A completely pathetic rationalization. "While I'm on the topic, I also find it strange how some can see RMT as cheating." Get a dictionary and master the English language.
Cheat: "To violate rules deliberately, as in a game". Rules for MMORPGs consist of such things as EULAs, TOCs, COCs, and so forth.
*smiles, grins, holds up an "owned" sign and walks away*
"Do not fret! Your captain is about to enter Valhalla!" - General Beatrix of Alexandria
"The acquisition of knowledge is of use to the intellect, for nothing can be loved or hated without first being known." - Leo da Vinci
I don't care about RMT, or the people that want to pay real money for a few electrons, but I do care about what they do where it affects my time or fun in a game. They can make money however they like if they leave me alone, but they don't. They constantly whisper me, email me, yell at me.... and I don't like that. They farm an area bare, and I can't complete my kill quests... and I don't like that either. I fact, I don't like THEM.
So if these **@#** want to make money, let them set up a website and advertise on google, but don't bug me in game, and make them farm at 3am when the rest of us are in bed.
When they make it so that I don't have to grind even more in a game to meet the prices that Gold Farmers are selling off their loot for and they get rid of the annoying in game spam advertisements and bots.... THEN I won't view it as cheating, these guys don't deserve any bloody sympathy, not because of the game economy but because they deliberately and knowingly harass millions of people in game every single day with tell spams and do not stop. The economy won't get ruined because the actual players of the game will charge loot at a lower price and basically just undercut the Gold Farmers until they start to learn, It's the fact that they ruin actual GAMEPLAY rather than the economy that is the biggest problem, they harass players and take up space on servers and half the time most of them are just bots.
You want to get rid of Gold Farming? Come up with a game that actually takes some brains today.... Now I don't know what kind of programming or source code games like World of Warcraft have, but it's ridiculously easy to see that if the game is simple enough for a frigging bot to be programmed into it, then they clearly have not put enough effort into the game to stop this kind of thing. In Star Wars Galaxies Pre-Cu and heck even The Saga of Ryzom, the game was complicated enough to stop idiots like these spamming everywhere and hogging different spawn points, stop complaining and whining about it generally and start bloody making some games that need a human being to play them if you think you know everything!
Quoting people doesn't make you clever, in fact, it makes you all the more stupid for not bothering to read the quotes you post in the first place.
i couldnt care less if it happened in a game like d&d online or everquest where the main content is pve
in a pvp mmorpg like lineage2 or the upcomming war it will destroy the competitive core of the game.
if i choose a pvp game i choose it to compete with other players. this competition should be based on rules just like any other (sports) game. i shouldnt be able just to shell out an extra 500$ to have 13 instead of 11 people on my soccer team, buy back a chess peace i lost or hire 10 chinese workers to carry me on their back for half of the marathon.
in l2 people buy charakters and gold (adena) from farmers to have the best weapons/ level/ buffs when they fight other guilds. this completely perverts the competitive nature of the game. not only do the farmers/ bot users block hunting grounds they also spiral up the cheating because if the 1st person buys gold for a +6 sword to beat the next player easily you can be sure that there are enought beaten idiots to buy gold for a +10
i can understand ppl that play only 4h a week and are new to the game want to have fun in a game dictated by the 40+h/week hardcore gamer that plays 3 years now but thats not solved by bringing in offline money. it should be solved by the mmo company having limited time servers or bringing in fresh/new servers from time to time or merging old/hardcore servers or making sure theres fair and fun competition on every level or.....
if your bored, visit my blog at: http://craylon.wordpress.com/ dealing with the look of mmos with the nvidia 3d vision glasses
Any RMT that directly interferes with my playing is wrong wrong wrong. FFxi, if you have 4-5 well known rmt camping nm, that directly impacts my gameplayer, since now I have to compete with 4-5 of these guys that use botsand camp 24/7, making the only way to get said item through the auction house, which of course has a price driven up by the MASSIVE amount of people who buy gold and dont mind paying the rediculous price at auction, not to mention all the other people like myself who now have to farm 5x more to buy an item instead having to pay what its really worth.
Like someone said before me, until rmt doesn't interfere with my gaming, it will always bother me, and seeing them get banned by the thousands is nothing but good news.
Sooo... because you haven't been caught yet... that makes it okay? Some sound logic there.
Beyond that... just more of the same rationalization and rhetoric I've seen time and again by your type. You frame it a bit more intelligently than others.. but it's the same crap that's been regurgitated over and over.
You don't have to buy money to get through these games. You aren't entitled to circumvent the rules everyone else is held to, because you think your personal circumstances make you special or something - if you do, then I'd suggest getting over yourself. I know that Square, at least, is beginning to go after those who buy money as well... so whether other companies are or not remains to be seen.
RMT does absolutely, unquestionably affect the in-game economies. I have seen this happen first hand, both before and after, and it is 100% indisputable fact. Bringing a bunch of ill-gotten money into the game brings down the value of the in-game currency, and causes prices to go up, making items extremely difficult to get for legitimate players who actually *play* the game as intended. And let's not forget about the activites in support of RMT... botting, rare mob/drop monopolization, over-running of hunting areas, flooding of markets and on and on... Those are all prohibited in the ToS and accounts are banned for those activities as well. So when you buy money, you're contributing to those activities as well. But hey.. you haven't been banned yet, so that must make it okay, right?
So, because you and other lazy types feel it's beneath you to play the same game by the same rules everyone else is, everyone else has to suffer. I'm sure that makes you feel very distinguished. I mean that you can buy money instead of playing the game and acquiring it like everyone else... Wow... I stand in awe of you. Really, I do.
In truth... I'm not naive enough to think I or anyone else would get through to your type... You're too delusional and wrapped up in your own self-serving rhetoric to be reached... But these threads, and the mountains of utter ignorant crap just never fail to amaze me.
