I totally disagree with the statement at the end of the article saying that people with more money to spend in real life should have the same advantage in games through buying ingame currency. I think this is idiotic. That would mean that 'the rich' would have the upper hand in both the real world as well as the gaming world. There are rich players
But more importantly; why should games be like real life? It's not like I can fly spaceships in real life? Or ride around the world on a raptor? Or go questing with my other fellow mages? Games are not supposed to real life, they are a break from real life, at least temporary.
Game currency should not be sold by anyone but the gaming company for one simple reason; farming. They farm the best spots in games, often leaving the real players with scraps or nothing at all.
i agree that money grinding should be toned down. However the notion that you should be allowed to buy virtual currency in say WoW or DAoC simply because you want to is invalid. Fine, it can be excruciatingly annoying to get something you want, but in the end (through the terms of use and other stuff) buying virtual currency in those games is considered cheating. An unfair advantage towards other players.
Purchasing ingame currency creates inflation on rare items, brings imbalance to a server's economy and supports exploitation. I recently read an article about a documentary on goldfarmers and the people who sell the gold work in pretty bad conditions.
Hope that was an objective view... All that aside, if you don't like the way a game plays, perhaps you should look for a different game rather than try to gain an unfair advantage by purchasing currency.
I haven't had a chance to read all the poss yet, but when I first read Joe's article I was wondering if he was being serious.
I'm a casual player, and it doesn't really bother me who has what gear, although I can see why it would irritate some people who try to play the games fairly.
What irks me, is that when people are using these gold buying/powerleveling web-sites they are ensuring that our games are being plagued by bots.
People either using third party programs to keep up with the gold buyers, or mostly the actual people who run the sites. Now, if you are judging it from WoW, you probably see the odd bot running around like a headless chicken, and it doesn't appear to be much of a problem, but look at the other games where bots have just about destroyed the games. I presume you have not played Lineage 2?
That game is indicative of what happens when this problem is not nipped in the bud. Not only is there very few real people, as most are bots (thus not much of a community, which a lot of people play MMO's for in the first place), but it also destroys a servers economy. Items in L2 are too over priced so that even the top end players cannot afford to buy top grade gear (as it literally costs millions of adena - their equivalent of gold). So if you are happy with this, then keep supporting the gold farmers, and soon your game will become over-run too.
On a personal level, I think it's a bit sad if you feel the need to pay real money for money in a game. It's like playing a game of monopoly and slipping the player who is the banker some real cash for some monopoly notes.
Apart from the fact that it is cheating, but I guess the previous posts have covered all of those implications.
As for the example of the game that uses real money to buy in game items? Well, you can hardly compare that to the gold sellers, as this is a legitimate aspect of that particular game, and probably how the company manages to fund it. So when you play that type of game you realise that you are probably going to have to deal with that as a consequence of getting to play the game for free.
And as usual in this arguement, there will probably be (I will read the posts after I've written this one) those people who claim that they are just wanting to be able to keep up with their in-game buddies so they can continue to raid together. So, are certain people allowed to break the rules because of their situation? Bit of a selfish attitude that.
Simply put, if it's against the rules of the game, then it's cheating, and by supporting the gold farmers, you are ruining the game for everyone else so you can have your fun.
I am one of those aged players, spending most of their time by job and family. And for the few time remaining I want to have the same amount of fun out of a game as other people ... with more time for gaming by any reason.
Therefore I agree that developers and designers should do their job to balance a game and find mechanism that either I can buy or grind stuff.
And if they do not like companies selling virtual currency for real money ... they should create their own shops, where I can buy virutal equipment.
From my point of view this is not a malicious thing to the gameplay.
I haven't had a chance to read all the poss yet, but when I first read Joe's article I was wondering if he was being serious. Simply put, if it's against the rules of the game, then it's cheating, and by supporting the gold farmers, you are ruining the game for everyone else so you can have your fun.
You should have read my post... lots of ways to ruin other peoples fun...this is only one of them....
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Some games is so hard to get gold, need farm, but some games, like WoW, don't need it. U can farm to get lot of gold, or not, I have a new Hunter with Herbalism and Mining, with instances and work in quest, have herbs and minerals anywhere... my Hunter have 90g and good gears...
If a day WoW create a external economy for the game, the internal economy will fail, because no mats in offers, no equipes, no instances to get good itens... well... real life and virtual life is differents worlds, not compatibles.
That idea is not for all games... but in games that economy is the same of WoW, L2... that rules work fine. For me, I make quests, and get some hours of my week to work, my char will get lvl more late, but is the game, you have to see /played time, not common/real hours or based in another players.
