Do you buy in game items/gold with your $?

[Malladine]

Text

""When I dupe," Smooth Criminal adds, "I farm billions on every game server and spread out my activities." He then uses three accounts to launder the gold: a duper account, a filter account, and a delivery account?each created using different IPs, credit cards, and computers. This way, it's hard to trace the source, and the gold comes back clean."

 

[edro]

Receiving stolen property is tough enough to convict in a real court case... I would love to see someone actually get convicted of receiving stolen gold in a video game.

Who cares where the gold comes from, as long as you have it. I see nothing with buying gold... it speeds up the game for people who can't play 9-5 everyday like a lot of people.

 

[kranky]

I'd like someone who is knowledgable about these games to comment on the statement in that story that reselling "gold" is a $500 million a year business. That seems like a wildly inflated claim to me.

On a side note, I guess we'll never run out of new reasons to send our money to China.

 

[Dulanic]

Originally posted by: kranky
I'd like someone who is knowledgable about these games to comment on the statement in that story that reselling "gold" is a $500 million a year business. That seems like a wildly inflated claim to me.

On a side note, I guess we'll never run out of new reasons to send our money to China.

Not at all... In EQ2 30pp sells for about $500. I myself have well over 10pp, and that's without farming hard to get money. We see tons of farming bots farming money all the time.

 

[Malladine]

Originally posted by: edro13
Receiving stolen property is tough enough to convict in a real court case... I would love to see someone actually get convicted of receiving stolen gold in a video game.

Who cares where the gold comes from, as long as you have it. I see nothing with buying gold... it speeds up the game for people who can't play 9-5 everyday like a lot of people.

Some would say that it trivializes the effort they put into obtaining legit loot.

But then you could say isn't it the effort that counts and whether or not that effort is enjoyable. If it's purely effort with little fun, why play anyway?

Personally i'm against buying gold/items. You're missing out on basically the whole game if there's no effort involved. Might as well go play an fps or other instant access game.

 

[Linflas]

Separating stupid people from their money is probably one of the oldest occupations there is.

 

[DVad3r]

Man my thread asking about what happened to son of a noob's riddle thread just got deleted... :S

 

[Ausm]

That is the only way to get to be a level 300 Enchanter in WOW in less then 1 year


Ausm

 

[Malladine]

Originally posted by: DVad3r
Man my thread asking about what happened to son of a noob's riddle thread just got deleted... :S

Don't you hijack, offer an opinion on topic at once!

 

[Malladine]

Originally posted by: Ausm
That is the only way to get to be a level 300 Enchanter in WOW in less then 1 year


Ausm

it's not that bad man, get some friends

 

[DVad3r]

Lol yes, I've bought Diablo 2 items in the past before...my barb was teh uber...

 

[Kelemvor]

I've sold an account before when I played DAoC. Friend sold his high level backstabbing dude for like $500. I sold mine for a hundred or two.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

If you ask me, I think it's a sign of what is wrong with the current crop of MMORPGs. When the point of the game is merely to gain levels and pimp your character, then why not take a short cut?

A properly designed MMORPG would have little to no market for gold.

That said, I bought gold in UO once a long time ago. I was returning to the game after having sold my previous account and didn't feel like starting over from scratch. I had done the minng and monster bashing and wanted a house and some magic weapons ASAP. That's a sign of how the game had changed negatively and how I was changed negatively as result. Before then, everybody could afford a little tent or small boat to store things and magic armor/weapons weren't required for survival. Elike PKs wore 2000 gp suits of armor from NPC blacksmiths when the game started.....then suddenly everybody needed grandmaster-crafted exceptional armor and then it became runic-crafted armor......and then artifact armor as each was added to the game.

I logged on my very first character on my original account and found that my main character had 14 gold to his name. That was after 3 months of playing. He wore armor from fallen orc captains and had just enough gold to keep him supplied with enough arrows for the next hunt......and the game was never more fun than it was back then.

 

[Malladine]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
I logged on my very first character on my original account and found that my main character had 14 gold to his name. That was after 3 months of playing. He wore armor from fallen orc captains and had just enough gold to keep him supplied with enough arrows for the next hunt......and the game was never more fun than it was back then.

You never fail to give me UO nostalgia, damn you.

Yeah, the game itself had more to offer than the items you could find. Something developers surely know all about, right? *chuckle*

 

[CChaos]

Given that time = money I have no problem trading some of my money when I don't have the time.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: Malladine

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
I logged on my very first character on my original account and found that my main character had 14 gold to his name. That was after 3 months of playing. He wore armor from fallen orc captains and had just enough gold to keep him supplied with enough arrows for the next hunt......and the game was never more fun than it was back then.

You never fail to give me UO nostalgia, damn you.

I got that armor almost exclusively from those orc camps. Remember? The ones where one orc captain and three orcs would be guarding a captive and a treasure chest. After killing the orcs you could offer to take the captive back to their home city which was sometimes halfway across the map and try to pick the treasure chest.