Bad rules are meant to be broken. Anti-RMT people aren't much different from the people who thought prohibition would make people stop drinking alcohol. It still happened, and making it illegal created a huge black market that ended in nothing but violence and vice a lot worse then people drinking. There is a direct relationship between monotonous time sinks and gold farming. Just as prohibition created a demand for alcohol time sinks create demand for power leveling and gold farming. Chinese farmers are the new mob, and all the high and mighty rhetoric isn't getting rid of them. Either you can try to address the cause (bad gameplay) or you can try to attack the symptoms you described. But no amount of treatment will get rid of it if you don't attack the cause.
It took about a decade for people to give up on the utopian idea of prohibition. I wonder how long the RMT people can scream and have no real effect before trying to think for themselves. If you really want to get gold farming out of the game, try getting rid of the reasons why people are always looking for shortcuts. And instead of lauding every half assed dev ban announcement, how bout asking why they are willing to take millions in sub money from farmers without doing any permanent fix.
Once again... more empty, self-serving rationalization...
"Bad rules"? If you don't like the rules, don't play the game. No one is forcing you to. You really believe that you simply disagreeing with rules gives you the right to ignore them? By that logic, if you have a rule that you don't want people wearing shoes on your carpet, someone comes in and decides they don't agree... they can ignore it and freely walk around your home? I mean... they probably think it's a bad rule...and bad rules are made to be broken, right? Friend of mine used to think having to stop at Stop signs at 2 or 3AM was stupid if there was obviously no traffic... a "bad rule" to him... So does that mean he had the right to ignore it? After all, bad rules are made to be broken, aren't they?
Sorry.. but that logic is completely self-serving and ridiculous - though it is entirely consistent with the typical pro-RMT mentality.
Seriously, who do you think you are? It's obvious by now you feel you're above any rule that you personally disagree with - which, again, is delusional. But really... If the rules are made for everyone, and 100s of thousands, or even millions, are capable of playing by those rules... then why can't you? Oh wait "I don't have enough time." Hey, tough luck. Again, don't like the rules, cancel your account, stop sending your subscription fee, don't play the game. MMOs are not a fast-food chain... you can't "have it your way".
Every MMO out there provides rules and settings that allow players to achieve anything they want, given the effort. That someone doesn't want to expend that effort, while thousands of others are, isn't the developers' problem. That some stand so proudly in defense of RMT isn't exactly brave or praise-worthy. Buying your way through a game is cheap, it's cheesy, it's cheating and it supports activities (botting, monopolization, etc) that disrupts the game for the thousands of others who are playing the game as intended.
And please don't come back with "Well, when the devs find a system that isn't flawed..."... That's a load of crap; just another of the Pro-RMT favored rationalizations. The system works fine as it is - it's only the self-serving morons who can't handle not having what they want when they want that seem to feel "it's broken", because it's not expedient to them.
Let's bottom-line this, shall we? What it boils down to is this.. you and those like you don't want to play by the rules because they aren't expedient to what you want to do. So, you find some kind of rationalization that makes sense to you, throw on blinders to all the RMT-related activity you are supporting that hinders others' gameplay, and happily trudge ahead. So long as it pleases you, who cares how it affects anyone else, right? And that might be all well and good in a single-player game, but in a game with resources and an economy that is shared by thousands of others, it's disgusting. I don't expect you to have any conscience about it - if you did you wouldn't do it in the first place.
You know what... there are some newer MMOs coming to the West here where the game itself has no subscription fee, but has in-game item malls where you can purchase items and it's not a violation of their ToS. You can spend all the RL money you want and no one else is affected by it. If being allowed to buy your way through the game is "Utopia" for you pro-RMT folk, why don't give those a spin?
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
i couldnt care less if it happened in a game like d&d online or everquest where the main content is pve in a pvp mmorpg like lineage2 or the upcomming war it will destroy the competitive core of the game.
if i choose a pvp game i choose it to compete with other players. this competition should be based on rules just like any other (sports) game. i shouldnt be able just to shell out an extra 500$ to have 13 instead of 11 people on my soccer team, buy back a chess peace i lost or hire 10 chinese workers to carry me on their back for half of the marathon. in l2 people buy charakters and gold (adena) from farmers to have the best weapons/ level/ buffs when they fight other guilds. this completely perverts the competitive nature of the game. not only do the farmers/ bot users block hunting grounds they also spiral up the cheating because if the 1st person buys gold for a +6 sword to beat the next player easily you can be sure that there are enought beaten idiots to buy gold for a +10 i can understand ppl that play only 4h a week and are new to the game want to have fun in a game dictated by the 40+h/week hardcore gamer that plays 3 years now but thats not solved by bringing in offline money. it should be solved by the mmo company having limited time servers or bringing in fresh/new servers from time to time or merging old/hardcore servers or making sure theres fair and fun competition on every level or.....
... or the people with less time simply accepting that they have two options:
1. They don't have as much time to play as others and so their progress will be slower, and that it's not "unfair" - it's life.
2. If they feel they can't progress as fast as they'd like due to the way the game is setup compared against the free time they have available, that perhaps the game simply isn't the right one for them and they should look into another one.
The Pro-RMT mentality is the ultimate example of "cake and eat it, too". They voluntarily put themself in a game where the rules don't fall in their favor then feel that gives them carte blanche to bend and circumvent the rules to their liking, blaming everything else for "making them do it".
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Well its not about whining or hating on peeple who can afford to spend cash for ingame currency, its about the fact that they make already hard to do processes like buyin a piece of gear you have been after for a while. Example: I played FF11 for a while tryin to buy a piece of armor that had a average cost of about 4 million gil a fairly tuff amout to come by then by the time I had saved up that amount the cost of said armor had increased to 12 million gil therefor makin it nearer to impossible to get the items i wanted bein a legit player. You cant use time as an excuse oh some peeple play these games all day well i work a normal 8-5 job but i dont buy money to catch up in time sorry to say it but if you dont have time to get the ingame cash they right way then go play an online shooter game or sumthing you dont have to ruin for peeple who make time and enjoy these games. so in conclusion down with RMTs and jus play these mmos like every1 else does you will get what your after eventually.
since the op liked to compare RL cash and rules to virtual ones we can draw another paralell here.
does the op also suggest that the russian site that are selling mp3's(intellectual property of the music company and artist) should be able to sell the music without giving some to the original artist and music company? bear in mind here that the US goverment is pushing hard to shut down the site and that company. also bear in mind that blizzard for example owns all the gold in world of warcraft, it is their intellectual property.
does the op imply that it is ok to steal? because that is essentially what it is, the improper and unlawful use of another persons intellectual property.
