Originally posted by Samuraisword The solution to stop gold farming is partly designing a game that doesn't have static spawns with predictable high value drops that can be farmed, the developers being proactive in banning all farmers and using software to detect 3rd party programs and mods, and gamers using peer pressure to change other players views on the matter. Also putting pressure on sites like MMORPG.com not to promote gold farming with advertisements. As far as the advertisments I agree that this is one of the big things that can be done. The problem is those that IGE owns or has investments in many of the most popular and informative sites, Allahkazam for example. So there is almost zip chance in getting those sites to remove the ads.
Also a lot of sites don't have much control over the banner networks they belong to. Take the most popular banner (if you can call it that) revenue maker these days, Google Adsense. I know of so many Anti Gold-Buying sites and blogs will post articles about the subject only to have Google Adsense show gold sellers on the same page. Heck if you have a gmail account (and who doesn't these days?) and talk to your friends via email or get any WoW related emails you will get a ton of gold seller ads in the side bar.
Right now as I type this I am seeing a Virtual Seller banner. I highly doubt MMORPG supports them, but the banner network they belong to that helps pay the bills for the site we so love has them in their rotation queue so there is little MMORPG can do about it.
I agree with your removing static spawns but even that would just create other headaches for actual players.
Being proactive about banning farmers is a great idea in theory and if the farmers are using 3rd party programs or mods then Blizzard or whichever game dev in question should constantly work on detecting them. The problem is that not all farmers use 3rd party mods.
Just because a toon farms the same mobs hours on end doesn't mean that they are gold sellers. I know that there have been plenty of times that I would kill the same mobs over and over again just because I was grinding while doing something else (watch tv, etc) and had gotten a pattern down and doing it without much thought. Is the game company supposed to ban me just because I made the choice that night to mindlessly grind? So you can't just ban people because they are grinding the same mobs over and over again and someone complains about it. So how should they handle a gold seller that grinds for the gold they sell this way?
-------------------------------- Currently Playing: Guild Wars 2 and Path of Exile
You'd need to eliminate any direct player to player trades of anything within the game, items, cash anything. So long as players can trade items amoungst themselves this will be a problem, if you want to eliminate it you'd have to get draconian about it and unless you're willing to do that then get used to it and move on. I don't condone it since I to think it ruins a games economy but you either deal with it or play stand alone games.
Originally posted by Kurir You'd need to eliminate any direct player to player trades of anything within the game, items, cash anything. So long as players can trade items amoungst themselves this will be a problem, if you want to eliminate it you'd have to get draconian about it and unless you're willing to do that then get used to it and move on. I don't condone it since I to think it ruins a games economy but you either deal with it or play stand alone games.
QFT
You could still allow characters to transfer loot drops in between the toons on their account, just not between other players. That way if you pick up a rare item that your main couldn't use you still could transfer it to your alt that could use it. Heck for that matter remove loot drops other than for quest items.
And maybe lax up on the number of money sinks in games as well.
-------------------------------- Currently Playing: Guild Wars 2 and Path of Exile
Originally posted by Samuraisword Originally posted by hedgewan It is a step in the right direction. By RV selling the money themselves, they can calculate precisely the impact it has on thier economy, and perhaps do something to alleviate it. Or at the very least, communicate the data to thier players so everyone knows where they stand. And it will completely eliminate illegal gold sales for that game! I see it as a worthy experiment. At least they are doing SOMETHING, I cant think of another game that has acknowleged this problem AND actually done something in thier game to try to deal with it. Its not like RV is trying to make loads of cash, they believe that this stuff is wrong too!
Bottom line is, if they didnt sell the gold themsleves, people would be clicking on that banner you see up there to buy more. Also, RV charges no monthly fee, and the gold isnt outrageously priced, so many can actually afford to buy enough to deck themsleves out well enough. The only reason to buy more gold in RV is if you are building huge fortresses and things or cities.
Hehe, you make it sound like RV is selling gold directly to benefit the players. What a pile of crap!
They are doing it so they can make more money than a standard subscription. The fact that they can and will manipulate the game mechanics to encourage buying gold with real money, as stated on their website, in order to ensure this revenue model's success, means that players have no idea how much this game will cost them in the long run in order to compete with other players or even just be able to realistically play the damn game.
This is a huge step in the wrong direction.
I'm trying not to make "fanboi" posts of Roma Victor anymore, but I take issue with this post. First, if selling gold really was more profitable than a monthly fee, why do you think SOE et al uses the latter? Second, regardless of intention, this will benefit the players. With this system, the amount of money coming in, and hence inflation, is controlled. With no monthly fee, we also get to decide how much we put into the game, unlike mmos where you're stuck paying the same fee or losing your account.
The solution to stop gold farming is partly designing a game that doesn't have static spawns with predictable high value drops that can be farmed...
You mean like Roma Victor?
If you're building an mmorpg, or if you'd like to share ideas or talk about this industry, visit Multiplayer Worlds.
Originally posted by SiddGames I thought I followed that paragraph with this:
And I followed what you quoted from me with some other stuff, pointing out the problems with your argument. I'd quote it here, but there's no real point; you could have responded to what I wrote instead of just metaphorically sticking your fingers in your ears and pretending I didn't write it.
That's my basic argument, I guess. Anyway, none of it is provable, nor disprovable - it shall remain theory. I mean, real world economists can't even agree on the economy, I don't see how us arguing about virtual economies is going to come to a better result
So, you can't provide proof, evidence, or a non-flawed argument for the position, but for some reason people are supposed to just accept it as fact? That's the problem with using the 'farming ruins economies' for anything; the 'gold buying is evil' crowd believes it's true because of faith, not evidence or reason. But blind faith does not make for a convincing argument, it's like trying to argue about religious matters.
Complaining that it's difficult to 'prove' (really, 'provide evidence or a reasonable argument for') a position is just a pathetic cop-out; if you can't provide anything remotely convincing to support your belief, then it doesn't make a convincing argument. And no, the people saying 'Oh, face reality, of course it's true' don't count as a convincing argument.
