WoW: The End of Boosting Groups? Rumor gives players hope

Boosting, at least on a large scale, could soon be banned in World of Warcraft. At least one rumor is doing the rounds right now…

On most realms in World of Warcraft, the trade channel is used primarily for one thing: promoting boosting services. These are often larger groups that operate across realms and provide certain services in exchange for gold coins. This can be increasing the PvP rating in the arena, but also completing raids or dungeons on a high difficulty level.

Now a rumor is floating through the WoW community and seems to be stalling at least some boosting groups: Boosting could be banned.

What is the current status of boosting? Boosting is currently expressly permitted in World of Warcraft as long as it is a service for gold. Players are free to choose what in-game service they want to pay money for. There are numerous boosting groups that pull paying players through dungeons and raids according to a fixed schedule in order to bring them successes or loot.

Only the advertising of such boost groups in the LFG tool is prohibited and can also be reported by other players. In the trading channel, however, advertising such activities has so far been permitted – even across your own home server.

Boosting offers for real money – i.e. payment with real money such as euros or dollars – are already prohibited and lead to sanctions for both the provider and the buyer.

What happened? A few posts appeared on the World of Warcraft subreddit last night covering a screenshot of a message that appears to have been shared on some World of Warcraft Discord servers. The message is said to be from developers or community managers, preparing for something to take action later today (January 31, 2022). In it you can read:

Effective immediately, we are banning factions that offer boosting, matchmaking, or any other non-traditional service, including those doing it for gold. World of Warcraft accounts violating this rule will be subject to sanctions. These sanctions may include warnings, temporary bans and, if necessary, permanent account closures. Factions that operate across multiple realms and heavily promote their non-traditional in-game sales are against the terms of the End User Agreement (EULA).

This updated rule does not restrict individuals or guilds from using available in-game tools (“Trade Chat”) to buy or sell items or activities using in-game currency. But “boosting communities,” especially those that operate across multiple realms, are no longer allowed. […]

In short, this would mean: Boosting communities that offer their services across multiple servers will be against the terms of use in the future and can result in account penalties up to and including permanent suspension.

That alone would be fairly easy to fake, after all, anyone can write such a message. In addition, the choice of words and the use of language does not correspond to Blizzard’s typical way. So it could at most be a first draft of the message or a private message from an accomplice.

However, several boosting communities and guilds seem to be taking this news seriously. Some well-known communities have not announced any boost runs for the coming days and several players confirm that some boosting communities are currently dissolving or restructuring.

Some even post Images on Reddit from the dates of the boosting groups – which in many cases end spontaneously today. So it seems like the message is likely to be considered “genuine” by multiple sources.

How likely is that? It is quite likely that Blizzard will do something about the boosting spam in the chat channels. On many realms, trade chat has become all but useless as dozens of boosting groups all just advertise their services, which often come from other realms. This is particularly annoying for most players, and newcomers should be even more frightened.

But it is also clear that “providing services for gold” has always been an integral part of World of Warcraft. Enchanters and other craftsmen have their services paid for, some magicians demand a small fee for water and bread in Classic and the “drag through dungeons” is also often sold. After all, this is the reward for the time invested.

The coming days will probably show whether this rumor is true – it would probably drastically reduce spam in the trade channel of many realms and make one or the other WoW player happy.

Most of you think boosting is okay, by the way – as long as it’s against gold.