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MMOG Sites Under IGE Merging?
CTD writes "Grimwell Online notes that IGE has announced a merger of networks involving: Thottbott, Allakhazam, OGaming, and L2Orphus. There is a thread in the Allakhazam forums that brings all the release data together - but still leaves some questions about what is to come. Grimwell raises one in his post about this: 'Even more fun for our friends who work PR for gaming companies. IGE = RMT, which is not the Devil - but is not exactly welcomed at most companies. Will this move help push things past the tipping point and force developers to deal with the new, larger network?'"
from the Alakazam admin: "We are now owned by a company that owns a bunch of stuff, including IGE. They bought both of us (and several other sites as well) and then split us into separate divisions so that there is no interaction between them. You know my stand on gold selling. Before agreeing to anything like this, I wanted to make sure that there would be no interaction between those divisions and that I would have complete control over the new network, including the sites that used to be part of ogaming." In other words so as long as I am not in the unethical division it is all cool with me. I respect selling your company but ignoring your own morals is wack.
what was that article about? anyone.... nope...
This was put where I could find it, and is a very interesting read. Lots of great detail about IGE/Allakhazam if you want to learn more.
http://wow.azzor.com/445/truth_about_IGE.php
Grimwell - old, cranky, mean, obsessive
IGE = RMT, which is not the Devil
I wish he would speak for himself! RMT has almost destroyed the economy of FFXI to the point where you have to buy in game currency (gil) in order to afford anything of even moderate worth. This was due to the RMT gil sellers dominance and monopoly over entire mines, harvesting and logging areas, notorious monsters, etc. Only recently that SE has banned 700 accounts and seized over 300 billion gil have things been normalizing. This was done in early Feb and prices are still dropping, slowly but surely, on most commodity items.
RMT has real effects on MMORPGs, some games more than others depending on how the economy works.
one gold farming group to rule them all ..
Robert Anton Wilson
Ignoring all the gold-farming issues, am I the only one who finds the idea of having a massive database of where everything can be found to be sort of self-defeating?
I hate "grinding" as much as most people, but isn't part of the coolness factor of having a level 60 whatever with a complete set of epic armor the simple fact that they've done a lot? It seems that if you know exactly where everything is, and exactly what is required for X quest, and that the fastest way to get item Y is to kill monster Z because it has the best drop rate, you've turned the ENTIRE game INTO "grinding".
What is the point in playing then?
It's a sad day for MMO fans. I'm a WoW addict myself, thinking about switching to Goblin Workshop. I don't mind the google gold ads, but anyone know if they have a shady parent company?
L2Orphus was purchased by IGE almost a year ago now, and they've had a massive banner ad for IGE for 2 years now. RMT ruined Lineage II. And while it looks like Square is doing something about it for FFXI, there's no action on NCSoft's part on L2. It's bad when dealing with L2 because NC already doesn't give half a rat's shit about their american customers, it's all focused on Korea. When I can't go XP in Enchanted Valley because there's 20 different bot trains on L2Walker or L2Wind, there's nothing I can do. If I kill them all, I risk losing the gear that in order to replace, I'd have to go buy money from the people I killed! It's ridiculous, and hearing about the company that kills my favorite game even more expanding their empire makes me sick to the stomach.
I see. So, because these companies only destroy half the games they infiltrate, that makes it ok. The games that do get ruined were asking for it. Pick a different reason for every game, but it's the game designer's fault for not being able to handle these cartels when they try to take over. Because after all, this has only happened to FFXI.
Cartels like IGE ruin games for profit. They work full time, either exploiting bugs or taking what they want by brute force. They're larger than the largest guilds. They have the financial means, and the manpower, to get what they want in any of a hundred ways.
Blaming the gamers or the game designers for the fact that these guys exist is like blaming someone for getting mugged. Yes, you had a lock on your front door, but was it a titanium lock with 53 bolts? Because these guys just designed a way to pick the old 52-bolt locks last week. Go ahead and upgrade, but just remember, there are a thousand guys in your hallway with hundreds of millions of dollars of resources, and they'll be working on that lock 24/7, and every time they get in, it's your fault. Also, you can't tackle the problem like a normal security expert does, because what these guys do is apparently not illegal. They have nothing to lose, in fact everything to gain, by trying again, and again, and again.
Online games obviously need to defend against it better, but blaming them because this huge, sustained effort against them exists is just insane.
My script don't crash! She crashes, you crashed her!
There are people playing those games to show off. "Look, I got a level $maxlevel char, with $rareitem and $rank, and $insaneamount money!".
They don't care how they got it. If money is no issue, simply buy it. If it is, the fastest way to get that is by grinding with the help of a game DB. Because the people to show off won't know how you got it, that you actually didn'T "work" for your items, that you didn't solve the quests and that you bought the money.
For me, I play these games to show off to myself. Here I am, managed to get $maxlevel char with...
And it's quite hard to fool yourself. For me, the game and the char would lose its value if I knew that I didn't do it myself, but simply had my wallet do the job.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The the CEO of all of them IS IGE's CEO, so in essense, they made a fake company, bought out everyone (including IGE) then said "oh btw, Brock Pierce is now your new boss"
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I originally thought that said "Zerging" ;-)
Funny how anytime I submit anything to slashdot remotely about a riot on those forums it gets rejected, but make it an article sounding like its all about RMT and then suddenly the A word is allowed to be linked here.
This is only the 4th time the membership has muteneed on the administration of alla, its miracle they held on this long. Several of the hardware upgrades were DONATED if that tells you anything about the number of "premium" accounts actually sold in proportion to the userbase. Its no small wonder the owner sold out. The admining is 99% volunteer, there was never any money. They could have apointed actual mods frm the user base and did away with the largest problem on the site - that fucking rating system. I don't care how much work you put into it pikko, it failed to reduce workload or to make a self policing system. Evrytime we had to post that it was "working as intended" I wanted to fucking puke, we soudned just like the playonline support staff, and thats where we got that line from.
-former admin
p.s.
anyone need a coder good with cgi perl java php and bbs's? I suddenly have more free time..
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Incredible article, and thank you very much for sharing.
Um...wow. Well, there goes any future Allakhazam subscriptions. IGE is the devil!