Originally posted by neuronomad Because some are blantant about it, they are players that freely admit that they don't have high level toons, ones you never seen grinding for cash, yet somehow always manage to afford to have nothing but BOE blues. Sure some of the people play the AH. Hell I have made a ton of money playing the AH.
So you make hundreds of gold playing the AH, but anyone else who has hundreds of gold is obviously a gold-buyer? I think there's a problem here somewhere. But let's assume that you're right, what is gold-buying really responsible for in this case? It sounds like the only thing you can really pin on gold-buying is making twinked characters common in low-level BGs a bit earlier than they would otherwise; it's clearly not responsible for the problem since getting a 60 doesn't take that long, and twinking an X9 once you have a 60 doesn't take that much longer. In fact, from what you say it seems that gold-buying is pretty much cancelling itself out - people are buying gold to buy items that wouldn't be at high prices except for gold-buying, giving non-gold-buyers access to tons of money for their own characters.
All-in-all, not a very strong argument for RMT damaging the game.
Maby some game sould try to have 2 types of servers. 1 server whit normal rules and 1 server where ppl simply can pick any stuff they want from a menu. So all these ppl saying that they sould be able to play anyway they want can stick to that server and runing around whit all the cool gear they want while we who actually can handel to play a game stay on the normal serves. Funny thing is that the "cheating" servers would probobly be empty couse the only ppl who buy ingame items for real money are ppl who want to play a game and want to compete whit other players but simply suck to much to handal it.
Sorry but these are my honest toughts and if u want to flame me for em ur more then welcome to. But when u are done flaming me just take a while to think about it and see if u really are honest to ur self.
Originally posted by Pantastic And I followed what you quoted from me with some other stuff, pointing out the problems with your argument. I'd quote it here, but there's no real point; you could have responded to what I wrote instead of just metaphorically sticking your fingers in your ears and pretending I didn't write it.
My post was on page 8. Your reply was on the bottom of page 9, and I've read all your posts since then. You appear to be engaged with neuronomad about twinks - I don't see any counterarguments from you about my "reasonable argument." If you meant this...
No one's asking for a rigorous scientific study, just a coherent argument and definition what subjective terms are supposed to mean. Your argument, for example, is about how 'gold farming' (presumably for real world sales) leads to some degree of inflation in a game. But it doesn't even attempt to show that the inflation caused by gold sales is significant compared to inflation caused by higher level characters or how any inflation 'ruins' the game economy. Plus I seriously doubt that it's only literal gold buying that you object to; you probably similarly object to item sales for real money. But you run into the problem that farming items to sell is going to produce deflation in the economy, so it's not even clear that RMT overall necessarily causes inflation or deflation.
...then I don't see that you've pointed out anything with my argument, and instead just lead the argument away from what I was saying. First, for the umpteenth time, I have NEVER said it "ruins the game economy" so quit using that one on me. If you'd actually read my 5-point argument, you'd see that I don't say it ruins the game. That's why I layed it out in nicely numbered statements, so that you could respond directly to whichever ones you disagreed with. Which of the 5 statements do you find unreasonable?
So, you can't provide proof, evidence, or a non-flawed argument for the position, but for some reason people are supposed to just accept it as fact? That's the problem with using the 'farming ruins economies' for anything; the 'gold buying is evil' crowd believes it's true because of faith, not evidence or reason. But blind faith does not make for a convincing argument, it's like trying to argue about religious matters.
Now who's sticking fingers in their ears? I'm not asking anyone to accept anything I say as fact. I'm trying to provide a reasonable explanation for my belief here. Where is your explanation? And don't give us that crap about burden of proof... I don't want proof, I want to know why you, personally, believe what you do about gold farming not having any impact in a game? I've shown you why I think the way I do. Ranting repeatedly "show me proof that it ruins games" or "show me it is significant compared to other inflationary factors" does NOT advance your side of the argument any. In your mind and maybe some observers you are tearing down my argument, but where is your position? How do you support your position?
Complaining that it's difficult to 'prove' (really, 'provide evidence or a reasonable argument for') a position is just a pathetic cop-out; if you can't provide anything remotely convincing to support your belief, then it doesn't make a convincing argument. And no, the people saying 'Oh, face reality, of course it's true' don't count as a convincing argument.
Again, I have provided a reasonable argument for my position. You have not provided a reasonable counterargument - all you've done is shout "nyah nyah nyah I don't believe you." Well, good for you. I don't believe you either.
I've played WoW, DAOC, FFXI, SWG, EVE, UO, EQ2, and probably a few others over the past 8 years or so. I have yet to be affected by a gold farmer or someone buying gold. I've bought gold myself. Why? because I want to enjoy the game by getting that one item I don't have 100 hours a week to farm. I don't have time to farm and farming is BORING.
i don't know why these topics are continually started. has anyone said anythign new since the 1st time this argument went on? I haven't seen any new reasons for or against it so stop posting it.
Originally posted by Ashkent i don't know why these topics are continually started. has anyone said anythign new since the 1st time this argument went on? I haven't seen any new reasons for or against it so stop posting it.
Forum. n 1: a public meeting or assembly for open discussion.
Here's a tip: if you're not interested in the discussion, don't read it.
Originally posted by Pantastic And I followed what you quoted from me with some other stuff, pointing out the problems with your argument. I'd quote it here, but there's no real point; you could have responded to what I wrote instead of just metaphorically sticking your fingers in your ears and pretending I didn't write it.
My post was on page 8. Your reply was on the bottom of page 9, and I've read all your posts since then. You appear to be engaged with neuronomad about twinks - I don't see any counterarguments from you about my "reasonable argument." If you meant this...
