Are leveling services REALLY that bad?

[NYHoustonman]

Yea, I payed for leveling from 50-60 (it was only $50, half of which was paid by a friend), and got a 3-day suspension at level 59. Not only did I not know they were enforcing crap like this, but really I don't understand why. What's everyones' opinions on this... Am I the only one that feels this way...?

My e-mail to Blizz (more of a venting thing than a call for action)...

"So, it's MY job to keep my password private, and I have to deal with the consequences if something happens - it's not your responsibility, right? Oh, but you decide to step in when it actually happens and suspend me for something you've already stated is MY problem. If it's my problem it's my problem, period, I don't need you butting in and suspending me... suddenly you feel like you can act in such a situation. An account can be suspended for things outside of the ToS, I know this well, but this seems like a blatant double standard to me.

Yes, I used a leveling service, I have no problem admitting this - but my reasons had nothing to do with anything remotely negative. I've played through 50-60 (not to mention 1-50) several times, and without any new content from the Burning Crusade, this span is as boring as ever. It literally feels like going to work, and I don't need that from a game I'm supposed to be enjoying. However, I wish to keep up with my friends so that we can enjoy the new content post-60 together. So what am I supposed to do? Effectively 'work' for 60+ hours? It's been said in the past that you should implement some way of skipping this kind of content for someone who has already been through it a couple of times, and it's true. NOBODY enjoys doing the same crap over and over like that, and this is why leveling services (apparently the spawn of satan - they intentionally break the ToS!!!!!1) are so prevalent."

 

[Extelleron]

Just don't play MMORPG's. Problem solved.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Not only did I not know they were enforcing crap like this, but really I don't understand why.

Blizzard does not like anyone else profiting from their IP.

What's everyones' opinions on this

I personally would never pay anyone to play a game for me, if a game is not fun, then I do not play it with the presumption that it will be fun later if I just get to X level or get X item.

 

[NYHoustonman]

Originally posted by: Extelleron
Just don't play MMORPG's. Problem solved.

It'd be great if it were that easy, but I'm on the opposite coast of all of my high school friends, and WoW has given me a way to keep in contact with them (I'm not one for random conversations on the phone...). Plus, I'm kind of looking forward to the Outlands :\.

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Not only did I not know they were enforcing crap like this, but really I don't understand why.

Blizzard does not like anyone else profiting from their IP.

What's everyones' opinions on this

I personally would never pay anyone to play a game for me, if a game is not fun, then I do not play it with the presumption that it will be fun later if I just get to X level or get X item.

Believe me, I felt the same way until relatively recently. I'm looking forward to the new content, and for me $25 was worth the 60 hours or so it saved me (as bad as that sounds :x).

 

[Pwnbroker]

They should do something like Guildwars where when you reach a certain point, you can switch secondary professions. What would be even better is to be able to switch primary professions for a certain amount of in-game cash. I haven't played WoW so I don't know if they already have that function or not.

 

[Drakkon]

So your complaining that you got caught doing something you knew that was considered cheating (something by which is in thier TOS is a bannable offence i believe)?
and your mad that they banned you for 3 days because of this?

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

What a load of crap. If you want to keep in touch with your friends, use the internet. Also, how do you go from "I don't want to work at it for 60+ horus" to bitching about being banned for 3 days? You cheated, you got caught, and you are complaining about getting a slap on the wrist...

 

[gizbug]

I've power leveled 3 characters from 0-70. I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[Kur]

You don't know what they do on your account while they level your account. They not only farm gold for themselves they xfer gold through your account, along with items that could be stolen. The problem is in the TOS. you don't own your account you rent it and it clearly states in the TOS that only you and your son/daughter are allowed to play it. The only reason for an IP ban is if you play here in the states and a day later an IP from china pops up. There was an article where some kid got banned for leveling too fast aswell, they are trying to stop people from using the services.

If you want a safer way somewhat safer way trade accounts. But don't just get the first joe that sends you a tell, make sure they show you the character and provide the Username, password, security question and answer. Then before letting them go make them change the email address (they have to have access to that email account). I don't play wow but I used to trade and sell em, good market.

 

[NYHoustonman]

Originally posted by: Drakkon
So your complaining that you got caught doing something you knew that was considered cheating (something by which is in thier TOS is a bannable offence i believe)?
and your mad that they banned you for 3 days because of this?