Ive said it before,and Ill say it again: The notion of pride in "Having worked hard" for your stuff in a game is STUPID. I don't play a game to work hard.
The swet shop argument is equaly dumb. OOH! Poor underage children in foreign countries, forced to PLAY VIDEO GAMES FOR A LIVING. It's awful, I know. Im sure they're wishing they could form a union for such an awful job :P
I also can't believe how concerned people get about the unballancing factor. Guess what, you've been playing under these condidtions for as long as there have been MMOs, and it doesn't affect you one little bit wether or not the rich kid's bought his junk. You still win in PvP, PvE is still ballanced, and the economy is still stable. Get a grip, these arguments are baseless.
The only valid argument is the cheating factor: it IS against the rules (except where it's not). The only reason it's against the rules is because game companied don't get to see a cut of the money from the trades. That's it. It has nothing to do with fair play or ballance or that awful "sweatshop" job. But you have to wonder: We've had successful models of game companies creating secure trading services that get them their cut, why not make that standard practice?
Why not? Because of idiots who think their game will become unballanced-- you people who have no idea what youre talking about. Because you already play under these condidtions.
As long as the gold farmers are not hindering me in anyway, I will ignore them. If they provide grouping options, I will cheer them. If they are hindering me, I will report them if the staff is officially against that point. For example, they are preventing me from hunting an area, I will use anything fair to get that camp spot, which in some games means calling devs since their design lack in the first place, with good use of instancing, this problematic never arise.
As long as they bring an additionnal option, even if I don't see any reason to use it, I don't see a problem myself. If I feel I have to purchase anything to be competitive, I will trash the dev just like when they enforce raiding on me. Dictating a gameplay/use or gold farmers would always get me unhappy, but if they are merely an alternate path, I will discard it and resume my groups. In the long run, if the prices would be too low, it could get me unhappy as well, but that would be, in the very long run. As if someone could just get everything for $1, and the option is to play 6 months...not cool at all. But if it cost them more than a monthly fee for a monthly amount of rewards...don't care at all.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Silkroad have that... and I think another games have to, have options, go play. We dont spend money for itens in the game, it's not a cassino, lot of gamers dont have money to buy gold and itens, already pay mountly. Well, have lot of MMO, and some have that rules...
I totally disagree with the statement at the end of the article saying that people with more money to spend in real life should have the same advantage in games through buying ingame currency. I think this is idiotic. That would mean that 'the rich' would have the upper hand in both the real world as well as the gaming world. There are rich players
But more importantly; why should games be like real life? It's not like I can fly spaceships in real life? Or ride around the world on a raptor? Or go questing with my other fellow mages? Games are not supposed to real life, they are a break from real life, at least temporary.
Game currency should not be sold by anyone but the gaming company for one simple reason; farming. They farm the best spots in games, often leaving the real players with scraps or nothing at all.
The problem is your game was made in, is played in, and runs on computers sitting in the real world. It had to happen eventually. Gaming is fumbling out of its protected adolescence into the harsh adult world. When we all played single player games we had a personal instance of the game world. There were no other people to compare our lifestyle to so it had little effect on how "well" we did in the game (unless we were blind or deaf or had one hand etc. the "real" world has always intruded on gaming for people with these handicaps).
Now that we game with many people across vast networks we have to compare ourselves to other people. Some peoples' real life circumstances are bound to aid them in the game. Gaming is not (as many people seem to believe, with no real proof) a communist utopia existing inside our capitalist society. It is just that every world (virtual or not) seems to be a communist utopia when you are the only one in it. Well now you have to share it. MMOs are not MMOs unless they have a society. And as long as the social structure of MMOs is based around competition it will be impossible for them not to be subject to capitalism (by definition). You have a society, its competitive, thus money matters. Thats how it works. Through legitimate channels or not, it will work that way.
Its always been this way. Its never been fair. Its just you were playing by yourself till MMOs came along (limited multiplayer like counterstrike is still basically by yourself as far as this goes). You always had an unfair advantage over the deaf and blind kids, now the rich kids have an advantage over you.
I understand your point, I work 40-50 hours a week and don't have the time to play 10 hours a day. I've also bought gold.
What I believe the problem is if no one could buy the gold, the in game items would stay relatively cheap to buy and trade. As more people buy gold, the more prices are inflated. Thats the only problem I see with purchasing of gold.
But i'll still buy some more if I really want something
Its the right I have i suppose, spend my money on what I want.
I think what SOE has done is a great idea. By allowing RMT within their own system they can protect themselves. It gives them a bigger legal hammer to hit illicit gold sellers with. Instead of the fruity "they are selling our property" that was always hard to enforce they can hit them with "they are infringing on our business practices. SOE has shown that they intend to sell the gold marking it as their property to sell.
