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Gold Farmer Documentary Preview
There's a preview up on YouTube of an upcoming documentary on Chinese Gold Farmers. Terra Nova links to the video in a discussion on the hypermobility of labour in the 21st century. From the discussion: "In watching the video, I am most struck by the intertwined empowerment/disempowerment that is occurring simultaneously for these Chinese workers. Their lives in these virtual worlds are brighter, but yet their interactions with American players (and associated slurs) are a constant reminder of their inferior socio-economic status. The disembodied hypermobility granted by these virtual worlds is, to a certain extent, dispelled when they are labeled as 'Chinese gold farmers'. For them, it is a double-edged sword."
Looking forward to a complete documentary.
Just like with "normal" players, there's a great variety in the behaviors. Some gold farms are friendly, even fun (and some are quite skilled in PvP), but some seem ignorant robots that do the same things non stop and repeat the same phrases in horribly broken English.
I've grouped with a few farmers before - even communicated to some degree with them (google for english to pinyin dictionary), but there are some universal behaviors they have. First and foremost, they will roll NEED on any item that drops, regardless of whether they can or would use it. As far as I can tell, they don't understand the difference between NEED and Greed.
In some respects they've done less damage than some of the other entrepreneurs - the ones who troll the auction house all day buying up every single item and repricing them higher. There's some guy on Eredar alliance side named Plate (and Platejr) who literally buys every single item within a range of levels and then reprices it roughly 4x higher than what it would normally sell at. That guy is far more despicable than people who churn away at Tyr's Hand all day.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Tsk, behind gold farming, there's a lot more than gold. Why do they do it ? Why do we buy gold if we hate that ? Why do we hate that ?
Its basically putting a human side on gold farming. Most of these chinese farmers folks live in the worst kind of situation and they do what they do for a living. You gotta do what you gotta do to put bread on the table right ?
Most situations in the world would be quickly solved if we'd at least try to get a good understanding. Personally, ever since I've started thinking about the why of gold farming, I've found myself struggling between grinding my ass (and keep my pride?) or just buy gold (and play more!) to do my part to help these guys.
So to answer your question, I will be watching it....
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
I just dont get this need to feel sympithetic to people who play for free, make money (even if it is dirt) to do it, and ruin something I pay to play myself. Some sellers are nice guys, I have helped out one group in FFXI more than once simply cause they help others, and share their loot if you work with them. BUT I cant stand the majority who disrupt the game killing players, stealing mobs, price fixing items, and break the game rules get caught get kicked then manage to get back in as someone else.
They are criminals, there is no sorta catagory. If a homeless man steals your money, they go to jail. Someone breaks into your computer system, they go to jail. Why is it someone is alowed to steal your money (which is what they are doing when they restrict you from doing something you paid for unfairly), and its ok cause its a game?
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Obviously the key to making a documentary is to make it about the business and controversy surrounding it, not the actual tedious gold farming itself. From what it looks like from the preview, the film maker hasn't accomplished this. Where's the interviews with the people pissed off about the practice? Where's the interviews with the people who buy the product? How about an interview with the game maker?
I don't play the online RPGs, but I'd certainly be interested in a well made documentary about gold farmers. This doesn't appear to be that though.
AccountKiller
Plenty of people. IMHO, this outsourcing to gold farmers *is* the game for many people.
I think these guys aren't role-playing warriors&wizards but CEOs and CFOs - and all the fun is in the power they have over poor people in third world companies just like the aristocracy running US businesses.
It's all about the feeling of power you get when you realize that you too , and not just your boss, can outsource stuff to china.
I think it was very insightful of the documentary guys to catch on to this angle.
...but I'll say it again. You wanna stop goldfarming? Don't make it boring and tedious to get gold, or don't make massive amounts of gold helpful. How can this be done? Make better skills equal better gear, and get rid of non-player bound world drops. Get rid of massive goldsink things, such as 900g epic mounts. Get rid of gold entirely by having an economy based on bartering and exchanging crafted goods. People will always pay others to do things that they don't want to spend time to do themselves. If it seems like work, people will find a way to get paid for it. For example...I mow my own lawn. I enjoy mowing my lawn. I would not pay somebody to mow my lawn. I also make money mowing my neighbor's lawn, because my neighbor does not enjoy mowing his lawn. My neighbor enjoys playing football on his lawn however, and would therefore like a nicely mowed lawn. The money he spends for me to mow his lawn, is worth him avoiding the displeasure of mowing his lawn, so he can play football on his lawn. If he could play football on a lawn that wasn't mowed, I'm sure he'd rather do that however...