I've read through the ToS. My problem with this is that they say you are not to give your password or account information to anyone else, but that anything that happens as a result of this is my own problem. Of course, they can issue suspensions and such whenever they feel like it, whether or not the behavior is covered in the ToS, but it seems like kind of a double standard to me.

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo
What a load of crap. If you want to keep in touch with your friends, use the internet. Also, how do you go from "I don't want to work at it for 60+ horus" to bitching about being banned for 3 days? You cheated, you got caught, and you are complaining about getting a slap on the wrist...

See above. It's not considered cheating, it's an issue where you are potentially compromising the security of the account. I'm thankful it was only three days and it was still worth it to me (this gives me time to finish other games), but it's still irritating.

And I posted this here to see if I was the only one who saw things this way (I copied my e-mail over because I didn't feel like rewording it just to post it here)... You don't need to be a jackass about it.

Originally posted by: Kur
You don't know what they do on your account while they level your account. They not only farm gold for themselves they xfer gold through your account, along with items that could be stolen.

That's really the only legitimate complaint I could see Blizzard having as to how me doing this somehow 'damages' the game or server in any way.

 

[gizbug]

Thats why I have 2 games, 2 accounts. 1 for them, one for me

 

[natep]

I really wish that stuff like this wasn't stopped by Blizzard. I just got my undead warlock to 70 and am completely bored with the game, and would love to sell my account.

 

[gizbug]

Join a worthwhile guild that does 10mans

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Leveling services? lol Your paying a third party to play and level for you? hahahahahahahah Hey, Ive got an idea. Pay me to play GOW2 and I'll tell you how much fun you had! <points finger rofl while gasping for air>

 

[NYHoustonman]

Originally posted by: MagnusTheBrewer
Leveling services? lol Your paying a third party to play and level for you? hahahahahahahah Hey, Ive got an idea. Pay me to play GOW2 and I'll tell you how much fun you had! <points finger rofl while gasping for air>

It's not exactly that simple. This isn't much different from paying someone to fix your car; you could often do it yourself, but you just don't have the time or patience. Just because my reasons for it (wanting to play later parts vs. having to get to work) are different doesn't make it any less valid.

Either you have a hard time understanding the English language or you didn't get to the part where I go into why anyone would do this (and prior to this I might have agreed with you). Not that I should have to explain my reasoning to asshats like yourself.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

No, paying someone to level your character is like paying someone to drive your car while you stay at home and write lame email to Blizzard whining about how they run their business.

 

[NYHoustonman]

Originally posted by: MagnusTheBrewer
No, paying someone to level your character is like paying someone to drive your car while you stay at home and write lame email to Blizzard whining about how they run their business.

Except paying someone to drive your car has no point. This has a point - it saves me 60 hours that I probably would have grinded through (trying to catch up) to get to where I wanted to be.

 

[AbAbber2k]

I'm sure there are better things they could be doing with their money than paying people to ban accounts just because someone paid someone else to level their character. :roll:

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

OP, honestly, I meant to be a jackass. To me, that is cheating. And for what it's worth, I'd be a jackass to anyone that paid for leveling up their character in any game.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Originally posted by: NYHoustonman
Except paying someone to drive your car has no point. This has a point - it saves me 60 hours that I probably would have grinded through (trying to catch up) to get to where I wanted to be.

Outside of entertainment value video games really don't have much of a point either. You pay $50 for a box and CD, pay $15(?) a month just to play it, and then another $50 just to have fun playing it. That's kind of sad.

 

[NYHoustonman]

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo
OP, honestly, I meant to be a jackass. To me, that is cheating. And for what it's worth, I'd be a jackass to anyone that paid for leveling up their character in any game.

I could understand that opinion when a player deliberately skips a good deal of content having never earned passage through it, but I've done so twice. As I said I would make the same decision again if I had to; it was worth it to me to be able to skip the monotony.

Originally posted by: HamburgerBoy

Originally posted by: NYHoustonman
Except paying someone to drive your car has no point. This has a point - it saves me 60 hours that I probably would have grinded through (trying to catch up) to get to where I wanted to be.

Outside of entertainment value video games really don't have much of a point either. You pay $50 for a box and CD, pay $15(?) a month just to play it, and then another $50 just to have fun playing it. That's kind of sad.

Yep, I know, and I do often consider what the overall point is... However, when you get down to it, it's a more economical form of entertaining yourself than many other mediums (movies, etc.). Hell, more often than not what keeps me going in WoW (I've stopped playing twice, both at level 60) are the people I meet while playing; it's not all bad.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: HamburgerBoy

Originally posted by: NYHoustonman
Except paying someone to drive your car has no point. This has a point - it saves me 60 hours that I probably would have grinded through (trying to catch up) to get to where I wanted to be.

