Originally posted by Antipathy Instead, I view gold buying as immoral because it creates pressure on other players to grind to keep up with your newly acquired wealth. Expectations are raised regarding the average level of equipment that is expected in game.
So do you also view grinding more than someone else as immoral since it does the exact same thing?
No - most people play games for fun. This tends to put a natural limit on the extent of grinding in games. Alot of people will only grind so much for an item, before deciding to forget it and go off and do something more interesting instead. Introducing gold buying removes this natural limit - people are prepared to grind alot more when they are being paid to do it as a job. Hence the total amount of grinding goes up. That is the problem.
Several people have complained that gold buying is the solution to too much grind. It isn't. It's the cause of the problem. If there was a larger population in games that didn't have access to so much gold etc then other players and developers would be forced to spend more time catering to them (either by developing more low end content or by lowering expectations for grouping).
No, it's doesn't make sense to say that gold-buying the cause of the problem. Developers of the game are the ones who decide to make the game center on mindless repition of challengeless fights, people buying gold are just skipping the 'keep repeating this challengeless fight' part. Devs could, for example, make the items people are buying drop from a fight that's set so that it can't be trivialized (level and number caps), make gold and/or items drop from things people enjoy instead of from grinds, and otherwise not require grinding. And when most people complain about 'grinding', they talk about XP grind first, which isn't even saleable - clearly grinding is not caused by gold buying.
You appear to be contradicting yourself. First you say that gold buying is okay because it gets around grinding and then you say that lack of gold doesn't cause grinding (XP does). Which way do you want it?
I don't want to play a tank and be told "you're equipment is crap - you're much harder to heal than X" when X is a gold buyer.
I don't want to play a tank and be told "you're equipment is crap - you're much harder to heal than X" when X is a no-life loser who grinds forever, or worse who treats the game as a job and joins a raid guild. That doesn't make it a moral issue, it's just a preference in gaming.
With the current crop of games there will always be a few players who achieve superior equipment by putting in more or better targeted effort. That's the nature of the EQ model. However my point is that gold buying will make equipment disparities more common.
People who only think of gold buying in terms of themselves seem to me to be very selfish. They don't consider how it affects other players and raises the ante for everyone. And I am joined by several of the worlds major religions in believing that selfishness is wrong.
Playing a computer game is inherently selfish, I am not aware of a single world religion that says that playing an MMO for large blocks of time is significantly different from playing an MMO for smaller blocks of time but spending some money on it. Invoking major world religions is just absurd here.
Of course they don't. Religions deal in abstractions and generalities. But for many religions, such as Christianity, consideration of others is at the very core of the belief system.
Somehow I also have a strong sense that success in a game should in some sense be earned. I wouldn't expect to pay for a goal in football because I wasn't fit. I wouldn't want to buy a rating in chess even if I didn't have time to practice. And I wouldn't want to pick up balls on a pool table and put them in the pockets when my opponent wasn't looking even if I am too drunk to play. So why should MMO's be any different?
I don't consider repeating challengless fights for hours on end 'earning' anything. I wouldn't expect to get a free goal in football because I threw the football at a wall for 50 hours the previous week either, but that's how grinding works. I wouldn't want to acquire a rating in chess by playing against people who offer no challenge, but that's how grinding works. And the pool example is just straight cheating at the game, it's a bad analogy - we're not talking about someone using hacks. Anything that gold farmers can farm requires only mindless repitition of non-challenging fights, not any real accomplishment.
Actually I'd agree that the pool example describes straight cheating. Where I differ from you is in your conclusion regarding the aptness of the analogy.
The easiest way to combat gold buyers is to have bind on equip gold.
Personally, I think if there were no items that were bound to one person, the prices would be cheaper and it would drive out some of the people doing gold buying/selling.
If you want to combat gold farming, you design an economic system that doesn't flood the game's coffers with finances (gold in most cases). You have a closed system, not some open ended system with no sinks.
