Me, personally i'm indifferent to powerleveling services. I really dont care one way or the other, what other people do with their time and money. I would just like to say all the "Anti-PL service" posters here are being silly. Illegal? Criminal? Give me a break. EULA's are not laws they are simply binding agreements. At most you will get banned for breaking an EULA, and lets face it. Anyone company stupid enough to attempt to take someone to court over an EULA would be the laughing stock of the community. Some of you are just blowing the whole PL services out of the water. No one forces you to group and/or be guilded with these people. I've met quite a few people while playing WoW and EQ2 that have made use of PLing services. If they prove incompetent at their job I simply avoid grouping with them. What's so hard about that?
In War - Victory. In Peace - Vigilance. In Death - Sacrifice.
Not picking on you Syllvenwood, but yours was the first of several posts that mentioned this... if you check the article, this is what I wrote:
To answer your other concern, I've never known any guilds not to require a trial period to see how well a recruit plays and interacts with the guild to know if it's a good fit. Most top guilds even require an application and an accounting of the character's skills, gear and raid experience. An unskilled player will be ousted very quickly.
In other words, all guilds I've known, require a trial period, especially top guilds.
Originally posted by syllvenwood Carolyn Koh made a very funny and imo a very ignorant statement. She said that she did not know of any guilds that have a trial period, lol, She obviously doesn't play much of the end game content. From WoW alone i looked at 16 of the major end game raiding guilds and ALL have both an application to complete for review, a period before acceptance to play with other members and they all have a 1 to 2 week trial, rookie, initiate status where you are in the guild but have limited access to guild events or loot while you prove yourself. The 3 major EQ guilds i knew when i played were exactly the same way. To me it seems she just picked the other side to complete an argument without having any actual knowledge or experience in the issue, very funny.
Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com or its management.
Originally posted by DrowNoble Power leveling services are a form of cheating. You are getting around having to do the work yourself, just paying someone to do it for you. This is no different than say paying some guy to write a program for you then pitching it to a corporation as "your software". Not to mention that when the lazy and/or impatient person takes the character over, they will have NO clue how to play it. If you never played WoW before and I handed you a 60 warrior, you'd be clueless as to what the stances do and what abilities to use and when. Same thing with other games, if I gave my ol' 65 Shadow Knight in EQ1 to someone who never played before they wouldn't know what spells to use and when or how to hold aggro and when. This hurts the community as a whole, as if I recruit someone to join my guild I'm assuming they are a compentent player. In addition, to me I see no difference in paying money to buy the Sword of Uberness off ebay and paying someone to level up a toon for you. In both cases you are paying a 3rd party for the intelluctual property of that game company. Cheating by any other name is still cheating.
So my boss is cheating, because he basically pays me and several other people to do his work for him.
If you give me a high level toon in any current MMORPG, I could probablly make better use of him then a lot of people could with in two days.
I'm sorry as diffrent as games try to be, they are the same, if you have ever played a spell casting warrior, you can do it again.
In most cases that I have heard of, people useing PL service is useing it to gain several levels, not max out a toon.
The people that you see maxxing out toons, or buying maxed out toons, are usually botters, buying a high level cleric to bot heal the classes they would rather play. Farmers that buy a high level account just to farm stuff for their lower level accounts.
Most farmers, and botters...well guess what, the in game money you see all over ebay, that's them. To me those people pose a risk of ruining agame, while I have yet to see it happen, other then bust up the economy a little.
The people that chose to gain a couple quick levels to keep up with their friends while they take a week off from playing the game, are not the people I would want to get rid of. Those are the people that are usually interested in playing the game for the right reasons, to group with their friends. They are not there to compete, they are not there to ruin your game. In fact I bet you, you have played with tons of people that have cheated in one way or another and it never even touched your game play.
Hell I bought money from a certain company the sells in game money. They asked me to meet them somewhere to pick it up. I thought, I wonder how many people use this service. I stuck around on and off for a couple days, all in all he did business with 38 people in two days time. And thats just in the few hours I watched him.
ooops, think I just opened a whole new can of worms....
Originally posted by lordtwisted Originally posted by scrawneh Originally posted by Ranma13 If you found out your coworker hired someone else to do his work for him, would you tell your boss that he was 'cheating'?
Yes.
Would your boss care as long as the work was getting done, and done right? Depends on the job. In some jobs people do that all the time.
Look at you local area, they need a road built, usually one company will bid on it, then subcontract it to another comapny, or a building built, or cleaning up, etc...
Sub-contracting and hiring somebody to do your job are two different things. If you sub-contract it is stipulated in the primary document/contract that you are authorized to do so, especially if it is for a specialized service. Hiring someone to do your job for you brings up points of liability for your employer such as confidentiality, possible accident/injury liability just to mention a couple. And yes I deal with legal documents in real life.
Originally posted by lordtwisted Originally posted by DrowNoble Power leveling services are a form of cheating. You are getting around having to do the work yourself, just paying someone to do it for you. This is no different than say paying some guy to write a program for you then pitching it to a corporation as "your software". Not to mention that when the lazy and/or impatient person takes the character over, they will have NO clue how to play it. If you never played WoW before and I handed you a 60 warrior, you'd be clueless as to what the stances do and what abilities to use and when. Same thing with other games, if I gave my ol' 65 Shadow Knight in EQ1 to someone who never played before they wouldn't know what spells to use and when or how to hold aggro and when. This hurts the community as a whole, as if I recruit someone to join my guild I'm assuming they are a compentent player. In addition, to me I see no difference in paying money to buy the Sword of Uberness off ebay and paying someone to level up a toon for you. In both cases you are paying a 3rd party for the intelluctual property of that game company. Cheating by any other name is still cheating.
So my boss is cheating, because he basically pays me and several other people to do his work for him.
If you give me a high level toon in any current MMORPG, I could probablly make better use of him then a lot of people could with in two days.
I'm sorry as diffrent as games try to be, they are the same, if you have ever played a spell casting warrior, you can do it again.
In most cases that I have heard of, people useing PL service is useing it to gain several levels, not max out a toon.
The people that you see maxxing out toons, or buying maxed out toons, are usually botters, buying a high level cleric to bot heal the classes they would rather play. Farmers that buy a high level account just to farm stuff for their lower level accounts.
Most farmers, and botters...well guess what, the in game money you see all over ebay, that's them. To me those people pose a risk of ruining agame, while I have yet to see it happen, other then bust up the economy a little.
The people that chose to gain a couple quick levels to keep up with their friends while they take a week off from playing the game, are not the people I would want to get rid of. Those are the people that are usually interested in playing the game for the right reasons, to group with their friends. They are not there to compete, they are not there to ruin your game. In fact I bet you, you have played with tons of people that have cheated in one way or another and it never even touched your game play.
Hell I bought money from a certain company the sells in game money. They asked me to meet them somewhere to pick it up. I thought, I wonder how many people use this service. I stuck around on and off for a couple days, all in all he did business with 38 people in two days time. And thats just in the few hours I watched him.
ooops, think I just opened a whole new can of worms....
So paying for leveling....AND paying for the game is just ok with you ppl? That's just moronic at best. But there are those whussies that can't imagine having to play to be good I guess
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
Originally posted by Drakonus Originally posted by lordtwisted Originally posted by DrowNoble Power leveling services are a form of cheating. You are getting around having to do the work yourself, just paying someone to do it for you. This is no different than say paying some guy to write a program for you then pitching it to a corporation as "your software". Not to mention that when the lazy and/or impatient person takes the character over, they will have NO clue how to play it. If you never played WoW before and I handed you a 60 warrior, you'd be clueless as to what the stances do and what abilities to use and when. Same thing with other games, if I gave my ol' 65 Shadow Knight in EQ1 to someone who never played before they wouldn't know what spells to use and when or how to hold aggro and when. This hurts the community as a whole, as if I recruit someone to join my guild I'm assuming they are a compentent player. In addition, to me I see no difference in paying money to buy the Sword of Uberness off ebay and paying someone to level up a toon for you. In both cases you are paying a 3rd party for the intelluctual property of that game company. Cheating by any other name is still cheating.
So my boss is cheating, because he basically pays me and several other people to do his work for him.
If you give me a high level toon in any current MMORPG, I could probablly make better use of him then a lot of people could with in two days.
I'm sorry as diffrent as games try to be, they are the same, if you have ever played a spell casting warrior, you can do it again.
In most cases that I have heard of, people useing PL service is useing it to gain several levels, not max out a toon.
The people that you see maxxing out toons, or buying maxed out toons, are usually botters, buying a high level cleric to bot heal the classes they would rather play. Farmers that buy a high level account just to farm stuff for their lower level accounts.
Most farmers, and botters...well guess what, the in game money you see all over ebay, that's them. To me those people pose a risk of ruining agame, while I have yet to see it happen, other then bust up the economy a little.
