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Bad Press For Gold Farmers Affects Chinese Players
Next Generation is running a piece entitled Why PC Gamer Kicked Out Gold Farmers. Editor-in-chief Greg Vederman talks about why they decided to no longer accept advertising from 'Gold Farming' services for Massively Multiplayer games like World of Warcraft. Though there are moral grounds for this decision, it contrasts with a Eurogamer piece on the negative reactions Chinese players recieve on English-speaking servers. From that article:"Apparently there is a common belief among English speaking players that most non-English speakers are gold farmers and are only playing for commercial gain. As a result, players are asking anyone who wants to join a group to type one or two sentences in English. If the sentences contain spelling or grammar mistakes, the player is rejected. Since you have to join groups to complete certain quests in WOW, this is presenting many Chinese players with a serious problem. "
Gold Farming:
:)
Large numbers of very poorly paid people play WoW for hours with the sole purpose of collecting (in-game) gold. Said gold is then resold to players who dont mind putting $70 worth of WoW gold on their Visa cards. Since the "farmers" are so poorly paid, there is plenty of money left to pay the workers and give the middleman a hefty cut.
The New York Times had an article about this a few months back. I don't remember it being interesting enough to pay for, but you never know
So if you're a gold farmer, hanging around with your gold farming buddies at the gold farming office, wouldn't you just team up with them instead of trying to solicit groups with American players, who are likely to just slow you down?
Gold farmers often join groups with regular players to "ninja" the loot drops. Basically the whole group works to get a good item, then the farmer grabs it and runs. Not only does that mean they steal the item, they leave the group shorthanded and angry, so the group usually gives up and disbands right away.
Try the first result. ;-)
http://www.google.com/search?q=gold+farming
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Guys, this article is clearly bullshit. I say this in the most NOT +1 funny way, if making someone type a couple sentences in English without a spelling or grammar mistake is the level you hold people to, you will NEVER get people in your group. People in WoW and EQ2 talk like fucking retarded AOL children. If you were to dump me onto a WoW server and I had no knowledge of MMORPGs, I would ask you why there are so many people who have English as a second language on the server. Hell, the foreign speakers some times have better English because they realize that capital letters and periods are okay to use. I thnk caps n perids r godd
The absolutely retarded way that people speak in the MMORPGs today is one of the reasons why I now play EvE. Playing on EvE is night and day compared to WoW and EQ2. Not only is the game far less shallow, but it is simply mind numbing to listen on a chat of 600+ people and have only a very small fraction of them banging away on the keyboard like fucking AOL illiterate pre-pubescent kids. The other night on EvE chat people were talking about good history books. The night before there was an interesting political discussion. Seeing 600 people in a chat room with only a minimal number of them pretending that they have sever brain damage is simply mind blowing.
I think what clinched me into buying EvE was when some idiot started slamming away at the keyboard with his face in all caps using AOL speak. He was promptly made fun of for typing luck a fucktard and then utterly ignored. I promptly logged out and signed up for a permanent account.
The problem is it's not one or two people, I've got so many names in my ignore list now it's pathetic. /1 LFM Healers only, UBRS /w Matty 60 Rogue, UBRS, k thx /w zxhty I said healers only, we don't need rogues, sorry /w Matty 60 Rogue, UBRS, k thx /1 LFM Healers only, UBRS /w Matty 60 Rogue, UBRS, k thx /ignore zxhty /w Matty ymznww 60 Rogue, invite /w Matty nzhy UBRS 60 Rogue /ignore ymznww /ignore nzhy
The truth of the matter is, I don't care if that person is a farmer or not. If they can't understand me, the raid leader, then they can't follow directions in the raid and they are a detriment to the rest of the group. Farmers don't pose a threat as far as loot goes (ninjaing) assuming the raid leader is smart enough to set loot to rare and master looter. Some dungeons have items that you can't use the ML option to protect the group from ninjas but it's a small amount.
(1) They have localized servers. If they are wanting to "play the game" why are they not playing there?
(2) 9 times out of 10 the Gold Farmer (or as I refer to them "Foreign Language Virtual Asset Acquisition Agent") will screw things up in their greed-driven rush. Pull adds when we're not ready, have problems with Aggro Management, etc.
(3) 9 times out of 10 the FLVAAA will attempt to lie/cheat/steal in order to obtain something sellable. This includes claiming to "need" an item (using it to upgrade their character) and then instantly trying to sell it, attempting to "ninja-loot" an item (call it a "Snatch-n-Grab" in meat-space), or piss/whine/moan until the group just hands them something to shut them up. If the above fails they will attempt (typically via badly mangled English) to destroy the reputation of the group by calling them "Ninja-Looters" or something similar in open chat in Ironforge or Orgrimmar (where most of the bored higher level people hang out looking for something to do)
Why should I subject myself to this crap? If there is someone answering the LFM (Looking For More) call for a particular instance run and they can't say more than "me go" or "I want (insert Item name here). u give plz?" then I feel pretty justified in calling them a FLVAAA and adding them to my ignore list. If the person passes the "interview" but proves on the instance crawl that they're more interested in acquiring items, I'll boot them. I ran one instance crawl where the 3rd mob in dropped a decent "Bind On Equip" epic helm. 2 Hunters instantly voiced their desire for the helm and I explained that it would be dealt with at the end when we're deviding up the rest of the loot. It would be rolled for by Need basis and would have to be equipped on the spot. They both claimed the understood, but while Hunter 1 continued through the instance without further problems Hunter 2 was messaging me every 5 to 7 minutes asking for it to be rolled on *now*. After an hour of this I got sick and kicked Hunter 2 from the party. Hunter 2 was doing very little at all other than whining about the hat.
They've taken up the tatic of selling loot using "disposable characters". I see a level 1 Gnome named Jlsdkfj selling [Uber Sword] for 1250g, I know that's a Gold Farmer. I see the crap in the Auction House. They come up to me and shove Eternium and Thorium Lockboxes in my face without ASKING if I would mind opening it. 3 days later Jlsdkfj is gone and in his place spamming up IF (and now thanks to 1.9 Stormwind and Darnassus as well) selling the same items because no one BUT someone who bought the gold online would pay the inflated price they're asking.
I ran all of Scholomance, 5-man, with only 2 60's. I, the MT, was 58 and had sub-par gear. The difference was that we were using Teamspeak... I won't play with anybody who can't speak English, any more than I would work with somebody I couldn't communicate with.
Yanno, sometimes a game is just a game.
Ninja is Japanese, not Chinese. Learn the difference or you will be called an ignorant bigot.
I see you got a Funny mod, but I get the impression you were actually serious. So just in case... Ninja-looting is a term referring to someone taking measures to ensure that once there is a corpse in the vicinity to loot, they are on it faster than you can blink, and have looted it before anyone else gets the chance to start typing the command, because it was the one and only thing they were really watching for. It has nothing to do with race at all, just the impressive inhuman speed of the Ninja.
If you were actually just going for the Funny mod, then I appologize for the lesson.