This is absolutley wrong, and your analogy is skewed.
A better analogy would be, is it _morally wrong_ to sell a MP3 you paid for with your time and money to a friend, you would not retain it afterwards. It is still copywritten by the same person, it stays intact in every way, the only change is that there is an exchange between two people outside the constructs of the original agreement.
Now tell me, this is morally wrong. Tell me why, because it doesnt make any sense _why_ would something be wrong.
i couldnt care less if it happened in a game like d&d online or everquest where the main content is pve in a pvp mmorpg like lineage2 or the upcomming war it will destroy the competitive core of the game.
if i choose a pvp game i choose it to compete with other players. this competition should be based on rules just like any other (sports) game. i shouldnt be able just to shell out an extra 500$ to have 13 instead of 11 people on my soccer team, buy back a chess peace i lost or hire 10 chinese workers to carry me on their back for half of the marathon. in l2 people buy charakters and gold (adena) from farmers to have the best weapons/ level/ buffs when they fight other guilds. this completely perverts the competitive nature of the game. not only do the farmers/ bot users block hunting grounds they also spiral up the cheating because if the 1st person buys gold for a +6 sword to beat the next player easily you can be sure that there are enought beaten idiots to buy gold for a +10 i can understand ppl that play only 4h a week and are new to the game want to have fun in a game dictated by the 40+h/week hardcore gamer that plays 3 years now but thats not solved by bringing in offline money. it should be solved by the mmo company having limited time servers or bringing in fresh/new servers from time to time or merging old/hardcore servers or making sure theres fair and fun competition on every level or.....
right on I'm with you there. take a look at pirates of burning sea. It is not going to be item centric they say. should be a breath of fresh air- a jewel that stands out of a crowd of gear whoring, everquest clones
I read these threads and the same thing is proven time and again by the Pro-RMT crowd...
That is - they should really be playing single player games where they aren't interacting with other players and their actions don't affect anyone but themselves, because it's clear that the concept of interacting with others without cheating is lost on them.
When you peel away the rhetoric and excuses, Pro-RMT really are people who have some strange sense of entitlement; who feel that somehow because they want something now and not later, that it's their "right" to have it; that any rules that stand in their way don't apply to them because they prevent them from getting what they want.
The reason why anti-RMT rules, as well as prohibition of any related activity exist is because those things skew a game system that is designed to be equally applied to all players. Be it a class change quest, hunting a specific mob to get a weapon or piece of armor, etc... the game is set up so that all players face the same odds and the same challenges as everyone else. Thus, it's equal across the board. That setup doesn't favor one player over another. It is perfectly fair and perfectly fine for everyone... except the pro-RMT type who feel that they shouldn't have to face those challenges or be held to those odds. There's a degree of jealousy there that some people simply have more time than others to play, or perhaps, have a better string of luck and so can acquire things and achieve goals faster than others. To someone with common-sense, this is called "reality". To Pro-RMT, this is "unfair". And from that, their endless string of self-serving excuses and rationalizations are born.
- They blame the game setup - "It's too gear-centric, so we have no choice but to buy money to stay competitive!". BS. Your opinion of the game's setup doesn't give you the right to violate the ToS. It does, however, give you the right to stop playing if you disagree with it that strongly.
- They blame and belittle others for their own personal circumstances - "I work and don't have time to sit around playing games all day like these kids who live with their parents... so I have to buy money to keep up!". BS. Others' real-life circumstances are not a "Pass Go" card for you to ignore the same rules you accept to adhere to by playing the game. Jealousy's a bitch... your best bet is to learn to get over it.
- They all become law-experts and regurgitate the ever-popular, "The ToS wouldn't hold up in court!"... This one cracks me up in two ways. First, because they're acknowledging that the rules exist and that they're breaking them deliberately. Second because I don't know of any RMT-related banning that's ever required a court trial to be carried out. You agree to their terms, you violate those terms, you're suspended or banned... no lawsuits required. In other words, that argument, like all Pro-RMT arguments is disingenuous and ridiculous.
- In all, any argument that ends with "I have to buy money to keep up!" is false... Nowhere is it stated that you are supposed to make any degree of progress in a set amount of time. No where is it stated that you are entitled to be able to keep up with others who have twice as much time to play as you. Once again... because that mentality is entirely concocted and parroted by the Pro-RMT folk for their own self-interest.
And finally... Here's just one illustration of why RMT is not allowed, why it screws up the game for many others and why those who support it are greedy, self-centered cheats...
You decide you want to get an item that drops from a certain rare mob. You know it's a popular item, so competition would be fierce... but still you're competing with other players, so it should be purely based on "may the better or faster player win", right? Wrong. You get to the spawn spot to find what soon betray themselves to be completely automated script-controlled bots, run by a program capable of reading the game's memory to detect when the target creature has spawned - before you or any other legit player even sees it spawn on screen. They begin running toward the target and you notice they're running way faster than they should be - a quick check of their gear shows that they're not wearing anything that would increase their speed.... They haven't used any skill or any item to allow it... They're clearly using a speed hack. It's obvious by now that you're competing with bots. They get the spawn...they get the drop. They bring it back and list it on the Auction House. You think "Okay,well, maybe I'll get lucky next time"... 2 or 3 spawns later it's the same thing. The botters are monopolizing the area and you and the other legit people have no chance, and you learn from someone else there that the same bots are there 24/7, camping the same mob.
So you figure,well, maybe I can buy it from the Auction House. You return to the AH to find that the price has been driven sky-high and practically all sales have been from the same 1 or 2 names - interestingly the same name you saw out there camping the spawn. So they are pretty much dominating that item at both ends. You're either competing against a script that's many times faster than you, or you're paying a ridiculous price and putting a bunch of "to-be-sold" in-game money in their coffers, for the Pro-RMT type to go ahead and buy so they can "keep up".
