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Selling Virtual Gold for Fun and Profit
Grimrod writes "Dave Long of GamerDad has some musings in his column this week on the virtual world of massively multiplayer online games and the legality of selling virtual goods." Mr. Long is commenting on a story posted last week at Plaguelands detailing a supposed duping bug in EQ2 that allowed a small group of players to make thousands of dollars in U.S. currency. From the GamerDad article: "For me personally, it's impossible to grasp the idea of buying virtual goods to make my in-game character better. A lot of people seem to have a lot more money than sense though and for them that's perfectly reasonable. To further cloud the issue of who really owns virtual goods, in EverQuest II a crafted weapon keeps my name on it as the creator. If I want to sell that to someone for real money, there's no better defense than to say, "I made that!" and look right there online to see my name on the item."
I've played Ultima Online for a long time but recently took a break because of my schedule. I have some friends on one particular shard and I wanted to move to it. I was not about to take the time and level up my character from NOOB status to where I was in past. For a fair price (less then creating three advanced characters with EA) I purchased an account.
To me it was worth purchasing so I can quickly get back in to the swing of things. Ultima, being on of the most seasoned MMORPG games out there has a unique economic system that has been battered by different events. In the early days it was tough to make a million gold pieces, now it's not so hard. With a solid character I can easily turn out 25-30k in gold by just visiting some dungeons. If I have some vendors then I can turn out an extras 25-30k just selling the loot I gathered in addition to the gold. Pretty good for about 1 hours worth of playing.
So let's say I can make 50k in one hour. I can make about 1 million in 20 hours. Mind you that is 20 hours as a solo player, not with a massive group hording some area. On ebay you can by 1 million gp for about $8.00. Hmm... $8.00 or 20 hours of my time??? To start off I will take enough gold to get me going then I will make my own money in the game. That's why I'm in the game, to play and make things.
UO suffered a gold duping bug about 3 years ago and it hurt the economy. All of a sudden everyone had lots of money too spend and gold lost its value. Very much like a real world economy. Even the gold that was sold on eBay lost its value. It use to sell for about $25 and now it is only $8.00 on average. So did duping help the sellers? Absolutely not.
So the author states he doesn't understand why people would buy something. Try this out, what is owning stock in a company? It is very intangible and gives you the right to a certain portion of an entity. There isn't a physical thing you can touch, it is very intangible. That is the same premise with an online item. It has value to someone and they would like to have it for a certain price.
Q: I am short, useless and provide no value. What am I? A: a sig
One comment that almost always pops up is that deragatory line "Some people have more money than sense". This is nothing more than jealousy. Virtual or not they are paying for effort and not necessarily the item they are receiving. What is done is weighing the cost of their play time versus what they would have to spend to have someone do it for them. Considering the prices on many things in the virtual world this is still a great deal.
People pay others to wash their cars, mow their lawns, and do other simple work for them everyday. Why? For some it is because they are lazy, but for most it is because their time is worth more than the money paid out and that is the key to the whole argument.
On the legality side, I am beginning to think we are going to see someone eventually go to court and beat one of the game companies. Even if that doesn't happen for a long time these companies have already proven they cannot win versus the resourcefulness of the sellers using the internet. All they can do is hit the dumb ones and make a few big hits but I would susepct 99% of the trading goes unimpeded.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I'd ask why there still isn't a resolution if it's been considered so long and so meticulously?
1) You don't hear about the ones which are caught early before anyone notices. Most companies don't exactly report every time there is a dupe bug.
2) I think most games let IGE and the like continue to operate as long as they are creating a net positive value (ie their behavior brings in more players than they chase off, and/or it costs less to let them continue than to spend man-hours tracking them down).
3) Not all MMOs are like this. For example, the MMOE Second Life explicitly grants ownership of the IP to the creator, and encourages you to sell your creations for real world profit.
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
Phantasy Star Online is better than any MMORPG for many reasons:
- it's extremely easy to amass more money than you'll ever spend.
- the really cool stuff is obtained from quests, not stores.
- item storage is limited.
- it is multiplayer, but not massive.
- players can't hurt each other.
- it is an action-RPG.
- the viewpoint is from behind the player, not above, which is better for action.
