The reason why you see thousands of gold selling sites The reason why you see bots in your game The reason why your accounts get hacked The reason why your chat is spammed every 3 seconds
They are wallet warriors who shoulnt be playing mmo's but stick to single players games. Its getting out of control in mmo's and its not getting better...its getting worse and worse....
They should be perma IP banned and that info should be shared across all mmo studio's so they cant hop into the next mmo and create the cancer there.
Originally posted by inemosz People are encouraging gold buying, on this very mmorpg site. I lost my hope on this genre.
Maybe its because you dont understand it? Botting, gold farmers, and gold buyers is not that harmful to the economy of a game actually. Play the AH and you can destroy an economy very quickly and its very easy as well.
Then why do people hate gold sellers and bot much? Why are they bothered by them? They're the ones who actually involved in the whole mess in the first place. So, just let those gold sellers and bots roam around, no need to report them, right?
Originally posted by Mothanos
Gold buyers are the cancer of mmo's.
The reason why you see thousands of gold selling sites The reason why you see bots in your game The reason why your accounts get hacked The reason why your chat is spammed every 3 seconds
They are wallet warriors who shoulnt be playing mmo's but stick to single players games. Its getting out of control in mmo's and its not getting better...its getting worse and worse....
They should be perma IP banned and that info should be shared across all mmo studio's so they cant hop into the next mmo and create the cancer there.
Disgusting people who have no place in mmo's.
Nailed it.
If you think you, who have wallet and don't have time (that's your excuse, right?), can compete with them hardcore players who actually play the game, you are just being hypocrite. This is mmo genre we're talking about.
The reason why you see thousands of gold selling sites The reason why you see bots in your game The reason why your accounts get hacked The reason why your chat is spammed every 3 seconds
They are wallet warriors who shoulnt be playing mmo's but stick to single players games. Its getting out of control in mmo's and its not getting better...its getting worse and worse....
They should be perma IP banned and that info should be shared across all mmo studio's so they cant hop into the next mmo and create the cancer there.
Originally posted by inemosz People are encouraging gold buying, on this very mmorpg site. I lost my hope on this genre.
Maybe its because you dont understand it? Botting, gold farmers, and gold buyers is not that harmful to the economy of a game actually. Play the AH and you can destroy an economy very quickly and its very easy as well.
Then why do people hate gold sellers and bot much? Why are they bothered by them? They're the ones who actually involved in the whole mess in the first place. So, just let those gold sellers and bots roam around, no need to report them, right?
For the most part people are mad at these people for the wrong reason. Report them and have them banned if thats what you want. But they arent destroying the game you like like you think they are. They are a very small community. I use to be part of that group who botted. I have seen both sides. 99% of the people here have no idea what they are talking about most of the time when they complain about botters.
I can do more damage with 1 account playing the AH then I can with 10 bots running 24/7. Its much more efficient to just play the AH and is the reason why I dont need to bot anymore. I use to do it to make money for my guild so we have stuff but after realizing how easy it was to manipulate the AH and how to gouge people it became clear that making money that way is so much easier.
You cant tell the difference from an object that was gained through botting and an object gained through normal means. Do you ask every person you deal with in game if the products you buy are farmed by hand? You buy stuff all the time, I know I buy thousands of product everyday, I dont care where it came from, it still sells the same and it costs me the same.
One of the only areas that botters really affect is PVP. In most games they are just stupid and dont work how they should. In WoW they are a force to be reckoned with, WoW pvp botters are the best around and you will never tell the difference between a botter or a player farming honor except the botter will have higher numbers.
For me I dont care if people bot or not. It just means I can buy a product cheaper and then raise it even higher later.
Buying "golds" from unauthorized sellers is quite simply cheating.
It's a case of "I want to play this game, but I don't like the rules, so I'll just break them whenever and however I want." It's the ultimate expression of selfishness in a game primarily designed to be played with other players.
If a game is designed to work with currency selling as an integral part of the game, then the effect of RMT is less noticeable. But the activity of "gold sellers" trying to generate huge pools of game currency for resale inevitably has a negative impact on the game play experience and economy of an MMO.
It also increases the operating cost of the game significantly, because there is an increased demand for Customer Service to deal with hacked and stolen accounts, complaints of botting and cheating, etc. It also means that developers have to devote a chunk of time (and money) to build in additional security measures in all facets of the game, as well as developing sophisticated auditing tools to monitor illegal activity.
