Documentary on Chinese Gold Farmers in WoW

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: RBachman

Originally posted by: abaez

Originally posted by: RBachman

Originally posted by: abaez
Major Mana pots on our server have gone down to 3gold for 5, nice little windfall for us!

I will admit I've bought gold. Probably 1,000 over the last year. The way I see it is that I spent about 2-3 hours of my pay to save many many hours of gold farming in the game, and then I can focus on having the fun and spending the time beating the encounters in bwl/aq. Besides, 1,000g is what.. one week of bringing a lunch from home in or not going to starbucks? Not a big sacrifice.

Yeah, you've only helped to ruin the entire genre, what's the big deal?

Riiiiiiiight. Me spending $40 for 1,000 gold, a miniscule amount, in a game where millions of gold is created daily ruined the entire mmorpg genre for the world. Go ahead and farm 3 hours for your 50 gold, I'll be in ahn'qiraj.

Heh, I figured you'd come back with a rationalization. Amusingly, this is even easier to refute. You're one of tens of thousands whose stupidity, in concert, has in large part ruined the genre. Much like one car or truck doesn't create much polution, but LA is covered in smog... Much like each person only gets one vote, but we manage to elect a leader for 300 million people.

Funny, I'm doing end-game content too. I tend not to farm; when my funds get a little low I just spend a few minutes at the AH, make some smart buys and sell them at marked up prices to morons who have no clue of gold's worth due to having bought theirs :laugh:

Honestly I don't even understand what you need the money for; there are no buyable upgrades for you, and consumables & repairs have a very minimal cost associated with them. You'd be hard pressed NOT to have the dough for the occasional enchant or libram quest, etc., just from playing the game. It's like you're being stupid simply for the sake of being stupid.

Disclaimer : *I HAVE NEVER BOUGHT ANYTHING FOR A MMORPG*

I feel it is a design flaw in any game that would force players to want to spend additional RL money on a service provided by a 3rd party vendor. Attack the game itself and not the person who decides working in rl for 2-3 hours is greater than working however many hours it takes to accumulate 1000 gold.

 

[Velk]

As a side note - one of the advantages listed for master looter is incorrect. Any circumstances which prevents a person from rolling (such as going linkdead) will also cause them not to appear in the distribution list for the master looter. It also carries the additional penalty that if it is the master looter who goes linkdead at the wrong time, noone can loot anything from the corpse.

It also carries the downside of if you kill a mob and the rezzers die to adds, if the master looter is one of the dead, the loot will disappear before they run back, as opposed to group loot where you could cut your losses and let the people who survived loot.

We generally use it anyway, but don't switch because it is 'safer' than group loot.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: Velk
As a side note - one of the advantages listed for master looter is incorrect. Any circumstances which prevents a person from rolling (such as going linkdead) will also cause them not to appear in the distribution list for the master looter. It also carries the additional penalty that if it is the master looter who goes linkdead at the wrong time, noone can loot anything from the corpse.

It also carries the downside of if you kill a mob and the rezzers die to adds, if the master looter is one of the dead, the loot will disappear before they run back, as opposed to group loot where you could cut your losses and let the people who survived loot.

We generally use it anyway, but don't switch because it is 'safer' than group loot.

No, ML is, by no means, perfect, but you have to admit, the scenarios in which something "could" go wrong are much less frequent than the those of pure "group loot." People getting disconnected before looting are waited on by the ML. It's certainly a lot easier for that one person to show restraint that to try and guarantee that each and every member of a PUG is going to make sure and wait until all players are rezzed/connected/in the instance/etc.

ML should simply be chosen wisely, not haphazardly. A solid connection and fair weather are almost as important as a trustworthy reputation.

An no, I've never seen a scenario in which a boss mob disappears before the party has a chance to make a corpse run. They actually stick around for quite a while. I suppose in someplace like MC, you could run into issues with Core Hounds respawning and requiring re-clearing that could slow things down.

