The only way this should matter to anyone is if the game is PvP-focused. Being able to buy your way to a top tier PvP character is unfair, but for PvE it really doesn't matter.
How is it unfair? You have a choice to do it or not.
If you really are a pvper, do you only target players of equal gearing or do you go for the weaker enemy? If you go for the weaker enemies isn't that UNFAIR and add odds with your FAIRNESS?
Ask him about twink battlegrounds in WoW. Yep, Blizzard offered them what they ask for. Guess what happened to them? Few play them, as the purpose of PvP is to gank undergeared and >10 level lower toons. PvP is like that from EvE to WoW.
I personally fight people at my level, I leave the cheesy players to have a wet dream camping lowbies as "fun", instead (and laughing at it's stupidity...but, but he has to have a main!!! Or in EvE, to give players a sense of "danger". Danger in EvE is falling asleep at a gate [have done that before! lol] and waking up where you were 8hrs later peering at the same ships oblivious to it all...tsk, tsk multiboxers).
The only way this should matter to anyone is if the game is PvP-focused. Being able to buy your way to a top tier PvP character is unfair, but for PvE it really doesn't matter.
How is it unfair? You have a choice to do it or not.
If you really are a pvper, do you only target players of equal gearing or do you go for the weaker enemy? If you go for the weaker enemies isn't that UNFAIR and add odds with your FAIRNESS?
Danger in EvE is falling asleep
Tell me about it. Every time I try to play it I end up with a keyboard pattern on the side of my face for hours.
There should be a legal argument that makes it wrong for companies to add this feature. The argument is that players invest money over time in a subscription (and time) in a virtual world where character progression is the game's goal and where your peers' development or lack thereof is a critical part of the MMO experience.
I don't play games to "invest". Heck, i don't even need a virtual world. Games are pure entertainment products that help you kill time. Anyone who thinks playing is an "investment" ... would have an uphill battle to convince any legislator.
I don't play games to "invest". Heck, i don't even need a virtual world. Games are pure entertainment products that help you kill time. Anyone who thinks playing is an "investment" ... would have an uphill battle to convince any legislator.
What you do in an MMO has value whether you "feel like it does" or not. People have been buying MMO toons and virtual stuff in games like Second Life on the grey/black market for years. In fact what this thread is about is just the companies themselves muscling their way into a piece of that action.
I wouldn't care others buying max level characters if these games were not becoming less and less RPGs. I play these games for the world, the immersion, and I think things like buy everything, teleport everywhere etc. are killing the RPG aspect of it.
Of course others may love to be able to buy everything in the game and may feel like they can't care less about RPG. I don't blame them. Everybody is entitled to their personal choices, and likes and dislikes.
There should be a legal argument that makes it wrong for companies to add this feature. The argument is that players invest money over time in a subscription (and time) in a virtual world where character progression is the game's goal and where your peers' development or lack thereof is a critical part of the MMO experience.
I don't play games to "invest". Heck, i don't even need a virtual world. Games are pure entertainment products that help you kill time. Anyone who thinks playing is an "investment" ... would have an uphill battle to convince any legislator.
Huh?
Just because RMT laws haven't caught up in the West, doesn't mean they'll never catch up.
Players may not have the right to own IP directly, but the time and money they put into the game can be considered an investment, with the dividend is their character itself. That character is a commodity that could be bought and sold for their profit, as they took the trouble to gear the character that in itself has no value unless a player develop it.
I would say no in the case of pve but yes in the case of pvp "if" the game has a longer leveling curve.
If it takes a few weeks to get a max level pvp character then no big deal. if it takes 6 months to a year (thinking of the older games now) then buying a max level character is pretty much buying top dog along with everyone else who buys one.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
The only way this should matter to anyone is if the game is PvP-focused. Being able to buy your way to a top tier PvP character is unfair, but for PvE it really doesn't matter.
How is it unfair? You have a choice to do it or not.
If you really are a pvper, do you only target players of equal gearing or do you go for the weaker enemy? If you go for the weaker enemies isn't that UNFAIR and add odds with your FAIRNESS?