Does 10k gold that was "worked for" hold more value than 10k gold that was bought from rmt?
The answer is No.
Its just some value in a database somewhere.
Does that gold medal won by an athlete who dedicated umpteen hours of work developing his muscles and skills hold more value the gold medal won by an athlete who took steroids to enhance his performance......
Its just a medal in a display case somewhere ....
The answer is yes cheating cheapens it for everyone.
We all know gold sellers destabilize the game economy, interfere with legit players from playing the game, gathering resources and fighting mobs. They harass players by spamming local chat and whispered chat, along with clogging up mailboxes. They almost all use stolen credit cards so they have a real effect on people and the rates we all pay for credit cards. The sap away resources and money from the game companies because they have to investigate and then follow up on stolen accounts, hacks, exploits, and harassments.
...
Rubbish.
We all know gold sellers destabilize the game economy,
How? How do they get the gold in the first place?
The gold comes from the game somehow... so if the economy is "destabilized" then it was always destabilized. In other words - it was badly designed. Sure, Gold Farmers, Sellers and Buyers don't help the situation.... but they are not the root cause.
interfere with legit players from playing the game, gathering resources and fighting mobs
Because when YOU want a mob - it should just be there waiting for you - right? But again, bad design is at fault here. If devs design games that allow a player to bot farm mobs then they need to really look at their design.
They harass players by spamming local chat and whispered chat, along with clogging up mailboxes.
I am prepared to give you 1/10 here. But I play MMOs and Gold Sellers are not a big concern. "/Ignore" is a great feature as is "/report" In the games I have seen Gold Sellers, the ones I stay with anyway, the devs are all over this. Then again those are usually well designed games with good dev teams... oh... I am beginning to see a pattern here...
They almost all use stolen credit cards so they have a real effect on people and the rates we all pay for credit cards.
Complete and utter rubbish. Show me your source for that please.
Why would a Gold Farmer / Seller use anything less than a legitimate account? Why stock pile $$$ in an account you know will be closed the instant they try to process your credit card payment?
In reality what happens is devs have to refund money to Gold Farmers when they close their accounts and deny them the service / product which was legally paid for!
There may be a small percentage who use stolen cards... as there are with people using stolen cards to buy handbags.
You pay for credit cards because you are taking a loan. Its called interest.
The sap away resources and money from the game companies because they have to investigate and then follow up on stolen accounts, hacks, exploits, and harassments.
2/10 on that one. Stolen accounts are more often due to lazy account holders not using secure passwords. Do a google - turns out that 10,000 passwords account for over 90% of passwords in use. And people use the same password for everything, games, email and guild forum log ins. That's how they get in - our lazyness.
Exploits? Bad design again. Don't blame players for bad game design and checking.
Harassments? Some of the worst harassment on the internet is in forums and social media - not a gold piece in sight?
Seriously, the games that have the worst Gold Farmer / seller issues are usually those that suffer from poor design to begin with.
Pirates of the Burning Sea was a classic as an example. They set out from day one to defeat the Gold Farmers. In the end they won! (because the game was badly designed and no-one wanted to play - so no customers - so the Gold Farmers left)
Buying gold doesn't ruin an economy. I've played the AH in WoW and SWTOR and its easy as hell to pick an item ppl desperately need in game. Buy it all up and set the going price for it. Everytime someone tries to go against your pricing buy it and repost it at the proper price. That's is how you destroy an economy.
That being said, I'll honestly admit that I've bought gold in the past, and even though you all view it as an excuse, it was because my time was more valuable than my money. I wanted/needed something and I didn't have the time to farm for it, so I bought the funds to get what I needed/wanted.
Is it wrong, yes, was I happy when I got that ingame item I wanted, yes.
I dont call them losers, I call them cheaters, and worse.
I certainly dont envy their wallet. I dont envy their lack of a financial conscience, either.
Goldbuying always kills the economy of games. It also kills the fun to participate in the economy in any way. If you have something valueable, why sell it to some goldbuyer ? I'd say rather equip a guild member with it.
This thread is filled with elaborate and creative justifications for cheating.
Using some of these arguments, it looks like we should revamp the justice system. Instead of punishing the criminals (perpetrators of the crime), we should punish the victims, because the victims "allowed it to happen to them" !
