything substantial for it. There's no way to know what it's worth without seeing the account and most of us wouldn't be able to judge it anyways, but accounts really don't sell for much anymore.
|
I sold my first WoW account back in 2006 or 2007 for $2000, and I sold my other account in December for $500. You can make a few bucks from the time you spent playing the game, but you can't really make a job out of PLAYING the game.
If you can get somewhere around $500 for an account, thats what I'd go with. Unless you're sporting the best of the best (with 8, level 85 characters I doubt he is) gear/achievement/titles, its not worth much.
|
People are selling accounts alot, but it inflated by time (if thats proper word) by alot, everyting is easy farmable and obtainable nowadays, so accounts with alot of achivments, mounts, pets, and rest of stuffs are more and more offten, hell there is even allreadz 700 legendaries from firelands, so even those accounts would not be THAT easy to sell for good money, as it was in TBC, we all remember for how much did that Rogue sold his first dual glaives...
But yeah times changed, and accounts losed their value by alot, Only things that have high prices are gladiator accounts, and some rare PvE achivments, as old server first titles, and scarab lords..
|
Selling, donating or deleting your acc is the only sure way to quit WoW, guaranteed. He definitely needs to do it. During mid-wotlk I sold my 6-time gladiator with some old school items and top notch current gear for a decent sum of money, but it's much easier to get a good deal on a single exceptional character than it is on several average ones because people will only pay for rare stuff like legendary mounts, a bunch of gladiator mounts, discontinued unique items and titles or super hard-to-find pets etc.
Also, it's a lot better to find someone interested on your server, a person you've known or dealt with in the past since in these transactions both parties can get scammed very easily.
If he can't sell it he should definitely delete it! A couple of clicks to get your life back...
|
United Kingdom10823 Posts
Like everyone has said, the prices of accounts has gone down a lot because its easier to get the top-end gear nowadays, with so many PUGs and guilds going nowadays. That said, if you have 8 level 85s, there is one hope of getting a decent amount, because there is one side of the market where its more the fact that they're 85 than anything that helps the prices, ad its a bit that a lot of WoW players detest
Gold farming bots
Gold farming companies buy these sort of accounts just because it means they don't have to do the levelling themselves, and they can split up the characters to even it out more. Then they would just use them for farming a lot. Yes the bot community has gone down a fair bit recently, but it still exists, and people still pay for accounts so they can bot.
Give it a try, you won't lose too much time over it (like putting something on eBay.) Yes the account could well be banned, but its either losing the account, with a god chance of getting some return, or spending even more money on it while you continue to play.
|
Lol the good old days Sold my shaman with t1 for 400 dollar 
|
I used to deal with WoW trades /sales. Your friend would be better off splitting his characters to separate accounts (if theyre all well geared). Most people will not pay more for alts on an account, theyre usually only looking for a specific class.
In this market your friend would be lucky to get $500 for his account with all of the alts on it. If he split them up, depending on gear you could be looking at $100-300 each.
|
is there actually 700 legendary items now?
also, is the Commander rank still unique to vanilla players? that could be worth something
|
I remember reading about this one guy who made some insane amount of money per annum being the middle man in the account selling business. So there's defintely profit in buying and selling accounts
I think everyone has already answered your questions though so there's no point in me repeating the answers.
|
course.Sell to someone for 100 or something dollars,shout at blizz customer suport and repeat.
|
My brother sold his account for $400, he was super secretive about selling it, but he did ask me a month prior for my main character (he was really decked out in gear and vanity items AND gold cap) :| I was so heart broken because I put so much effort into him and I wasn't even aware that he was going to be gone. I have a CE version of SC2, so I wasn't willing to sell my character (Though I could've bought a new game and sell the character?) It's still not worth that much though as a seller, but I don't understand how people can spend so much on an account.
My brother had almost full BiS, he was 6/7H Firelands (and his gleader loved him so they fed him gear), but he needed the money fast so he sold it for kind of cheap. I did manage to snag a whopping $50 because of my character from my brother though. ^^;
As for websites where it's common ground, you could probably find a local trading website, where you post an ad and people reply to you through e-mail, I'd recommend being sneaky and not using your battle.net account's e-mail, for obvious reasons. (I'd recommend doing it locally, just because it's easier and "safer" to do it in a public area, rather than online to prevent scamming)
|
|
|
I've basically paid for my subscription and box fee's over the years by selling accounts. You used to be able to buy the game + expansions, a few months time, then max out a character, play it for a while and sell the account for some profit + enough money to do it all over again.
It's gone down hill a lot in the last couple years mainly because characters are much easier to level and much easier to deck out in raid gear now. If you ask me the only accounts that really go for good prices these days are ones with stuff like atiesh, scarab lord, high warlord, etc. things that aren't in the game anymore. But accounts with lots of characters like your friends can certainly still do okay. I haven't kept up on prices recently but the site below will give your friend an idea of what the market is like currently.
Link your friend to this site:
+ Show Spoiler +http://www.ownedcore.com/forums/mmo-trading-market/world-of-warcraft-buy-sell-trade/
That's a legit place to sell an account, the whole process is shady for sure (it is against Blizzard's ToS) but as long as your friend doesn't throw out his CD keys or something after he sells the account he can always get it back. You're actually more likely to get scammed buying an account than selling one because the seller and original owner can always phone up Blizz and claim their account was stolen. These transactions are always honour based because of this. So if you're a seller then you can always get your account back if someone recalls their payment or something.
Good luck and hope your friend gets something out of all this.
|
On September 16 2011 18:29 Kickboxer wrote:
Selling, donating or deleting your acc is the only sure way to quit WoW, guaranteed. He definitely needs to do it. During mid-wotlk I sold my 6-time gladiator with some old school items and top notch current gear for a decent sum of money, but it's much easier to get a good deal on a single exceptional character than it is on several average ones because people will only pay for rare stuff like legendary mounts, a bunch of gladiator mounts, discontinued unique items and titles or super hard-to-find pets etc.
Also, it's a lot better to find someone interested on your server, a person you've known or dealt with in the past since in these transactions both parties can get scammed very easily.
If he can't sell it he should definitely delete it! A couple of clicks to get your life back...
Or getting permabanned!!
Worked for me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
