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General: Debate: Power Leveling Services
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
This week, Kevin Tierney and Carolyn Koh debate the ethics of power leveling companies. These are companies that players can hire to build characters for them in popular MMORPGs. A large portion of the MMO community considers this a form of cheating, while others must obviously approve as the companies seem to do well. Here is what our writers think. After reading, let us know your thoughts.
| Kevin Tierney: The problem I see with power leveling companies is two fold in my opinion. First, the game no longer becomes about living in a virtual world and advancing as you grow in skill, but rather who can pay the biggest amount of out of game money to have someone advance for them. The entire issue of using out of game money for in game advancement has always bugged me, and the power leveling companies are just a manifestation of this.
The other concern I have comes from a guild management perspective. When one recruits players, they normally want people who are dedicated to that game in one sense or another. I believe when you have those who pay others to level for them, what you have is someone who is simply looking to cut every corner in the game he can. There is also the fact that he will not be very skilled with his character, as he hasn't really played it. A classic example would be what we called the "Jebay" from Star Wars Galaxies. People would buy Jedis off of eBay (already fully templated.) The only problem was they figured once they were a full Jedi they had an "I win button" but were frequently vastly ignorant about how to play, and ended up causing more headaches than benefits. The same principle I believe applies here. |
You can read more here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
Taking the other side of the arguement one could say that this is just game, and it is not desired or healthy to be living in it. Buying a leveled up character is no different then buying a better tennis racket.
I have never had a paid for character or paid for levels on a character. But I have known those who have. I would put their skill at playing their characters up against anyone, and they would come out better I am sure over 90% of the time.
However this is a good "hot button" topic and I seriously doubt that anyone will publically defend the practice.
Power leveling services don't hurt anyone, imo. I've played many classes from many games that were max level from friends accounts or ones I bought. I went from playing a ranger in EQ to playing a maxed out enchanter that my brother gave up on. You've played one class, you've played them all. I played a nightshade in DAoC to a sorceror. It didn't matter. I was familar with the game, therefore, the character, and got the job done.
Some people just aren't good gamers. If you're not a good gamer, you're not good at soloing, grouping, or raiding. Good gamers adapt, no matter their class, because they understand the game.
I used to buy accounts, but I stopped. I came to realize that if leveling up wasn't enjoyable then the game just isn't worth playing.
*shrug*
I have never care about these players.
See, if I race for the top, it is at RELEASE (it would have happen for CoV, could have happen in EQ2 and WoW...but for EQ2 and WoW I didn't like these games and for CoV, they somehow manage to have me unable to log in and play for 10 days, effectively removing any interest I might have in such a thing), otherwise I am merely doing my best for myself, trying to be effective...or not, it depend on the situation and on the mood. At release, I challenge ANY pleveling service to bring a noob higher level than me, they won't. They are themselves busy leveling up and if they beat me to level cap (likely to happen), their clients will still be way too low level for it to make a real difference.
If not at release, I doesn't care, noob03 could have been playing this game for a LOT longer than me.
And for braggers, I learn that since PLeveling and methods to group, amounts of hours played hardly mean anything except at release.
Again, myself, as a player, I can't care less about these PLeveling stuff. Not affecting me...well, in fact they may affect me, they draw away from me players I rather see away, so they are indirectly helping me, by drawing peoples I am better off not meeting, so...again, I don't see any problem with that.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
One of the problems, I think is the whole immediate reward type situation.
They get the powerleveling because they want the end game reward right now. The problem is then that they have skipped almost the entire game, when a large part of the reward comes from going through all that content.
It's like the people who go to a Fun House at the fair, and then just walk right through single file. You're supposed to stop and enjoy the scenery around you, not race to the end.
That's what powerlevelers are missing.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
The first MMORPG that I played I was really into and when I found out about powerleveling I was extremely angry about it for a variety of reasons that I won't expand on.
Anyway, after I discovered what "grind" meant I realized that MMORPGs for the most part are smarmy capitalist tricks. What I mean is that they're set up to string people along, to keep you paying, but do not deliver much content. So, the player ends up providing much more “value” to the game company than the game company provides to the player. This is achieved because the player is promised “cool” powers, battles, and stories that are always going to come at the “next” level.
Powerlevelers subvert the unethical grind, and dollars spent on the unethical game company, by advancing money to another company to help them achieve a level in the game that will be enough fun to make it worth playing. So, the player saves himself a lot of money by not paying the game company and by saving time (which has a dollar value as well).
The power leveler has actually transformed the game into what the game should be and that is one that has meaningful and competent characters that are capable of going on adventures immediately. That’s what most people dream of when buying a games; I assume.
Games developers ought to realize that their greed and boring ways of achieving their greedy ends, actually cause them to loose money. It’s amusing that Marxists predicted the end of capitalism through just this behavior.