A very interesting read. I understand your point, I work 40-50 hours a week and don't have the time to play 10 hours a day. I've also bought gold. What I believe the problem is if no one could buy the gold, the in game items would stay relatively cheap to buy and trade. As more people buy gold, the more prices are inflated. Thats the only problem I see with purchasing of gold. But i'll still buy some more if I really want something Its the right I have i suppose, spend my money on what I want.
In other words as long you have fun it doesnt matter to you to screw other people who play the game too. Nice attitude, yout backname Bush or anything?
I keep seeing a common reply in this thread " purchasing virtual gold from gold farmers causes inflation". This is incorrect.
The gold was not created from thin air. It is the same gold that another character earned. The gold farmer decided not to spend the virtual gold in game and accept real life money for the virtual gold. Spending someone elses money does not cause inflation. The same ammount of gold is still in circulation in the game economy.
So people, please stop saying that buying virtual gold and transfering it between characters causes inflation in a game. It does not.
I think what SOE has done is a great idea. By allowing RMT within their own system they can protect themselves. It gives them a bigger legal hammer to hit illicit gold sellers with. Instead of the fruity "they are selling our property" that was always hard to enforce they can hit them with "they are infringing on our business practices. SOE has shown that they intend to sell the gold marking it as their property to sell.
It's just amazing how much I see this. PLAYERS sell items on Station Exchange. NOT SOE!! Why do people talk about stuff they don't really know anything about?
I keep seeing a common reply in this thread " purchasing virtual gold from gold farmers causes inflation". This is incorrect. The gold was not created from thin air. It is the same gold that another character earned. The gold farmer decided not to spend the virtual gold in game and accept real life money for the virtual gold. Spending someone elses money does not cause inflation. The same ammount of gold is still in circulation in the game economy. So people, please stop saying that buying virtual gold and transfering it between characters causes inflation in a game. It does not.
Actually, it does cause inflation. In fact, EVERY MMO will inflate over time as more people get higher levels and can hunt more stuff with better gear. It is guaranteed to happen whether gold selling occurs or not. Of course, it's easy to see that the more gold farmers are involved in the game, the faster money will infuse the economy, and that eventually the value of a piece of gold will be less then it would have been had the secondary market not been involved. However, the argument against the secondary market *because* of inflation is an invalid argument. Everyone can sell items they find at the inflated price, thus making them as well off as they would have been if the inflation didn't exist in the first place. Another poster said it best..."It's like bitching about wonder bread costing $15 a loaf when everyone makes $800,000 a year".
Something Ive started to notice is a trend in accounts getting hacked and looted and the increase of companies selling gold. For instance, a friend of mine jsut lost 4k gold last week when his account got hacked. not to mention maybe another 2k gold in items stolen off his accounts. this would generate $500 for the gold alone not to mention the items sold. so lets say $750 total in revenues. With all the accounts hacked in multiple games I would say that this is a pretty profitable buisness. Do you honestly think they just pay 100s of kids to farm for them all day? On every server? (this being just a WoW example). This would prove to be marginally profitable at best. They steal it through keyloggers and people using the same password to register on sites like thottbot.com or alakhazam.com . Then they steal your stuff and sell it back to others.
Id call it more of a Robin Hood thing than capitalism except that the poor still get nothing.
1) downloaded keylogger. Reminder people when something says FREE DOWNLOAD be careful, nothing in this world is free.
2) share their loginname and password with others. (Thats includes family and friends)
3) use loginname also on forums.
4) used powerleveling service.
5) save passwords and loginnames open on their computer. Or as i saw once have it on a note near their computer. In other words never use automatic login for websites and simply remember the login. If you want to write it down make sure that not isnt out in the open
6) Use the same login and password on every game and website they are a member from.
The real issue is once someone sells online currency, they give it a real world value, and thus the virtual coin earned for all players can be legally taxed as income. The IRS in the U.S, and some other countries are looking into taxing coin and or items you earn in the game. here is a couple articles on the subject.
There are 2 major reasons why buying online currency ruin the game for everyone else.
One, buying currency don't affect only buyer and seller. It creats hyper inflation in a game's economy. When the money is "easy" it loses value very rapidly. I've seen this in numerous games that I played. Even normal items saw sudden spike in price in excess of 500%. High end equipments priced twice as high in a matter of 2 weeks. This makes the game a lot less fun for all other who intent to play the game as it was meant to be played. Because of the laziness of gil buyers, rest of the rule abidding players will need to farm many times harder.