This way, veterans usually give away what they no longer need to the newbies. And everyone helps each other in what's actually fun: killing monsters! I think this is much more fun than all the Evercracks out there.
Circumcision is child abuse.
On the legality side, I am beginning to think we are going to see someone eventually go to court and beat one of the game companies. Even if that doesn't happen for a long time these companies have already proven they cannot win versus the resourcefulness of the sellers using the internet. All they can do is hit the dumb ones and make a few big hits but I would susepct 99% of the trading goes unimpeded.
For my personal view, I believe the eventual resolution will be that paying for an account is like paying for a concert ticket. A concert-goer does not own the music at the concert, but he owns the right to "use" it. Absent any laws to the contrary, he can also sell that concert ticket to another person for however much money he wants. If a concert is canceled, the people putting on the concert aren't liable for the market value of the tickets, they're just liable for the original ticket price.
If that was the same design put in place for MMOs, what we'd have is the company would own all of the IP involved in the game, but the user would have the ability to sell his access rights (which would include virtual goods/currency or accounts). Any changes or removals of items would only make the company liable for the "purchase price" of those items (which is nothing).
(sung to the tune of Silver and Gold)
Virtual gold, virtual and gold,
Everyone wishes for virtual gold.
How do you measure its worth?
Just for the money you trade here on earth
Virtual gold, virtual gold
Means so much more when I see,
Virtual gold corporations
On every RPG.
"What's an RPG without quarrels and petty virtual gold desperation?
Can't really call it an RPG now, can you?
And think of all the fun and joy that would be lost on llamas morphing,
if all the young folks didn't get to see that sparkling, greedy RPG."
Virtual gold, virtual gold
Means so much more when I see,
Virtual gold corporations
On every RPG.
"Some people have more money than sense". This is nothing more than jealousy.
Any endeavor where the effort and imagination count more than "how much your willing to pay for it" would apply perfectly to that saying. Perhaps you mean in the case of MMORPGs, but there are plenty of casese where it rings true. Mike Tyson blowing through $300,000,000 seems like a clear example. Washing a car or mowing a lawn is simple work, not something most people care too much about.
In a perfect world, MMORPGS would be about the journey, the effort, the adventures, and it would be in balance with the rewards.
The problem of course, is that when you make these games like a chore or job, people will be more than happy to treat it like one, and pay others for their hard work.
A member of my guild told us one day that he was tired of leveling his low level rogue, so he went out and bought a max level one.. This was basically an insult to all of us who valued our characters, and he was a risk to group with as well. So, we wished him luck, and politely asked him to leave the guild. I bet he still doesn't understand why.
I've played WoW for a long time, so bear with me on this. I think companies like IGE that support gold/item-farming actually enhance the overall community.
When in-demand goods are controlled by the hardcore players - the people who have the most invested in the game's community, the prices can easily fluctuate based on who wants whatever item. If I am one of only 3 people on a server who can craft an item, anyone in my guild can generally get the item at cost, but people in guilds I'm not particularly fond of might have to pay a very large premium. IGE benefits the casual gamer; aside from offering gold to everyone at the same cost, they are never subject to the fluctuations of in-game politicking.
Anyone who's played an MMO knows that they are a harvesting ground for tempest-in-a-teacup drama bombs. These result in rapidly shifting allegiances, favors and favorites, and unpredictable shifts in power. If the economy were solely in the hands of these same people who can't figure out who they're inviting to their tea party from one week to the next, it would be very exclusionary to the casual gamer, who hasn't the time, desire, or immersion required to get involved or heavily invested in any specific quasi-faction.
While hardcore players like myself tend to get frustrated that these newbie players can get this stuff with nothing more than a quick jaunt over to ebay, I don't generally realize that I'm not paying money for these items I have. World of Warcraft, at least, has several items that can only be obtained through raiding; a 40-man adventure into the Molten Core, or a trip to kill Onyxia. You can't buy these items because they bind to the character that loots them.
