no, but only cause I'm a cheap bastard...and not cause I'm concerned about breaking any rules. Spending real "gold" on fake gold just doesn't sit right in the old noggin...
It's a proven historical fact that beer saved humankind.
Once again. if enough people are buying gold that it screws up the Economy, I think they need to make tweaks to the game so its not needed as badly. For most of the Games out there I dont think there is enough people buying to effect the Economy.. Once again, too many people have to buy gold = Game Issue, Few people Buy = Don't Matter
Thats my opinion. I Could care less if they waist their money on Fake money.
This is basically saying that games should not have in-game economies of any depth. That dumbs down a significant aspect of these games just because of the cheater community -- not a good result in my opinion. Look at WAR, -- that was Mythic's approach, and it makes the entire crafting/economy side of the game inane, which cuts down on socialization, cuts down in player hubs and so forth. It hurts the game in many ways when you do not have a functioning economy.
Once again. if enough people are buying gold that it screws up the Economy, I think they need to make tweaks to the game so its not needed as badly. For most of the Games out there I dont think there is enough people buying to effect the Economy.. Once again, too many people have to buy gold = Game Issue, Few people Buy = Don't Matter
Thats my opinion. I Could care less if they waist their money on Fake money.
This is basically saying that games should not have in-game economies of any depth. That dumbs down a significant aspect of these games just because of the cheater community -- not a good result in my opinion. Look at WAR, -- that was Mythic's approach, and it makes the entire crafting/economy side of the game inane, which cuts down on socialization, cuts down in player hubs and so forth. It hurts the game in many ways when you do not have a functioning economy.
Crafting insane???????? WHAT CRAFTING.
All I'm saying is if A ton of people are doing it, that says something about the Game. I beleave Most people don't like to use Real money to get FAKE money. If too many people are doing it and its killing the economy. YES I think its a game issue and should tone it down. If they dont wish to please the masses, they will buy it.
There are a large number of impassioned justifications for buying gold here, but all of them boil down to one thing - sheer selfishness and a philosophy that somehow instant gratification is your birthright. Frankly, if your consciences were that clear, you wouldn't feel the need to so vehemently attempt to excuse your behavior. "How does it hurt?" you ask, so wide-eyed and innocent. First of all, online gold selling drives a server economy through the roof. Gold is devalued because people who buy the gold don't hold out for a better price. They want it now and they've got their ill-gotten coinage in hand to pay for it, even if it means paying an outrageous price. Enough people do this and it sets the market. There is no justification for an item that sells for 10 silver to a vendor to be on the auction house for 3 gold. Before long, everybody is trying to sell at inflated rates and lower levels have to find ways to afford to upgrade equipment, either by buying gold themselves or by farming and selling their gains at the existing inflated prices. Now they have become part of the system. That leads to that bane of questing, the Farmer. No longer the bucolic rustic working his fields with sweat on his brow and a determined smile on his face, this Farmer does not love the land, he exploits it. Whether he is the person trying to accumulate the funds to pay the outrageous auction house prices or the sad individual working for pennies in some dim closet in a foreign country, he is playing a different game from most of the playerbase. He adds nothing to the community and strips whole areas of spawns needed for questing, ruthless in his need to acquire items that can be turned into ingame coinage. He doesn't care about you, doesn't care about the community. His sole focus is himself and his goal. Whether your excuse is a strident "It's my money!" or "I need it to buy a mount", the simple truth is the same. You are a parasite and a cheat and feel that you are somehow exempt from the rules. The fact that "others do it" does not alter the argument. The problem is you and your selfishness. No matter how helpful you are, how many drive-by heals you throw, you are still a cheater. If you can live with it, nothing more need be said. Walk on secure in your self-righteousness, but don't try to convince those of us who play by the rules. We're not interested in being recruited to your line of thinking. We're too busy doing the right thing to care. If you are so unskilled, too impatient to do things the right way, there are plenty of RMT-based games for your entertainment. If you can get banned for buying gold, then doing so is wrong. Don't try to color it as noble and your just due. If you are so convinced, make your case to the game company yourself. Have the backbone to admit your activities to the people you say don't really care what you do. Then come back and tell us all. Otherwise, you are a low-life honorless scoundrel, gaining an advantage the honest player doesn't have. You aren't playing the same game I am.
I seriously appreciate the undertaking to bring arguments. Its something we can work on. Lets start.
First: My very vehement way has one sole reason: I feel the entire debate is overwhelmed by people who lead an emotional crusade. Its just so overwhelming odds, I must fight with a loud voice or I can as well stay in the shadow. I know I wont make friends defending a limited gold buying, but I personally feel the matter of tremendous importance: to remove a myth, to fight irrationality. Calling the convinction and vehemence a proof for one's guilt would be a strange measure in my book.
Second: I bought gold solely for mounts, player housing and other stuff which were no part of the changing economy, and I bet a mayor part of bought gold goes to such. So your argument is totally irrelevant, as mounts are no part of the economy anyways.
