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Boycott the Gold Farmers?
Next Generation is running an editorial penned by former PC Gamer Editor-In-Chief Gary Whitta, wherein he calls on gamers to shut down gold farmers. From the article: "PCG's refusal to accept their advertising is a bold first step toward suffocating these reprobates. But it won't do the job completely: there will always be less-scrupulous outlets who won't be so picky about where their ad dollars come from. The only way to really cut off gold farmers at the knees is not by refusing to take their money, but by refusing to give it to them. And that responsibility falls to you, the community of players they target."
And yet somehow people keep buying stuff from them. no-one I know likes it, but a few people have owned up to buying gold off of them because most MMORPGs are time/virtual money sinks, and when you only play a few hours a week it's hard to stockpile gold you need for quests/supplies.
I don't play any game that has an endless money supply in it -- I don't think there are any games yet that have a fixed amount of commodities in the gaming world, but I'd appreciate seeing it. It would really make people strive to earn (or steal or barter) their "income" online.
That being said, isn't the gold farmer there specifically because it does reduce the most boring part of the game? I think this is exactly what the game needs to prove that the money situation is broken. If money is so easy to get by "farming" it, it means the gaming companies need to come up with a new way to handle the situation of money (preferably by fixing the amount available and only allowing more of it through mining or what not). I'd even say dump the gold-is-the-only-money idea entirely, and fix commodities based on the amount of PC players rather than the amount of NPCs in a game. This will let other commodities find value as a bartering mechanism.
I don't see the reason for ignoring something valuable such as the gold farmer -- if it saves YOU time, then it is worth the cost. Money is a store of time, nothing more. If something saves you time, you give them your money (stored time) in exchange. Someone elsewhere in the world is willing to do your dirty work, compensate them if you can't do it yourself.
Whenever a sweatshop closes, a family starves. Now, I don't know if that's necessarily how goldfarming operations work (certainly not to the same degree), but it seems like more people stand to lose more from goldfarming's collapse than players have to gain.
"only way to really cut off gold farmers at the knees is not by refusing to take their money, but by refusing to give it to them."
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The only way to really cut off gold farmers is for companies like blizzard to change the game such that there isn't so much focus on "gold". I don't like the idea of having to spend 3 months of farming herbs to be able to afford to buy an epic mount, hence i go buy gold to get the epic mount. If they made it based on completing quests we wouldn't have this issue? No gold necessary to get the epic mount. Just quests. The reason above is the only reason that I've yet bought money in an MMO.
I agree there's a need for some currency to be used in MMOs, but the current implementation of it in games like WoW is the issue.
"What is the answer?" (Silence) "In that case, what is the question?" --Gertrude Stein
Here, I thought that the point of playing the game was to have fun.
Clearly, nobody purchases fragging services in Counterstrike because that would not be fun. You'd be paying someone to play the game for you.
Just as clearly, people do purchase gold from gold farmers because grinding for gold...isn't fun. Grinding faction isn't fun.
The fact that gold farmers exist, the fact that leveling services exist, these things speak to deficiencies in the game design. There's this game, that people are paying millions each month to play, and yet on top of the monthly fee many of them feel that it is worth additional money to pay others to essentially play part of the game for them. Why? Because that part of the game isn't fun.
If MMORPG designers want to eliminate farmers, they need to look at what parts of the game people are paying them to play, figure out why those parts of the game aren't fun, and change them to make the fun. Bitching about people who are willing to provide a service at a rate people are willing to pay is, like in every other aspect of life, silly.
Where there's a person willing to spend their coin to save time and get in game gold / items, there's someone who's going to meet that demand.
As long as games have an economy where individuals can exchange items for in game coinage this will remain an issue.
2 possible ways to fix this that I can think of, however, they would have to be implemented together.
#1 Remove the ability to exchange in game coin directly between players.
#2 Restrict pricing on items to within certain values - ie - allow the economy to set the price on the items, however, do not allow anything to sell for x% outside of that value. That way when someone tries to sell a piece of scrap material for 500 gold or 1,000,000 pp depending on your game server economy, it will be disallowed.
Now, a problem with these ideas that I can see first off, is that the players who live to be traders - ie buy low, sell high - will be out of business, literally. That's one segment of players that will probably leave the game.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
I understand a few purists out there getting upset, but why all the hubbub? I play WOW - a lot - and while I see farmers and get some in game spam, it doesn't bother me any more than any other innane crap that goes on (Barrens chat anyone?)
If a guy wants to buy 100G rather than farm for his mount, or decides to power level tailoring/enchanting and needs 500G to do it - who cares? To bad they didn't do it 'the hard way', but why is it your right to tell that person hes a cheater?
Its a game and grinding and farming are boring - and if I want to drop 100.00 to avoid that BS and get to the part I enjoy I should have the right.
Flame away.
"Would you, could you, with a goat?" Dr Seuss
First post!