Like I've said, Group Loot certainly has it's place as a legitimate distribution model. But the OP's scenario in which gold farmers routinely "ninja" the party's loot is obviously not one of them.

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: fs5

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger
Let me give you the cliffs again::

OP: Here's something about Chinese gold farmers.
fs5: I hate it when gold farmers get in our PUGs and steal loot.
me: Having a Master Looter will solve that problem.
fs5: No one on our server likes ML.
me: OK, but it's really a superior method and defeats gold farmers.
fs5: ML sucks, we're not using it.
me: It doesn't suck, we use it with no problems and find it work well.
fs5: Our guild uses DKP, too. But sometimes gold farmers in PUGs roll on our stuff and we don't know a solution for that. Read the thread, please.
me: Uhh..

Please, tell me what I'm missing here. You are complaining that gold farmers are stealing your loot when you use Group Loot in PUGs. I suggest you switch to Master Looter to stop this. Why all the confusion? 😕

1) I am talking about PUG runs when people steal the loot
2) We have no problems with guild runs and FFA.
3) for PUG runs everybody on the server uses group loot. If you switch the loot to ML people complain. Not to mention if the ML person gets disconnected.... ML is not the solution on our server therefore your suggestion of switching to ML would not work for our server.

I've played on 2 different servers, dragonmaw and tich. On Dragonmaw people use group loot/ML. On Tich people use Group Loot only.

Now was that so hard?

get a better guild. you shouldn't be doing PUG runs unless you're a n00b anyway.

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: RBachman

Originally posted by: abaez

Originally posted by: RBachman

Originally posted by: abaez
Major Mana pots on our server have gone down to 3gold for 5, nice little windfall for us!

I will admit I've bought gold. Probably 1,000 over the last year. The way I see it is that I spent about 2-3 hours of my pay to save many many hours of gold farming in the game, and then I can focus on having the fun and spending the time beating the encounters in bwl/aq. Besides, 1,000g is what.. one week of bringing a lunch from home in or not going to starbucks? Not a big sacrifice.

Yeah, you've only helped to ruin the entire genre, what's the big deal?

Riiiiiiiight. Me spending $40 for 1,000 gold, a miniscule amount, in a game where millions of gold is created daily ruined the entire mmorpg genre for the world. Go ahead and farm 3 hours for your 50 gold, I'll be in ahn'qiraj.

Heh, I figured you'd come back with a rationalization. Amusingly, this is even easier to refute. You're one of tens of thousands whose stupidity, in concert, has in large part ruined the genre. Much like one car or truck doesn't create much polution, but LA is covered in smog... Much like each person only gets one vote, but we manage to elect a leader for 300 million people.

Funny, I'm doing end-game content too. I tend not to farm; when my funds get a little low I just spend a few minutes at the AH, make some smart buys and sell them at marked up prices to morons who have no clue of gold's worth due to having bought theirs :laugh:

Honestly I don't even understand what you need the money for; there are no buyable upgrades for you, and consumables & repairs have a very minimal cost associated with them. You'd be hard pressed NOT to have the dough for the occasional enchant or libram quest, etc., just from playing the game. It's like you're being stupid simply for the sake of being stupid.

upper brs isn't end game content, sorry.

 

[CKent]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
Disclaimer : *I HAVE NEVER BOUGHT ANYTHING FOR A MMORPG*

I feel it is a design flaw in any game that would force players to want to spend additional RL money on a service provided by a 3rd party vendor. Attack the game itself and not the person who decides working in rl for 2-3 hours is greater than working however many hours it takes to accumulate 1000 gold.

The player doesn't choose to buy the gold, he's forced to! Blizzard sends a rep to your house who holds a gun to your head while you surf to ebay.com and put in those credit card numbers!

Jesus christ :roll: In a blame-free society where you can pour coffee on yourself, sue someone else for it and win, I guess it shouldn't surprise & disgust me so much, but it does anyway.

Originally posted by: fisher
upper brs isn't end game content, sorry.