Moo
The disparity of incomes allowing some gamers access to more resources or opportunities in games is not a new problem. In the play-by-mail games arena, it was a problem from day 1. When I played Starweb (http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/) in the late 70s, I had access to free long distance calls at night (this was before Bell was broken up and long distance was pretty expensive), quite an advantage in doing diplomacy compared to the players that had to rely on letters. The Schubel and Sons game "Tribes of Crane" allowed players to run multiple tribes and pay to submit extra order sheets with each turn. A basic turn was on the order of $10 in constant dollars, and there were players spending $200 per turn. On multiple positions. Submitting orders every 10 to 14 days. Needless to say, they owned your posterior if they took a dislike to you.
What doesn't make sense to some people (including myself) is that when you pay real money to buy in-game items, you are paying someone to play for you. Sort of like saying "I'd like to see the latest Star Wars movie, but the reviews aren't so hot, I'll pay someone to go see it for me".
You see, but it's not worth more, you pig. No man's time is worth more than that of another.
One comment that almost always pops up is that deragatory line "Some people have more money than sense".
It cracks me up when nerds turn on each other. One guy looking down his nose at another guy for buying an imaginary sword while his own credit card is billed each month so he can fight imaginary monsters with an imaginary sword he obtained by spending three weeks...battling imaginary monsters.
(imaginary) comedy gold!
Let's not even begin to get into how real economies work (suffice it to say that the whole thing is a big mess).
Don't MMORPG's suffer from constant inflation? There is usually a limitless supply of money and goods. Shops in these sorts of games typically have limitless supplies. Take into account supply and demand. The supply is infinite (given enough time), and the demand is finite. In theory, this drives down the value of everything in the game to nothing, even special items.
In terms of availability, there is no such thing as scarcity. Our fundamental theories of economics involve the limited supply of goods, but what happens in the face of a never-ending stream? How can economy exist! There's no intrinsically economic reason why EVERYBODY can't have the best items in the game. So why don't they?
The only constraint is time. People need to spend time to accumulate enough of this infinite stock, but it's within the grasp of everyone. Very equalizing, isn't it?
These games have a perfect socialist utopia where supply is a non-issue and prices/wages are fixed and proportional. You get out what you put into it, basically, and people are supposed to get what they deserve.
Enter the evil that is capitalism and human greed. Using real world cash, people are able to abuse the game system and give themselves an unfair advantage. These people now have access to supplies they didn't earn and don't deserve.
Make whatever argument you will about how said people function and make money in the real world, but the game world is not the real world. They don't belong together, and their economies are not supposed to be connected in any way other than the basic game fees one pays as a client.
Don't let capitalism destroy our gaming community! The games are designed by their creators to be fair and balanced. They are not supposed to be subject to class separation, which worms it's way in thanks to "real money." I say we do everything in our power to protect our idealistic little game worlds and give a decent playing experience to everyone rather than a select few who can afford it.
beating cheaters to death for FUN and PROFIT.
i mean after all, it's the cheaters that use bots to "farm" and use exploits/bugs to do other malicious things like stealing accounts, items from other users, duplicating items, etc.
ironic that developers consider that MMO games are going to save the industry, yet looking at what people have to put up with, will be its downfall.
anyway, i've got the-underdogs.org and tons of single player games i've bought in the past to keep me company well into the future.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
If play time is a negative cost, then why are you choosing to play this game again?
I wish I could'a paid someone to see the last Matrix for me. Then I would still have my geek creds, but would have two hours of my life back.
--
$tar -xvf
With that said, it's pretty obvious why I don't like others "introducing" things from alternate realities (e.g. the real world). It ruins the immersion. It has little to do with jealousy for me, since I don't play RPGs to primarily get phat loot like most others. I play it to live an alternate life.
Does this mean I'm completely against the secondary market? No, I'm fine with games that support IGE and the likes, though I'll personally be hesitant to play them. For example, EQ2's Station Exchange program (or whatever it's called) is fine with me. However, your statement here is plain stupid:
Hey, what happened to the idea of choice? For a community that's so pro-choice (in terms of software), I find it odd that you want ALL games to accept the secondary market. It's like saying "Linux should be illegal." Have you ever considered that there's a niche of gamers and game developers that oppose IGE?Well, whatever the case, IGE won't affect me, since I don't play MMORPGs nowadays. But, in the off chance I start playing again, I'd rather play in a game or game server that restricts the secondary market.