Stop punishing bank robbers (botters), it's the fault of the bank (bad design) that they are being robbed !
The reason why you see thousands of gold selling sites The reason why you see bots in your game The reason why your accounts get hacked The reason why your chat is spammed every 3 seconds
Nailed it.
Yep, just sadly nailed it to the wrong tree
All of those are just the side-effects of gold selling/buying. Not a surprise companies in the last few years "engulfed" the prospect of gold selling, exactly for getting rid of those side-effects (and also to keep the profits to themselves)
As many already stated, it's only a convenience issue. If a player, for example in STO, purchases a few keys, then how is this different from the case of a gold buyer in a game where the devs not yet implemented gold selling into the game? In one case he pays a few bucks to the devs and gets in-game currency for it from other players, in the other he pays a few bucks to a shady 3rd party and gets in-game currency from other (probably shady) players. The gold selling / buying act is the same, only the first case is safe and legit, the other is risky because of the side-effects of hackers, bots, etc.
edit: maybe not the most perfect example because of the whole keys/lockboxes scam, so rather think of any other cash-shop items, for example unlocks in SW:TOR. One player is buying it with cash, then sell it to other player for credit.
So I don't think the thread is accurate. Gold selling / buying is nowadays a common procedure in many games. I personally never turned real cash into in-game cash so far (simply not my style) but I wouldn't call neither the buyers nor the sellers "Losers".
And if you wanted to focus onto the damaging side-efffects of it (like your nailed quote, spams, hacks, botting, duping, etc), then I think there's no dispute in there, everyone is trying to get rid of those in every games. And a good way for it was when game companies made gold selling to their own privilege.
I've been thinking since I met gold sellers for the first time many years ago in mmo, mostly mmorpg. Why would anyone buy gold if they can gather it themselves and actually have fun while doing that?
Are gamers have been downgraded that much that they want everything instantly? Or is it only me being jealous of their wallet?
Moreover, gold buyers are the ones who ruined mmo, as they are the main source of income of gold sellers. No buyer, no gold seller, right?
What do you think?
I actually believe in a totally free market. If there is demand for something and supply for something, then let it be. No point in trying to stop the impossible anyhow.
Gold sellers are quite possibly living off the income and using it to put food on the table. I have no issue with that. I have no issue with people being better than me in an MMO - I only get satisfaction from what I achieve, not what I buy, but if people want to buy gold, they are no threat to me. I might not know who they are of even see them again.
Anyone who sells something in life is doing it because someone is there to buy it - so everyone is happy. Leave them to it.
Losers, not because they buy the gold, but because of the practises they support.
Credit card theft, account theft, identity theft all of these are commonly used practises to acquire the gold and advertise the services of what is a highly successful sub industry, its successful because mmo companies make the accumulation of wealth time consuming and boring and because people dont want to put the time and effort into it.
Everyone is losing thanks to the gold buying, as we now see more and more mmos legitimize this trade, and as the gold becomes more available it has to be limited, because otherwise people would not need to spend the time in the game, limited in what you can do with it, which directly means a limitation on the viability of crafting and a lessening of its importance, which in turn puts greater emphasis on BOP systems of loot meaning people who are more casual and justify gold buying because of this, the ones who scream about how their time is worth more than their money, are the ones getting locked out of more and more stuff on their characters.
When you buy gold, you lessen the value of gold in your game and push the use of BOPs and alternate currency more.
Originally posted by NitthLet me propose this question to you:Does 10k gold that was "worked for" hold more value than 10k gold that was bought from rmt? The answer is No. Its just some value in a database somewhere.
Does that gold medal won by an athlete who dedicated umpteen hours of work developing his muscles and skills hold more value the gold medal won by an athlete who took steroids to enhance his performance......
Its just a medal in a display case somewhere ....
The answer is yes cheating cheapens it for everyone.
Except that object is symbolic of competition by nature where as currency is currency. No cashier ever questions how hard you worked for the payment.
----
Even still we are talking about something virtual, it doesn't really exist. "Congratulations you payed real money or spent countless hours arranging 1's and 0's in a database".
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
So in this example.. we're buying shirts from third party sellers a block away from the venue? Like the ones that say "Greatful Dead" or "Slipnot" on them?
Buying from authorized vendors is encouraged. Nowhere on my tickets does it say "Warning: Purchasing team gear may result in forfeiture of seats".