Whenever you ban a gold farmer's account, he'll create a new one. The problem is not the gold farmers, but the players who are purchasing the gold. They are the people who should be suspended or banned. They are the ones that are cheating!
I buy gold off them and I'd do it again. It's stupid to spend 4 weeks farming gold or whatever when I buy that same amount of gold for $100, an amount of money I make in about 2 hours of work. For 4 weeks of mindless drudgery I could at least be getting paid about eight grand. Boycott nothing. If the game producers don't like people circumventing the grind, stop adding stupid grinds to games.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
In my opinion, that's a pretty serious amount of effort.
Yet, 200g can get you nothing worthwhile. You can't buy any items that are 'good' to a 60 character for anything less than 450g!
Hence, if you have 200g, you might as well have 10g for all the good it's going to do you. That is the effect of gold farming; it makes significant amounts of currency seem valueless since players with real money can just go online and instantly have however much they need.
In addition, it makes crafting virtually pointless. I mean, the cenarion patterns are great, but you can't get a good price for Rare items when Epic items can be bought for farmed gold.
burrocrisy
and that would be what? Ruling by jackasses? Never has a slashdot misspelling been more apropos
"Gaming the system" is an expression which means "cheating the system". In order to win (by some definition) a game means to figure out the game.
Some people find that simply playing a game is enjoyable. Others find winning is the enjoyable part.
Personally, I don't play at these sorts of games, because the reason I play is to have social (read face to face) interactions. But if I find a new "finesse" I don't see why I wouldn't use it. If there is no enjoyment for me, or other payback, why would I bother?
If "gold farmers" cause angst to the games operators, or if they cause people (who pay to play) to leave, the games operators would adjust the rules of play.
Exactely the same thing happens at, say, chess. If I play an unbalanced game, neither I nor my opponent would enjoy it. So we make a rule of "spotting pieces" until parity is reached.
The "game market" will take care of the problem, if it exists at all.
Ratboy
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
You mean you actually _play_ those games?! Are you guys serious?
I'm not a gold farmer, but as I continually read articles about them, I've come to wonder whos fault it really is.
It seems to me that gold farmers are just performing rote in game tasks. If they're automating it that would be cheating, of course - but assume we're talking about a person who manually farms gold. It's their choice what they do in-game - if gold farming is really so harmful isn't it the fault of the game designers for not programmatically stopping it? Can they truly not structure it in such a way that gold farming isn't effective?
That said, have the ill effects of gold farming actually been proven? I don't think I've actually seen anyone name a real game that has been destroyed by such activities, I'd be interested to know if one (or more) actually exist.
Hell, I wish I could earn a living in real life that way. (Oh wait, I can -- it's called being an entrepreneur.)
I'm probably just exploiting the gold-farming phenomenon for my own ends here, but I doubt the situation would be qualitatively different without gold-farmers.
Finding God in a Dog
I'd just like someone to explain how gold farmers hurt the game. If I buy gold, just how, exactly, does that affect you?
Don't like gold farmers? Don't buy gold from them. Porblem sloved.
Economy in an MMORPG is not a closed circuit. In real economies, money has to come from a place where money leaves. The money "in the system" is more or less stable (with some "healthy" inflation giving an incentive to spend instead of hoarding it).
In an MMORPG, there is no direct connection between influx and exit of money. Money is generated spontanously by hacking down a monster. Money disappears when you buy something from an NPC (be it a skill, an item or a service). The NPC is not spending the money in turn as he would in RL, he is just a "money sink".
Now, NPCs don't go out of business when they buy too much of a "worthless" item. Items also don't lose or gain value with NPCs, NPCs offer a frozen market, while at the same time the game around them changes.
Now, when someone farms away day in and day out, his purse will grow. He does not have expenses (except repairing his equipment), he is not traveling, he is not buying any "goodies" like clothing or toys. He is hacking monsters and thus generates an influx of money. This is "surplus" money in the economy, it comes from nowhere and it has nowhere to go.
This money is now sold to a player. The money going from player to player is not "out of the system", it is just in different hands now. Thus, players become more wealthy.
More wealth in player hands means that prices for player made or player gained items go up. Supply and demand. You can crank out x items of y per day (by crafting or by hacking them), and z people want it. Unless there are more items than people wanting it, the price will go up to the point where x people are still willing to pay.
Now, when people are buying for their gold, and thus they CAN spend it, they will pay it for a very rare item. The price for very rare items will require you to spend months of farming.
Or require you to pay the price. In USD, not in Gold. To the farmer.
Thus, MMORPGs become a game of money. Of REAL money. You can dish out the dough, you will have the killer item. If you're broke in RL, you won't play in the upper ranks of the game.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The amount of real-world money that you have should not have any bearing on the game. MMORPGs are all about grinding and collecting items that rarely drop. If that's not the game you want to play, then MMORPGs aren't for you. Play something else.