I don't understand people that complain that the buying and selling of virtual goods ruins online goods for those that don't want to spend extra money on their character. It doesn't ruin the game for the others. It just makes it profitable for them in the long run, with all sorts of suckers running around throughing real life dough at them.
But there's an important difference: Those are *tedious* tasks. Online gaming is supposed to be a *fun* task.
Why play an online game at all if it's tedious ? If a task is perceived as tedious by a large portion of the players, then why put that task into the game at all ?
Yes, this is a problem.
Take Medievia for instance. Doing a trade run basically means running across the entire world map, on horseback, manually typing directions to follow a winding road.
To "fix" this tedium, the coders have been throwing in harder and harder mob factions that attack you on the trade routes.
Now it's like mowing your grass while under attack by archers.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Buying gold in some online games is to avoid the drudgery of farming it. Most games will let you collect lots of gold/tokens/credit provided you are willing to farm it. By farming I mean repeating something till the cows come home. This isn't what I consider to be "playing" the game. A macro can do it and usually does. People who do it manually are no better than machines and do you really want to pay to be a machine?
Now for a lot of players they don't have the time to do that, be it family or work concerns. So they look at it from the perspective of maximizing their online time. That means removing an element that while it imparts a needed resource it would take too much of their available time to enjoy the game.
As in my previous post I see no difference in buying a virtual item from paying someone to wash my car, mow my lawn, or any other similar job. All are easily accomplished by myself *IF* I were to want to expend the time.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Well I will disagree. There are many people out there whose time I consider more valuable than mine. Be they doctors, scientist, and others there are always people whom we will decide that their time is more valuable than ours. At the same time there are those whose time we consider less valuable than ours. It is about the capability to contribute to society as well as willingness to do so. It also is about the fact that not all value should be assigned monetary equivalents.
If you don't think there are people's whose time is more valuable than your own then you are either selfish or clueless. Life isn't fair and we are not all equally capable.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Your missing the point. For many collecting these items, usually in game currency, is tedious.
Read any of the many message boards these games spawn? I do. One thing I note is the number of hours some people put in to obtain items or in game wealth. To me and others the idea of sitting in one spot all day long isn't playing the game or enjoying it, it is tedium. It is something that a macro would be good at. If that is your definition of enjoying a game, repeating something for a long long time, then we have very different views.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Goldfarming.comhas an interesting article discussing the history and some of the pros and cons of the practice of "gold farming" from the article The History The Good and The Bad of Gold Farming "We can see the parallels between the real world and these new virtual worlds we have created and if history has taught us anything if there is a way for people to make money they will do it and there is little we can do to stop it. We do have choices we can allow it and let these virtual markets and real world economy co-exist or track down the offenders in hopes to deter them."
Admittedly, the G in MMORPG stands for game, but folks take their games pretty seriously. People drop huge amounts of cash on recreation of all kinds.
For example, $50 for some new toys is nothing compared to the money people can spend on golf. If you're an avid golfer, you could buy spend nearly $300 on a putter to shave a few strokes off you game while on the green. Want to get to the green in fewer strokes? How about a new driver for nearly $400? Sure you could practice a little more, but most golfers are lucky to get in one game a week unless they're retirees. So instead, you spend a little extra money to have a better experience in the game.
To me, this reveals a failure of game design. I mean, think about it - there is a part of your game that is so dull that players pay to avoid it. This is a game! If it's not fun, what the hell is the point?
I read players talking of spending hundreds of hours to get to a decent enough level to play with ohter humans. When I play UT2k4, I get to a good enough inventory to join the fight in 10 seconds, tops.
I think a real future would be to make a hyper-compressed MMO - basically, an FPS where you can level-up, manage a large inventory, and only lose a subset of your stuff when you die. Of course, as in anysuch game, balancing would be hell - but I think it would work. You'd get the character-design fun of days of MMO-work in minutes.
[A] crafted weapon keeps my name on it as the creator. If I want to sell that to someone for real money, there's no better defense than to say, "I made that!" and look right there online to see my name on the item.
This really isn't a convincing argument if you think about it beyond a superficial level.