No one's asking for a rigorous scientific study, just a coherent argument and definition what subjective terms are supposed to mean. Your argument, for example, is about how 'gold farming' (presumably for real world sales) leads to some degree of inflation in a game. But it doesn't even attempt to show that the inflation caused by gold sales is significant compared to inflation caused by higher level characters or how any inflation 'ruins' the game economy. Plus I seriously doubt that it's only literal gold buying that you object to; you probably similarly object to item sales for real money. But you run into the problem that farming items to sell is going to produce deflation in the economy, so it's not even clear that RMT overall necessarily causes inflation or deflation.
...then I don't see that you've pointed out anything with my argument, and instead just lead the argument away from what I was saying. First, for the umpteenth time, I have NEVER said it "ruins the game economy" so quit using that one on me. If you'd actually read my 5-point argument, you'd see that I don't say it ruins the game. That's why I layed it out in nicely numbered statements, so that you could respond directly to whichever ones you disagreed with. Which of the 5 statements do you find unreasonable?
So, you can't provide proof, evidence, or a non-flawed argument for the position, but for some reason people are supposed to just accept it as fact? That's the problem with using the 'farming ruins economies' for anything; the 'gold buying is evil' crowd believes it's true because of faith, not evidence or reason. But blind faith does not make for a convincing argument, it's like trying to argue about religious matters.
Now who's sticking fingers in their ears? I'm not asking anyone to accept anything I say as fact. I'm trying to provide a reasonable explanation for my belief here. Where is your explanation? And don't give us that crap about burden of proof... I don't want proof, I want to know why you, personally, believe what you do about gold farming not having any impact in a game? I've shown you why I think the way I do. Ranting repeatedly "show me proof that it ruins games" or "show me it is significant compared to other inflationary factors" does NOT advance your side of the argument any. In your mind and maybe some observers you are tearing down my argument, but where is your position? How do you support your position?
Complaining that it's difficult to 'prove' (really, 'provide evidence or a reasonable argument for') a position is just a pathetic cop-out; if you can't provide anything remotely convincing to support your belief, then it doesn't make a convincing argument. And no, the people saying 'Oh, face reality, of course it's true' don't count as a convincing argument.
Again, I have provided a reasonable argument for my position. You have not provided a reasonable counterargument - all you've done is shout "nyah nyah nyah I don't believe you." Well, good for you. I don't believe you either.
dude always remember no matter what your always crashing in the same car
It's a game. A game is played for fun. Fun can only be had on a level playing field. How would we like it if we went to our kid's track meet to find out that the parents of other kids were allowed to buy 'time' to modify results. I think the idea of online gold buying is moronic.
Originally posted by SiddGames ...then I don't see that you've pointed out anything with my argument, and instead just lead the argument away from what I was saying.
So what's exactly is your argument then, since you don't seem to be making it very clear? Is it that selling gold for real money causes inflation in the absence of other factors, but not neccesarily significant inflation, and that said inflation may or may not be good for a game? You don't need a 5 point argument for that, I'm perfectly wiling to conceede that. It's just not at all relevant to the discussion, and I presumed that your 5 point argument had some relevance to what was being discussed.
EDIT TO CLARIFY: Either you're arguing that RMT has a signficant effect on the economy or you're arguing that it has some effect but not a significant effect. If you're arguing that it has a signficant effect on the economy, then the argument of mine that you quoted and said is 'leading the argument away' is a direct rebuttal to that point. If you're arguing that RMT has some effect on the economy but not neccesarily any significant effect, then you're not providing any reason for it to be banned. In the paragraph where you complain that I'm 'leading the argument away', you seem to be saying that you're not claiming that RMT has a significant effect on the economy, since that's what my rebuttal argued. But then later you seem to think that your 5 point argument also offers some support for banning gold-buying, which would only be true if you were trying to argue that it has some signficant effect on the game.
And FYI, I don't believe that RMT has a significant effect on game economies because no one has ever offered a convincing argument or evidence that it does; I don't believe that the phase of the moon or whether or not I am wearing a hat has a significant effect on game economies either. The fact that people fervently believe it and respond to anyone questioning it with 'face reality' and 'you're cheating by buying gold' leaves me strongly inclined to disbelieve it, since if there was a reasonable reason to believe it they could offer that instead.
Originally posted by norse25 It's a game. A game is played for fun. Fun can only be had on a level playing field.
Then you're arguing that MMOs aren't fun? Because the playing field in any MMO where gold sales are possible is clearly slanted to people with large blocks of free time to grind out gear. In any competition, the person with hours to grind away for gear will come out ahead.
How would we like it if we went to our kid's track meet to find out that the parents of other kids were allowed to buy 'time' to modify results. I think the idea of online gold buying is moronic.
A track meet is nothing like an MMO, so you're analogy is just screwed up. It would be more accurate to imagine if you went to atrack meet and found out that one kid had shoes that let him run twice as fast that he got by sitting at a computer beating easy opponents in a computer game over and over for weeks, another kid had shoes that let him run twice as fast that he got by buying them with his allowance, and the third is stuck with normal shoes because he didn't spend real money for them or sit at a computer grinding for them.
Then you're arguing that MMOs aren't fun? Because the playing field in any MMO where gold sales are possible is clearly slanted to people with large blocks of free time to grind out gear. In any competition, the person with hours to grind away for gear will come out ahead.
How would we like it if we went to our kid's track meet to find out that the parents of other kids were allowed to buy 'time' to modify results. I think the idea of online gold buying is moronic.
A track meet is nothing like an MMO, so you're analogy is just screwed up. It would be more accurate to imagine if you went to atrack meet and found out that one kid had shoes that let him run twice as fast that he got by sitting at a computer beating easy opponents in a computer game over and over for weeks, another kid had shoes that let him run twice as fast that he got by buying them with his allowance, and the third is stuck with normal shoes because he didn't spend real money for them or sit at a computer grinding for them.
I agree that my track meet analogy is a simple one, but in a way we do have common ground. In life, those who invest the most time get the most rewards...try to find an example where this is not the case. Whether we look at academics, tactile skills like sports, or even social relationships, more time invested equals better results 99% of the time. So I agree with your 'revised' track meet comparison.
