World of Warcraft: Want to BUY the most bad ass account possible!

December 5, 2007 11:54 AM

Yes I know it is totally lame to buy a WOW account. Don't Care. I want to buy the most bad ass World of Warcraft character possible. Its a present to myself for finishing a 10 year long project. Anyway, how do I go about doing this, how do I evaluate the bad ass-ness of the account? I'm willing to spend thousands of dollars. Yes yes yes, I know it is lame. Whatever. WOW looks pretty cool and I'd like to get into it no matter how lame.
posted by Bob Dobbs to computers & internet (72 comments total)

A noob character who doesn't know how to play is (almost) always welcome. A power character who doesn't know how to play is universally perceived as the worst kind of loser possible, and will be treated as such (or worse).

Make your choice.
posted by Aquaman at 12:00 PM on December 5, 2007 [12 favorites]

Nonsense - you can certainly have fun with a purchased account. As for bad-ass, that's in the eye of the beholder. Research the game a bit and become familiar with some of the classes and races. They're very, very different.

Another possibility (though it will undoubtedly result in some scornful comments here) is to create a character to your liking and then pay to have it leveled up for you. That way you can enjoy some of the instances and fun of the early game without getting into the grind. I suspect it'll be cheaper too.

A truly kick ass character takes hundreds (if not thousands) of hours to cultivate. I don't think it's the least bit lame to outsource that process through a purchased account or a leveling service. While I haven't done it myself, I've definitely given it a lot of consideration.
posted by aladfar at 12:02 PM on December 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

Don't buy a character, you'll get bored quick. Without the reward of leveling, completing quests or acquiring new stuff I don't think you'll find it that fun (I don't play WOW, but know lots of people that do). If you do want to make things easier for yourself, buy gold. I don't know how it works and it is likely against the terms of service. And the equivalent of gold mining ruined my only MMO experience, so remember that when you pay from something virtual you affect many other people.
posted by Ctrl_Alt_ep at 12:04 PM on December 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

If nobody minds me piggybacking, I have a question about MMOs I've never understood - what is the appeal of playing when your character is already maxed out and has all the best stuff? Isn't the whole point of playing the constant struggle to get to the next level or get better gear? So why do people keep playing after they've reached the top?
posted by pravit at 12:04 PM on December 5, 2007 [2 favorites]

I tend to think that if you want to buy a character, you should buy the SECOND one, rather than the first. WoW requires a very great deal of skill, so just having the level 70 character with all the cool stuff doesn't help much if you don't know how the character itself works. People will quickly realize that you bought the character and will tend not to group with you.

In my experience, about 90% of the fun of the game is the journey, not the destination. WoW at level 70 is kind of boring. It's TONS of fun at lower levels, and there are some neat things to see at the higher levels, but ... endgame is absolutely the worst part.

All that said, if you want to miss all the richness that the game offers and jam yourself into the (relatively) sterile and boring endgame, I had good luck buying gold from www.guy4game.com. (this was very early in WoW... I bought about 100g to get my character started.) They delivered very quickly and were very friendly. I see that they have powerleveling to L70 for $350. Whether or not that's a good price, I have no idea.
posted by Malor at 12:05 PM on December 5, 2007

Few things here...

What kind of character do you want? Are you more interested in Player vs. Player, or Player vs. Environment? A character setup for one will not be 'the most bad ass' at the other. Though I should add, it's easier to get new PvP gear than PvE at the moment...

And I have to agree with Room317 and Aquaman. If you really DO want to purchase a character, go ahead and do it, but please, please at least play around with leveling that class first.
posted by Barmecide at 12:06 PM on December 5, 2007

Generally look at gear colors, Purple > blue > green. Orange are extremely rare (legendary).

If you want to be more thorough..

Look up a character and their gear on the WOW Armory. (This only shows what they wearing now, not what they have in inventory)

Click on an item and it will show you the item level. The highest item lvl in the game is 152. (Non legendary). IMO, if you want a character that is very well geared, look for item lvl > 130. You might have to pay a hefty sum.

Also be wary of PVP (player vs player) or PVE (player vs. environment) gear, it all depends on what u want to play. You can also look at an item source (mouseover) to see if it is from PVP. PLayers with mainly PVP gear should cost less.
posted by mphuie at 12:09 PM on December 5, 2007

Get a regular account, learn the classes, figure out which you'd like to play. Classes play dramatically differently, there's no point to buying a warrior if you want to cast stuff, if you want to cast stuff there are lots of options...figure out which you have th emost fun in and go from there.
posted by iamabot at 12:10 PM on December 5, 2007

Ah, one more thing.

Very very well geared characters are still well under $1000. Make sure to shop around.
*grumbes about his gnome warlock not selling...
*still recovering WoW raider...
posted by Barmecide at 12:13 PM on December 5, 2007

dog food sugar's boyfriend here:

If you want to enjoy the game then you'll enjoy growing your character. You learn a lot of things starting small, you meet people and grow along with them which can be really fun.

However, if you want to make starting your character easier, then buy gold from a place like this. Having this money will let you buy better equipment /weapons / armor that will help you survive the early levels a little easier.

Even if you don't want to take the character all the way to 70 start it, figure out the basics and then pay someone to level it for you. If you show up with a level 70 character and you don't know how to play it you won't have as much fun.

On preview Barmecide is right - this does not need to cost $1000. You could tweek your character to the max for less than that.
posted by dog food sugar at 12:16 PM on December 5, 2007

Seriously, why would you want to spend "thousands of dollars" on a character when you haven't even "gotten into" the game yet? That's just nuts. Play the game first and figure out what you want.
posted by designbot at 12:17 PM on December 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

Playing at level 70 can be fun too, though. There's tons of instances, you can raid, and there's always PVP fun to be had.