I remember visiting a communist country back in the late 80s. We were deluged with requests from folks on the street to exchange money, buy our jeans and a dozen other transactions ranging from officially frowned on to downright illegal. We had something they wanted, and they'd break the law in a second to get it. Remember that most of the Chinese gold farmers are seriously poor by Western standards- this is a major step up the success ladder for them, and they don't even need to break any laws. just violate an agreement with a game company. The "War on Drugs" has utterly failed to stop drug sales despite endless "Just Say No" anti-drug messages and serious law enforcement. Here all we have is "Just Say No" and Blizzard banning a few accounts now and then.
Ban capitalism at your peril- if things can be traded, there will be a marketplace.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Yeah Gold farming will stop when good games are no longer dependant on time snks.
Seriously, this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. The market exists, companies capitalize on it. Now if a game maker would get their head out of their ass for a minute and create a MMO *NOT* based around gold and time grinds then there would be no need for any of this. Instead of relying on "gold" and 20+ year old concepts, GET CREATIVE, and implement a system without gold or other monetary forms and make the focus on the *game*... imagine that.
I personally hope gold farmers keep hosing up these poorly implemented and derivitive systems and dragging the game down with them. Force the developers hand and make them come up with a solution. FARM ON!
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Imagine what it's like to have a main with a Japanese name... Seems like i get 5 "ni hao"s every time I set foot in a 55-60 zone. Someone tell me how to say "I really hate Chinese gold farmers" in pinyin?
I hate Grammar Nazi's
I don't know who would think that boycotting these farmers would work out. People buy gold, saying "DON'T BUY THE GOLD OMG !" is not exactly a good reason to make them stop.
Stopping people like ige is extremely simple. Blizzard should stick one guy on staff full time who's sole purpose in life is to ban ige and similar establishments as well as the players who buy. Publish stats on their website as to how many are banned per day. How do you find them you ask? Entrapment. Just buy the gold from the farmer, trace where they got their gold up to the guy who's just sitting on a ton of cash. ban em all.
This isn't a matter of "OMGZ GETTING RID OF THE FARMERS IS TEH COMPLUCATED! WAT DO WE DO !?". It's a matter of blizzard not wanting to ban paying customers (gold farmers and buyers) and at the same time not wanting to upset the rest of the community by saying selling gold is ok (not to mention grey legal area). This is a matter of corporate asshattedness.
While I don't have any studies to back me up, I would be willing to bet that someone who buys there way to the highest level and equipment plays the game a significantly shorter time than someone who earns their way to the top. The reason why is simple...it takes a serious amount of time to amass the gold that those guys do. If you cut out that time by paying a $50 or so, then thats a good month or two of subscription fees.
When you start looking at things in terms of shortened subscriptions, you can see why companies like Blizzard are concerned. Of course, they probably make up for it by having the gold farmers just buy a new copy of the game every time they get banned.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I don't get why gamers always slam other genres so much. While I agree that gold/time grinds aren't exactly the best game design schemes, you can't argue that it just works for a huge number of players (myself included). If you're the type of player who hates the treadmill concept, then don't play the game! Maybe at some point, there will be an MMO that has evolved enough not to be one huge level/gold/time grind, and you'll find pleasure in that.
It seems like there's always RPG-fantics lambasting how every other genre sucks because they're all twitch-based. Then FPS fans claim that RPGs are awful because there's no skill involved, and they're just interactive movies with bad plots. And everyone slams MMOs for being just really long treadmills. Whine, whine, whine.
Look, I'm all for innovation, and I love it when games go beyond what other titles in a genre typically do. But even if they don't, there are more than enough gamers to satisfy each little niche in the game industry. (And if not, then the genre sadly dies - like the 2D arcade shooter) What you might think are poorly implemented and derivitive systems in one game, is just the way it's supposed to be for a genre, and that's just how that particular audience likes it. There are titles that try to innovate and break the old ways of a genre, but often it just ends up being too complicated or something that no one wants (even fans of that genre).
I guess what I'm trying to say is that we're all masochists in somebody else's eyes.
-- jchenx
How about instead we boycott the games that make gold farming a viable strategy? I play to relax and have fun, not shoot wamprats all day. Probably why I haven't liked an MMO game since Diablo 2 (which to be fair had some farming, but nothing like today's games).
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch.
I really like the way City of Heros/Villans deals with this problem -- By the time you reach the end game, your character is typically so thuroughly flush with influence that he or she doesn't know what to do with it. That and once you hit that point, there isn't exactly much to buy anymore. Basically, as your level goes up, the value of 'influence/infamy' drops significantly.
Of course, there isn't much of a player driven economy in these games either, nor is there any real "crafting" aspect either. If there was a real economy in this game, then I'm totally sure it would suffer from the same "gold farming" issues that the other MMO's suffer from.
Asking those who have no issues with paying for gold to boycott gold farmers seems... unpruductive to me.