As for the fun comment, of course I'm not arguing that MMO's aren't fun. I guess as a father of 2, I want to remain as idealistic as possible regarding hard work and competition. I want my little dudes to enjoy what they do and work hard to get better. If they encounter situations that are not fair, I want them to continue to work hard and not get discouraged.
So while I respect your debate on the MMO Gold matter, I will agree to disagree and go with my gut and do what feels right by not participating if Gold buying is supported. I hope others do the same.
Originally posted by norse25 I agree that my track meet analogy is a simple one, but in a way we do have common ground. In life, those who invest the most time get the most rewards...try to find an example where this is not the case. Whether we look at academics, tactile skills like sports, or even social relationships, more time invested equals better results 99% of the time.
What's something that's not an example? In programming I can spend weeks doing coding really easy stuff, but unless I buckle down to solve the actual hard problems, my program is going to be worthless. In weightlifting, I could spend weeks doing reps with a 1 pound weight and find that I can't lift more at the end of the training. In academic math, I can spend weeks doing simple addition but find I'm no better at differential equations. In social relationships, I can keep telling the same joke to people over and over and find that people don't want to have me around. In work, if you invest your time doing something that a computer-illiterate Chinese peasant (the typical IGE farmers) can easily do for some absurdly low pay rate, you're not going to be able to pay your rent.
People who invest time in repeating challengeless tasks don't generally get better at anything, except in MMOs. That's what's involved in getting money in games where people buy gold, it's just sitting in place repeating the same pattern over and over again until you get enough gold drops to buy an item.
So I agree with your 'revised' track meet comparison. As for the fun comment, of course I'm not arguing that MMO's aren't fun. I guess as a father of 2, I want to remain as idealistic as possible regarding hard work and competition. I want my little dudes to enjoy what they do and work hard to get better. If they encounter situations that are not fair, I want them to continue to work hard and not get discouraged.
If you want them to work hard, then you should get them to not spend hours on end grinding in MMOs, you should get them to do something productive. If you want them to engage in competition, then you should get them involved in games that center around real competition and not about grinding for huge chunks of time like most MMOs. And I have no idea why you think it's good to teach them that if they're playing a game that is unfair they should spend huge chunks of time playing the game; it would seem much more sensible to teach them to just find a game that is fair.
Honestly, I think it's pretty sad that you're a parent teaching your kids that 'hard work' means 'grinding for stuff in MMOs'. And I think it's pretty silly to teach them that a 'fair' game is one in which you get more stuff based on how long you've played; I think you could teach them a lot more about fair competition by having them play something like Chess instead, where you start with the same position whether you play once per month or whether you spend the last week grinding games against an AI at the lowest level.
Originally posted by Xexima Yes, it completely destroys the ingame economy...
I have still, after years of hearing this argument, never heard a single credible line of defense to support this argument.
You shouldn't need an arguement to understand. It's obvious if outside money say from the men on mars suddenly was buying up all the forests on earth, that might kind of screw up the world economy. Same goes for real world cash buying stuff in a game.
Originally posted by Xexima ...and makes the game less challanging and less fun.
Clearly the people that buy and sell virtual items disagree with that statement.
Yes, but they were stupid enough to spend actual money on items that aren't real, instead of, say, buying food and clothing, so why exactly should we care what they think?
To answer the OP's question, it simply doesn't matter if you ban it or not. It will continue for as long as game's are released with mechanics that favor an exchange of money for time. Learn to live with it...it's here to stay.
Let's also learn to live with cancer, because the mechanics of the human body favor the development of malignant cells. So why bother with cancer research, let's just learn to live with it.
Buying gold in a video game with real life money should be punishable by b!tch slaps.
Originally posted by last_exile Should buying online gold/cash be banned?
No. There are always the people who argue that it ruins the in game economy but thats largely a falsehood if you know anything about economics at all. There wouldn't be such a large issue with the selling of in game currency if the worlds had functional economies, but with the presently hideous broken economic systems being put into games and the unlimited amount of money coming into the games, it can cause some inflation problems in the long run.
On the other hand the problem above isn't really related to the selling of the currency itself it's the ease at which a person can "farm" massive amounts of money using a variety of methods... the massive influx of money into the economy is the real problem, not the buying and selling part in and of itself.
The best argument comes from the people who say "It gives people an unfair advantage" and this is true, however the people who have massive amounts of free time on their hands also have an unfair advantage over the people working a full time job with a family.
There is no true equality. There are always going to be people with more time on their hands, there are always going to be people who cheat, and there are always going to be people buy gold.
I honestly believe that if they banned everyone who has purchased gold (and realistically it IS feasible) they would lose massive amounts of their customer base due to people's friends being banned from the game (eg: damn 4 of the best people in my guild were banned now we can't raid... my best friend was banned... etc... screw it i quit mentality.) They would also be sued fairly promptly by someone who was falsely accused and that incurs costs they really don't want to get into and potentially a legal precedent that they don't want also (could make shutting games down ... expensive.)
All in all, things won't be changing in the near future. If anything buying will become more commonplace in the long term.
edit: the current system where they ban the sellers/farmers is pure gold for the publishers/developers. They know no matter how many accounts they ban that the sellers/farmers will go out, buy another box, and start over. This gives them a free boost in box sales revenue and also a reoccurring monthly fee while the character levels up again to the correct levels to begin farming. Why would they want to change it? The player base makes a lot of noise but they really don't speak with their money over this issue... because its largely transparent.
Originally posted by norse25 It's a game. A game is played for fun. Fun can only be had on a level playing field. How would we like it if we went to our kid's track meet to find out that the parents of other kids were allowed to buy 'time' to modify results. I think the idea of online gold buying is moronic.
This is the same argument that the hardcore-pvp crowd uses.
"A game is played for fun. Fun can only be had by combating other intelligent players."
It's just as bad of an analogy here as it is there. Bad argument.
The playing field is *NEVER* level. It's impossible.
