Gold Buying - Time Saver or Cheating?

Sunday's online version of The Wichita Eagle has a piece on buying gold in a MMOG. The author of the piece examines what's involved, and ponders whether such an action is cheating, or just a shortcut. From the article: "Getting my gold was a snap. The smallest quantity for sale by IGE was 500 pieces for $60, about twice what I wanted to spend. I decided to go for it, however, as I simply could not abide the prospect of skinning even one more level-10 boar. Within 20 minutes, the gold appeared in my WoW character's mailbox." From a Cathode Tan post. What is your opinion: Cheating or Shortcut?

Comments

Neither one

[inerte]

I don't think it's a shortcut neither a cheating: The game mechanics allow these transaction to happen.

The possibility of gold exchange should be taken into account by the developers, and the game, balanced accordingly. It's something that the players want to do, you don't battle against your userbase. There are game designs, of course, but once you put l00t and currency, this *will* happen, no matter what the "terms of use" or anything like that says.

The developers should, then, design around this issue, and stay way from simple definitions like "cheating" or "shortcut". If you think it's a shortcut, then perhaps you have a flaw on the loot drops, and it's they that should be changed, not the player behaviour.

Some fights can't be won, and are not that bug deal, so just go along.

Re:Clearly cheating...

[TexVex]

A quick glance at their news archive shows they have already banned many accounts farming gold for selling, and accounts that have purchased gold.

Yeah, it's goddamn sad, isn't it? People are being people, trading things of value between themselves, and Blizzard is punishing them for it.

Funny how so many of the gold farmers are in "Communist" China. And it's the Western capitalist corporate entity telling them they're wrong for playing the ol' Supply and Demand game.

Welcome to the new Millenium.