Not sure what you are trying to say but it's "unfair" to all the lowbies who will never be able to defend themselves or at least have a chance to rival that person in a reasonable amount of time. Your mileage may vary on what that is.
As far as your "if you really are a pvp'er" that is immaterial as that doesn't have a universal meaning at all.
I'm with the OP in that it does take away from playing the game but with a caveat that if the game has only one leveling path, one starter area, etc, it might be tedious to "do it all again".
Especially if the game really isn't that great.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
There should be a legal argument that makes it wrong for companies to add this feature. The argument is that players invest money over time in a subscription (and time) in a virtual world where character progression is the game's goal and where your peers' development or lack thereof is a critical part of the MMO experience.
I don't play games to "invest". Heck, i don't even need a virtual world. Games are pure entertainment products that help you kill time. Anyone who thinks playing is an "investment" ... would have an uphill battle to convince any legislator.
Huh?
Just because RMT laws haven't caught up in the West, doesn't mean they'll never catch up.
Players may not have the right to own IP directly, but the time and money they put into the game can be considered an investment, with the dividend is their character itself. That character is a commodity that could be bought and sold for their profit, as they took the trouble to gear the character that in itself has no value unless a player develop it.
The operating phrase is "can be". So what? I can also say it is entertainment like a movie. You can't sue to get time you spend on a movie back, can you?
Today it is not considered as an investment by law. Good luck changing it.
The only way this should matter to anyone is if the game is PvP-focused. Being able to buy your way to a top tier PvP character is unfair, but for PvE it really doesn't matter.
How is it unfair? You have a choice to do it or not.
If you really are a pvper, do you only target players of equal gearing or do you go for the weaker enemy? If you go for the weaker enemies isn't that UNFAIR and add odds with your FAIRNESS?
Not sure what you are trying to say but it's "unfair" to all the lowbies who will never be able to defend themselves or at least have a chance to rival that person in a reasonable amount of time. Your mileage may vary on what that is.
As far as your "if you really are a pvp'er" that is immaterial as that doesn't have a universal meaning at all.
I'm with the OP in that it does take away from playing the game but with a caveat that if the game has only one leveling path, one starter area, etc, it might be tedious to "do it all again".
Especially if the game really isn't that great.
I asked how it was unfair. He has to explain it. It seems fair to me.
Perhaps he means something other than fairness. Since you choose to reply to me, tell me what he was thinking?
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
I think people who are trying desperately to waggle their dick at everyone around them have some serious problems. Just play the goddamn game and stop worrying about what anyone around you is doing. If someone buys a endgame character, so what? How does that directly affect you at all? You might feel bad? That's your problem.
It's a game. Play it and stop worrying about everyone else.
The only way this should matter to anyone is if the game is PvP-focused. Being able to buy your way to a top tier PvP character is unfair, but for PvE it really doesn't matter.
Why does that even matter? You're going to go attack someone else. Who cares how they got where they are, you're battling against what they are right now and, for the most part, people who buy their way into PvP don't actually know how to *DO* PvP. Skill is more important, in general, than gear. Besides, if you don't like people who do that, don't PvP with them. Problem solved.
Not going to vote because there are too many determining factors. What style of game play? How long has the game been released? Is there some form of competition that would put this individual at a huge advantage (open pvp for instance)?
Questions such as these and many more are very important to as when considering something like this.
Does it belittle the player that got there by playing? Yes...but it was bound to happen sooner or later. It isn't fair to take away the fluffernutter's fluff and put it behind the counter and not ask other players to give up some of their sacred cows, and place them behind the counter.
Frankly, I think its justice. For far too long, the achievement-wankers have been taking away my content for the sake of making their grinds to max level "speedy" and "efficient". Buffbots became a protected class, getting special protection from GMs, simply because the achievement-wankers demanded 24/7 buffs. Fast travel became de rigueur. Crafting and economics became loot-based and achievement based.
So I have a bit of schadenfreude when I hear the complaints from the achievers that say "this is an outrage that's against the spirit of the game!" Because we, the roleplayers and immersion junkies, said the same thing back then when you nerfed our worlds. But our lament fell on deaf ears.