...and that is what happens when you buy that new shiny hat from the cash shop?
Cash shops? This thread is about gold sellers - or at least it was supposed to be. Cash shops aren't my thing either, but I'm fine with them existing. I simply hold those games to a higher standard, in terms of my enjoyment. Purchasing from a cash shop supports the game you're playing, in theory (but not always in reality) helping to increase the budget and make the game better. Supporting unaffiliated gold sellers has no direct positive impact on the game as a whole, unless you want to argue it increases retention rate. But then again you can also argue it increases overall enjoyment via the nuisance of chat and in-game mail spamming. My guess is that both are true to an extent, but I'm not sure there's relevant evidence to show customer loss vs. retention based on gold sellers. I wish there was - not to prove or disprove anything, I'd be interested in more general terms.
I have occasionally bought gold, both from third parties or from the developers themselves.
My main reason: To skip the grind or to open up parts of the game that would not be easily accessible to me. When I find myself doing the same boring and easy thing again and again I try to find a way to skip it. I see a game more as a challenge to myself than as a competition with other players. If I have killed that group of wolves over there, I lose interest in doing it again. I want to progress to the next challenge and am simply willing to pay extra to get there.
I do understand though that botters can have a negative impact on a game. My answer: It is the developers own fault. If mindless bots can accumulate wealth in their games and players feel the need to buy their gold to skip content then maybe the developers should simply design better games. They should make them complex enough that botting fails and make them interesting enough that players enjoy every moment of it.
As for you game purists who think a game should be segregated from the real world: You are in denial. Time is as much a real world resources as money is. Using time as a resources for games is just as unfair as people paying massive amounts of money to become powerful over night. Thats why I think both resources should be capped in a game. Investing either resource into a game should have diminishing returns for both resource pools.
For example buying a sword in the cash shop should either reduce your loot drop chance by 50% for a few days or lock any other item purchases in the shop until you have killed a certain amount of mobs. Also loot drop chances should naturally decrease the more you play and reset once a week. This way lots of time or lots of money will not have a big impact.
--- Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
On the one hand I'm glad they are able to "vote with their pocket" on the other hand, they do nothing but promote the underground chinese markets through account and gold buying/selling.
If I wasn't a part of Anon and so vehemently opposed to the underground chinese markets, I wouldn't probably have such an issue with them.
On the one hand I'm glad they are able to "vote with their pocket" on the other hand, they do nothing but promote the underground chinese markets through account and gold buying/selling.
If I wasn't a part of Anon and so vehemently opposed to the underground chinese markets, I wouldn't probably have such an issue with them.
Neo, this isn't "VOTING with their pockets" though. This is buying AK-47s with their pocket and storming the Election Commitee offices.
Does 10k gold that was "worked for" hold more value than 10k gold that was bought from rmt?
The answer is No.
Its just some value in a database somewhere.
Does that gold medal won by an athlete who dedicated umpteen hours of work developing his muscles and skills hold more value the gold medal won by an athlete who took steroids to enhance his performance......
Its just a medal in a display case somewhere ....
The answer is yes cheating cheapens it for everyone.
This is two completely different things. You're logic is irrational and if you can't see the difference between an mmo in a virtual work and a professional athlete then you need a healthy dose of reality.
Originally posted by Robokapp they don't have that freedom. it's an illegal activity.
If it was illegal, they would be prosecuted, not banned.
What do you call a break of EULA then?
Breach of contract and it's sufficient to end any financial/legal dealings/actions.
EULA is not a contract. Hence why it can't be used in a court of law. It holds no legal baring on the other hand a contract does. How long have you people been playing mmos? This is like taking candy from a first grader.
Originally posted by Robokapp they don't have that freedom. it's an illegal activity.
If it was illegal, they would be prosecuted, not banned.
What do you call a break of EULA then?
Breach of contract and it's sufficient to end any financial/legal dealings/actions.
EULA is not a contract. Hence why it can't be used in a court of law. It holds no legal baring on the other hand a contract does. How long have you people been playing mmos? This is like taking candy from a first grader.
It is and it's digitally signed every time you click login. That's what the 2008 court case that Blizzard won said.
Comments
Gold buyers are the cancer of mmo's.