Also, gil sellers are not in the game for fun. They disregard basic etiquetts and take a world be damed attitude. They occupy good farming spots and would even kill (by purposely leading monsters into sight) anyone who interferes with their occupation.
So no, gil buying isn't harmless and those game makers that take actions against buyer and seller alike should be commended.
i'm just wondering, in case some techie knows, how does someone in china log onto a server in the usa?
I'm just not sure... what are the barriers to instaling a US editon of warcraft on a computer in china? or is it all ubiquitious? could i install a chinese verson of wow on my computer in the us? what regional barriers does windows have?
also, how much do the chinese pay per month to play wow? obviously if it's a US server they have to pay 15$ a month to grind for gold, but what do the chinese have to pay to play on a chinese server?
i just wonder... wouldnt it be simple to make it impossible for someone in china to log onto a wow account that is in america? or play on an american server?
--people who believe in abstinence are unsurprisingly also some of the ugliest most sexually undesired people in the world.--
There are 2 major reasons why buying online currency ruin the game for everyone else. One, buying currency don't affect only buyer and seller. It creats hyper inflation in a game's economy. When the money is "easy" it loses value very rapidly. I've seen this in numerous games that I played. Even normal items saw sudden spike in price in excess of 500%. High end equipments priced twice as high in a matter of 2 weeks. This makes the game a lot less fun for all other who intent to play the game as it was meant to be played. Because of the laziness of gil buyers, rest of the rule abidding players will need to farm many times harder. Also, gil sellers are not in the game for fun. They disregard basic etiquetts and take a world be damed attitude. They occupy good farming spots and would even kill (by purposely leading monsters into sight) anyone who interferes with their occupation. So no, gil buying isn't harmless and those game makers that take actions against buyer and seller alike should be commended.
I am going to adress this, because you are making such a blatant straw man aurgument (when you could make a valid aurgument instead).
1. Currency sales dont create inflation. Currency drops in the game do. It is not the transfer of this currency that causes inflation, it is the creation of the currency that devaluates the market as a whole.
2. Currency sellers do not cause problems in the game. (You are talking about farmers, not sellers... but I will ignore that for now.) Rude behavior does. I see the same types of rude behavior in people that are (most likely) not farming for resell, but are farming for thier guild, or for thier personal benefit. It is the farming behavior (and antisocial actions) that cause the problem. These exist no matter if the end result is sold or not.
The reality is that the game makers are not helping anyone, they are just saving face. They are knowingly ignoring the issues, but are spending the time and effort to make a good public show. You should feel confident in knowing that they dont care that the game is ruined, but are willing to spend a little time and effort to make useless ineffectual efforts, in order to keep you paying for a little longer.
Regardless of what anyone of us thinks about the sales of virtual currency, it is and always will be a reality until the games themselves actually do something to truly put an end to it. I would suggest that they have no real desire to end the practice, because to varying degrees the entire system of banning accounts that are flagged as being used for this practice benefits them.
Yeah I can hear you know. How can this can be ? Well, if you ban an account for a EULA violation what do you really think will happen to the farmer ? (not that they or the company they work for only have one account) The Farmer isn't going to quit farming. No, they just buy another copy of the game and continue on about the business of farming, eventually get the account banned, and start the process over again. The banning of accounts for this type of behavior is probably far more common than any of us realize, and the devs only make announcements when the activity in any one area has become so obnoxious that community outcry forces them to make changes in the area and publicly announce the changes and perhaps a mass banning. (nothing like watching 100's of bots running the same path).
This means more sales and the perpetuation of any monthly fees. Units sold, and ongoing sales are the single most important measurable as an indicator of a games success. Without question this entire process inflates sales numbers.
Look 95% of any games players could never accumulate the amount of currency that is sold by these farmers. Of the remaining 5% carrying this much currency, the reasons for it to be moved around in great quantities in one time transactions is fairly defined. You can't tell me that if an algorithm can be written to flag suspicious account behavior, this information isn't already available. The data is there and it would be obvious to anyone that looked at it what was occurring.
Knowing this, how can they effectively stop the casual player from making these purchases if by banning the casual player they are hurting themselves ? They can't afford to do this. If Joe Avg play Goblin Wars 14 hrs a week and decides to make a purchase of 1000 orc ears to enhance his playing experience, which in turn means Joe Avg will continue playing the game, how could they afford to ? If Joe Avg gets banned, he's far less likely to go and buy another copy of the game and change his evil ways. No, most likely he will just move on to another game and spend his money there.
