Gold Buying - Time Saver or Cheating? 543
Sunday's online version of The Wichita Eagle has a piece on buying gold in a MMOG. The author of the piece examines what's involved, and ponders whether such an action is cheating, or just a shortcut. From the article: "Getting my gold was a snap. The smallest quantity for sale by IGE was 500 pieces for $60, about twice what I wanted to spend. I decided to go for it, however, as I simply could not abide the prospect of skinning even one more level-10 boar. Within 20 minutes, the gold appeared in my WoW character's mailbox." From a Cathode Tan post. What is your opinion: Cheating or Shortcut?
There is a third option (Score:5, Insightful)
It's Pretty Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
It's clear buying gold is not within the spirit or the intent of the game.
Conclusion:it's cheating.
Think of the Economy! (Score:5, Insightful)
a) Keeps them in buisness
b) Screws with the game economy even more, and
c) is against most, if not all EULA's
Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I have another take on it. Note that I do not, nor will I ever purchase gold. But as a working professional, I don't have the same time to devote to the game that high-school and college students do. I don't want gaming to become a 9-5 job just to have fun. I only have a few hours on the weekends to play. I will never be abel to effectively tradeskill. I will level once every two weeks, if that.
For some, buying gold is an efficient way to obtain materials for tradeskilling that would otherwise require hours of dedicated playing; time that many people (like me) just don't have. Even now, I'm looking at the mats required for weaponsmithing, and all I can do is throw up my hands and say, "I don't have time to do this." I don't know anymore. I wish Blizzard would make the game funner for impatient people who can't devote their life to the game.
I vote for the third option (Score:5, Insightful)
Cheating (Score:2, Insightful)
Spending $60 on game gold. That's 2x what I paid for the game itself. I could buy 3-4 DVDs for that much, or another 4 months playtime on WoW. What a ridiculous waste of money.
Clearly cheating... (Score:2, Insightful)
The main problem most MMORPG players have with these gold selling antics is that it ruins the economy of the realms. The gold farmers come and either legitimately farm gold, or more commonly use bots to automate the farming (also against the TOS) 'generating' extra gold on the realm which is then sold on, boosting the prices in the Auction House etc because there are people with more gold to spend.
It would be very naieve for someone purchasing gold on the internet to not think it can be traced - Blizzard logs ALL transactions to be able to perform rollbacks to the realms and to retrieve lost items. If Blizzard catch a gold farmer selling gold they will also be able to see everyone that had gold sent to them from that account so have a nice chain of accounts ready to be banned
play? (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow, somewhere, this meme got into the MMORPG world that players have to "earn" their stuff, preferably through repetitive tasks.
Unfortunately, somehow it works. We all play along and accept it as normal, pretty much like computer crashes (try telling any admin of a 1970s mainframe that regular computer crashes are nothing special).
Yes, it is a shortcut. It most definitely beats having to do the same nonsense another 100 times. It is probably cheaper, as well (i.e. you earn more money in the time you saved than it costs you).
But damn, it should make you re-check your priorities and ask yourself if you're sure you want to sink more money into that game, and why. And whether you're ready to do it again, and again, as it's unlikely that phase of the game was unique.
It has the ability to ruin the game (Score:5, Insightful)
It does affect me in a MMORPG.
Now, sure, you have an item I don't. That's not the problem. It's also no problem if you're just a lucky bastard who decides to sell his once in a lifetime find on EBay.
The problem starts with commercial farming.
Worst problem are non-instanced encounters. Commercial and organized farmers can and do monopolize important spawns. They do have the key equipment, they do know where to be when and they do know how to cooperate. In other words, as a normal vanilla player with a normal vanilla guild (if any), you have NO chance to get that item into your hands.
Unless you pay for it.
Now, this problem can be remedied with instances. Go there with your guild and eventually you can have the item, too. No farming guild can keep you from getting it.
Another problem with farmers: Inflation. When a ton of money is pumped into the system, prices go up. I buy XXX money for YY$. So I have XXX. Would take me 2 weeks to get, and if I had to invest the time, I'd probably think twice. But who cares? 200 for a sword worth 20? That's about 3 bucks, one pack of cigs less and I can do it. Mine!
Over time, the only people able to afford certain items will be those that farm like crazy or those buying money from farmers. You, the ordinary player who doesn't want or can't spend real money for virtual cash, you're out of the loop.
Neither (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't matter if you don't think it's fair. A M:TG player can build a deck by buying each card individually -- nobody says they should be forced to buy booster packs until they uncover all the individual cards they want.
It doesn't matter if you think that the MMO gold is just pixels and a record in a database somewhere. Trading cards are just ink and paper, but some of them have ridiculously high value to collectors.
The only stupid thing here is the MMO publisher trying to stand in the way of the law of supply and demand. It's like trying to overcome gravity by force of will. Or, more like pissing into the wind.
Re:Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. That's where I completely agree.
The problem is that it's not your fault. It's a game-design fault. Why does the game require ridiculous amounts of game time?