The reason why you see thousands of gold selling sites
The reason why you see bots in your game
The reason why your accounts get hacked
The reason why your chat is spammed every 3 seconds
They are wallet warriors who shoulnt be playing mmo's but stick to single players games.
Its getting out of control in mmo's and its not getting better...its getting worse and worse....
They should be perma IP banned and that info should be shared across all mmo studio's so they cant hop into the next mmo and create the cancer there.
Disgusting people who have no place in mmo's.
Let me propose this question to you:
Does 10k gold that was "worked for" hold more value than 10k gold that was bought from rmt?
The answer is No.
Its just some value in a database somewhere.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Then why do people hate gold sellers and bot much? Why are they bothered by them? They're the ones who actually involved in the whole mess in the first place. So, just let those gold sellers and bots roam around, no need to report them, right?
Nailed it.
If you think you, who have wallet and don't have time (that's your excuse, right?), can compete with them hardcore players who actually play the game, you are just being hypocrite. This is mmo genre we're talking about.
Tell us how you really feel. lol
For the most part people are mad at these people for the wrong reason. Report them and have them banned if thats what you want. But they arent destroying the game you like like you think they are. They are a very small community. I use to be part of that group who botted. I have seen both sides. 99% of the people here have no idea what they are talking about most of the time when they complain about botters.
I can do more damage with 1 account playing the AH then I can with 10 bots running 24/7. Its much more efficient to just play the AH and is the reason why I dont need to bot anymore. I use to do it to make money for my guild so we have stuff but after realizing how easy it was to manipulate the AH and how to gouge people it became clear that making money that way is so much easier.
You cant tell the difference from an object that was gained through botting and an object gained through normal means. Do you ask every person you deal with in game if the products you buy are farmed by hand? You buy stuff all the time, I know I buy thousands of product everyday, I dont care where it came from, it still sells the same and it costs me the same.
One of the only areas that botters really affect is PVP. In most games they are just stupid and dont work how they should. In WoW they are a force to be reckoned with, WoW pvp botters are the best around and you will never tell the difference between a botter or a player farming honor except the botter will have higher numbers.
For me I dont care if people bot or not. It just means I can buy a product cheaper and then raise it even higher later.
Buying "golds" from unauthorized sellers is quite simply cheating.
It's a case of "I want to play this game, but I don't like the rules, so I'll just break them whenever and however I want." It's the ultimate expression of selfishness in a game primarily designed to be played with other players.
If a game is designed to work with currency selling as an integral part of the game, then the effect of RMT is less noticeable. But the activity of "gold sellers" trying to generate huge pools of game currency for resale inevitably has a negative impact on the game play experience and economy of an MMO.
It also increases the operating cost of the game significantly, because there is an increased demand for Customer Service to deal with hacked and stolen accounts, complaints of botting and cheating, etc. It also means that developers have to devote a chunk of time (and money) to build in additional security measures in all facets of the game, as well as developing sophisticated auditing tools to monitor illegal activity.
Does that gold medal won by an athlete who dedicated umpteen hours of work developing his muscles and skills hold more value the gold medal won by an athlete who took steroids to enhance his performance......
Its just a medal in a display case somewhere ....
The answer is yes cheating cheapens it for everyone.
Rubbish.
We all know gold sellers destabilize the game economy,
How? How do they get the gold in the first place?
The gold comes from the game somehow... so if the economy is "destabilized" then it was always destabilized. In other words - it was badly designed. Sure, Gold Farmers, Sellers and Buyers don't help the situation.... but they are not the root cause.
interfere with legit players from playing the game, gathering resources and fighting mobs
Because when YOU want a mob - it should just be there waiting for you - right? But again, bad design is at fault here. If devs design games that allow a player to bot farm mobs then they need to really look at their design.
They harass players by spamming local chat and whispered chat, along with clogging up mailboxes.
I am prepared to give you 1/10 here. But I play MMOs and Gold Sellers are not a big concern. "/Ignore" is a great feature as is "/report" In the games I have seen Gold Sellers, the ones I stay with anyway, the devs are all over this. Then again those are usually well designed games with good dev teams... oh... I am beginning to see a pattern here...
They almost all use stolen credit cards so they have a real effect on people and the rates we all pay for credit cards.
Complete and utter rubbish. Show me your source for that please.
Why would a Gold Farmer / Seller use anything less than a legitimate account? Why stock pile $$$ in an account you know will be closed the instant they try to process your credit card payment?