The people that chose to gain a couple quick levels to keep up with their friends while they take a week off from playing the game, are not the people I would want to get rid of. Those are the people that are usually interested in playing the game for the right reasons, to group with their friends. They are not there to compete, they are not there to ruin your game. In fact I bet you, you have played with tons of people that have cheated in one way or another and it never even touched your game play.
Hell I bought money from a certain company the sells in game money. They asked me to meet them somewhere to pick it up. I thought, I wonder how many people use this service. I stuck around on and off for a couple days, all in all he did business with 38 people in two days time. And thats just in the few hours I watched him.
ooops, think I just opened a whole new can of worms....
Then why bother playing at all ???
Why bother playing at all? You need to read my previous post for that answer. But the long answer is...
I love playing games. A lot of my friends play MMORPG's, I have played damn near every MMORPG that has hit the market, short of a few. I used to have tons of time to play them, and it use to be I would be among the top players as far as levels and such because I had that time.
These days I have weeks, sometimes a month or two in a row where I am unable to play? So does that mean I shouldn't be able to play? Does that mean because I got older and my life got busier, that I don't deserve to play these games?
Why shouldn't I be able to play with groups that I have grouped with since the dawn of MMORPG's? I have friends that play more current games now that I had met in Meridian59, Ultima Online, Everquest, from various beta testings. Should I have to cut those ties, because I lack time?
In EQ I had a static group, we played every Tuesday, Friday, Saturday on a set schedule. My work schedule changed makeing it were I could not maintain that same schedule. It ruined the game for me, loseing my group of friends. I quit playing.
In EQ2 I found a good static group, well my schedule changed and for every month I would miss one day a week of the set schedule, the eventually started to pass me by way to much <this is before the mentor patch was implemented> This made me feel like soon my static group was going to move on with out me, and the game would lose some of it's luster. I mentioned it, and one of the group said I should use a leveling service gain about 2 levels on the rest of the group, and I would be good for a couple more months. I talked to a couple of services, and found gaining 6 levels would take about 3 days, and cost me a bit of cash. I did it.
I continued to play with that group for about 6 more months. One member lost his job, and quit playing, another fried his system and could not afford to fix it at the time. So at that point the game was pretty much over for me.
These games are about adventure, about fun and excitment, these games are meant to be shared with your friends, but rarely can a group of friends hang tight together and level together at the same speeds. So I think a PL service is a great system for helping people like me keep up with other player friends.
In buying those 6 levels do you think I ruined the game or the economy for anyone elses? Do you really think I missed out on a whole lot of the game by not playing those 6 levels?
In another game, for the same reasons, I bought like 10 levels, but they were low levels, so I am sure I never missed anything.
As anything in this world, there are ways to abuse everything, and there are always people that will abuse it. I think this is just another one of those things.
Why do I bother playing these games? Because I find them fun, I meet a lot of like minded people, I think it is great breakthrough in gameing, and I have been there since damn near the begining, and beta tested, and helped developers squash bugs and problems in a large percentage of these games.
Originally posted by Gestankfaust So paying for leveling....AND paying for the game is just ok with you ppl? That's just moronic at best. But there are those whussies that can't imagine having to play to be good I guess
Originally posted by Mercurius100 Mr. Tierney's fault seems to be that he takes these games a little too seriously. These after all are games, made for players to have an enjoyable time playing them. This is rich! Someone criticizing me for taking something too seriously, and then going to great lengths to attempt to justify the reverse of what I'm saying. How about you say what we all know you mean? "Since such ideas can cut into my bottom line, I need to figure out how to slam these ideas down, while attempting to have the moral high ground." It's more I take right and wrong seriously. Like it or not, I have a strict set of principles. Do I lose sleep over powerleveling companies? No. Any chapter that I've been a part of, you got banned if you powerleveled, and that was that. No Questions asked, no appeals, no hard feelings. You state that players should enjoy playing the game. The big thing is, they aren't, since they are paying someone else. They just want to enjoy it later, doing no work. Character is more than just your in-game toon is my philosophy.
Not all players have the same ideas about what is enjoyable about a game. Some people want to play with friends. Some people like to make new friends. Some people like to fully role-play, others like to do a little RP and others like prefer to avoid it. Some people like the grind and the process while others find it tiring. Above all the way that one person wants to play has little to no effect on the experience of another game player who likes to play differently. In fact I would argue that a versatile game that allows players with different desires and objectives, either because of the foresight and ingenuity of game designers or the innovation of the players themselves (including but not limited to power leveling) makes for a much better game experience for those MMORPG players who want a game with a good community with the option for a lot of social interaction. I'd actually agree that MMO's should be more considerate of different people's playstyles. However I do not think endorsing powerleveling is one of them. Think, it says your game is so ridiclously boring, you might as well outsource it to someone else. Come to think of it, why are you playing a game you find stupid, so stupid that you can't bother to actually play it? Go find a game that fits your playstyle more, as there are numerous MMO's out there. There is also the question I've posed numerous times now in this thread. What if your style of fun requires exploiting? Is that permissable. If you say no, then you have to drop the whole line of argumentation you just made that. Or is exploiting just part of the ingenuity of the playerbase?
The examples of why people would want to purchase power leveling services have been listed, and most in my opinion are perfectly legitimate reasons. Not everybody wants to play a game in full or has the time. The best levelers I employ for my website can PL a WoW character 1-60 in 14 days if they work the character 24 hours a day. That is 336 hours of work, a daunting amount for a player who can only put 1-2 hours of play into WoW each day. They are legitimate because you stand to make a buck off of it. And the other reasons have been put forth by others and myself are quite valid as well. You have people who want the rewards, but not the work. They lack the skill to truly play their toons, and are more likely to wipe. Idiot players may create themselves as Caroyln noted, but powerleveling companies make it a lot easier for someone to be an idiot.
If a person is less interested in grinding through a certain couple of levels, I do not see that they should be forced to spend days or weeks doing so. Such is like saying that if you want to play pro basketball, you shouldn't be inconvienenced by the fact you have no game, you should be a starter on the Detroit Pistons anyway. If a person has been recruited by friends and wants to play with them I don't think they should be prevented from doing so, The only thing is NOBODY is preventing them from playing. You seem to think that the only options are you are forbidden from playing, or powerlevel. Those are ridiclous terms of debate. or forced to play for weeks or months just to catch up to their level. If a person has already gotten to the end game but they want to try playing on another server, or as another race or class, I do not feel they should be forced to go through the whole game again if they only want to play certain parts with their second character. Many MMORPGs do not provide viable solutions to these problems for these players, but other players have. These other players are those who started the power leveling industry and are the people today who do power leveling jobs for others.
I find the view that power leveling is this evil thing that ruins MMORPGs as a very dense opinion. Just because some players wish to play the game one way does not mean they should have the right to force others to play that way. You see that's hogwash. If you run a guild, or a part of a guild, there are certain rules one has to follow. Not only do you follow guild specific guidelines, but you follow game specific guidelines as well. NO game endorses powerleveling, and rightly so. Furthermore, you are forcing people to accept powerleveling as a legitimate excercise, despite the fact that they are forbidden from games, and many find them offensive. It seems we're both forcing each others playstyles upon others here, so let's cut the attempt at nobility. These are virtual worlds and virtual universes, and the fact that these games have not been killed off by tens or hundreds of thousands of players who have gotten some form of power leveling on their character attests to that. I would wager that 99% of players who have played WoW or other time-intensive MMORPGs have grouped with people who have been PLed, worked together in guilds with PLed players, bought and sold items thanks to PLed players, become colleagues and even friends with PLed players. None of that means anything though, because it assumes that if not for the pl'ers, such items would not be available. That's an absurd excercise in begging the question. Especially in line with the capitalistic spirit you claim to be supporting, since in the capitalist idea, the market fills the need for voids. In this case, if what you say is true (which it clearly isn't) the market would simply respond and those items would become available. Such as by those who are starting up, who actually play their toons, who are now able to compete because they don't have to worry about the idiot who paid someone to do his work for them. Capitalism cuts both ways, so envoking the spirit of capitalism in such a debate is nonsense. And I would wager that the vast majority of these "purists" have no idea that they are relying on PLed players to make the game experience as good as it is. No killing of the game, no making the gameplay terrible, but helping to make the community and the economy work. As revealed in the above paragraph, that is an assumption, quite unproven, and based on your own argumentation, self-refuting.
If anybody has ever played in a deserted game or on a very low population server they know what most MMORPGs would be like without power leveling, with only players who wanted to play every minute, earn every point of experience and every item themselves. I can tell you from experience that many of my PL customers would not be playing the game if it weren’t for being able to get their character power leveled through certain levels they do not find enjoyable. I would argue the same for most other things that Mr. Tierney and his friends want to burn my industry colleagues and me at the stake for doing. The only people that would be left would be the small group of "purists" who want to play their way and exclude everybody else who wants to play differently. Playing on deserted servers where groups are nearly impossible to form and the economy has too few participants to work properly is what they would bring about. From my personal experience in selling power leveling I know that the number of people being demonized for having characters power leveled is much larger and much more important to creating a thriving community and economy in MMORPGs than they wish to acknowledge. We are not talking about a few people but a significant percentage of the elite and most influential players in many MMOs.