So, too, will this lament fall on deaf ears, I'm afraid. The lure of the über is much too strong for them to not consider commoditizing it and putting it up for sale.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
To me this really depends on the game. Something like WoW where it has been out for a long time and the vast majority of the community is at max level i really don't see it as a terrible thing. Allowing people to come back or come into the game near the top with 5-10 levels to figure out their class and quickly join friends or the rest of the community at max level really could help with the staying power of some older games. That being said if this is offered within the first year or so of a game releasing or at release i completely disagree with that kind of implementation.
There should be a legal argument that makes it wrong for companies to add this feature. The argument is that players invest money over time in a subscription (and time) in a virtual world where character progression is the game's goal and where your peers' development or lack thereof is a critical part of the MMO experience.
I don't play games to "invest". Heck, i don't even need a virtual world. Games are pure entertainment products that help you kill time. Anyone who thinks playing is an "investment" ... would have an uphill battle to convince any legislator.
Huh?
Just because RMT laws haven't caught up in the West, doesn't mean they'll never catch up.
Players may not have the right to own IP directly, but the time and money they put into the game can be considered an investment, with the dividend is their character itself. That character is a commodity that could be bought and sold for their profit, as they took the trouble to gear the character that in itself has no value unless a player develop it.
The operating phrase is "can be". So what? I can also say it is entertainment like a movie. You can't sue to get time you spend on a movie back, can you?
Today it is not considered as an investment by law. Good luck changing it.
You can't sue McDonald's because it was your own dumb fault you spilled hot coffee on your lap when common sense would tell you it was hot, can you? Oh wait......Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants - 1994 - Idiot was awarded $2.86 million.
And then there is the serial plantiff, Alfredo Garcia, who is bound to a wheelchair and has, to date, filed over 600 lawsuits against restaurants and other businesses for handicap violations. It resulted in new California legislation (California Senate Bill 1186) being enacted to combat such frivolous lawsuits.
So don't say it will never happen. Crap like this happens all the time, so I wouldn't be surprised if some day some gamer filed, and possibly won, a lawsuit against an MMO company for time and/or money investments lost.
But I will agree with you completely that there is NO investment at all in an MMO if you are just a player. Whether you payed a monthly subscription, purchased from the cash shop, spent many months/years developing your character(s), etc.
These companies pretty much always have it in their own terms of service (ToS), that they own all rights to everything in the game and the player owns nothing. They also usually state that they can do anything with your account, characters, etc. such as temporarily suspending it, permanently banning it, or even deleting it all together whenever they want with or without prior notice.
Heck, I played City of Heroes for a year, up until the day it was announced NC Soft suddenly decided to shut the game down. I spent over $1,000 just on the cash shop in that time and finally bought a 2 month subscription that was set to expire a few days after the announcement. I was planning to renew my sub but there was no point since the game was shutting down in a few months, and they weren't taking anymore money for the game anyway. I admit I was pretty pissed. Not because of all the money I spent on the game, but because of the controversy surrounding the shutdown. NC Soft just walked into Paragon Studios one day and said "We're shutting the game down and you're all out of a job" pretty much.
Not once did I ever think that all the money I spent on the game was a lost "investment". This is life. Shit happens. The best we can do is remember the fun we had and move on, and I did.
Originally posted by emperorwings No not at all. Should earn all your levels not buy them.
While I personally agree with you and have no interest in buying anything, what difference does it make to you what anyone else does? How does it directly harm you if someone else wants to shell out a couple of hundred bucks to buy their way to "victory"? I don't get that at all.
Too many comments to read. So forgive me if it's been mentioned somewhere in here.
The reason some MMOs are selling maxed, or near maxed, level characters is most likely to combat the gold sellers who sell power level services.
Some players who have played a game for a long time just don't want to go through all the low level stuff after doing it a hundred times already. Some players just want to get a new character to max level so they can do end game content and/or raids, whatever it is, with guild mates and/or friends and not keep people waiting on them to level. And then you have the players who are just flat lazy and don't want to learn the game. All they want is to reach max level as quick as possible so they can do all the "cool stuff".
I am completely against buying anything from a 3rd party. If it's offered by the MMO company themselves, then I consider it to be more legitimate and you have little to no risk of getting banned for it.