That being said, I agree with everyone else: start at the beginning. WOW has so many ins and outs that you'll never be able to read enough/learn enough about how to play a badass character. Playing your character - figuring out which attacks you like, how best to spec, and how to play in a group - is really the only way to be bad-ass.

If you know people who play already (especially players with level 70 characters already), join the same server as them. Ask them to help you get gear, gold, etc. They can also guide you through instances/quests and make leveling up way faster.

If you don't know people who already play, you can go the route suggested above and pay real money for WOW gold, and then use that WOW gold to buy the services of some level 70s to run you through instances.
posted by lunit at 12:17 PM on December 5, 2007

I also want to chime in with a WOW at level 70 will be crazy boring if you aren't raiding, and if you have no idea how to play your level 70 character no one is going to want to go raiding with you.
posted by chunking express at 12:20 PM on December 5, 2007

I'm currently playing a level 37 character (yes, now at work). I can't imagine any fun in just having a level 70 character. Most of the fun is finding stuff and areas and skills. If you have a high level character, there's no benefit or fun in wandering through about half the world. People (NPCs and real people) will ignore you. You won't be doing most of the quests because your character can't use the appropriate level stuff that you'd see at lower levels.

WoW is not like the NBA where everyone wants to be Michael Jordan. It's much more about solving problems and learning about the world as you progress.

You should probably just go download Progress Quest, which is a bitchinly k3wl game. I had the high score for quite some time (thanks to some packet sniffing and some hacking).
posted by lothar at 12:29 PM on December 5, 2007

It violates the TOS. But maybe you could hook up with this person.

On the other hand, if you decide to create your character from scratch, and want to get gold fast without supporting gold farmers, download this addon. It makes using the Auction House much easier and more profitable.
posted by Koko at 12:30 PM on December 5, 2007

Crap, that is a lot of responses in a few minutes.

There is less flamage going on than I expected, thanks.

I'm more interested in PVP.

Would consider a leveling service.

Its a game, there are many ways to enjoy any type of game. My maximum enjoyment would be to do it this way. Don't have hundreds of hours to invest buliding the character myself, have a busy job in real life.

How does one get legendary gear?
posted by Bob Dobbs at 12:31 PM on December 5, 2007

If you're determined to do this in some form...once you've taken the advice above re: trying out classes, how about getting the character leveled to 40, when mounts become available?

You still get the "I'm a badass!" feeling, but you also have a fair amount of time to really get used to things and learn what it is to be a good raider. Added bonus: I've heard a fair number of horror stories about powerlevelers messing with player banks, and there's not much they could do under level 40 that isn't recoverable.

(On preview: You may want to clarify for future posters whether you are interested in making your home on a PVP server, or in PVP instances, as it may make a difference in their answers. I'm a carebear, so I can't offer much advice. Also, most (if not all) legendary gear binds to the character that loots it...so you get it by killing a boss.)
posted by gnomeloaf at 12:35 PM on December 5, 2007

While I don't play WoW, I do play another MMO that has seen its share of bought characters/gear/etc. I'll agree with the majority of the posters here who say that you should level it yourself. The grind can suck, some of the quests can suck, but it feels more of an accomplishment if you do it all yourself. Yes, it's hundreds/thousands of hours of work to be the best or even close, but if you buy a character that has everything, the fun will run out VERY quickly.

Not to mention it's seen as a very poor thing to be a character/gold buyer, and don't think for a second that word won't spread like wildfire that you're a n00b that bought your account(at least in the MMO I play... maybe it's less of a big deal in WoW) If it is the case though, you're likely not going to have much fun when everyone calls you out for buying the account.

Good luck, whatever road you go down. I'm sure a lot of the popular WoW forums will have links to game sites that sell characters. Figure out the race/class/whatever you want, do some research on what makes that race/class kickass, and buy from there.
posted by irishkitten at 12:39 PM on December 5, 2007

I agree with everyone else who says this is a foolish idea. But hey, why not answer the question while I'm at it.

Look for epic or legendary gear from Hyjal and/or Black Temple. Look for Tier 6, as much of it as possible.

Look for a character who is attuned to both Hyjal and Black Temple.

Look for a character who has Black Qiraji Resonating Crystal.
posted by kidbritish at 12:40 PM on December 5, 2007

Well, in that case, make sure you join a PVP server.

And you get legendary gear mostly from running instances/raids. Don't know if you can buy it. And, you're going to need to know what you're doing if you're going to be running instances/raids.

However - and others might disagree with me here - but some classes are easier to "fake it" than others in group situations. In my experience, people tend to pay way more attention to healers than anyone else, and healers are much more likely to get yelled at. Tanks and pullers (to some extent), too.

If you're not interested in leveling up but you want good gear, you're going to need to run instances. And you might want to consider a class that does straight damage (less likely to get noticed by the rest of your party) instead of filling a more noticable role in the group. Mages and Warlocks come to mind, through the same might apply for Hunters, Druids, and Rogues, depending on the role you play in the group.

Still, playing any character well is going to require some practice, first. You're going to get nailed repeatedly, at first. Just so you know.
posted by lunit at 12:41 PM on December 5, 2007

If you buy a character on a PVE realm, you won't be able to transfer it to a PVP realm.
posted by kidbritish at 12:43 PM on December 5, 2007

Work out a powerlevel arrangement where they don't blast you to 70, but do it in smaller increments. Hell, even find a friend who'll play your dude off-hours.

That way you get to experience content, but you also brutalize it since the random grinding tedium is handled when you aren't around. Have them do PVP for you as well, so you can get geared up with the PVP reward items.
posted by aramaic at 12:46 PM on December 5, 2007

I would agree that starting at 40 would even be better than 70. Honestly, people will NOT play with you in the big raids/PvP if they think you can't play.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:48 PM on December 5, 2007

For PVP, you get legendary gear by PVPing. The easiest way to do that is Arena play, which, as you can play a limited amount per day, takes time.

