PVP:Yes | Distribution:Download,Retail | Retail Price:$19.99 | Pay Type:Subscription
Desktop Client | System Req:
| ESRB:T
World of Warcraft General Article: Musing on Buying Gold
MMORPG.com World of warcraft Correspondent Billy Gallon muses on the concept of buying gold and its impact, both negative and positive, on the game.
By William Gallon on May 14, 2009
As well all know, one of the ultimate sins of playing an MMO such as World of Warcraft is buying gold. This article is not meant to be a flame starter, more of an eye opener to see both sides of the story. I realize that people will strongly stand on one side or the other of the issue, but this is meant to be informative about how gold farming works, and how it affects the economy.
Putting aside the fact for a moment that gold farmers regularly hack people's accounts in order to get fast gold, let's look at the gold sellers that get their gold "legitimately" by farming it. Usually, these farmers will be on teams, with each person on a server, being paid to farm as much gold as possible to be sold off later. If they are doing this by farming crafting materials, this can have negative AND positive effects on the economy.
I realize right now, you're probably thinking to yourself: "Well, this guy must be a gold buyer if he thinks there are any positive aspects." You would be wrong, however, as I prefer to not risk losing my account and all of my time over a bit of gold that I could easily farm myself. What is being looked at more here is the fact that gold farmers are able to go back to the older content, and farm items that normally wouldn't be sold. For example: If a gold farming company finds that maybe farming Large Brilliant Shards is profitable due to nobody else farming them, and they are able to make the largest turn over possible from this, they will do so. This will put Large Brilliant Shards into the market for the server, allowing enchanters who are either leveling up their professions or just doing low level enchants easy access to the materials. Without this farming being done, they would either have to farm the materials themselves, find a friend or guild mate with them, or spam trade chat for hours hoping to find someone that has what they need. This would be a large inconvenience to some people, deterring them away from what they were planning on doing. Another example is low level gear. Say someone decides they want to power level an alternate character, to fill a spot their guild needs in raids. They want to have the best gear possible while leveling, to reduce the amount of time they will be leveling. They buy their gear ahead of time, but they are missing a large amount of gear for a certain level gap, causing them to create a larger demand on this gear. This is a bit more of an extreme example, but it is possible. This player would then have to go farm the gear himself, spending more time (the exact thing he was trying to avoid in the first place), take longer to level (also causing him to have to spend more time), or just avoid leveling the character altogether, causing the guild to be missing a possibly much needed player to fill a certain role in their raid.
While I am trying to point out the positives of this, I will also acknowledge the negatives. As we all know, if gold farmers really did nothing but just farm, they would be a bit less of a problem in games. However, gold farmers tend to spam random players, or trade chat, with advertisements to their website. Blizzard has taken a stand against this (going so far as to shut down peons4hire and acquiring their web domain) and adding the "report spam" feature in chat to quickly remove gold spammers from the game. The spamming is a bit of a nuisance on normal servers, but on RP servers it can completely ruin the attitude and setting of someone. Also, gold farmers tend to key log people in order to gain access to their account. They then strip them of their gold, and either sell all of their gear as well or use them to spam advertisements or to farm more gold, with either resulting in them being banned.
This practice hurts the player base a lot, as compared to someone trying to power level their alt to fill a slot in their guild, they may be doing so at the expense of a necessary player, or possibly even the leader of another guild. Also, depending on the company, some gold sellers like to take your credit card info and make personal purchases with it after they have sold you the gold. This could cause you a large amount of financial distress, depending on your real life situation and how much they decide they want to take from you. There is also the risk of not even receiving the gold that you had purchased, with nothing you are able to do due to the fact that purchasing gold is against Blizzard's terms of service, and very few credit card companies, banking companies and even Pay Pal will help you because gold and items are considered "intangible goods".
The solution to this problem? So far, it seems as if cash shops are a way to go. Many free MMORPGs use this method to keep their games financially afloat, selling anywhere from in game money and costumes to the best items in the game. This allows you to spend money on what you want, allowing you to lower time invested and have fun sooner. CCP (The creators of EVE Online) have found a bit of a happy medium to buying gold. They allow players to buy game time and convert it to an in game item, which is then able to be sold for a hefty amount of ISK (EVE's version of currency). This has a much smaller impact on the economy, as ISK is not being generated to be sold; however, the ISK still must be farmed by someone in order to be spent. This did not stop gold sellers on EVE, but it reduced their numbers by a large amount, and deterred people from risking their accounts when they want to buy ISK and offered them a safe alternative. SOE is more towards the far end, where they set up a shop where players are able to safely buy and sell gold and characters to each other, and SOE handles the transaction. This is the same as gold selling, however, only SOE is making more of a profit off of it, and allowing it in their game. World of Warcraft attempts to stop this problem by having a zero tolerance policy, meaning that if you are caught participating in real money trade, you will be banned permanently. This deters people who care about their accounts, but still leaves those who are willing to take the risk for easy gold and save themselves some time.
Buying gold in WOW is cheating. You are looking for ways to rationalize cheating. Did I miss something here?
Your ramble on why cheating may be good for WOW was neither an "eye opener" nor "informative."
^
Er...and your post was informative and added to the discussion in what way? Yeah.
I think the best deterrent to the problem is for developers to redesign their games so that players with the most free time to play the game are not rewarded vs those who can't. Most gold buyers don't do it to gain a huge competitive edge, but rather to ease their journey in the game and help to acquire items such as mounts, housing or decent gear that normally can only be obtained by people who raid for 5 hours a night.
The economic side of a game is important, so you can't totally eliminate gold, WOW does a good job in balancing this IMO between what you can spend gold on vs what can only be earned in a raid and is BOP.
As long as games are designed around a gold economy, and the best things in the game are available to those with the most gold, people will find ways to buy it if they can't earn it.
You always here people say, why buy gold when its so easy to earn it. I'm not sure what they are talking about? I've never found gold easy to earn and have always scrabbled for every piece.
A lot of that is due to my limited play time, farming a few hours a week just won't do it in some games, you need to farm forever.
I remember when I had my first character in DAOC, an Infiltrator, and I was proud of my new "Epic" gear.
A person I leveled up with was wearing a fully player crafted set, and told me it cost her (him?) 22 Platinum to purchase.
At the time I had like 1.5 Platinum in my bag, and I asked, how did you ever earn that much Plat? They replied, well, I farmed so and so instance with this character and my bot for about 2 weeks, 8-10 hours a day.
Sigh.....I never did get decent gear for that character, (and it was very gear dependent), I ended up rerolling a Minstrel which cost much less to outfit. (about 5 Plat which was within my reach).
Gold buying/farming destroys the economy theres no other way to put it , an eye opener for what ? Will we see a support poor chineese farmer that spends entire days in farming camps to make a living ?
