Ask the MMOG Money Traders 239
Late yesterday, Sparter Inc. announced the Gamer2Gamer virtual currency trading platform. The goal: to provide a secure currency trading environment for players of Massively Multiplayer Online Games. Rather than purchasing currency outright, the goal of the project is to cut out the middleman and (implicitly) the gold-farming consortiums that supply larger for-pay sites. We were contacted by a representative from the company before the release went out, looking to speak with the Slashdot community about the service. In his words, the folks at Gamer2Gamer "are devoted gamers themselves and are well aware that not everyone will like the idea -- but we think plenty of folks will like a world where Real Money Transfer is workable and unintrusive." And so, you get the chance today to put the hard questions to them. One question per comment, please, and we'll pass on the best of the lot to be answered as soon as possible. Update: 06/14 17:58 GMT by Z : Howzer points out that there is an extensive FAQ on the service, that you can use as a springboard for questions.
The Assured Protection of Human Rights (Score:5, Interesting)
Tell me again how your service does not promote this middle man from acting like a player? How am I assured that my gold is not earned by some innocent kid who is doing this as a job to make money? How am I assured this isn't still some cog in a scheme to exploit foreign workers?
Disclaimer for the rest of Slashdot: I'm well aware of the situations where this may be the person's only means of income. I still would rather not support this system.
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As someone else said, the easy answer to this is to just play the damn game yourself and earn your own in-game money. Simple. Don't get involved in gold trading in the first place and you don't need any assurances about human rights.
Seriously, what kind of loser/sucker pays real money of in-game money anyway?
-matthew
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Heh, if I were running an MMORPG and saw out-of-game transactions going on I'd run irregular devaluations/random drop rate changes with the money supply just to screw with the minds of the traders.
Face it, in-game money is a non-scarce resource. The devs can create a bazillion plat with a database change. If players desperately need to obtain gold, then that's a balance/economy problem that needs to be adressed by the devs, so th
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If *I* were running an MMORPG, I'd give it a working economy similar to EVE Online. WoW is big enough to have a player run economy with a limited (but not quite finite) amount of total cash, isn't it?
-matthew
Re:The Assured Protection of Human Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect that WoW shards aren't large enough to have the critical mass needed for a real economy. Even in EVE, with everyone crammed into a single "world / shard / server", it's still possible that you can't find item X for sale. Or that a few producers have banded together and created a monopoly on item Y. (Although, at least with EVE and the roughly 30-45k active players, it's rare that it happens.)
The usual problems in MMO economies are:
- Crafting / manufacturing is not as profitable per hour as adventuring. Often because NPC vendors sell identical product too cheaply (worse, with infinite inventory). EVE handles this by making nearly everything as player-made, NPC vendors sell only a small handful of base goods.
- NPCs that buy goods. This gets more into the money supply issue. But it causes problems for producers. If NPCs are buying a raw material at price X, that sets a floor on the raw material price. Often that floor price is out of sync with what the market really feels that the raw material is worth. Which leads to problems obtaining raw materials. In EVE, NPCs don't buy raw or finished materials.
- Item destruction is a required aspect. If items never wear out, players never need to purchase new items. Which means that the economy grinds to a halt. Soul-binding of equipment isn't the answer. Equipment needs to wear out, with the option to repair it - but repairs should cost money and possibly a *lot* of money. In EVE, because of PvP and the death penalty, equipment is constantly being destroyed (you might get back 5% of your gear after a ship loss).
- Single markets = 2-dimensional economies that don't work. Distance and location need to be part of the economy. Travel in the MMO needs to require time / effort or money. That allows multiple producers to compete without one producer getting 100% of the volume because they undercut prices by 1 copper. EVE handles this by limiting markets to Regions (and there are 50+ regions). You can only search pricing within a region, so you have to travel a bit in order to check on prices in other regions. There's no "fast travel" - 20 jumps is 20 jumps. So often a buyer will pay a premium to purchase goods that are physically closer.
And that just glosses the surface of what is required to have a "working" economy in an MMO.
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I find ironic that the most popular online *game* in the world is so readily compared to work.
-matthew
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I find it just plain sad. Most MMOG players today need to see a shrink as far as i'm concerned.