That was back when the eco-system was working. You could kill off all the wolves and the deer population would explode. You could strip a mountain bare of ore and it would be slowly replenished as the previously mined ore was smelted and then smithed into armor which was destroyed during combat. That was some lofty sh!t for 1997!

Yeah, the game itself had more to offer than the items you could find. Something developers surely know all about, right? *chuckle*

You would have thought. Some day somebody will see enough profit in making a true MMORPG and it will be done. but that's a long ways away....there's still many high profile franchises to slap onto the old EQ formula to keep us supplied with WoWs for another decade or so.

 

[Malladine]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
I got that armor almost exclusively from those orc camps. Remember? The ones where one orc captain and three orcs would be guarding a captive and a treasure chest. After killing the orcs you could offer to take the captive back to their home city which was sometimes halfway across the map and try to pick the treasure chest.

That was back when the eco-system was working. You could kill off all the wolves and the deer population would explode. You could strip a mountain bare of ore and it would be slowly replenished as the previously mined ore was smelted and then smithed into armor which was destroyed during combat. That was some lofty sh!t for 1997!

.....:beer:

You would have thought. Some day somebody will see enough profit in making a true MMORPG and it will be done. but that's a long ways away....there's still many high profile franchises to slap onto the old EQ formula to keep us supplied with WoWs for another decade or so.

We will wait.

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: Malladine

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
I logged on my very first character on my original account and found that my main character had 14 gold to his name. That was after 3 months of playing. He wore armor from fallen orc captains and had just enough gold to keep him supplied with enough arrows for the next hunt......and the game was never more fun than it was back then.

You never fail to give me UO nostalgia, damn you.

I got that armor almost exclusively from those orc camps. Remember? The ones where one orc captain and three orcs would be guarding a captive and a treasure chest. After killing the orcs you could offer to take the captive back to their home city which was sometimes halfway across the map and try to pick the treasure chest.

That was back when the eco-system was working. You could kill off all the wolves and the deer population would explode. You could strip a mountain bare of ore and it would be slowly replenished as the previously mined ore was smelted and then smithed into armor which was destroyed during combat. That was some lofty sh!t for 1997!

Yeah, the game itself had more to offer than the items you could find. Something developers surely know all about, right? *chuckle*

You would have thought. Some day somebody will see enough profit in making a true MMORPG and it will be done. but that's a long ways away....there's still many high profile franchises to slap onto the old EQ formula to keep us supplied with WoWs for another decade or so.

I remember when I started playing UO at release and I made the money I needed to buy a horse by scavenging backpacks and crap people left laying around. UO was ruined DDs refusal to deal with all the egregious violations of the TOS in the early days and his inability to face up to the fact that leaving dealing with PKs up to the player base rather than making the modifications necessary to make it acceptable was a dumb idea.

 

[Saint Nick]

that is absolute madness..

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: Linflas
I remember when I started playing UO at release and I made the money I needed to buy a horse by scavenging backpacks and crap people left laying around. UO was ruined DDs refusal to deal with all the egregious violations of the TOS in the early days and his inability to face up to the fact that leaving dealing with PKs up to the player base rather than making the modifications necessary to make it acceptable was a dumb idea.

I disagree. Designer Dragon was the anchor holding true to the original vision Garriott and pre-EA Origin dreamed up. "Dealing" with PKs was one of the cornerstones of that game and one small phase in the evolution of each player. The problem was that PKing got all the blame when, in fact, things like lag were what was really frustrating people. I knew a 60 year old grandmother who was an anti-PK so you can't tell me dealing with them was too much. When DD left, the game began a precipitous decline which has continued to pick up speed to this date.

If anything I'd say Raph Koster is the lone voice of reason in the MMORPG development world. SWG, for example, on paper is unequivocably the best MMORPG out right now.

 

[Dulanic]

My fav was before people really starting doing this like crazy, my EQ1 account sold for over $2K

 

[kranky]

The highest claim I found on the net for the number of MMORG players was 10 million. Even though it's probably exaggerated, let's use it anyway. Knowing that number probably includes every person who tried it once and quit, as well as the people who don't take it seriously, what percentage of that 10 million would you say are hardcore enough to pay real money to buy "gold"?

Would it be as high as 5%? As many as 10%?

 

[PrinceofWands]

My nephew makes between 80k and 170k per month just from his Everquest activities.

His setup is considerablymore advanced than the one talked about above, and doesn't rely on duping.

 

[Ausm]

Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
My nephew makes between 80k and 170k per month just from his Everquest activities.

His setup is considerablymore advanced than the one talked about above, and doesn't rely on duping.

How the fvck does he make that much cash on Everquest?


Ausm

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
My nephew makes between 80k and 170k per month just from his Everquest activities.

His setup is considerablymore advanced than the one talked about above, and doesn't rely on duping.

the IRS must love him