From what I've heard, gold sellers selling power level services require you to hand over your username and password to the game with the promise of doing the work for you. What happens is they will take your money and then change your password and use your account to bot farm and/or spam their advertising messages. You also run the risk of your account being permanently banned by the company if you are caught buying in game items and/or services from anyone other than the MMO company if it's against the ToS. If it's not in the ToS then knock yourself out and take the risk if you want. I sure as hell wouldn't.
As for me personally; I kinda like doing low level content. Sometimes I like leveling up a new character more than the end game grind to get the best gear and whatnot. Heck, when I played City of Heroes up until they announced it was shutting down for good, I bought many character slots. I had at least 30 characters, with at least a couple unused slots. Only 5 characters were max level. I played Guild Wars 1 for about 6 years before I got tired of it and I've created and deleted countless characters.
As for my opinion on whether or not a player buying a max level character from the company is fair? Well I don't care. It's their money. They can do it if they want to. But it ultimately turns the game into a pay-to-win business model and from my experience, the gaming community frowns upon that. I don't have a problem with pay-to-win unless it is something that gives only those that pay a much better advantage then those that don't. So if I reach max level the hard way and you just buy your max level character, as long as we both have somewhat equality in gear and whatnot that we can obtain, more power to you. But if your payed for max leveled character is going to kick all hard leveled characters in the butt with them not having a chance at all of beating you, then I have a problem with it and would be more likely to go to another game.
Though there is the problem with players not familiar with the game buying a maxed character who do ruin it for others. They don't know how to play the game so they suck in cooperative end game content/raids/etc. and make it much harder to accomplish the task at hand. So personally I would prefer players be required to actually create a single character and level it up the hard way BEFORE they are even allowed to buy a max level character from the cash shop. At least this way players will be forced to actually learn how to play the game so they don't jump in and ruin it for everybody else. In City of Heroes there were a lot of complaints about players just wanting to get to the max level. These players would pay other players in game currency to do the work for them. These players would be standing there at max level and asking questions about the most basic things of the game because they had no friggen clue what to do.
So to others who say "How does it affect you? What business is it of yours they bought their max level character?"......read the above paragraph.
I personally prefer leveling to end game, than just starting a max lvl, it would be fairly confusing if it was a mmo with a lot of skills to use, but ones with restricted skill keys it might not be such a big deal. Anyways I think it would be fine if for instance once you max lvl a class, you are then free to pay to max that class if you decided to change server to join friends etc, but then this whole thing really just destroys server transfers depending on the price.
I often ask myself if a company needs to resort to selling virtual items to survive then perhaps it should be dead and leave more room in the MMORPG market for new games. Generally Single player games will come out, people will play them, people will finish them, the game will be done, and people will move on to something new and better. Then we have a game like WoW that people never seem to give up. We have games like Everquest (which I love), that probably should have died a long time ago. There are a lot of new (free to play) games that aren't very good and probably should have died, but switched to free to play to survive. If most of these crappy games had died there would be a lot more room for something new that many people would join. Instead we see the same bad formula used over and over again in games that seem very similar. As much as I love gaming I would prefer to take the risk of MMOs dying off then to see them continue in their current form.
Originally posted by OzivoisThere should be a legal argument that makes it wrong for companies to add this feature. The argument is that players invest money over time in a subscription (and time) in a virtual world where character progression is the game's goal and where your peers' development or lack thereof is a critical part of the MMO experience. I don't play games to "invest". Heck, i don't even need a virtual world. Games are pure entertainment products that help you kill time. Anyone who thinks playing is an "investment" ... would have an uphill battle to convince any legislator.
Huh?Just because RMT laws haven't caught up in the West, doesn't mean they'll never catch up. Players may not have the right to own IP directly, but the time and money they put into the game can be considered an investment, with the dividend is their character itself. That character is a commodity that could be bought and sold for their profit, as they took the trouble to gear the character that in itself has no value unless a player develop it.
The operating phrase is "can be". So what? I can also say it is entertainment like a movie. You can't sue to get time you spend on a movie back, can you?Today it is not considered as an investment by law. Good luck changing it.