EVE Online - while I only played it shortly - appears to have one big part of the problem solved: Skills increase through automatic training that depends on only one factor: Real time passed. Whether you're online playing or offline sleeping/working/whatever doesn't matter. You gain x experience points per hour.
A good game should reward good playing, not more playing.
If you need to spend extra cash to have fun (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand that MMORPGs are huge time sinks, and lots of people don't have the time to spend on them. If you can have fun playing, then I suggest that you just settle for never being rich, and never having the very best items. If you can't have fun without being rich and having the best loot, may I suggest another genre?
The gold-buying concept applied to other games? (Score:5, Insightful)
Having "family game night" with the kids? Slip the wife a little hair-salon money in exchange for having your Candyland character halfway up the board before the game even starts! Your children might end up hating you, but victory will be yours at all costs!!
Playing in a competitive chess tournament? How about for a small extra fee you could buy yourself a few extra pawns, and maybe a spare queen or two? Who couldn't use a few extras, just in case?
Don't feel like doing your homework? Simply hand in an empty paper with a cheque taped to the back and see if teacher won't leave the red marker in the desk drawer that day.
Super Bowl time again? Whichever team is the first to pay for that big urban renewal project in the hosting city gets 10 bonus happy lucky points before the game even starts!
What about that grandest of all competitions, the Olympics? Have a big ice-skating competition coming up but you're getting cold feet? Why not pay your bodyguard to make sure the competion really "breaks a leg", if you get my drift.
Re:It's Pretty Simple (Score:4, Insightful)
As a GAME, the point is to be fun. If people like some aspects of the game but have found a way to get around the money treadmill does that necessarily affect you? Sure, there's the whole issue of more money entering the economy, but if someone bought the money from someone else, the money was already in the economy, it's just changed hands.
One of the reasons I don't, and won't, play MMORPGs is because of that extended treadmill experience.
I say that something is cheating if it is synonymous with something that is illegal or is simply blatantly against the rules. If Blizzard has declared that it is against the rules and transgressors will be punished, that's great. That is enough to make it cheating. It's Blizzard's world and they make the rules. However, if this is a gray area where they've not said much, it's not cheating unless it somehow operates completely outside of the game's mechanics, as in generating money from thin air or something.
Re:Neither (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Think of the Economy! (Score:4, Insightful)
Ours drive prices
In fact, driving prices up is better for them. You have more incentive to buy gold as you'll never make enough to get the items you want otherwise.
If you walk to talk about screwing the economy, talk to Blizzard. Increasing red dragonscales drop rate and quest XP at 60 -> gold is going to be a nice shock when 1.10 hits. I'm happy I got to resell the red scales I'd been picking up on the cheap (min bid or underpriced for the win) hopeing to put together a red DS suit before the price drop hits.
Buying Gold Sucks (Score:2, Insightful)
Cheating. Let's examine the primary arguments that attempt to legitimize the practice of buying gold rather than earning it in-game:
"I don't have time in real life to spend hours doing repetitive stuff to earn gold."
Sounds like impatient instant-gratification whining. There are lots of fun and non-repetitive ways to earn gold in most MMORPGs -- try to be imaginative (in WoW, try playing the Auction House or using roleplaying to sell goods or services). I have a full-time job as an engineer, a girlfriend I live with, and plenty of other commitments, and I earn enough in-game money in WoW to keep me interested. If you can't have fun without having the absolute best items all the time, then don't play.
"The real world is a free market and the gold had to come from somewhere."
Blizzard (and other companies) purposely didn't account for this when they designed the balancing mechanics of the game. Yes, the gold had to come from somewhere, but realize that when creatures and resources respawn infinitely, dedicated gold farmers can theoretically rack up infinite amounts of gold. The only difference between that and duping is the investment of time.
Re:Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:5, Insightful)
I do wish more MMOs came with a Newgame+ feature, so when you max out one character and roll and alt, they gain levels twice as fast or have some out of the gate bonus. It can be disheartning to switch from your giant monster slaying tweaked out superchar to some level 1 that has to kill bugs and rats with his one skill.
Re:Both (Score:5, Insightful)
Bingo.
I'd go a step farther and say it's a sign of bad game design. If you, as a player, find yourself seriously thinking about paying someone else to play the game for you, that means that the game has stopped being a game and started being a chore. If I enjoy something, I'm not going to pay someone else to go enjoy it for me. But if it bores me, then I might be willing to pay someone to do it so I don't have to.
Is gold buying cheating? Almost certainly, in the same way that slipping someone $5 real world currency for Boardwalk would be cheating in Monopoly. There are rules that you're supposed to follow, and buying gold is breaking them.
But it's also a time saver. Instead of having to camp some stupid mob for hours on end to get your Jujitsu Gi, you instead pay someone to camp some stupid mob for hours on end, thereby skipping the boring part.
When a game has people willing to pay good money not to have to play the boring parts, that's a sign that the game has problems. Gold buying is both cheating and a time saver - and a sign of poor game design.