On a final note: It would not surprise me to learn that some game company isn’t actually running a leveling service. That would complete the rip-off cycle nicely.
Plain and simple, these powerleveling service providers are helping you dumbasses who use them to be banned. Since in every EULA and Terms of Service agreement I've seen for any game you are strictly forbidden from using someone elses account or allowing them to use yours. And Gindace, I agree with you. There is nothing worse than being in a team of level 200+ players who get the team wiped out because they didn't even know which buttons to push for their attacks. Power levelers are indeed a bunch of lames who should go back to their cheat-coded singleplayer games. And EULAs need to be made to be strictly upheld and punishable in any court system in any country.
Mr. Tierney's fault seems to be that he takes these games a
little too seriously. These after all are games, made for players to
have an enjoyable time playing them.
Not all players have the same ideas about what is enjoyable about a game. Some
people want to play with friends. Some people like to make new friends. Some
people like to fully role-play, others like to
do a little RP and others like prefer to avoid
it. Some people like the grind and the process while others find it tiring.
Above all the way that one person wants to play has little
to no effect on the experience of another game player who likes to play
differently. In fact I would argue that a versatile game that allows players
with different desires and objectives, either because of the foresight and
ingenuity of game designers or the innovation of the players themselves
(including but not limited to power leveling) makes for a much better game
experience for those MMORPG players who want a game with a good community
with the option for a lot of social interaction.
The examples of why people would want to purchase power leveling services have
been listed, and most in my opinion are perfectly legitimate reasons. Not
everybody wants to play a game in full or has the time. The best levelers I employ
for my website can PL a WoW character 1-60 in 14 days if they work the
character 24 hours a day. That is 336 hours of work, a daunting amount for a
player who can only put 1-2 hours of play into WoW each day.
If a person is less interested in grinding
through a certain couple of levels, I do not see that they should be forced to
spend days or weeks doing so. If a person has been recruited by friends and
wants to play with them I don't think they should be prevented from doing so,
or forced to play for weeks or months just to catch up to their level. If a
person has already gotten to the end game but they want to try playing on
another server, or as another race or class, I do not feel they should be
forced to go through the whole game again if they only want to play certain
parts with their second character. Many MMORPGs do not provide viable solutions
to these problems for these players, but other players have. These other
players are those who started the power leveling industry and are the people today
who do power leveling jobs for others.
I find the view that power leveling is this evil thing that ruins MMORPGs as a
very dense opinion. Just because some players wish to play the game one way
does not mean they should have the right to force others to play that way.
These are virtual worlds and virtual universes, and the fact that these games
have not been killed off by tens or hundreds of thousands of players who have
gotten some form of power leveling on their character attests to that. I would wager
that 99% of players who have played WoW or other time-intensive MMORPGs have
grouped with people who have been PLed, worked together in guilds with PLed
players, bought and sold items thanks to PLed players, become colleagues and
even friends with PLed players. And I would wager that the vast majority of
these "purists" have no idea that they are relying on PLed players to
make the game experience as good as it is. No killing of the game, no making
the gameplay terrible, but helping to make the community
and the economy work.
If anybody has ever played in a deserted game or on a very low population
server they know what most MMORPGs would be like without power leveling, with
only players who wanted to play every minute, earn every point of experience and
every item themselves. I can tell you from experience that many of my PL
customers would not be playing the game if it weren’t for being able to get
their character power leveled through certain levels they do not find
enjoyable. I would argue the same for most other things that Mr. Tierney and
his friends want to burn my industry colleagues and me at the stake for doing.
The only people that would be left would be the small group of
"purists" who want to play their way and exclude everybody else who
wants to play differently. Playing on deserted servers where groups are nearly
impossible to form and the economy has too few participants to work properly is
what they would bring about. From my personal experience in selling power
leveling I know that the number of people being demonized for having characters
power leveled is much larger and much more important to creating a thriving community
and economy in MMORPGs than they wish to acknowledge. We are not talking about
a few people but a significant percentage of the elite and most influential
players in many MMOs.
It is easy to demonize or dismiss a few players, considered unskilled and
unknowledgeable about the games they play. But that is simply not the truth.
Log into your favorite MMO and look around and you will see plenty of PLed
players, including many of the most skilled and revered characters you play
with. Look at your friends list, look at your
guild, look at your real life friends, and realize that many of them have had
characters PLed. Look at the virtual world and recognize how its community
and its economy would be a shadow of what it is without those who would have
quit or would never have started playing without power leveling. We are a much
bigger and more important group than the "purists" would ever want to
imagine. We are not destructive, we are not evil, and we do not try to push our
morals and beliefs about how games should be played on the millions of other
players we share these virtual worlds with.
Michael Widmer
Founder, MMO Supplies
The end.
If you're two lazy to lvl you're own char and waste money like that, than you shouldn't be playing at all.
Independant, Shinto, Lesbian, and Proud!