So what's the alternative? You can go entirely skill-based (as in a system based entirely on the gamer's ability to manipulate controls and the system). However, that markedly decreases player "attachment" to his or her avatars and can encourage shallow play. Pure skill means that everyone's avatar is equal; the gaming experience needs to be competitive enough or deep enough that skill and understanding of the game are primary and sufficient motivators to continue playing. You could go half-way, requiring limited amounts of avatar development before being put out into a "sandbox" to explore the game, but at that point you run headlong into the content problem under a traditional model. As for player-made content, one significant issue seems to be scalability. MUD/MOOs halfway floated through by often having players highly skilled at programming and content design and (honestly) rather low expectations; Neverwinter Nights got by with less skilled designers and very low player counts. Will Wright's upcoming meta-game Spore will be interesting to look at in this regard, but IMO its player-designable elements lack the scope necessary to create an interesting RPG experience. If all the players can do is make cities full of critters, as appears to be the case in Spore, then the end game will simply consist of killing the latest seven-armed, seventeen-foot satyr someone designed. Now, the concept works in pen-and-paper RPGs quite nicely; a smart GM/content designer can create all sorts of outlandish demons for the players to confront through both combat and interaction. An excellent pen-and-paper GM may have a flow-chart for every significant interaction s/he expects to occur, but is also ready to toss those charts out the window, fudge a few blinded rolls, and play on instinct when someone comes at the problem in a novel fashion. Unfortunately, at the MMO level, humans can't be responsible for driving MOBs; a computer program has to drive the thing. Moreover, it needs to be rather simple for the sake of the server. You can't have an algorithm as complex as the one driving Malcolm in Unreal Tournament running on every monster in the game. Menu-based text added to critters simply forces players to learn the right sequence of answers to optimize results; the second person to encounter the critter will upload his/her findings to Allakhazam and that will be the end of the mystery.
Since the original topic was on these games' economy, let's look at options there, as well. You can make the monetary system superfluous, as it was in Diablo II, but without fail, a barter economy is likely to surface to replace it (e.g. Chipped gems and Stones of Jordan). Either way, it's farmable, either by bots or by wage, and barter systems add to the confusion new players experience in entering the game. You can make all items NODROP or level-dependent in some fashion, but many people tend to feel that this discriminates against more developed players who want to replay the early game with superior, "twink" gear. Decay can be added to items, but this only hastens the inevitable quality inflation that naturally occurs as yesterday's elite gear becomes commonplace. Items/avatars can require some sort of mandatory real-time investment to become useful, as in EVE Online, but sans server resets/splits, this means that the first players in will eternally have an advantage over any later entrants if they choose to maintain it. The economy can even be drivien by the acquisition of "player-made" goods, but as the quality of these goods is formulaic, it is rather trivial for a number of "grinders" to optimize the equation and mass-produce the best quality-for-cost good possible and tank the market.
Essentially, the problem is that the current MMO philosophy does not seem compatible with pen-and-paper or "sandbox" style gameplay. A minority of players engage in "role-playing" behavior, but such players could do the same thing over an IM program or a conference call; it's not specifically encouraged by the game software. Meanwh
This is the article that originally somewhat changed my mind about gold farming, the people behind, not the actual act.a ming.php
.25c an hour wiht 12hours shift, I wouldnt describe that as a good situation.
.. and it used to be $75!
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/08/business/g
I had mentionned they live in difficult situation because, yes, they do have a roof but knowing that most of them are being paid
Apparently now they make $250 US per month, how many of us can make a living out of that?
and their offices ain't exactly penthouse either. Its more like a 4x4 desk, in a dark and humid place, with poor lighting.
Besides, with overpopulation in china, im sure a young person would take just about any job as long as it gets them money, its better than nothing.
I know that in the WoW world, farming isnt so good, but the complaining about the farmers ain't part of the solution, trying to reach somekind of agreement with gold farming companies would be more the way to go (for instance).