It is easy to demonize or dismiss a few players, considered unskilled and unknowledgeable about the games they play. But that is simply not the truth. Log into your favorite MMO and look around and you will see plenty of PLed players, including many of the most skilled and revered characters you play with. Look at your friends list, look at your guild, look at your real life friends, and realize that many of them have had characters PLed. Look at the virtual world and recognize how its community and its economy would be a shadow of what it is without those who would have quit or would never have started playing without power leveling. We are a much bigger and more important group than the "purists" would ever want to imagine. We are not destructive, we are not evil, and we do not try to push our morals and beliefs about how games should be played on the millions of other players we share these virtual worlds with.
Michael Widmer Founder, MMO Supplies Ahh yes the silent majority, that without it it would crumble. Someone posted earlier that this site was putting an advertisment, but masked it as a debate. here you whine about how allegedly serious I take my gaming, yet you are in reality just promoting yourself. People in glass houses....
Originally posted by Lokimer I'm pretty apathetic about the player leveling services or gold farming services. What I'm more focused on how this might be some sort of dark commentary on where the quality of our modern MMORPG's have become. TO get to a point where some players choose to pay others to "Play a game" for them? How is that not giving us a clue to how "Fun" our mmorpg's are nowadays? Are We all doomed to grinds and gold reliance in these games?
You hit the nail on the head as to why I did the angle I did. Powerleveling is more a symptom of a much greater problem.
Come to think of it, why are you playing a game you find stupid, so stupid that you can't bother to actually play it? Go find a game that fits your playstyle more, as there are numerous MMO's out there.
Oh come on - you get bored of any game after a while, but since MMORPGs last a long time, you get bored of certain parts long before others. You say there are other games out there? Well for most MMORPG players, there is only that ONE game; they have probably looked into lots of alternatives, but ultimately enjoy just that one single game.
I have played the same game for several years now. If I was to "miss out" on a month or two of leveling, a part of the game I already did several times, I would still have 80-90% of the game left, the part I enjoy. Would some other, new game be able to make up for that? Nope, in most cases it probably couldn't cover even 5% of the value of my favorite game, much less 80-90% of it. Average single player games last 2 days, and most MMORPGs I just don't enjoy.
Why buy 100-200 new games when you need just one game to keep you happy for the same amount of time? Surely it's cheaper to pay a few bucks for power-leveling than a few thousand bucks for all those new games? If I have to be bored for a month in order to have fun for a year, I will do so, but why not just skip that one month, and have fun for the whole year? Why buy another game and be bored for the whole year since only one game is good enough?
Originally posted by lordtwisted Originally posted by Drakonus Originally posted by lordtwisted Originally posted by DrowNoble Power leveling services are a form of cheating. You are getting around having to do the work yourself, just paying someone to do it for you. This is no different than say paying some guy to write a program for you then pitching it to a corporation as "your software". Not to mention that when the lazy and/or impatient person takes the character over, they will have NO clue how to play it. If you never played WoW before and I handed you a 60 warrior, you'd be clueless as to what the stances do and what abilities to use and when. Same thing with other games, if I gave my ol' 65 Shadow Knight in EQ1 to someone who never played before they wouldn't know what spells to use and when or how to hold aggro and when. This hurts the community as a whole, as if I recruit someone to join my guild I'm assuming they are a compentent player. In addition, to me I see no difference in paying money to buy the Sword of Uberness off ebay and paying someone to level up a toon for you. In both cases you are paying a 3rd party for the intelluctual property of that game company. Cheating by any other name is still cheating.
So my boss is cheating, because he basically pays me and several other people to do his work for him.
If you give me a high level toon in any current MMORPG, I could probablly make better use of him then a lot of people could with in two days.
I'm sorry as diffrent as games try to be, they are the same, if you have ever played a spell casting warrior, you can do it again.
In most cases that I have heard of, people useing PL service is useing it to gain several levels, not max out a toon.
The people that you see maxxing out toons, or buying maxed out toons, are usually botters, buying a high level cleric to bot heal the classes they would rather play. Farmers that buy a high level account just to farm stuff for their lower level accounts.
Most farmers, and botters...well guess what, the in game money you see all over ebay, that's them. To me those people pose a risk of ruining agame, while I have yet to see it happen, other then bust up the economy a little.
The people that chose to gain a couple quick levels to keep up with their friends while they take a week off from playing the game, are not the people I would want to get rid of. Those are the people that are usually interested in playing the game for the right reasons, to group with their friends. They are not there to compete, they are not there to ruin your game. In fact I bet you, you have played with tons of people that have cheated in one way or another and it never even touched your game play.
Hell I bought money from a certain company the sells in game money. They asked me to meet them somewhere to pick it up. I thought, I wonder how many people use this service. I stuck around on and off for a couple days, all in all he did business with 38 people in two days time. And thats just in the few hours I watched him.
ooops, think I just opened a whole new can of worms....
Then why bother playing at all ???
Why bother playing at all? You need to read my previous post for that answer. But the long answer is...
I love playing games. A lot of my friends play MMORPG's, I have played damn near every MMORPG that has hit the market, short of a few. I used to have tons of time to play them, and it use to be I would be among the top players as far as levels and such because I had that time.
These days I have weeks, sometimes a month or two in a row where I am unable to play? So does that mean I shouldn't be able to play? Does that mean because I got older and my life got busier, that I don't deserve to play these games?
Why shouldn't I be able to play with groups that I have grouped with since the dawn of MMORPG's? I have friends that play more current games now that I had met in Meridian59, Ultima Online, Everquest, from various beta testings. Should I have to cut those ties, because I lack time?
In EQ I had a static group, we played every Tuesday, Friday, Saturday on a set schedule. My work schedule changed makeing it were I could not maintain that same schedule. It ruined the game for me, loseing my group of friends. I quit playing.
In EQ2 I found a good static group, well my schedule changed and for every month I would miss one day a week of the set schedule, the eventually started to pass me by way to much <this is before the mentor patch was implemented> This made me feel like soon my static group was going to move on with out me, and the game would lose some of it's luster. I mentioned it, and one of the group said I should use a leveling service gain about 2 levels on the rest of the group, and I would be good for a couple more months. I talked to a couple of services, and found gaining 6 levels would take about 3 days, and cost me a bit of cash. I did it.
I continued to play with that group for about 6 more months. One member lost his job, and quit playing, another fried his system and could not afford to fix it at the time. So at that point the game was pretty much over for me.
These games are about adventure, about fun and excitment, these games are meant to be shared with your friends, but rarely can a group of friends hang tight together and level together at the same speeds. So I think a PL service is a great system for helping people like me keep up with other player friends.
In buying those 6 levels do you think I ruined the game or the economy for anyone elses? Do you really think I missed out on a whole lot of the game by not playing those 6 levels?
In another game, for the same reasons, I bought like 10 levels, but they were low levels, so I am sure I never missed anything.
As anything in this world, there are ways to abuse everything, and there are always people that will abuse it. I think this is just another one of those things.
Why do I bother playing these games? Because I find them fun, I meet a lot of like minded people, I think it is great breakthrough in gameing, and I have been there since damn near the begining, and beta tested, and helped developers squash bugs and problems in a large percentage of these games.
Why do I play these games.....Because I can!
Personally, I don't really care you play it however you want, it's your prerogative. But don't be suprised if someday your access to your account has been deleted because of you exercising your choice, that is the prerogative of the game manufacturer/Host. This goes for people who use bots as well. Most people don't have a problem with farmers, unless they are selling what they have for real money. If this is the case, their accounts will eventually be yanked to...*heavy sigh*.
Originally posted by spraguep Maybe you should all just mind your own damn buisness?
It itsn't your concern how someone else decides to play (or not play) a game. You're all like the whinning little children spamming the /LFG channel in WoW stating it shouldn't be used for general chat. Just get over yourselves.
It SO NOT ILLEGAL TO USE A POWER LEVELING SERVICE OR EVEN BUY GOLD. Got that? Good. For something to be ILLEGAL it has to be breaking a LAW, as in murder, rape, theft.. etc. I see people saying this all the time and it's such a stupid thing to say. It is a violation of the agreement you made with you MMO service, nothing more. IF it was ILLEGAL you could ba arrested and sent to jail for it. Get it strait.
And while we are on the topic, your 1st amendment rights do not apply to a privately owed chat channel, get a clue.
And last. I have used a power leveling service. After I leveled two toons to 60 in wow the normal way I had some friends who wanted me to move to another server, but I didn't have the time to level to 60 so we could play together so I got a service to do it for me. Big freaking deal.
I see people whining about how PLed toons have no skill. This is a vague and generally stupid statement. The same can be said for people who have played from 1-60 in wow. There are people who have play just about every MMO/RPG/FPS out there and I fairly damn sure they could figure out a wow character in a few hours tops.