I subscribe to Computer Games monthly, which I like a lot better than PC Gamer. I always hated their stupid "coconut monkey" promotions and I find the editorial content in PCG lacking compared to CGM. Especially considering the two mags coverage of MMO's - PCG doesn't have anyone on staff who covers MMO's/does reviews better than Cindy Yans.
This is just an effort by PCG to differentiate themselves and do some moral posturing. The "thank you" ad from SOE in the last PCG was such an obvious payola grab that it was laughable.
News flash - if I don't like your review style/content I'm not going to buy your magazine cause you decided to get on your high horse about RMT.
I love these topics, because it shows how differently people view things. My take is that it is a policy issue for the game operators, and if I don't like it I will move on.
People's differences are just what drives the market for the farmers. My friend may not want to grind, but wants to keep up, while I might find the grind relaxing. He can buy gold, and I can tease him about it.
I sure would like to see some games with different economic models. Is a pure communist game even possible? How might iit work?
To those saying that it's the game makers' fault or it's due to the boring grind... maybe you're just in the wrong genre? Though I'm not saying it's necessarily good, the mmorpg genre has moved toward rewarding gamers based on time spent doing certain activities. Sure, there's some level of skill involved, but not as much as you'd find in most other genres... in the end, the guy with the most playing time "wins." You can buy your way to the good stuff, but then what's the point? There's nothing left to work toward, nothing left to raid for, nothing left to do except to show off your shiny equipment. It's like the Staple's Easy Button, only for something pointless. But for the players who don't like gold farmers, it really ruins the game in many ways... these aren't average people farming for gold... they're 24/7 sweatshop workers and botters who are always there. They'll introduce much more money into the economy than your average player. Then when the massive influx of gold is distributed into the economy, inflation occurs and items cost more gold. This is fine for the people buying gold, but now your average joe can't keep up with his normal playing. In addition, the gold farmers monopolize the high level loot areas because they're always online, and this keeps real players from enjoying those parts of the game. So yea, I hate gold farming... IMO, if you're so desperate to get gold and gear then maybe you shouldn't be playing mmorpgs anyway... maybe a good single player games like the Elder Scrolls series would be better for you and allow you to fulfill your gaming needs on your own time.
Tim Buckley of the Ctrl-Alt-Del webcomic made a blocklist available to prevent gold farming sites showing up in google ads.
http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/news.php?i=1011
" A few days ago I talked a bunch about gold farming and its adverse effect on MMO's. This caused the google ads on our page to specifically display the gold selling ads in their inventory, so we could effectively block them.
We've now compiled the list we're using it and made it available to you. If you run a website that used google ads, feel free to use this list to help block these gold farmers. If you frequent a website that uses google ads, email them this list and ask them to use it to block gold farmers.
Like I said, I doubt gold farming will ever disappear, but every one less customer makes the business less profitable for them."
I found this rather helpful.
I Lost My Virginity While Waiting for BSD to Compile.
take it for what it's worth.
I do not play MMORPGS, I likely never will. I have issues with them(ethical and cheapskate).
But I think that all of this opposition to gold farming is pointless. The games are designed to require large amounts of gold to get the good items. Gold takes a lot of time to acquire in any large quantity. So people who don't have the time to put in to get all of that gold but still want the good items in order to play the better quests are either locked out of them or forced to acquire the gold by other means.
I have seen some people liken this to the "war on drugs" and in one respect they make a valid point but the point that seems to get overlooked is that Blizzard(and the other game companies) is pretty much impotent to do anything about the practice outside of their game.
They can make it impossible to give any item away, but that would unfaily punish the people who are trying to help out a real-world friend who is new to the game. In the end I'm sure that would only decrease the number of people who renew their subscriptions. It's a stalemate and the gold farmers can't lose.
Either change the dynamic of the game, or quit bitching.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
What's the flaw? That it is a challenge to get enough gold for an epic mount? Aren't there supposed to be challenges? What's the solution? Make it so there are no challenges, so no one feels the need to cheat their way through it?
I've played that game since it was released. You start off at lvl 1 with nothing. At lvl 5 you can pick up a gathering skill, and, if you choose mining, or herbalism, you can go right out and make a decent amount of money. Copper bars sell for more than a gold a stack, most times. It was up to 2 gold earlier this year because the supply was so low. So, at that point, you can run out and, in 30 minutes to an hour, you can pick copper enough to pay all your leveling costs to level 14.
Is this a challege? No. So, you would think that no one under lvl 14 would be begging for money, right?
Utterly. Wrong.
Point to the flaw. Hell, if there is a flaw in that transaction, it's that copper is useful for too long, and so you have to pay through the nose for it due to limited supply, thus making things TOO easy for people hanging out in zones where copper is abundant. Bronze costs less than copper, which should never be the case.
But they still beg. They beg like freaking MAD, despite how easy it is to get money. I'm sure a number of them buy gold from the farmers. It stands to reason. If they can't be bothered to make gold when it's easy to get more than you need, then they're sure as hell going to be looking hard for another way when making 1 or 2 gold at a time just isn't enough.