You can't sue McDonald's because it was your own dumb fault you spilled hot coffee on your lap when common sense would tell you it was hot, can you? Oh wait......Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants - 1994 - Idiot was awarded $2.86 million.
No, justice was served.
Serving coffee that is 180F is hotter than even the safety feature on water heaters to prevent scalding (which is 120F). Why do you believe that safety feature was featured? It's very easy to die in a tub of near boiling water, let alone those with health conditions that can't tell if the water is that hot (e.g., diabetics).
McDonald's erred by serving coffee that literally caused that woman to have 2nd and 3rd degree burns (people who try to scuff that lawsuit never mention the actual damage done to her, just character assassinate her instead).
She wasn't an idiot, she bought a cup of coffee that people assume would be no hotter than in an automatic coffee machine at home, or stovetop, not 180F that can burn skin itself! That was a nasty scalding, which required skin grafting, too.
Justified.
[quote] Originally posted by monkeyslap
Not once did I ever think that all the money I spent on the game was a lost "investment". This is life. Shit happens. The best we can do is remember the fun we had and move on, and I did.
Huh?
If RMT laws catch up in the West, you bet folks will bank on their game time and want the dividends for it.
Next thing we'll know, gamers could make a living playing games, and not off them (e.g., streamers et al).
Comments
Ask him about twink battlegrounds in WoW. Yep, Blizzard offered them what they ask for. Guess what happened to them? Few play them, as the purpose of PvP is to gank undergeared and >10 level lower toons. PvP is like that from EvE to WoW.
I personally fight people at my level, I leave the cheesy players to have a wet dream camping lowbies as "fun", instead (and laughing at it's stupidity...but, but he has to have a main!!! Or in EvE, to give players a sense of "danger". Danger in EvE is falling asleep at a gate [have done that before! lol] and waking up where you were 8hrs later peering at the same ships oblivious to it all...tsk, tsk multiboxers).
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
Tell me about it. Every time I try to play it I end up with a keyboard pattern on the side of my face for hours.
What you do in an MMO has value whether you "feel like it does" or not. People have been buying MMO toons and virtual stuff in games like Second Life on the grey/black market for years. In fact what this thread is about is just the companies themselves muscling their way into a piece of that action.
I wouldn't care others buying max level characters if these games were not becoming less and less RPGs. I play these games for the world, the immersion, and I think things like buy everything, teleport everywhere etc. are killing the RPG aspect of it.
Of course others may love to be able to buy everything in the game and may feel like they can't care less about RPG. I don't blame them. Everybody is entitled to their personal choices, and likes and dislikes.
Huh?
Just because RMT laws haven't caught up in the West, doesn't mean they'll never catch up.
Players may not have the right to own IP directly, but the time and money they put into the game can be considered an investment, with the dividend is their character itself. That character is a commodity that could be bought and sold for their profit, as they took the trouble to gear the character that in itself has no value unless a player develop it.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
I would say no in the case of pve but yes in the case of pvp "if" the game has a longer leveling curve.
If it takes a few weeks to get a max level pvp character then no big deal. if it takes 6 months to a year (thinking of the older games now) then buying a max level character is pretty much buying top dog along with everyone else who buys one.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Not sure what you are trying to say but it's "unfair" to all the lowbies who will never be able to defend themselves or at least have a chance to rival that person in a reasonable amount of time. Your mileage may vary on what that is.
As far as your "if you really are a pvp'er" that is immaterial as that doesn't have a universal meaning at all.
I'm with the OP in that it does take away from playing the game but with a caveat that if the game has only one leveling path, one starter area, etc, it might be tedious to "do it all again".
Especially if the game really isn't that great.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The operating phrase is "can be". So what? I can also say it is entertainment like a movie. You can't sue to get time you spend on a movie back, can you?
Today it is not considered as an investment by law. Good luck changing it.
I asked how it was unfair. He has to explain it. It seems fair to me.
Perhaps he means something other than fairness. Since you choose to reply to me, tell me what he was thinking?
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I think people who are trying desperately to waggle their dick at everyone around them have some serious problems. Just play the goddamn game and stop worrying about what anyone around you is doing. If someone buys a endgame character, so what? How does that directly affect you at all? You might feel bad? That's your problem.