That's a snap-shot of what RMT botters typically do in game - one of many different examples. This is what pro-RMT behavior leads to and supports. By buying your way through the game, you are not only supporting something that is expressely forbidden and bannable, you are helping to continue screwing over the legit players who are trying to play the game as designed. This is why I say, with 100% confidence, that pro-RMT behavior is greedy, ego-centric and inexcusable.
You want to cheat your way through a game, play a single player game. Play Morrowind or Oblivion... Play .HACK for the PS2 - which literally simulates a MMO. Then you can cheat all you want, and no one else is affected by it. You aren't qualified to share any such environment with others.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
There are three great ways to get rid of the gold farmers so why are they not used?
1) Ban all IP's from China. Other countries do it so why can't the USA? Not to mention if the game companies are going to be putting up servers in those countries then this makes sense.
2) Ban all credit card numbers from China.
3) DO NOT sell game cards! Before you whiners ask how can I play this game then your answer is open a checking account and get a debit/VISA card. Problem solved.
4) Make a game where the economy does not have to rely on money of some form or another, or the characters don't have to have uber items.
Geee now wasn't that simple. This give them more work they would have to do to circumvent these restrictions. Will some of them do it. Of course, but the game companies would have to take a stand for what they believe is right too.
It's obvious that the author of this article has never played an MMO as a crafter.
While the availability of in-game currency (or items) for real-life money is indeed a time-saver, and it does have little impact on the individual progression of all the other players in the game, it's not without negative impact.
If everyone in your given MMO is playing the PvE game, that is grinding their way through levels and quests, then yes... gold farmers don't hurt much. So instead of spending 6 hours a night for 3 months to grind out my set of epic gear, I pay some guy $200 for it. Big deal.
Well, yeah. If the server offers PvP, you now handed the rich kid the keys to the city. It doesn't matter how well I know the game, or how good my skills are, if someone can just buy their way to the top of the equipment ladder. As we all know, for 95% of the games out there, you don't really fight... your epic pants fight for you. So Rich Kid Billy buys the Sword of a Zillion Lies off ebay and mows me down before I can get two hits off because my semi-epic armor just can't compete. What fun.
Then there's the crafters. Some people enjoy crafting goods, and a few games out there (Star Wars Galaxies (RIP), Vanguard (see you in the ICU ward)) actually have crafting systems that you can spend as much time and effort in as your adventuring counterparts spend hacking and slashing. In these games, the crafters take raw materials and combine them to produce goods which are hopefully better than the average loot out there.
When gold farmers come and flash their warez, the adventurer now has a choice. He can use junk he gets from loot drops, he can spend his gold to buy good equipment from crafters, or he can spend real life cash and afford to buy epic gear (or buy the gear directly in some cases) and bypass the crafter gear. If gold is easy enough to find, the crafters have no market. They fade away, and you are left with the strict dichotomy of poor players with junk and rich players with the best. Gee! I can play a fantasy game where I'm stuck in the same underclass rut I'm enjoying in real life. What fun.
That's why gold farmers suck. I don't care if Bob wants to take the easy road and "finish" the game faster than I do. I do care that I can't compete in PvP unless I lay out hard earned cash. I do care that I can't enjoy the crafting side of the game, because the market is saturated with materials farmed by the gold farmers, and cast-off epics which cost less than my costs to produce lesser quality items.
It's obvious that the author of this article has never played an MMO as a crafter.
While the availability of in-game currency (or items) for real-life money is indeed a time-saver, and it does have little impact on the individual progression of all the other players in the game, it's not without negative impact. If everyone in your given MMO is playing the PvE game, that is grinding their way through levels and quests, then yes... gold farmers don't hurt much. So instead of spending 6 hours a night for 3 months to grind out my set of epic gear, I pay some guy $200 for it. Big deal. Well, yeah. If the server offers PvP, you now handed the rich kid the keys to the city. It doesn't matter how well I know the game, or how good my skills are, if someone can just buy their way to the top of the equipment ladder. As we all know, for 95% of the games out there, you don't really fight... your epic pants fight for you. So Rich Kid Billy buys the Sword of a Zillion Lies off ebay and mows me down before I can get two hits off because my semi-epic armor just can't compete. What fun. Then there's the crafters. Some people enjoy crafting goods, and a few games out there (Star Wars Galaxies (RIP), Vanguard (see you in the ICU ward)) actually have crafting systems that you can spend as much time and effort in as your adventuring counterparts spend hacking and slashing. In these games, the crafters take raw materials and combine them to produce goods which are hopefully better than the average loot out there. When gold farmers come and flash their warez, the adventurer now has a choice. He can use junk he gets from loot drops, he can spend his gold to buy good equipment from crafters, or he can spend real life cash and afford to buy epic gear (or buy the gear directly in some cases) and bypass the crafter gear. If gold is easy enough to find, the crafters have no market. They fade away, and you are left with the strict dichotomy of poor players with junk and rich players with the best. Gee! I can play a fantasy game where I'm stuck in the same underclass rut I'm enjoying in real life. What fun. That's why gold farmers suck. I don't care if Bob wants to take the easy road and "finish" the game faster than I do. I do care that I can't compete in PvP unless I lay out hard earned cash. I do care that I can't enjoy the crafting side of the game, because the market is saturated with materials farmed by the gold farmers, and cast-off epics which cost less than my costs to produce lesser quality items.
Excellent points, all.. Only thing I disagree with is that RMT doesn't affect the individual player. It absolutely can. I find that the dynamics of how RMT affects the legit player-base is different from game to game - in FFXI, for example, it had a *very* direct affect on players' ability to afford gear and items - crafting and otherwise - across the board. The other side is if a player wants to save the money (or don't have it to begin with and doesn't feel like farming for items which are dropped by mobs that are *also* monopolized by RMT botters), and they decide to try and camp the mob that drops it, they are - once again - dealing with scripted/botted toons who are camping those mobs 24/7 and leave next to no chance for a legit player to get claim. In other words, RMT controls all aspects. Good thing is, Square-Enix is making amazing progress in dealing with them.