So how do you solve that? Welfare? Seriously.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Just look at the successes in Russia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, USA (marijuana), etc.
...
Now where did I leave my sarcasm key
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Your statement would more accurately be said:
"Clearly, nobody uses aimbots in Counterstrike because that would not be fun. You'd be having something play the game for you."
But people DO use aimbots. All they do is click the mouse to fire, and some don't even do that, they auto fire. The game is being played for you. Why play then? Well because they are people with ego issues that want to have an edge over other players. They want to win, but aren't willing to get good at the game, so they cheat.
Same thing with buying gold. You never need to grind, at least in WoW. You can quest through all the levels, and then do as you please. I don't grind, I don't find it fun, all I do is run instances and PvP, mostly PvP. Well, the side effect is I don't have the uber stuff. I don't have an epic mount, for example. Big deal, I don't care, game is still fun. I don't require the best equipment to enjoy myself. Does it mean I find players that outmatch me? Yes, but I'd find that anyhow. No matter how much you put in to your character, there's almost always someone who's put more in.
The problem comes from those people who have some ego stake in the game. They don't play it to have fun, they play it to win and quite often because they want to make others miserable. So they spend real money to be given an advantage in a fake world.
Now why do people care? Well because it unbalances things in the game. Items start costing mroe than they should, since the people that buy gold have tons of it sitting around and are willing to pay more. Also leads to players that should be good, by all rights, since they are high level with lots of stuff, but aren't because they just paid for it all and never learned how to play (espically true of those that pay for leveling services, where someone literally plays the game for you).
What people need to realise is the game is supposed to be fun. Do the parts that are fun, ignore the rest. You don't need the best items to have fun. I mean if that were true, then why would all single player games just give you all the best stuff and let you breeze through the game? Well because playing the game is the challenge.
On any SP game I own, I can cheat to my heart's content. I have a debugger that I can just attatch to the game and alter the memory, it's not hard tracking down values for money, expeirence, life, whatever. Yet I don't. Why not? Because the fun of the game is playing it for the challenge. I could setup Civ 4 so that I start with a massive empire with all the technology, unlimited money and tons of resources, vs a tiny stoneage empire with nothing. However that really just isn't much fun. Even though the challenge of beating the computer is totally artifical as I can change the rules any time I want, it's still a fun one.
another way to look at it is this way:
Let's say Player A makes $100,000 a year, plays a game only 2 hours a week.
Let's say Player B makes $50,000 a year, plays a game 20 hours a week.
If Player A uses his/her additional resources (cash) to purchase the equivalent of the missing 18 hours a week that Player B spent to get the in-game resources (gold), and it only cost $50, is Player A:
a. smart;
b. wise;
c. getting way more sex than Player B;
d. able to understand how real life works; or
e. All Of The Above (TM)?
I think e.
Some might argue Player A is a meany p00p00head, but they obviously haven't thought much about option c, or are not able to capitalize on it.
A good game designer understands the personal and economic motivations of the players, and builds in play balance safeguards to handle them - things like Blank Slate Resets, Earthquakes (remove all stored items/locations above standard level), Floods (wash away any gold not already stored, as well as equipment, but leave character skills/etc).
A bad game designer rails against the predicability of humans, and obviously forgot to take basic Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology courses in college that would have taught them how the real world works.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
How about just not get an epic mount? I don't have one, I've never had one, and I've played WoW for over a year. It's not a necessary component to enjoy the game, you don't need it to do anything. So if you've convinced yourself that you "need" one, it's a simple case of keeping up with the jonses. Other people have more than you and for some reason that pisses you off. The problem is not with the game, the problem is with you. You need to learn how to enjoy games, and life, without having to keep up with the posessions of others.
i buy from gold farmers ;)
i dont see anything that wrong with them they are only a minor inconvenience
they found a way to make money 'playing' a game
plus when you see these guys working in sweat shop like conditions for so little money, and this is the best they can find in their area you have to almost feel sorry for them
so some people are minorly inconvenienced ON A GAME (oh crap my favorite farming spot has a couple chinese guys in it booo hooo they dont speak english)
gold farming is some of these peoples lively hood, it allows them to afford a skinny ass chicken (that may or may not have bird flu, ooooh scary!) so they can feed their family another night
man are we soo spoiled that we get this up in arms about video games while we do nothing as the inalienable rights that our ancestors fought and DIED for are taken away by an adminstration that attacks country after country "pre-emptively" (unprovoked, and next time maybe with nukes! oh joy!)
Well because they are people with ego issues that want to have an edge over other players. They want to win, but aren't willing to get good at the game, so they cheat.