The new changes to the most recent pvp season of wow play require that the characters personally gather the points needed to purchase pvp gear.

For the phat pvp purplez (epic weapons), you'll have to buy a character, or get one leveled. Getting a fully decked out character in season 3 gear (the most recent) will be quite hard, as the new season just came out, and those people who were in the position to buy this gear aren't the goldfarmers, but the hard core pvpers. Most sites I've seen that offer leveling services for characters like this charge hundreds of dollars for the first season's gear. Season 2 and 3 aren't even mentioned. Season 1 gear is going for Honor Marks, which you can get off a powerleveling service. Takes time, no instant gratification.

As for the selling of characters, be sure that you check out whether a character is decked out in raiding or PVP gear. While both can be quite powerful, raiding and pvp use different gear, and a person in lower quality pvp gear, especially if skilled, will kill a person in higher quality raiding gear.

I might also like to say that purchasing characters, and purchasing powerleveling, leads to negative externalities, like idgits AFK'ing in Battlegrounds, ninja looters in instances, and gold spam. By supporting this, you are making the game suck more for the rest of us.

tl:dr: Best PVP gear is currently off the table. High end raiding gear will get you pwned. Low end, but good PVP gear is farmable by Powerleveling services. Please don't pee in our pool.
posted by zabuni at 12:51 PM on December 5, 2007

I don't really care if people know I purchased the account. Zero percent of my self esteem would be tied up into this game. Hell, I'll name the character "PAID FOR"

Perhaps a leveling service would be ideal as suggested.

My understanding is that if I purchased somebody else's account that account can always be accessed by the original owner?

If I have a character leveled for me on my own account then I have maximum security, no?
posted by Bob Dobbs at 12:55 PM on December 5, 2007

You might want to sign up, play the game for a bit, and then buy a bunch of gold. Having a lot of gold in the game will allow you to level up pretty fast by cutting out a lot of wasted time. If I started playing again I would definately do it that way. And it's a lot cheaper than buying a character.
posted by blue_beetle at 12:59 PM on December 5, 2007

This was mentioned above, but it bears repeating. Selling accounts is a violation of the terms of service. Blizzard has been known to ban accounts for it, which means you may pay thousands of dollars for nothing at all.

Powerleveling services might work, but you can get banned for that too, and you better believe there are services that will strip the account bare and leave you with nothing. (This is WHY account sales and powerleveling are against the rules - no sane CS department wants to get involved in this kind of drama.)

That being said - if you've never played the game, how would you know what character to buy? It would really suck to buy an uber Protection-specced-and-geared warrior only to discover that tanking bores you to tears.

(Also, they just massively sped up the under-60 leveling curve, so grind won't be much of an issue until the very highest levels.)
posted by restless_nomad at 12:59 PM on December 5, 2007

Getting someone to powerlevel is more secure, because you retain ultimate access and can change the account passwords once you're done.
posted by aramaic at 12:59 PM on December 5, 2007

One thing you should keep in mind if you're considering buying an account is that it always remains possible for an account's original owner to regain control of it via Blizzard customer service. Yes, even if you have the secret question and answer. This is because account hijacking is a real problem in WoW, while account trading or selling is against the TOS. So it's a real possibility that you may spend serious cash on a character only to have it taken back by the seller.

I'll put aside the in-game issues, like how transparent it will be to any group members that yours is a purchased character, or whether or not playing such a character would even be fun, as these seem fairly well-covered already.
posted by emmastory at 1:00 PM on December 5, 2007

Well, except for the fact that you have to give your account info to the person you pay to powerlevel you, sure.
posted by Doofus Magoo at 1:03 PM on December 5, 2007

And in regard to having a character on your own account powerleveled: this is not necessarily safer. You have to worry about a seller backing out of the deal, but Blizzard is much more likely to ban accounts like this. How can they tell? Because your character will be logged in 24 hours a day from an overseas IP.
posted by emmastory at 1:04 PM on December 5, 2007

The most recent sweeping change to WoW was the acceleration of the leveling curve. Both in terms of experience needed to level and experience gained through questing and killing. Taking a character to 60 is no longer the daunting task it once was.

If you plan to focus on PVP you will be in for an extremely rude awakening if you are not intimately familiar with your class and its abilities. PVP at level 70 can be a very intense experience and the best gear in the game will not save you from being taken down quite rapidly if you don't know the correct counters and means of escape.

Also, legendary items (of which there are only two at level 70) can only be attained by dispatching the highest level boss in the game with help of 24 other people. This progression normally takes 2-6 months for the most dedicated of guilds. This gear is unattainable without taking great pains to prove your dedication to other end-game raiders.

Here are the legendary weapons I speak of: 1, 2, 3

I would have to echo the above commenters and say that playing a character from level 1 IS the game. Without that experience you will be at a distinct disadvantage, especially in PVP. Good luck in your search.
posted by erebora at 1:05 PM on December 5, 2007

That's "you won't have to worry about a seller backing out," obviously.
posted by emmastory at 1:05 PM on December 5, 2007

Bob, no worries about having a poor reputation due to your inexperience in the beginning. For an additional $25 you can just move to another server - have *someone else* set up a character with your name on the new server. Then, when you initiate the character transfer the system will not allow you to keep the same name because of the duplicate and you'll have the opportunity to rename your level 70 something unique.