Making gold buying legal would destroy even more the economy so the rich people in real life would have a clear advantage over people who have less money , even though i hate WoW (played for a long time but the game went in a direction i dont like) i support Blizzard in their no tolerance toward gold buying , you buy gold you cheat you re banned
you are joking if you think Blizzard does a 0 tolerance polity.... they tolerate a lot... so long as no one start to claim them to do somethink ....
for gold selling and buying activities they give warnings, 3 days bans ... or just ignore it. .as long as no trouble is made by this..
I know many of this from own experience or from what happen to people I know
but blizzard react hard to people who got invlved in thsi and then get there account stolen or otherwise harmed because of this .. this will end in a ban instead of support (it is easier)... the main polity for blizzard is to have the flexibility to react if they want but to be able to not react at all
and to some degrees they even protect companys that trade characters (I mean not the ebay private seller) but the big char traders.. because of they never rewoke char transfers
by the way in oppesite to the regular cheating , there Blizzard shows no mercy
My main concern with the article is that I don't find it to be sufficiently in-depth. For example, it only lists one supposed benefit. I'm sure it was well-intentioned, but probably not well-researched and thought out enough. I would expect more research and more detail from an article purporting to list the pros and cons of something. Sorry, that's just my own personal expectation.
What the author forgets is that there are ways around buying gold, most MMO's set their alarms to trigger on large amounts of gold. Best bet is for players to buy in smaller bulk and infrequently too. I do agree that lessening the value of items in terms of price are what hurts the farmers more so, but then they stop farming something particular if it stops being so. Finding a balance to this type of transaction is never easy and constant monitoring just needs to be done. Bots are really the worse of the gold farmers because you can not reason with them and when you kill them you get bombarded with trash talking PM's or some ass-hat kills you with a well geared higher level character.
Granted there is no true way of ever getting rid of gold farmers, there here to stay because there will always be a demand to buy gold.
I would say a good idea would be to make marketing more efficient and more of an independent free market. Sort of what SWG was like in the days, with things such as: player hosing/shops in cities, instance or random places in the world. (Though I believe instance housing would be the only way to go for WoW.) This would give the game a more realistic and professional feel of freedom while dependence on whatever your business is. Also, reducing the amount of money regular mobs drop, this would increase the power of gold by reducing the farming methods in witch someone could either farm or buy it.
what's the point in buying gold in WoW now, it is so easy to get these days. it was not the same before BC, but now, you can just roll a DK, play for a couple of minutes and you can give a serious amount of gold to your level 1 toon lol
It's funny how similar the behavior of religious fanatics and some of the people against gold selling is. This thread is going to be great at finding new users to block so I never have to read their irrational posts :)
3 people on this thread have already proven to be completly unable to get out of their magical bubble where everything is black and white. Their world must be really boring if they can't see colors
The ALMIGHTY Dollar. Hmm I JEST at thee. Whats another one oh yeah Money makes the world go around. I guess that can apply to a virtual world just as well. Oh my favorite one of them all is nothing to do you with you its all about BUSINESS. Hmm It depends in who is scrupulous or not Me I am the CAPTAIN America of the MMO world I STAND tall and with pride when I play. I will always choose the good side over the bad side which is why I wont play the Horde side. A little Shallow I guess but a stand I made. I feel I can be better then any HORDE player out there.
Now the issue of gold buying. I LOATH those who do it and if you are so COWARD enough to farm for it on either side then whatever. Just know that my toon will STILL kick your toons butt because vertual always win.
Your ARGUMENT is not VALID if you can Justify gold selling. then would that mean you can CHEAT in RL also???
Hmm let me ask you that it is ok to CHEAT in a virtual world so buy your thought it is ok to cheat in the RL world.
Sorry not my CUP of tea.
I think you were too busy trying to be a smart ass to actually read the posts.
Aside from the fact that the rules of the game are pretty black and white for any ethical person...
I clearly stated that my stance was on cheating in WOW. I at no point stated that I was against RMT, just at cheating in a game.
Now, if you feel that being against cheating in a multiplayer game is irrational, that's simply something that we can't help you with.
face the reality some people have more money some have more time, both are happy with the deal
as long as all comes from normal regular ingame play I can see no big problem in this... the problems start with the side effekts of the deal (bloody annoying spamming, hacking and so on) not the deal itself
I guess I just have a different perspective.
My first MMOrpg was Ultima Online... it was not against the rules to use ebay. They endorsed ebay... They eventually even added the official account transfer service so that if I sold you an account for $25 it would officially move to you for ownership. Along with a few other things.
I had never really thought about it. I was surfing around ebay looking at Commodore Amiga hardware and figured I'm search for Ultima Online. I was amazed at the things I saw there.... and I noticed people paying $1500 for towers... I happened to own one. I thought it was somewhat crazy.
I sold many UO accounts on Ebay... I'd buy accounts that were "half done" (best term I have) for low prices.. finish them and resell them. I was making more money on ebay than I was working (at that time).
Then again it wasn't an industry then... it was just a bunch of people with to much money (buyers) and individuals who sold some items.
So that is the perspective I have...
The issue now is the fact that it became an industry. If it was still this kinda hobby thing with a few sellers and buyers people would probably have a different attitude. When I started running into "farmer" groups... was being endless spammed and they were hacking accounts left and right... then I regretted that people had ever bought "in game" items.
So I also have ^ that perspective. I've personally never bought gold/plat... after UO I sold a few accounts in DAoC (which they allow.. oddly you can sell accounts but they don't want you to sell "plat", unless its on an account).
Short version: When you consider what it turned into I can see why people are against it. I just think having played UO I have a different perspective. Along with the fact that even unattended macroing wasn't "against the rules" back then... only later did they change it so it was.
when did all this bullshit come out about gold farmers hacking accounts?
Buying gold for me was just a way to allow me to compete with those who could sit and farm for hours and hours on end.
It gave me nothing that my own skills could not have given me, it just saved me a lot of time and let me spend more time actually having fun.
While it was certainly against "the rules", I never considered it "cheating". And I still don't.
If you have to buy gold in WOW you should really quit MMO's. WOW is the easiest game to make money in that i have ever played. When i quit i had over 6000 gold and took care of my main and three alts, including a PVP twink.
theres three good reasons not to buy gold in an mmo . the first is half the fun is actually saving it yourself .the second is it could get your account banned and thirdly if your daft enough to pay them with your credit or debit card you could end up losing a lot more than your account . i know someone that this happened to .
Half the fun is saving your money? Were this true, couldn't you just save your real money by not playing wow, and thus have even more fun?
at about the same time people started getting accounts hacked, every single item worth gold sold and then the account got a ban for illegal gold trading.
at about the same time people started getting accounts hacked, every single item worth gold sold and then the account got a ban for illegal gold trading.
but thats never happened so GG?
Yes it is, in **WOW**. I personally detest gold spammers myself, and those who get ripped off by them have only themselves to blame. That having been said, in some other games its a matter of choice. No one is forcing anyone to buy cash shop items. But they can make a big difference, depending on the game. It all depends on the games dynamics and business model. Personally, I'd rather spend some real money on something of use, than endless hours raiding. Especially given the social dynamics and random nature of such raids.