Not sure whether you have me confused with another poster or whether you're taking a cheap shot, mind clarifying? My main's starting BWL and my alt is in a startup guild which plans on it (server transfer ftl).

 

[DPmaster]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269

Originally posted by: RBachman

Originally posted by: abaez

Originally posted by: RBachman

Originally posted by: abaez
Major Mana pots on our server have gone down to 3gold for 5, nice little windfall for us!

I will admit I've bought gold. Probably 1,000 over the last year. The way I see it is that I spent about 2-3 hours of my pay to save many many hours of gold farming in the game, and then I can focus on having the fun and spending the time beating the encounters in bwl/aq. Besides, 1,000g is what.. one week of bringing a lunch from home in or not going to starbucks? Not a big sacrifice.

Yeah, you've only helped to ruin the entire genre, what's the big deal?

Riiiiiiiight. Me spending $40 for 1,000 gold, a miniscule amount, in a game where millions of gold is created daily ruined the entire mmorpg genre for the world. Go ahead and farm 3 hours for your 50 gold, I'll be in ahn'qiraj.

Heh, I figured you'd come back with a rationalization. Amusingly, this is even easier to refute. You're one of tens of thousands whose stupidity, in concert, has in large part ruined the genre. Much like one car or truck doesn't create much polution, but LA is covered in smog... Much like each person only gets one vote, but we manage to elect a leader for 300 million people.

Funny, I'm doing end-game content too. I tend not to farm; when my funds get a little low I just spend a few minutes at the AH, make some smart buys and sell them at marked up prices to morons who have no clue of gold's worth due to having bought theirs :laugh:

Honestly I don't even understand what you need the money for; there are no buyable upgrades for you, and consumables & repairs have a very minimal cost associated with them. You'd be hard pressed NOT to have the dough for the occasional enchant or libram quest, etc., just from playing the game. It's like you're being stupid simply for the sake of being stupid.

Disclaimer : *I HAVE NEVER BOUGHT ANYTHING FOR A MMORPG*

I feel it is a design flaw in any game that would force players to want to spend additional RL money on a service provided by a 3rd party vendor. Attack the game itself and not the person who decides working in rl for 2-3 hours is greater than working however many hours it takes to accumulate 1000 gold.

Then it's a design flaw in every single MMORPG made. You can buy game currency for every single MMORPG in existence if you look hard enough. It's just easier to find currency for WoW because it's the biggest one out there right now.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: RBachman

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
Disclaimer : *I HAVE NEVER BOUGHT ANYTHING FOR A MMORPG*

I feel it is a design flaw in any game that would force players to want to spend additional RL money on a service provided by a 3rd party vendor. Attack the game itself and not the person who decides working in rl for 2-3 hours is greater than working however many hours it takes to accumulate 1000 gold.

The player doesn't choose to buy the gold, he's forced to! Blizzard sends a rep to your house who holds a gun to your head while you surf to ebay.com and put in those credit card numbers!

Jesus christ :roll: In a blame-free society where you can pour coffee on yourself, sue someone else for it and win, I guess it shouldn't surprise & disgust me so much, but it does anyway.

Originally posted by: fisher
upper brs isn't end game content, sorry.

Not sure whether you have me confused with another poster or whether you're taking a cheap shot, mind clarifying? My main's starting BWL and my alt is in a startup guild which plans on it (server transfer ftl).

Wow, you suck at outside the box thinking, eh? What in the world does this have to do with a 'blame-free society'? I never once said that the person buying the gold was not at fault for anything I just said that perhaps we should shift our attention to the game designers. Obviously people are going to continue buying gold because of the way the game is designed so why not look at the ROOT of the problem as opposed to the RESULT.

The fact of the matter is that gold/item buying for RL cash will NEVER end. So, if we know that is now a constant then what else can we look at to help reduce the desire to ever buy another item? OMG? The design of the game?!