In another MMO which is pretty much hopelessly entrenched with RMT, Lineage 2, it's to the point where the players have become dependent on the botters being there. When NCSoft decides to do one of their PR bannings, the price of mats literally skyrocket because now players have to do something they aren't used to - get the materials themselves.
Point is... there's an effect in every MMO that RMT are a presence in, and it does affect legit players somewhere along the line.
At the end of the day, RMT is lame. People who support RMT and buy their way through the games, with all their hollow excuses, are lame. The whole thing is lame. If someone can come up with a model that makes the need to buy money irrelevant, then all the better. But, even in a game where it's *extremely* easy to make money, like Guild Wars or even WoW, RMT is a presence - some players are just that lazy.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I don't really care what another player or farmer does. What I mind is the non-stop lines across your chat box of advertisements for the websites and the in game mail with the same advertisements. If the devs made a way for people to ignore such things if that is their choice, then that would be fantastic... the people that want to buy can buy and the people that don't won't be bothered with all the spam... spam in my real life through email and phone soliciters is bad enough, I don't want it while I'm playing too...
I don't really care what another player or farmer does. What I mind is the non-stop lines across your chat box of advertisements for the websites and the in game mail with the same advertisements. If the devs made a way for people to ignore such things if that is their choice, then that would be fantastic... the people that want to buy can buy and the people that don't won't be bothered with all the spam... spam in my real life through email and phone soliciters is bad enough, I don't want it while I'm playing too...
Well, you have the gold buyers to thank for that, too. They're helping to promote and support the RMT to the point that there's alot of competition out there now. So, just like in other businesses (and I use the term as lightly as possible in this context), the different groups are now hustling for more customers. Everyone's in-game mail, shout channels and private /tell channels are their marketing space. Believe me, your personal enjoyment or immersion is not of a concern to them. Getting your money is. If they could get your personal email address from your MMO account somehow, they'd be spamming you there, too.
Regardless of what aspect of RMT you're talking about, it can be traced back to the gold-buyers and their lame, self-serving attitudes. If they would stop buying their way through the game and actually *play* it and earn their money in-game as intended, there wouldn't be so great a presence of RMT in these games, and no one would be annoyed by them.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
It is making things in game aggravating for crafters and those wanting to buy their items. Crafters put their stuff on vendors and those that sell it for real money come and buy it all so they can sell it for real money.
Now the crafters are putting their items on vendors for exhoribant amounts trying to deter the jerks but in the long run it's the average player as well as the crafter who suffers.
Comments
*smiles, grins, holds up an "owned" sign and walks away*
"Do not fret! Your captain is about to enter Valhalla!" - General Beatrix of Alexandria
"The acquisition of knowledge is of use to the intellect, for nothing can be loved or hated without first being known." - Leo da Vinci
I don't care about RMT, or the people that want to pay real money for a few electrons, but I do care about what they do where it affects my time or fun in a game. They can make money however they like if they leave me alone, but they don't. They constantly whisper me, email me, yell at me.... and I don't like that. They farm an area bare, and I can't complete my kill quests... and I don't like that either. I fact, I don't like THEM.
So if these **@#** want to make money, let them set up a website and advertise on google, but don't bug me in game, and make them farm at 3am when the rest of us are in bed.
______________
Mark E. Cooper
AKA Tohrment
Proud member of Damned Souls since 2007.
http://www.damnedsouls.eu
When they make it so that I don't have to grind even more in a game to meet the prices that Gold Farmers are selling off their loot for and they get rid of the annoying in game spam advertisements and bots.... THEN I won't view it as cheating, these guys don't deserve any bloody sympathy, not because of the game economy but because they deliberately and knowingly harass millions of people in game every single day with tell spams and do not stop. The economy won't get ruined because the actual players of the game will charge loot at a lower price and basically just undercut the Gold Farmers until they start to learn, It's the fact that they ruin actual GAMEPLAY rather than the economy that is the biggest problem, they harass players and take up space on servers and half the time most of them are just bots.
You want to get rid of Gold Farming? Come up with a game that actually takes some brains today.... Now I don't know what kind of programming or source code games like World of Warcraft have, but it's ridiculously easy to see that if the game is simple enough for a frigging bot to be programmed into it, then they clearly have not put enough effort into the game to stop this kind of thing. In Star Wars Galaxies Pre-Cu and heck even The Saga of Ryzom, the game was complicated enough to stop idiots like these spamming everywhere and hogging different spawn points, stop complaining and whining about it generally and start bloody making some games that need a human being to play them if you think you know everything!
Quoting people doesn't make you clever, in fact, it makes you all the more stupid for not bothering to read the quotes you post in the first place.
i couldnt care less if it happened in a game like d&d online or everquest where the main content is pve
in a pvp mmorpg like lineage2 or the upcomming war it will destroy the competitive core of the game.
if i choose a pvp game i choose it to compete with other players. this competition should be based on rules just like any other (sports) game. i shouldnt be able just to shell out an extra 500$ to have 13 instead of 11 people on my soccer team, buy back a chess peace i lost or hire 10 chinese workers to carry me on their back for half of the marathon.
in l2 people buy charakters and gold (adena) from farmers to have the best weapons/ level/ buffs when they fight other guilds. this completely perverts the competitive nature of the game. not only do the farmers/ bot users block hunting grounds they also spiral up the cheating because if the 1st person buys gold for a +6 sword to beat the next player easily you can be sure that there are enought beaten idiots to buy gold for a +10
i can understand ppl that play only 4h a week and are new to the game want to have fun in a game dictated by the 40+h/week hardcore gamer that plays 3 years now but thats not solved by bringing in offline money. it should be solved by the mmo company having limited time servers or bringing in fresh/new servers from time to time or merging old/hardcore servers or making sure theres fair and fun competition on every level or.....
if your bored, visit my blog at:
http://craylon.wordpress.com/ dealing with the look of mmos with the nvidia 3d vision glasses
Any RMT that directly interferes with my playing is wrong wrong wrong. FFxi, if you have 4-5 well known rmt camping nm, that directly impacts my gameplayer, since now I have to compete with 4-5 of these guys that use botsand camp 24/7, making the only way to get said item through the auction house, which of course has a price driven up by the MASSIVE amount of people who buy gold and dont mind paying the rediculous price at auction, not to mention all the other people like myself who now have to farm 5x more to buy an item instead having to pay what its really worth.