Thats been speading for a long time. Keyloggers and such. Not to mention the fools who use power leveling services. One of the best ways to keep your account safe is to use one of Blizzards digital authenticators. The other of course is to not visit gold selling or power leveling sites.
Thats been speading for a long time. Keyloggers and such. Not to mention the fools who use power leveling services. One of the best ways to keep your account safe is to use one of Blizzards digital authenticators. The other of course is to not visit gold selling or power leveling sites.
You do know how keyloggers work right?
I say just price cap everything. As long as there is an economy in a game and the players have some control over it, this kind of thing will be going on. Blizzard has done nothing but make gold sellers more wanted in the game. Look at the chopper, the vendor mats are what, around 12kG or so, maybe 15, not sure. Don't get me wrong, I know how easy it is to get gold in WoW, but 12kG is a LOT. They add more and more overpriced items to the game and wonder why some peeps buy gold. Don't give me that argument about prices only being high because of gold sellers. That's crap. There are people in these games that play just to make money. When they do that, and it's a free market, prices get run up. Then you addons like auctioneer that can be an actual tool to run the market up. If Blizz capped everything at prices that were kind of hard to get but not totally out of reach for everyone, then most of this would go away. Smaller games would be different I would think, but with almost 12 million subscriptions the market will be out of hand. IMO anyway
Z
You do know how keyloggers work right?
Yes. You do know some of their methods of application?
Yes it is, in **WOW**. I personally detest gold spammers myself, and those who get ripped off by them have only themselves to blame. That having been said, in some other games its a matter of choice. No one is forcing anyone to buy cash shop items. But they can make a big difference, depending on the game. It all depends on the games dynamics and business model. Personally, I'd rather spend some real money on something of use, than endless hours raiding. Especially given the social dynamics and random nature of such raids.
Very well said. I feel the same way on the matter.
Im sorry but your musing just re-inforce what is wrong with todays breed of gamer and what is so annoying about WOW.
You mentioned that it brings items to the front that people wouldnt normally farm, ie large brilliant shards. Allowing enchanters to level up more easily.
Firstly these enchanters are now unknowingly feeding a farming trade.
and 2ndly you mention that this means they wont have to do it themselves.
This is the crutch for me.
Do it themselves.....grrrr ie instant gain with no pain.
A large majority of todays gamer couldn't handle old skool games becuase they made you work hard for your rewards - take EQ for a shining example.
You pretty much had bust your spleen to get anywhere.
Todays gamer would quit after the first 10minutes without some phat loot dropping at their feet. They need to have a goal - half the time in the games there was no goal it was all pure luck of the draw. Todays gamer would simply refuse to do it. "I cant see any clear goal so why should i?"
Which just reinforces the point really - large brilliant shards arent selling why should i go get them? - because you want them dofus.
You say the farmers stimulate the market - players can do this, but again people have to put effort in and sadly most of players who play wow - wont unless they know theres some purple shiny reward at the end.
Thus showing that WOW is not as "open world" or "free to do what you want" - its led by schoolboy mentality - stick with the pack dont stand out and follow like sheep.
Gold farmers kill player economies and raise prices on what is an already inflated market, the market will cap out at one point and you end up with any new player immediately being deterred by a sky high ecomony that could never hope to join until they hit endgame at least.
Fair point your trying to make but it doesnt cut the mustard
Ifs its old EQ yeah its understandable that gold sellers have an appeal. Even before the influx of gold farmers, items were already selling at thousand plats each. For a newbie who want some good gear, 1k plat is unimaginable. Added to that many good gear are tradable, not even bind on equip, and all gear are equippable on a lvl 1.
Now we talk about WoW. The best gear has level limits. The lvl 80 gear is expensive, but when you make it to lvl 80, you should not have problems earning money for it. Low level blues, oh dear, why do I care about lvl 60 gear? I fly by all levels till 68, and only using quest rewards. Till I hit 60, I never bother look at xp, I ding every few hours or less. Till 68, till I hit northrend things are push over. The only real money outlays are mounts and till lvl 70, the mounts are dirt cheap.
The really expensive things are post lvl 80. The enchanting (if you want those enc using abyss crystal) and gems (if you always gem out every piece of stop gap gear with the best gem) could add up quickly. So exercise caution and sense. For stop gap blue gear from 80 heroics, use green gems, or perfect whatever green gems. Its only 19 vs 17 or so +str, I forgot. That extra +2 str is not going to gimp you, given that the blue gear itself is a gimp if you insist on comparing it to lvl 213 epics.
Work out a plan to let money in. Not really farm. Just let money in. Loot mobs, clear bags before you head out, so you can collect vendor trash. Organise loot and try not to sell anything you might need later. Mail system and bank alts are your friends. 30copper per item mailed, you can organise them well, so you need not buy anything you happen to collect on and off.
Oh come on, these are just common sense, and with common sense, I am sitting on some 50+k gold across my few alts, never having an idea what I need to buy. After an epic land and flying mount, and gemming/enchanting only lvl 200+ gear (now only 213+ gear with patch 3.2), I have no other use for money. By the way, start crafting. In the long run, it pays off. I never farm the AH, I hardly sell on AH, I only sell to friends or give gear to friends. They return the favour with other forms of help. Say they cut my gems before I got my JC gear high enough.
The good thing about WoW is multifacet. You got many aspects of gaming in one package, and by playing them all together, you feel more variety than just raiding endlessly the same naxx and thaddius or KT. Trying out all crafts also broadens my own understanding of the game, of the issues others are talking about. Heck, I dunno why ppl are so upset and insistent on doing JC dailies everyday till I hit lvl 65 and talk the the JC trainer in dalaran. That is one new aspect of the game I discovered, and one more "fun" and "distress" noted, lol.
Buying money or powerlvling to 80? You miss most of the bit and pieces that makes the whole game. Heck, I actually relevelling a priest from lvl 1 just to try out a new levelling crafting combo. So much to replan and retry, and by the time I finished lvl 80 and 2x450 crafting, I am sitting on 6k gold on another alt. There is no need to hurry and finish an alt. Play it as it feels natural.
Blizzard would fudge up if they would add a way to buy items, that wouldn't be fair at all... why buy gold when it's so easy to make it, while you're leveling become a miner\herbalist\enchanter idk it's easy.... AH FTW, that's why the AH is there....
I completely concur with this thought. The main article only addresses one tiny aspect, the convenience of crafting goods.
The real impact of the gold trade hasn't been mentioned, not even in the comments. As large amounts of gold are acquired by the purported seller and secondhand sellers, the biggest impact that will be felt will be on a games free trade mechanism, since this discussion seems tailored to WoW, that means the Auction House. With large sums at their disposal, these sellers will buy out high volume or high demand items, reprice and then relist these items. In doing this, they accomplish 2 goals:
1. They make even more gold at a much faster rate than farming.
2. They create a demand for people to want to buy gold.
Just imagine if every item placed on Auction was sold for no more than 100-200% over NPC vendor payout prices. If you are playing WoW now, you probably can't. You have become so accustomed to inflated prices that seeing items like this would shock you.
