i dont think the gold farmers are ruining MMO's, obviously they arnt making them better but my main problem is with power levelers, not so much in a some what new game but a game like DAOC power levels were owning the game leaving no 1 to lvl with the new players
East Carolina University, Computer Science BS, 2011 -------------------- Current game: DAOC
Games played and quit: L2, PlanetSide, RF Online, GuildWars, SWG, COH/COV, Vanguard, LOTRO, WoW, WW2 Online, FFXI, Auto-Assault, EVE Online, ShadowBane, RYL, Rappelz, Last Chaos, Myst Online, POTBS, EQ2, Warhammer Online, AoC, Aion, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, Allods, Darkfall.
Two simple issues, One it is never going to go away so trying to think of ways to "design" it away is useless. Like stated earlier you would have to make every item in game so invaluable that anyone could attain it easily. Something that takes time, effort or money will always allow the secondary market to exist. After we understand that we can not design the secondary market out of the game we are led to understand the second issue, how to incorporate the secondary market into the design and protect those who want nothing to do with it. This is PURELY a designers issue, they (I) alone are (am) responsible for how this is all incorporated or not as it were.
I am not going to go into my own designs but I am sure if you do some thinking you will come to some basic conclusions regarding solutions to this problem.
I would like to point out that you are complaining about people ruining your entertainment experience who are just barely surviving. They make next to nothing to do what they do in an environment which is extremely difficult to get employment. You are indeed entitled to dislike anything that disturbs you experience, especially if you are paying for it but please put the blame on the proper party, the designers. Most designers are where they are only because they have experience in the industry, not because they understand all the various aspects of designing a social structure.
This argument will never end though, as most people don`t think more deeply than "someone is ruining my experience and I want them held responsible".
For sure FFXI was more fun to play before the noticeable increase in RMT before the incredible inflations and the 1000% increases and I'm sure WoW was too...
what FFXI did was amazing, they took out the popular NM drops and made the items they used to drop drop in BCNM group battles and replaced the items the NM drops with untradable versions of the items which were essentially the same thing.
good to see someone sees a different prospective, i did not see that. if i did i would of said. anyhow with that said, that can not change unless a new release comes out.
I've heard of full PvP suggested as a way to get rid of it. If the players banded together and killed all the farmers then they couldn't make much money out of the game. Not many people like to play in such an enviroment though as you lose your items which takes a lot of hard work to get. Other then that I don't believe there is a good answer.
However, I think in some ways the designers bring this on themselves. They design games that are 10% fun and 90% grind. Since the grind is boring, mindless, and can easily be botted but is no fun to play, the gold sellers bot it and the players who hate the grind buy the gold to avoid it.
If these games were designed to be just FUN instead of a little fun but a lot of tedious grind, you'd have a much smaller market for these things. I'm not saying nobody would buy gold -- some always will. But you'd cut the gold purchasers way down (I'd bet by 10 fold if not more) if the games weren't so damn tedious, monotonous, repetitive, and grindy. Buying gold cuts out the repetition, and so that's why people do it. If the designers cut out the repetition in the first place, there'd be less reason to buy gold.
Too many of these games are designed as a treadmill, where your main purpose is to keep doing the same thing over and over again to get some gold-valued reward. If they were designed differently -- which is to say, better -- this would not be the case, and gold sellers would have little or no market.
Comments
East Carolina University, Computer Science BS, 2011
--------------------
Current game: DAOC
Games played and quit: L2, PlanetSide, RF Online, GuildWars, SWG, COH/COV, Vanguard, LOTRO, WoW, WW2 Online, FFXI, Auto-Assault, EVE Online, ShadowBane, RYL, Rappelz, Last Chaos, Myst Online, POTBS, EQ2, Warhammer Online, AoC, Aion, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, Allods, Darkfall.
Waiting on: Earthrise
Names: Citio, Goldie, Sportacus
I am not going to go into my own designs but I am sure if you do some thinking you will come to some basic conclusions regarding solutions to this problem.
I would like to point out that you are complaining about people ruining your entertainment experience who are just barely surviving. They make next to nothing to do what they do in an environment which is extremely difficult to get employment. You are indeed entitled to dislike anything that disturbs you experience, especially if you are paying for it but please put the blame on the proper party, the designers. Most designers are where they are only because they have experience in the industry, not because they understand all the various aspects of designing a social structure.
This argument will never end though, as most people don`t think more deeply than "someone is ruining my experience and I want them held responsible".
- Burying Threads Since 1979 -
what FFXI did was amazing, they took out the popular NM drops and made the items they used to drop drop in BCNM group battles and replaced the items the NM drops with untradable versions of the items which were essentially the same thing.
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However, I think in some ways the designers bring this on themselves. They design games that are 10% fun and 90% grind. Since the grind is boring, mindless, and can easily be botted but is no fun to play, the gold sellers bot it and the players who hate the grind buy the gold to avoid it.
If these games were designed to be just FUN instead of a little fun but a lot of tedious grind, you'd have a much smaller market for these things. I'm not saying nobody would buy gold -- some always will. But you'd cut the gold purchasers way down (I'd bet by 10 fold if not more) if the games weren't so damn tedious, monotonous, repetitive, and grindy. Buying gold cuts out the repetition, and so that's why people do it. If the designers cut out the repetition in the first place, there'd be less reason to buy gold.
Too many of these games are designed as a treadmill, where your main purpose is to keep doing the same thing over and over again to get some gold-valued reward. If they were designed differently -- which is to say, better -- this would not be the case, and gold sellers would have little or no market.
C