Duped or stolen: would it matter to you?

[Harpua]

Many months ago, I was reading the WoW forums and came across this topic:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10671887317?page=1

It doesn't directly deal with pets. Someone had bought a Jeweled Panther and was worried about repercussions. What caught my eye was the discussion. Especially where someone had gone back and copy/pasted several blue posts on the subject. It got me to thinking that maybe there was a bit of a semantic argument going on here.

While Blizzard maintains that nothing is duped, they say that things are either taken from hacked accounts or acquired by an exploit. You call it a dupe, they call it an exploit. But it could essentially be the same thing. That's why I think the word "stolen" is more appropriate. Because whether it is stolen from a hacked account or someone has used an exploit to obtain an item, if you get something without paying for it, that is generally considered to be stealing.

That's where I think the word "dupe" becomes a crutch. I'm sure some folks would consider it to be Blizzard's fault. They were lazy with their code design or not aggressive enough with policing, so it's fair game. As if the person exploiting just pulled one over on Blizzard and they aren't smart enough to do anything about it. But buying stolen goods has a negative stigma and makes you think twice about it.

However. Most of us are collectors of some sort and at some price we will abandon our morals and buy it anyway. I can be as much of a bluenose as anyone, but if I saw a spectral tiger cub on the AH for 1 copper, I'd buy it. Because at that point, duped or stolen, the ne'er do-well isn't profiting off it much anyway. At least that's what I'd tell myself.

And that's pretty much where I find myself now. A certain pet is showing up at a quantity and price point that really tempts me. For a long time I've thought that I would just forgo certain pets because there was a high probability they were hot goods of one form or another. I have to admit, I'm wavering. But I do wonder what folks think about this.

[Worgenbait]

I bought what is likely a duped Spectral Cub, but this was before I knew it was possible. It was a few days later I learned it likely was. The rest of the TCG pets I had already had, or I bought from sources I knew with the exception of the Tuskarr Kite I bought last week. That one I bought off someone on Illidan horde server for 88K gold. Since I hadn't heard any reports of that one being duped, I didn't worry so much about that.

Would it matter to me? Yes, but not enough to return my cub.

[Nagini]

I have not bought pets that i thought were duped, but i am the owner of two mounts, bought at a price (and with a rarity) that make it unlikely that they were obtained in a legitimate way. I think that it's less bad if you buy them for personal use or to learn them, then those greedy people buying them and try to resell m (bad idea with mounts anyway, the glitch for the panther occaisionally prevents you from putting them on the AH)
I debated for a long time wheter or not to make these purchases. For the jeweled panther, it was not such a big deal. The mount is clearly intended as a gold sink, and it's rarity is merely a function of it's price.

The other mount is the crimson deathcharger, and i can say, i try not to use it. I'm glad i ticked that box (ocd much?) but i feel like I don't want to infringe on people who worked hard to get it by parading it around. The main reason i did still buy it was because my main cannot make shadowmourne, and the three friends i helped get their legendary all changed their mind about giving/trading the legit one to me at the last moment *sigh*.

what i will say: when you have reasons to suspect the deal, drive the price down. They know as well as you that it's a shady deal, so any gold they get will still be profit. Consider the risk when making your offer: blizzard is unlikely to take them away, and they are not admitting anything is going on, but you never know.

[Jpchaos27]

There are some pets, and mounts, that I'll never get. It's an annoying truth. I'm not willing to shell out hundreds of real dollars on pixels, or at least not all at once on one small thing.
That being said, I'll buy a duped pet. I don't have even close to the amount of gold required to, but if I did, I'd be okay with it. But that's only if it was a dupe and not an actual theft from someone else. Not that you know for sure anyway, but if I did, I wouldn't buy it out of principle.

[Poofah]

Because whether it is stolen from a hacked account or someone has used an exploit to obtain an item, if you get something without paying for it, that is generally considered to be stealing.

That was my initial feeling as well, but I've completely reversed my viewpoint.

Theft is a zero-sum game. If the cub is stolen, then somebody had to lose it. I would not want to buy a stolen cub because that would encourage thieves to hack more accounts. But theft is very clearly not the source of the cubs/ESTs that have flooded the market over the past year. They are dupes.

If it's duped, then it was created out of thin air. Who is the loser in this situation? It's not innocent players, because nobody had their legit cub stolen. It's not Bliz or Cryptozoic either, because they already sold the TCG cards that create legit cubs, at pre-dupe prices. This is the key point for me. The loser is actually people who are still holding onto legit cubs or the unscratched TCG cards, because duped cubs flood the market and devalue legit cubs. In many cases that is pet collectors like us.

So what has happened here? Bliz/Cryptozoic sold us cubs and ESTs for high prices, based on the premise that they had a limited supply. Then, cubs/ESTs get duped, and Bliz is either unable or unwilling to stop the dupes. Instead, they try to limit dupe purchases by telling us that they are illicit/stolen, when in fact there is no repercussion for buying these dupes because they are identical in every way to 'legit' items.