The next time you pick up an MMO that is just being released, savor the prices on the Auction House. They only last a couple months at most.
increase in pro-lazy bitch....er i mean RMT posts lately? check!
poorly researched post trying to explain any pros to RMTing? check!
accepting ads for sites like ige and such? check!....oh wait hasnt happened yet. sorry guys guess i jumped the gun there, give it some time its inevitable.
oh and for people like madaeux who thinks its not cheating that they can get stuff normal people earned...i...hmm...i think that...yknow what? the sheer amount of stupid in that argument is making it hard to think and type at the same time. ill think of something to say here later.
I love that the 400+ reply post about this subject was recently deleted (Who buys Gold in MMO's?) followed by this article. Just strangely coincidental indeed.
The issue with games like WoW is that they don't have enough regular expenses to drain gold from the economy. Everything you kill drops coin (or trash which is vendorable for it), and the more players you have killing more monsters, the more gold flows into the economy. This causes extreme inflation for a game like WoW, and those who suffer from this are the ones who meet with the 4-5 year econ which introduces mounts costing thousands of gold, or dual-spec certification (or whatever it is - I no longer play WoW) that costs what, a thousand itself? For the older players, this is a drop in the bucket, but for new it's such a daunting task that of course the temptation is there to buy gold. Solution? Increase the expenses, decrease the ease of obtaining gold. The economy should only be a portion of a game and not its ruler (shouldn't be essential for every single player). WoW's heavy-handed approach to reduce the gold in their economies doesn't solve a thing, and in fact bolsters the necessity for gold buying for some. In that sense, I can understand why some buy gold in WoW, and may not even consider it 'cheating' myself (I do NOT buy gold, and am extremely anti-RMT).
Anyway, this article is a joke. You don't need RMT to go farm Large Brilliant Shards. In BC, I actually enjoyed a nice relaxing evening now and again of stealthing through Blackrock Depths on my druid to hit every boss I could find for shards. It'd net me hundreds of gold in a couple of hours easily. There always has been, and always will be **PLAYERS** who will do these things because that aspect of the game appeals to them. This is no excuse to legitimize RMT, or even attempt to 'understand' their use. They merely perpetuate the issue of inflation beyond the game's means to dispense the gold, and in the end only serve to harm the economy no matter how you want to slice it.
Again, as is being realized by some, the solution lies in the hands of the devs who can't seem to understand economics 101 enough to solve their own problem, the reality of which is that Blizzard doesn't want to. Why should they forfeit subs and box sales from RMT when they can support it through such means that go undetected?
The only positives you manage to point out are for the "I want it now generation". How is supporting such a sad group positive?
What is the point of playing a MMO when someone does all the work for you? You certainly have a warped view of what comprises player development in an MMO.
Feeble attempt at a "old school" jab about how easy modern games are(In my day we had to walk bare foot through 20 feet of ice and snow, up hill(both ways) to get our corpses back!...)
Check
Poorly reasoned shoot from the hip at the topic of RMT(Can't possibly have any pro's...) Check
Demonstrated lack of comprehension of free market dynamics? Check
Different games have different dynamics. If you don't like RMT in games, then don't play games that allow it. There is NO excuse for cheating(in games that don't allow RMT).
I, too, hate the old "in my day" rhetoric. I can kinda agree with you there.
However, I don't think any games exist (not even cash shop games) where RMT is "allowed" through the game's EULA - especially not even WoW. As I said above, these companies merely passively support such things through their inaction against it. If WoW wanted to squash RMT tomorrow and never allow it again they could, and I believe that with their resources, it'd be an extremely simple task. However, it'd damage their bottom line through loss of subs and box sales too much (eliminating RMT would make a HUGE cut into those highly touted 11.5m subs).
That still doesn't make it OK to use such services. Again, I'll point my finger squarely at devs who don't bother to understand their own game's economical dynamics, or choose to use such heavy-handed methods to remove gold from the player-base as WoW does, rather than put as much blame on the players as I may have formerly. Still, players who refuse to use normal methods of "earning" such things are the #1 reason RMT exists, so they're not exactly innocent in the issue.
To give a quick example (as quick as I'm capable of), I'm playing EQ2 now. In the simple course of leveling, and piddling around with its market, I managed to buy myself a 3 plat mount before I even hit level 20. All of my spells are nearly the highest quality you can get as you level, and my gear is as good as you could want from the market. How? I participate in the market, selling drops I don't need (spell books, recipe books, rare gathered mats etc.) to the players who clearly have the money to buy them. If I were the type of player who chose NOT to participate in that aspect of the game, my gear would be normal quest reward garbage (some is good, don't get me wrong), and whatever I managed to scrounge for myself. As well, my spells would be a minor step up from the basics (purchased from vendors) and I'd definitely not own a mount yet. In fact, I recently grouped with a pair of such players who were higher level than myself that were happy with their 10-15 gold each, and thought they were doing "well" until they learned of the over 20 platinum I'd earned for myself in the same time frame, by use of the broker. The problem? Some players don't want to spend time (no matter how little - and for some it doesn't come as easily as others) "playing the market" or taking advantage of that aspect of the game. Those same players, however, will hit that roadblock of currency extraction the games impliment in the form of mounts, or whatever the game uses that costs a player money, and cannot possibly (in most cases) overcome it with what little rewards have been given through questing, mob kills, and simple use of a vendor for coin. RMT fills that gap most commonly, and for those players. This is where simple re-design from the devs comes into play, and this is where the devs turn a blind eye and allow such things to bolster their bottom line through RMT box sales and subs.
I just have to add very quickly that, the only "pro" from RMT is to that player which decides to use it. Any player who does so is using a form of cheating over any player who doesn't. That's a fact, and not opinion. To add a quick definition for clarity:
cheat
Verb
Infinitive
to cheat
Third person singular
cheats
Simple past
cheated
Past participle
cheated
Present participle
cheating
to cheat (third-person singular simple present cheats, present participle cheating, simple past and past participle cheated)
1. (intransitive) To violate rules in order to gain advantage from a situation.
The very first definition of the word, which I've clearly placed in bold, underlined text is what applies most clearly to the use of RMT in MMO's. Justify it how you want - it is still cheating. Some people are OK with that, and I can even lend some people understanding. The evidence of its damaging effects are still there, however, and while each person's milage may vary on what impact they have through its use ("I don't buy much gold - it doesn't matter!"), it's still a contribution.
Feeble attempt at a "old school" jab about how easy modern games are(In my day we had to walk bare foot through 20 feet of ice and snow, up hill(both ways) to get our corpses back!...)
Check
Poorly reasoned shoot from the hip at the topic of RMT(Can't possibly have any pro's...) Check
Demonstrated lack of comprehension of free market dynamics? Check
Different games have different dynamics. If you don't like RMT in games, then don't play games that allow it. There is NO excuse for cheating(in games that don't allow RMT).