Depends on what value you place on your time (Score:3, Insightful)
You use the resources you have: some people have time, some people have money.
If your time is more valuable to you then your money, you will use your money to minimize the time you have to spend in game. It is an utterly ridiculous waste to time to spend hours and hours grinding away in a videogame when you do not have to.
Its called "grinding" for a reason; and its not because it is fun (in this case :)).
Examine both sides of the coin (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, having gotten that out of the way. Consider: how long would it take you to farm the mats for... let's pick a couple things I'm looking at recently: the devilsaur set and/or volcanic and/or stormshroud. Fairly expensive: one person is selling stormshoud for about 130/150 a pop per peice on my server.
Now, I can make good money on the AH, but making that much... that'd take a lot of time. Most people don't even know making money like that on the AH is possible, but reguardless. How much time would it take farming ore, or "farming" the AH to make that much?
Right. Now from the article, 500 gold is what, $60? (I think it is less on my server from in-game spam I get from time to time but who knows.) If I wanted to do some work consulting, or even some overtime, how long would it take me to earn $60?
Heck of a lot less time than it'd take in game that's for sure! In fact, for them it may be a net gain. Spend a couple hours working on cleaning viruses off computers, spend some of that cash on virtual gold, powerlevel up whatever skill you want. Now you have some leftover real cash, leftover virtual cash, met the goal you were pursuing in the game and took less time to do it than you would have just grinding in game.
That's why people do it. It makes economic sense to them. It doesn't matter if they could buy another game: this is the game they want to play.
Re:It's Pretty Simple (Score:2, Insightful)
Shortcutting IS cheating. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's both (Score:4, Insightful)
Buying gold is a fairly cheap entertainment investment. A stereotypical MMO gamer may pay $15/month for a single account and play about 20 hours per week. That works out to about $0.50 for a three hour play session. Compare that to $10 for bowling, $10 for a movie, $15 for dinner, $30-50 for a play, $50 for a sports ticket and it's easy to see why many gamers feel that MMO's provide very cheap entertainment. Spending $50 on gold every now and then still leaves them on the low side of recreational spending.
Most importantly, the argument that bought achievements mean less than earned achievements remains too weak to alter public behavior. A store bought rug certainly carries less "meaning" than a rug you made yourself, yet most people are unwilling to devote the time and effort to weaving their own rugs. Rug weaving is arguably more interesting than gold farming (some people choose it as a hobby in itself), yet most people still prefer to avoid the issue by purchasing one themselves. In the end, if we ignore the "cheating" aspect of gold purchasing, it is no different than paying a neighborhood kid to mow your lawn for you.
Gold purchasing is here to stay... as long as there are MMO gamers willing to deal in US dollars to acquire things they want. Because developers are paying attention to this it's probably only a matter of time before we see more systems like Sony's marketplace crop up. After all, why should companies let the gold farmers capture profit that they could be earning themselves? Beyond that, I wouldn't be surprised if it was only a matter of time until western MMO's are completely converted to the Free-To-Play microtransation models popular in asian MMO's. It doesn't take much imagination to invision a Star Wars Galaxies 2 where your character account is linked to a checking account, and you have the option to buy things from NPC vendors for either ingame credits, or out of game dollars - say $50 for 5 premium pearls and a unique hologram.
Yes and no. Mostly no (Score:5, Insightful)
That's really what gets people addicted, not the later grind for resources. _This_ is what MMORPG gamers really want, and unsurprisingly most MMORPG players went to the game which gave them more of this in the beginning. You'll notice the majority isn't on the games which give you the repetitive grind and (near)impossibility to solo from the start. So that blaming it on MMORPG players and some meme is missing the point by a mile.
But unfortunately that only works that way at the lower levels.
The problem again isn't that MMORPG players start demanding something else, but that the MMORPG publisher only has so much funds for game content. And that content has to last you for about 6 months, which is what an average gamer needs to get past the "but I'll lose my online 'friends' and my uber-character if I quit!" phase. Some need less, some stay there for 5 years, but when you turn it all into a statistic, 6 months is sorta where the bathtub curve starts going up one way or the other. So the developper has to stretch that content somehow over 6 months.
And currently the formula is to give you more of it up-front when you join, so they get you addicted, and very very slowly give you less and less from there. Until at the end-game it has already crawled to a start and you need to farm one dungeon daily for months, just so you can enter the next one. At that point, any new content or rewards you're getting is in dilluted to homoepathic doses.
However at that point they're not counting on you actually having fun either. They just count that you're well into the "but I'll lose my online 'friends' and my uber-character if I quit!" phase and busy rationalizing it, so you don't need more than a vague shaddow of a carrot dangled in front of you to stay there. At that point, the rewards and earnings are so dilluted and improbable that they just serve to give you some material to rationalize about, not something that's what MMORPG players as a whole love.