It's a game. Play it and stop worrying about everyone else.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Why does that even matter? You're going to go attack someone else. Who cares how they got where they are, you're battling against what they are right now and, for the most part, people who buy their way into PvP don't actually know how to *DO* PvP. Skill is more important, in general, than gear. Besides, if you don't like people who do that, don't PvP with them. Problem solved.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
I think it fair in a game like wow where level don't mean much
Though for a boxes sell monthly fee game like WoW , players must have right to chose play max level or start as new .... for free. Like what GW did.
If they sell it for money then it called greedy , but still not to point of unfair
but in game where max mean something as archive then it unfair.
I don't know about SOE , but if Blizzard sell gears in WOW then you can call it unfair , just level then acceptable .
Though i find it funny
they ban and kinds of RMT
Then they do what RMT did to grab more money ... lmao
If they (Blizzard) want to balance max level players population , then just give options to raise max level for free because they WoW is subs game.
Ask for money ? how low did they fall after merge with Activision ?
Not going to vote because there are too many determining factors. What style of game play? How long has the game been released? Is there some form of competition that would put this individual at a huge advantage (open pvp for instance)?
Questions such as these and many more are very important to as when considering something like this.
I don't think it's unfair at all.
If someone wants to pay to skip the grind, let them.
Does it belittle the player that got there by playing? Yes...but it was bound to happen sooner or later. It isn't fair to take away the fluffernutter's fluff and put it behind the counter and not ask other players to give up some of their sacred cows, and place them behind the counter.
Frankly, I think its justice. For far too long, the achievement-wankers have been taking away my content for the sake of making their grinds to max level "speedy" and "efficient". Buffbots became a protected class, getting special protection from GMs, simply because the achievement-wankers demanded 24/7 buffs. Fast travel became de rigueur. Crafting and economics became loot-based and achievement based.
So I have a bit of schadenfreude when I hear the complaints from the achievers that say "this is an outrage that's against the spirit of the game!" Because we, the roleplayers and immersion junkies, said the same thing back then when you nerfed our worlds. But our lament fell on deaf ears.
So, too, will this lament fall on deaf ears, I'm afraid. The lure of the über is much too strong for them to not consider commoditizing it and putting it up for sale.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
You can't sue McDonald's because it was your own dumb fault you spilled hot coffee on your lap when common sense would tell you it was hot, can you? Oh wait......Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants - 1994 - Idiot was awarded $2.86 million.
And then there is the serial plantiff, Alfredo Garcia, who is bound to a wheelchair and has, to date, filed over 600 lawsuits against restaurants and other businesses for handicap violations. It resulted in new California legislation (California Senate Bill 1186) being enacted to combat such frivolous lawsuits.
So don't say it will never happen. Crap like this happens all the time, so I wouldn't be surprised if some day some gamer filed, and possibly won, a lawsuit against an MMO company for time and/or money investments lost.
But I will agree with you completely that there is NO investment at all in an MMO if you are just a player. Whether you payed a monthly subscription, purchased from the cash shop, spent many months/years developing your character(s), etc.
These companies pretty much always have it in their own terms of service (ToS), that they own all rights to everything in the game and the player owns nothing. They also usually state that they can do anything with your account, characters, etc. such as temporarily suspending it, permanently banning it, or even deleting it all together whenever they want with or without prior notice.
Heck, I played City of Heroes for a year, up until the day it was announced NC Soft suddenly decided to shut the game down. I spent over $1,000 just on the cash shop in that time and finally bought a 2 month subscription that was set to expire a few days after the announcement. I was planning to renew my sub but there was no point since the game was shutting down in a few months, and they weren't taking anymore money for the game anyway. I admit I was pretty pissed. Not because of all the money I spent on the game, but because of the controversy surrounding the shutdown. NC Soft just walked into Paragon Studios one day and said "We're shutting the game down and you're all out of a job" pretty much.
Not once did I ever think that all the money I spent on the game was a lost "investment". This is life. Shit happens. The best we can do is remember the fun we had and move on, and I did.
Dark Helmet: "What?! You went over my helmet?"