Games are easier than in the past. Its a way to bring in folks who previously were intimidated by games. Its why the so called "carebear" games do so well and the PVP games at best do only so, so.
I just have to add very quickly that, the only "pro" from RMT is to that player which decides to use it. Any player who does so is using a form of cheating over any player who doesn't. That's a fact, and not opinion. To add a quick definition for clarity:
cheat
Verb
Infinitive
to cheat
Third person singular
cheats
Simple past
cheated
Past participle
cheated
Present participle
cheating
to cheat (third-person singular simple present cheats, present participle cheating, simple past and past participle cheated)
1. (intransitive) To violate rules in order to gain advantage from a situation.
The very first definition of the word, which I've clearly placed in bold, underlined text is what applies most clearly to the use of RMT in MMO's. Justify it how you want - it is still cheating. Some people are OK with that, and I can even lend some people understanding. The evidence of its damaging effects are still there, however, and while each person's milage may vary on what impact they have through its use ("I don't buy much gold - it doesn't matter!"), it's still a contribution.
You may not have noticed, but I did say that there is NO excuse for cheating. If a game allows RMT, then by definition RMT is NOT cheating, since its part of the rules and available to anyone who wishes to take part.
You may not have noticed, but I did say that there is NO excuse for cheating. If a game allows RMT, then by definition RMT is NOT cheating, since its part of the rules and available to anyone who wishes to take part.
Yeah, it kinda seems like I conveniently left that part out, but I mostly wanted crystal clear clarification.
On that note, does such a game exist where the sale of in-game goods, gold, items, etc. in exchange for real money is permitted? Even the F2P games I've personally played don't allow outside services that sell gold. Sure, use of item mall items exchanged for gold/items within the game is often allowed, if not promoted or even essential to some degree, but the practice of buying gold and/or services (RMT) from an outside source is not.
Point is, RMT is a no-no almost anywhere (if not everywhere) you look, particularly in WoW which this thread is directed at. If you get busted, you WILL get punished via perma ban, temp ban, etc.. That alone is a clear indicator that it's not allowed, and is wrong in WoW.
As far as i know Project entropia allows you to pay real cash for ingame currency, not sure you can get money any other way when you start that game for the first time.
Thats one of those that comes to mind. Lots of the very best things are available for sale that way. Its one of those games on the far end of the spectrum in that regard. One thats not quite so far is Freerealms. In that you can buy weapons and armor, potions and other such for real money. It all depends on what the Dev's set the game up for.
As has been true with several of your other assertions, you are quite incorrect on this one.
Blizzard tactically looks the other way on most of the RMT that goes on in their game, and only 'enforces' it for show to make folks like you think they want to run a clean game.
I've been caught by Blizzard buying gold. They did nothing more than warn me not to do it again and took away the gold they caught me with. They somehow missed about 3 other gold purchases which were much larger and they let me keep.
Why didn't they ban me and several other folks I know? Because we pay regular subs. At the time i had 3 accounts in good standing and had been playing regularly for 18 months. No way do they want to mess with my business, and to this day i still pay for one account for a family member.
Sure, they bluster alot, and I'm sure they hate the gold selling spam, account hacking (much of which is the result of 3rd party mods, and not gold buying) but in the end, they like the revenue that their gold buying player base (estimated to be as high as 35% by some accounts) brings in.
When EVE first started I bought ISK from an outside vendor because I could not make heads or tales of the GTC system.
I bought two lots of billion ISK. About a year after starting they apparently caught me, because they deducted one billion isk from my account. (never caught the 2nd billion so far) I didn't even get a warning or reprimand, they just took it away.
No big deal, now I don't need to buy ISK in EVE, but it was a great way to kick start the game for me.
Too many other posts were made in the deleted 400 post thread regarding the why's and hows of gold buying and selling, and neither camp will ever come to a compromise.
But before anyone throws stones at me for my "cheating" just make sure you don't /have never downloaded a song or movie illegally, gone faster than the posted speed limit, or fudged on your taxes. Those are all a form of dishonesty and rule breaking (and in most cases, actually illegal, unlike gold buying/selling) and you can't practice one and look down on the other.
'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.'
As has been true with several of your other assertions, you are quite incorrect on this one.
Blizzard tactically looks the other way on most of the RMT that goes on in their game, and only 'enforces' it for show to make folks like you think they want to run a clean game.
Glad you skipped through reading the entire thread to pick on one point without its prior information. Go back, read my other posts, and it's extremely clear where I stand on that point.
I've been caught by Blizzard buying gold. They did nothing more than warn me not to do it again and took away the gold they caught me with. They somehow missed about 3 other gold purchases which were much larger and they let me keep.
"they let me keep" would imply that somehow they informed you that "Hey, we busted you buying gold, but since you're a paying customer, just hang onto it this time!" when I seriously doubt that took place. When you were caught, they took your gold which you acquired outside of the game's means away. That's punishment, whether or not the money you lost to purchase said gold was an issue for you, and clearly the threat of harsher punishment loomed had you been caught again. I do specifically know of cases where players who've bought gold have been permanently banned, and Blizzard has clearly stated in the past that players caught in the practice of selling gold (specifically) will be banned.
Why didn't they ban me and several other folks I know? Because we pay regular subs. At the time i had 3 accounts in good standing and had been playing regularly for 18 months. No way do they want to mess with my business, and to this day i still pay for one account for a family member.
When I was playing WoW, I played with my girlfriend. I played on one account, and she owned three. One was an account she kept active for a little brother who would occassionally play, the others for her main and alts (so they could be run at the same time sometimes). At one point, she decided to make a new alt, but unbeknownst to me, she paid to have it power-leveled by an RMT service. I found out when the account got banned, and I could no longer get the stuff I had on it anymore. All three of her accounts were on the same CC, so the idea that because you own multiple accounts made you safe is a bit silly. It's your impression only, and borne of your lack of being caught.
Sure, they bluster alot, and I'm sure they hate the gold selling spam, account hacking (much of which is the result of 3rd party mods, and not gold buying) but in the end, they like the revenue that their gold buying player base (estimated to be as high as 35% by some accounts) brings in.
I do remember you from the other thread on the subject, and you seemed to assert your unsubstantiated claims there too as though they were fact. I'm not here to debate how many people do it, or how much revenue Blizzard itself makes from people who enjoy the use of RMT. The number of people doing it doesn't somehow make it suddenly right. I think that mentality is common amongst lemmings (not trying to be insulting). As for 3rd party mods being responsible, maybe for some, but most definitely not for all. I played the game in my last stint for 2 years to the month (Oct. '06 to Oct. '08). I used a laundry list of mods while playing, from UI enhancements, to databases, and so on. Never once was my account compromised. My entire guild list used similar mods, and plenty of them. Not a single person on my friends list or guild ever faced such an issue, and not but perhaps once in my playtime did I hear of someone getting hacked from using mods. These occurances are the exception, not the rule in my experience. Yours may differ. Please stop stating it in such a "matter of fact" manner.
