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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.
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.
There are a lot of reasons to use something like this.
As a noob, sometimes the directions the NPC gives are misleading. "Go take this to some guy north of here" is a perfect example. That happens in WoW all the time. The guy might actually be NorthEast or NW. You just can't tell. Sometimes, they change the locations of mobs in a patch but don't update the quest text. You could spend an hour looking for evil spiders in the North while the actual spiders have moved to the East.
As an experienced player, you'll be more focused on guild teamwork. No matter what you are doing, someone in your group will have done it a few times before. Having a map while following the other players around keeps you from getting lost.
Also, as an experienced player, sometimes you need to work on your new characters. In that case, the story is unimportant. You just need to level up quickly.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
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!
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 have to agree with you.
Most of the time, what I want to do is find out where some obscure mob is to be found, or find out what their idiotic spawn rate is.
Forgive me for having a family, but I don't find the idea to sit in a zone/area for hours/days on end waiting for a freakin' mob to spawn so I can kill him to advance some quest. And since the damn thing spawns so infrequently, I want to know WHERE he spawns, so I have a chance to find it.
In WoW, at worst, most of the quest mobs spawned right away, or in some cases you had to wait an hour. (That stupid tiger in SV that spawns only once an hour comes to mind, and fighting through Hunters that wanted it as a pet before they nerfed its speed some, was a chore.) In EQ, though, it really helped to know where that mob spawned, and WHEN it spawned. Nothing like trying to time Phinny just right while working on one of 4 different epics. Dummest idea ever, 1 mob that was a required kill with poor loot chances, but 4 different clases needed him.
This is the part of the grind I don't like. I don't want to wait hours/days/weeks and even months to get some quest completed, even if it is an uber quest. It's not fun. And this is why people sell items and currency.
It took a few months for me to kill Phinny for my wizard epic in EQ, and he was a 12hr spawn! I think I downed that fish more than 15 times! Grrr. Nobody liked going into KK to kill Phinny. It was a PITA to make sure everyone could breath underwater, and to navigate it. I didn't mind killing Phinny 3-4 times. After more than 10 (including a few solo kills), I was more than fed up, and when a friend got the staff off of him while helping a bard on his attempt, I decided that I wasn't too proud to MQ that damn quest.
There's grind, and then there's GRIND. I can deal with a little grind, but that major GRIND just wears me out. I don't have the time or the willingness to try to be at my PC every 12hrs to kill one freaking mob. And with the wife about to pop out a baby, I'll have even less. I love the interaction with others and the fun of working together to complete a task, but for now, MMOs have come off my current game playing list.