First, if Jim Smith, the player, logs in with the character Lewtzmaker and creates a pair of Galoshes of Sloshing, the galoshes will say they were made by Lewtzmaker, not Jim Smith. Mr. Smith may argue that Lewtzmaker is his alias, but in the scope of the game, it actually refers to the character he plays.
Additionally, the name-tagged galoshes are actually no different from the various other non-name-tagged items a character can acquire during the course of playing the game. Whether the item is generated by killing a creature and looting the corpse, collecting other items and turning them in for a quest reward, or using tradeskills, the process isn't substantially different. In all cases, you play the game, perform some actions, and the item is deposited in the character's inventory as a result of those actions.
There may be other valid arguments for ownership of virtual property by the player rather than the game proprietor (though most of these are easily defeated when you click "accept" on the EULA screen), but having a name-tagged item isn't one of them.
Scarcity is very common, actually. People get stuff and then HOARD IT. I didn't say use it. I didn't say it was useful to them. I said they HOARD IT. Some people probably do it to drive prices up (in fact I've heard and believe accusasions of it in the Asheron's Call imbue material market).
Rare finds are just that: rare. You might not see one for many many hours of playing. Oh sure there's tons of loot: and most of it's cash or junk. But cash doesn't kill monsters, equipment does. You can buy equipment from vendors, but that's usually inferior to player made or monster dropped equipment. And player made or mob dropped equipment is very rare. Farming cash is easy. Farming equipment is not.
Sure, with infinite time and macros and infinite computers there'd be no scarcity (well, except for respawn times so there still would be). But that isn't the reality, so there is.
And while on one hand I can agree with you that the RL$V$ link is bad, is it so much better if there is none and instead Jonny No-Life at home slacking off as a student (high school or college, your pick) has 8+ hours of free time per day to play the game, while I work, own a house, have friends, play real-life games, etc and don't have that much time? Should he have a huge advantage because of it?
Frankly I don't think so. I much more enjoy playing with older players: they're more mature (so they don't go off acting like twatwads as much), they're generally friendlier (there to have a good time not there to be ub3r), and they play when I do (never hurts).
It's a generalization, but a true one. Not to say I buy gold or equipment online. (never have, but have considered selling, unfortunatly selling got banned about 2 weeks before I think I would have ended up doing so) But I could see myself doing so if I had a lot of income and no time.
It's like complaining that wealthy people hire cleaning & lawncare services. Duh. Their time is worth more to them than the cost to hire someone to do it.
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
"Once they reach level 60, some people create a different player to explore how other classes are played. The most obvious way to speed up the new character is to mail tons of gold (harvested at level 60) to your low-level toon."
The problem you illustrate there is the whole disparity in what 1 gold is worth to a level 60 and what it's worth to a level 6. To the former (even if you weren't already maxxed and basically not needing gold any more) 1 gold won't even buy you a cape for your level, to the latter it buys you _all_ the best equipment and 5 bags.
And also the former can make 1 gold real quick, the latter gets 2 to 6 copper per killed NPC.
Or for a non-WoW example, consider this: in CoH a level 50 (max level there) can make 3 million in a single mission, and doesn't need it any more. But for a new player, 3 million will get you all the best equipment until level 30. Literally.
Think of it as a resource, not as money (ok, so money is a resource too.) You have Group A, which produces tons of a resource _and_ they have lower need/use out of a unit of it, and Group B which produces next to none _and_ they need it badly.
It just _begs_ for an "export" to take place. Group B _will_ get (or try to get) that resource from Group A. By whatever means it takes. (RL money, begging, virtual prostitution, sucking up to someone's ego, using your own high level alts if you have any, etc.)
E.g., replace "gold" with "oil", and Group A = Saudi Arabia, Group B = Japan (which produces as much oil in a year as they consume in a week), and you have a real-world equivalent to that situation.
And what I'd want to see is a game which fixes the economy, among others by eliminating this disparity, rather than complain that such transfers take place. Unless you stop the phenomenon that money (or any other resource) is abbundant and worthless at one end, but scarce and valuable at the other, a flow _will_ happen between the two. Complaining about it is like complaining that water flows downhill.
I'm not sure how it can be fixed though. Maybe elliminate money altogether? It's a less crazy idea than you'd think.