You hit it right on the head. Many of these games are zero-sum type games, of sorts, and you achieve "power" only in relation to other people. People pay for the right to be "better" than other people, not to achieve some sort of magical point in the game where it is intrinsically fun. Give everyone all of the gold, and free "epic mounts", and some people will immediately quest for something further to set them apart, cheating or buying it to get it.
And you keep coming back (as in, continue to pay monthly fees) to play these games because why? Seriously. More to the point - what do you do for the "end game"?
The devs create these time sinks so you can't blast your way to the end in a week. They can't maintain their steady income stream if they don't have a way to make you come back. So, do the economics - create "grind", which is based on easily developed content (because it's repetitively played).....OR......create quests and endless unique content to reward your "stuff" instead, which is expensive development time to continually put out. Both keep you coming back. One may be obviously (I use this term loosely) more fun, but from the dev revenue standpoint, which makes more economic sense?
The gold farmers just fill the gaps of the unfun portion.
I abhor farmers and on principle alone I'd never buy anything from them. I have to admit I have some satisfaction in seeing them get screwed.
On the other hand, I completely understand why they exist and can accept their presence because of that.
Developers like Blizzard have done a careful job of balancing grind so that it provides a sufficient emotional response that encourages gamers to keep playing. The more they play and the more they care about the characters they've put so much effort into the longer they stay subscribed. Gold farmers provide the closest thing to cheat codes available in MMOs. For a given fee playtime can be significantly reduced, allowing players to reach their goals more quickly and making them likely to cancel their subscriptions sooner.
It's a great model... Provide content comparable to a substantial single-player RPG and spread it out with excessively repetitive gameplay and charge players monthly fees. Unfortunately because of the turnstile-style presentation nothing actually flows together properly like it would in a single-player game.
So MMOs are almost never about story. The journey is irrelevant, it's the destination that matters. A high-level character in rare gear is really all players have to show for all the time they've spent playing.
Farmers are detrimental to MMOs, they ruin the economy among other things. But in the end, if it isn't them its something else. Everquest had all kinds of problems with loot and farmers didn't really exist in significant numbers yet.
The solution is simple, stop making MMOs a boring grind.
In fact, I've wished Blizzard, and others, would just take the artwork created for their MMOs and produce neat, single-player RPG out of them.
You're apparently not aware that most of the goldfarmers are Chinese, where $10/day is a good wage. Tip: RAM goes well with Zinfandel and potatoes, and make sure to cook the IDE controllers all the way through.
Try Lineage, the economy is so fucked the top n00bie gear would take weeks of grind to save up your own.
Now suppose that I pay the neighbor's kid to farm for me in WoW. Everyone else on my server could be farming while I actually have fun playing the game. Is it 'cheating' that I'm not grinding away out there like the rest of them? Should I feel bad that I'm having fun while everyone else isn't?
Paying money for virtual gold is little different than paying money for any other service. Capitialism is based on the idea that you trade money for things that you want, including other people's time. As long as they have games based on the concept of "spend lots of time to get x!" (where x is an epic mount, items, levels, etc.) there will always be people more willing to pay someone to spend his time instead of theirs.
Disclamer #1: I am not currently playing any MMORPG.
Disclamer #2: Some gold farmers may cause other problems by hogging resources, killing other players, and spamming. I have seen non-gold farmers do all these things as well. The problem is not with the gold farmers but with a game that allows such things.
Discalmer #3: Just because gold farming is a logical extension of capitalism does not mean that gold farming is okay. After all, many people think capitalism is wrong.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
The simplest solution is to completely remove inter-player trading.
Then everything your character has is his. No gold farming--the most you could do would be character selling.
Of course, this would also force a change in MMORPG game design, but quite frankly the grinding has got to go anyway.
The gamers who buy from them love them for the service they provide.
The gamers who do not buy from them love them because now the have a claim to moral superiority.
The companies love them because they use loads of accounts, and every once in a while they get to boot a token number of them forcing them to buy new accounts.
See? Everybody loves farmers.
This is exactly why I play COH/COV instead of WoW. Doing well is not based on who can buy the most l337 gear, there are no super rare drops and there's no real player economy to speak of. How your character performs depends on which powers you pick up, not how long you camped a spawn or killed the same blue drake over and over and over. A level 30 player who can only get on for 4-6 hours/week is at no more of a disadvantage as far as character performance as someone who can spend 4-6 hours/day.
The only exception to this is the Hamidon enhancements but those aren't terribly difficult to come by on most servers.
I have to say, after having played one, I like my MMOs with no real economy. It keeps the players more or less equal which helps the devs out. They no longer have to make content geared toward keeping the super tight tweaked out uber builds happy which is usually too tough for the average player.
If whales learn how to use weapons we're all screwed!
When you reached the "end" in COH you can make another character (there are two unlockable classes available to those with level 50 heroes), participate in raids, help out your supergroup by either grouping with them or helping with base construction, work on getting badges and accolades or PVP. Personally I went with making new characters, the variety available has been enough to keep me from getting bored with it.