I don't think there's any moral issue any more (if there ever was). Bliz created items whose value is completely determined by their limited availability, but it turns out that they can't enforce the limit. The result is that these items simply have a new (much lower) value. Buying an item for what it's worth is not immoral. The only moral of this whole story is 'buyer beware': cageable pets can and will be duped, and they are very unlikely to hold their value in the longterm.

[Kpb321]

At this point outside of buying an unscratched loot card you've probably got a pretty good chance that any of the high end TCG pets you might buy anywhere are a "dupe". It' might be 10 calls/trades removed from the actual duping but at this point the pool of pets seems too polluted to avoid dupes. With that said I've bought a couple pets I'm almost positive were duped and where probably bought pretty close to the source.

[Ravnhawk]

KB you make a REALLY good point and I hadn't really thought of it like that yet.

I really try not to buy duped pets. If I KNOW they are duped or even have an inkling they might be duped. Hence no level 1 trades from people I don't know. AH pets that look way too low or toons selling multiple copies of high end pets for awhile now.

Even on a realm like Madoran where people are pretty good about policing ourselves on the duped pets, they are beginning to show up. A level 1 is now selling on the ah 3 to 5 at a time. LOL tell me those weren't duped. I won't list the name here as I am sure you can look it up yourself if you are so inclined. I have also been told that this same person has sold them to people in trade all the while still having 3 to 4 of the same pets on the AH. I expect to see more duped pets on the ah as time goes on.

Something just feels wrong to me about buying stolen/duped items. Call me weird but it feels like cheating. I don't have an issue with those that do it. I just can't bring myself to do it. Took me forever to make my own Jeweled Onyx Panther, well someone made it for me but I supplied the mats. And to be honest it hurt spending so much gold on the orbs... but I knew it wasn't duped or stolen. LOL I still miss the gold though.

[Poofah]

At this point outside of buying an unscratched loot card you've probably got a pretty good chance that any of the high end TCG pets you might buy anywhere are a "dupe".

Precisely. Furthermore, as soon as you redeem that loot card pet, it becomes identical to all the other ingame copies of that pet, including the dupes.

TCG card prices are based on the demand for the ingame pet. Therefore irl prices for these cards should reflect the ingame value of the pets, which is much lower due to duping. The only reason the irl cards maintain a higher value is because Bliz is not honest about duping, and hence we do not know the magnitude of the supply increase. By denying us this information, they allow us to erroneously place a higher value on 'legit' versions of these pets, when in fact there is no difference.

At this point outside of buying an unscratched loot card you've probably got a pretty good chance that any of the high end TCG pets you might buy anywhere are a "dupe".

More practically, we have good evidence for cub/EST and *maybe* dragon kite duping. The cub evidence is extremely strong: there's no other reasonable explanation for the explosion of level 6 cubs starting last May/June. There is no such smoking gun for EST or Dragon Kite because they're level 1 -- the evidence for these is the very large increases in supply that have happened periodically over the last 8 months or so. Dragon Kite comes from BMAH so there's a chance that this supply is entirely legitimate. The massive increase in ESTs (and the drop in price from 350k to 50k over the course of MOP, which mirrors the supply/price trend for cubs) has no other reasonable explanation aside from duping.

These numbers are easy to verify using underminejournal. For example, across US Horde AHs at this moment, there are

736 Ethereal Soul-Trader
296 Spectral Tiger Cub
179 Dragon Kite
59 Bananas
55 Hippogryph Hatchling
28 Rocket Chicken
13 Tuskarr Kite

Furthermore, if you click that EST link, you can scroll down and see a graph of EST prices across all servers -- there's a huge cluster around 55k, which suggests something very non-random going on. There's similar clusters at 55k for cub and Dragon Kite as well (and another at 65k for cub). The others seem mostly immune to this clustering, again suggesting something unique and different about the supply for these 3 pets.

So pets such as Tuskarr Kite/Rocket Chicken *probably* have not been duped yet. But there is absolutely nothing to guarantee that they won't be in the future.

[Peanutty]

I will not knowingly buy duped items. Not because I think I'll get punished for it, but I just don't play that way. I feel like I'd be encouraging more dupes/exploits by doing so.

Back when the Crimson Deathcharger was the main target, and were selling for as low as 20-30k, I still chose to pay 130k to a well known player from a big raiding guild. Does that mean it was a legitimate item? No... I have no way of knowing. I only went by the player's reputation.

My Spectral Tiger Cub is, in hindsight, suspect. But I bought it months before the duping rumors started so it really might just be a case of "this deal seems too good" paranoia.

However, since I know it's impossible to tell nowadays if pets are legit or not, I would say to be on the "safe" side to at least buy pets directly from the AH (if someone is barking in trade you should ask if they are willing to do so) just so there's a record of a legitimate transaction taking place through official channels. It is very unlikely then that Blizzard would penalize the buyer because the AH recognized the item as being sellable.

[Angelwings626]

LOL!

I use to care about this but then I came to the point that it doesn't matter.