Third: as to buying crafted goods, I would never buy gold for crafted goods since usually I have a guildmate who can make it for me. Even IF people would buy gold for crafted goods: When I am a tailor, crafting robes, why should I make the robes more expensive simply because my customer got his money from gold sellers? Those gold sellers didnt magically forge gold, they got it with the SAME principles I could do. They kill mobs and do quests. I could do the same, I am just either too lazy or to busy, so I pay someone to do what I could do as well. In no point anything is coming to the game, which could not exist otherwise. Even Gold farmers play the game by the existing rules, they kill mobs, instead of me. its the classic fundament of all capitalism. One crafts one shoe per day and another employes 10 shoe crafters and becomes rich. Sure, that DOES damage the person who makes only one shoe, but what else is it as the normal way of capitalism? Big companies destroy small shops. But back to the point: if I sell 10 shoes per day all of a sudden instead of 1 per day as before, is it not MY fault as crafter that I make things more expensive? When the economy goes through the roof, it is not because of the gold selling people, it is because of the insatiable greed of the crafters! They are not forced to make their products more expensive, but its the crafters greed, not the poor gold buyers fault.
Forth: Personally, in 6 years and two dozen MMOs - and I have played MMOs a LOT - I have not ONCE been to any place where I really was unable to kill mobs because some gold farmers made it impossible. Never. There were always enough wolves, boars or whatever for everyone. You cant even KNOW if those people "stealing your mob" is a farmer or just a zealous gamer. EVERYONE is your competition, so if that bugs you, you are dead wrong in a MMO altogether. I played MMOs thorough, but the effect that I was unable to do my quests because of farmers never ever happened to me even ONCE. He can not strip areas of mobs, since they respawn, usually very fast these days. They may not care about the community, but then a lot dont, and even more actively damage it. If you can be dead sure about farmers, its one thing: they will never get attention so they will be socially harmless compared to the many much more damaging sociopaths who otherwise exist. (WOW-folks who send you tells berating you about your skills or your trashy gear for instance do MUCH more damage to the community! And I can list entire HORDES of player types who do CONSIDERABLY more damage to MMOs than gold famers, trust me.)
Fifth: A parasite is someone who lives at the expense of others. As described above the argue there is zero proof this is the case. Not in a single point of yours do I see anything but your personal preferrence made law. You define "doing the right thing" = "how I enjoy playing the game". Essentially a rather odd view on the world. Game companies enforce the rules, but rules and what is right dont necessarily overlap, you know. I just circumvent rules I feel are not appropriate, as everyone does in some place. They enforce the rules simply because they have the influence and the power. That proofs in itself zero about their righteousness. Thats the logic of the schoolyard bully. My fist is the law. Tempting, but not enough for me to swallow. There is not one point which proofs me the moral right of this argument.
Where is that mystical damage done? Where is the "victim" of the evils you describe? None of these spectres were ever seen by me, and that is what I believe them to be: frightning fairy tales, ghost stories like the mystical monster of Loch Ness - whom everyone for sure knows to exist, because "someone" has seen it and knows. It is not a fact, it is BELIEF, like the virginity of St. Mary. You are free to belief gold selling is evil, as some belief masturbation is a sin. I just share neither and since we live in (yet) free world, I want to chose my own belief, which is that of the free market regulation. I dont believe an economy should have controlled prices or controlled rules who can sell what to whom or monopolies.
There is only one reason why gold selling exists: because game devs invented mindless timesinks. If every part of a MMORPG would be enjoying to play, NO ONE would ever buy gold! If everything was possible to attain in entertaining ways, and ways which adapt to the time a normal, adult, working person could invest, gold selling would vanish. But as long as developers are lazy and unimaginative and can only think of grind and timesinks, people will try to avoid the dull parts of a MMO and pay someone else to do the dull parts. Its that simple. I too wish VERY much we would have ideal games where gold selling is not necessary. Buying gold is something I dont like to do, but its the gameplay who just went totally wrong in some place which is the cause, not the customers fault. If there were ways to achieve a mount or a house in a normal, working, adults timeschedule, 95% of the gold buyers would stop to buy gold. I cant understand why this simple truth is so difficult to see. The vision of the timesinks was just defined in an era of MMO gaming, when 90% of the MMO gamers were teens with tons of time and patience. Grinding for gold requires ZERO skill. Its usually the most dull and boring part of a game, a part only to keep people busy with the minimal effort of game devs. If MMOs were better, gold selling would cease.
Its not the handkerchieves fault that snot runs out of your nose.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Dont be ashamed, nobody will know. Ill start y saying yes i have, in 2 mmos. Go ahead, roast me on how much of a dumbass i am and how it jacks up the economy, i already know its really stupid
Nope because I don't like spending money on games. I feel that p2p games usually have better communities but I still play f2p games because of that same fact, I'm just cheep.
I only read these forums, yet this topic made me want to register and post a reply.
I think LordDraekon pretty much sums it up why most of us are against gold selling and buying in mmorpgs, so no need to start a rant myself where in the end ill just repeat LordDraekon.
I do see Elikal's point, even if i dont agree. You asked in what way you harm the economy by buying gold to buy items like a mount.