Planetside did just that: since you're a soldier, you are given your equipment, you don't buy it. Since you're a soldier, the flip side also applies: you're not allowed to even touch anything you're not certified for. So the balancing factor are your certifications, not gold pieces. It works flawlessly there, and certifications can't be sold on ebay.
I can see the same working in a lot of other games. E.g., take CoH. It doesn't even have equipment as such. The "equipment" are improvements to your super-powers: flying faster, punching harder, whatever. Why can't that be modelled without money? You could let players just select one such improvement at each level-up, and the game would remain largely the same.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Having played PSO on the Dreamcast, I can second that: Sega did an outstanding job there. Been saying it all along. So I'm not gonna disaggree with the general idea.
But you do illustrate a point that's starting to irk me about MMOs as a whole. And while Sega did it better than others, I would argue that they're still just doing it "less wrong":
"- it's extremely easy to amass more money than you'll ever spend."
Well, my point is: why not go the whole way, then, and elliminate money altogether?
The whole economic model of MMOs, including the sharp ramp in loot and prices at the high end is basically stuck in a SP RPG model. Everyone seems to assume that they _have_ to have gold pieces and an economy, but that's just begging the question.
So... WHY? That whole model was just a _prop_ in SP or PnP RPGs, not the alpha and the omega. And it _only_ worked as a balancing factor _because_ it was SP or PnP and you had no external source of money.
When you throw 3 million players into a game, it all falls apart. Gold _will_ flow from one end to another, and won't even just cause RL money to be paid, it will also end up unbalancing the game instead of balancing it. The more you use gold to balance the game, the more you create a disparity between the guy who bought gold on ebay and is strutting around in the best enchanted gear, and the one who didn't and can barely afford rags and a sword 10 levels lower.
As a way to balance the game, this prop just doesn't work and causes more problem than it solves.
So why do devs insist on using it? Why not elliminate money altogether and/or make the game be more skill-based than equipment based?
There are perfectly good games and systems that _don't_ need you to buy a new broadsword every 5 levels. E.g., CoH: you improve your attacks, not buy a new sword. (But unfortunately, they too had to shoehorn a dysfunctional kind of currency in, in another way.)
The same could work in WoW or any other game: make character development count for more, and the dps difference between a level 10 sword and a level 20 one be a lot less, and it will dramatically reduce the pressure to buy a new sword even for RL money if all else fails.
There are also games which already proved that they can work without gold or bought equipment. E.g., Planetside: what equipment you can get is determined by your certifications, and you get 1 certification point per level. So while equipment does matter a lot, it's tied into the character development, not bought for gold.
Again, the same could work in a lot of other games.
So basically that's my wish and pipe-dream: that instead of sticking to a dysfunctional prop, just because it's traditional, some game designer will sit and rethink the whole concept.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
And unlike him, I did play a lot of them, including, in no particular order: UO, AC, AO, Mimesis Online, COH and WOW.
"Games are designed to have time sinks in them and to keep you playing so you shell out that extra $15. Generally this involves a lot of boring stuff with some excitement sprinkled throughout."
First of all: No. It's only MMOs who are designed like that. Normal games are (or at least used to) be designed to be fun, not as 2 hours of actual content stretched over 10,000 hours of playing time.
I don't think that when they designed Pong, Missile Command or PacMan, or any of the other games that defined what gaming is, they thought, "nah, we'll make him run from Westfall to Redridge and back, before he's allowed to start the next round", or any of the other pure time-sinks that MMOs have. Some may have failed to be fun, but nevertheless they were designed with that goal, not as an exercise in time-sinks. And between those and the rise of the MMOs, it tended to stay that way.
So all you're telling me is that a MMO is designed to be anything _but_ a game.
Second: Yes, I can understand why Vivendi's and Blizzard's marketroids would want to stretch content over as many months as possible, at 15 dollars a month. That much is obvious.
The ones I don't understand, are the players who (A) pay 15$/month for something they'd rather skip, and (B) pay some more to get someone to skip it for them. Why? Why not just do something you actually like, instead of something you'd rather skip?
So, no, I don't think his comparison is bad at all, and I don't think different standards should apply to MMOs than to anything else. Whether it's a game, or a movie, or watching football on TV, or taking digital photos of squirrels in the park, the same applies: are _you_ having fun or not? If you wish you could skip it, then you're not.
