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Blizzard Drops the Hammer on Gold Farmers
evviva writes "Blizzard has kept its word and finally closed over one thousand accounts related to gold-farming and character sales. It was about time!" The post reads: "Over the recent weeks we have been investigating the activities of certain individuals who have been farming gold in order to sell it in exchange for real world currency. After researching the situation, we have issued permanent suspensions to over one thousand accounts that have been engaging in this practice. We do not condone such actions and will take decisive action as they are against our policy and damage the game economy as a whole.""
That makes it interesting, as they'll be one of the first MMORPG's to truly enforce an even playing field. While many companies do not condone the sale of in-game items, most allow for the sale of an individual's "time and effort" put into recieving those items. Seems like a fine line, and I'm glad Blizzard chose not to cross it.
Ruin my economy.THEY'RE the reason my gnome has been out of work for the past 6 months...
"I work outa the home"
How can people with no skill ever hope to buy their way to the top? This is insane!
If one sits down and thinks what real-world money represents, it means time and effort owed. The one and only thing each of us truly own is our time; money allows us to trade our time for someone else's time (that they spend making games, growing food, running the gov't, etc for us). It's only natural to expect that people will want to trade the time they spend in game for other people's time in the form of money (I'll beat the level 6 boss for you if you'll wash my car).
Gold mining has been around since Ultima Online (AFAIK) and no one's ever been able to stop it. What makes Blizzard so sure they can? Perhaps an even better question, what makes the virtual property in WoW unlike other virtual property we trade for (like the fees to allow use of a movie or game)? What good or bad comes from allowing players to buy and sell virtual property in this way?
And lastly: if the business is so lucrative, why haven't any of the companies themselves decided to sell "special" accounts to people and cash in on the money?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
"And lastly: if the business is so lucrative, why haven't any of the companies themselves decided to sell "special" accounts to people and cash in on the money?"
When the game has it so that it takes time and effort to get ahead, getting ahead is valued. Once you can just spend a few shillings to become a grandmaster in some skill, it's not worth your time because you could just pay to be there. You'd never be exposed to the content, and most people would follow a path of lesser resistance and just pay to have higher level chars.
Entertainment on this scale isn't open to everyone; it's open to the people it targets. If people beyond that target also enjoy it, more the better. Enjoying it isn't a right, and people shouldn't destroy parts of the in-game balance just so they can enforce their own ideas of how the game should unfold on it.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
This is rubbish. Blizzard could make money off gold sales if they wanted. After all, WoW gold is nothing more than an insubstantial product that exists on servers that Blizzard themselves run. If Blizzard wanted, it would be an absolute doddle for them to set up a "buy some gold" button on each player's subscription page. Players give money to Blizzard and Blizzard creates some gold out of thin air to give to the player. I'm pretty sure one of the MMORPGs out there (sorry, can't remember which) is already moving in this direction.
Sorry to burst your little bubble, but this almost certainly about Blizzard wanting to enforce a level playing field.
It's good to see Blizzard taking real action on this. Hopefully, WoW hasn't been around long enough for there to have been serious damage to the economy already.
Most of what I'm about to say is based on my experiences in FFXI, where there have also been well-publicised problems with money-selling and recent attempts by the GMs to crack down on it (yes, I tried WoW, but I didn't like it, so I went straight back). However, it should hold true for any MMORPG where you have to "farm" (be it by killing monsters, crafting items, fishing or whatever) to make in-game cash. Basically, the selling of in-game cash is one of the biggest cons I've ever encountered. Two basic reasons for this:
First of all, as many posters have remarked in previous threads on this subject, all the gold/gil-sellers are selling you is a quantity of a virtual resource which has no independant physical or legal status. If Blizzard or Square-Enix go broke, the money you spent is lost. Ok, this isn't very likely. However... let's just say that the GMs decide to "evaporate" all the large sums of money that were transferred out of the characters who were suspended for selling money. This is one of the perfectly plausible responses they may choose to make. It'd be perfectly legal for them to do this, as it wouldn't be "real" money they were taking away and the player who bought the in-game money wouldn't have a leg to stand on, as he would have been in violation of the Terms of Service by buying the game-cash to begin with.
