MMOG Sites Under IGE Merging? 52
CTD writes "Grimwell Online notes that IGE has announced a merger of networks involving: Thottbott, Allakhazam, OGaming, and L2Orphus. There is a thread in the Allakhazam forums that brings all the release data together - but still leaves some questions about what is to come. Grimwell raises one in his post about this: 'Even more fun for our friends who work PR for gaming companies. IGE = RMT, which is not the Devil - but is not exactly welcomed at most companies. Will this move help push things past the tipping point and force developers to deal with the new, larger network?'"
Re:The Devil is in the Details... (Score:0, Insightful)
World of Warcraft hasn't been having anywhere near as large problem with goldsellers than FFXI has. The reason is that WoW was designed well, and FFXI - well, wasn't.
Don't blame the gold sellers, blame the game manufactorers that make buying currency the only way to get ahead - like Square-Enix did. Allakhazam is, without a doubt, the largest FFXI fansite on the web. It's really not that surprising that IGE would be interested in it, because FFXI is designed to make currency selling necessary, and nothing Square-Enix does will ever change that.
It's hardly IGE's fault that Square-Enix misdesigned their game. As World of Warcraft proves, it's possible to create a good MMORPG, and Square-Enix, quite simply, failed.
Re:The Devil is in the Details... (Score:2, Insightful)
This is complicated by the fact that it is basically impossible to make a profit by selling things to NPCs, so gil is streaming out of the econemy (NPCs still sell useful goods and services) faster than it is coming in.
The only question that really matters is how much playtime a player has to spend farming/crafting/etc to get a particular item, and in my case, deflation has not improved those numbers, and sometimes made them worse.
There are many, many problems with FFXI and the econemy would be one of them even if gillsellers had never existed.
Right, who could blame IGE? (Score:5, Insightful)
I see. So, because these companies only destroy half the games they infiltrate, that makes it ok. The games that do get ruined were asking for it. Pick a different reason for every game, but it's the game designer's fault for not being able to handle these cartels when they try to take over. Because after all, this has only happened to FFXI.
Cartels like IGE ruin games for profit. They work full time, either exploiting bugs or taking what they want by brute force. They're larger than the largest guilds. They have the financial means, and the manpower, to get what they want in any of a hundred ways.
Blaming the gamers or the game designers for the fact that these guys exist is like blaming someone for getting mugged. Yes, you had a lock on your front door, but was it a titanium lock with 53 bolts? Because these guys just designed a way to pick the old 52-bolt locks last week. Go ahead and upgrade, but just remember, there are a thousand guys in your hallway with hundreds of millions of dollars of resources, and they'll be working on that lock 24/7, and every time they get in, it's your fault. Also, you can't tackle the problem like a normal security expert does, because what these guys do is apparently not illegal. They have nothing to lose, in fact everything to gain, by trying again, and again, and again.
Online games obviously need to defend against it better, but blaming them because this huge, sustained effort against them exists is just insane.
Re:The Devil is in the Details... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Devil is in the Details... (Score:3, Insightful)
The game is more than bearable if you actually do things other than farm and level jobs (hint: HELM AND CRAFTING).
It's not supposed to be a race to 75 - the game is the journey. Good fucking god...I keep forgetting that most of the end-game people now are still not much better than the noobs they were in the dunes.
Re:Game DBs defeating the purpose of playing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of the time, what I want to do is find out where some obscure mob is to be found, or find out what their idiotic spawn rate is.
Forgive me for having a family, but I don't find the idea to sit in a zone/area for hours/days on end waiting for a freakin' mob to spawn so I can kill him to advance some quest. And since the damn thing spawns so infrequently, I want to know WHERE he spawns, so I have a chance to find it.
In WoW, at worst, most of the quest mobs spawned right away, or in some cases you had to wait an hour. (That stupid tiger in SV that spawns only once an hour comes to mind, and fighting through Hunters that wanted it as a pet before they nerfed its speed some, was a chore.) In EQ, though, it really helped to know where that mob spawned, and WHEN it spawned. Nothing like trying to time Phinny just right while working on one of 4 different epics. Dummest idea ever, 1 mob that was a required kill with poor loot chances, but 4 different clases needed him.
This is the part of the grind I don't like. I don't want to wait hours/days/weeks and even months to get some quest completed, even if it is an uber quest. It's not fun. And this is why people sell items and currency.
It took a few months for me to kill Phinny for my wizard epic in EQ, and he was a 12hr spawn! I think I downed that fish more than 15 times! Grrr. Nobody liked going into KK to kill Phinny. It was a PITA to make sure everyone could breath underwater, and to navigate it. I didn't mind killing Phinny 3-4 times. After more than 10 (including a few solo kills), I was more than fed up, and when a friend got the staff off of him while helping a bard on his attempt, I decided that I wasn't too proud to MQ that damn quest.
There's grind, and then there's GRIND. I can deal with a little grind, but that major GRIND just wears me out. I don't have the time or the willingness to try to be at my PC every 12hrs to kill one freaking mob. And with the wife about to pop out a baby, I'll have even less. I love the interaction with others and the fun of working together to complete a task, but for now, MMOs have come off my current game playing list.