Money sinks and a self-sustaining economy is a viable solution to what some folks refer to as a "problem". Personally, I don't care and it doesn't bother me. If dev companies were serious about doing away with it, they would fix it internally. The reason they don't is because they make more money off of the farmers. More subscriptions. When you have 6 million subscribers, you can afford to "ban" thousands of them.
Originally posted by Antipathy You appear to be contradicting yourself. First you say that gold buying is okay because it gets around grinding and then you say that lack of gold doesn't cause grinding (XP does). Which way do you want it?
You appear not to be reading what I wrote. I didn't say anything approximating 'gold buying is okay because it gets around grinding', plain and simple. You may be confusing me with somone else, or you may be mistaking me saying something like 'people buy gold to get around grinding'. I certainly didn't say that 'lack of gold doesn't cause grinding (XP does)', I'm not even sure exactly what it means since the negatives are just confusing. I did say that grinding is caused by developers choosing to reward repeating challengeless tasks, and that it's not caused by people buying gold, but that's not remotely the same thing.
With the current crop of games there will always be a few players who achieve superior equipment by putting in more or better targeted effort. That's the nature of the EQ model. However my point is that gold buying will make equipment disparities more common.
I don't care if it's the point inside your head, it's not what you said.
Of course they don't. Religions deal in abstractions and generalities. But for many religions, such as Christianity, consideration of others is at the very core of the belief system.
Can you name a single religion that says that one style of sitting on your ass playing computer games is significantly less selfish than any other? No, you can't, and it's just dumb to try to bring world religions into it. Stop making completely stupid arguments, no religion says anything about gold buying and pretending that they do just makes you look like a nutjob.
Actually I'd agree that the pool example describes straight cheating. Where I differ from you is in your conclusion regarding the aptness of the analogy.
You sound kind of clever saying that, but then we're back to square one - how is gold buying 'cheating', since you've already said you aren't EULA argument? Or is it just bad because you declare it so?
Originally posted by itzit What does having a wife have anything to do with buying gold? The only thing I can see is Since I have a wife, I don't have time to spend earning gold in game so I must buy gold to get the good stuff. the same goes with working 40 hours a week. Your sentence really is all backwards.
if u have a wife and a child like i do its kinda dumb wasting money in buying gold to waste it in a game only if ur rich
Originally posted by Antipathy Originally posted by thekze
Loser?
1. Guy works 40 hours a week, has a life and a girlfriend, buys gold
or
2. Guy has no life, jerks in front of his pc and farms day and night for gold
Who's the real loser...? :x
When most people reach adultood they realise life is about making sacrifices. You have a kid - well maybe you need to drive a little more carefully. You have a wife/girlfriend - well maybe they deserve a little of your time.
Alot of children are all "Me! Me! Me! I want everything". Most adults have learnt a little restraint. They realise that if they only go to football practice once a week then they don't deserve to play in the top division of the local league, and that reading a book by stephen hawking doesn't give them the right to heckle during a lecture by a professor of physics.
So it's perfectly fine for someone to decide to spend time away from MMOs to do other stuff. However expecting to do that and have the rewards (gold, experience, whatever) for investing a great deal of time is a very selfish atttude.
So in answer to your question - both your examples are losers. couldnt expressed it better u stole my words
Originally posted by Rekiem Originally posted by Antipathy Originally posted by thekze
Loser?
1. Guy works 40 hours a week, has a life and a girlfriend, buys gold
or
2. Guy has no life, jerks in front of his pc and farms day and night for gold
Who's the real loser...? :x
When most people reach adultood they realise life is about making sacrifices. You have a kid - well maybe you need to drive a little more carefully. You have a wife/girlfriend - well maybe they deserve a little of your time.
Alot of children are all "Me! Me! Me! I want everything". Most adults have learnt a little restraint. They realise that if they only go to football practice once a week then they don't deserve to play in the top division of the local league, and that reading a book by stephen hawking doesn't give them the right to heckle during a lecture by a professor of physics.