So basically even at this point, blaming MMORPG players and their memes is IMHO missing the whole point by a mile. That isn't what the MMORPG players themselves been asking for, it's just the final act of a cruel scam they've been gradually guided into. And no matter how some may rationalize it as being the meat of the game (humans are damn good at rationalizing taking crap), here's the reality check: that's not what got them addicted to the game during the first 30-40 levels. And they're not in other games which gave them that "meat" up-front, from level 1, either. So don't tell me that their whole personality did an 180 degree turn when reaching level 60, and they suddenly started actually wanting to grind for weeks even for a token reward.
Yes, it should make everyone rethink their priorities, and in truth it _eventually_ does. That's why people do eventually leave.
Re:There is a third option (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't comment on other MMORPGs, but World of Warcraft does reward good playing. It also rewards more playing by design, but everyone seems to assume that grinding and tradeskills are the only way to make money, and that money is the only way to be rewarded.
Good players are far more likely to:
Roleplaying is rewarded (at least on RP servers) by higher-level characters probably more than any other thing you can do, and it is characteristic of good playing (after all, you play to have fun, and the more fun you have the better you're playing). Getting into a good guild can get you items from raids. You can trade services for gold or items. And finally, I'll say it again: you don't have to have all the best items all the time to have fun playing.
Seems to me you guys have all lost the spirit of playing games for fun.
Re:If you need to spend extra cash to have fun (Score:2, Insightful)
The irony of this statement is killing me.
Cheating (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought up a cool item (a lightning sword or something) and said, "Cool! I'll write it up and use it in our next session!" He got really mad, and said you can't just make stuff up and start to use it. You have to go on a quest, win it through serious effort and struggle.
I reminded him that it's all make-believe anyway, and why couldn't I just magically get this? He insisted it wasn't the same, that it wasn't right. If I had obtained it through a big quest worthy of such an item, that would be OK, but just suddenly having it wasn't. I suggested that I make up some long story about a tremendous quest that I had gamed with another group, which culminated in me having the item. "Not the same!", he insisted.
I was irritated at the time, because I really wanted the cool item, but now, I see that he was right. If you don't play by the rules, then the game is no challenge, and if you aren't playing for the challenge, to test your skill and creativity and endurance, then you are just there for the scenery, a tourist watching a movie.
Ignoring the rules makes any game go faster, and let's you score better, but so what? Your drive off the tee goes into the rough? Pick up the ball and carry it to the hole... hole in one! It's fourth and 16 on your own 9 yard line? Give yourself twelve extra downs in the possession... touchdown! You're only 18 miles into the marathon, and your legs are giving out? Take a shortcut through central park... first place!
If you don't want to actually play the game, why pretend to be a player?
Re:time IS money (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if I'm smarter and a better gamer, even if I have more talent for the game it doesn't matter: the game gives preferential skills/stats/etc to people with an extreme excess of time on their hands (or no time management skills).
This is where most of the arguments in this thread fail. Yes, ceteris paribus, spending more time equals better character stats and better items. However:
Re:Fairness vs. pragmatism (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree, in a way. This is why I find the Station Exchange [sony.com] somewhat offensive. What's Sony's solution to their poor game design that makes progress a slow, boring, repetitive grind? Have people to pay them more money to mitigate the unpleasant aspects of the game resulting from their design failures, of course. Maybe I'm just jealous that I haven't figured out a way to earn money from my deficiencies, though.
However, I don't think it's ever going to be possible to create a persistent world where the amount of time you put into the game isn't somehow significantly rewarded. What is needed is a way for players to feel as if they are always making steady progress, even if they only play a few hours per week, in 15-90 minute game sessions (oh, and these sessions should be fun), without quickly exhausting all of the game's content. Should it really matter if you never hit the level cap, or catch up to the high school kids, as long as it doesn't seem to take gross lengths of time to gain cool new skills and see interesting new areas?
Another approach would be a deemphasis on progression altogether, in favor of a setting that is more focused on providing "sandbox" styles of gameplay, or player vs. player activity, etc.
EVE Online - while I only played it shortly - appears to have one big part of the problem solved: Skills increase through automatic training that depends on only one factor: Real time passed. Whether you're online playing or offline sleeping/working/whatever doesn't matter. You gain x experience points per hour.
Which to me doesn't appear to do much beyond give those who have been playing the game longer (real time instead of play time) an insurmountable lead and exclusive access to certain abilities (or at least, exclusive access to a variety of abilities). Someone who opens a subscription today can never hope to achieve an avatar as skillful as someone who's been playing from day one, no matter how clever and skilled they might be as a player (correct me if I'm wrong here though, my EVE playtime was also very limited).
And there's still plenty of mind-numbing grinding to do in EVE if you want to progress, in the form of mining asteroids or whatever. Though EVE does support a thriving player driven economy from what I've seen, one that the enterprising, clever or devious player can take advantage of to get rich much more quickly than one could achieve merely from grinding asteroids or NPC pirates for ISK.
I do see EVE as a positive step in the right direction, because the players have a larger degree of control over the shape of the world, they can create their own challenges for themselves to keep the game interesting, without necessarily requiring the devs to release new content. Or at least, so it seems. Like I said, I haven't played the game a whole lot myself.