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Except connecting those who want to supply labor with those who want to purchase it. Perhaps you think that HR should handle everything, but having been on both sides of arbitraged un-skilled and semi-skilled labor, I see definite benefits for both sides o
Re:The Assured Protection of Human Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
The farming job is the one they choose and the one that THEY Decided was the best choice for them.
FYI - I use to work at one of these 'victim' jobs and so have many others like me who went on and started successful businesses and have attained relatively great levels of prosperity. You must be one of those 'college know it all' hippies.
They live in mud and have no money. A foreign company comes in and offers them jobs with no skills - which are the only kind of jobs they can do. And you want to take those jobs away?
Besides, suggesting that they are just as well of starving doesn't help your arguement.
Nonsense. Popular nonsense, but still nonsense. (Score:4, Interesting)
Your premise is entirely wrong, therefor it's not really possible to answer your question in a way that will satisfy you.
The only part of your question that's relevent is this: Is everyone freely engaging in these transactions? If so, they must believe that they benefit from it. Can the worker quit and find another way to eek out a living? Can the employer fire him and hire someone else? Are you free to not play the MMOG in question? Are you free to not buy gold from this seller? Is the seller free to not sell gold from you? The alternatives may be less pleasent, but they are still alternatives.
By arbitrarily saying I'm well aware of the situations where this may be the person's only means of income. I still would rather not support this. You're setting up field such that no answer will satisfy you, and any transaction that involves Americans paying foriegners for unskilled labor is evil exploitation.
No one who thinks like you do can possibly be pleased. Why bother?
This is what happens when you take too many classes about 'social justice': Your head gets filled with confused thinking about victims, oppressors, capitilist pigs, poor exploited foreigners and the like.
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And no comments about where most American goods come from!
Why? (Score:2)
I think the name answers that (Score:2)
I think they are trying to fill in, where Ebay like companies have failed, and that's to allow one person to trade with another person (more personable), rather than having to deal with a company.
Re:I think the name answers that (Score:5, Insightful)
Ebay did not fail to provide a marketplace. They chose not to, stating that they were trying to reduce their users' exposure to risk (assumedly, from both fraud and legal action by the game companies). I'm certain they were also reducing their risk and expenses, both from dealing with fraud (in-game currency transactions have a high rate of fraud) and from legal fees if asked to C&D by game companies.
Ebay did fail (Score:2)
If you want something that would prevent a bussiness from being able to conduct bussiness, then the only way to achieve that would be to pass a law that could then be enforced by a government.
Haha, ya, and Slashdotters choose not to get laid all the time too. How
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Well, first off, speak for yourself. Second, you're saying that Ebay was not capable of serving the market for virtual transactions? Apparently you never looked at Ebay before they prohibited the trade. I suggest you do a little basic research on the topic.
As I said, Ebay stated one reason, but I explained what I thought their real reasons were.
That's what Gamer2Gamer is doing (Score:2)
Is this a joke? Yes, it's obvious that Ebay isn't capable of serving a market that they are prohibited form serving. If Gamer2Gamer steps in and successfully serves the marketplace, where Ebay failed too, then what's your point, or are you just playing semantic games?
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Legal? (Score:4, Interesting)
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While I'm not against currency transfers, this seems a little bit like the business model of Sharman Networks, profiting on unauthorized transfers and sitting somewhere in the grey area of the law.
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I'd like to know how/whether this company will work with the companies that run the games to keep this from happening.
Market Control & Conversion System? (Score:5, Interesting)
Bottom line question is whether or not you'll control dumping of virtual currency or if you'll institute ranges. If you're not instituting limits or regulating in a Federal Reserve type manner, how are you going to protect against a single person running the market (buying all the gold and sitting on it while letting it drip out slowly at an extreme amount of USD)?
Will you post graphs of each MMO's currency so we can watch currencies like SWG's credit against Warcraft's Gold?
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Basically, setting up a service to circumvent the Terms of Service for these games (like these Real Money Transfers) is like setting up a service to purchase and distribute illegal RL items like firearms, gambling or narcotics: there isn't going to ever be an officia
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Man, eldavjohn you sure to have a lot of replies in this thread!
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Isn't this only really feasable if the market is small?
The way you talk about it temps me to play this currency trading system to make a littl
Taxes (Score:5, Insightful)
Inevitably, when Governments hear about money being passed around, their first thought is how to tax it. MMOGs can take the position that their currency isn't real, and therefore shouldn't be taxed. However, being able to transfer virtual currency for real cash weakens that argument.