The second reason why it's a huge con is more subtle. As many FFXI players have noticed, gil-sellers attempt monopolise some of the scarcer (yet still essential) items in the game. By doing so, they drive up inflation across the game. Chances are that a lot of the people who buy money from gil-sellers are people who feel (wrongly) that they need to buy the money in order to not get left behind this inflationary trend. In other words, gil-sellers often have to create a problem before they can milk it. If they didn't exist, the "need" for them would be greatly reduced. If you're wondering about the effect that gil-seller driven inflation has had on FFXI, it's instructive to keep an eye on the prices at www.ige.com (link provided for instructional purposes only, please don't buy anything and support them), who are the largest of the MMORPG-cash-and-items traders. I started watching these in October (and yes, I admit that this was largely due to wanting to gloat over how much my legitimately-obtained gear would sell for in real life). At that time, 1 million gil cost around $160 dollars. Today, you could buy 1 million gil for £36. The irony here is that the people who bought gil back in October essentially wasted their money and, if the trend continues, the same goes for people who buy it today.
In short, the game-cash-for-real-money trade sucks. Don't do it and don't support it. Please.
Oh, for the people who can't join the dots and see why this is relevant: Second Life is the supposed MMOG which "encourages" real world exchange for virtual world currency. The result is that no-one actually does anything in Second Life except try to figure out some way to make a buck. If games like WoW were to take a lenient stance against gold farming, WoW would become just as bad.
How we know is more important than what we know.
No need to get all draconian about this. Just pay the farmers NOT to produce gold.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
It is similar to the "exploits" in single player rpgs where a mob keeps respawning to give in theory infinite xp. If you got the patience to kill the same mob, go through the same conversation, clear the same dungeon again and again.
The problem is that most MMO designers are pretty clueless about basic economy (why do they insist on "repair" or whatever costs to get money out of the system instead of simple taxes?) but worse the few clever ones think that real world capatalism is the thing to emulate.
Small problem is that capatalism isn't much fun for the majority wage slaves. In real life the wage slaves ain't got much choice but in game they do. They can stop paying and find something else to do.
The problem is that unlike the real world it is very easy to calculate expenditure vs profit in an mmo. Weapon A costs so much but will allow me to gain that much profit in its lifetime that I make enough profit to buy a new one. In general the more powerfull a weapon the more costly but also the higher the return on investment. Result, in order to make a reasonable income you got to invest in good weapons meaning you have to do the money grind.
MMO's need to stop thinking they are single player games, they need to stop thinking that real world economics work in a fun enviroment.
Single player RPG economies are already screwed up enough. Or I am the only one swimming in unneeded and even unspendable money in games like Baldurs gate, Neverwinter Nights, Deus EX, Morrowind, etc etc. Add taxation and tax the high earners more. But at all costs avoid where a big enough group of superrich exists to ruin it for the rich. Or at least if you want this similarity of the real world add other things from the real world as well. REVOLUTION. Murderers and thiefs. Paternity suits and frivolous lawsuits.
But frankly there are so many problems to fix with the MMO scene. First they should figure out a way for a game to remain fun for month after month without betting on the "maybe I will have fun with just 1 more level" element.
But maybe a simple way of doing both is to decrease the reliance in combat on "super" weapons but instead make for a character depended weapon performance. Meaning that both a newbie and elite warrior use exactly the same weapon but the elite will just be better at it. No expensive gadgets needed then no need for gold to pay them. Focus on character development OVER gadget hoarding.
Hard? Well yes and no. Both EQ2 and WoW apparently have added more involved combat. Expand on this.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Well, sure, it's easy as hell to sit back here and throw out ideas. Implementing them in a multimillion-dollar venture is a different story.
But you're dead on about capitalism, if you take it in the sense of providing a free market with unrestrained controls on wealth.
I'm not sure most gamers will want to play in a socialist worker's paradise either, though. There has to be the illusion of glory.
You can certainly have taxes though, especially ones that can be bypassed using an expenditure of time several times the cost of the tax (e.g., toll bridges), or where a valued service is being offered (such as a secure two-party financial transaction).
But there's more to economics than just free-market capitalism. Hell, you could create a game where any form of interest was considered illegal (since money is "dead"), and the official rules varied considerably from economics (they already do).