So it's perfectly fine for someone to decide to spend time away from MMOs to do other stuff. However expecting to do that and have the rewards (gold, experience, whatever) for investing a great deal of time is a very selfish atttude.
So in answer to your question - both your examples are losers. couldnt expressed it better u stole my words If both are losers, but both are the height of success in the game. Then maybe the game is broke.
I dont like people that buy gold. my friend does, he also buys accounts....i guess it his **** really. i usually win anyway, in Asheron's Call. i had a low level mage that i played the best i could, and he kept buying max level chars and money and item, and the accounts he bought kept getting hacked lol. so, after he spent $1K, honestly, he decieded to stick with this lower level char he had lol. by the time he did that i had worked my way up to lv 92, and I quit AC and he ended up taking my account.
Originally posted by Antipathy When most people reach adultood they realise life is about making sacrifices.
Presumably this guy is sitting at home right now whipping himself and sticking pins in his eyes. While all the Christians are silently breathing a sigh of relief to be born into a normal religion.
I'm the same mate, it would take a lot more than buying gold for me to disown a friend. When push comes to shove, I don't really care. It's up to them, I don't feel affects me.
Originally posted by baff I'm the same mate, it would take a lot more than buying gold for me to disown a friend. When push comes to shove, I don't really care. It's up to them, I don't feel affects me.
Originally posted by baff The meaning of life.Originally posted by Antipathy When most people reach adultood they realise life is about making sacrifices.
Presumably this guy is sitting at home right now whipping himself and sticking pins in his eyes. While all the Christians are silently breathing a sigh of relief to be born into a normal religion. What are you talking about? Christianity is fundamentally a religion of sacrifice and turning the other cheek. Hesus himself went through torture and death (with a crown of thorns that might have pinned his eyes from time to time) to relieve humanity of it's sins. Not that I'm a devout Christian, but you got the wrong idea about this religion pal. If all Christians were actually altruistic (if there is such a thing as human altruism) followers of G-sus this world would be a whole lot nicer to live in.
Originally posted by Joshua69 he kept buying max level chars and money and item, and the accounts he bought kept getting hacked lol. so, after he spent $1K,
It sounds to me like he was getting scammed. Would be pretty easy to do; sell a character for a bunch of money, but the account information is still in the orignal person's name. Have the original person customer service and say they want their password reset, and you've got the account back to sell to the next sucker.
Originally posted by Antipathy When most people reach adultood they realise life is about making sacrifices.
Presumably this guy is sitting at home right now whipping himself and sticking pins in his eyes. While all the Christians are silently breathing a sigh of relief to be born into a normal religion.
What are you talking about? Christianity is fundamentally a religion of sacrifice and turning the other cheek. Hesus himself went through torture and death (with a crown of thorns that might have pinned his eyes from time to time) to relieve humanity of it's sins. Not that I'm a devout Christian, but you got the wrong idea about this religion pal. If all Christians were actually altruistic (if there is such a thing as human altruism) followers of G-sus this world would be a whole lot nicer to live in.
Christ gave his life as sacrifice so that the rest of us no longer have to. His sacrifice was the last one. He died for us all. Sorry to hear that you dislike Christians and feel they have ruined the world for you.
Turning the other cheek is about non violence, tolerance and non confrontation I think, rather than the sacrifice of ones cheek for ones god.
It's amazing how you guys seem to be getting so worked up over stuff. The references to making sacrifices and christianity were in completely separate posts. Quoting them next to eachother is taking my words completely out of context.
I guess dishonest debating tactics goes quite well with the whole gold buying ethos.
Originally posted by baff ? No one has quoted any of your refences to christianity. Only your belief that life, and more relavently video gaming, are about "sacrifice". Considering this example of your moral compass, you'll excuse me if I don't take your impressions of dishonesty very seriously.
Baff - you continually try to confuse the issue. Did you perchance train as a lawyer?