I played WoW for a couple years and sold my account. I totally recommend buying an account if this is something you see yourself enjoying for a while. You can also resell again with little depreciation. Don't worry about flamers complaining about "max out" - WoW is impossible to max out...that's why it's addictive and successful. The major pitfall here is making sure you're not getting scammed on eBay...
posted by dendrite at 1:06 PM on December 5, 2007

If you want to play PvP you're relying on others and they're relying on you. As it's been said, once the other players realize you don't know what you're doing, they won't want to play with you. You can't do raids without a group and therefore get your epic and legendary gear. Sure you'll have an awesome character, but what fun is that if no one wants to play with you? WoW is a community of people and it's through leveling and working with people in dungeons as a team that you learn your role in the group and how to play it best. There's also a whole language involved in it and learning that takes time too; aggro, dps, crit, proc. It really is a huge commitment learning all about talent points, abilities, professions, the auction house, maps, etc. Not something you can learn overnight and play the next day.

Blizzard does a great job of introducing you to your character's abilities and powers so you can best learn how to use them as you level. Like they don't introduce talent points until level 10 when you've kind of got everything else down.

My suggestion because you're in a hurry, would be to start playing a character at 40 - whether you buy it or get someone to level for you . You can get a mount at 40 which makes traveling a lot faster, but it will give you time to learn your character and their abilities so you can be an asset to your group or better yet, your guild. Guilds can be an awesome way to level more quickly with help from others. Blizzard just introduced Guild Banks with the last patch and that makes it easier too.

Whatever you decide, welcome to WoW!
posted by NoraCharles at 1:28 PM on December 5, 2007

Well, this is probably not doable if you want to play the game as other level 70s play it: non-stop raids. You would first need to join a guild with lots of players so you can even get involved in a raid. Most guilds will drop you if you dont know what youre doing. So this is pretty much a non-starter.

I would think that if you played a character from scratch into the 30s you'll begin to get a better understanding of the game ,especially stuff like instance strategies. Logging into the game at 70 and not knowing where anything is will be pretty lousy. Other players will assume youre just horsing around or some kind of gold/item farmer. Either of which means youre not going on raids.

If you just want to solo and kill stuff, well, you should be okay ,but its funny how fragile a high level character is against multiple lower level characters. Nothing magical happens at 60 or 70.

Even then, all the worlds in WoW look the same. Its the same blocky cartoony crap. So killing a mob that is level 30 is exactly the same as killing a mob that is level 3. Its not like soloing in different areas is rewarding.

A better strategy would be to buy a modestly priced lev 70 (a couple hundred at most) and then paying someone to teach you how to play him. Preferably someone who can help you join raiding parties.

Also, absolutely dont mention you paid for your character. To a lot of people its people like you who ruin the game. The influx of real money into a virtual game is not a good thing.

I also think its highly irresponsible for someone to spend all this money on something they havent really explored. You may find that wow is a boring grindfest after a while and be glad you didnt spend large amounts of cash to shady dealers who only hurt MMOs.
posted by damn dirty ape at 1:41 PM on December 5, 2007

"One thing you should keep in mind if you're considering buying an account is that it always remains possible for an account's original owner to regain control of it via Blizzard customer service. Yes, even if you have the secret question and answer. This is because account hijacking is a real problem in WoW, while account trading or selling is against the TOS. So it's a real possibility that you may spend serious cash on a character only to have it taken back by the seller."

Re-emphasizing this. Account traders and sellers routinely use this back door to rip people off. If you are willing to spend that much money on WoW, then you're probably going to put a lot of time into playing it.

Buying a max-level account and trying to play it is like giving a 14 year old interested in driver's ed the keys to a Ferrari and no supervision. The kid probably won't get anywhere, and is likely to get incredibly frustrated in the process of trying...but if he does get the car moving, it's going to start sucking fast. As characters level up, they develop complexity- that's why you start as a level 1 noob with no talent points and few spells. When you get used to playing the basics, you start getting access to talent specs and more skills/spells. Level 70 characters have all their spells and such unlocked, meaning that the person who EARNED them knows how to use them in different sequences and situations...if you don't have a clue how to play your character, it's going to be VERY obvious to other players and you're going to get blacklisted pretty fast. News like that gets around. And how fun is it going to be spending a few frustrating weeks being called a noob while you try to learn how to play, only to long on one day to discover that the original owner of your account took it back and has it back up for sale again?

If you really want to ease the pain of getting into the game and are willing to blow some cash, buy an account, upgrade it to TBC, and start playing. Once you feel like you're pretty comfortable with the game and have a toon over level 20, buy a power level and get your character maxed out to 60.
That right there is assuming you didn't have so much fun leveling to 20 that you just want to keep going, because it's fun and it's worth it. Also, did you know that Blizzard made leveling from 20-60 a lot easier? Decreased the amount of XP required for each level, and increased the amount of XP you get from doing quests at those levels.
Even if you end up buying the PL to 60, though, play it up to 70 yourself. It's worth it, because Outland questing/leveling and such is really, really fun, and because that way you'll actually learn how to play your class. Then when you hit 70, go buy yourself the ~6k gold you need to get your epic flying mount. You'll have a much better experience and a lot more fun if you do it this way.

When it comes to what you're considering, keep this in mind: it's not the destination that counts, but how much fun you had on the ride there.
posted by baphomet at 1:41 PM on December 5, 2007

I don't have time to look for the link (then why am I reading this? Dunno.), but I would strongly recommend retaining the services of a video game *trainer*, of which I have reading more about lately. Pay to learn, don't pay for the result without the knowledge to go with it.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 1:45 PM on December 5, 2007

Can't speak for WOW but have been an admin on a mmo for many years, and as everyone has said, levelling kind of is the game. I understand that you mean you just want the fun of a powerful character, and not the work to get there, and I can appreciate that, but what you are talking about is sitting behind the wheel of a Ferrari without knowing how to drive. If getting it up to 40 and then driving it into a lamppost sounds like a fun way to spend your time, then sure.

Assuming human nature on WOW doesn't differ from my mmo:
If you don't know how to PVP you will be owned, over and over and over, and people will see fairly swiftly that you are a buy-in and will target you for that fact. At best you will be able to stand around in your shiny gear and occasionally beat up low level characters.