I personally don't want to play a game where I have to pay sales tax on buying items, or income tax for an in-game business, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Given this, do you see any foreseeable ways to keep taxes out of games?
Re:Taxes (Score:4, Informative)
That said, hardly anyone actually declares barter to tha tax man.. so the question really should go to the taxman.. are they going to enforce taxes on bartering of virtual cash, or not?
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rj
Simple (Score:2)
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all we'd need is a means to harness the motion of ice and tides for energy, hydroponics for food and recreation, and we'd have an eco-friendly communal self sufficient data center.
and then the outsourcing to evil begins..
and then we get the power, then we get the....
wait...that should have been the quiet part.
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I realise that what you mean by 'real money' is 'legal tender' but there are any number of things that are used as money in the world that may or may not be a legal tender. The trick is trying to define where to draw the line between "handing over cash for physical goods" and "virtual world virtual transactions". There's no obvious clear cut answer that fits all situations between.
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from my point of view there can only be a taxation for the transaction that actually involves real money.
That's your point of view. The point of view that really counts here is the government, which tends to make up whatever rules will maximize its revenue without (we should hope) seriously impacting the overall economy.
Litigation (Score:5, Interesting)
Will your servers be foreign based to avoid this?
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How? (Score:3, Interesting)
Taxes (Score:3, Interesting)
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Something unforseen: (Score:3, Insightful)
Cheating Your System (Score:5, Interesting)
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I had the same question and found this on their FAQ. It all sounds like a bunch of marketing BS to me. So my question is, what assurances or expla
RMT Legality (Score:5, Insightful)
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What are the real measures that will be taken? (Score:4, Interesting)
Terms of Service (Score:5, Interesting)
Same argument used by cheaters (Score:2)
MUDflation (Score:3, Interesting)
It's well known that real money for game currency helps contribute to mudflation by providing volumes of game capital to players unable to achieve the same. Such dilution of the value of currency on a game thereby impacts every player of that game as costs go up but gained rewards by playing the game does not.
If you envision a world where Real Money Transfer is "unintrusive", how do you compensate for MUDflation? What steps do you intend to take to truly be unintrusive on other players?
Re:MUDflation (Score:5, Insightful)
Selling in-game cash for real cash is not the primary cause of MUDflation! I know you've heard a lot of people say it is, but that doesn't make it true.
Think about how most MUD game economies work from first principles for a minute: you "harvest" unlimited resources mostly to sell to in-game "vendors" that have unlimited cash. That's what causes the inflation -- an unlimited supply of money!
Consider, too, what most purchasers of in-game cash use it for: to pour into the in-game money sinks (buying your "spells", buying your "horse") which instantly removes it from circulation.
MUD economies are broken, and primed for massive inflation from the get-go. In-game money-sinks are efforts to stave this off, but whenever there is infinite supply of money, there will be inflation.
Most MUDs also have players of widely disparate levels (and thus "incomes") playing "together" which further exacerbates the inflation (Eg. It's worth less to me, a high level, to haggle with you, a low level, about some in-game resource I'm buying from you than to simply pay you whatever you're asking. Pretty soon the "accepted price" for whatever it is rises.)
All the above considered, gold farming might slightly increase the inflation rate --- but this is dwarfed by factors that are built into the system.
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It DOES happen and it's not because MUD economies are broken. Give them some credit. Every MUD has money sinks as well as unlimited resources. You know what the factor is which moderates it all? TIME.
Gaining money takes time and effort. That determines the price of goods. That's time and effort you spent that someone else didn't have to. Simple (real) example: if you can kill mobs for 100g/hour, or mine 20 "khorium" bar
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Someone mined the khorium, who did it doesn't matter.
As far as bots go,
Someone has a bot that does it.
What's the difference? nothing.
If Blizzard wanted to end GOld Faring they could do it.
Don't allow large transfers of money would be the easiest. Cap it at 100GP.
SOmeone gets a lot of gold over a very short peri
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Gold farming is not even close to the problem in WOW that people like to pretend it is.
Unlimited supplies, unlimited gold, and the fact that items are found, often randomly, causes all kinds of issues.