You were the one who quite clearly mentioned sacrifice and christianity in successive sentances, hence starting this whole diversion in the first place.
You claim that I believe life is about sacrifice. Again - more deliberate confusion. I didn't say that life was about anything. I claimed adulthood involves sacrifice - it's a consequence of being able to make ones own choices in life.
Originally posted by Antipathy Originally posted by baff ? No one has quoted any of your refences to christianity. Only your belief that life, and more relavently video gaming, are about "sacrifice". Considering this example of your moral compass, you'll excuse me if I don't take your impressions of dishonesty very seriously.
Baff - you continually try to confuse the issue. Did you perchance train as a lawyer?
You were the one who quite clearly mentioned sacrifice and christianity in successive sentances, hence starting this whole diversion in the first place.
You claim that I believe life is about sacrifice. Again - more deliberate confusion. I didn't say that life was about anything. I claimed adulthood involves sacrifice - it's a consequence of being able to make ones own choices in life.
My next post will be back on topic
Yup. And I didn't say Christians spoiled the world either. The religion's obviously made things nicer on some levels, but if people followed G-sus' teachings fully, it would be a whole lot nicer.
It seems the core of the confusion lies in the question "What are the rules of an MMO". For how can people be accused of cheating when the rules are not known?
The manufacturers have attempted to spell these out by including rules within the EULA. Some people readily accept this position, but others question it. After all - it has been shown in courts that EULAs are fairly weak contracts.
So does that mean there are no rules? That anything goes? That exploits, password stealing, packet spoofing etc are all perfectly ok? Again, most people would disagree with this, partly because allowing these things would change the very nature of the game, from an MMO into a glorified hacking competition (and most MMO players are not hackers).
So how can we define cheating? my personal view is that if something is :
a) A rule of the game as presented by the manufacturer in the EULA, the game manual or elsewhere
and
b) Agreed with by a significant proportion of regular players.
and
c) Not in conflict with any court ruling etc.
Then it should be considered to be a rule of the game. And anyone breaking it can quite rightly be accused of cheating. Gold buying falls into this category (at least for most games).
With family games, such as Monopoly, it is often perfectly ok to alter the rules to suit the players. However in a game involving several hundred players separated by large distances then it seems to me quite ridiculous for someone to turn round and say "Those rules the other people are playing by don't suit me. I'm going to make up my own".
Comments
No - most people play games for fun. This tends to put a natural limit on the extent of grinding in games. Alot of people will only grind so much for an item, before deciding to forget it and go off and do something more interesting instead. Introducing gold buying removes this natural limit - people are prepared to grind alot more when they are being paid to do it as a job. Hence the total amount of grinding goes up. That is the problem.
You appear to be contradicting yourself. First you say that gold buying is okay because it gets around grinding and then you say that lack of gold doesn't cause grinding (XP does). Which way do you want it?
With the current crop of games there will always be a few players who achieve superior equipment by putting in more or better targeted effort. That's the nature of the EQ model. However my point is that gold buying will make equipment disparities more common.
Of course they don't. Religions deal in abstractions and generalities. But for many religions, such as Christianity, consideration of others is at the very core of the belief system.
Actually I'd agree that the pool example describes straight cheating. Where I differ from you is in your conclusion regarding the aptness of the analogy.
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Could care less about gold buyers or gold sellers.
Play Eve, you can kill the bot macroers and blow up their ships.
Personally, I think if there were no items that were bound to one person, the prices would be cheaper and it would drive out some of the people doing gold buying/selling.
Seriously.
If you want to combat gold farming, you design an economic system that doesn't flood the game's coffers with finances (gold in most cases). You have a closed system, not some open ended system with no sinks.
Money sinks and a self-sustaining economy is a viable solution to what some folks refer to as a "problem". Personally, I don't care and it doesn't bother me. If dev companies were serious about doing away with it, they would fix it internally. The reason they don't is because they make more money off of the farmers. More subscriptions. When you have 6 million subscribers, you can afford to "ban" thousands of them.