That bit is pretty much fact from my experience. My opinion, as a player and as somone who has seen hundreds of players grow from "wooden shield" to the most badass mothers on the game is this:
The fun of the game is the social interaction, having a group where you get up shit creek together and barely survive with your skin, and do you remember that time those highbies told us XYZ and we bought it? Then one day you notice it is you who is leading the newbies on a snipe hunt, and you and your buds have become the guys people whisper about when you ride through town.

You are talking about "adopting a 30 year old".
posted by Iteki at 1:47 PM on December 5, 2007

Also, FWIW the game is very fun at lev 35-60. After I hit 60 it was just boring RAIDs with the slim chance of getting some piece of equipment, which is the macho version of dressing up barbies. No thanks. I quit shortly after.
posted by damn dirty ape at 1:49 PM on December 5, 2007

Just a note that a power-leveling service will only obtain you the requested level. It will NOT go out of the way to get good gear for you.
posted by Industrial PhD at 1:55 PM on December 5, 2007

If you have any change left over from your thousands of dollars, I'll be happy to play through any modern VG for you, and will even get the final boss down to one-quarter health so you can finish it off by hammering on the fire button and beat the game. Sound like a good deal?
posted by Hogshead at 2:21 PM on December 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

One thing about buying characters you should think about is the characters reputation on the server, buying a 'tainted' character that already has a bad reputation may have difficulty getting in good guilds. You're going to want to get in a decent guild if you play the game longer than a couple of weeks.
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 2:34 PM on December 5, 2007

I'll just chime in and agree with everyone. Leveling and getting stuff is where the fun is. Setting off and exploring alone, getting party wiped with your friends, hearing that level sound, kicking the ass of that mob that kicked your ass a few levels back, that's where all the fun is. I stopped playing at level 70 because I got bored. When they raise the cap again I will probably play again for awhile.

Although I do think it helps to have some gold. I generally twink my lower level characters and it makes them a little more fun to play. Buy some gold but be stingy with it.
posted by jockc at 2:58 PM on December 5, 2007

I didn't see any mention of stolen accounts, but I imagine it's something you need to be concerned about when buying an account. Mine was stolen during a period when I wasn't actively playing, so the person using it got several months out of the deal before I took it back. Actually, it was the thief's activation of Burning Crusade that alerted me to the problem (I got an email from Blizzard confirming it), so he ended up losing the account and a copy of the expansion in the deal.

In the ensuing paperwork to get the account back, the expansion key remained on my account, so I got BC for free. I consider it back pay for the months the jerk played on my dime.
posted by cabingirl at 3:22 PM on December 5, 2007

You'll have much more fun if you start your own character and spend your money on buying gold and being a twink.

Or instead of buying a lvl70 character just start your own account and pay someone to lvl you up to lvl30 or something. When I was addicted to WoW I had a character at lvl29, 39, and 49, so I never had to wait in queue for pvp battlegrounds. All my friends said that being lvl60 (the max at the time) was boring and I was having tons of fun in the lower level battlegrounds so I had no motivation to grind up to 60.

Like everyone else has said, being a level 70 character will be boring because at that point in the game it is a team effort and no one will let you on their team because you have will have no idea what is going on.
posted by J-Garr at 3:26 PM on December 5, 2007

Here's what I would suggest---
First off, ignore everyone who says not to buy a twink. The grind is what makes WoW SUCK.

I would very, VERY much recommend that you play on an EMU server first to get a taste for the game. A bunch of my buddies and I tried this out, coming from an open PVP style game we wanted more of the same.

5 days later we had accounts full of lvl 70 toons with tier 3-5 gear and 200k gold on every toon. It was a GREAT way to learn about the classes, spells, and how to play the game.

Best part---it's FREE. Illegal maybe, but FREE.
posted by TomMelee at 3:56 PM on December 5, 2007

1-60 was fun, but being 60 and progressing to high level content was more fun. 60-70 was also fun, but since I started seriously raiding and doing all the 70+ content is awesome.

I can understand why someone would want to skip the level grind, as it can get pretty boring, but people who buy accounts are mostly viewed pretty unfavorably. I don't think you're really going to find anyone who is going to be like, "oh, you bought your account? great! that's so cool!" If you get this thing going, keep it on the low. Do your best to learn to play and l2p well, because anyone who's actually played to 70 is going to know almost immediately that you bought your account.

It's kind of like buying a high end sports car having never driven before in your life or thinking you can do surgery because you bought a medical degree.

Please don't buy accounts, you're only cheating yourself and please don't buy gold, you'd be supporting an awful industry.
posted by knowles at 4:18 PM on December 5, 2007

This is such a ridiculously bad idea that it belongs in the banned questions bucket.

Reasons why:

1. WoW is a team game. Assume you've never played basketball before. You go to the local college and offer $1000 to a player to let you have his place on the team and use his name. Amazingly, he agrees, and even gives you a fake mustache like his and a wig that makes you look a bit like him and some high shoes that make you almost only three inches shorter than he is. Imagine how the rest of the team react when you show up to play. Imagine how your protestations of "But I'm the new Freddie!" are met.

2. WoW is designed and operated as a closed-economy game. Despite the efforts of idiots, thieves, scam artists and lazy people to open it up, the game just plain doesn't work that way. Ever played Monopoly? If you offered another player $20 real cash for a property, do you think him taking that deal would be good for the game?