Examples:
A college kid with a light class load and no job. Massive quantities of time to invest. That's not 'fair' to the people with families and full time jobs.
A rich doctor has little time but can invest real life money in the game with no real consequence... he can pay for power leveling, he can buy gold, etc.
A couple share an account, they work opposite shifts so each can play the game 12 hours a day.
Shrug. Most people in the BGs call my character a twink... I suppose seeing a 19 in my gear with green and purple lightsticks and at least 5 different weapons and the best of all enchants for each piece of armor gives that impression. I just play the AH, most people don't have the time or knowledge to do that though. Shrug.
Meeting a 60's twink in the BG isn't fair either. No more fair than meeting a self-twink or eBay twink.
Well after 11 pages of reading this thread, and seeing the same thing bounced back and forth without little done to address the core reason for this situation to exist. The flaw isn't in people's character, it's the game design, pure and simple. Most of you resent the people who buy and sell gold, claiming it ruins <insert feature of choice>, but what I read out of that is what you <you refering to the general feeling on the issue> resent is a player getting something easier than you, or with much less time than you invested. Fair enough I suppose, but what you should be angry at isn't either the person providing the gold for sale or the person buying it. You should resent the game's structure that makes this not only possible, but attractive and in some cases, even necessary.
Games to date use ingame currency as a means of governing the relationship between time sinks and coin sinks. Any game which provides a measure of content where spawn sites are static, drop static loot (be that coin or stuff that can be sold for coin) will by default, engender farming mentality. Those players who farm cash for themselves are every bit as much of a negative impact on other players seeking to do the same thing, as professional gold farmers are. There is no exclusive right to this camping, if you and I are both playing the game "as intended" and wish to harvest a given item or gold, and we both have to go to the same node, your being there is interfering with my attainment of that gold. If I see you there for more than 3 spawns, you become as far as my gameplay is concerned, a farmer. This applies to any harvestible resource, be it resources used for crafting ingame items or the more general purpose coinage.
If MMOs were to embrace a different model of dispensing gold and loot throoughout the game, you wouldn't have this situation. This is what is behind the philosophy of soulbinding items, a positive step in the direction of controlling loot issues, but only one of many needed. Until currency itself cannot be traded, you will have this situation. Complaining about those who buy or sell gold will not change anything that's going on in the game, even harsh punitive actions used to stop this practice won't succeed so long as the game's core design endorses this practice. You want gold farming/buying to end, then you should be pushing game developers to figure out a diffrent model for dispensing ingame wealth. Until wealth is a nontransferable resource, this practice will exist, so you should direct your ire towards the game design that promotes it.
Finally, there are those who will look at my position as that being someone who bought gold himself and thus feels threatened in some way by this prevalent attitude. Let me set the record straight on this. No I have not bought gold, but the reason isn't because I think doing so would somehow lessen my worth as a person. I learned a lesson about having wealth in a character's pockets too easily when a friend of mine emailed me the cheat codes for Morrowwind. I was constantly struggling with money issues so I used the code once to alleviate a need for just one spell. Then another. Then another. Then I decided that since I had already done this cheat, lets just make money a nonissue and gave the character so much that he couldn't possibly spend it all. One week later I deleted the game off my drive, it had lost all allure of wanting to play it. That lesson is why I don't buy gold, it would destroy the fun of the game for me.
That said, I still shake my head at the models game companies endorse these days for wealth generation, as any pen-n-paper RPG player/GM will tell you, it's at best a very primitive system. hate the mechanic folks, lobby to improve that, and stop trying to pass some sort of self gratifying moral judgement on the worth of others. Doing so, In the end, it's just a form of ego masterbation IMO.
Even peace may be purchased at too high a price, and the only time you are completely safe is when you lie in the grave.
Originally posted by Seeker728 ...but what I read out of that is what you <you refering to the general feeling on the issue> resent is a player getting something easier than you, or with much less time than you invested.
...hate the mechanic folks, lobby to improve that, and stop trying to pass some sort of self gratifying moral judgement on the worth of others.
Yes, you should stop trying to judge others. You read quite wrongly on what I feel about gold buyers. I could not care less about whether or not someone gets something easier than me in a game or with less time invested. If all I cared about was being uber fast as possible then I would play unbalanced-class-of-the-week in games, only engage in optimal xp or gold activities, etc. instead of having fun with the least popular classes, taking on challenges in games just because I can, and so on.
I also never disagreed with anyone who said current game designs lend themselves to the farming issue, but that's not what I've been arguing about. I guess I should know better than to argue about principles in an online forum. Thanks for reminding me of that.
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You could still allow characters to transfer loot drops in between the toons on their account, just not between other players. That way if you pick up a rare item that your main couldn't use you still could transfer it to your alt that could use it. Heck for that matter remove loot drops other than for quest items.
And maybe lax up on the number of money sinks in games as well.
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Currently Playing: Guild Wars 2 and Path of Exile
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This subject has been around forever. Ingame money for real money will always be around. For those who are against it....just deal with it.
Personally, I could care less. It has never affected my game play, in fact, it has helped my enjoyment as with many others.
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Currently Playing: Guild Wars 2 and Path of Exile
Quit: Eden Eternal, Wakfu, DDO, STO, DCUO, Sword 2, Atlantica Online, LOTRO, SWTOR, RIFT, Earthrise, FFXIV, RoM, Allods Online, GA,WAR,CO,V:SoH,POTBS,TR,COH/COV, WOW, DDO,AL, EQ, Eve, L2, AA, Mx0, SWG, SoR, AO, RFO, DAoC, and others.
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Its just a play on words. When I saw it, it cracked me up. So I used it. I do have a 48 necromancer in EQ2.
LOL
Hehe, you make it sound like RV is selling gold directly to benefit the players. What a pile of crap!
They are doing it so they can make more money than a standard subscription. The fact that they can and will manipulate the game mechanics to encourage buying gold with real money, as stated on their website, in order to ensure this revenue model's success, means that players have no idea how much this game will cost them in the long run in order to compete with other players or even just be able to realistically play the damn game.