Like someone said before me, until rmt doesn't interfere with my gaming, it will always bother me, and seeing them get banned by the thousands is nothing but good news.
Sooo... because you haven't been caught yet... that makes it okay? Some sound logic there.
Beyond that... just more of the same rationalization and rhetoric I've seen time and again by your type. You frame it a bit more intelligently than others.. but it's the same crap that's been regurgitated over and over.
You don't have to buy money to get through these games. You aren't entitled to circumvent the rules everyone else is held to, because you think your personal circumstances make you special or something - if you do, then I'd suggest getting over yourself. I know that Square, at least, is beginning to go after those who buy money as well... so whether other companies are or not remains to be seen.
RMT does absolutely, unquestionably affect the in-game economies. I have seen this happen first hand, both before and after, and it is 100% indisputable fact. Bringing a bunch of ill-gotten money into the game brings down the value of the in-game currency, and causes prices to go up, making items extremely difficult to get for legitimate players who actually *play* the game as intended. And let's not forget about the activites in support of RMT... botting, rare mob/drop monopolization, over-running of hunting areas, flooding of markets and on and on... Those are all prohibited in the ToS and accounts are banned for those activities as well. So when you buy money, you're contributing to those activities as well. But hey.. you haven't been banned yet, so that must make it okay, right?
So, because you and other lazy types feel it's beneath you to play the same game by the same rules everyone else is, everyone else has to suffer. I'm sure that makes you feel very distinguished. I mean that you can buy money instead of playing the game and acquiring it like everyone else... Wow... I stand in awe of you. Really, I do.
In truth... I'm not naive enough to think I or anyone else would get through to your type... You're too delusional and wrapped up in your own self-serving rhetoric to be reached... But these threads, and the mountains of utter ignorant crap just never fail to amaze me.
Bad rules are meant to be broken. Anti-RMT people aren't much different from the people who thought prohibition would make people stop drinking alcohol. It still happened, and making it illegal created a huge black market that ended in nothing but violence and vice a lot worse then people drinking. There is a direct relationship between monotonous time sinks and gold farming. Just as prohibition created a demand for alcohol time sinks create demand for power leveling and gold farming. Chinese farmers are the new mob, and all the high and mighty rhetoric isn't getting rid of them. Either you can try to address the cause (bad gameplay) or you can try to attack the symptoms you described. But no amount of treatment will get rid of it if you don't attack the cause.
It took about a decade for people to give up on the utopian idea of prohibition. I wonder how long the RMT people can scream and have no real effect before trying to think for themselves. If you really want to get gold farming out of the game, try getting rid of the reasons why people are always looking for shortcuts. And instead of lauding every half assed dev ban announcement, how bout asking why they are willing to take millions in sub money from farmers without doing any permanent fix.
Once again... more empty, self-serving rationalization...
"Bad rules"? If you don't like the rules, don't play the game. No one is forcing you to. You really believe that you simply disagreeing with rules gives you the right to ignore them? By that logic, if you have a rule that you don't want people wearing shoes on your carpet, someone comes in and decides they don't agree... they can ignore it and freely walk around your home? I mean... they probably think it's a bad rule...and bad rules are made to be broken, right? Friend of mine used to think having to stop at Stop signs at 2 or 3AM was stupid if there was obviously no traffic... a "bad rule" to him... So does that mean he had the right to ignore it? After all, bad rules are made to be broken, aren't they?
Sorry.. but that logic is completely self-serving and ridiculous - though it is entirely consistent with the typical pro-RMT mentality.
Seriously, who do you think you are? It's obvious by now you feel you're above any rule that you personally disagree with - which, again, is delusional. But really... If the rules are made for everyone, and 100s of thousands, or even millions, are capable of playing by those rules... then why can't you? Oh wait "I don't have enough time." Hey, tough luck. Again, don't like the rules, cancel your account, stop sending your subscription fee, don't play the game. MMOs are not a fast-food chain... you can't "have it your way".
Every MMO out there provides rules and settings that allow players to achieve anything they want, given the effort. That someone doesn't want to expend that effort, while thousands of others are, isn't the developers' problem. That some stand so proudly in defense of RMT isn't exactly brave or praise-worthy. Buying your way through a game is cheap, it's cheesy, it's cheating and it supports activities (botting, monopolization, etc) that disrupts the game for the thousands of others who are playing the game as intended.
And please don't come back with "Well, when the devs find a system that isn't flawed..."... That's a load of crap; just another of the Pro-RMT favored rationalizations. The system works fine as it is - it's only the self-serving morons who can't handle not having what they want when they want that seem to feel "it's broken", because it's not expedient to them.
Let's bottom-line this, shall we? What it boils down to is this.. you and those like you don't want to play by the rules because they aren't expedient to what you want to do. So, you find some kind of rationalization that makes sense to you, throw on blinders to all the RMT-related activity you are supporting that hinders others' gameplay, and happily trudge ahead. So long as it pleases you, who cares how it affects anyone else, right? And that might be all well and good in a single-player game, but in a game with resources and an economy that is shared by thousands of others, it's disgusting. I don't expect you to have any conscience about it - if you did you wouldn't do it in the first place.
You know what... there are some newer MMOs coming to the West here where the game itself has no subscription fee, but has in-game item malls where you can purchase items and it's not a violation of their ToS. You can spend all the RL money you want and no one else is affected by it. If being allowed to buy your way through the game is "Utopia" for you pro-RMT folk, why don't give those a spin?
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
... or the people with less time simply accepting that they have two options:
1. They don't have as much time to play as others and so their progress will be slower, and that it's not "unfair" - it's life.