 

[CKent]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269

Originally posted by: RBachman

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
Disclaimer : *I HAVE NEVER BOUGHT ANYTHING FOR A MMORPG*

I feel it is a design flaw in any game that would force players to want to spend additional RL money on a service provided by a 3rd party vendor. Attack the game itself and not the person who decides working in rl for 2-3 hours is greater than working however many hours it takes to accumulate 1000 gold.

The player doesn't choose to buy the gold, he's forced to! Blizzard sends a rep to your house who holds a gun to your head while you surf to ebay.com and put in those credit card numbers!

Jesus christ :roll: In a blame-free society where you can pour coffee on yourself, sue someone else for it and win, I guess it shouldn't surprise & disgust me so much, but it does anyway.

Originally posted by: fisher
upper brs isn't end game content, sorry.

Not sure whether you have me confused with another poster or whether you're taking a cheap shot, mind clarifying? My main's starting BWL and my alt is in a startup guild which plans on it (server transfer ftl).

Wow, you suck at outside the box thinking, eh? What in the world does this have to do with a 'blame-free society'? I never once said that the person buying the gold was not at fault for anything I just said that perhaps we should shift our attention to the game designers. Obviously people are going to continue buying gold because of the way the game is designed so why not look at the ROOT of the problem as opposed to the RESULT.

The fact of the matter is that gold/item buying for RL cash will NEVER end. So, if we know that is now a constant then what else can we look at to help reduce the desire to ever buy another item? OMG? The design of the game?!

The root of the problem is human stupidity. The fix is outlawed internationally 🙁

No game changes can fully discourage it without making the game even worse off than it is with currency selling corporations. I've read a million threads on it on various MMOG boards and no idea I've heard is in the least bit appealing. The fact is, a healthy, legitimate economy is ... was one of the charms of the genre. You do away with that, even in part, and you're doing a lot of harm.

Oh, and why am I not surprised that someone blaming game designers for the MMOG currency market would resort to personal attacks...? :roll:

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: RBachman

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269

Originally posted by: RBachman

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
Disclaimer : *I HAVE NEVER BOUGHT ANYTHING FOR A MMORPG*

I feel it is a design flaw in any game that would force players to want to spend additional RL money on a service provided by a 3rd party vendor. Attack the game itself and not the person who decides working in rl for 2-3 hours is greater than working however many hours it takes to accumulate 1000 gold.

The player doesn't choose to buy the gold, he's forced to! Blizzard sends a rep to your house who holds a gun to your head while you surf to ebay.com and put in those credit card numbers!

Jesus christ :roll: In a blame-free society where you can pour coffee on yourself, sue someone else for it and win, I guess it shouldn't surprise & disgust me so much, but it does anyway.

Originally posted by: fisher
upper brs isn't end game content, sorry.

Not sure whether you have me confused with another poster or whether you're taking a cheap shot, mind clarifying? My main's starting BWL and my alt is in a startup guild which plans on it (server transfer ftl).

Wow, you suck at outside the box thinking, eh? What in the world does this have to do with a 'blame-free society'? I never once said that the person buying the gold was not at fault for anything I just said that perhaps we should shift our attention to the game designers. Obviously people are going to continue buying gold because of the way the game is designed so why not look at the ROOT of the problem as opposed to the RESULT.

The fact of the matter is that gold/item buying for RL cash will NEVER end. So, if we know that is now a constant then what else can we look at to help reduce the desire to ever buy another item? OMG? The design of the game?!

The root of the problem is human stupidity. The fix is outlawed internationally 🙁

No game changes can fully discourage it without making the game even worse off than it is with currency selling corporations. I've read a million threads on it on various MMOG boards and no idea I've heard is in the least bit appealing. The fact is, a healthy, legitimate economy is ... was one of the charms of the genre. You do away with that, even in part, and you're doing a lot of harm.

Oh, and why am I not surprised that someone blaming game designers for the MMOG currency market would resort to personal attacks...? :roll:

Where was the personal attack? Please tell me you are not referring to the 'outside the box thinking part' because if you consider that a personal attack...