Bottom line:Time is money. Anyone who does the math can see that spending 300 dollars to get 5000GP can be better then spending many many hours trying to make the gold in ga
Game Terms of Service (Score:3, Interesting)
Can you please comment on how Sparter plans to protect itself from the inevitable lawsuits and C&D notices from game publishers?
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Let's ask questions not in the FAQ! (Score:5, Interesting)
Sparter has an extensive FAQ [sparter.com] which answers everything from how they make money (commission) to how they "guarantee" you get the "goods" (they stick your money in escrow until you say "got the gold!" from the seller)
So let's ask some questions not in the FAQ, eh?! Here's mine:
For such an incredibly simple service, you seem to have a hugely top-heavy management team, which means big running costs, which explains your exorbitant 10 percent commission. What's to stop me (or anyone) setting up a simpler, leaner service doing exactly the same thing and charging 5 percent?
Or, if that's too hard, try this one:
You claim you use (quoting from your site) "state-of-the-art technology to root out fraud". Since simple fraud -- I say I didn't get something that someone says they gave me in game -- can't be checked by you unless you have the keys to WoW or EQ2 or SWG (or whatever) what "state-of-the-art technology" would you be talking about?
Product Source (Score:2)
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How do you know the seller isn't a farmer? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Possible solution- (Score:5, Interesting)
I think this could solve the problems of gold selling. You have an in-game auction house where you can sell and buy gold for real money, using the credit card you have on the account. Blizzard would probably take a small cut of the money (say 5-10%). However, it would be set up so that the gold you sell will be taken off next month's bill, with the stipulation that you can reduce your bill to 0, but you can't reduce it past 0. People trying to make a profit would have to use another system (and since people aren't actually making money with this system, Blizzard can avoid alot of IRS madness).
This would pose a huge problem for dedicated gold sellers.
1. Since you can't earn more money than you are paying Blizzard anyway, you can't turn a profit using this system.
2. People trying to turn a profit will need to establish a secondary 'black market'
3. The black market would be less convinient than the legitimate one- you'd have to set up a meeting outside of the game entirely, just like gold sellers do now.
4. The black market is less trustworthy than Blizzard's market- your gold isn't guaranteed the way Blizzard's system would be.
5. Since anyone can sell gold easily, the competition in the legit market would be huge.
6. #3 and #4 means that the black market would have to sell gold at a fraction of the price of the legit market to sell gold at all- and #5 means the base price is low.
7. End result: Gold farming for massive profit is impossible. Gold farming for minor profit is really hard. Gold farming for for free WoW time is possible, and those with plenty of time will be able to.
I know some people object to gold buying because they believe that it's cheating. These people could be placed on server(s) that don't have the cash-gold auction house. Most people's objections to gold farmers, though, is that profit-seeking groups destroy fun by wrecking economies, camping mobs, hogging quest items, etc. Those groups will cease to exist once they can't turn a good profit. Everyone wins- people who object to the trade get their own server where there is no selling, and people who want to trade get servers where gold farming groups don't have a motive to disrupt anyone else. Oh, I guess the gold farmer's don't win, but that's sorta the point.
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That's why you have multiple servers (Score:2)
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If Blizzard lets you buy gold for money, they have just established gold as having economic value, making them potentially liable for server crashes and so on. They fake hassle if gold has monetary value.
Sorry, you're wrong (Score:2)
Letting you purchase gold from them is no different than charging you to play in the first place.
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If I buy a month of "service when the service is up, which doesn't include Tuesdays", then, at the end of the month, either the service was up or it wasn't -- and Blizzard is very careful to give free days when delays get out of hand.
Now, imagine that I buy a thousand gold. If I lose that thousand gold, it was *worth money*. If all they sell is access to servers, not actual ownership of stuff, then a database error that loses my gold doesn't matter. If they sell
Is the gold a thing? Or a service? (Score:2)
Basically, if Blizzard is only selling you a service now, then I'm
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The fact is, there's a difference between selling someone a thing and a service, and the law has not historically been very supportive of attempts to say things like "I didn't sell him gold, I sold him the service of giving him gold". It's bull and everyone knows it.
BTW, the custom pets that you get for special things, like attending blizzcon, or having a collector's edition? You can regain them if they get lost or destroyed. That's because they have value.
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This has an incentive to sell, though. (Score:2)
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5. Since anyone can sell gold easily, the competition in the legit market would be huge.