Cryptic has gone the route of trying to make more interesting and engaging content rather than introducing more repetitive timesinks like 40 person, 6 hour raids that give one trinket to the lucky few that have that much time, or introducing a super rare item that only drops for the player that kills one monster that spawns once a month. The content releases are infrequent but for the most part they've been full of things to keep players occupied. Sure, there are spots that feel "grindy", every MMO has those to an extent but I found COH to be less grindy in 2 years of playing than WoW felt during just my trial month. Your mileage may vary but I've made my choice.
If whales learn how to use weapons we're all screwed!
I think glowing reviews in trade mags for suck-ass games has caused me far more grief than gold farmers.
Stop the Positive Game Review Farmers!
You can't buy any items that are 'good' to a level 60 character, period. Anything worthwhile is Bind on Pickup. For some classes, there's maybe one Bind on Equip epic item that's useful at level 60, but it's not worth the ridiculous prices people try to charge for it. It takes far less of your time to gain better gear raiding than it would to generate that much gold. Apart from the one-time expense of a level 60 mount and ongoing repair costs, there is very little use for gold at level 60.
because the ppl playing the games are too damn lazy to do anything for themselves. I play eq1, and have for about 2 years now. I play on the FV server (rp server, special ruleset, not very many no-trade items at all) There are plat farmers there that have nearly ruined the game for many. If you go to most any of the high lvl zones, to get say runes for your 69 or 70 spells, you run into them. They are there 24/7. If you find a camp they dont seem to be at, and pop a named, thier ranger (tracker) informs them, and your group gets trained and killed. Many have given up on getting the runes for this reason, and resort to buying them in the bazaar... go figure, said ppl are the only ones selling those runes. So, now they have even more pp to sell online to the next lazy fuck that would rather pay for his shit then earn it himself. Personally, I raid, so have no real need of in game pp, and would never buy it. I have run into these farmers many times, and since I am geared much better than they are, and can FD (I am a 70 sk) they never kill me... rather I kill them until they leave for a bit, and my group (or anyone else wanitng to hunt in said zones) are free to do so until the next shift change, and the next poKafimur logs on. I am very against the plat farmers for what they have done to the game, and wont assosciate with anyone who even buys from them. They are the reason these guys exist. So to all of you who say *I buy gold... whats the problem?!?* do us all a favor, if you are too lazy to play the game yourself, just dont play. In game worldsis supposed to be a place that the amt of cash you make in RL doesnt have any effect on how you play the game. Dont let it. Either play, have fun (grinding levels/pp whatever, can be fun if you are with a good group of ppl, thats where I get most of my enjoyment out of the game) or fucking quit. You wont be missed.
because the ppl playing the games are too damn lazy to do anything for themselves. I play eq1, and have for about 2 years now. I play on the FV server (rp server, special ruleset, not very many no-trade items at all) There are plat farmers there that have nearly ruined the game for many. If you go to most any of the high lvl zones, to get say runes for your 69 or 70 spells, you run into them. They are there 24/7. If you find a camp they dont seem to be at, and pop a named, thier ranger (tracker) informs them, and your group gets trained and killed. Many have given up on getting the runes for this reason, and resort to buying them in the bazaar... go figure, said ppl are the only ones selling those runes. So, now they have even more pp to sell online to the next lazy fuck that would rather pay for his shit then earn it himself. Personally, I raid, so have no real need of in game pp, and would never buy it. I have run into these farmers many times, and since I am geared much better than they are, and can FD (I am a 70 sk) they never kill me... rather I kill them until they leave for a bit, and my group (or anyone else wanitng to hunt in said zones) are free to do so until the next shift change, and the next poKafimur logs on. I am very against the plat farmers for what they have done to the game, and wont assosciate with anyone who even buys from them. They are the reason these guys exist. So to all of you who say *I buy gold... whats the problem?!?* do us all a favor, if you are too lazy to play the game yourself, just dont play. In game worldsis supposed to be a place that the amt of cash you make in RL doesnt have any effect on how you play the game. Dont let it. Either play, have fun (grinding levels/pp whatever, can be fun if you are with a good group of ppl, thats where I get most of my enjoyment out of the game) or fucking quit. You wont be missed.
sorry for the double post
Because it takes about 3-4 days of gameplay to level up, get enough gold, and kill the big boss. There. Immediate satisfaction.
It is really frustrating to have to play for months to get a decent amount of money or experience points. And why do it, when I can play Doom 2 CTF.
Enough said.
too bad i don't have any mod points...
... because this problem exists precisely because there is no 100% agreement in the community that gold-buying is bad. Also, as long as thottbot exists, it doesn't really matter if "serious" websites refuse gold-ads. Thottbot is actually run by a gold-farming company and I'd venture to guess it's also the most visited single site from the target audience.
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
Guild Wars is still item-based levelling game without strategic depth.It takes time to get all skills maxed.Just lowering the barriers for newbies isn't making this game pure skill.And the 'skills' this game requires can be scripted to a bunch of hostile bots(with precise millisecond responses).