In reality what happens is devs have to refund money to Gold Farmers when they close their accounts and deny them the service / product which was legally paid for!
There may be a small percentage who use stolen cards... as there are with people using stolen cards to buy handbags.
You pay for credit cards because you are taking a loan. Its called interest.
The sap away resources and money from the game companies because they have to investigate and then follow up on stolen accounts, hacks, exploits, and harassments.
2/10 on that one. Stolen accounts are more often due to lazy account holders not using secure passwords. Do a google - turns out that 10,000 passwords account for over 90% of passwords in use. And people use the same password for everything, games, email and guild forum log ins. That's how they get in - our lazyness.
Exploits? Bad design again. Don't blame players for bad game design and checking.
Harassments? Some of the worst harassment on the internet is in forums and social media - not a gold piece in sight?
Seriously, the games that have the worst Gold Farmer / seller issues are usually those that suffer from poor design to begin with.
Pirates of the Burning Sea was a classic as an example. They set out from day one to defeat the Gold Farmers. In the end they won! (because the game was badly designed and no-one wanted to play - so no customers - so the Gold Farmers left)
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Buying gold doesn't ruin an economy. I've played the AH in WoW and SWTOR and its easy as hell to pick an item ppl desperately need in game. Buy it all up and set the going price for it. Everytime someone tries to go against your pricing buy it and repost it at the proper price. That's is how you destroy an economy.
That being said, I'll honestly admit that I've bought gold in the past, and even though you all view it as an excuse, it was because my time was more valuable than my money. I wanted/needed something and I didn't have the time to farm for it, so I bought the funds to get what I needed/wanted.
Is it wrong, yes, was I happy when I got that ingame item I wanted, yes.
I dont call them losers, I call them cheaters, and worse.
I certainly dont envy their wallet. I dont envy their lack of a financial conscience, either.
Goldbuying always kills the economy of games. It also kills the fun to participate in the economy in any way. If you have something valueable, why sell it to some goldbuyer ? I'd say rather equip a guild member with it.
This thread is filled with elaborate and creative justifications for cheating.
Using some of these arguments, it looks like we should revamp the justice system. Instead of punishing the criminals (perpetrators of the crime), we should punish the victims, because the victims "allowed it to happen to them" !
Stop punishing bank robbers (botters), it's the fault of the bank (bad design) that they are being robbed !
Yep, just sadly nailed it to the wrong tree
All of those are just the side-effects of gold selling/buying. Not a surprise companies in the last few years "engulfed" the prospect of gold selling, exactly for getting rid of those side-effects (and also to keep the profits to themselves)
As many already stated, it's only a convenience issue. If a player, for example in STO, purchases a few keys, then how is this different from the case of a gold buyer in a game where the devs not yet implemented gold selling into the game? In one case he pays a few bucks to the devs and gets in-game currency for it from other players, in the other he pays a few bucks to a shady 3rd party and gets in-game currency from other (probably shady) players. The gold selling / buying act is the same, only the first case is safe and legit, the other is risky because of the side-effects of hackers, bots, etc.
edit: maybe not the most perfect example because of the whole keys/lockboxes scam, so rather think of any other cash-shop items, for example unlocks in SW:TOR. One player is buying it with cash, then sell it to other player for credit.
So I don't think the thread is accurate. Gold selling / buying is nowadays a common procedure in many games. I personally never turned real cash into in-game cash so far (simply not my style) but I wouldn't call neither the buyers nor the sellers "Losers".
And if you wanted to focus onto the damaging side-efffects of it (like your nailed quote, spams, hacks, botting, duping, etc), then I think there's no dispute in there, everyone is trying to get rid of those in every games. And a good way for it was when game companies made gold selling to their own privilege.
I actually believe in a totally free market. If there is demand for something and supply for something, then let it be. No point in trying to stop the impossible anyhow.
Gold sellers are quite possibly living off the income and using it to put food on the table. I have no issue with that. I have no issue with people being better than me in an MMO - I only get satisfaction from what I achieve, not what I buy, but if people want to buy gold, they are no threat to me. I might not know who they are of even see them again.
Anyone who sells something in life is doing it because someone is there to buy it - so everyone is happy. Leave them to it.
Losers, not because they buy the gold, but because of the practises they support.