I believe that by buying gold you do harm the player economy, unless you have no interaction trading with other player in any way.. Auctions, Trading 1 on 1 with someone in return for goods or gold. I'll even go as far as saying giving goods to guildies. Someone not buying gold might need to sell those goods to get a mount and cant do the same thing. Yet that guildie you just gave supplies can sell the goods or the endproducts and it ends up in the player economy.
See by actually using real gold to buy that mount (thats worth for instance 40 gold) player A magicly generates 40 gold he would not have to begin with. Player B that did not buy gold that plays the competitive way is down 40 gold when he buys the same mount.
Everytime player B places his goods on the auction house hes in a worse position then player A that did buy gold, since the player A can afford to put his goods at a lower price. Ingame gold means less to him by now, afterall he got a 40 gold lead on player A.
The same thing applies to buying too. player B that plays fair and competitive fails to find that fair competition with all these people having a headstart on him.
Basicly goldbuyers that buy gold, because they find the economical grind to much. They dont realise or even care that they just made that same economical grind they hate worse for those that dont buy gold.
Never, and I think the players that buy gold are poor pathetic individuals that don't know what an MMO is about and ruin the experience for others and should be banned from the game forever.
Start by banning every MMO company too then.
From Blizzard to SoE, they're all selling virtual items and card games with a chance to get an item.
There's no distinction. Because they are flying under the flag of a corporation and are doing it through an official site of theirs doesn't make it any different.
It is EXACTLY the same practice.
Not only that. In practice they do NOTHING really effective to stop spam. You see, a single guy can make a Spam Me Not add on that works perfectly and blocks all the gold selling messages. But oh mighty Blizzard can't! Yeah right. They want gold sellers because they know the bad "players" (they are not even players, they are worse than noobs) that need to buy gold to play the game are increasing and a good part of their paying costumers.
I truly loathe to admit that I have on two very rare occassions, both because I really couldn't stand the cash grind in a certain game. I'm really against gold buying/selling and I think cheating takes the whole point out of playing... but...
in this one case.. in order to enjoy the PvP I needed cash... cash grinding required participating in really crappy PvE for many hours... so yes.... I'm guilty =(
Needless to say it was not an MMO I stuck with for long at all for this reason.
And for those of you who claim there is no harm... that is nonsense.. gold buying screws up the in game economies.. and screws the honest players. I wish the MMO companies would find a way to truly put an end to this.
Grymm MMO addict in recovery! EQ,SWG preCU,L2,EQ2,GW,CoH/CoV,V:SOH, Aion,AoC,TR,WAR,EVE,BP,RIFT,WoW and others... no more!
I voted yes. I bought gold while playing EQ. When i quit the third time i was positive i was done for good. Gave a guildmate the password to my account and told them to do what they wanted with it. I of course came back and found my lvl 50+ Druid buck naked. After trying to raise money by quad kiting giants for awhile i figured it would be easier to just buy some gold to re gear. I feel so dirty.
lol why buy gold for EQ1 when you can just kill AG camps all night long like I did? Anyone know about the spot I'm talking about?
Grymm MMO addict in recovery! EQ,SWG preCU,L2,EQ2,GW,CoH/CoV,V:SOH, Aion,AoC,TR,WAR,EVE,BP,RIFT,WoW and others... no more!
"Second: I bought gold solely for mounts, player housing and other stuff which were no part of the changing economy, and I bet a mayor part of bought gold goes to such. So your argument is totally irrelevant, as mounts are no part of the economy anyways."
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This is a common misperception.
Any gold that comes into the game from outside the game creates inflation, regardless of what it is spent on. Why is this? What impact could it possibly have if you are spending the RMT on a mount? The answer is simple -- if you are using RMT for the mount or house or what have you (that is something that is paid to an NPC rather than a plauyer), this means you have more of your own gold left over than you would have had if you had been saving your gold for the mount or house. If this is done on a wide scale, it has an inflating effect on the economy, which drives all prices up for everyone for player sold items. So, no matter what, your "victimless crime" is inflating the economy, because even in your case you are having more gold to play with than you otherwise would have if you were saving it for a mount.
I don't know why people resist the economic logic to such a degree -- I can only guess it's due to the tendency of many people to go to great lengths to rationalize cheating.
Yes because in the game that I did buy gold, I was playing for fun. Then when the fun stopped and I had to grind to buy stuff I just bought gold and carried on having my fun times.
This is a common misperception. Any gold that comes into the game from outside the game creates inflation, regardless of what it is spent on. Why is this? What impact could it possibly have if you are spending the RMT on a mount? The answer is simple -- if you are using RMT for the mount or house or what have you (that is something that is paid to an NPC rather than a plauyer), this means you have more of your own gold left over than you would have had if you had been saving your gold for the mount or house. If this is done on a wide scale, it has an inflating effect on the economy, which drives all prices up for everyone for player sold items.
That's just not true. If you buy gold you don't go out to hunt or tradeskill for it, you just use the gold you just bought. If I buy 20k gold or platinum or silver, I don't bother selling items any longer and I certainly don't bother doing tradeskills.