2. If they feel they can't progress as fast as they'd like due to the way the game is setup compared against the free time they have available, that perhaps the game simply isn't the right one for them and they should look into another one.
The Pro-RMT mentality is the ultimate example of "cake and eat it, too". They voluntarily put themself in a game where the rules don't fall in their favor then feel that gives them carte blanche to bend and circumvent the rules to their liking, blaming everything else for "making them do it".
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Well its not about whining or hating on peeple who can afford to spend cash for ingame currency, its about the fact that they make already hard to do processes like buyin a piece of gear you have been after for a while. Example: I played FF11 for a while tryin to buy a piece of armor that had a average cost of about 4 million gil a fairly tuff amout to come by then by the time I had saved up that amount the cost of said armor had increased to 12 million gil therefor makin it nearer to impossible to get the items i wanted bein a legit player. You cant use time as an excuse oh some peeple play these games all day well i work a normal 8-5 job but i dont buy money to catch up in time sorry to say it but if you dont have time to get the ingame cash they right way then go play an online shooter game or sumthing you dont have to ruin for peeple who make time and enjoy these games. so in conclusion down with RMTs and jus play these mmos like every1 else does you will get what your after eventually.
sincerly the guy upstairs with your mom
A better analogy would be, is it _morally wrong_ to sell a MP3 you paid for with your time and money to a friend, you would not retain it afterwards. It is still copywritten by the same person, it stays intact in every way, the only change is that there is an exchange between two people outside the constructs of the original agreement.
Now tell me, this is morally wrong. Tell me why, because it doesnt make any sense _why_ would something be wrong.
right on I'm with you there. take a look at pirates of burning sea. It is not going to be item centric they say. should be a breath of fresh air- a jewel that stands out of a crowd of gear whoring, everquest clones
I read these threads and the same thing is proven time and again by the Pro-RMT crowd...
That is - they should really be playing single player games where they aren't interacting with other players and their actions don't affect anyone but themselves, because it's clear that the concept of interacting with others without cheating is lost on them.
When you peel away the rhetoric and excuses, Pro-RMT really are people who have some strange sense of entitlement; who feel that somehow because they want something now and not later, that it's their "right" to have it; that any rules that stand in their way don't apply to them because they prevent them from getting what they want.
The reason why anti-RMT rules, as well as prohibition of any related activity exist is because those things skew a game system that is designed to be equally applied to all players. Be it a class change quest, hunting a specific mob to get a weapon or piece of armor, etc... the game is set up so that all players face the same odds and the same challenges as everyone else. Thus, it's equal across the board. That setup doesn't favor one player over another. It is perfectly fair and perfectly fine for everyone... except the pro-RMT type who feel that they shouldn't have to face those challenges or be held to those odds. There's a degree of jealousy there that some people simply have more time than others to play, or perhaps, have a better string of luck and so can acquire things and achieve goals faster than others. To someone with common-sense, this is called "reality". To Pro-RMT, this is "unfair". And from that, their endless string of self-serving excuses and rationalizations are born.
- They blame the game setup - "It's too gear-centric, so we have no choice but to buy money to stay competitive!". BS. Your opinion of the game's setup doesn't give you the right to violate the ToS. It does, however, give you the right to stop playing if you disagree with it that strongly.
- They blame and belittle others for their own personal circumstances - "I work and don't have time to sit around playing games all day like these kids who live with their parents... so I have to buy money to keep up!". BS. Others' real-life circumstances are not a "Pass Go" card for you to ignore the same rules you accept to adhere to by playing the game. Jealousy's a bitch... your best bet is to learn to get over it.
- They all become law-experts and regurgitate the ever-popular, "The ToS wouldn't hold up in court!"... This one cracks me up in two ways. First, because they're acknowledging that the rules exist and that they're breaking them deliberately. Second because I don't know of any RMT-related banning that's ever required a court trial to be carried out. You agree to their terms, you violate those terms, you're suspended or banned... no lawsuits required. In other words, that argument, like all Pro-RMT arguments is disingenuous and ridiculous.
- In all, any argument that ends with "I have to buy money to keep up!" is false... Nowhere is it stated that you are supposed to make any degree of progress in a set amount of time. No where is it stated that you are entitled to be able to keep up with others who have twice as much time to play as you. Once again... because that mentality is entirely concocted and parroted by the Pro-RMT folk for their own self-interest.
And finally... Here's just one illustration of why RMT is not allowed, why it screws up the game for many others and why those who support it are greedy, self-centered cheats...
You decide you want to get an item that drops from a certain rare mob. You know it's a popular item, so competition would be fierce... but still you're competing with other players, so it should be purely based on "may the better or faster player win", right? Wrong. You get to the spawn spot to find what soon betray themselves to be completely automated script-controlled bots, run by a program capable of reading the game's memory to detect when the target creature has spawned - before you or any other legit player even sees it spawn on screen. They begin running toward the target and you notice they're running way faster than they should be - a quick check of their gear shows that they're not wearing anything that would increase their speed.... They haven't used any skill or any item to allow it... They're clearly using a speed hack. It's obvious by now that you're competing with bots. They get the spawn...they get the drop. They bring it back and list it on the Auction House. You think "Okay,well, maybe I'll get lucky next time"... 2 or 3 spawns later it's the same thing. The botters are monopolizing the area and you and the other legit people have no chance, and you learn from someone else there that the same bots are there 24/7, camping the same mob.
So you figure,well, maybe I can buy it from the Auction House. You return to the AH to find that the price has been driven sky-high and practically all sales have been from the same 1 or 2 names - interestingly the same name you saw out there camping the spawn. So they are pretty much dominating that item at both ends. You're either competing against a script that's many times faster than you, or you're paying a ridiculous price and putting a bunch of "to-be-sold" in-game money in their coffers, for the Pro-RMT type to go ahead and buy so they can "keep up".