Also Blizzard doesn't own my time or anyone else's time. Which is what most services claim to be selling. And selling virtual goods isn't a copyright violation when you are selling your time. In fact I doubt Blizzard would even win a court case if they tried to sue. It's fairly obvious which companies are selling MMO assets but you don't see Blizzard going after them because they know they will lose in court.
At least do what Carolyn does, make arguments, not whine about people whining. As for "if it doesn't effect your toon, don't complain" that's nonsense. It does effect the community of gamers, and can lead to youg etting whiped by the moron who didn't want to work for what he has gained. And as we saw in the snide arrogant post by our friend at MMO services, without him the game would crumble. Anyone that arrogant I can do without.
Originally posted by iceman00 Originally posted by spraguep Maybe you should all just mind your own damn buisness?
It itsn't your concern how someone else decides to play (or not play) a game. You're all like the whinning little children spamming the /LFG channel in WoW stating it shouldn't be used for general chat. Just get over yourselves.
It SO NOT ILLEGAL TO USE A POWER LEVELING SERVICE OR EVEN BUY GOLD. Got that? Good. For something to be ILLEGAL it has to be breaking a LAW, as in murder, rape, theft.. etc. I see people saying this all the time and it's such a stupid thing to say. It is a violation of the agreement you made with you MMO service, nothing more. IF it was ILLEGAL you could ba arrested and sent to jail for it. Get it strait.
And while we are on the topic, your 1st amendment rights do not apply to a privately owed chat channel, get a clue.
And last. I have used a power leveling service. After I leveled two toons to 60 in wow the normal way I had some friends who wanted me to move to another server, but I didn't have the time to level to 60 so we could play together so I got a service to do it for me. Big freaking deal.
I see people whining about how PLed toons have no skill. This is a vague and generally stupid statement. The same can be said for people who have played from 1-60 in wow. There are people who have play just about every MMO/RPG/FPS out there and I fairly damn sure they could figure out a wow character in a few hours tops.
Also Blizzard doesn't own my time or anyone else's time. Which is what most services claim to be selling. And selling virtual goods isn't a copyright violation when you are selling your time. In fact I doubt Blizzard would even win a court case if they tried to sue. It's fairly obvious which companies are selling MMO assets but you don't see Blizzard going after them because they know they will lose in court.
At least do what Carolyn does, make arguments, not whine about people whining. As for "if it doesn't effect your toon, don't complain" that's nonsense. It does effect the community of gamers, and can lead to youg etting whiped by the moron who didn't want to work for what he has gained. And as we saw in the snide arrogant post by our friend at MMO services, without him the game would crumble. Anyone that arrogant I can do without.
Originally posted by iceman00 Come to think of it, why are you playing a game you find stupid, so stupid that you can't bother to actually play it? Go find a game that fits your playstyle more, as there are numerous MMO's out there.
Oh come on - you get bored of any game after a while, but since MMORPGs last a long time, you get bored of certain parts long before others. You say there are other games out there? Well for most MMORPG players, there is only that ONE game; they have probably looked into lots of alternatives, but ultimately enjoy just that one game.
I have played the same game for several years now. If I was to "miss out" on a month or two of leveling, a part of the game I already did several times, I would still have 80-90% of the game left, the part I enjoy. Would some other, new game be able to make up for that? Nope, in most cases it probably couldn't cover even 5% of the value of my favorite game, much less 80-90% of it. Average single player games last 2 days, and most MMORPGs I just don't enjoy.
Why buy 100-200 new games when you need just one game to keep you happy for the same amount of time? Surely it's cheaper to pay a few bucks for power-leveling than a few thousand bucks for all those new games?
Ahh so personal enjoyment is now our ultimate nirvana. Tell me, does personal enjoyment justify exploiting? It's the same principle, whether be powerlevling or exploiting. Both cheating. And to defend either with "well it's because I enjoy the game" is ridiclous. Or is cheating only cheating if it's 100%? 90% of the time I play by the books, just the other 10% I wanna cheat to get ahead.
The fact that those who favor powerleveling believe they have a right to instant gratification at any means neccessary I think is more a of a problem than the services themselves.
Based on your reasoning of argumentation (perhaps a question for Carolyn to that I forgot to ask during the debate), how do you object to those who exploit?
Originally posted by iceman00 Ahh so personal enjoyment is now our ultimate nirvana. Tell me, does personal enjoyment justify exploiting?
Personal enjoyment is what I pay for, so of course I have a right to expect it in return for my money. As for exploitation, I have no idea where you got that idea... no harm is done to anyone by using these services.
Originally posted by Jade6 Originally posted by iceman00 Ahh so personal enjoyment is now our ultimate nirvana. Tell me, does personal enjoyment justify exploiting?
Personal enjoyment is what I pay for, so obviously I have a right to expect it in return for my money. As for exploitation, I have no idea where you got that idea... no harm is done to anyone by using these services.
That's a begging of the question. But answer the question, where does one draw the line when it comes to personal enjoyment? What if that personal enjoyment includes exploiting? Your idea that "it harms nobody", well it seems to harm quite a few sensibilities royally, given the amount of posts that condemns it. Or is the "harm inflicted" subjective, to be determined by you?
So if one finds personal enjoyment in exploiting, should they be immune from criticism for doing so, and should it be viewed a right and proper thing to do?
Originally posted by Jade6 Originally posted by iceman00 Ahh so personal enjoyment is now our ultimate nirvana. Tell me, does personal enjoyment justify exploiting?
Personal enjoyment is what I pay for, so obviously I have a right to expect it in return for my money. As for exploitation, I have no idea where you got that idea... no harm is done to anyone by using these services. That's assuming that all fields are equal and that everyone operates under the same mode of operation. Those players that don't use bots or services, etc. etc, have now been put behind the proverbial "eight-ball". You may say, "well they have every right to do it too", but what if they can't? For example they have a family account, or they can't afford it, or it goes against their integrity (I know that's a foreign word in todays society). Then that puts you in an advantagous position over those that don't. So, you have basically unleveled the playing field.
Your idea that "it harms nobody", well it seems to harm quite a few sensibilities royally, given the amount of posts that condemns it.
If we had laws against everything that hurts some misguided individual's sensibilities, everything would be illegal. If you based it on majority rule, there would be only one religion, one sexual orientation, just one way to dress, one type of music and so on. If your country was built on this principle, you would be living in Iran.
Where does the line go? Physical harm, economic losses - something that is imposed on you without a choice. When missionaires of some other religion show up at your doorstep for example, you can choose to close the door and not listen; but if they forced your door open and threatened to kill you if you do not convert, then laws could and should be passed against it. So the key element is choice; you can choose to ignore people who use power leveling services, but as long as that doesn't harm your ability to play the game, you can't really do anything about it. Or shouldn't be able to, at least. Your ability to enjoy a MMORPG is not in any way reduced by the fact that some people have higher level characters and better gear - after all, so do a lot of people who did it on their own, yet you can play just fine.
What's with this "playing field" concept anyway, you are not supposed to be competing with anyone to start with.
Originally posted by iceman00 Your idea that "it harms nobody", well it seems to harm quite a few sensibilities royally, given the amount of posts that condemns it.
If we made laws against everything that hurts some misguided individual's sensibilities, everything in this world would be illegal. If you based it on majority rule, there would be only one religion, one sexual orientation, one dress style, one musical style, and so on. If your country was built on this principle, you would be living in Iran.
Where does the line go? Physical harm, economic losses - something that is imposed on you without a choice. When missionaires of a foreign religion show up at your doorstep for example, you can choose to close the door and not listen; but if they forced your door open and threatened to kill you if you do not convert, then laws could and should be passed against it. So the key element is choice; you can choose to ignore people who use power leveling services, but as long as that doesn't harm your ability to play the game, you can't really do anything about it. Or shouldn't be able to, at least.
What about those who grouped with someone level 60, assuming he actually worked for his character, only to get wiped because he chose to cheat? That's harm they didn't have a choice on. You could say "Don't group with him." In those instances people would not have grouped with him had they known he cheated. So the choice argument is a rather weak one. And once again, exploiting many times doesn't harm other people playing the game. Should they be allowed to exploit?
I think your ducking the question here, so once again. Provided you don't "harm" anyone, should you be allowed to exploit? What makes exploits always harmful? Is it because they are against the EULA? Well so is powerleveling. Is it because they prefer to cut corners rather than do it the old fashioned way? Once again, that's powerleveling.
I think those that consider a power leveling service as cheating should have been around about 10 years ago, back in the day when Meridian59 and UO were around. People would hack the game so that your spells could not hurt them, while their spells would kill you in one hit.
They had PKers that would hunt noobs in all the little noob areas, while useing cheats, just to get the response from them.
These were cheaters. These are the people that make games so hard to play, that you really don't want to.