This is a common misperception. Any gold that comes into the game from outside the game creates inflation, regardless of what it is spent on. Why is this? What impact could it possibly have if you are spending the RMT on a mount? The answer is simple -- if you are using RMT for the mount or house or what have you (that is something that is paid to an NPC rather than a plauyer), this means you have more of your own gold left over than you would have had if you had been saving your gold for the mount or house. If this is done on a wide scale, it has an inflating effect on the economy, which drives all prices up for everyone for player sold items.
That's just not true. If you buy gold you don't go out to hunt or tradeskill for it, you just use the gold you just bought.
If I buy 20k gold or platinum or silver, I don't bother selling items any longer and I certainly don't bother doing tradeskills.
Your premise is incorrect.
Yours is incorrect, so incorrect it makes me laugh. It is OBVIOUS people buy MUCH more gold than they would collect in game and in MUCH more shorter period of time.
That's just not true. If you buy gold you don't go out to hunt or tradeskill for it, you just use the gold you just bought. If I buy 20k gold or platinum or silver, I don't bother selling items any longer and I certainly don't bother doing tradeskills. Your premise is incorrect.
Yours is incorrect, so incorrect it makes me laugh. It is OBVIOUS people buy MUCH more gold than they would collect in game and in MUCH more shorter period of time.
No, people buy what they estimate is needed to purchase the item they want.
Nova tried to imply that people still farm and make money on top of that. That's simply not true. Once you have bought a certain amount of gold you feel comfortable and don't go out hunting for more.
No one has ever proven that it has an inflating effect. You certainly have not, until you are able to, I will assume that it has no more an inflatin effect than just farming said gold instead of buying it.
Gold farmers are vastly outnumbered by players in most games, unless players start to sell gold too.
One gold farmer is making money for multiple players. They farm faster but have less capacity and provide gold to many players.
A single entity farming gold twice as fast compared to two entities farming half as fast is THE SAME THING.
You can't prove this is causing inflation at all.
What you can see is that there is inflation after a few years in MMO. But is this because of the amount of high lvl characters, because of the amount of gold dropping or because of gold sellers? No one knows for sure.
What I can say is that even in game where there are no or almost no gold sellers, there is inflation too.
This is a common misperception. Any gold that comes into the game from outside the game creates inflation, regardless of what it is spent on. Why is this? What impact could it possibly have if you are spending the RMT on a mount? The answer is simple -- if you are using RMT for the mount or house or what have you (that is something that is paid to an NPC rather than a plauyer), this means you have more of your own gold left over than you would have had if you had been saving your gold for the mount or house. If this is done on a wide scale, it has an inflating effect on the economy, which drives all prices up for everyone for player sold items.
That's just not true. If you buy gold you don't go out to hunt or tradeskill for it, you just use the gold you just bought. If I buy 20k gold or platinum or silver, I don't bother selling items any longer and I certainly don't bother doing tradeskills.
Your premise is incorrect.
Even if you aren't farming for gold, you *still* have more gold that is disposable in your pocket than you would if you were saving that gold for a mount. Sure, at the margins if you have no other gold, a zero bank account, never spend gold on anything other than a mount, and spend every penny you buy with RMT on the mount ... then no inflation. That also isn't realistically what happens. In reality, money that you otherwise would have been saving for the mount is now disposable income, regardless of how much of it you have. That is inflationary.
Yes, there will tend to be inflation anyway in games unless the games have significant gold sinks in them -- gold sinks are the way the developer prevents inflation by taking money out of circulation. When players deliberately circumvent this, the main control the developers have over money supply is circumvented.
The argument that the money would be in the economy anyway is also bogus. 99% of players would not farm gold at the rate of professional gold farmers, simply because the professional gold farmers aren't doing anything else at all in the game other than farming gold. That money is being created in an artrificial way, and then being pumped in through RMT -- which again leads to more money being in circulation than would be the case if there were not professional gold farmers, which tends to inflation, regardless of how it is spent.
Yes, I have. MMOs are my hobby, and hobbies aren't free.
I think the only people innocent of not buying gold are people under 20 who don't have any money(or people who are embarrassed for spending money on a hobby and won't admit it). 20 dollars buys a lot of gold/plat nowadays. Why would you not do it? Don't give me some BS answer that you think its cheating, because I'll just assume you're unemployed.
That's just not true. If you buy gold you don't go out to hunt or tradeskill for it, you just use the gold you just bought. If I buy 20k gold or platinum or silver, I don't bother selling items any longer and I certainly don't bother doing tradeskills. Your premise is incorrect.
Yours is incorrect, so incorrect it makes me laugh. It is OBVIOUS people buy MUCH more gold than they would collect in game and in MUCH more shorter period of time.
No, people buy what they estimate is needed to purchase the item they want.
Nova tried to imply that people still farm and make money on top of that. That's simply not true. Once you have bought a certain amount of gold you feel comfortable and don't go out hunting for more.
No one has ever proven that it has an inflating effect. You certainly have not, until you are able to, I will assume that it has no more an inflatin effect than just farming said gold instead of buying it.
Ok I will take the time to explain the obvious to you.
