Yesterday I complained about not being able to get World of Warcraft because it's sold out everywhere. Today I did something about it. Say what you will about Ebay ... but when you need something, absolutely NEED something, there's no better place to go (providing you have funds). I even found a local seller whose auction was ending in a few hours. So if the seller is cooperative, I can get my game tomorrow and save on the shipping. Bonus.

The only other time I have used Ebay was back in my Ultima Online days. One could argue that Ebay ruined UO. It's the same way that cheat codes ruin other games. People don't want to take the time to earn their possessions / stats / whatever through the normal course of gaming, so they cheat (or buy their items / characters through Ebay in the online world).

I have been on both sides. When I first quit UO there was just nothing else to do. My friends that I had played the game with were bored and had moved on. Origin had BF'd me too many times to count. I had my huge tower filled to the brim with all kinds of armor and weapons that I dare not use because I might lose them (such is the life of a non-PVPer in a PVP world) and I quite literally had nothing left to do. So I sold off all of my stuff through various methods (I sold my tower for game gold hoping that maybe somebody that had worked toward that purpose had actually earned it). But eventually everything except my accounts sold on Ebay for around $1,000. So even deducting my account fees I made money playing a game. Probably somewhere around 10 cents an hour, but let's not split hairs.

Well, a few years later I casually went to a UO forum to see what was going on. Bad idea. So many changes. So many cool new things. I couldn't take it, I had to go back. But you're crazy if you think I'm building all my stuff back up. That'd take me forever. So I bought an account and some money on Ebay and I was off. I built up enough gold and "stuff" in a few months ... made a HUGE house, and quit again a month later. See paragraph above. All the new stuff got old, and fast. Plus, even on new non-PVP worlds people still circumvented the system and found new ways to be rude.

So, that history given, here we go with WoW. Almost guaranteed to be the same experience. But, hey, for a month or two it will probably be really awesome. And that seems worth $60. Or $80. Or whatever I have to pay for it.