When you bust your but for 4 months straight to stay one of the highest level players on your server and some idiot that downloaded a program comes in with his level one master spell caster and kills you in one hit. Then you can cry about cheating.
Because I paid someone else a few bucks to gain me 6 levels, that is not cheating, the is tired of the level 20 to 30 grind your butt off lag fest that developers call "extending a games life".
Originally posted by Drakonus Originally posted by lordtwisted Originally posted by Drakonus Originally posted by lordtwisted Originally posted by DrowNoble Power leveling services are a form of cheating. You are getting around having to do the work yourself, just paying someone to do it for you. This is no different than say paying some guy to write a program for you then pitching it to a corporation as "your software". Not to mention that when the lazy and/or impatient person takes the character over, they will have NO clue how to play it. If you never played WoW before and I handed you a 60 warrior, you'd be clueless as to what the stances do and what abilities to use and when. Same thing with other games, if I gave my ol' 65 Shadow Knight in EQ1 to someone who never played before they wouldn't know what spells to use and when or how to hold aggro and when. This hurts the community as a whole, as if I recruit someone to join my guild I'm assuming they are a compentent player. In addition, to me I see no difference in paying money to buy the Sword of Uberness off ebay and paying someone to level up a toon for you. In both cases you are paying a 3rd party for the intelluctual property of that game company. Cheating by any other name is still cheating.
So my boss is cheating, because he basically pays me and several other people to do his work for him.
If you give me a high level toon in any current MMORPG, I could probablly make better use of him then a lot of people could with in two days.
I'm sorry as diffrent as games try to be, they are the same, if you have ever played a spell casting warrior, you can do it again.
In most cases that I have heard of, people useing PL service is useing it to gain several levels, not max out a toon.
The people that you see maxxing out toons, or buying maxed out toons, are usually botters, buying a high level cleric to bot heal the classes they would rather play. Farmers that buy a high level account just to farm stuff for their lower level accounts.
Most farmers, and botters...well guess what, the in game money you see all over ebay, that's them. To me those people pose a risk of ruining agame, while I have yet to see it happen, other then bust up the economy a little.
The people that chose to gain a couple quick levels to keep up with their friends while they take a week off from playing the game, are not the people I would want to get rid of. Those are the people that are usually interested in playing the game for the right reasons, to group with their friends. They are not there to compete, they are not there to ruin your game. In fact I bet you, you have played with tons of people that have cheated in one way or another and it never even touched your game play.
Hell I bought money from a certain company the sells in game money. They asked me to meet them somewhere to pick it up. I thought, I wonder how many people use this service. I stuck around on and off for a couple days, all in all he did business with 38 people in two days time. And thats just in the few hours I watched him.
ooops, think I just opened a whole new can of worms....
Then why bother playing at all ???
Why bother playing at all? You need to read my previous post for that answer. But the long answer is...
I love playing games. A lot of my friends play MMORPG's, I have played damn near every MMORPG that has hit the market, short of a few. I used to have tons of time to play them, and it use to be I would be among the top players as far as levels and such because I had that time.
These days I have weeks, sometimes a month or two in a row where I am unable to play? So does that mean I shouldn't be able to play? Does that mean because I got older and my life got busier, that I don't deserve to play these games?
Why shouldn't I be able to play with groups that I have grouped with since the dawn of MMORPG's? I have friends that play more current games now that I had met in Meridian59, Ultima Online, Everquest, from various beta testings. Should I have to cut those ties, because I lack time?
In EQ I had a static group, we played every Tuesday, Friday, Saturday on a set schedule. My work schedule changed makeing it were I could not maintain that same schedule. It ruined the game for me, loseing my group of friends. I quit playing.
In EQ2 I found a good static group, well my schedule changed and for every month I would miss one day a week of the set schedule, the eventually started to pass me by way to much <this is before the mentor patch was implemented> This made me feel like soon my static group was going to move on with out me, and the game would lose some of it's luster. I mentioned it, and one of the group said I should use a leveling service gain about 2 levels on the rest of the group, and I would be good for a couple more months. I talked to a couple of services, and found gaining 6 levels would take about 3 days, and cost me a bit of cash. I did it.
I continued to play with that group for about 6 more months. One member lost his job, and quit playing, another fried his system and could not afford to fix it at the time. So at that point the game was pretty much over for me.
These games are about adventure, about fun and excitment, these games are meant to be shared with your friends, but rarely can a group of friends hang tight together and level together at the same speeds. So I think a PL service is a great system for helping people like me keep up with other player friends.
In buying those 6 levels do you think I ruined the game or the economy for anyone elses? Do you really think I missed out on a whole lot of the game by not playing those 6 levels?
In another game, for the same reasons, I bought like 10 levels, but they were low levels, so I am sure I never missed anything.
As anything in this world, there are ways to abuse everything, and there are always people that will abuse it. I think this is just another one of those things.
Why do I bother playing these games? Because I find them fun, I meet a lot of like minded people, I think it is great breakthrough in gameing, and I have been there since damn near the begining, and beta tested, and helped developers squash bugs and problems in a large percentage of these games.
Why do I play these games.....Because I can!
Personally, I don't really care you play it however you want, it's your prerogative. But don't be suprised if someday your access to your account has been deleted because of you exercising your choice, that is the prerogative of the game manufacturer/Host. This goes for people who use bots as well. Most people don't have a problem with farmers, unless they are selling what they have for real money. If this is the case, their accounts will eventually be yanked to...*heavy sigh*.
How is a company going to know I used a power leveling service? It's not like I hired someone to hack my toon or anything, I just had someone else play it for a couple days.
Whats to say I'm not at a hotel playing, or at a friends house?
Originally posted by iceman00 What about those who grouped with someone level 60, assuming he actually worked for his character, only to get wiped because he chose to cheat?
It was your choice to risk grouping with a stranger so you have only yourself to blame. You may not know if they had their character power-leveled, but you also don't know if they just plain honestly suck. That said, I would be willing to argue that many people who have their characters power-leveled are in fact very good players since getting bored of the leveling part of the game implies that they already did it lots of times. I know two or three people who bought a character or used these services, and these are all exceptionally skilled players who just got bored of their own class.
I mean come on, if someone plays the game for the first time, and thinks the leveling part is boring, why would he pay additional money to skip ahead when he can't possibly know that what seems like a boring game could get a whole lot better when it's "over"? No, he just quits; to know and love endgame, you would need to have been there already.
Originally posted by iceman00 And once again, exploiting many times doesn't harm other people playing the game. Should they be allowed to exploit?
Exploitation which does not harm anyone is by definition not exploitation; so to answer your question, yes, I do believe that absolutely anything and everything which does not directly harm other people should always be allowed. EULA has nothing to do with that - it's just an arbitrary set of rules that has nothing whatsoever to do with moral constraints.
But we need to ask, WHO should allow. The game company does not have to allow the use of power-leveling services, it's their game after all; just like restaurants don't have to allow people in wearing sandals, eventhough there is nothing wrong with wearing sandals as such. But I personally allow it, since it does not harm me, so I will not inform the game company if I hear someone using power-leveling services - just as I would not rush to the doormen to inform them that there is someone who wears sandals inside the restaurant. It's their job to enforce their own house rules, not mine.
If you mean things like hacks and cheats, if using them does not degrade the ability of other players to play the game, then there is no reason to ban them. If it does, then they should of course get banned, since they are causing direct harm to other people. If you spend 10 months to reach max level and get the best gear, and then someone just buys the same stuff from eBay, why do you care? He plays his game, you play your game. It's Ok to enjoy different things.
Originally posted by lordtwisted Originally posted by Azereki A "good" player is not one who buys power-leveling services, rather it is the "good" player selling these services to the bad or lazy player.
Actually from my experience, the people that usually use PL service it is to keep up with friends that have more time to play.
If my friend can put in 30 hours a week, while I can only play 15, he is going to level a lot faster then I will. So why shouldn't I be able to pay someone to help me keep up.
I don't play the game to compete with you or anyone else. I am playing the game to play with some friends that play. I have friends all over the world I like to play games with, but I do not have the time to keep up with them. So if I choose to play with them, I have to either ignore my real life to do so, or pay someone to help me maintain their levels.
Where is the harm? I am playing the game to play with them, not really anyone else, although I have hooked up with a lot of other cool people while playing, it is not my direct reason for playing.
An MMO is not a competition, but a way to share a fantasy world with others.
You dont play to compete, you play to enjoy your gametime with your friends and you want to be of same level with them, which is hard to do becuase they spend much more time playing this game then you. Thats understandable. But from other perspective, this game IS about competition, whether you play becuase of it or not. The whole idea is about people competing among each other and environment to gain new skills, levels, items. So, even if you do not play to compete, your PLing actions affect everyone else around you that do play to compete. Using ANY method that does not involve methods or properties explicitly designed by devs is in fact exploiting at best,, cheating at worst. an example from real life: I murdered someone, but I have a lot of money. Obviously i dont want to spend time in jail so would it be fair to pay a million to judge so i dont go to jail?