A good game should reward good playing, not more playing.
I agree, I would like to see more games that reward skill rather than playtime, but how to accomplish this? If it's a persistent world, then inevitably those who have more time to play not only spend more time honing their skills and are more likely to become a better player, but spend more time reaping the rewards of successful play, gaining mechanical advantages in the form of their avatar gaining more skill, better equipment, more privledges, etc.
The only way I can see to reward skill over time is to make it easy to lose progress you've made as a result of your failures. There are already games like this, but they are niche games, not massively popular ones like World of Warcraft.
Raph Koster [raphkoster.com] put it this way, "... is there necessarily something wrong with giving people without significant skill (which is
Re:There is a third option (Score:4, Insightful)
In my case, I'd rather spend $50 a week to have some service come to my place and do all the crap stuff around here like vacuum, dust, wash windows, clean the bathroom and so on. Sure, I suppose I could spend the time to do those tasks myself, but I'd rather spend the money and have the time I would spend cleaning to do pretty much anything else. Is this stupid for me to do? If it is, then hell, I'm glad to be a dumbass.
In the case of buying gold, if someone doesn't enjoy one particular aspect of a game (the grinding for money part) but they do like what the grinding can get them (access to good stuff) then why is it stupid to have someone else do the scut work so they can then enjoy the benefits?
How is the WoW scenario any different from the cleaning person scenario? How is it different than *any* task that a person *could* do for themselves, but simply doesn't enjoy, and doesn't feel is an effective use of their time, so they hire someone else?
I've never bought items in a game with real money, and I probably never will - the kinds of games that require grinding and encourage gold farming by their very mechanics simply don't appeal to me - but I certainly don't find it any dumber than any other activity in which people trade money for avoidance of boring labor.
Of course it is cheating. (Score:3, Insightful)
Monopoly
Axis & Allies
Checkers
Chess
Imagine being able to bring use real cash to buy extra game money or pieces.
Hmm. I need some $300 dollars more to buy that hotel on boardwalk- okay, I'll just put down $3.00 of real money to buy $3000 game money. Wow- this is so much fun- this game of monopoly is so much faster and I'm much more likely to win since I have $100 in my pocket and you only have $20.
Unless the game itself explicitly allows you to buy items with cash, then buying gold this way is cheating.
---
It can't be stopped tho. So any game that has a market means that normal people are playing in a game where people are rampantly cheating all around them. And the games are fundamentally unfair in several ways:
1) If you don't have to work... you win.
2) If you can log on just an hour earlier than the majority of the players.. you win if critical content is not instanced.
3) If you start the game with a group of friends from a previous game- you have a huge advantage.
These are advantages but they are not cheating. Buying gold and equipment with real world money means you are not playing the game (unless the games rules explicitly allow you to purchase items with real cash in game).
Need two versions of WoW (Score:2, Insightful)
The Hardcore player needs a WoW where lots of grinding is required, long quests, mats that takes time to acquire for the price of very rewarding items such as elite mounts for instance.
The Casual player needs a way to keep up with the hardcore player so that everybody can play more or less on the same level. But because those players cant spend hours & hours collecting items, they're consistently behind....
One version of a game and two types of players that can't exactly coexist on the same server.
Why not make two version of the game ? One favouring grinding and highly rewarding items and one favouring casual players where its not so hard to get to the top but where you will not find the same items.
GIMP servers would be easy to level, easy to get money but without the high rewards
L33T Servers would be your regular WoW with money difficult to get, reputation slow to rise. Big rewards.
But then... we might end up with the same issue, casual players wanting to play on l33t servers because there's better loot AND chinese farmers to sell g0ld
oh well...
Inflation / Deflation? So what? (Score:2, Insightful)
#1 Farming causes more uber items to be injected into the economy. This leads to deflation which makes it harder for honest players to make money.
#2 Farming causes more gold to be injected into the economy. This leads to inflation which makes it harder for honest players to buy items.
Suppose farming leads to deflation. Although, the honest player can't make as much money, this is balanced by the fact he doesn't have to pay as much for items that he wants to buy.
Suppose farming leads to inflation. Although, the honest player has to pay more for items, this is balanced by the fact he will make more money from the items he sells.
I will readily concede that the honest player is at a competitive disadvantage to the player who buys gold on Ebay and then spends it getting the best gear in the game. However, I have yet to hear an arguement that makes it clear to me that farming makes it more difficult for the honest player to acquire items.
If they say it is cheating, it is cheating. (Score:3, Insightful)
If the company that runs the game says it is cheating, it IS cheating. they make the rules
If the company that develops the game says it isn't cheating, then its not and have at it. Though, paying real world money to get virtual money that is worthless is, in my opinion, stupid.
Not cheating. (Score:2, Insightful)
Cheating, however, is something I do happen to know quite a bit about, and not just codes, but the more esoteric forms like memory modification, and profile hacking. These things are definitely cheating, and have no place in a "fair" online environment. By definition to cheat is to circumvent the rules of the game in order to obtain some sort of unfair perk. More HP, higher levels, etc, those are all definitely cheating but buying something? That is where the lines become blurry.