While I personally agree with you and have no interest in buying anything, what difference does it make to you what anyone else does? How does it directly harm you if someone else wants to shell out a couple of hundred bucks to buy their way to "victory"? I don't get that at all.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Too many comments to read. So forgive me if it's been mentioned somewhere in here.
The reason some MMOs are selling maxed, or near maxed, level characters is most likely to combat the gold sellers who sell power level services.
Some players who have played a game for a long time just don't want to go through all the low level stuff after doing it a hundred times already. Some players just want to get a new character to max level so they can do end game content and/or raids, whatever it is, with guild mates and/or friends and not keep people waiting on them to level. And then you have the players who are just flat lazy and don't want to learn the game. All they want is to reach max level as quick as possible so they can do all the "cool stuff".
I am completely against buying anything from a 3rd party. If it's offered by the MMO company themselves, then I consider it to be more legitimate and you have little to no risk of getting banned for it.
From what I've heard, gold sellers selling power level services require you to hand over your username and password to the game with the promise of doing the work for you. What happens is they will take your money and then change your password and use your account to bot farm and/or spam their advertising messages. You also run the risk of your account being permanently banned by the company if you are caught buying in game items and/or services from anyone other than the MMO company if it's against the ToS. If it's not in the ToS then knock yourself out and take the risk if you want. I sure as hell wouldn't.
As for me personally; I kinda like doing low level content. Sometimes I like leveling up a new character more than the end game grind to get the best gear and whatnot. Heck, when I played City of Heroes up until they announced it was shutting down for good, I bought many character slots. I had at least 30 characters, with at least a couple unused slots. Only 5 characters were max level. I played Guild Wars 1 for about 6 years before I got tired of it and I've created and deleted countless characters.
As for my opinion on whether or not a player buying a max level character from the company is fair? Well I don't care. It's their money. They can do it if they want to. But it ultimately turns the game into a pay-to-win business model and from my experience, the gaming community frowns upon that. I don't have a problem with pay-to-win unless it is something that gives only those that pay a much better advantage then those that don't. So if I reach max level the hard way and you just buy your max level character, as long as we both have somewhat equality in gear and whatnot that we can obtain, more power to you. But if your payed for max leveled character is going to kick all hard leveled characters in the butt with them not having a chance at all of beating you, then I have a problem with it and would be more likely to go to another game.
Though there is the problem with players not familiar with the game buying a maxed character who do ruin it for others. They don't know how to play the game so they suck in cooperative end game content/raids/etc. and make it much harder to accomplish the task at hand. So personally I would prefer players be required to actually create a single character and level it up the hard way BEFORE they are even allowed to buy a max level character from the cash shop. At least this way players will be forced to actually learn how to play the game so they don't jump in and ruin it for everybody else. In City of Heroes there were a lot of complaints about players just wanting to get to the max level. These players would pay other players in game currency to do the work for them. These players would be standing there at max level and asking questions about the most basic things of the game because they had no friggen clue what to do.
So to others who say "How does it affect you? What business is it of yours they bought their max level character?"......read the above paragraph.
Dark Helmet: "What?! You went over my helmet?"
I would like to thank everyone for their valid comments and for stating my curiosity.
I hope my next thread is as fun.
Current games;
Star treck online
Rift
Eve online
Firefall
No, justice was served.
Serving coffee that is 180F is hotter than even the safety feature on water heaters to prevent scalding (which is 120F). Why do you believe that safety feature was featured? It's very easy to die in a tub of near boiling water, let alone those with health conditions that can't tell if the water is that hot (e.g., diabetics).
McDonald's erred by serving coffee that literally caused that woman to have 2nd and 3rd degree burns (people who try to scuff that lawsuit never mention the actual damage done to her, just character assassinate her instead).
She wasn't an idiot, she bought a cup of coffee that people assume would be no hotter than in an automatic coffee machine at home, or stovetop, not 180F that can burn skin itself! That was a nasty scalding, which required skin grafting, too.
Justified.
[quote] Originally posted by monkeyslap
Huh?
If RMT laws catch up in the West, you bet folks will bank on their game time and want the dividends for it.
Next thing we'll know, gamers could make a living playing games, and not off them (e.g., streamers et al).
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.