This argument does not include the impact on the economy caused by BS sites that advertise things like god mode or other free downloads that are actually key loggers, however they are certainly part of the picture. This type of activity is another unique problem but it bears mentioning that the "shops" that house farming operations are sometimes operating these types of operations in concert.
The success of any game is based on the total units sold and it's ability to retain players.
I am going to adress this, because you are making such a blatant straw man aurgument (when you could make a valid aurgument instead).
1. Currency sales dont create inflation. Currency drops in the game do. It is not the transfer of this currency that causes inflation, it is the creation of the currency that devaluates the market as a whole.
2. Currency sellers do not cause problems in the game. (You are talking about farmers, not sellers... but I will ignore that for now.) Rude behavior does. I see the same types of rude behavior in people that are (most likely) not farming for resell, but are farming for thier guild, or for thier personal benefit. It is the farming behavior (and antisocial actions) that cause the problem. These exist no matter if the end result is sold or not.
The reality is that the game makers are not helping anyone, they are just saving face. They are knowingly ignoring the issues, but are spending the time and effort to make a good public show. You should feel confident in knowing that they dont care that the game is ruined, but are willing to spend a little time and effort to make useless ineffectual efforts, in order to keep you paying for a little longer.
Gil selling and buying in many cases do create unnatural hyper inflation. Back in December of 2005 a couple major gil selling vendors had excess supply of FF XI currency and were doing a Christmas promotion sales at 1/10 original price. Many players got baited and within 2 weeks all servers were flooded with cheap money and cycles of escalating prices. Square-Enix decided to do a purge of sellers and to lesser extent buyers for the first time. Thousands of accounts were canceled and prices stablized.
So while gil selling and buying do not single handedly create inflation, when seller unleashes a sudden large quantity of damed up gils into a game they create hyper inflation.
Also, while it is true rude behaviors exist independently of gil selling and buying, the scheme encourages more rude behaviors. Gil farmers in places like China can easily make more than average GDP per person selling gils. If my livelihood depends on farming large quantity of virtual currency, I too would do whatever I can to bring in a bigger pay check. Good manner won't put food on the table.
From my point of view, I don't want to discuss if gold sellers are good or not. Because I do not know any of them personally. But there are two negative things to say about.
First they will destroy the ingame value balance.
Second you can hear that some of them (I am sure not all of them) are forcing poor people to do the job. I don't have seen a proof for that, but I really want to take this seriously ... and therefore I prefer to deny such services.
My wish to the developmers of MMO is to put an oportunity to the game where gamers can buy items.
And make it in a way where you can either play for one item (if you are one of those having lot of time, but less of money) or buy one item (if your are one of those having lot of money, but less of time).
Everbody can get the same item, but by different ways.
I know that I am a simple guy, to expect that it could work that simple. But maybe it is exactly that easy.
Comments
But more importantly; why should games be like real life? It's not like I can fly spaceships in real life? Or ride around the world on a raptor? Or go questing with my other fellow mages? Games are not supposed to real life, they are a break from real life, at least temporary.
Game currency should not be sold by anyone but the gaming company for one simple reason; farming. They farm the best spots in games, often leaving the real players with scraps or nothing at all.
i agree that money grinding should be toned down. However the notion that you should be allowed to buy virtual currency in say WoW or DAoC simply because you want to is invalid. Fine, it can be excruciatingly annoying to get something you want, but in the end (through the terms of use and other stuff) buying virtual currency in those games is considered cheating. An unfair advantage towards other players.
Purchasing ingame currency creates inflation on rare items, brings imbalance to a server's economy and supports exploitation. I recently read an article about a documentary on goldfarmers and the people who sell the gold work in pretty bad conditions.
Hope that was an objective view... All that aside, if you don't like the way a game plays, perhaps you should look for a different game rather than try to gain an unfair advantage by purchasing currency.
I haven't had a chance to read all the poss yet, but when I first read Joe's article I was wondering if he was being serious.
I'm a casual player, and it doesn't really bother me who has what gear, although I can see why it would irritate some people who try to play the games fairly.
What irks me, is that when people are using these gold buying/powerleveling web-sites they are ensuring that our games are being plagued by bots.
People either using third party programs to keep up with the gold buyers, or mostly the actual people who run the sites. Now, if you are judging it from WoW, you probably see the odd bot running around like a headless chicken, and it doesn't appear to be much of a problem, but look at the other games where bots have just about destroyed the games. I presume you have not played Lineage 2?
That game is indicative of what happens when this problem is not nipped in the bud. Not only is there very few real people, as most are bots (thus not much of a community, which a lot of people play MMO's for in the first place), but it also destroys a servers economy. Items in L2 are too over priced so that even the top end players cannot afford to buy top grade gear (as it literally costs millions of adena - their equivalent of gold). So if you are happy with this, then keep supporting the gold farmers, and soon your game will become over-run too.