Day 1in Realm A: Loser needs 100 gold to buy a weapon. Loser buys the gold and buys it. Seller of weapon is happy and goes and finds another and since he sold it for 100 so easily, he puts if for 110g.
Day 4 in REalm A: Loser needs 200g to buy a mount. Loser buys the gold and that's it.
Day 10 in Realm A: Loser needs another weapon and buys the gold and gets it. Seller increases prices another 10%.
-----
Day 1 in Real B: Player nees 100 gold to buy a weapon. He starts farming. Seller wonders nobody is buying his wapon.
Day 2: Player farms. Seller gets worried.
Day 3: Player farms. Seller lowers to 95g.
Day 4: Player farms. Seller worries.
Day 5. Player farms. Seller worries.
Day 6. Player farms. Seller lowers to 90g..
...
Day 10. Player ends farming and now the wapon is 80g and buys it.
Ok I will take the time to explain the obvious to you. Day 1in Realm A: Loser needs 100 gold to buy a weapon. Loser buys the gold and buys it. Seller of weapon is happy and goes and finds another and since he sold it for 100 so easily, he puts if for 110g. Day 4 in REalm A: Loser needs 200g to buy a mount. Loser buys the gold and that's it. Day 10 in Realm A: Loser needs another weapon and buys the gold and gets it. Seller increases prices another 10%.
-----
Day 1 in Real B: Player nees 100 gold to buy a weapon. He starts farming. Seller wonders nobody is buying his wapon. Day 2: Player farms. Seller gets worried. Day 3: Player farms. Seller lowers to 95g. Day 4: Player farms. Seller worries. Day 5. Player farms. Seller worries. Day 6. Player farms. Seller lowers to 90g.. ... Day 10. Player ends farming and now the wapon is 80g and buys it.
SEE??????
That doesn't even begin to explain inflation.
Because someone sells something automatically means they raise the price? You just assume this without evidence.
If each time someone sold something the price would go up, then we would have exponential inflation and that doesn't happen.
Prices in MMO inflate sometimes but I think this has more to do with extra levels and more people leveling to a level where it's easier to farm currency, bringing more currency into the system. I don't believe for a second that only the farmers are responsible for inflation because in EQ inflation happened too before farmers were widespread.
If you don't think gold sellers cause inflation, you're just not a very educated person. Look at our own soceity. The more cash there is around the more inflation there will be.
Let's take oil as an example. The more oil there is in inventory the lower the price of oil is. When oil is in demand its cost is inflated. Like we had in the past summer.
So when the gold farmers are farming gold day and night bringing tons more gold in the economy, than if there weren't gold farmers you are going to see that gold is worth less, because there is so much more gold in circulation.
Just because you refuse to admit gold selling does inflate the economy doesn't mean its not there. No point in argueing with someone that biased.
Would it be nice to have no gold farmers? Sure, but that's not the way it is, is it?
Let's take oil as an example. The more oil there is in inventory the lower the price of oil is. When oil is in demand its cost is inflated. Like we had in the past summer.
Oil isn't a good example it's a reasonable market. MMO economies are inherantly unreasonable.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
Comments
no, but only cause I'm a cheap bastard...and not cause I'm concerned about breaking any rules. Spending real "gold" on fake gold just doesn't sit right in the old noggin...
It's a proven historical fact that beer saved humankind.
This is basically saying that games should not have in-game economies of any depth. That dumbs down a significant aspect of these games just because of the cheater community -- not a good result in my opinion. Look at WAR, -- that was Mythic's approach, and it makes the entire crafting/economy side of the game inane, which cuts down on socialization, cuts down in player hubs and so forth. It hurts the game in many ways when you do not have a functioning economy.
This is basically saying that games should not have in-game economies of any depth. That dumbs down a significant aspect of these games just because of the cheater community -- not a good result in my opinion. Look at WAR, -- that was Mythic's approach, and it makes the entire crafting/economy side of the game inane, which cuts down on socialization, cuts down in player hubs and so forth. It hurts the game in many ways when you do not have a functioning economy.
Crafting insane???????? WHAT CRAFTING.
All I'm saying is if A ton of people are doing it, that says something about the Game. I beleave Most people don't like to use Real money to get FAKE money. If too many people are doing it and its killing the economy. YES I think its a game issue and should tone it down. If they dont wish to please the masses, they will buy it.
I seriously appreciate the undertaking to bring arguments. Its something we can work on. Lets start.
First: My very vehement way has one sole reason: I feel the entire debate is overwhelmed by people who lead an emotional crusade. Its just so overwhelming odds, I must fight with a loud voice or I can as well stay in the shadow. I know I wont make friends defending a limited gold buying, but I personally feel the matter of tremendous importance: to remove a myth, to fight irrationality. Calling the convinction and vehemence a proof for one's guilt would be a strange measure in my book.
Second: I bought gold solely for mounts, player housing and other stuff which were no part of the changing economy, and I bet a mayor part of bought gold goes to such. So your argument is totally irrelevant, as mounts are no part of the economy anyways.