That's a snap-shot of what RMT botters typically do in game - one of many different examples. This is what pro-RMT behavior leads to and supports. By buying your way through the game, you are not only supporting something that is expressely forbidden and bannable, you are helping to continue screwing over the legit players who are trying to play the game as designed. This is why I say, with 100% confidence, that pro-RMT behavior is greedy, ego-centric and inexcusable.
You want to cheat your way through a game, play a single player game. Play Morrowind or Oblivion... Play .HACK for the PS2 - which literally simulates a MMO. Then you can cheat all you want, and no one else is affected by it. You aren't qualified to share any such environment with others.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
There are three great ways to get rid of the gold farmers so why are they not used?
1) Ban all IP's from China. Other countries do it so why can't the USA? Not to mention if the game companies are going to be putting up servers in those countries then this makes sense.
2) Ban all credit card numbers from China.
3) DO NOT sell game cards! Before you whiners ask how can I play this game then your answer is open a checking account and get a debit/VISA card. Problem solved.
4) Make a game where the economy does not have to rely on money of some form or another, or the characters don't have to have uber items.
Geee now wasn't that simple. This give them more work they would have to do to circumvent these restrictions. Will some of them do it. Of course, but the game companies would have to take a stand for what they believe is right too.
It's obvious that the author of this article has never played an MMO as a crafter.
While the availability of in-game currency (or items) for real-life money is indeed a time-saver, and it does have little impact on the individual progression of all the other players in the game, it's not without negative impact.
If everyone in your given MMO is playing the PvE game, that is grinding their way through levels and quests, then yes... gold farmers don't hurt much. So instead of spending 6 hours a night for 3 months to grind out my set of epic gear, I pay some guy $200 for it. Big deal.
Well, yeah. If the server offers PvP, you now handed the rich kid the keys to the city. It doesn't matter how well I know the game, or how good my skills are, if someone can just buy their way to the top of the equipment ladder. As we all know, for 95% of the games out there, you don't really fight... your epic pants fight for you. So Rich Kid Billy buys the Sword of a Zillion Lies off ebay and mows me down before I can get two hits off because my semi-epic armor just can't compete. What fun.
Then there's the crafters. Some people enjoy crafting goods, and a few games out there (Star Wars Galaxies (RIP), Vanguard (see you in the ICU ward)) actually have crafting systems that you can spend as much time and effort in as your adventuring counterparts spend hacking and slashing. In these games, the crafters take raw materials and combine them to produce goods which are hopefully better than the average loot out there.
When gold farmers come and flash their warez, the adventurer now has a choice. He can use junk he gets from loot drops, he can spend his gold to buy good equipment from crafters, or he can spend real life cash and afford to buy epic gear (or buy the gear directly in some cases) and bypass the crafter gear. If gold is easy enough to find, the crafters have no market. They fade away, and you are left with the strict dichotomy of poor players with junk and rich players with the best. Gee! I can play a fantasy game where I'm stuck in the same underclass rut I'm enjoying in real life. What fun.
That's why gold farmers suck. I don't care if Bob wants to take the easy road and "finish" the game faster than I do. I do care that I can't compete in PvP unless I lay out hard earned cash. I do care that I can't enjoy the crafting side of the game, because the market is saturated with materials farmed by the gold farmers, and cast-off epics which cost less than my costs to produce lesser quality items.
Excellent points, all.. Only thing I disagree with is that RMT doesn't affect the individual player. It absolutely can. I find that the dynamics of how RMT affects the legit player-base is different from game to game - in FFXI, for example, it had a *very* direct affect on players' ability to afford gear and items - crafting and otherwise - across the board. The other side is if a player wants to save the money (or don't have it to begin with and doesn't feel like farming for items which are dropped by mobs that are *also* monopolized by RMT botters), and they decide to try and camp the mob that drops it, they are - once again - dealing with scripted/botted toons who are camping those mobs 24/7 and leave next to no chance for a legit player to get claim. In other words, RMT controls all aspects. Good thing is, Square-Enix is making amazing progress in dealing with them.
In another MMO which is pretty much hopelessly entrenched with RMT, Lineage 2, it's to the point where the players have become dependent on the botters being there. When NCSoft decides to do one of their PR bannings, the price of mats literally skyrocket because now players have to do something they aren't used to - get the materials themselves.
Point is... there's an effect in every MMO that RMT are a presence in, and it does affect legit players somewhere along the line.
At the end of the day, RMT is lame. People who support RMT and buy their way through the games, with all their hollow excuses, are lame. The whole thing is lame. If someone can come up with a model that makes the need to buy money irrelevant, then all the better. But, even in a game where it's *extremely* easy to make money, like Guild Wars or even WoW, RMT is a presence - some players are just that lazy.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I don't really care what another player or farmer does. What I mind is the non-stop lines across your chat box of advertisements for the websites and the in game mail with the same advertisements. If the devs made a way for people to ignore such things if that is their choice, then that would be fantastic... the people that want to buy can buy and the people that don't won't be bothered with all the spam... spam in my real life through email and phone soliciters is bad enough, I don't want it while I'm playing too...
Well, you have the gold buyers to thank for that, too. They're helping to promote and support the RMT to the point that there's alot of competition out there now. So, just like in other businesses (and I use the term as lightly as possible in this context), the different groups are now hustling for more customers. Everyone's in-game mail, shout channels and private /tell channels are their marketing space. Believe me, your personal enjoyment or immersion is not of a concern to them. Getting your money is. If they could get your personal email address from your MMO account somehow, they'd be spamming you there, too.
Regardless of what aspect of RMT you're talking about, it can be traced back to the gold-buyers and their lame, self-serving attitudes. If they would stop buying their way through the game and actually *play* it and earn their money in-game as intended, there wouldn't be so great a presence of RMT in these games, and no one would be annoyed by them.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
It is making things in game aggravating for crafters and those wanting to buy their items. Crafters put their stuff on vendors and those that sell it for real money come and buy it all so they can sell it for real money.
Now the crafters are putting their items on vendors for exhoribant amounts trying to deter the jerks but in the long run it's the average player as well as the crafter who suffers.
Didn't FFXI close or reset a few servers because inflation got so high?