3. Corollary of 2 and 3 - if you don't care what's good for the game, don't play. Seriously. Just don't play.

4. You have a very, very high chance of being ripped off. Give the damn money to charity or something.

5. You will be assumed to be a total idiot by any player of the game who is at all aware of what you have done. You've seen this said a few times, but it doesn't seem clear to you. Perhaps this is your ordinary experience of multiplayer games anyway. However, the consequences will be as follows: (a) You can't stay on the same server. (b) On the new server nobody knows you and you know nobody. This is not a good thing. (c) If you get into pickup groups you will be rumbled as a n00b in seconds and kicked from the group. (d) If you spend a few weeks learning the basic abilities of your character and then go back to looking for groups again you will be rumbled as a n00b in minutes and kicked from the group. (e) If you find or pay some patient person to teach you the basics of group activity with your character, you might be able to manage a few simple instances with the other n00bs; get used to the idea of running back from the graveyard. Get very used to it. In fact, because your gear will be expensive and expensive gear costs a lot to repair and you will be repairing a lot, get used to buying more and more gold to sustain your repair costs. No, this isn't any fun. It's meant to not be, at least partially to discourage you from putting your plan into action. (f) Surprisingly, you will be allowed into a guild. Unsurprisingly, the name and nature of that guild will be "HAI LOL WE HAVE GUIDL NOW". Being associated with these people will, if possible, trash your rep more. (g) So supposing you learn, in this horrible environment, to play halfway well. And yet there he is, running around wearing a hat from Black Temple. Maybe ten people on this server have that. However could he possibly have got it? This brings me to: (h) Yes, you will need to change servers again. Yes, that costs more.

6. If Blizzard ever realize you bought an account they will ban you. Your play will be at all times subject to that threat. The more you like the game, the sharper this sword hanging over your head will be, and the thinner the thread will seem. Every time you buy more gold--and you will have to--the thread gets plucked again.

7. The game is not more fun at higher levels. It is considerably less fun, because it's a hell of a lot more work, the sense of discovery and adventure is mostly gone, and the skill requirement is higher. It's more rewarding, but without the context in which to appreciate the reward, it won't mean anything to you.

The conclusion: buy a character and you will be in for a miserable experience.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 4:34 PM on December 5, 2007 [6 favorites]

TomMelee I would very, VERY much recommend that you play on an EMU server first to get a taste for the game. A bunch of my buddies and I tried this out, coming from an open PVP style game we wanted more of the same.

5 days later we had accounts full of lvl 70 toons with tier 3-5 gear and 200k gold on every toon. It was a GREAT way to learn about the classes, spells, and how to play the game.

Yes. Do this. You can do whatever you want, you don't have to interact with strangers, and best of all, you can kid yourself all you like about how the game works and no-one will be there to call you on it. This is more what you're looking for (WoW played in the manner of Team Fortress). Private servers can be set up with whatever conditions you like. It's not real WoW, but you don't want to play real WoW, you've said as much.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 4:45 PM on December 5, 2007

nth-ing the notion that walking into the game with a maxed-out character is just not going to be very much fun for you. There's a huge amount of situational decision-making that you learn from plain ol' hours of playing with different groups, different class mixtures, different types of enemies, and with dozens and dozens of combinations of spells/attacks/buffs/debuffs at your disposal -- not to mention that in any group over level 30 you'll be expected -- nay, assumed -- to understand the utility and significance of everyone else in your party's spells/attacks/etc and take everything that everyone else is doing into account as you make your split-second decisions. It sounds like I'm exaggerating, but I'm not.

It's kind of like you're saying "I just finished this long project and I want to reward myself by buying my way onto a NFL starting lineup because I like football. Which team should I join?"

I'm not saying don't do it because it'll be bad for the team, I'm saying don't do it because football won't be any fun if 100% of the game is your teammates shouting at you why the fuck didn't you cross left on the buttonhook during an obvious a play-action audible and you literally have no idea what they're saying.
posted by churl at 4:50 PM on December 5, 2007

I want to third private servers. I also come from a line of thought that grinding away at Exp/gear/whatever is totally not fun, or is fun for a very short amount of time. Basically, as you get bored with whatever you're doing you can skip straight to something more interesting looking. It will cost you a lot less, too. If you don't care what the other people in the game think, then getting a "real" character in a massively MULTIPLAYER game doesn't make sense when you could get the same character for next to nothing.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 5:35 PM on December 5, 2007

This is a fast and expensive ticket to a very bad time.

churl's NFL analogy is spot-on. The "bad reputation" you'll get isn't the "he's not a nice guy" kind of reputation, it's the "do not group with this guy under any circumstances whatsoever" kind of reputation. And without a group at the higher levels, there's just nothing for you to do, especially if you wanted to do PvP.

I played Everquest at the top levels for a long time and it was so immediately and painfully obvious when someone had bought their account that it turned in to a joke at that person's expense in the zone chat for hours. I know you don't care what people think about you, but if people know you don't know how to play (which you won't), they will not group with you and you won't be able to gain the requisite knowledge and experience you need.

Imagine for a second you join a group and this is the chat (EQ speak here, forgive me WoW players):
"Hey I need BoF and Symbol, you need dots? I just got a stack in town"
"Throw me a celestial if the lull doesn't land, k?"
"Twist 36 mana and WoZ for this fight but switch to AoE when medding"
People at level 70 will have absolutely zero patience whatsoever to explain any single one of those statements to you, and will likely kick you out of their group as soon as you ask what is widely known to be a stupid question. Then you'll have to wait another 5-10+ minutes to wait for another group and repeat the whole exercise all over again.
posted by 0xFCAF at 5:50 PM on December 5, 2007

Its funny how seriously some of you feel about this GAME that pre-teens can play. But, I appreciate the insight anyway. I can see that it may not be as much fun at the higher levels as I hoped without hundreds of hours of time wasted learning the ropes. Such is life.
posted by Bob Dobbs at 6:46 PM on December 5, 2007

In defense of the OP:
Please ignore the people stating moral reasons why they, as uberl33t's, think you should not buy an account. I've played EQ (1 and 2) to high level, Eve, WoW, Shadowbane, and a bunch of betas from around the world. I started EQ1 before there was an expansion. It never ceases to amaze me that people can transcend a PAY-TO-PLAY experience as something...I don't know, REAL?