Every action has its own consequences, if you and your friends have differences in levels, you can by pass that in legit ways, for example have 2 chars, one main whenever they play without you, one alt to play when you are around. But im sorry, if you have no time to play with your friends, why should other people around you suffer becuase of that? Luckily, most people dont feel the need to be PLed. otherwise wed be stuck with all players in their highest levels and everyone below that would be either a bot, or chinese PLer whos only responce is "okok kek kek". Talk about immersion hit.
To follow up on your logic, I dont have time to do raiding, so buying virtual godlike items should be legit. I dont have time to PvP either, so people who pay premium price should have a insta-death clicky skill, and for extra premium price the recycle on that skill would be not 1 hour but 1 minute.
The point of my post is not to make precedents. Either do it all or not at all. Either allow all sorts of cheating, PLing, EBaying, or nothing at all.
Originally posted by lordtwisted I think those that consider a power leveling service as cheating should have been around about 10 years ago, back in the day when Meridian59 and UO were around. People would hack the game so that your spells could not hurt them, while their spells would kill you in one hit. They had PKers that would hunt noobs in all the little noob areas, while useing cheats, just to get the response from them.
/shudder I was around for M59. These days in UO, you don't have to buy PL services. You can just buy an "advanced character template" from the UO store. Lookie!
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So my boss is cheating, because he basically pays me and several other people to do his work for him.
If you give me a high level toon in any current MMORPG, I could probablly make better use of him then a lot of people could with in two days.
I'm sorry as diffrent as games try to be, they are the same, if you have ever played a spell casting warrior, you can do it again.
In most cases that I have heard of, people useing PL service is useing it to gain several levels, not max out a toon.
The people that you see maxxing out toons, or buying maxed out toons, are usually botters, buying a high level cleric to bot heal the classes they would rather play. Farmers that buy a high level account just to farm stuff for their lower level accounts.
Most farmers, and botters...well guess what, the in game money you see all over ebay, that's them. To me those people pose a risk of ruining agame, while I have yet to see it happen, other then bust up the economy a little.
The people that chose to gain a couple quick levels to keep up with their friends while they take a week off from playing the game, are not the people I would want to get rid of. Those are the people that are usually interested in playing the game for the right reasons, to group with their friends. They are not there to compete, they are not there to ruin your game. In fact I bet you, you have played with tons of people that have cheated in one way or another and it never even touched your game play.
Hell I bought money from a certain company the sells in game money. They asked me to meet them somewhere to pick it up. I thought, I wonder how many people use this service. I stuck around on and off for a couple days, all in all he did business with 38 people in two days time. And thats just in the few hours I watched him.
ooops, think I just opened a whole new can of worms....
Not so nice guy!
Would your boss care as long as the work was getting done, and done right? Depends on the job. In some jobs people do that all the time.
Look at you local area, they need a road built, usually one company will bid on it, then subcontract it to another comapny, or a building built, or cleaning up, etc...
Sub-contracting and hiring somebody to do your job are two different things. If you sub-contract it is stipulated in the primary document/contract that you are authorized to do so, especially if it is for a specialized service. Hiring someone to do your job for you brings up points of liability for your employer such as confidentiality, possible accident/injury liability just to mention a couple. And yes I deal with legal documents in real life.
So my boss is cheating, because he basically pays me and several other people to do his work for him.
If you give me a high level toon in any current MMORPG, I could probablly make better use of him then a lot of people could with in two days.
I'm sorry as diffrent as games try to be, they are the same, if you have ever played a spell casting warrior, you can do it again.
In most cases that I have heard of, people useing PL service is useing it to gain several levels, not max out a toon.
The people that you see maxxing out toons, or buying maxed out toons, are usually botters, buying a high level cleric to bot heal the classes they would rather play. Farmers that buy a high level account just to farm stuff for their lower level accounts.
Most farmers, and botters...well guess what, the in game money you see all over ebay, that's them. To me those people pose a risk of ruining agame, while I have yet to see it happen, other then bust up the economy a little.
The people that chose to gain a couple quick levels to keep up with their friends while they take a week off from playing the game, are not the people I would want to get rid of. Those are the people that are usually interested in playing the game for the right reasons, to group with their friends. They are not there to compete, they are not there to ruin your game. In fact I bet you, you have played with tons of people that have cheated in one way or another and it never even touched your game play.
Hell I bought money from a certain company the sells in game money. They asked me to meet them somewhere to pick it up. I thought, I wonder how many people use this service. I stuck around on and off for a couple days, all in all he did business with 38 people in two days time. And thats just in the few hours I watched him.
ooops, think I just opened a whole new can of worms....
Then why bother playing at all ???
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
So my boss is cheating, because he basically pays me and several other people to do his work for him.
If you give me a high level toon in any current MMORPG, I could probablly make better use of him then a lot of people could with in two days.
I'm sorry as diffrent as games try to be, they are the same, if you have ever played a spell casting warrior, you can do it again.
In most cases that I have heard of, people useing PL service is useing it to gain several levels, not max out a toon.
The people that you see maxxing out toons, or buying maxed out toons, are usually botters, buying a high level cleric to bot heal the classes they would rather play. Farmers that buy a high level account just to farm stuff for their lower level accounts.
Most farmers, and botters...well guess what, the in game money you see all over ebay, that's them. To me those people pose a risk of ruining agame, while I have yet to see it happen, other then bust up the economy a little.
The people that chose to gain a couple quick levels to keep up with their friends while they take a week off from playing the game, are not the people I would want to get rid of. Those are the people that are usually interested in playing the game for the right reasons, to group with their friends. They are not there to compete, they are not there to ruin your game. In fact I bet you, you have played with tons of people that have cheated in one way or another and it never even touched your game play.
Hell I bought money from a certain company the sells in game money. They asked me to meet them somewhere to pick it up. I thought, I wonder how many people use this service. I stuck around on and off for a couple days, all in all he did business with 38 people in two days time. And thats just in the few hours I watched him.
ooops, think I just opened a whole new can of worms....
Then why bother playing at all ???
Why bother playing at all? You need to read my previous post for that answer. But the long answer is...
I love playing games. A lot of my friends play MMORPG's, I have played damn near every MMORPG that has hit the market, short of a few. I used to have tons of time to play them, and it use to be I would be among the top players as far as levels and such because I had that time.
These days I have weeks, sometimes a month or two in a row where I am unable to play? So does that mean I shouldn't be able to play? Does that mean because I got older and my life got busier, that I don't deserve to play these games?
Why shouldn't I be able to play with groups that I have grouped with since the dawn of MMORPG's? I have friends that play more current games now that I had met in Meridian59, Ultima Online, Everquest, from various beta testings. Should I have to cut those ties, because I lack time?
In EQ I had a static group, we played every Tuesday, Friday, Saturday on a set schedule. My work schedule changed makeing it were I could not maintain that same schedule. It ruined the game for me, loseing my group of friends. I quit playing.
In EQ2 I found a good static group, well my schedule changed and for every month I would miss one day a week of the set schedule, the eventually started to pass me by way to much <this is before the mentor patch was implemented> This made me feel like soon my static group was going to move on with out me, and the game would lose some of it's luster. I mentioned it, and one of the group said I should use a leveling service gain about 2 levels on the rest of the group, and I would be good for a couple more months. I talked to a couple of services, and found gaining 6 levels would take about 3 days, and cost me a bit of cash. I did it.
I continued to play with that group for about 6 more months. One member lost his job, and quit playing, another fried his system and could not afford to fix it at the time. So at that point the game was pretty much over for me.
These games are about adventure, about fun and excitment, these games are meant to be shared with your friends, but rarely can a group of friends hang tight together and level together at the same speeds. So I think a PL service is a great system for helping people like me keep up with other player friends.
In buying those 6 levels do you think I ruined the game or the economy for anyone elses? Do you really think I missed out on a whole lot of the game by not playing those 6 levels?
In another game, for the same reasons, I bought like 10 levels, but they were low levels, so I am sure I never missed anything.
As anything in this world, there are ways to abuse everything, and there are always people that will abuse it. I think this is just another one of those things.
Why do I bother playing these games? Because I find them fun, I meet a lot of like minded people, I think it is great breakthrough in gameing, and I have been there since damn near the begining, and beta tested, and helped developers squash bugs and problems in a large percentage of these games.
Why do I play these games.....Because I can!
Not so nice guy!
Not so nice guy!
Oh come on - you get bored of any game after a while, but since MMORPGs last a long time, you get bored of certain parts long before others. You say there are other games out there? Well for most MMORPG players, there is only that ONE game; they have probably looked into lots of alternatives, but ultimately enjoy just that one single game.
I have played the same game for several years now. If I was to "miss out" on a month or two of leveling, a part of the game I already did several times, I would still have 80-90% of the game left, the part I enjoy. Would some other, new game be able to make up for that? Nope, in most cases it probably couldn't cover even 5% of the value of my favorite game, much less 80-90% of it. Average single player games last 2 days, and most MMORPGs I just don't enjoy.