Wiki:
PvP involves multiple 4 to 8 player groups fighting to achieve typically FPS-style gameplay objectives such as deathmatch, king of the hill, or capture the flag.
The reason most farmers are so despised is simple: They aren't players. Their intentions are to make the game easier for one group: their clients. This leads to a total disregard for other players. They will cheat, steal, scam, spam, gamble, and backstab in any way necessary to achieve their ends and make a buck.
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More fuel for the fire is the old Themis group article:(ironically, they consult with farmer companies.)
http://www.themis-group.com/uploads/Pitfalls%20of
Basically when you ban a farmer you also ban anyone on the consuming end as well. If you can get punished for buying gold and lose a character you spent monthes creating then you sure as hell do not buy gold. You have to state this as a penalty clearly to users and then only afterwards do you start punishing users.
Of course the sellers could randomly send gold to other people to try to cause false bans, but like the real world you can either return the stolen money, or you can be punished.
I am not sayign the punative approach is the best approach, but it sure would remove the market. A lot of people here seem to think gold farming and buying gold are not cheating. I strongly feel it is unethical. You play the game to enjoy the game. Making the game dependant on real world investments gives it the "Magic the Gathering" problem where no matter how good you are I can spend more money and become a better player.
MMORPGs are trying to say if you put more *time* into the game you are a better player. If someone has the best equipment in the game it is because they earned it, not because they cheated. Buying money is cheating and thus should also feel the ban.
I have been tempted by gold farmers. I have 500 gold and only one character at level 30. It has taken days to save the money up. I almost never hunt, I primarily work the auction house. A gold farmer could sends me twice what I have done in the game for $20 of real money. But that is not the game I am playing. I like my gold because I earned it. It means something to me just like that purple epic means something to the level 60 next to me. They show in-game accomplishments. Farmers and character sellers make that type of accomplishment meaningless.
How about a new server type that only allows two hours of play time per account per day? This would allow casual players to all have about the same amount of game time. If people want to make the argument that time is money, limiting game time might be a great way to balance the economy.
Another interesting feature would be to allow a character toggle on and off the ability to earn XP. That way if you wanted a level 19 rogue with a full set of defies gear, you would actually be able to grind for it in VC yourself.
I think the thing you are all missing is this:
Gold farming is what drives up the economies in this game to begin with. If you don't believe, try rolling a character on a brand new WoW server before the gold farming sites make gold available for them. The prices in the AH start out *very* reasonable, 10 silver for a stack of leather. But then Guy A starts to get greedy, and trys inflating the prices on their goods in the AH by placing his leather for 50s. Normally, this sort of action would result in the goods not selling, and being returned to the seller. In steps Guy B, who freshly purchased 1000 gold from ige.com. Since he now has a surplus of gold, he has no problem in paying the 50s for Guy A's leather. The next time Guy A puts up all his leather, he will now sell it for 50s, and other people will follow suit. In steps Guy C, who wouldn't really think of buying gold initially, but feels he can't keep up with the prices of leather for 50s. Guy C goes to ige.com, buys 1000 gold, and the cycle continues. So you see, by buying gold, you are contributing to the problem which you claim caused you to buy the gold in the first place.
I also love how you keep bringing up one of the only expensive NPC purchased items in the game, an epic mount. This usually costs between 800-900 gold. Others are available for 640. A normal mount (which is slower admitingly) costs you only 90 gold, which is very easily obtainable by anyone. Simply put, this is not an item you *need*, it's something you *want*.
Lastly, consider that you probably are playing a genre of games that don't suit you very well. If you really are that unhappy about an aspect of a game, simply stop playing it.
I enjoyed EVE, and had a pretty good time playing with the economy (I had blueprints for pretty much every ammo type, made bulk sales in a lot of them, and also had a multi-POS setup producing goods.) It was great, though keeping several POSes fed and transporting the goods out became a bit tedious. Thankfully, all of mine were near high sec, so it was a matter of autopiloting while I went and did the dishes, or whatever.
I still enjoyed it, right up to the point where I lost about 500,000,000 ISK (A reasonably substantial sum) to a bug that the devs wouldn't admit was real. One of my POSes ate 3 days' worth of fuel in under a day and a half. I'd heard stories about it happening to others, who would come in and find everything offline. I got very unlucky, and when I came back on day 3, everything except the control tower at one of my POSes had been blown away. Given the things I had parked there (a few barges, refinery, several silos / harvesters / weapons), I was quite upset. A lot of work had gone into that, just to be vaporised. Worse yet, the devs wouldn't do anything about it, and since I didn't have any conclusive proof that it had happened, I wasn't reimbursed at all. I think I cancelled my subscription the same day.
EVE's a fun game, and a very pretty game too. It isn't, however, a game that I'd suggest getting too involved in.