Third: as to buying crafted goods, I would never buy gold for crafted goods since usually I have a guildmate who can make it for me. Even IF people would buy gold for crafted goods: When I am a tailor, crafting robes, why should I make the robes more expensive simply because my customer got his money from gold sellers? Those gold sellers didnt magically forge gold, they got it with the SAME principles I could do. They kill mobs and do quests. I could do the same, I am just either too lazy or to busy, so I pay someone to do what I could do as well. In no point anything is coming to the game, which could not exist otherwise. Even Gold farmers play the game by the existing rules, they kill mobs, instead of me. its the classic fundament of all capitalism. One crafts one shoe per day and another employes 10 shoe crafters and becomes rich. Sure, that DOES damage the person who makes only one shoe, but what else is it as the normal way of capitalism? Big companies destroy small shops. But back to the point: if I sell 10 shoes per day all of a sudden instead of 1 per day as before, is it not MY fault as crafter that I make things more expensive? When the economy goes through the roof, it is not because of the gold selling people, it is because of the insatiable greed of the crafters! They are not forced to make their products more expensive, but its the crafters greed, not the poor gold buyers fault.
Forth: Personally, in 6 years and two dozen MMOs - and I have played MMOs a LOT - I have not ONCE been to any place where I really was unable to kill mobs because some gold farmers made it impossible. Never. There were always enough wolves, boars or whatever for everyone. You cant even KNOW if those people "stealing your mob" is a farmer or just a zealous gamer. EVERYONE is your competition, so if that bugs you, you are dead wrong in a MMO altogether. I played MMOs thorough, but the effect that I was unable to do my quests because of farmers never ever happened to me even ONCE. He can not strip areas of mobs, since they respawn, usually very fast these days. They may not care about the community, but then a lot dont, and even more actively damage it. If you can be dead sure about farmers, its one thing: they will never get attention so they will be socially harmless compared to the many much more damaging sociopaths who otherwise exist. (WOW-folks who send you tells berating you about your skills or your trashy gear for instance do MUCH more damage to the community! And I can list entire HORDES of player types who do CONSIDERABLY more damage to MMOs than gold famers, trust me.)
Fifth: A parasite is someone who lives at the expense of others. As described above the argue there is zero proof this is the case. Not in a single point of yours do I see anything but your personal preferrence made law. You define "doing the right thing" = "how I enjoy playing the game". Essentially a rather odd view on the world. Game companies enforce the rules, but rules and what is right dont necessarily overlap, you know. I just circumvent rules I feel are not appropriate, as everyone does in some place. They enforce the rules simply because they have the influence and the power. That proofs in itself zero about their righteousness. Thats the logic of the schoolyard bully. My fist is the law. Tempting, but not enough for me to swallow. There is not one point which proofs me the moral right of this argument.
Where is that mystical damage done? Where is the "victim" of the evils you describe? None of these spectres were ever seen by me, and that is what I believe them to be: frightning fairy tales, ghost stories like the mystical monster of Loch Ness - whom everyone for sure knows to exist, because "someone" has seen it and knows. It is not a fact, it is BELIEF, like the virginity of St. Mary. You are free to belief gold selling is evil, as some belief masturbation is a sin. I just share neither and since we live in (yet) free world, I want to chose my own belief, which is that of the free market regulation. I dont believe an economy should have controlled prices or controlled rules who can sell what to whom or monopolies.
There is only one reason why gold selling exists: because game devs invented mindless timesinks. If every part of a MMORPG would be enjoying to play, NO ONE would ever buy gold! If everything was possible to attain in entertaining ways, and ways which adapt to the time a normal, adult, working person could invest, gold selling would vanish. But as long as developers are lazy and unimaginative and can only think of grind and timesinks, people will try to avoid the dull parts of a MMO and pay someone else to do the dull parts. Its that simple. I too wish VERY much we would have ideal games where gold selling is not necessary. Buying gold is something I dont like to do, but its the gameplay who just went totally wrong in some place which is the cause, not the customers fault. If there were ways to achieve a mount or a house in a normal, working, adults timeschedule, 95% of the gold buyers would stop to buy gold. I cant understand why this simple truth is so difficult to see. The vision of the timesinks was just defined in an era of MMO gaming, when 90% of the MMO gamers were teens with tons of time and patience. Grinding for gold requires ZERO skill. Its usually the most dull and boring part of a game, a part only to keep people busy with the minimal effort of game devs. If MMOs were better, gold selling would cease.
Its not the handkerchieves fault that snot runs out of your nose.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Nope because I don't like spending money on games. I feel that p2p games usually have better communities but I still play f2p games because of that same fact, I'm just cheep.
Make games you want to play.
http://www.youtube.com/user/RavikAztar
I only read these forums, yet this topic made me want to register and post a reply.
I think LordDraekon pretty much sums it up why most of us are against gold selling and buying in mmorpgs, so no need to start a rant myself where in the end ill just repeat LordDraekon.
I do see Elikal's point, even if i dont agree. You asked in what way you harm the economy by buying gold to buy items like a mount.