You still fail to grasp what I am saying here. Either that or you do not know that many mmog developers are now CATERING to the secondary markets that exist for these games. Some are even creating their own markets so that they can personally profit off of the buying and selling of goods for real life cash. Why do they do this? For the same reason they allow power gamers to drive content. They know that they can continue to keep subscriptions as long as they allow people to pay for advancement. Just like they can keep subscriptions by catering to the power gamer. That leaves a casual gamer who does not pay $$ for goods, like myself, out of the loop. Underpowered and unable to compete in an item based game like WoW.

The entire industry is to blame. I couldn't care less because I do not play this crap anymore. It was ruined long ago by much worse things than people buying/selling goods for real life cash. You prefer to blame the people who purchase goods as being the root of the problem with the game and of course you are entitled to your opinion. However, how can you blame only them when the devs don't care and they do nothing to try to stop it? Hell, you've probably bought a gaming mag or two that had advertisements for these kinds of services in the magazine. That might not be direct support for those types of services but it is support nonetheless. (Of course you might not ever get magazines but this does apply to any others who are adamantly against the buying/selling of virtual goods).

 

[CKent]

I'm well aware of SOE Exchange, and I highly suspect Blizzard gets a cut from IGE, due mainly to the Dire Maul exploit which has gone unfixed for 4-5 months now. The root of the problem is the demand; where there is one, a supply will always crop up. You seem to think a fix is possible, but even if the developers wanted to (they did, at first, before they realized they could get a cut) there isn't anything they could do to stop it without causing even more harm than the currency trading companies. Most changes to this end would simply be worked around, for example when they nerfed the gem drops at the gang/nec camp in Sebilis in EQ, the enchanter/cleric teams which farmed it 24/7 just started selling KEI and .. whatever that cleric buff was, it escapes me at the moment, in PoK instead. The idea of a cashless MMORPG model has been thrown around, but as I said an economy (a legitimate one) was one of the charms of the genre. Regardless, the firms would likely just sell powerlevelling services instead. Again.. where there's a demand, a supply will appear. Since genocide is illegal and people are getting dumber rather than smarter, I see no end in sight. Perhaps I'm so bitter about it because I played before it became such a mainstream thing; when it occurred on such a small scale as to not harm the games. You can't miss what you don't know, so many MMORPG newbies (most people never heard the term before WoW was released) have no idea...

 

[Fingolfin269]

The sad thing about this is that I could have sold my MUD character in 1995 for like $500. Think about that man. People complain about people buying virtual gold in a graphical land. Hell, I could have gotten $500 for a text guy. 😛

Then again, who is more stupid? The person offering me the $500 or me for passing it up? 🙂

 

[dabuddha]

Originally posted by: fs5

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger
No offense, but that sounds like a really poor community on that server. I mean, isn't it easier to trust 1 single person on the run to be fair, as opposed to trusting that all the other 4-9 party members are going to play fair?

I've yet to make any mid-to-high level runs on group loot. There's just too much room for abuse and/or accidents, like looting after a wipe and some people don't get a roll, to rolling "need" on the Big Brop, etc. I'm at the point where all my runs are guild and friends-list runs, but even in PUGs you need a ML. Especially in PUGs.

You mean even with your guild and friends you ML? That's what I call a bad community, you should be able to trust everybody and do group loot. Make things easier and goes faster.

With a small group of 5 or so people, it's easily done. But trying not doing ML or using RR in a 40 man run.

EDIT: Holy old thread batman!

 

[Oakenfold]

Originally posted by: RBachman
Most changes to this end would simply be worked around, for example when they nerfed the gem drops at the gang/nec camp in Sebilis in EQ, the enchanter/cleric teams which farmed it 24/7 just started selling KEI and .. whatever that cleric buff was, it escapes me at the moment, in PoK instead.

Virtue I think, a lower level spell also was very popular but I can't recall the name.