This is a huge step in the wrong direction.
I'm trying not to make "fanboi" posts of Roma Victor anymore, but I take issue with this post. First, if selling gold really was more profitable than a monthly fee, why do you think SOE et al uses the latter? Second, regardless of intention, this will benefit the players. With this system, the amount of money coming in, and hence inflation, is controlled. With no monthly fee, we also get to decide how much we put into the game, unlike mmos where you're stuck paying the same fee or losing your account.
The solution to stop gold farming is partly designing a game that doesn't have static spawns with predictable high value drops that can be farmed...
You mean like Roma Victor?
If you're building an mmorpg, or if you'd like to share ideas or talk about this industry, visit Multiplayer Worlds.
And I followed what you quoted from me with some other stuff, pointing out the problems with your argument. I'd quote it here, but there's no real point; you could have responded to what I wrote instead of just metaphorically sticking your fingers in your ears and pretending I didn't write it.
So, you can't provide proof, evidence, or a non-flawed argument for the position, but for some reason people are supposed to just accept it as fact? That's the problem with using the 'farming ruins economies' for anything; the 'gold buying is evil' crowd believes it's true because of faith, not evidence or reason. But blind faith does not make for a convincing argument, it's like trying to argue about religious matters.
Complaining that it's difficult to 'prove' (really, 'provide evidence or a reasonable argument for') a position is just a pathetic cop-out; if you can't provide anything remotely convincing to support your belief, then it doesn't make a convincing argument. And no, the people saying 'Oh, face reality, of course it's true' don't count as a convincing argument.
So you make hundreds of gold playing the AH, but anyone else who has hundreds of gold is obviously a gold-buyer? I think there's a problem here somewhere. But let's assume that you're right, what is gold-buying really responsible for in this case? It sounds like the only thing you can really pin on gold-buying is making twinked characters common in low-level BGs a bit earlier than they would otherwise; it's clearly not responsible for the problem since getting a 60 doesn't take that long, and twinking an X9 once you have a 60 doesn't take that much longer. In fact, from what you say it seems that gold-buying is pretty much cancelling itself out - people are buying gold to buy items that wouldn't be at high prices except for gold-buying, giving non-gold-buyers access to tons of money for their own characters.
All-in-all, not a very strong argument for RMT damaging the game.
Which FF Character Are You?
Im gonna add one last tought to this discution.
Maby some game sould try to have 2 types of servers. 1 server whit normal rules and 1 server where ppl simply can pick any stuff they want from a menu. So all these ppl saying that they sould be able to play anyway they want can stick to that server and runing around whit all the cool gear they want while we who actually can handel to play a game stay on the normal serves. Funny thing is that the "cheating" servers would probobly be empty couse the only ppl who buy ingame items for real money are ppl who want to play a game and want to compete whit other players but simply suck to much to handal it.
Sorry but these are my honest toughts and if u want to flame me for em ur more then welcome to. But when u are done flaming me just take a while to think about it and see if u really are honest to ur self.
As always sorry for my spelling.
Which FF Character Are You?
My post was on page 8. Your reply was on the bottom of page 9, and I've read all your posts since then. You appear to be engaged with neuronomad about twinks - I don't see any counterarguments from you about my "reasonable argument." If you meant this...
...then I don't see that you've pointed out anything with my argument, and instead just lead the argument away from what I was saying. First, for the umpteenth time, I have NEVER said it "ruins the game economy" so quit using that one on me. If you'd actually read my 5-point argument, you'd see that I don't say it ruins the game. That's why I layed it out in nicely numbered statements, so that you could respond directly to whichever ones you disagreed with. Which of the 5 statements do you find unreasonable?
Now who's sticking fingers in their ears? I'm not asking anyone to accept anything I say as fact. I'm trying to provide a reasonable explanation for my belief here. Where is your explanation? And don't give us that crap about burden of proof... I don't want proof, I want to know why you, personally, believe what you do about gold farming not having any impact in a game? I've shown you why I think the way I do. Ranting repeatedly "show me proof that it ruins games" or "show me it is significant compared to other inflationary factors" does NOT advance your side of the argument any. In your mind and maybe some observers you are tearing down my argument, but where is your position? How do you support your position?
Again, I have provided a reasonable argument for my position. You have not provided a reasonable counterargument - all you've done is shout "nyah nyah nyah I don't believe you." Well, good for you. I don't believe you either.
I've played WoW, DAOC, FFXI, SWG, EVE, UO, EQ2, and probably a few others over the past 8 years or so. I have yet to be affected by a gold farmer or someone buying gold. I've bought gold myself. Why? because I want to enjoy the game by getting that one item I don't have 100 hours a week to farm. I don't have time to farm and farming is BORING.
i don't know why these topics are continually started. has anyone said anythign new since the 1st time this argument went on? I haven't seen any new reasons for or against it so stop posting it.
Forum. n 1: a public meeting or assembly for open discussion.
Here's a tip: if you're not interested in the discussion, don't read it.
You're welcome.
My post was on page 8. Your reply was on the bottom of page 9, and I've read all your posts since then. You appear to be engaged with neuronomad about twinks - I don't see any counterarguments from you about my "reasonable argument." If you meant this...
...then I don't see that you've pointed out anything with my argument, and instead just lead the argument away from what I was saying. First, for the umpteenth time, I have NEVER said it "ruins the game economy" so quit using that one on me. If you'd actually read my 5-point argument, you'd see that I don't say it ruins the game. That's why I layed it out in nicely numbered statements, so that you could respond directly to whichever ones you disagreed with. Which of the 5 statements do you find unreasonable?