Purchasing gold or other items from someone else is certainly not the noble way of doing things, and I wouldn't encourage it, but it's no more cheating than any other instance in which someone uses their financial status to circumvent the work to accomplish something. If your car breaks down, do you start learning how to repair cars, working through levels of apprenticeship up to those of master mechanic? More than likely not. You pay someone to do the work for you, while you reap the rewards. The game is no different. You don't necessarily want to become good enough at the game to gain the money, or perhaps you simply don't have the time to get it yourself, so you pay someone else to do it for you. Wherever there is a desire, there will be a market; pure and simple.
Ultimately, this is just a sign that the world of data and the world of real goods are starting to converge. You already pay real money for software, and you pay real money for music, and you pay real money for naked pictures too. How is paying real money for digital gold any different?
Re:There is a third option (Score:3, Insightful)
I never bought gold in any MMOG but I can understand why people do. It's a shortcut. Getting gold/platinum/credit in any of these games is beyond easy, all you need is to have a pulse and be able to click 2-3 keys in a sequence on your keyboard. A monkey can do it. However, it's beyond boring and getting large ammounts can take quite a lot of time.
It reminds me of Collectible Card Games. You could haggle and trade with other players for the cards you needed or simply shell out that 50$ for your Juzam Djinn or Darth Vader. Some people didn't like trading and haggling and they simply wanted to play with powerful decks and bought the cards. Same thing can be applied to MMOGs, some people hate gold farming with a passion and they are willing to save time and effort and pay for it.
Stupid? Maybe for you, for the person with a very nice salary, this player simply saves a lot of time and boredom and insteads jumps right into the action of the game.
Re:It's Pretty Simple (Score:2, Insightful)
I would argue the heavily abbreviated, almost l33t, shorthand used in chat is also not within the spirit or intent of the game, as it detracts from the atmosphere.
That is why they have Role Playing servers. For people who want to immerse themselves in the world of Azeroth.
As a recent attainer of level 60, I have to say there were times when I would get discouraged about gold. That is when I would devote a day or so to farming materials, and grinding up my crafting skills. As well as fishing, there is a lot of money to be made there, especially as a Herbalist/Alchemist. By the time I was level 40, I was making about 20 gold a day from fishing, then turning around and creating fire oil and blackmouth oil from the schools of fish I was farming. (I have since gotten an epic world drop that I could not use as a rogue, so I sold that for 140 gold, and have not had cash problems since.)
Also, I have played in parties where people have main hand and off hand epics (as well as epic ranged weapon) and judging by the way they played (noobish, if you will. bad party etiquette) I made the assumption that they had bought the gold with which to buy said epic weapons. I view gold buying as cheating the system. You should not be able to get metric asstons of epic items until you have proven yourself.
Re:Shortcutting IS cheating. (Score:2, Insightful)
Really? I thought the whole point was to play with your friends and play with characters that are not computer generated NPCs.....
But then again, I only play casually...
GSG
braindead (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about it this way:
1) You pay a monthly subscription fee to play the game.
2) You find aspects of the game so awful you'll pay other people real money to releive you of the burden of actually playing the game.
Meanwhile, this encourages true no-lifers and/or impoverished asians to try to make a real world income by satisfying your desire not to have to play the game you subscribe to. Which floods the game with piles of greedy morons who make the game less enjoyable for those who do actually enjoy playing it.
Here's a suggestion: Cancel your subscription and play something you actually look forward to playing. There are surely more satisfying uses of your time.
Why are you playing a game that's 80% treadmill if you hate the treadmill? The Mmog is a complete package - and you hate most of it. To get to the bits you like, your character has to slog through the bits you don't - paying someone else to do it is ridiculous.
You wouldn't sign up to a book club (where you read a book and meet to talk about it) if you hated the books they chose most of the time. And what you're doing is even dumber, you're paying someone else to read the books for you, just so you can stay in the book club.
Which Is It, Inflation or Deflation (Score:5, Insightful)
You appear to be thinking that people buying gold won't spend that gold on raw materials in order to raise their profession skills. At level 42 in WoW, I decided to learn cooking. It took me a great deal of cash to get all the materials to level my cooking skill up, but I got to 250/300 in about two evenings. Now, I used a great deal of my own cash to do that. But, I could have just as easily gone out and bought gold farmer cash to do it as well.
Even so, you can't both blame inflation and deflation on the same group of people. That seriously makes no sense.
The fact is that you have no idea how these gold farmers are making money. The likely thing is they're using multiple means of getting gold. Sure, they could be overfarming, driving down the price. The problem with that though is once the prices are down, they make no money from overfarming. So, like everyone else, it is in their best interest not to overfarm. Further, economies on servers tend to improve over time as players level up. That would suggest that a bad economy has nothing to do with gold farmers and everything to do with the number of higher-level players overall.