Why buy 100-200 new games when you need just one game to keep you happy for the same amount of time? Surely it's cheaper to pay a few bucks for power-leveling than a few thousand bucks for all those new games? If I have to be bored for a month in order to have fun for a year, I will do so, but why not just skip that one month, and have fun for the whole year? Why buy another game and be bored for the whole year since only one game is good enough?
So my boss is cheating, because he basically pays me and several other people to do his work for him.
If you give me a high level toon in any current MMORPG, I could probablly make better use of him then a lot of people could with in two days.
I'm sorry as diffrent as games try to be, they are the same, if you have ever played a spell casting warrior, you can do it again.
In most cases that I have heard of, people useing PL service is useing it to gain several levels, not max out a toon.
The people that you see maxxing out toons, or buying maxed out toons, are usually botters, buying a high level cleric to bot heal the classes they would rather play. Farmers that buy a high level account just to farm stuff for their lower level accounts.
Most farmers, and botters...well guess what, the in game money you see all over ebay, that's them. To me those people pose a risk of ruining agame, while I have yet to see it happen, other then bust up the economy a little.
The people that chose to gain a couple quick levels to keep up with their friends while they take a week off from playing the game, are not the people I would want to get rid of. Those are the people that are usually interested in playing the game for the right reasons, to group with their friends. They are not there to compete, they are not there to ruin your game. In fact I bet you, you have played with tons of people that have cheated in one way or another and it never even touched your game play.
Hell I bought money from a certain company the sells in game money. They asked me to meet them somewhere to pick it up. I thought, I wonder how many people use this service. I stuck around on and off for a couple days, all in all he did business with 38 people in two days time. And thats just in the few hours I watched him.
ooops, think I just opened a whole new can of worms....
Then why bother playing at all ???
Why bother playing at all? You need to read my previous post for that answer. But the long answer is...
I love playing games. A lot of my friends play MMORPG's, I have played damn near every MMORPG that has hit the market, short of a few. I used to have tons of time to play them, and it use to be I would be among the top players as far as levels and such because I had that time.
These days I have weeks, sometimes a month or two in a row where I am unable to play? So does that mean I shouldn't be able to play? Does that mean because I got older and my life got busier, that I don't deserve to play these games?
Why shouldn't I be able to play with groups that I have grouped with since the dawn of MMORPG's? I have friends that play more current games now that I had met in Meridian59, Ultima Online, Everquest, from various beta testings. Should I have to cut those ties, because I lack time?
In EQ I had a static group, we played every Tuesday, Friday, Saturday on a set schedule. My work schedule changed makeing it were I could not maintain that same schedule. It ruined the game for me, loseing my group of friends. I quit playing.
In EQ2 I found a good static group, well my schedule changed and for every month I would miss one day a week of the set schedule, the eventually started to pass me by way to much <this is before the mentor patch was implemented> This made me feel like soon my static group was going to move on with out me, and the game would lose some of it's luster. I mentioned it, and one of the group said I should use a leveling service gain about 2 levels on the rest of the group, and I would be good for a couple more months. I talked to a couple of services, and found gaining 6 levels would take about 3 days, and cost me a bit of cash. I did it.
I continued to play with that group for about 6 more months. One member lost his job, and quit playing, another fried his system and could not afford to fix it at the time. So at that point the game was pretty much over for me.
These games are about adventure, about fun and excitment, these games are meant to be shared with your friends, but rarely can a group of friends hang tight together and level together at the same speeds. So I think a PL service is a great system for helping people like me keep up with other player friends.
In buying those 6 levels do you think I ruined the game or the economy for anyone elses? Do you really think I missed out on a whole lot of the game by not playing those 6 levels?
In another game, for the same reasons, I bought like 10 levels, but they were low levels, so I am sure I never missed anything.
As anything in this world, there are ways to abuse everything, and there are always people that will abuse it. I think this is just another one of those things.
Why do I bother playing these games? Because I find them fun, I meet a lot of like minded people, I think it is great breakthrough in gameing, and I have been there since damn near the begining, and beta tested, and helped developers squash bugs and problems in a large percentage of these games.
Why do I play these games.....Because I can!
Personally, I don't really care you play it however you want, it's your prerogative. But don't be suprised if someday your access to your account has been deleted because of you exercising your choice, that is the prerogative of the game manufacturer/Host. This goes for people who use bots as well. Most people don't have a problem with farmers, unless they are selling what they have for real money. If this is the case, their accounts will eventually be yanked to...*heavy sigh*.
AMEN BROTHER, PREACH IT!!!!...LOL
Oh come on - you get bored of any game after a while, but since MMORPGs last a long time, you get bored of certain parts long before others. You say there are other games out there? Well for most MMORPG players, there is only that ONE game; they have probably looked into lots of alternatives, but ultimately enjoy just that one game.
I have played the same game for several years now. If I was to "miss out" on a month or two of leveling, a part of the game I already did several times, I would still have 80-90% of the game left, the part I enjoy. Would some other, new game be able to make up for that? Nope, in most cases it probably couldn't cover even 5% of the value of my favorite game, much less 80-90% of it. Average single player games last 2 days, and most MMORPGs I just don't enjoy.
Why buy 100-200 new games when you need just one game to keep you happy for the same amount of time? Surely it's cheaper to pay a few bucks for power-leveling than a few thousand bucks for all those new games?
Ahh so personal enjoyment is now our ultimate nirvana. Tell me, does personal enjoyment justify exploiting? It's the same principle, whether be powerlevling or exploiting. Both cheating. And to defend either with "well it's because I enjoy the game" is ridiclous. Or is cheating only cheating if it's 100%? 90% of the time I play by the books, just the other 10% I wanna cheat to get ahead.
The fact that those who favor powerleveling believe they have a right to instant gratification at any means neccessary I think is more a of a problem than the services themselves.
Based on your reasoning of argumentation (perhaps a question for Carolyn to that I forgot to ask during the debate), how do you object to those who exploit?
In truth, you can't.
That's a begging of the question. But answer the question, where does one draw the line when it comes to personal enjoyment? What if that personal enjoyment includes exploiting? Your idea that "it harms nobody", well it seems to harm quite a few sensibilities royally, given the amount of posts that condemns it. Or is the "harm inflicted" subjective, to be determined by you?
So if one finds personal enjoyment in exploiting, should they be immune from criticism for doing so, and should it be viewed a right and proper thing to do?
That's assuming that all fields are equal and that everyone operates under the same mode of operation. Those players that don't use bots or services, etc. etc, have now been put behind the proverbial "eight-ball". You may say, "well they have every right to do it too", but what if they can't? For example they have a family account, or they can't afford it, or it goes against their integrity (I know that's a foreign word in todays society). Then that puts you in an advantagous position over those that don't. So, you have basically unleveled the playing field.
If we had laws against everything that hurts some misguided individual's sensibilities, everything would be illegal. If you based it on majority rule, there would be only one religion, one sexual orientation, just one way to dress, one type of music and so on. If your country was built on this principle, you would be living in Iran.
Where does the line go? Physical harm, economic losses - something that is imposed on you without a choice. When missionaires of some other religion show up at your doorstep for example, you can choose to close the door and not listen; but if they forced your door open and threatened to kill you if you do not convert, then laws could and should be passed against it. So the key element is choice; you can choose to ignore people who use power leveling services, but as long as that doesn't harm your ability to play the game, you can't really do anything about it. Or shouldn't be able to, at least. Your ability to enjoy a MMORPG is not in any way reduced by the fact that some people have higher level characters and better gear - after all, so do a lot of people who did it on their own, yet you can play just fine.
What's with this "playing field" concept anyway, you are not supposed to be competing with anyone to start with.
If we made laws against everything that hurts some misguided individual's sensibilities, everything in this world would be illegal. If you based it on majority rule, there would be only one religion, one sexual orientation, one dress style, one musical style, and so on. If your country was built on this principle, you would be living in Iran.
Where does the line go? Physical harm, economic losses - something that is imposed on you without a choice. When missionaires of a foreign religion show up at your doorstep for example, you can choose to close the door and not listen; but if they forced your door open and threatened to kill you if you do not convert, then laws could and should be passed against it. So the key element is choice; you can choose to ignore people who use power leveling services, but as long as that doesn't harm your ability to play the game, you can't really do anything about it. Or shouldn't be able to, at least.
What about those who grouped with someone level 60, assuming he actually worked for his character, only to get wiped because he chose to cheat? That's harm they didn't have a choice on. You could say "Don't group with him." In those instances people would not have grouped with him had they known he cheated. So the choice argument is a rather weak one. And once again, exploiting many times doesn't harm other people playing the game. Should they be allowed to exploit?
I think your ducking the question here, so once again. Provided you don't "harm" anyone, should you be allowed to exploit? What makes exploits always harmful? Is it because they are against the EULA? Well so is powerleveling. Is it because they prefer to cut corners rather than do it the old fashioned way? Once again, that's powerleveling.