Or you could use the classic technique employed in many marginal economies (such as illegal ones in federal penitentiaries), of using multiple currencies and "flipping" the exchange rates periodically. With a couple of monopolistic organizations (=run by the company) aware of when the flips are going to occur, the company can eliminate or severely reduce concentrations of wealth that it does not control. Besides, imagine the chaos of an ebay auction during the periods of wild currency fluctuations.
What? My 400 quatloons are now worth peanuts?
Ultimately, the problem is in your comment about character development vs. gadget hoarding. I've always preferred games that rely on skill and ability rather than supertoys, but the problem is not everybody has an equal shot at skill and ability. Let's face it, at any game based on such things, most people suck. And people play games to escape their own mediocrity. The advantages of time-based levelling and gadget-driven gameplay are A) like gambling you get intermittent positive feedback that keeps players addicted, B) Nobody's excluded on the basis of incompetence. Play long enough, and you'll get where you need to go. and C) It's really, really easy to write. Experience points, levels and level-based narratives. the only downside is that some people will pay to enjoy the social benefits of higher-levels (including that of seeming a bad-ass in front of one's peers), and to avoid the tedium of playing the game.
"If Blizzard wanted, it would be an absolute doddle for them to set up a "buy some gold" button on each player's subscription page."
It would be even nicer if they did this in lieu of monthly subscription rates.
Yep, the people who make MMORPGs for a living have no idea about online economies.. but you, random dude on Slashdot, has all the answers. Why do we even bother studying anything? All the answers are on Slashdot!
He didn't offer an answer really. Merely some thoughts about the current systems and a few ideas for improvement. As for the professional MMORPG makers, name one that has done a better-than-mediocre job of creating an in-game economy. All of the games out there have very flawed systems, which is why we see so much of this stuff going on.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2005-02 -16
Just wondering, all those people who got their accounts closed, do they just lose all their characters or lose their full rights to play the game? Since it's an MMORPG, losing online rights would basically make you lose everything you bought (with your real money, that is). I hope Blizzard won't make any mistakes...
This has been seen before, and seems to be working rather well for the makers of Gunbound. You can play (for free) for hours and hours to accumulate "gold" wealth, or pay a nominal fee directly to the company to receive an injection of "cash". "cash" could be thought of as a service which increases the enjoyment (and thus has "value", considering that games are a vehicle for selling fun) of an otherwise free game.
The interesting thing about Gunbound's model is that "cash" and normal "gold" are not the same, nor are they directly interchangeable, as I recall. I haven't played for so long that I can't remember, but I believe you aren't able to directly transfer "cash" in Gunbound. "cash", which can only be bought, generally has (IIRC) 10 times the value of "gold", which is earned by playing matches.
This reminds me of the old, old days when BBS sysops would sell Trade Wars credits for real cash. That never seemed fair at all, however, since Trade Wars is a long-term strategy game which generally has an eventual "winner". Giving one player money would unbalance the game terribly. Note that Gunbound, however, is a simple shooting game that revolves around matches, and not an RPG or long-term strategy game. Items gained by long-term players give them a slight advantage in matches on high-ranked servers, but it is possible to play the game without worrying about economics at all.
The choice is left up to the user -- live in "high society", where (real) money and (virtual) possessions are quite important, or just play the game on the casual servers, where items are simply status symbols of cosmetic value.
Considering that the game still seems to be alive and kicking, I would say that this is a viable model for "legalizing" and regulating the currency trade in online gaming.
Perhaps an expert player of Gunbound could give an estimate of the real world value of cash, in terms of roughly how much grinding time worth of wealth one US dollar buys.
Most of the MMO designers I know are aware of basic economic principles. Heck, most companies have someone who is specifically tasked to make sure that the economy doesn't fall to pieces.
The problem with expanded-skill based combat is that you must account for lag, which while not as bad as it used to be is still a reality in most MMPORPG's. You can't rely upon the skill and timing of the player, because lag throws that totally off. You could do combat on the local machine, but then you have all sorts of security issues. So unless by skill you mean take the focus off of power leveling and gold hording and put it squarely on just power leveling, then this is unfortunately a no-go.
I do agree about the wage-slave problem, though. It isn't much fun. But if you take out leveling, gold/resource farming, then you can only progress through items and quests. And while quests can be nice, and do need to take an expanded role in games, there just isn't the resources to create enough quests for a group of people who may be playing 6 hours a day every day for a year. Player created quests would be better, but it seems like everyone who has done player-generated content over the years has gone seriously overboard with it (see 2nd life).