Don't get me wrong, if you're at least having fun, ok, keep paying for it. But if you'd actually pay RL money to skip 90% of the game, then I'll have to say he's right: then why are you playing it in the first place?
Again, that applies to any hobby or kind of entertainment. If you ever find yourself thinking "damn, it's time to go photograph those f-ing squirrels again. I wish I could just pay someone else to go photograph squirrels for me", then digital photography isn't the hobby for you. If you find yourself thinking "damn, not another f-ing football match. Can't I pay someone to watch it for me and tell me the score?" then you'd do well to find another hobby than spectator sports. Etc.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Let me tell you a story, which hopefully should be a metaphor for the problem we have here: let's say someone made a game where thrown weapons do damage purely based on their weight. Hey, the programmer was tired, and that looked like a reasonable shortcut to take. So soon every single player runs around throwing grand pianos, instead of using throwing knives. Every other thief and assassin in the game carries a piano by now, and every other PvP situation involves throwing grand pianos and anvils at each other.
Quite predictably, really: players do what works.
So what would _you_ do there?
A) Shrug and accept it as normal (maybe even put a piano vendor next to the thief instructor), or
B) keep it like that, but try to ban/suspend everyone who ever threw a piano, although that's what your game encouraged them to do to start with, or
C) fix the broken code, which is the _real_ problem there?
I'm willing to bet that you picked (C) there. Right? I mean, well, duh.
Well, then why are you seeing only the first two options for the gold farming problem? There _is_ a third option there: you can also change the code and/or game design.
To put it bluntly, each game gets the players and behaviour it deserves.
Or let me explain it less bluntly: humans do what works, or find another game more to their liking. E.g., if sniping is disproportionately more rewarding in a FPS, it gets players who like to snipe, or just get a sniper rifle just because that's what works. So soon you get everyone kneeling in a dark corner with an AWP. E.g., if in a game thrown damage is based purely on weight, you _will_ get people throwing anvils and grand pianos instead of knives.
So basically my take is that if _any_ problem becomes rampant in a game, be it griefing or gold farming or whatever, it can be tracked to the game itself making that viable.
You could, of course, then either shrug and accept the problem as "normal" or "unavoidable", or try to deterr people from doing what the game encouraged them to do in the first place. But both are addressing the symptoms, not the underlying disease and its causes.
Or you could acknowledge that there's probably something in your game design itself that makes it possible and/or rewarding. And try to address the real cause, not the effects.
There are plenty of examples already of "social" problems that were solved through code. E.g., EQ and AC made a fortune by solving -- in code -- the rampant griefing that plagued UO at the time. Origin invented a genre and ended up in third place, because others made the game itself better address the grievances of the players of that genre.
I do believe that the same can apply to gold farming or to any other in-game problem: they _could_ address the causes, rather than try to sweep the symptoms under the carpet.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
While it seems to be a design failure it sometimes is not.
I like to play games that take time to 'round' out a character, then if the game allows, I can play against other ppl in the PvP section. I also like to play solo at times I want to enjoy a game. Most RPGs are long and have tedious parts that require nothing but time. (I enjoy them to a point, there has to be a limit at some point)
The problem comes when FPS players want to PvP but don't want to put in the time to play and build up the character with XP, money and getting the armor that comes from drops and saving money. These players are in the wrong games.
I want to play hundreds of hours, thats why I bought the game. To waste time, and I don't want to be buying games every month or two. I want to take my time and enjoy the game as long as I can.
- my $.02? - you can't have it...it's all I have!!
Hi Everyone, I wanted to quickly jump in here and introduce myself - I'm Andraste, the Community Relations Manager for IGE (goes into bullet-time dodging gunfire). ;)
I know there are a lot of questions, and misconceptions out there about
what we do and how we do it, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to
not only get to know many of you, but to clear up a lot of those
concerns. Such as - we do not participate in nor condone any sort of abusive
farming or duping practices. But instead of boring you guys with a lot of corporate-ese and party
lines, I thought I would just stick my neck out there and say hi and allow you
guys to ask questions - we're more than happy to discuss them with you. :)
Best,
Andraste