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
What if Blizz sold gold -- they wouldn't need to hire farmers to create it since after all it is just 1's and 0's but then turned around and used the money that generated to hire these players to play the mobs.
Can you imagine how much more fun the game would be if you go to attack some mob healer character that instead of maybe trying to heal itself once at low health it actually thought about and reacted to what you were doing.
How much more challenging could the game become if when faced with a serious threat the gnoll encampment instead of letting you pick them off one by one screamed for help and all its buddies came around.
They could be randomly cycled through any mob in the world which when not occupied would follow its standard ai script. You would never know when "pulling a mob" whether you were facing a dumb AI mob or a smarter "farmer" controlled one.
Sure there would probably be lots of issues to iron out but imagine the fun!!!
It turns out, not all Chinese WoW players are gold farmers. Maybe they're the exception rather than the rule, I don't know the numbers, but allow me to share an experience I had just a few days ago.
I'm killing gorillas in Un'goro crater, grinding my hunter up to level 54. I've been doing this for about 30 minutes now, and I find myself in front of U'cha, a gorilla boss who lives in this cave. There's a quest to kill him, and I've done it probably a dozen times on various other characters. Right now, on this character, I don't have the quest, and no real reason to kill U'cha. Except for the fact that I love killin'. So I am gonna kill him.
Just as I place my hunter's mark on U'cha's soon-to-be-departed ass, I get a group invite from a player named "Xiojuang", or some such Chinese sounding name. Now, I normally decline unsolicited group invites without a second thought. If you don't have the courtesy to ask me if I want to join you, I don't want to help you, it's just common courtesy to ask first. Also, the very Chinese sounding name reminds me of a gold farmer. Between trade channel spamming and spawn point camping, I generally hate gold farmers. I'm reasonably sure this guy is a gold farmer who needs my help (he's a warrior, several levels below me, and there's no way he's gonna take down this big ape on his own). But at this point I'm bored, so with a grin on my face, I accept the group invite to see what he wants.
We stand there in silence for minute, he and I. Then he says, "i am chinese friend". Fuck, I knew it, gold farmer. I respond, "umm... ok". More silence. Still standing just out of combat range of U'cha, my Chinese friend finally says, "i need kill him you help me plz". Well, you know, I was gonna kill him anyway. What's the harm in helpin this guy out? None, really, and I am bored, so I respond, "ok". "go go go", he says. Damn, he's impatient, as I'd have guessed. Fine, I'll kill. I send my pet after U'cha and, after giving him a few seconds to establish aggro, I open fire. Within 20 seconds U'cha is lifeless on the ground, and Xio is looting his corpse, picking up the quest item he needed.
Are ya happy, ya goddamn chinese gold farmer? See, this is where things change. Nearly as random as his unsolicited group invite, he opens a trade window with me, and without a word, places a pair of pants into it. They're mail pants, with +agility on them, pretty nice gear for a hunter of my level. It so happens that my gear is better, but I'm not going to turn them down, so I accept them, and, wondering why he did this, I message him with a simple "?". He responds, "i give you". Hmm, that's not what I expected at all.
Now, U'cha may be eating the floor, but my Chinese friend and I are still in the back of this cave, with at least a dozen gorillas between us and daylight. We're both going the same direction, so I figure, why not fight our way out of here together? In the battles which ensued during the course of our exit from the cave, several "green" (uncommon) items are dropped by various gorillas we kill. When grouped with strangers in WoW, it's generally accepted that any green or higher items are simply greed rolled by all members of the party, and the high roller gets the item. You can generally expect farmers to always roll "need", in order to get the items, whether or not they actually need them. They're going to put them up for sale in the Auction House. But this guy didn't roll, neither need, nor greed, he PASSED on both items. The first time, I messaged him, "hey, don't you want that? just roll greed...". He responded, "no you have". Whoa.
Finally we get to the exit of the cave. He messages me, "i go now". And then, "good bye friend". Then he mounts his horse and rides off.
Now, this guy was either NOT a gold farmer, or maybe just a really crappy one. Giving me items? Passing the roll on items? No, farmers would NOT do that, certainly not good ones. I think this was just a regular Chinese guy playing WoW, just lik
--Bradley