I think those that consider a power leveling service as cheating should have been around about 10 years ago, back in the day when Meridian59 and UO were around. People would hack the game so that your spells could not hurt them, while their spells would kill you in one hit.
They had PKers that would hunt noobs in all the little noob areas, while useing cheats, just to get the response from them.
These were cheaters. These are the people that make games so hard to play, that you really don't want to.
When you bust your but for 4 months straight to stay one of the highest level players on your server and some idiot that downloaded a program comes in with his level one master spell caster and kills you in one hit. Then you can cry about cheating.
Because I paid someone else a few bucks to gain me 6 levels, that is not cheating, the is tired of the level 20 to 30 grind your butt off lag fest that developers call "extending a games life".
Not so nice guy!
So my boss is cheating, because he basically pays me and several other people to do his work for him.
If you give me a high level toon in any current MMORPG, I could probablly make better use of him then a lot of people could with in two days.
I'm sorry as diffrent as games try to be, they are the same, if you have ever played a spell casting warrior, you can do it again.
In most cases that I have heard of, people useing PL service is useing it to gain several levels, not max out a toon.
The people that you see maxxing out toons, or buying maxed out toons, are usually botters, buying a high level cleric to bot heal the classes they would rather play. Farmers that buy a high level account just to farm stuff for their lower level accounts.
Most farmers, and botters...well guess what, the in game money you see all over ebay, that's them. To me those people pose a risk of ruining agame, while I have yet to see it happen, other then bust up the economy a little.
The people that chose to gain a couple quick levels to keep up with their friends while they take a week off from playing the game, are not the people I would want to get rid of. Those are the people that are usually interested in playing the game for the right reasons, to group with their friends. They are not there to compete, they are not there to ruin your game. In fact I bet you, you have played with tons of people that have cheated in one way or another and it never even touched your game play.
Hell I bought money from a certain company the sells in game money. They asked me to meet them somewhere to pick it up. I thought, I wonder how many people use this service. I stuck around on and off for a couple days, all in all he did business with 38 people in two days time. And thats just in the few hours I watched him.
ooops, think I just opened a whole new can of worms....
Then why bother playing at all ???
Why bother playing at all? You need to read my previous post for that answer. But the long answer is...
I love playing games. A lot of my friends play MMORPG's, I have played damn near every MMORPG that has hit the market, short of a few. I used to have tons of time to play them, and it use to be I would be among the top players as far as levels and such because I had that time.
These days I have weeks, sometimes a month or two in a row where I am unable to play? So does that mean I shouldn't be able to play? Does that mean because I got older and my life got busier, that I don't deserve to play these games?
Why shouldn't I be able to play with groups that I have grouped with since the dawn of MMORPG's? I have friends that play more current games now that I had met in Meridian59, Ultima Online, Everquest, from various beta testings. Should I have to cut those ties, because I lack time?
In EQ I had a static group, we played every Tuesday, Friday, Saturday on a set schedule. My work schedule changed makeing it were I could not maintain that same schedule. It ruined the game for me, loseing my group of friends. I quit playing.
In EQ2 I found a good static group, well my schedule changed and for every month I would miss one day a week of the set schedule, the eventually started to pass me by way to much <this is before the mentor patch was implemented> This made me feel like soon my static group was going to move on with out me, and the game would lose some of it's luster. I mentioned it, and one of the group said I should use a leveling service gain about 2 levels on the rest of the group, and I would be good for a couple more months. I talked to a couple of services, and found gaining 6 levels would take about 3 days, and cost me a bit of cash. I did it.
I continued to play with that group for about 6 more months. One member lost his job, and quit playing, another fried his system and could not afford to fix it at the time. So at that point the game was pretty much over for me.
These games are about adventure, about fun and excitment, these games are meant to be shared with your friends, but rarely can a group of friends hang tight together and level together at the same speeds. So I think a PL service is a great system for helping people like me keep up with other player friends.
In buying those 6 levels do you think I ruined the game or the economy for anyone elses? Do you really think I missed out on a whole lot of the game by not playing those 6 levels?
In another game, for the same reasons, I bought like 10 levels, but they were low levels, so I am sure I never missed anything.
As anything in this world, there are ways to abuse everything, and there are always people that will abuse it. I think this is just another one of those things.
Why do I bother playing these games? Because I find them fun, I meet a lot of like minded people, I think it is great breakthrough in gameing, and I have been there since damn near the begining, and beta tested, and helped developers squash bugs and problems in a large percentage of these games.
Why do I play these games.....Because I can!
Personally, I don't really care you play it however you want, it's your prerogative. But don't be suprised if someday your access to your account has been deleted because of you exercising your choice, that is the prerogative of the game manufacturer/Host. This goes for people who use bots as well. Most people don't have a problem with farmers, unless they are selling what they have for real money. If this is the case, their accounts will eventually be yanked to...*heavy sigh*.
How is a company going to know I used a power leveling service? It's not like I hired someone to hack my toon or anything, I just had someone else play it for a couple days.
Whats to say I'm not at a hotel playing, or at a friends house?
Not so nice guy!
It was your choice to risk grouping with a stranger so you have only yourself to blame. You may not know if they had their character power-leveled, but you also don't know if they just plain honestly suck. That said, I would be willing to argue that many people who have their characters power-leveled are in fact very good players since getting bored of the leveling part of the game implies that they already did it lots of times. I know two or three people who bought a character or used these services, and these are all exceptionally skilled players who just got bored of their own class.
I mean come on, if someone plays the game for the first time, and thinks the leveling part is boring, why would he pay additional money to skip ahead when he can't possibly know that what seems like a boring game could get a whole lot better when it's "over"? No, he just quits; to know and love endgame, you would need to have been there already.
Exploitation which does not harm anyone is by definition not exploitation; so to answer your question, yes, I do believe that absolutely anything and everything which does not directly harm other people should always be allowed. EULA has nothing to do with that - it's just an arbitrary set of rules that has nothing whatsoever to do with moral constraints.
But we need to ask, WHO should allow. The game company does not have to allow the use of power-leveling services, it's their game after all; just like restaurants don't have to allow people in wearing sandals, eventhough there is nothing wrong with wearing sandals as such. But I personally allow it, since it does not harm me, so I will not inform the game company if I hear someone using power-leveling services - just as I would not rush to the doormen to inform them that there is someone who wears sandals inside the restaurant. It's their job to enforce their own house rules, not mine.
If you mean things like hacks and cheats, if using them does not degrade the ability of other players to play the game, then there is no reason to ban them. If it does, then they should of course get banned, since they are causing direct harm to other people. If you spend 10 months to reach max level and get the best gear, and then someone just buys the same stuff from eBay, why do you care? He plays his game, you play your game. It's Ok to enjoy different things.
Actually from my experience, the people that usually use PL service it is to keep up with friends that have more time to play.
If my friend can put in 30 hours a week, while I can only play 15, he is going to level a lot faster then I will. So why shouldn't I be able to pay someone to help me keep up.
I don't play the game to compete with you or anyone else. I am playing the game to play with some friends that play. I have friends all over the world I like to play games with, but I do not have the time to keep up with them. So if I choose to play with them, I have to either ignore my real life to do so, or pay someone to help me maintain their levels.
Where is the harm? I am playing the game to play with them, not really anyone else, although I have hooked up with a lot of other cool people while playing, it is not my direct reason for playing.
An MMO is not a competition, but a way to share a fantasy world with others.
You dont play to compete, you play to enjoy your gametime with your friends and you want to be of same level with them, which is hard to do becuase they spend much more time playing this game then you. Thats understandable. But from other perspective, this game IS about competition, whether you play becuase of it or not. The whole idea is about people competing among each other and environment to gain new skills, levels, items. So, even if you do not play to compete, your PLing actions affect everyone else around you that do play to compete. Using ANY method that does not involve methods or properties explicitly designed by devs is in fact exploiting at best,, cheating at worst. an example from real life: I murdered someone, but I have a lot of money. Obviously i dont want to spend time in jail so would it be fair to pay a million to judge so i dont go to jail?
Every action has its own consequences, if you and your friends have differences in levels, you can by pass that in legit ways, for example have 2 chars, one main whenever they play without you, one alt to play when you are around. But im sorry, if you have no time to play with your friends, why should other people around you suffer becuase of that? Luckily, most people dont feel the need to be PLed. otherwise wed be stuck with all players in their highest levels and everyone below that would be either a bot, or chinese PLer whos only responce is "okok kek kek". Talk about immersion hit.
To follow up on your logic, I dont have time to do raiding, so buying virtual godlike items should be legit.
I dont have time to PvP either, so people who pay premium price should have a insta-death clicky skill, and for extra premium price the recycle on that skill would be not 1 hour but 1 minute.
The point of my post is not to make precedents. Either do it all or not at all. Either allow all sorts of cheating, PLing, EBaying, or nothing at all.
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com or its management.