You also have no idea how many of these gold farmers exist on the server at any given point. Given the thousands of players on each server, a few gold farmers are not likely to affect the economy on a long-term basis. Gold farmers only become a problem should their numbers become high enough to overwhelm the balance of the server. And since these people are presumably selling their gold all the time, that means they actually have less influence than regular player characters of the same level.
Re:The problem (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you know?
Re:Think of the Economy! (Score:2, Insightful)
I know some of the basics, and have made a few gold by playing the economy, buying low selling high kinda stuff. Some of my investments have lost, alot have won.
But there is no way I could have hit 35G at lvl 25 with all expenses paid.
Unless I was a skinning herbalist cloth farming mage. (which I have considered...)
Re:There is a third option (Score:3, Insightful)
So, the price is lowered because the raw materials are oversupplied (so a decent skinner can't make money) and then the prices are inflated because of lots of "extra" gold being thrown around (so a decent skinner can make money).
Tell me how that works out to be anything but a draw.
Re:Yes and no. Mostly no (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm level 60. When I want to play, I either go
a) Kill things or players that are challenging for fun.
b) Complete quests that sound interesting (or maybe have a neat item).
or
c) Grab a couple guildmates and run an instance, which for the most part is fun and challenging, and possibly gets me some loot.
None of these require that I buy gold, grind endlessly, or have uber items.
What does require grinding endlessly? Deciding that I *must* have the awesome staff of awesomeness that is a
My character has solid gear for someone whose guild doesn't run the 40-man instances, and I haven't been playing long enough for running one of the high level 5-man instances to be boring.
There are plenty of things to do that don't require grinding in any MMO that I have played for more than a month. It's only when people decide that the point of their playing is to get X weapon, which requires a lot of effort. I don't see why people can't be happy with just the good stuff they get incidentally while do other things that are, you know, actually fun. I mean, if you've been playing the game for months and months and already HAVE all that stuff... then why not just buy another game and move on (or just grind it, since you've obviously been playing this game too much anyway). There's NO reason a new character needs to buy gold or levels - the game's more fun before you max out your level anyway
It's all about time. (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's the kicker.
It's a game I enjoy playing!
I like to be happy. I like to smile. I like to do things I enjoy.
I don't like to be overly frustrated with tedious tasks. I don't like to get smacked down by people who can sit at home all day and farm eq/gold. I don't care for it, it makes my 14$ a month pointless.
I enjoy playing WoW, I just don't have tons of time for it. I understand that the people at blizzard cannot make a game that suits everyones schedule. I don't hold this aganist them, and I think it's probably better that it takes a long time to do these events. (The end level stuff can't be bought in the Auction House for the most part, so buying gold only really helps you level to 60 and buy mounts OR help you make more money on top of it.. so really gameplay at the end is about the same)If these raids and such at the end didn't take time and strategy it would degrade the gameplay. Even if you're wearing epic equipment for some of the last raids.. if someone slips, you all die. It should be hard, it should take a long time. I don't refute that at all. But i'll be buying my time back from a chinese sweatshop TYVM. So while you guys are whining ingame and skinning boars. I'll logon, waste some time raiding or playing battlegrounds with my great eq. Have a GREAT time.. then just go hangout with my friends, family, whatever i feel like doing in my free time. time i BOUGHT..
One guy compared spending money on WoW gold to hiring a cleaning service. I agree with him wholeheartedly. He got well.. flamed for it.. since it's a game? as if we don't understand what we're spending money on? I know what i'm spending money on, i made a concious effort to spend it. I've enjoyed it immensely when logged on. I bet he did too. So why flame him for that? It's a service. We're just buying a service. When i look at money vs time in my life, i'd rather drop the 60$ than take the time away from other things i like to do.
So if i'm so strapped for time, maybe i shouldn't play?
The thing is i WANT to play and i don't feel like any smartmouth answer like "you should just not play" fixes anything...
None of us have THAT much time here anyway. Do what makes you laugh, do what you enjoy, and don't let hateful whiney people take away your time. If there's a market for this service use it if you want too, depends what doing the things you enjoy (all of them) is worth to you.
Personally i want to do as much as i can. So look, selfish me buys gold.. and has a GREAT time! Then logs off, and still has a great one in RL.
Cheers,
=D
Re:There is a third option (Score:3, Insightful)
I have two level 60's.
Once you get there you can get 50g a day with just an hour or two of effort.
How? Farming in Tyr's hand? Good luck, 50G will take you awhile, a lot longer than an hour or two of effort. I suppose you could run the low end dungeons (ie UBRS and below) roll on BoE's and sell them, but that is shaky at best, and you will be lucky to get done with that inside of 2 hours if you go with a pickup group. Of course this does vary by class, and certain classes (ie rogue) have an easier time farming. 50G an hour is unrealistic if you straight up farm.
Most people have epic steeds because they put in that effort. If you don't even bother doing anything you will end up with the 800g for your epic steed after a while because at level 60 you have pretty much no use for gold after you have your epic mount.