I wouldn't participate in a market that demanded that I sell 1000 gold for less than what it goes for now on the average gold seller site. 1000g is a LOT of work to end up with..what $15? My feeling is that too many people would feel the same and just like auction house prices, you'd settle into a price that is, on average, profitable for the person selling and a good deal for the person buying. Yes there will be temporary and longer term fluctuations, but this isn't like selling stuff in the real wor
I don't think you understand (Score:2)
My feeling is that too many people would feel the same and just like auction house prices, you'd settle into a price that is, on average, profitable for the person selling and a good deal for the person buying.
What you just described is called a market. Amazingly,
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Cool. (Score:2)
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- Player 1 buys a game code with real money
- Player 2 buys the game code off player with with space money
- Player 1 & Player 2 are happy
This is how the system currently works.
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In fact, it hurts it, because now it's even harder to track the blackmarket transfers.
The only way to kill the black market would be to sell gold for real money officially, and have only Blizzard and a single player involved in the transaction.
Derivatives market? (Score:2)
What about agreements? (Score:4, Interesting)
So why should we trust you? If you're willing to lie to them, how do we know you aren't lying to us, too?
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Reputation and testimonials. If I hear from a half dozen people in my guild that they've had succesful transactions with GoldRUs.co.xk, then I'll probably trust them. Similarly, if WeGotGold.co.xk screws people regularly, word will prob
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They're liars. Liars tell lies...
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Liars also sometimes tell the truth. Some liars tell the truth almost all the time.
If you can't trust someone who's lied even once, you can't trust anyone. It's ridiculous and useless to attempt to dichotomize the world into "Liars" and "Those who never lie".
It's a lot of work. More work than it's worth. An effective scammer is not the scammer that d
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That's not the level of "everyone lies sometimes" I'm likely to overlook.
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Anyone who makes use of their services is violating the exact same contract.
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Is there honor among thieves?
Honesty? (Score:3, Interesting)
World of Warcraft's Terms of Service is pretty nasty. It basically reserves the right to ban any account they feel like without providing any reason. Your FAQ says that you realize that some game companies don't want players trading virtual goods while you think it is a gamer's right to be able to trade virtual itmes. I'm pretty sure that statement isn't going to save your customers from getting banned from WoW.
Also, how does your company feel about possibly ruining game experiences for others gamers? Many MMO companies design their game economy around the fact that players can only obtain money through the game mechanics, without any outside effects. If your company destroys the fun factor of a game by ruining the economy, how will you deal with the possible legal action coming from the companies that have a decimated user base?
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Two Questions: (Score:2)
2) Does it disturb you that I'm wishing cancer on you right now? I'm wishing every employee of your company from the lowliest janitor to the CEO gets cancer and dies. Of cancer. In the ass. Does that disturb you at all? Because that's what I'm wishing for. Right now.
Doesn't the game system experience inflation? (Score:2)
If you are pumping money into the game economy, I'd expect commodities like items to start increasing in price.
Tower of Babel (Score:2)
My one question (Score:2)
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My question is, did the editors explicitly flag these advertisements for display, or is someone gaming the firehose?
Ban coincidence (Score:2)
How will Sparter handle customers who get banned? http://www.qj.net/WoW-gold-farmer-laments-on-Blizz ard-s-account-purge/pg/49/aid/94937 [qj.net]
I suspect Sparter will have numerous buyers and sellers committed, will have funds in transfer and the next wave of bans will come through and leave them holding monies without WoW account connections. Convenient.
That or s
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Spammers (Score:2)
Copyright != Stealing (Score:2)
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This question would be like asking why Sparter shouldn't be required to pay my mortgage. My mortgage is a contract between me
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Of course, a lot is what you enjoy.
Example, Fishing.
I need to raise my fishing to get certain item.
I hate fishing it is tedious and slow. Even with the new changes.
So I might pay someone t do it for me. My character, sitting on the shore casting a line. WHy doesn't it matter who is sitting at the keyboard?
What if the person was actually a bot?
There is no difference in the game, at all.
Yeah, I used a bot for
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But my point wasn't about them catching you, or even whether or not it is against the ToS(it is, of course). I was asking how having an automated service(bot, slave, jedi master, whatever) performing a service for you hurts the game, or the economy.
How is it different then paying someone to mow my lawn?