Think about it.
-Raenz-
You appear not to be reading what I wrote. I didn't say anything approximating 'gold buying is okay because it gets around grinding', plain and simple. You may be confusing me with somone else, or you may be mistaking me saying something like 'people buy gold to get around grinding'. I certainly didn't say that 'lack of gold doesn't cause grinding (XP does)', I'm not even sure exactly what it means since the negatives are just confusing. I did say that grinding is caused by developers choosing to reward repeating challengeless tasks, and that it's not caused by people buying gold, but that's not remotely the same thing.
I don't care if it's the point inside your head, it's not what you said.
Can you name a single religion that says that one style of sitting on your ass playing computer games is significantly less selfish than any other? No, you can't, and it's just dumb to try to bring world religions into it. Stop making completely stupid arguments, no religion says anything about gold buying and pretending that they do just makes you look like a nutjob.
You sound kind of clever saying that, but then we're back to square one - how is gold buying 'cheating', since you've already said you aren't EULA argument? Or is it just bad because you declare it so?
How I lolled.
.
.
.
.
And lolled some more.
if u have a wife and a child like i do its kinda dumb wasting money in buying gold to waste it in a game only if ur rich
PLZ CHOSE THE MEH FOR SPELB0rNe BETAZ KTHKXGUDBYE
1. Guy works 40 hours a week, has a life and a girlfriend, buys gold
or
2. Guy has no life, jerks in front of his pc and farms day and night for gold
Who's the real loser...? :x
When most people reach adultood they realise life is about making sacrifices. You have a kid - well maybe you need to drive a little more carefully. You have a wife/girlfriend - well maybe they deserve a little of your time.
Alot of children are all "Me! Me! Me! I want everything". Most adults have learnt a little restraint. They realise that if they only go to football practice once a week then they don't deserve to play in the top division of the local league, and that reading a book by stephen hawking doesn't give them the right to heckle during a lecture by a professor of physics.
So it's perfectly fine for someone to decide to spend time away from MMOs to do other stuff. However expecting to do that and have the rewards (gold, experience, whatever) for investing a great deal of time is a very selfish atttude.
So in answer to your question - both your examples are losers.
couldnt expressed it better u stole my words
PLZ CHOSE THE MEH FOR SPELB0rNe BETAZ KTHKXGUDBYE
1. Guy works 40 hours a week, has a life and a girlfriend, buys gold
or
2. Guy has no life, jerks in front of his pc and farms day and night for gold
Who's the real loser...? :x
When most people reach adultood they realise life is about making sacrifices. You have a kid - well maybe you need to drive a little more carefully. You have a wife/girlfriend - well maybe they deserve a little of your time.
Alot of children are all "Me! Me! Me! I want everything". Most adults have learnt a little restraint. They realise that if they only go to football practice once a week then they don't deserve to play in the top division of the local league, and that reading a book by stephen hawking doesn't give them the right to heckle during a lecture by a professor of physics.
So it's perfectly fine for someone to decide to spend time away from MMOs to do other stuff. However expecting to do that and have the rewards (gold, experience, whatever) for investing a great deal of time is a very selfish atttude.
So in answer to your question - both your examples are losers.
couldnt expressed it better u stole my words
If both are losers, but both are the height of success in the game. Then maybe the game is broke.
I dont like people that buy gold. my friend does, he also buys accounts....i guess it his **** really. i usually win anyway, in Asheron's Call. i had a low level mage that i played the best i could, and he kept buying max level chars and money and item, and the accounts he bought kept getting hacked lol. so, after he spent $1K, honestly, he decieded to stick with this lower level char he had lol. by the time he did that i had worked my way up to lv 92, and I quit AC and he ended up taking my account.
you just cant beat hard honest work
If you don't like him, he's not your friend.
Or if he is your friend, you do like people who buy gold.
If you don't like him, he's not your friend.