When I use to care it was back when I had acquired the wind rider cub. I had went out of the way to purchase the thing and spent bit extra for it because I thought it was suppose to be a limit availability pet. Then it came out again a few times. Speaking of which i know why now, it its how i got this super awesome WoW can set from China. They end up finding things when they clear up the warehouse...anyways....

At first i was upset they starting selling the thing again after they said it was limited. I was being greedy about having a pet. Then I got over it.....

Then this duped stuff happened. I had been monitoring the ebay to acquire pets at reasonable prices. But now I had the option of finding stuff in-game and paying with NOT REAL MONEY. AWESOME. But what if Blizzard takes it away because they're not real or whatevers....sad, its not real money.... but sad. Sure I worked in game for that gold.....

Then it occurred to me that there are a bunch of people that really really want these pets and was sad that they have a hard time getting them because they either don't have that much gold in game or to waste IRL. There is a already a ton of stuff to do and pets to get already....Now we have to watch out about data being duplicated so that we can access a pet and push buttons or click a mouse just to see it.....LAME.

I guess I don't care..... I have bought everythings for people I like.... Ethereals and Cubs all around for friends. Duped or not I look for the best pricing or trade. If blizzard takes it away...okay. But I don't get why, it's not like they're losing any money. They waste more money on someone trying to program it properly and maintain the bullshit.

If you want it, get it. Just do it in game. Rather buy it in game than give money to someone on ebay who happened to find it hoard a ton of it and price gouge it for people who love these things....

Blizzard should have made them all store pets that you can buy anytime you want. At least they would get the money.

[Mykro9]

I dislike the rarity for rarities sake pets/mounts. Like the Spineclaw Crab, Viscous Horror, and a few others. I am OCD when it comes to some pets, and I want them just because. I decided a while back that the more expensive TCG pets like the kites, and cub, I would just do without, but I did drop the cash on a legit Ethereal Soul-Trader, Rocket Chicken, all the store pets, including the plushies (I even have a bank guild <Windrider Cub Companion> ) and I have all the CE pets but the classic CE ones I bought when the games came out, and I still want to get the D3: RoS CE.
At this point, since I dropped IRL cash on my pets, I have a hard time spending gold on the cheaper 'duped' TCG pets, but if the price was right, I probably would buy a cub. Please, just dupe my damn Spineclaw Crab, Viscous Horror already so I don't have to keep AH camping for a deal, =(

[Petzy]

Blizzard should have made them all store pets that you can buy anytime you want. At least they would get the money.

It does matter to me & I might not buy any level 6 but since I can't really know the history of a pet I will probably buy pets anyway when I have the gold. I think the comment above sums it up for me, if they were all available in the Blizz store it would solve the problem & that is where I would be buying them.

[Druzy]

I too have my qualms yet also rarely have any gold to speak of so it's a bit of a moot point for me. There is someone on my server that posts what seems to be all his/her cageable pets on the weekend, all level 25 and rare; this just sent warning bells off the first time I saw it yet it's been several weeks so now doubtful s/he was hacked.

All in all, there is no way to be certain what is legitimate and what is stolen; whether someone is being greedy or needy or just altruistic. You can always try contacting by mail or whisper, check with the server's trade chat. You spend enough time with people and you can't help but learn the person they present, willing or no.

[Angelwings626]

^ with the exception of this week (***got a new Mini Cooper as a present from Fiance! So busy playing with that***) I usually have about 50-80 leveled pets all rare on the AH everyday. I finished leveling all my pets a long time ago, then I started leveling for others. Then I got tired of that then I started selling on the AH. Since I level from 6-10 pets a day (and usually only sell 1-4 at a time) I fill up the AH quick......

So not that I'm on your server, but, that could be what that person is doing too ^_^.

[Haevlyn]

A level 1 is now selling on the ah 3 to 5 at a time. LOL tell me those weren't duped.

I know for a fact that these probably aren't duped. I know a lot of individuals who buy "cheap" pets on their main server and sell them on another server where they have a level 1 alt character. They then use the gold to purchase pets that are cheaper here than on their main server.
The relog their main and cage the newly purchased pet on server 2 with the L1 alt. and sell it at a higher price than they could have sold Pet #1 for.

This leads them to having enough gold on both servers to "Buy out" top expensive pets (which are cheaper than the other server) and re-sell them for even more gold.

I started doing this but got bored of AH juggling. In the end I was buying pets valued at 30-40k from one server and re-selling at 50-60k on the other.

[Poofah]

I know for a fact that these probably aren't duped. I know a lot of individuals who buy "cheap" pets on their main server and sell them on another server where they have a level 1 alt character.

Those individuals certainly are not dupers, but that doesn't mean that the pets are not dupes. Dupers do not put pets on the AH themselves, they either sell them via /trade, or they send them to other accounts in order to sell them on AH. If someone is selling soul-traders for 55k, it's almost guaranteed that those soul-traders began life as dupes. That doesn't mean the seller is a duper or doing anything wrong.

But again, there is no difference between a duped pet on AH and a non-duped pet on AH.