On a personal level, I think it's a bit sad if you feel the need to pay real money for money in a game. It's like playing a game of monopoly and slipping the player who is the banker some real cash for some monopoly notes.
Apart from the fact that it is cheating, but I guess the previous posts have covered all of those implications.
As for the example of the game that uses real money to buy in game items? Well, you can hardly compare that to the gold sellers, as this is a legitimate aspect of that particular game, and probably how the company manages to fund it. So when you play that type of game you realise that you are probably going to have to deal with that as a consequence of getting to play the game for free.
And as usual in this arguement, there will probably be (I will read the posts after I've written this one) those people who claim that they are just wanting to be able to keep up with their in-game buddies so they can continue to raid together. So, are certain people allowed to break the rules because of their situation? Bit of a selfish attitude that.
Simply put, if it's against the rules of the game, then it's cheating, and by supporting the gold farmers, you are ruining the game for everyone else so you can have your fun.
Hi, everybody!
I am one of those aged players, spending most of their time by job and family. And for the few time remaining I want to have the same amount of fun out of a game as other people ... with more time for gaming by any reason.
Therefore I agree that developers and designers should do their job to balance a game and find mechanism that either I can buy or grind stuff.
And if they do not like companies selling virtual currency for real money ... they should create their own shops, where I can buy virutal equipment.
From my point of view this is not a malicious thing to the gameplay.
Cheers!
You should have read my post... lots of ways to ruin other peoples fun...this is only one of them....
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
If a day WoW create a external economy for the game, the internal economy will fail, because no mats in offers, no equipes, no instances to get good itens... well... real life and virtual life is differents worlds, not compatibles.
That idea is not for all games... but in games that economy is the same of WoW, L2... that rules work fine. For me, I make quests, and get some hours of my week to work, my char will get lvl more late, but is the game, you have to see /played time, not common/real hours or based in another players.
obs: I work, 8-9hrs, married.
The swet shop argument is equaly dumb. OOH! Poor underage children in foreign countries, forced to PLAY VIDEO GAMES FOR A LIVING. It's awful, I know. Im sure they're wishing they could form a union for such an awful job :P
I also can't believe how concerned people get about the unballancing factor. Guess what, you've been playing under these condidtions for as long as there have been MMOs, and it doesn't affect you one little bit wether or not the rich kid's bought his junk. You still win in PvP, PvE is still ballanced, and the economy is still stable. Get a grip, these arguments are baseless.
The only valid argument is the cheating factor: it IS against the rules (except where it's not). The only reason it's against the rules is because game companied don't get to see a cut of the money from the trades. That's it. It has nothing to do with fair play or ballance or that awful "sweatshop" job. But you have to wonder: We've had successful models of game companies creating secure trading services that get them their cut, why not make that standard practice?
Why not? Because of idiots who think their game will become unballanced-- you people who have no idea what youre talking about. Because you already play under these condidtions.
http://erickveil.com/
As long as the gold farmers are not hindering me in anyway, I will ignore them. If they provide grouping options, I will cheer them. If they are hindering me, I will report them if the staff is officially against that point. For example, they are preventing me from hunting an area, I will use anything fair to get that camp spot, which in some games means calling devs since their design lack in the first place, with good use of instancing, this problematic never arise.
As long as they bring an additionnal option, even if I don't see any reason to use it, I don't see a problem myself. If I feel I have to purchase anything to be competitive, I will trash the dev just like when they enforce raiding on me. Dictating a gameplay/use or gold farmers would always get me unhappy, but if they are merely an alternate path, I will discard it and resume my groups. In the long run, if the prices would be too low, it could get me unhappy as well, but that would be, in the very long run. As if someone could just get everything for $1, and the option is to play 6 months...not cool at all. But if it cost them more than a monthly fee for a monthly amount of rewards...don't care at all.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
...what we discussing here?
The problem is your game was made in, is played in, and runs on computers sitting in the real world. It had to happen eventually. Gaming is fumbling out of its protected adolescence into the harsh adult world. When we all played single player games we had a personal instance of the game world. There were no other people to compare our lifestyle to so it had little effect on how "well" we did in the game (unless we were blind or deaf or had one hand etc. the "real" world has always intruded on gaming for people with these handicaps).