I'm not saying the current situation is ideal by any stretch of the imagination, I'm just saying that it is complicated.
The ______ Agenda
but Blizzard should let it happen because it attracts people to the game.
I doubt the correctness of this statement.
First of all, in a market that's increasingly competitive, people will jump ship for the next new game if they think the company running their current game isn't running it properly. That's a ton of people who don't want their game ruined by gold farmers like they ruined FFXI/Lineage 2. Keeping them happy by doing something to stop gold farming is a good business decision.
And second, there are two big obstacles that stand in the way of growing the MMOG market further: an uninformed populace and the cost of playing the game. Both of these indicate that gold farming will do nothing to increase customer base. If people don't know about a game - even if the game permits or encourages third-party gold farmers - they won't buy it. And if people are already reluctant to pay the monthly subscription costs for a game, they're certainly not going to fork over extra cash to buy gold in that same game.
The best part about this whole scam is that you should never need to buy gold in WOW. It is so easy to come accross. However the primary means of sale in WOW is the Auction House. These same companies that farm gold have accounts that sit at the Auction Houses all day. They purchase any and all items of rare value and then relist them at 2x - 3x their normal price, causing artificial inflation. The person who wants that item now has to either play 3x as much to earn enough gold or purchase from a farmer, who sells 500 gold for a $100 and then gets that 500 gold back when the person buys the auction and then the sells it to the next sucker. And all the farmer had to do is farm 200 gold.
I fail to see how it could possibly attract people to the game to allow gold farmers. The single biggest annoyance in FFXI are the gilsellers. They have no decency (steal logging, mining, and harvesting points), they'll MPK (violation of the ToS by the way) you without a second thought if you try to camp the same NM as them. They work in teams to monopolize NM spawns, which gives them a monopoly on the drop, which in turn damages the economy (granted, on Ramuh most of the gilsellers that camp NMs quite frankly suck at claiming them, so it's a moot point).
Allowing gold farmers to continue doesn't help the game. It ruins it for everyone that wants to play the game as it is meant. Average people will not monopolize some monster spawn, or do the same repetative task and monopolize a certain kind of item drop, day in and day out for months at a time like a gold farmer would (of course, since I've never played WoW, I'm trying to imagine what it would be like based on my experience with gilsellers in FFXI).
It's really an either-or situation. Either the company itself sells in-game money for a fee to their players, and that's really the only worthile way to get the money (which puts everyone on the same level field), or the company does not allow anyone to buy in-game money and makes sure that there are plenty of ways to earn decent money in-game (again, putting everyone on a level field, except WHMs, who can't farm for crap =P). You can't have both without totally hosing the economy.
I just canceled my account today, after (and this has been grating in my mind for sometime now) a young member of my guild asked a player who was level 60: "Wow, XxX, what is it like to be level 60?" To which he replied: "It's pretty cool. I just started a new undead toon." Granted this has nothing to do with gold farming--but I seriously don't see how there was a market for such things.
Compared to DAOC, at least, there is NOTHING to do in WoW after you reach the pinnacle. In other MMORPGs, you could buy a house, fight enemy realms for something tangible, etc. In WoW, you either continually raid the same dungeon or start a new toon. "But you can raid towns!" Sure, what's the fucking point? There is no penalty for death and no reward for taking over a town (for 5 minutes before the NPCs respawn).
"But the honor system will change this!" The honor system as currently outlined sucks ass. I don't have time to play forty-hours a week just to have the best items just so I can kill more players just so I can get more honor just so I can get better items.
Don't even get me started on the social aspect of the game--it just doesn't exist. There is no situation where concerted group effort is required as all fucktards can easily succeed in the grouping game.
and damage the game economy as a whole
Really? Would anyone from Blizzard care to point to a healthy economy that is fueled by the lack of free trade? It's rather amusing to see how Blizzard's actions mirror the heavy handed use of power by those governments that are globally most despised. It'd be less far less funny if it weren't just a game (but, then, if it's just a game to them why are they being such dicks?).
You can't rely upon the skill and timing of the player, because lag throws that totally off.