When EVE first started I bought ISK from an outside vendor because I could not make heads or tales of the GTC system.
I bought two lots of billion ISK. About a year after starting they apparently caught me, because they deducted one billion isk from my account. (never caught the 2nd billion so far) I didn't even get a warning or reprimand, they just took it away.
No big deal, now I don't need to buy ISK in EVE, but it was a great way to kick start the game for me.
To this one, I'll just throw out there the expected "I'm too stupid to figure out how the game works - I'll buy money to make the problems go away!" condescending caricature. The fact is, if that's what you felt inclined to do to enjoy the game, that just sucks. I'll still offer some understanding though, and point to design issues making people feel more inclined to use RMT. It still doesn't make what you did there somehow OK.
Too many other posts were made in the deleted 400 post thread regarding the why's and hows of gold buying and selling, and neither camp will ever come to a compromise.
This isn't a case of compromise. It's cheating pure and simple. There's no justification that makes it somehow not cheating. As long as the rules are in place as they are, and the threat of punishment for breaking them looms, those who use RMT are cheating. Most players who invest time and hold sincere interest in their characters and the game they play absolutely refuse to buy gold even if they'd like to due to the potential for losing their characters, and/or accounts. I'll call you lucky, to say the least. The rest of the blame I'll happily place on Blizzard's blind eye who's more interested in its bottom line.
But before anyone throws stones at me for my "cheating" just make sure you don't /have never downloaded a song or movie illegally, gone faster than the posted speed limit, or fudged on your taxes. Those are all a form of dishonesty and rule breaking (and in most cases, actually illegal, unlike gold buying/selling) and you can't practice one and look down on the other.
'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.'
The classic defense of the guilty. I've downloaded both songs and movies illegaly, have broken the speed limit (and been ticketed for going a whopping 4 miles over the speed limit on one occassion), but have never 'fudged' on my taxes. Do I attempt to say that downloading movies/music illegally is OK? No. I don't defend it to any degree, and those are actions of my past. Do I attempt to justify speeding? No. The occassion is few and far between that I'd agree that speeding is an OK thing (extreme emergencies; your house is burning, your family member is dying in the car next to you rushing to the hospital etc.), but even then it's still breaking the law. Anymore, I'm a big fan of setting my cruise control just at (or, admittedly, 1-3 MPH over - I drive a pickup) the posted limit. Overall, though, my point remains that others doing something doesn't mean it's OK. It doesn't somehow make it less wrong, and an attempt to defend yourself through the actions of others is absurd. To use your methods of defense, how about I say "Oh, I murdered this guy because my buddies all went off on killing sprees and never got busted, so it's ok!" Completely ridiculous right? Right.
I'm not sitting here pointing at you calling you the devil, or calling RMT a sin, either. I'm merely stating facts that somehow you can't seem to accept. It's clear through your necessity to defend and justify your actions that you know they're wrong. I'm not the one with the problem here - you are.
To top it all off, the worst part is that you don't want things to change from how they are, it would seem. I get the impression from you, and people like you, that you want to be capable of gaining the advantage that buying gold allows. Am I wrong? You tout your gold buying as if it's a lovely priveledge that you're proud to have, and defend it as though you don't want it to go away. Prove me wrong, please.
I've even gone so far in this thread as to point directly at the roots of the problem, and even suggested how it could be fixed. I'm not here trolling, being rude, or trying to insult those who disagree with me. I am trying to debunk the concept that it's an OK thing to do/use, and would love to see it go away completely. The problem is, as I've already clearly stated, these companies don't want to lose the revenue that RMT brings (through farmer accounts, and players wishing to cheat). The blame is on both the shoulders of the players, and the developers, make no mistake about it.
To add, as not to cause confusion with my other post...
Blizzard "tactfully" looks the other way because their only recourse is to do so if they remain concerned with their profit margin. They could go the way of the cash shop, but this would certainly alienate a large portion of their playerbase. They could allow a means of buying gold with cash (they came close with the trading card items - but too lotto-like for most), but again players would dislike the disruption of the genuine experience of earning your keep. The fact is, that if they don't turn a blind eye to a large portion of it, again, they would lose a very large percentage of their subscriptions, and the future box sales to the farmers accounts which they ban, and those that will continue to come to the game. If they went extremely pro-active with it, taking too much action against players who participate, they would alienate the portion of the players, like Trollstar, who seek to gain an advantage over others. In the end, Blizzard has it to a point of stasis for their concerns, and clearly don't intend to change their actions in handling it. And yes, people are made an example of via bans and harsh punishment so as to discourage players, but to folks who just don't care, it won't stop them.
I'd just love to see one sound argument for RMT being good for a game that doesn't involve what constitutes cheating. As I pointed out earlier, this whole argument for the availability of craft materials doesn't fly, nor does the availability of rare items. The reality is, no matter how you argue it, RMT characters (read: farmers) constantly generate gold in a game like WoW. This causes massive inflation to a degree that is uncontrollable in the existing game, and causes changes to things such as mount costs that are intended to drain money from the economy in such a way as to keep things in check. These changes specifically affect players who don't use RMT, and new players in a far more drastic way. Please, dispute that, and tell me how much more "fun" you had because you didn't have to play the game.
LONG LIVE GOLD BUYING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
People should look at what happened to Lineage 2 when NCSoft took a very hard stance on farmers/bots in general - it died and went to private servers for the exact reason the OP mentioned - no low level materials and gear for crafting/grinding etc.
There is good and bad in both - usually the people with no job complain about the people who can afford to spend $15 on in game currency and don't want their "pro" status impacted by people who buy in game currency.....whose the bigger loser: One who works long hours for real life goods, or one who spends their life inside a game grinding for epeen items that could be removed with a simple press of the DEL key? Arguement goes both ways, neither side will win so pointless debating it.
You may not have noticed, but I did say that there is NO excuse for cheating. If a game allows RMT, then by definition RMT is NOT cheating, since its part of the rules and available to anyone who wishes to take part.
Yeah, it kinda seems like I conveniently left that part out, but I mostly wanted crystal clear clarification.
On that note, does such a game exist where the sale of in-game goods, gold, items, etc. in exchange for real money is permitted? Even the F2P games I've personally played don't allow outside services that sell gold. Sure, use of item mall items exchanged for gold/items within the game is often allowed, if not promoted or even essential to some degree, but the practice of buying gold and/or services (RMT) from an outside source is not.
Point is, RMT is a no-no almost anywhere (if not everywhere) you look, particularly in WoW which this thread is directed at. If you get busted, you WILL get punished via perma ban, temp ban, etc.. That alone is a clear indicator that it's not allowed, and is wrong in WoW.
Besides PE, EVE Online allows the sale of GTC in the game as long as they are purchased from CCP...so basically they are the farmers and benefiting from the real life currency to in game currency trade. It's not an immediate trade, but basically you can make a bit of money from it quite quickly...