It is, at its core, a GAME, and quite honestly---who really cares what other people think? Now, I've got core group of buddies that we have all gone from game to game with, and I personally get the biggest kick out of being in Vent with those guys and doing whatever. We're all crazy crazy supernerds, but we have a BLAST. We're by no means griefers, but we do try to avoid the politics of any given server (or other players.) Take shadowbane for instance---we owned our server multiple times in a game where you literally build cities and tear them down. In the beginning it took MONTHS to build a city, and we did it, and inevitably we'd piss off enough people that they'd group up and gangbang us off the server. Oh well, GG, log in tomorrow and start again. Or not, you know?

My point is that it's the OP's money, and nobody should say much of boo about why it's morally objectionably on the grounds that it ruins the game or something--because it doesn't. Nobody will lose sleep, their job, or their life because some noob on a level 70 epic mount asked them in a whisper how to LFG. Would I spend money on an account? Hell no---but every time I've left a game I've sold the one I had.

The only reason I recommended the private servers was as a chance to get a (free) taste of the game, and of endgame, before throwing a couple grand at it. I'd personally reward myself with a shiny new motorcyle or a couple week sojourn into the woods---but to each his own. Please stop ignoring the part where he said "Don't tell me not to do this blah blah blah."
posted by TomMelee at 6:51 PM on December 5, 2007

It's a game; games have rules. The rules make the competition meaningful. Many people who play WoW - or any multiplayer game - play it competitively. Do you see why some people might object to you breaking the rules to gain an advantage?
posted by restless_nomad at 6:53 PM on December 5, 2007

Its funny how seriously some of you feel about this GAME that pre-teens can play.

You should also know that if you're this much of a condescending ass in-game, you'll get the other kind of reputation I talked about. Please feel free to tell at length us how little you care about that fact.
posted by 0xFCAF at 6:57 PM on December 5, 2007

Also, grouping with someone who doesn't know how to play their character is an exercise in frustration for all involved. It's not fun in any sense of the word - and I don't play competitively, but I'd rather not waste two hours plus the time it takes to recoup repair costs because some idjit doesn't know his class role and gets me killed repeatedly, or causes me to lose a PvP match.

Levels (and gear, in WoW) are markers that you have a certain amount of gameplay experience. When those markers fail, people's expectations get set improperly and folks get frustrated. When anonymous people on the internet get frustrated, they get mean. It's not fun.

Also, if you just want to play the solo game? Disregard all of the above, but you'd be missing out on the entire solo game by buying a high level character.
posted by restless_nomad at 7:01 PM on December 5, 2007

Emulated servers are piracy.

Besides, they're not going to give you a taste of the sweet, sweet feeling of destroying casuals by overwhelming gear advantage, which is what you seem to want. To do it, you need to play the live game, and to do it right, you need to know how. See the rest of the thread.

You're not going to get what you want out of this idea. Think of some other way to vacation in badassery.
posted by liet at 7:47 PM on December 5, 2007 [3 favorites]

liet said: "You're not going to get what you want out of this idea. Think of some other way to vacation in badassery."

This is an awesome quote.
posted by Bob Dobbs at 8:24 PM on December 5, 2007

Emulated servers are piracy.

Well, yes, but so are a lot of things.

Anyway the major attraction of a pirate server (for someone like me anyway) is the ability to mess about with the way the game works, to see the innards of it. They're great for working out what gear, talents etc one should pursue for one's "real" character. As with any "god mode" or "cheat code" gameplay though, pirate server play isn't satisfying from a gaming point of view. It's like playing Scrabble where anything you put down is a word, or playing Monopoly with unlimited money. Fun comes from challenge, challenge comes from constraint. It lets you make better plans, but no plan survives the enemy.

Anyway, in the case of WoW, if one just wants to make new max-level characters to mess around with, and don't want to use a pirate server, there's always the Blizzard test server. There's even a chance of it not being empty, at least during maintenance time. :) I'm told the battlegrounds are fairly active, which is a major part of the point of this kind of thing.

(Yes, a very awesome quote indeed.)
posted by aeschenkarnos at 9:57 PM on December 5, 2007

OP, here's the point of what's being said here: the game is not built around an "ending" reward. The only thing rewarding about the highest levels is the levels that preceded them. ...But I see that you've made a remark about pre-teens, because your request has been bucked by the crowd. So let's rephrase this into a more suitable context.

You're trying to buy retirement. Except you're not buying retirement at a young age, you want to buy a time machine that will take you from moments after birth direct to your mid-seventies, when you grandchildren are having children. And you won't even know how to retire, because that would mean knowing what life is like the first place, which you won't.

There's been far too much hostility in some of these comments. Please don't misread mine as ridiculing, because I understand that the MMO experience won't click with someone who hasn't spent a lot of time in that sort of environment. As someone who lives a little of both sides of that fence--I play an MMO and realize it's a total, absolutely illogical waste of time --I'd like to make this plainer. There is nothing more "awesome" about level 70 than there is about level 10. Any prestige associated with the higher levels exists solely because the artificially created lower levels were put in place with 'higher" levels in mind. And it's skill, not grinding, that makes you a better player. There's no difference between killing a level 1 monster and a level infinity monster--they both die, give some EXP, maybe an equip or two. You're still pressing keys, it's still supposed to be moderately difficult given your relative level.