Now that we game with many people across vast networks we have to compare ourselves to other people. Some peoples' real life circumstances are bound to aid them in the game. Gaming is not (as many people seem to believe, with no real proof) a communist utopia existing inside our capitalist society. It is just that every world (virtual or not) seems to be a communist utopia when you are the only one in it. Well now you have to share it. MMOs are not MMOs unless they have a society. And as long as the social structure of MMOs is based around competition it will be impossible for them not to be subject to capitalism (by definition). You have a society, its competitive, thus money matters. Thats how it works. Through legitimate channels or not, it will work that way.
Its always been this way. Its never been fair. Its just you were playing by yourself till MMOs came along (limited multiplayer like counterstrike is still basically by yourself as far as this goes). You always had an unfair advantage over the deaf and blind kids, now the rich kids have an advantage over you.
A very interesting read.
I understand your point, I work 40-50 hours a week and don't have the time to play 10 hours a day. I've also bought gold.
What I believe the problem is if no one could buy the gold, the in game items would stay relatively cheap to buy and trade. As more people buy gold, the more prices are inflated. Thats the only problem I see with purchasing of gold.
But i'll still buy some more if I really want something
Its the right I have i suppose, spend my money on what I want.
I keep seeing a common reply in this thread " purchasing virtual gold from gold farmers causes inflation". This is incorrect.
The gold was not created from thin air. It is the same gold that another character earned. The gold farmer decided not to spend the virtual gold in game and accept real life money for the virtual gold. Spending someone elses money does not cause inflation. The same ammount of gold is still in circulation in the game economy.
So people, please stop saying that buying virtual gold and transfering it between characters causes inflation in a game. It does not.
Actually, it does cause inflation. In fact, EVERY MMO will inflate over time as more people get higher levels and can hunt more stuff with better gear. It is guaranteed to happen whether gold selling occurs or not. Of course, it's easy to see that the more gold farmers are involved in the game, the faster money will infuse the economy, and that eventually the value of a piece of gold will be less then it would have been had the secondary market not been involved. However, the argument against the secondary market *because* of inflation is an invalid argument. Everyone can sell items they find at the inflated price, thus making them as well off as they would have been if the inflation didn't exist in the first place. Another poster said it best..."It's like bitching about wonder bread costing $15 a loaf when everyone makes $800,000 a year".
Id call it more of a Robin Hood thing than capitalism except that the poor still get nothing.
1) downloaded keylogger. Reminder people when something says FREE DOWNLOAD be careful, nothing in this world is free.
2) share their loginname and password with others. (Thats includes family and friends)
3) use loginname also on forums.
4) used powerleveling service.
5) save passwords and loginnames open on their computer. Or as i saw once have it on a note near their computer. In other words never use automatic login for websites and simply remember the login. If you want to write it down make sure that not isnt out in the open
6) Use the same login and password on every game and website they are a member from.
The real issue is once someone sells online currency, they give it a real world value, and thus the virtual coin earned for all players can be legally taxed as income. The IRS in the U.S, and some other countries are looking into taxing coin and or items you earn in the game. here is a couple articles on the subject.
news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070130/tc_pcworld/128270
terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2006/01/the_taxman_come.html
news.com.com/2100-1043_3-6140298.html
This is the main factor why I am against selling virtual items/coin.
There are 2 major reasons why buying online currency ruin the game for everyone else.
One, buying currency don't affect only buyer and seller. It creats hyper inflation in a game's economy. When the money is "easy" it loses value very rapidly. I've seen this in numerous games that I played. Even normal items saw sudden spike in price in excess of 500%. High end equipments priced twice as high in a matter of 2 weeks. This makes the game a lot less fun for all other who intent to play the game as it was meant to be played. Because of the laziness of gil buyers, rest of the rule abidding players will need to farm many times harder.
Also, gil sellers are not in the game for fun. They disregard basic etiquetts and take a world be damed attitude. They occupy good farming spots and would even kill (by purposely leading monsters into sight) anyone who interferes with their occupation.
So no, gil buying isn't harmless and those game makers that take actions against buyer and seller alike should be commended.
i'm just wondering, in case some techie knows, how does someone in china log onto a server in the usa?
I'm just not sure... what are the barriers to instaling a US editon of warcraft on a computer in china? or is it all ubiquitious? could i install a chinese verson of wow on my computer in the us? what regional barriers does windows have?
also, how much do the chinese pay per month to play wow? obviously if it's a US server they have to pay 15$ a month to grind for gold, but what do the chinese have to pay to play on a chinese server?
i just wonder... wouldnt it be simple to make it impossible for someone in china to log onto a wow account that is in america? or play on an american server?
--people who believe in abstinence are unsurprisingly also some of the ugliest most sexually undesired people in the world.--
I am going to adress this, because you are making such a blatant straw man aurgument (when you could make a valid aurgument instead).