Credit card theft, account theft, identity theft all of these are commonly used practises to acquire the gold and advertise the services of what is a highly successful sub industry, its successful because mmo companies make the accumulation of wealth time consuming and boring and because people dont want to put the time and effort into it.
Everyone is losing thanks to the gold buying, as we now see more and more mmos legitimize this trade, and as the gold becomes more available it has to be limited, because otherwise people would not need to spend the time in the game, limited in what you can do with it, which directly means a limitation on the viability of crafting and a lessening of its importance, which in turn puts greater emphasis on BOP systems of loot meaning people who are more casual and justify gold buying because of this, the ones who scream about how their time is worth more than their money, are the ones getting locked out of more and more stuff on their characters.
When you buy gold, you lessen the value of gold in your game and push the use of BOPs and alternate currency more.
No cashier ever questions how hard you worked for the payment.
----
Even still we are talking about something virtual, it doesn't really exist.
"Congratulations you payed real money or spent countless hours arranging 1's and 0's in a database".
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Cash shops? This thread is about gold sellers - or at least it was supposed to be. Cash shops aren't my thing either, but I'm fine with them existing. I simply hold those games to a higher standard, in terms of my enjoyment. Purchasing from a cash shop supports the game you're playing, in theory (but not always in reality) helping to increase the budget and make the game better. Supporting unaffiliated gold sellers has no direct positive impact on the game as a whole, unless you want to argue it increases retention rate. But then again you can also argue it increases overall enjoyment via the nuisance of chat and in-game mail spamming. My guess is that both are true to an extent, but I'm not sure there's relevant evidence to show customer loss vs. retention based on gold sellers. I wish there was - not to prove or disprove anything, I'd be interested in more general terms.
- Nellus
I have occasionally bought gold, both from third parties or from the developers themselves.
My main reason: To skip the grind or to open up parts of the game that would not be easily accessible to me. When I find myself doing the same boring and easy thing again and again I try to find a way to skip it. I see a game more as a challenge to myself than as a competition with other players. If I have killed that group of wolves over there, I lose interest in doing it again. I want to progress to the next challenge and am simply willing to pay extra to get there.
I do understand though that botters can have a negative impact on a game. My answer: It is the developers own fault. If mindless bots can accumulate wealth in their games and players feel the need to buy their gold to skip content then maybe the developers should simply design better games. They should make them complex enough that botting fails and make them interesting enough that players enjoy every moment of it.
As for you game purists who think a game should be segregated from the real world: You are in denial. Time is as much a real world resources as money is. Using time as a resources for games is just as unfair as people paying massive amounts of money to become powerful over night. Thats why I think both resources should be capped in a game. Investing either resource into a game should have diminishing returns for both resource pools.
For example buying a sword in the cash shop should either reduce your loot drop chance by 50% for a few days or lock any other item purchases in the shop until you have killed a certain amount of mobs. Also loot drop chances should naturally decrease the more you play and reset once a week. This way lots of time or lots of money will not have a big impact.
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Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
I'm splintered on this topic.
On the one hand I'm glad they are able to "vote with their pocket" on the other hand, they do nothing but promote the underground chinese markets through account and gold buying/selling.
If I wasn't a part of Anon and so vehemently opposed to the underground chinese markets, I wouldn't probably have such an issue with them.
http://www.matrix13.com
40K Eternal Crusade: Accepting signups with 4k point BONUS
With the inherent freedom to do so though.
http://www.matrix13.com
40K Eternal Crusade: Accepting signups with 4k point BONUS
If it was illegal, they would be prosecuted, not banned.
http://www.matrix13.com
40K Eternal Crusade: Accepting signups with 4k point BONUS
What do you call a break of EULA then?
Breach of contract and it's sufficient to end any financial/legal dealings/actions.
http://www.matrix13.com
40K Eternal Crusade: Accepting signups with 4k point BONUS
This is two completely different things. You're logic is irrational and if you can't see the difference between an mmo in a virtual work and a professional athlete then you need a healthy dose of reality.
EULA is not a contract. Hence why it can't be used in a court of law. It holds no legal baring on the other hand a contract does. How long have you people been playing mmos? This is like taking candy from a first grader.
It is and it's digitally signed every time you click login. That's what the 2008 court case that Blizzard won said.
http://www.matrix13.com
40K Eternal Crusade: Accepting signups with 4k point BONUS