It's all relative, just like life except far more controlled and insular. To someone born in a mansion, without any needs unfulfilled, there's little "up" to aspire to. A grown-up would tell you being born in a mansion isn't an advantage. Life is about moving up; if you start at the top the only place to go is down.
posted by Phyltre at 10:26 PM on December 5, 2007

Phyltre well said. Regarding my pre-teen comment, I'll retract it just a tad. My point is that some of the comments on here show the posters to take the game far to seriously. That said, I'm not out to make the game less enjoyable for them. It is a pleasure for some and for some pleasures are hard to come by.
posted by Bob Dobbs at 11:40 PM on December 5, 2007

Well, I can't really speak for others, but I can say (and I'm not even currently playing) is that WoW is extremely complex. You don't need all the grind time to learn, but you do need a substantial fraction of it. I suspect an investment of 100+ hours to learn a character class is probably about the minimum to get competent. It'd take another 100 hours to get really good. Subsequent characters are faster, but they're all very different and require wildly different strategies to deal with any given situation.

With the accelerated leveling now, it won't be so much of a grind... that sounds like it could be a lot of fun.

WoW is about the journey, not the destination... the level 1-70 stuff is tons of fun, and around level 20, on average, is pure crack. Some characters develop later... druids don't get really fun until about level 30, for instance ... but on the whole, level 20 is about when you start really 'becoming' your class, as your primary skills start to become available. And you can get to 20 in just a couple of nights. At level 40, you have all your core skills in every class, so the people suggesting starting there are wise.

There's a lot of later grindy stuff that's really boring. Everything after 70 turns into these loonnng ridiculous grinds of doing the same thing over and over and over. Yuck.

Lower levels is where most of the fun is. Seriously. The 'vacation in badassery' is a fun idea (and a great quote), but you simply can't buy skill, and a skillful but moderately-equipped player will beat the shit out of a bought character in epic mega gear.
posted by Malor at 12:53 AM on December 6, 2007

I think one of the things that no one has really asked the poster - what do you expect to get out of having a high level character?

What you imagine yourself doing when you log into the game?

If you imagine yourself doing quests and getting more stuff and seeing the world and the storyline, you're better off leveing yourself.

If all you want to do is get into some battlegrounds and PVP the crap out of the other side, yeah, go buy a 70. Expect to suck at PVP for a long time, because it's not just gear that makes a good PVPer. It's skill. And you can't learn that skill by playing PvE.
posted by FritoKAL at 7:47 AM on December 6, 2007

Bob Dobbs

You seem like a great guy who just wants to have fun and doesn't take yourself to seriously.

You will have no fun in WoW.

Take up a real sport and blow your money on shiny equipment. (I suggest kitesurfing, boating or tennis).

You will have more fun, you will get nicer friends and you might even get a tan..

Oh!, and you might just learn the difference between things that can be bought and the true satisfaction in learning a new skill.

( this post is turning real zen)

God luck
posted by up!Rock at 10:35 AM on December 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

Apparently, you have intrigued my boyfriend. He now wants to sell his character. Way to go.

Send an onsite message if you want more info.
posted by damnjezebel at 3:38 PM on December 6, 2007

I'd like to point out that one of the reasons that WoW is extremely horrible is the distinct imbalance that gear causes. Sure sure, some measure of skill applies--but WoW's distinct DISadvantage is it's primary marketing ADvantage---which is that a moderately coordinated 11 year old can play it equally as well as a post-doctoral student.

There is a marked difference between SKILL and EXPERIENCE, and simply knowing WHAT spell to cast WHEN and knowing that ZOMG ROGUE IS GONNA BACKSTAB ME come from experience, but != skill. Understanding game mechanics do make a game more fun (wow, intelligence DOES make me nuke harder!) and more playable, but it's the combination of working to your best advantage within these boundaries (and I daresay outside of them) that makes you GOOD.

Show me a non-standard template with non-standard gear, who holds his or her own and does it without bragging, and I'll show you a skilled player.

All that boils down to this--buying an account will make it harder to catch UP, and it won't necessarily make you BETTER, but it's certainly SMARTER than spending hundreds of hours beyond the time necessary to learn a toon to level it up to a level that it can do anything.

Emu servers are piracy and that's why they're FUN---you take away the constraints placed by the publishers to ensure that EVERYONE WILL PAY US FOREVER BECAUSE WE'RE WORLD OF CRACK, and you drop it down to "sure, play for an hour a day and be just as leet as anyone else", and "oh you died? hit RESPAWN and let's go again." Nothing says uber like a 3 hour farming session to pay for equipment repairs.
posted by TomMelee at 7:36 PM on December 6, 2007

If you have to farm for 3 hours to get your repair bill covered you're doing something wrong. 1 hour of farming should cover your repair bills and consumables for a week.
posted by baphomet at 8:47 AM on December 7, 2007

1 hour of farming should cover your repair bills and consumables for a week.

That still sucks. I don't miss playing WoW at all.
posted by chunking express at 8:53 AM on December 7, 2007

Nah, 16G repair bills in heroic UB and only one badge to show for it sucks.
posted by baphomet at 8:06 AM on December 8, 2007

I handle wow accounts for a living.

If you buy in a forum (markeedragon, buysellmmo, realpoor, egamingsupply), I highly recommend the safe trading guides at rpgreseller first. That could save you thousands because gamer to gamer trade has a LOT of fraud problems.

If you go to websites, popular picks are toonstorm and accounts.net - you'll pay more than in a forum, but if price is no object, you'll find top accounts quickly.

As far as finding the MOST badass account... I think you might want to spend some time playing non-badass accounts for a bit. It would suck to buy a class that you do not enjoy. Each class has different playing styles and is a different experience. If you like hand to hand combat and seeing mobs up close and personal, a warrior or theif will be fun to play. If you prefer to nuke, go with a mage. If you like healing, a priest. Shaman are HTH as well as capable healers. Warlocks are the top pet and damage over time class.

There's two routes to go when it comes to obtaining a strong character.
1. Buy it.
2. Have it created. (power leveling)

Google either, you'll find plenty of resources.
posted by wow_accounts at 3:45 AM on March 31