I think there are more important obstacles than lag which prevent player skill and reaction time from factoring more into combat resolution.
1. There is the unfair distribution of "twitch gaming" skills in the customer population. MORPGs aim for the biggest possible market segment, and have partly succeeded with a old and more female user base than the average videogame. But if reaction time and mouse accuracy are required to do well, then the best players will be 14-year old males. Many of the other customers will lose interest.
2. There is truth to the saying that "MMORPGs are chatrooms with pictures". Longterm players enjoy chatting with their teammates equally or more than playing the game. (Players often comment that the only reason they maintain a subscription is to keep playing with their established online friends, and not because the game itself is compelling). The slow-paced combat in today's MMORPGs allows players to engage in chat or other distractions without endangering their prospects for combat success.
I think the whole idea of buying extra cash for an online game just plain sucks. You should play these sort of games for fun. I played the demo of WoW for 2 weeks and did find it utterly boring - addictive, but boring.
They really do need to think about the economies - the better characters all have the best gear / weapons, and they basically hand it down to lower levels. You never see any low level people making stuff for high level creatures. Its all based around what gear you've got, your actual level is pretty pointless... I certainly felt no sense of acheivement leveling up.
People should be doing better things with their time then playing computer games for that long, to make money out of other people playing computer games. Blizzard are right putting a stop to that kinda thing, and I'm sure they'll make plenty of cash out of the game regardless of the money farmers.
The problem is that most MMO designers are pretty clueless about basic economy (why do they insist on "repair" or whatever costs to get money out of the system instead of simple taxes?) but worse the few clever ones think that real world capatalism is the thing to emulate.
Using "repair" or housing as money sinks can fit within the context of the alternate world. How would your "tax" be implemented, what if the player doesn't want to pay, and how would you be able to implement within the context of the game? All a tax would do is slow the rate for everybody, even with a progressive tax all the gold grinding companies would do is find the way to maximize gains. Instead of playing one character 16 hours a day, they might have their worker play 2 characters 8 hours a day to avoid higher taxes. Further, the economics of an MMO goes beyond just gold. Tax gold too much and you'll just have even more people grinding/camping for items to sell directly instead of gold.
MMO's need to stop thinking they are single player games, they need to stop thinking that real world economics work in a fun enviroment.
This gets to the heart of RPGs, should they be created as games, or as alternate worlds? It's a difficult balancing act, considering a "Role Playing Game" means different things to different people. For some they are entertained by exploring an alternate persona, for others the way the game plays is more fun.
The problem is these aren't single player games. Some people don't want to be Ajax the Mighty Gnomeslayer, they'd rather be Ajax the Uber Alchemist. Creating professions that are not PvE means that some sort of economics need to be developed not just for adventurers but for non-adventurers, and they need to fit within the context of the game, and need to be "fun" for thousands of different people.
The economic designs are evolving, and the only way to figure out what works and what doesn't is to make a game and see what happens when a couple hundred thousand people play. We're in only the 3rd generation of MMOs.
REVOLUTION. Murderers and thiefs. Paternity suits and frivolous lawsuits.
There are some people would would love to have those things, others would hate it (look at the clashes of opinion on things such as PvP or permadeath). You can't please everybody.
But maybe a simple way of doing both is to decrease the reliance in combat on "super" weapons but instead make for a character depended weapon performance. Meaning that both a newbie and elite warrior use exactly the same weapon but the elite will just be better at it. No expensive gadgets needed then no need for gold to pay them. Focus on character development OVER gadget hoarding.
What incentive would people have to enter a dangerous dungeon? If people can sit outside and kill a single pixie spawn over and over, why would they risk going into a dungeon? Why play after you reach maximum level? What do you do about the people who want to be artisans? Besides, all you do is shift the commodity these grinding companies make from gold/items to characters.
It comes down to basic economics. If there is anything difficult to get that somebody wants, there is money to be made, and some entrepreneur will exploit it for all the money they can get.
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Actually the vast majority of the better items in the game are like this. They are 'soulbound' on pickup, meaning they cannot be traded.
The most expensive thing people need to buy in the game are their mount (100g at level 40) and their epic mount (1000g at level 60 which is a LOT of money).
Yes, there are things people buy at auction, but rarely is there anything of real power in the game their. You have to raid for the real powerful stuff and cannot trade for it.