Now who's sticking fingers in their ears? I'm not asking anyone to accept anything I say as fact. I'm trying to provide a reasonable explanation for my belief here. Where is your explanation? And don't give us that crap about burden of proof... I don't want proof, I want to know why you, personally, believe what you do about gold farming not having any impact in a game? I've shown you why I think the way I do. Ranting repeatedly "show me proof that it ruins games" or "show me it is significant compared to other inflationary factors" does NOT advance your side of the argument any. In your mind and maybe some observers you are tearing down my argument, but where is your position? How do you support your position?
Again, I have provided a reasonable argument for my position. You have not provided a reasonable counterargument - all you've done is shout "nyah nyah nyah I don't believe you." Well, good for you. I don't believe you either.
dude always remember no matter what your always crashing in the same car
oh wait i
So what's exactly is your argument then, since you don't seem to be making it very clear? Is it that selling gold for real money causes inflation in the absence of other factors, but not neccesarily significant inflation, and that said inflation may or may not be good for a game? You don't need a 5 point argument for that, I'm perfectly wiling to conceede that. It's just not at all relevant to the discussion, and I presumed that your 5 point argument had some relevance to what was being discussed.
EDIT TO CLARIFY: Either you're arguing that RMT has a signficant effect on the economy or you're arguing that it has some effect but not a significant effect. If you're arguing that it has a signficant effect on the economy, then the argument of mine that you quoted and said is 'leading the argument away' is a direct rebuttal to that point. If you're arguing that RMT has some effect on the economy but not neccesarily any significant effect, then you're not providing any reason for it to be banned. In the paragraph where you complain that I'm 'leading the argument away', you seem to be saying that you're not claiming that RMT has a significant effect on the economy, since that's what my rebuttal argued. But then later you seem to think that your 5 point argument also offers some support for banning gold-buying, which would only be true if you were trying to argue that it has some signficant effect on the game.
And FYI, I don't believe that RMT has a significant effect on game economies because no one has ever offered a convincing argument or evidence that it does; I don't believe that the phase of the moon or whether or not I am wearing a hat has a significant effect on game economies either. The fact that people fervently believe it and respond to anyone questioning it with 'face reality' and 'you're cheating by buying gold' leaves me strongly inclined to disbelieve it, since if there was a reasonable reason to believe it they could offer that instead.
Then you're arguing that MMOs aren't fun? Because the playing field in any MMO where gold sales are possible is clearly slanted to people with large blocks of free time to grind out gear. In any competition, the person with hours to grind away for gear will come out ahead.
A track meet is nothing like an MMO, so you're analogy is just screwed up. It would be more accurate to imagine if you went to atrack meet and found out that one kid had shoes that let him run twice as fast that he got by sitting at a computer beating easy opponents in a computer game over and over for weeks, another kid had shoes that let him run twice as fast that he got by buying them with his allowance, and the third is stuck with normal shoes because he didn't spend real money for them or sit at a computer grinding for them.
As for the fun comment, of course I'm not arguing that MMO's aren't fun. I guess as a father of 2, I want to remain as idealistic as possible regarding hard work and competition. I want my little dudes to enjoy what they do and work hard to get better. If they encounter situations that are not fair, I want them to continue to work hard and not get discouraged.
So while I respect your debate on the MMO Gold matter, I will agree to disagree and go with my gut and do what feels right by not participating if Gold buying is supported. I hope others do the same.
What's something that's not an example? In programming I can spend weeks doing coding really easy stuff, but unless I buckle down to solve the actual hard problems, my program is going to be worthless. In weightlifting, I could spend weeks doing reps with a 1 pound weight and find that I can't lift more at the end of the training. In academic math, I can spend weeks doing simple addition but find I'm no better at differential equations. In social relationships, I can keep telling the same joke to people over and over and find that people don't want to have me around. In work, if you invest your time doing something that a computer-illiterate Chinese peasant (the typical IGE farmers) can easily do for some absurdly low pay rate, you're not going to be able to pay your rent.
People who invest time in repeating challengeless tasks don't generally get better at anything, except in MMOs. That's what's involved in getting money in games where people buy gold, it's just sitting in place repeating the same pattern over and over again until you get enough gold drops to buy an item.
If you want them to work hard, then you should get them to not spend hours on end grinding in MMOs, you should get them to do something productive. If you want them to engage in competition, then you should get them involved in games that center around real competition and not about grinding for huge chunks of time like most MMOs. And I have no idea why you think it's good to teach them that if they're playing a game that is unfair they should spend huge chunks of time playing the game; it would seem much more sensible to teach them to just find a game that is fair.
Honestly, I think it's pretty sad that you're a parent teaching your kids that 'hard work' means 'grinding for stuff in MMOs'. And I think it's pretty silly to teach them that a 'fair' game is one in which you get more stuff based on how long you've played; I think you could teach them a lot more about fair competition by having them play something like Chess instead, where you start with the same position whether you play once per month or whether you spend the last week grinding games against an AI at the lowest level.
I have still, after years of hearing this argument, never heard a single credible line of defense to support this argument.
You shouldn't need an arguement to understand. It's obvious if outside money say from the men on mars suddenly was buying up all the forests on earth, that might kind of screw up the world economy. Same goes for real world cash buying stuff in a game.
Clearly the people that buy and sell virtual items disagree with that statement.
Yes, but they were stupid enough to spend actual money on items that aren't real, instead of, say, buying food and clothing, so why exactly should we care what they think?
To answer the OP's question, it simply doesn't matter if you ban it or not. It will continue for as long as game's are released with mechanics that favor an exchange of money for time. Learn to live with it...it's here to stay.
Let's also learn to live with cancer, because the mechanics of the human body favor the development of malignant cells. So why bother with cancer research, let's just learn to live with it.
Buying gold in a video game with real life money should be punishable by b!tch slaps.
Originally posted by last_exile
Should buying online gold/cash be banned?
No. There are always the people who argue that it ruins the in game economy but thats largely a falsehood if you know anything about economics at all. There wouldn't be such a large issue with the selling of in game currency if the worlds had functional economies, but with the presently hideous broken economic systems being put into games and the unlimited amount of money coming into the games, it can cause some inflation problems in the long run.
