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Confessions of an Ultima Online Gold Farmer
petbath writes "A long time UO player who is moving on makes some interesting confessions on how he managed to earn over 100k in real world money by setting up a bot farm." Commentary available on Terra Nova. From the post: " Between the pressures of my competition, the required maintenance work and the impending doom of on-line game markets, I decided to retire my bot farm in favor of other possibilities that required less work to maintain. Last May I sold off the last of my game assets and today I have posted my bot army for sale on Ebay. I don't want to part with these beasts of burden, but I do have to close this final chapter in the gold farming adventure."
There are no confessions, other than "this takes too much time, I have too much money... buy my old hardware"....
the problem is, the game quickly ceases to become fun for all but 5 or 6 players trained in computer programming. the other hundreds of thousands of players end up having a crappy time. the very concept of "game" is based on the idea of rules. the rules are there to keep the thing fun. without them, the magic drains out of it rather quickly.
i could live a little longer in this prison
This should be compared to the hordes of Chinese sweatshop gold farmers which, in the opinion of many, ruined Lineage 2, and which are setting up shop in WoW.
According to WoW players who managed to find a farmer who spoke English (most don't, but will happily swear at you in Chinese if you hamper their gold farming), they run a pretty tight racket. Several people share one account (presumably to save on monthly fees, though they may be using stolen CC's anyway), leading to one character - generally the most apt race/class for farming whatever the current cash cow is, but usually a human paladin - being played 24/7. In some cases, the character is named the same across multiple servers (such as "Loly").
The farmers hand over all the cash and items they obtain to a boss, who auctions the items in the in-game auction house and stockpiles the cash. Using one of the various gold-for-money websites, they coordinate with their customers and hand out the purchased gold, often via in-game mail. The farmers must meet a gold quota each day in order to get paid their cut, which is why they often resort to unfriendly play practices.
Their weakness, however, is that they XP grinded to get to level 60, which means they haven't done any instance quests, so their gear is substandard. On PvP servers, many legit players have found that the farmers' PvP-fu is weak, in part due to the trans-Pacific lag, in part due to their gear, and in further part due to not having any experience in PvP combat.
In any case, there are numerous complaints about the gold farmers on the official WoW forums, though there has been no word from Blizzard on any account actions taken against the gold farmers for ToU violations. Many are concerned that if Blizzard takes too long to act, the in-game economy will be irreparably damaged.
Gold (or gil in case of ffxi) farming is such a huge problem for MMORPGs. I haven't played deeping in to other MMORPGs other than FFXI, but I know in that game it is a serious problem. If you are not familiar with the issues, the gil farmers infest nearly every part of the game. Certain monsters drop the really really good equipment. So people will camp them 24/7 and try to get the drop and then sell the items for insane prices that people somehow manage to pay for. Some will use bots that fish for them to make a profit that way. Some will just kill whipe out creatures in an are continuously to collect what they drop and sell.
The real problem is how do you deal with the people who do this for money. Companies do a certain amount of policing, but it is difficult to determine what a legitimate transaction is and what a gil seller does. Any solution you come up with had its drawbacks as well. Like, say the uber gear isn't dropped by the tough monster, just some random monster in the area. Then these people would go and sweep the whole area ruining it for people that are trying to level. For this issue anyways, the only thing that anyone has come up with that makes sense is to admit that you can't stop people from going after the uber-items. The company just needs to make equipment that is slightly worse that sells for a reasonable price so that people who don't have x uber item isn't consider under equipped. It's sad really...it would be nice if people who sold gil didn't exist...MMORPG were meant to be a game and they are harming the fun for people who just want to play. But if there is profit to be made, there is always someone who puts that over their fellow man.
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I hate to say this, but the online world needs lawyers. I read where a fellow poster commented that this is supposed to be human-human interraction with the accompanying mores; but that the game does little to discourage anti-social behavior.
So, what you do is set up a jury system. You suspect somebody of botting, then charges are raised, assets are frozen, and a short trial is held--online. Found innocent, then perhaps retribution v. the original claimant. Guilty, then assets are stripped (perhaps redistributed to those in the court).
The present system bans users. That should not be a big deal to a dedicated exploiter. They will just set up a new account. Put a sting on them via a court system, then there'll be a penalty paid.
The problem is, you're reproducing the real world; with all the evil (lawyers) that accompany.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
you're still missing the point, which is to maximize the fun for the most number of people. a tiny minority breaking the game's mechanics and economy comes at the cost of the fun of hundreds of thouands of others. that's not a game, that's real life. people play games to get away from that kind of frustration.
i could live a little longer in this prison
1. Powerlevel a character to very high level, kill monsters, collect loot, sell loot. They may target specific, high-profit monsters, or they may just slaughter everything in a lower level area.
2. Uh, the whole concept of "player economy" is based on trading items for gold and gold for items. Mugging is a problem in real life, but we still need to be able to transfer money to one another.
3. The killing of monsters and collecting of loot is done by the bot.
In some games, tradeskills like fishing are just as good or better than killing monsters, so the farmers do that instead, but the idea is the same.
Random and weird software I've written.
You just described SecondLife. Never heard of it? Most people haven't.
What do you get when you cross a mountain-climber with a mosquito? Nothing! You can't cross a scaler with a vector.