I believe that by buying gold you do harm the player economy, unless you have no interaction trading with other player in any way.. Auctions, Trading 1 on 1 with someone in return for goods or gold. I'll even go as far as saying giving goods to guildies. Someone not buying gold might need to sell those goods to get a mount and cant do the same thing. Yet that guildie you just gave supplies can sell the goods or the endproducts and it ends up in the player economy.
See by actually using real gold to buy that mount (thats worth for instance 40 gold) player A magicly generates 40 gold he would not have to begin with. Player B that did not buy gold that plays the competitive way is down 40 gold when he buys the same mount.
Everytime player B places his goods on the auction house hes in a worse position then player A that did buy gold, since the player A can afford to put his goods at a lower price. Ingame gold means less to him by now, afterall he got a 40 gold lead on player A.
The same thing applies to buying too. player B that plays fair and competitive fails to find that fair competition with all these people having a headstart on him.
Basicly goldbuyers that buy gold, because they find the economical grind to much. They dont realise or even care that they just made that same economical grind they hate worse for those that dont buy gold.
And thats why people consider goldbuying unfair.
Start by banning every MMO company too then.
From Blizzard to SoE, they're all selling virtual items and card games with a chance to get an item.
There's no distinction. Because they are flying under the flag of a corporation and are doing it through an official site of theirs doesn't make it any different.
It is EXACTLY the same practice.
Not only that. In practice they do NOTHING really effective to stop spam. You see, a single guy can make a Spam Me Not add on that works perfectly and blocks all the gold selling messages. But oh mighty Blizzard can't! Yeah right. They want gold sellers because they know the bad "players" (they are not even players, they are worse than noobs) that need to buy gold to play the game are increasing and a good part of their paying costumers.
Yes, but it was from my guild leader and I knew him from work. Also he could always use a few extra bucks for the family.
Half of WoW's population is gold farmers now. Lineage 2 is more like 75%.
Companies won't ban their income.
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I truly loathe to admit that I have on two very rare occassions, both because I really couldn't stand the cash grind in a certain game. I'm really against gold buying/selling and I think cheating takes the whole point out of playing... but...
in this one case.. in order to enjoy the PvP I needed cash... cash grinding required participating in really crappy PvE for many hours... so yes.... I'm guilty =(
Needless to say it was not an MMO I stuck with for long at all for this reason.
And for those of you who claim there is no harm... that is nonsense.. gold buying screws up the in game economies.. and screws the honest players. I wish the MMO companies would find a way to truly put an end to this.
Grymm
MMO addict in recovery!
EQ,SWG preCU,L2,EQ2,GW,CoH/CoV,V:SOH,
Aion,AoC,TR,WAR,EVE,BP,RIFT,WoW and others... no more!
lol why buy gold for EQ1 when you can just kill AG camps all night long like I did?
Anyone know about the spot I'm talking about? 
Grymm
MMO addict in recovery!
EQ,SWG preCU,L2,EQ2,GW,CoH/CoV,V:SOH,
Aion,AoC,TR,WAR,EVE,BP,RIFT,WoW and others... no more!
"Second: I bought gold solely for mounts, player housing and other stuff which were no part of the changing economy, and I bet a mayor part of bought gold goes to such. So your argument is totally irrelevant, as mounts are no part of the economy anyways."
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This is a common misperception.
Any gold that comes into the game from outside the game creates inflation, regardless of what it is spent on. Why is this? What impact could it possibly have if you are spending the RMT on a mount? The answer is simple -- if you are using RMT for the mount or house or what have you (that is something that is paid to an NPC rather than a plauyer), this means you have more of your own gold left over than you would have had if you had been saving your gold for the mount or house. If this is done on a wide scale, it has an inflating effect on the economy, which drives all prices up for everyone for player sold items. So, no matter what, your "victimless crime" is inflating the economy, because even in your case you are having more gold to play with than you otherwise would have if you were saving it for a mount.
I don't know why people resist the economic logic to such a degree -- I can only guess it's due to the tendency of many people to go to great lengths to rationalize cheating.
Yes because in the game that I did buy gold, I was playing for fun. Then when the fun stopped and I had to grind to buy stuff I just bought gold and carried on having my fun times.
(\ /) ?
( . .)
c('')('')
Resist gear checks in classic WOW.
That's just not true. If you buy gold you don't go out to hunt or tradeskill for it, you just use the gold you just bought. If I buy 20k gold or platinum or silver, I don't bother selling items any longer and I certainly don't bother doing tradeskills.
Your premise is incorrect.
That's just not true. If you buy gold you don't go out to hunt or tradeskill for it, you just use the gold you just bought.
If I buy 20k gold or platinum or silver, I don't bother selling items any longer and I certainly don't bother doing tradeskills.
Your premise is incorrect.
Yours is incorrect, so incorrect it makes me laugh. It is OBVIOUS people buy MUCH more gold than they would collect in game and in MUCH more shorter period of time.
Not that I recall but I used to sell "gold" in Asheron's Call when it first came out.
Yours is incorrect, so incorrect it makes me laugh. It is OBVIOUS people buy MUCH more gold than they would collect in game and in MUCH more shorter period of time.
No, people buy what they estimate is needed to purchase the item they want.