On the other hand the problem above isn't really related to the selling of the currency itself it's the ease at which a person can "farm" massive amounts of money using a variety of methods... the massive influx of money into the economy is the real problem, not the buying and selling part in and of itself.
The best argument comes from the people who say "It gives people an unfair advantage" and this is true, however the people who have massive amounts of free time on their hands also have an unfair advantage over the people working a full time job with a family.
There is no true equality. There are always going to be people with more time on their hands, there are always going to be people who cheat, and there are always going to be people buy gold.
I honestly believe that if they banned everyone who has purchased gold (and realistically it IS feasible) they would lose massive amounts of their customer base due to people's friends being banned from the game (eg: damn 4 of the best people in my guild were banned now we can't raid... my best friend was banned... etc... screw it i quit mentality.) They would also be sued fairly promptly by someone who was falsely accused and that incurs costs they really don't want to get into and potentially a legal precedent that they don't want also (could make shutting games down ... expensive.)
All in all, things won't be changing in the near future. If anything buying will become more commonplace in the long term.
edit: the current system where they ban the sellers/farmers is pure gold for the publishers/developers. They know no matter how many accounts they ban that the sellers/farmers will go out, buy another box, and start over. This gives them a free boost in box sales revenue and also a reoccurring monthly fee while the character levels up again to the correct levels to begin farming. Why would they want to change it? The player base makes a lot of noise but they really don't speak with their money over this issue... because its largely transparent.
Shadus
This is the same argument that the hardcore-pvp crowd uses.
"A game is played for fun. Fun can only be had by combating other intelligent players."
It's just as bad of an analogy here as it is there. Bad argument.
The playing field is *NEVER* level. It's impossible.
Examples:
A college kid with a light class load and no job. Massive quantities of time to invest. That's not 'fair' to the people with families and full time jobs.
A rich doctor has little time but can invest real life money in the game with no real consequence... he can pay for power leveling, he can buy gold, etc.
A couple share an account, they work opposite shifts so each can play the game 12 hours a day.
Shrug. Most people in the BGs call my character a twink... I suppose seeing a 19 in my gear with green and purple lightsticks and at least 5 different weapons and the best of all enchants for each piece of armor gives that impression. I just play the AH, most people don't have the time or knowledge to do that though. Shrug.
Meeting a 60's twink in the BG isn't fair either. No more fair than meeting a self-twink or eBay twink.
Shadus
Well after 11 pages of reading this thread, and seeing the same thing bounced back and forth without little done to address the core reason for this situation to exist. The flaw isn't in people's character, it's the game design, pure and simple. Most of you resent the people who buy and sell gold, claiming it ruins <insert feature of choice>, but what I read out of that is what you <you refering to the general feeling on the issue> resent is a player getting something easier than you, or with much less time than you invested. Fair enough I suppose, but what you should be angry at isn't either the person providing the gold for sale or the person buying it. You should resent the game's structure that makes this not only possible, but attractive and in some cases, even necessary.
Games to date use ingame currency as a means of governing the relationship between time sinks and coin sinks. Any game which provides a measure of content where spawn sites are static, drop static loot (be that coin or stuff that can be sold for coin) will by default, engender farming mentality. Those players who farm cash for themselves are every bit as much of a negative impact on other players seeking to do the same thing, as professional gold farmers are. There is no exclusive right to this camping, if you and I are both playing the game "as intended" and wish to harvest a given item or gold, and we both have to go to the same node, your being there is interfering with my attainment of that gold. If I see you there for more than 3 spawns, you become as far as my gameplay is concerned, a farmer. This applies to any harvestible resource, be it resources used for crafting ingame items or the more general purpose coinage.
If MMOs were to embrace a different model of dispensing gold and loot throoughout the game, you wouldn't have this situation. This is what is behind the philosophy of soulbinding items, a positive step in the direction of controlling loot issues, but only one of many needed. Until currency itself cannot be traded, you will have this situation. Complaining about those who buy or sell gold will not change anything that's going on in the game, even harsh punitive actions used to stop this practice won't succeed so long as the game's core design endorses this practice. You want gold farming/buying to end, then you should be pushing game developers to figure out a diffrent model for dispensing ingame wealth. Until wealth is a nontransferable resource, this practice will exist, so you should direct your ire towards the game design that promotes it.
Finally, there are those who will look at my position as that being someone who bought gold himself and thus feels threatened in some way by this prevalent attitude. Let me set the record straight on this. No I have not bought gold, but the reason isn't because I think doing so would somehow lessen my worth as a person. I learned a lesson about having wealth in a character's pockets too easily when a friend of mine emailed me the cheat codes for Morrowwind. I was constantly struggling with money issues so I used the code once to alleviate a need for just one spell. Then another. Then another. Then I decided that since I had already done this cheat, lets just make money a nonissue and gave the character so much that he couldn't possibly spend it all. One week later I deleted the game off my drive, it had lost all allure of wanting to play it. That lesson is why I don't buy gold, it would destroy the fun of the game for me.
That said, I still shake my head at the models game companies endorse these days for wealth generation, as any pen-n-paper RPG player/GM will tell you, it's at best a very primitive system. hate the mechanic folks, lobby to improve that, and stop trying to pass some sort of self gratifying moral judgement on the worth of others. Doing so, In the end, it's just a form of ego masterbation IMO.
Even peace may be purchased at too high a price, and the only time you are completely safe is when you lie in the grave.
Yes, you should stop trying to judge others. You read quite wrongly on what I feel about gold buyers. I could not care less about whether or not someone gets something easier than me in a game or with less time invested. If all I cared about was being uber fast as possible then I would play unbalanced-class-of-the-week in games, only engage in optimal xp or gold activities, etc. instead of having fun with the least popular classes, taking on challenges in games just because I can, and so on.
I also never disagreed with anyone who said current game designs lend themselves to the farming issue, but that's not what I've been arguing about. I guess I should know better than to argue about principles in an online forum. Thanks for reminding me of that.