About "The solution to this problem? So far, it seems as if cash shops are a way to go." this is classical example how cure is much worse then disease. I can not imagine nothing worst to happen to any decent MMO.
However there is cure, pretty simple that could Blizzard apply.
Question is as usually, why people does something that is considered illegal? I guess not because they want to help economic status of gold sellers. It is because many prices in WOW are insanely high.
I remember my first "serious" alt, warrior, I stopped playing it because at lv. 40 i was far far from mount, i barely had 10g. So I started warlock that has mount for free. But I also learned to play better and understand game (and using a lot AH) so eventually after about 3 years all my 10 alts (for every class one) have mounts. But ... only one have epic ... because price is astronomical.
Ok, maybe one get a lot of money from raiding, selling, .... but for more casual player (and not so casual as well) high prices are nighmare that prevents them from enjoy in full game. Yes, yes, .... it would not make sense one would be able "by the way" to get epic gear at lv. 10 and mount .... and I'm not talking about this.
Blizzard, normalize prices and gold sellers (and buyers) will be gone.
IMO, gold sellers are the worst thing that can happen to any game. With exception of course company start to sell for real money themselve ingame objects.
Well, cash shops on some servers is not a bad solution, we who don't like buying cash will just play on other servers (Well, I'm not playing wow myself but most MMOs have the same problems).
Cash shops on all servers are a horrible idea however.
Let all gold buyers play on the same server, it is well balanced and disturbs no one else, except the chinese gold farmers.
I agree, pooling all Gold buyers in a gold buying server. That is just the way they deal with ffa pvp servers.
At least, if you are buying gold, buy from the developers. They are the lawful owner of the gold, not the farmers.
As a former World of Warcraft player who cancelled account over the gold farmer issues, have to laugh as I see yet another attempt by people to rationalize the gold farming issue.
Blizzard makes A PROFIT OFF THE GOLD FARMERS. They do not care about the player base or the honest player who does not gold farm. These gold farmers who get thier accounts banned just go out and buy another copy of the game and therefore blizzard gets more money from these gold farmers then the community.
I would not be suprised if the majority of the 2+ Million subscribers listed by Blizzard included the gold farmers with banned accounts.
Since we are in a MAJOR RECESSION and with New MMO developers having money issues getting thier product out the door, Blizzard is making money and making a profit off the backs of the gold farmers who keeps buying copies of the game when they get thier accounts banned.
Since Blizzard is being filthy rich, would not be equally suprised to find that thier lawyers have found ways around the IRS with legal loopholes.
Blizzard says they have a zero tolerance against gold farmers, well if you look at thier track record then they been lying to you. They like to fool people with thier public face so to speak. They find people like the author easy to fool to promote thier public image regarding gold farmers.
One of the major reasons I quit World of Warcraft was the negative aspect of the gold farming issue. On the AH kept seeing over priced items on the AH where I did not have the gold to buy them and could not get into guilds or groups due to lack of gear and was told that one has to basicly cheat to get ahead aka become a gold farmer. When the latest expansion came out last year, ran into the same problem and that is when decided to quit, cancel account, uninstall the game and threw the disks in the trash after cutting them up. I was that disgusted with them over the issue.
Relax
Earning enough gold to get by is just too easy in WoW. If you have to explode b/c things are too expensive in AH, first ask yourself. How many of the BoE items you really need in the first place. How can you get them? Craftables you should not be all buying, you should be able to craft one or two types, unless you are a duel collection class, which then you should be happy things are expensive in AH. You got more gold selling mats.
As for Blizz earning box money from gold sellers, can you show us a working solution to stop gold farmers from buying the boxes. Maybe register the personal ID of the person buying WoW. Verify his ID and maybe, ask him to fly to Blizz headquarters, perform a body check before selling him a copy?
You cannot blame Blizz if someone intend to commit a crime. So long as Blizz is banning the farmers, Blizz is doing its part. Not that WoW is designed in a way where you need to buy gold in order to have reasonable gold for daily gaming.
Wouldn't work, tbh. There'd still be a large portion of players who enjoy the advantage that buying gold offers them on the servers where it isn't allowed (all servers, currently).
@ Zorndorf: Dailies and the obscene amount of gold they introduced only served to hyper-inflate the market further. I agree, however, that it does help counter the farmer-introduced inflation in that it makes their contributions less substantial. In the end the effect is still the same in that for new players (primarily those who wish to avoid the market/AH) the task of earning gold enough to meet WoW's gold-removal functions (mounts, re-specs, etc.) can seem quite daunting. The only way to thrive then becomes to practice use of the AH. Not everyone enjoys that aspect of a game, and I can understand that. The greatest part about it is that the same players who wish to avoid the markets of games are the same ones who buy gold from the farmers who've inflated the economy to the point of unaffordability in the first place. They're shooting their own feet.
Let me speak on this. [I've always wanted to start a rant with that!] I've bought gold before. My friend begged and berated me until I at least gave WoW a shot. I did, and I liked it. It was my second MMO. [My first being as a beta-tester for CoH.] So, my friend had a capped mage and was starting an alt to play with me to "show me the game". What I didn't realize at the time, was that it wasn't about showing me the game, it was that he wanted a Rogue alt and I was his heal-bot. He gave me 16 slot bags and 10 gold. All from his fully legal level 60. [At the time that was cap.] This was/is to this day my only friend who plays MMOs. And he'll only play WoW. At the time, he was working a full-time job and was in bed by 10 P.M. I am on disability and am a natural night-owl.
Whatever my personality is, being a heal-bot got boring rather quickly. So, I decided to make an alt. Well, starting out with CoH, I have confirmed alt-itis. So, I quickly wanted at least one of every class. And after trying groups, I quickly decided I liked to solo MUCH better than grouping. I come from an AD&D background, and my friend wouldn't even give me time to read the quest text! It drove me nuts!
Anyway, I take my time and read text whenever I want. Look at my Talents whenever I want. Alt-Tab to the forums, sometimes. Whatever. I like to play slow. And I like to solo play every type of build I can think of that's interesting. Needless to say, I had to spread to other servers because there's a 10 character cap. Besides, I like the atmosphere of RP Servers. [Even if I rarely RP online with anyone. . It just doesn't compare to my group of live friends.] So, I've bought gold for my characters on my main server. AND I've bought gold every time I expanded to a new server. I buy 100 gold, and divide it as I see fit between the characters.
However, I DO NOT PvP. Not ever. Only once did I try it just to see what the hell it was, because I had no idea what WSG was. Somebody randomly asked me, and I said, "ok". Not even knowing what it was. Needless to say, I was no help. Did my bought gold provide me an advantage in my epic foray into PvP? Alas, no. Perhaps I was one-shotted by a lesser amount than someone who played it "honest"? I don't know. I'm not bitter about being one-shotted, mind you. I just dislike PvP. I am just not a competitive person. I like to chill, and fight mobs at MY discretion. Care Bear? Yes. They're cute. [Better than Fraggles, even.]