Nova tried to imply that people still farm and make money on top of that. That's simply not true. Once you have bought a certain amount of gold you feel comfortable and don't go out hunting for more.
No one has ever proven that it has an inflating effect. You certainly have not, until you are able to, I will assume that it has no more an inflatin effect than just farming said gold instead of buying it.
Gold farmers are vastly outnumbered by players in most games, unless players start to sell gold too.
One gold farmer is making money for multiple players. They farm faster but have less capacity and provide gold to many players.
A single entity farming gold twice as fast compared to two entities farming half as fast is THE SAME THING.
You can't prove this is causing inflation at all.
What you can see is that there is inflation after a few years in MMO. But is this because of the amount of high lvl characters, because of the amount of gold dropping or because of gold sellers? No one knows for sure.
What I can say is that even in game where there are no or almost no gold sellers, there is inflation too.
That's just not true. If you buy gold you don't go out to hunt or tradeskill for it, you just use the gold you just bought. If I buy 20k gold or platinum or silver, I don't bother selling items any longer and I certainly don't bother doing tradeskills.
Your premise is incorrect.
Even if you aren't farming for gold, you *still* have more gold that is disposable in your pocket than you would if you were saving that gold for a mount. Sure, at the margins if you have no other gold, a zero bank account, never spend gold on anything other than a mount, and spend every penny you buy with RMT on the mount ... then no inflation. That also isn't realistically what happens. In reality, money that you otherwise would have been saving for the mount is now disposable income, regardless of how much of it you have. That is inflationary.
Yes, there will tend to be inflation anyway in games unless the games have significant gold sinks in them -- gold sinks are the way the developer prevents inflation by taking money out of circulation. When players deliberately circumvent this, the main control the developers have over money supply is circumvented.
The argument that the money would be in the economy anyway is also bogus. 99% of players would not farm gold at the rate of professional gold farmers, simply because the professional gold farmers aren't doing anything else at all in the game other than farming gold. That money is being created in an artrificial way, and then being pumped in through RMT -- which again leads to more money being in circulation than would be the case if there were not professional gold farmers, which tends to inflation, regardless of how it is spent.
Yes, I have. MMOs are my hobby, and hobbies aren't free.
I think the only people innocent of not buying gold are people under 20 who don't have any money(or people who are embarrassed for spending money on a hobby and won't admit it). 20 dollars buys a lot of gold/plat nowadays. Why would you not do it? Don't give me some BS answer that you think its cheating, because I'll just assume you're unemployed.
Yours is incorrect, so incorrect it makes me laugh. It is OBVIOUS people buy MUCH more gold than they would collect in game and in MUCH more shorter period of time.
No, people buy what they estimate is needed to purchase the item they want.
Nova tried to imply that people still farm and make money on top of that. That's simply not true. Once you have bought a certain amount of gold you feel comfortable and don't go out hunting for more.
No one has ever proven that it has an inflating effect. You certainly have not, until you are able to, I will assume that it has no more an inflatin effect than just farming said gold instead of buying it.
Ok I will take the time to explain the obvious to you.
Day 1in Realm A: Loser needs 100 gold to buy a weapon. Loser buys the gold and buys it. Seller of weapon is happy and goes and finds another and since he sold it for 100 so easily, he puts if for 110g.
Day 4 in REalm A: Loser needs 200g to buy a mount. Loser buys the gold and that's it.
Day 10 in Realm A: Loser needs another weapon and buys the gold and gets it. Seller increases prices another 10%.
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Day 1 in Real B: Player nees 100 gold to buy a weapon. He starts farming. Seller wonders nobody is buying his wapon.
Day 2: Player farms. Seller gets worried.
Day 3: Player farms. Seller lowers to 95g.
Day 4: Player farms. Seller worries.
Day 5. Player farms. Seller worries.
Day 6. Player farms. Seller lowers to 90g..
...
Day 10. Player ends farming and now the wapon is 80g and buys it.
SEE??????
That doesn't even begin to explain inflation.
Because someone sells something automatically means they raise the price? You just assume this without evidence.
If each time someone sold something the price would go up, then we would have exponential inflation and that doesn't happen.
Prices in MMO inflate sometimes but I think this has more to do with extra levels and more people leveling to a level where it's easier to farm currency, bringing more currency into the system. I don't believe for a second that only the farmers are responsible for inflation because in EQ inflation happened too before farmers were widespread.
If you don't think gold sellers cause inflation, you're just not a very educated person. Look at our own soceity. The more cash there is around the more inflation there will be.
Let's take oil as an example. The more oil there is in inventory the lower the price of oil is. When oil is in demand its cost is inflated. Like we had in the past summer.
So when the gold farmers are farming gold day and night bringing tons more gold in the economy, than if there weren't gold farmers you are going to see that gold is worth less, because there is so much more gold in circulation.
Just because you refuse to admit gold selling does inflate the economy doesn't mean its not there. No point in argueing with someone that biased.
Would it be nice to have no gold farmers? Sure, but that's not the way it is, is it?
Oil isn't a good example it's a reasonable market. MMO economies are inherantly unreasonable.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.