Outside of entertainment value video games really don't have much of a point either. You pay $50 for a box and CD, pay $15(?) a month just to play it, and then another $50 just to have fun playing it. That's kind of sad.

You can say that about anything. $7 cover, $5*4 pints of beer, another $20 getting drinks for friends. Thats $47 gone in a night with nothing to show for it, sad?

Entertainment is entertainment. You couldn't pay me to watch NASCAR, but there's plenty of money to be made in that franchise. If the OP thinks he got value out of somebody leveling his character, then that's all that matters. Almost everything we spend money on is stupid, computers included. Value is in the eye of the beholder, and all that matters is personal happiness.

I don't play those kind of games, but if I did I wouldn't have a problem playing with people who bought their rank. I think it's silly, but whatever, it's their money.

 

[Pwnbroker]

Quite possibly, OP will be here whining in a month about his account being stolen?

I can see both sides of the problem here though. Blizzard has an obligation to provide security to the people giving them a living, yet OP has a right to get entertainment out of his money. I doubt anybody here would pay for a hooker when they already have a wife/gf at home. Of course, if you do, you're gonna get ganked with some std and you get what you deserve. OP is taking a huge risk with his account and his time and money invested in his game. Blizzard is doing what they can to prevent that as it's bad for their wallet to lose customers. Blizzard has an obligation to their bottom line, and if you lose your account, are you going to keep paying to play? Not likely.

 

[NYHoustonman]

Originally posted by: Pwnbroker
Quite possibly, OP will be here whining in a month about his account being stolen?

I can see both sides of the problem here though. Blizzard has an obligation to provide security to the people giving them a living, yet OP has a right to get entertainment out of his money. I doubt anybody here would pay for a hooker when they already have a wife/gf at home. Of course, if you do, you're gonna get ganked with some std and you get what you deserve. OP is taking a huge risk with his account and his time and money invested in his game. Blizzard is doing what they can to prevent that as it's bad for their wallet to lose customers. Blizzard has an obligation to their bottom line, and if you lose your account, are you going to keep paying to play? Not likely.

Now, that's a valid point... I would most definitely stop . But their ToS also fly in the face of this; if my account were to be hacked (no, I wouldn't complain about it, that was my main reservation in doing this, I know the risk I took) they claim that they cannot do anything about it. If they care enough to give suspensions for this kind of stuff, they should probably change their policies in that area as well IMO.

 

[thujone]

Originally posted by: NYHoustonman

Originally posted by: Pwnbroker
Quite possibly, OP will be here whining in a month about his account being stolen?

I can see both sides of the problem here though. Blizzard has an obligation to provide security to the people giving them a living, yet OP has a right to get entertainment out of his money. I doubt anybody here would pay for a hooker when they already have a wife/gf at home. Of course, if you do, you're gonna get ganked with some std and you get what you deserve. OP is taking a huge risk with his account and his time and money invested in his game. Blizzard is doing what they can to prevent that as it's bad for their wallet to lose customers. Blizzard has an obligation to their bottom line, and if you lose your account, are you going to keep paying to play? Not likely.

Now, that's a valid point... I would most definitely stop . But their ToS also fly in the face of this; if my account were to be hacked (no, I wouldn't complain about it, that was my main reservation in doing this, I know the risk I took) they claim that they cannot do anything about it. If they care enough to give suspensions for this kind of stuff, they should probably change their policies in that area as well IMO.

actually they do investigate hacked accounts. and it's usually a month long process that involves lots of labor going through server/ip logs and whatnot. so from there... that's a big cost to blizz.

as someone else said... whenever you turn over your account to a leveling service. they do a whole lot more than just level your character. they funnel gold and items through the account... which effects the economy everywhere due to server transfers etc.

all in all... blizz enforces things like this to keep the game from devolving into a D2 situation where an economy spirals out of control and turns into a real world ebay market.


granted... i have no problem with people selling their accounts when they're done playing them... but i've played this game for over 2 years and have put a lot of time and effort into a single character. to have someone with more cash than me irl to come along and simply say "yes pls!" and get to where i'm at in the game is something that i'm glad blizzard cracks down on.

it's akin to people that use bot programs to farm honor in pvp or gold for their mounts.

then again... you can't pay a leveling service to raid for you