Or if he is your friend, you do like people who buy gold.
lol, or, i could just not support something he does. but like i said, thats his shit, not my shit
What are you talking about? Christianity is fundamentally a religion of sacrifice and turning the other cheek. Hesus himself went through torture and death (with a crown of thorns that might have pinned his eyes from time to time) to relieve humanity of it's sins. Not that I'm a devout Christian, but you got the wrong idea about this religion pal. If all Christians were actually altruistic (if there is such a thing as human altruism) followers of G-sus this world would be a whole lot nicer to live in.
It sounds to me like he was getting scammed. Would be pretty easy to do; sell a character for a bunch of money, but the account information is still in the orignal person's name. Have the original person customer service and say they want their password reset, and you've got the account back to sell to the next sucker.
What are you talking about? Christianity is fundamentally a religion of sacrifice and turning the other cheek. Hesus himself went through torture and death (with a crown of thorns that might have pinned his eyes from time to time) to relieve humanity of it's sins. Not that I'm a devout Christian, but you got the wrong idea about this religion pal. If all Christians were actually altruistic (if there is such a thing as human altruism) followers of G-sus this world would be a whole lot nicer to live in.
Christ gave his life as sacrifice so that the rest of us no longer have to. His sacrifice was the last one. He died for us all. Sorry to hear that you dislike Christians and feel they have ruined the world for you.
Turning the other cheek is about non violence, tolerance and non confrontation I think, rather than the sacrifice of ones cheek for ones god.
It's amazing how you guys seem to be getting so worked up over stuff. The references to making sacrifices and christianity were in completely separate posts. Quoting them next to eachother is taking my words completely out of context.
I guess dishonest debating tactics goes quite well with the whole gold buying ethos.
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?
No one has quoted any of your refences to christianity.
Only your belief that life, and more relavently video gaming, are about "sacrifice".
Considering this example of your moral compass, you'll excuse me if I don't take your impressions of dishonesty very seriously.
Baff - you continually try to confuse the issue. Did you perchance train as a lawyer?
You were the one who quite clearly mentioned sacrifice and christianity in successive sentances, hence starting this whole diversion in the first place.
You claim that I believe life is about sacrifice. Again - more deliberate confusion. I didn't say that life was about anything. I claimed adulthood involves sacrifice - it's a consequence of being able to make ones own choices in life.
My next post will be back on topic
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You were the one who quite clearly mentioned sacrifice and christianity in successive sentances, hence starting this whole diversion in the first place.
You claim that I believe life is about sacrifice. Again - more deliberate confusion. I didn't say that life was about anything. I claimed adulthood involves sacrifice - it's a consequence of being able to make ones own choices in life.
My next post will be back on topic
Yup. And I didn't say Christians spoiled the world either. The religion's obviously made things nicer on some levels, but if people followed G-sus' teachings fully, it would be a whole lot nicer.
The manufacturers have attempted to spell these out by including rules within the EULA. Some people readily accept this position, but others question it. After all - it has been shown in courts that EULAs are fairly weak contracts.
So does that mean there are no rules? That anything goes? That exploits, password stealing, packet spoofing etc are all perfectly ok? Again, most people would disagree with this, partly because allowing these things would change the very nature of the game, from an MMO into a glorified hacking competition (and most MMO players are not hackers).
So how can we define cheating? my personal view is that if something is :
a) A rule of the game as presented by the manufacturer in the EULA, the game manual or elsewhere
and
b) Agreed with by a significant proportion of regular players.
and
c) Not in conflict with any court ruling etc.
Then it should be considered to be a rule of the game. And anyone breaking it can quite rightly be accused of cheating. Gold buying falls into this category (at least for most games).
With family games, such as Monopoly, it is often perfectly ok to alter the rules to suit the players. However in a game involving several hundred players separated by large distances then it seems to me quite ridiculous for someone to turn round and say "Those rules the other people are playing by don't suit me. I'm going to make up my own".
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