You mean, except for repair costs (Varies by class), high level enchants, potions, and upgrading equipment via the AH?
On a reasonably mature server most of the players you see are second and third characters, they have gold because they get it from their level 60 alts.
I know one or two people who actually farm for gold. The majority of people I can pry an answer out of admit to having bought gold at least once.
Not to mention the simple fallacy that if you couldnt get enough gold for an epic there would need to be more farmers than players in order to keep them coming. When you are level 20 1000g for an epic mount seems like a huge amount of money, by the time you reach level 60 you can now buy it for 800g and you have realised that it is not at all unattainable.
The majority of players have jobs, and your idea that only one farmer can support one player is illogical.
More people are buying gold than you think.
Not So Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
-- I have a 6mbit cable connection, which is really going to allow me to advance in the game much faster than players limited to a modem or crappy DSL connection. Believe me, there are plenty of players out there using modem connections, I've played with them, and I can literally run circles around them while they die over and over, which ends up costing them serious money and time.
-- Having a slower video card doesn't handicap you as much, but does to some extent. You have more control over your video settings to even things out than when it comes to your connection, but it certainly helps to have a top-of-the-line video card that allows me to easily zoom out and see farther away than other players.
-- Getting a guild together made up of high level Real-Life friends gives you a HUGE advantage over other solo players like me. Sure, you can just make the friends online, but it's a lot easier if you already have a group of level 60 geeks (especially family members) waiting to help you almost any time you want. I've been seriously left in the dust because of this many times, ESPECIALLY when it comes to WoW objectives that are mostly based on gold (epic mount, mount, etc.). I've seen players in a guild who would literally give 100-500 gold to members based solely on the fact they are Real-Life family members. Is nepotism any less cheating than buying gold from a gold farmer? I don't think so.
I think the first and especially third points are, by far, the most common way that a random level 1 player can get to level 60 in a couple of weeks. I've moved up a couple of high-end levels (mid to high 50's) in an hour or so each just by tagging along with level 60's who were just bored and wanted to show me how much butt they could kick.
I also think that the fact that getting a big gold hand-out from a family member or simply buying it with real world money shows there are serious flaws in the gameplay of WoW itself. Anything that costs a huge amount of gold or has ridiculous drop percentages is just Blizzard's way of telling you, "Hey, we're scraping the bottom of the barrel in content here, so just bite the bullet and start grindin'!".
Grinding is a substitute for good game content, and WoW has been (and still is) lacking a lot of good game content in the high levels (level 40+) for a long time.
Not to mention how many high level quests are so bugged that you have to wait weeks to do them. Some of the quests allow you to make stupid mistakes that can easily be solved with a bunch of gold, which encourages more gold begging/buying. Many high level quests are blatant in how they expect you to grind or waste huge amounts of time gathering crap to complete the quest. Most people just buy the crap to complete the quest in a few minutes.
The real problem with WoW is that they set up the content so that you can easily advance by cheating. Then they're surprised when people actually do cheat?!?!?
Give me a break, Blizzard, come up with more/better/less buggy content, then you can complain more about cheating (which is probably why you don't hear Blizzard complaining too much about it).
Oh and, in the meantime, if you're going to crack down on cheaters who buy gold from gold farmers, why don't you just start regulating/restricting all sales/transfers/trades of 100 gold or more in the game? Then you'll stop ALL the B.S....
Maybe a little out of touch... (Score:2, Insightful)
But to answer your question of cheating or shortcut, it's definitely cheating. The poor 16 year old getting paid minimum wage who can't afford spending $60 on imaginary gold is at a disadvantage with someone who has a much better job. Where are the ethics in game playing??
Everyone buys gold... (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, as long as people don't buy a toon - I don't have a problem.
My Mage 60 isn't wealthy enough to go on raids and stuff, and I certainly think buying gold is a valid option.
Re:There is a third option (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean, except for repair costs (Varies by class), high level enchants, potions, and upgrading equipment via the AH?
The only one of these that last is repair costs and potions. There is a very limited amount of equipment you can get via the AH once you hit level 60.
I know one or two people who actually farm for gold. The majority of people I can pry an answer out of admit to having bought gold at least once.
You are skewing your numbers here, your entire sentence implies that you group people into two groups, those who have admitted buying gold to you, and those you havent been able to pry that admission out of. I know a lot of lvl 60 people and none of them have ever bought gold and find the thoughts of doing so both amusing and repulsive.
The majority of players have jobs, and your idea that only one farmer can support one player is illogical.
You argue that farming gold takes so long that the majority of people can't do it. Then also argue that everyone buys gold. So my question is, if everyone is buying gold, how is the small few farmers supplying them. If everyone is buying and even 10% of the server population are gold sellers then that person needs to be able to gather enough gold to supply 10 people. If getting gold is so hard that one person can't supply himself as you argue, then how does one person supply 10? They can't. If everyone was buying their gold then there would need to be a LOT of gold farmers to meet the demand. There aren't therefore not many people are buying gold.