1. Currency sales dont create inflation. Currency drops in the game do. It is not the transfer of this currency that causes inflation, it is the creation of the currency that devaluates the market as a whole.
2. Currency sellers do not cause problems in the game. (You are talking about farmers, not sellers... but I will ignore that for now.) Rude behavior does. I see the same types of rude behavior in people that are (most likely) not farming for resell, but are farming for thier guild, or for thier personal benefit. It is the farming behavior (and antisocial actions) that cause the problem. These exist no matter if the end result is sold or not.
The reality is that the game makers are not helping anyone, they are just saving face. They are knowingly ignoring the issues, but are spending the time and effort to make a good public show. You should feel confident in knowing that they dont care that the game is ruined, but are willing to spend a little time and effort to make useless ineffectual efforts, in order to keep you paying for a little longer.
Regardless of what anyone of us thinks about the sales of virtual currency, it is and always will be a reality until the games themselves actually do something to truly put an end to it. I would suggest that they have no real desire to end the practice, because to varying degrees the entire system of banning accounts that are flagged as being used for this practice benefits them.
Yeah I can hear you know. How can this can be ? Well, if you ban an account for a EULA violation what do you really think will happen to the farmer ? (not that they or the company they work for only have one account) The Farmer isn't going to quit farming. No, they just buy another copy of the game and continue on about the business of farming, eventually get the account banned, and start the process over again. The banning of accounts for this type of behavior is probably far more common than any of us realize, and the devs only make announcements when the activity in any one area has become so obnoxious that community outcry forces them to make changes in the area and publicly announce the changes and perhaps a mass banning. (nothing like watching 100's of bots running the same path).
This means more sales and the perpetuation of any monthly fees. Units sold, and ongoing sales are the single most important measurable as an indicator of a games success. Without question this entire process inflates sales numbers.
Look 95% of any games players could never accumulate the amount of currency that is sold by these farmers. Of the remaining 5% carrying this much currency, the reasons for it to be moved around in great quantities in one time transactions is fairly defined. You can't tell me that if an algorithm can be written to flag suspicious account behavior, this information isn't already available. The data is there and it would be obvious to anyone that looked at it what was occurring.
Knowing this, how can they effectively stop the casual player from making these purchases if by banning the casual player they are hurting themselves ? They can't afford to do this. If Joe Avg play Goblin Wars 14 hrs a week and decides to make a purchase of 1000 orc ears to enhance his playing experience, which in turn means Joe Avg will continue playing the game, how could they afford to ? If Joe Avg gets banned, he's far less likely to go and buy another copy of the game and change his evil ways. No, most likely he will just move on to another game and spend his money there.
This argument does not include the impact on the economy caused by BS sites that advertise things like god mode or other free downloads that are actually key loggers, however they are certainly part of the picture. This type of activity is another unique problem but it bears mentioning that the "shops" that house farming operations are sometimes operating these types of operations in concert.
The success of any game is based on the total units sold and it's ability to retain players.
Gil selling and buying in many cases do create unnatural hyper inflation. Back in December of 2005 a couple major gil selling vendors had excess supply of FF XI currency and were doing a Christmas promotion sales at 1/10 original price. Many players got baited and within 2 weeks all servers were flooded with cheap money and cycles of escalating prices. Square-Enix decided to do a purge of sellers and to lesser extent buyers for the first time. Thousands of accounts were canceled and prices stablized.
So while gil selling and buying do not single handedly create inflation, when seller unleashes a sudden large quantity of damed up gils into a game they create hyper inflation.
Also, while it is true rude behaviors exist independently of gil selling and buying, the scheme encourages more rude behaviors. Gil farmers in places like China can easily make more than average GDP per person selling gils. If my livelihood depends on farming large quantity of virtual currency, I too would do whatever I can to bring in a bigger pay check. Good manner won't put food on the table.
From my point of view, I don't want to discuss if gold sellers are good or not. Because I do not know any of them personally. But there are two negative things to say about.
First they will destroy the ingame value balance.
Second you can hear that some of them (I am sure not all of them) are forcing poor people to do the job. I don't have seen a proof for that, but I really want to take this seriously ... and therefore I prefer to deny such services.
My wish to the developmers of MMO is to put an oportunity to the game where gamers can buy items.
And make it in a way where you can either play for one item (if you are one of those having lot of time, but less of money) or buy one item (if your are one of those having lot of money, but less of time).
Everbody can get the same item, but by different ways.
I know that I am a simple guy, to expect that it could work that simple. But maybe it is exactly that easy.
Cheers!