So no, I'm not "sorry" for buying gold. I don't care what "the rules" according to Blizzard, say. It's my $15 a month, and I like to just be left alone and do my own thing. Hell, it's not like I even buy anything outragous! I'll just buy a character something from the Auction House. Oh, especially bags! Before the two new races, bags just would not freaking drop for me! And the running back and forth drives me nuts. Anyway, so I buy bags and whatever green equipment will help me to solo better. The freaking prices of a simple dagger, and whatnot is sick. [And not in that newfangled teenage internet meaning of "sick"!]
I don't believe that the "chinese gold farmers" [as the stereotype goes] are the main ones driving the economy prices sky-high. Whenever I [or anyone else], put an item on the Auction House for too little money [i.e. a reasonable price], people will type in /trade with perfect english and with perfect puncuation and all calling whomever did it "noobs". And saying they're "ruining the economy". It sounds like pure American [and Canadian] greed, to me. And I personally feel the economy is already ruined and needs to be rehauled. The biggest problem is that typical fps-ffa-l33t-lewt-epic sux0r DKP vets feel the game STARTS at the level cap. And that's a stupid notion. The game starts as you create the character. And then you finish whatever tutorial, and get on with things. You don't just create a level 80 character. [Not yet, anyway] Hell, after all this time playing, a couple of years now, my highest level non--Death Knight character is level 55! Of course, I have my characters capped. I have the 50 character maximum. I can't help it. I like the game. And I like playing all the different classes. But I wont apologize for who I am. And if I want to buy my character gold, too bad. If you feel my character that wont team with you ruins your gaming experience because I bought a staff with + Spell-Power off of the Auction House, then you need more help than I can give.
I don't care if Blizzard calls it cheating. When we play D&D, our level 1 characters start out with max hit-points for that class. [Wizard gets the full four hit-points, etc..] That wasn't according to the rules in second edition. We don't care. We're playing our game. And if a Wizard wants to use a long-bow, we'll let them. It certainly wont unbalance the game any! [Not with their THAC0.] So yeah, I've done it. And I probably have more fun playing, than you do.
Your ARGUMENT is not VALID if you can Justify gold selling. then would that mean you can CHEAT in RL also???
Hmm let me ask you that it is ok to CHEAT in a virtual world so buy your thought it is ok to cheat in the RL world.
Sorry not my CUP of tea.
All hail the unflapable paragon of righteousness. You have never jaywalked I suppose? Bet you never cruised thru a stop sign on your bike, and I bet you stay 1 mph BELOW the speed limit as you don't EVER 'cheat' in real life. You don't cheat in rl, my ass.
Gold buyers are a lot more akin to a jaywalker than a murderer; get over yourself.
All hail the unflapable paragon of righteousness. You have never jaywalked I suppose? Bet you never cruised thru a stop sign on your bike, and I bet you stay 1 mph BELOW the speed limit as you don't EVER 'cheat' in real life. You don't cheat in rl, my ass.
Gold buyers are a lot more akin to a jaywalker than a murderer; get over yourself.
Unfortunately jay-walking only get you killed if you are careless, but goldbuying leading to hacking, as goldsellers no long farm gold, they take orders then hack the accounts they already got pwd, but never touch, pool gold sell stuffs, and mail the gold to the client.
The current way of anti-goldsales, already allow companies to track dubious farmers. Once detected, the dubious characters will be suspended. What is means is, if you farm gold on your alt and sell, once your sale is detected, you account will be banned, along with remaining gold farmed but not yet sold. The goldsellers know this, they do not farm any more, they hack accounts and retain the stolen pwd. When they got an order they try each of the hecked account till they got in one of them, racksack it, and mail the money directly to the goldbuyer's alt. This way, even if the game developer stops it, or punish the traders, the hacker stays clean.
You can try to pretend you are doing your own business. You can go buy a baby from the traffickers and say you are saving a baby. Fact is, you just induced the trafficker to place an order for another abduction. Same for gold buying.
Really I dont know how people can see it any other way......Buying gold is never a good thing.....The gold spammers ruin the game for many and you are inflating the economy by buying.......Really its time that the game companies stop gold selling/buying.....its been going on for way too long and it needs to stop........
Just an FYI, as I have done some research into this.
Gold farmers generally do not use the auction halls.
Most of the sweatchops does not allow it, for different reason.
And they "tally" their gold at the end of each shift, meaning that if it sells the person on that character who gets the cash can add it to their tally.
As a result they vendor everything, or try the trade channel if an item of special value come into their hands.
Or they are sold internally to one of the managers who are allowed to use the AH, and know a little bit of english.
No "old" items enter the game from these people.
The only thing entering the game is gold, driving up prises for everyone.
Also another thing like to point out, every year for the past 4 years Congress has tried to pass a resolution or law if you will for the IRS to tax people for using online gold. IRS believes that this online gold buying/selling issue is costing them billions of dollars of revenue that they believe the US Government can use.
Unless people realize this and companies like Blizzard realizes the possiblity of this happening, they need to not only educate but reduce the problem of gold buying/selling and the farmers associated it with it.
It is cause and effect, if you make the game too hard or make fees and prices ingame too high people will resort to online cheating and gold farmers is another form of cheating but hey we been brought to believe cheating is ok, we cheat in school, work so why not online even though cheating is morally wrong it still happens.
As for the AH, I remember one time reported a person who had put up a lvl 3 item for 4,000 gold and bam next day that item price was reduced to what a newbie can afford a few coppers. Yes people will put outragous prices on the AH thinking since they have all this gold be it either they got it legally or by cheating they need to get rid of it or they get accused and banned for cheating.........
So I can see that lot of honest players not wanting to get banned for cheating will not go out of the way to NOT get good gear, farm items, advoid farming guilds or leave thier own guild when members in said guild starts to farm stuff to make a ton of gold. An the PVP aspect and requirement for raiding/pvp has produced a vicious mindset that is ok to cheat to get ahead so you can win and who gives a XXXX to the carebears.
Yes was one of those carebears that got kicked from a PVE guild that merged with a raiding/pvp gear requirement you must get by any means including cheating or get lost.
-----------------
ps. not going to name any names and yes it was an alliance guild. I changed to alliance after getting the same treatment from the horde side so it happens on both sides........
Yeah,try getting in a PuG or Guild with just ok gear! You get laughed at ,told your a noob then get a ton of pms telling you how bad your gear is. Thats why I solo everything,dont even try to grp any more. Its not worth the frustration the uber-leet bring to the game experiance.
I dont agree with gold buying/selling.Some people just feel they dont have any other way to get ahead in game.I blame this on the players who feel you have to have the uber-leet lewts to be worth a damn. So,untill that changes,we will have gold buying/selling.
Wait, you believe the IRS is going to tax World of Warcraft Gold? That is the funniest thing I've heard all day! Will they tax Tooth-Fairy money too? Oh man, I'd better watch out, they might try and tax my D&D characters next!