In my mind the only ones that seriously have issues with this are those that care too much, IMO, about their characters, what they achieved, and their 'leetness'. My reponse to those that try the play the n00n thing is, "That and a $1 will buy you a cup of coffee at 7-11." AKA you're leetness in *fill in game here* is meaningless in life, so get over yourself.
I have to say honestly, I have never paid anyone to power lvl me. Primarily, because whenever I've been power leveled it's been within my guild so it was done for free simply, because it would be to there benefit that they do so. In return, I'd help someone else power lvl, and so on and so on...
, so I don't think it's right for someone to pay live/real money for such a service. Maybe, in-game, but when real money passes hands that's taking the game out of the game. To me that's just 
, get my drift?
As Zorvan has been saying, in addition to it just plain crazy to spend real money for this type of service, it is illegal.
I second that. I am not saying that powerleveling and using real money to advance in the game is the wrong way to play. I could care less what players do, as long as it does not go against the rules of the game, and this powerleveling service certainly does that.
An upcoming mmo will circumvent all this EULA nonsense. Archlord will allow players to pay for their powerleveling and other advantages directly within their subscription payments. The only beneficial thing to this PayPlus scheme is that it takes out the "middle man" companies such as the one this guy founded. In most mmos, I don't care how much anyone spends, as long as the gameplay and competition between players is not directly effected by it.
Its no surpise to read sentence like.. OMG how to tank?.. and what this spell is.. how to heal? and everyon es' favourite... help!!! i got massive aggro on my back!!~
Power leveling will bring players to a handicap stage where they know nothing about the game lore and gameplay.. except 1 thing, I look leet with this end game item!!!
Frankly, i do power leveling by myself in EQ2, did a /played check and i used only 23 days 4 hours to get to Lv 70.
All canceled. Waiting on Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning.
In my opinion Mr. Widmer, is a internet criminal plain and simple. If I ran this site I would remove his first post for the simple fact its basically free advertisement. Anyone who claims that his service and services aren't criminal hasn't played FFXI and had to deal with the chinese gold farmers and power lvlers. They completely sucked the fun out of that game for me in less than 6 months.
Plain and simple Mr. Widmer your breaking the law, I rank you right up there with the spammers and the gold farmers, and likely your company does gold farm on the side(check their website and I bet you'll see the option to buy in game items and gold. Your breaking the rules of a game and profiting in a illegal manner, e.i your a criminal. I have no tolorence for cyber criminals of any kind.
Everyone has grouped with someone who was clueless what to do with their character and cost the group loads of debt, everyone has been shafted out of a uber item because companies like his use mulitiple gold farmers to discourage you from even attempting to get that uber drop.
Heres a quick example from FFXI(from my experience has the biggest problem), I found a spot FFXI that had a minor boss that spawned around every 15 minutes, the payoff wasn't huge but you could make a little cash pretty quick and for those who don't know FFXI's major drops come from bosses that spawn anywhere from every 2 hours to every 12 literally so a 15 minute wait isn't bad at all. Now I would go to this area and few either knew about it or farmed it except the gold farmers, in particular one group from china that had the same toon there 24 hours a day. When I would go there I had a feel for the pattern of spawns and generally was quicker to the target than this farmer so what would he do, call another farmer from his company, you could tell because this company used a series of letters for there characters that went a little something like zoew123, zoew1344, zoew2244 etc etc etc. Now if I was still beating two of them to the spawns they would send a third then another and another til I gave up. They were rude routinely cursing at me and just plain ruined the experience. I reported the same names over and over for gold farming and square looked the other way so I left. Beyond this those same people learned how to use exploits to cause you to target a weak enemy while they got the target etc. I looked into it and this same company sold items power lvled and of course sold gold.
Bottom line companies like these ruin the experience of paying players and on top of that many times ruin the economy with the fact they farm 24 7 and screw up the prices of things for paying players. I should never have to compete with shady companies in game that I play to pay but look at wow, ffxi, eqII and its the same thing everywhere all done by companies such as Mr Widmer's.
I say to you Mr. Widmer take your ad disguised as a post and your shady ass company and get the hell out of these games. The companies forbid it, and you ignore it your a criminal and scumbag that is sucking the fun out of games that people pay real money to play just to make a quick buck. Your no more legit than spammers and the other cyber criminals that are thorns in the sides of those that use the web for games mail etc.
Peace
I actually play COH/COV partly because there is nothing to farm and no uber items to camp, sure you still have those that get characters power lvled that run head long into mobs and get there group killed, but thats why I usually form my own groups and when I see somone starting to act like a lvl 5 at lvl 40 I usually just boot them.
I honestly hope he trys to respond because no matter what he says, what he is doing is illegal, and his company has no crediability in my eyes and by association neither does Mr. Widmer. He can't make a rebutal because he knows what he's doing is illegal so he simply sits back and prays that they don't delete his ad from this forum.
Peace