Yay, account closures!

Drakar

From http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=1912793&p=1&tmp=1#post1912793

Over the recent weeks we have been investigating the activities of certain individuals who have been farming gold in order to sell it in exchange for real world currency. After researching the situation, we have issued permanent suspensions to over one thousand accounts that have been engaging in this practice. We do not condone such actions and will take decisive action as they are against our policy and damage the game economy as a whole. We will continue researching this matter. If you suspect someone of taking part in said gold farming, please eMail the report to wowgm@blizzard.com.


Maleki
In-Game Support Manager

DeVore

Why does this bother people so much? Most decent stuff (if not all!) is level locked, sure having 50g as a newbie would make life easier for someone but it wouldnt bother me. I'm sure there are tons of people out there with "ph4t lewt" that they simply bought. I feel sorry for them, I earned mine and enjoyed the game while I did it!

DeV.

Megatron

Devore, they more than likely enjoy the game just as much , even though they have "bought" the item. Now myself i've never liked this sort of thing, speaking from another mmorpg iv'e seen the Economy go mental with this sort of thing. So i think it's a great move.

DapperGent

DeVore wrote:

Why does this bother people so much? Most decent stuff (if not all!) is level locked, sure having 50g as a newbie would make life easier for someone but it wouldnt bother me. I'm sure there are tons of people out there with "ph4t lewt" that they simply bought. I feel sorry for them, I earned mine and enjoyed the game while I did it!

I think the real problem is not the fact that a newb has 50g to enjoy but that the farming -> auctioning items -> selling gold for real money leads to the economy being b0rked and stuff not selling for it's proper price. Apparently it can lead to severe deflation on green prices (so most normal people can't make money on them) and severe inflation on rarer items (meaning normal people can never afford to buy them without buying gold online) which kinda ruins everyone's fun.

Most normal level 60s are spending money like water on repairing the phat l00t they have equiped and on epic mounts and equipment and what not. Releasing all that money into the economy from farmers without some in game trade off for the people who recieve it can cause serious problems. At least that is what a lot of players are saying on the forums from experience of other MMOs. WoW is the first one I've played so I don't know from experience.

I can't really talk though my brother sent me 5 gold when I rolled my character on bladefist, so I was a level 3 wandering around with 4 mageweave bags. Nice.

koneko

It can mess up the ingame economy, and it pretty much just isn't fair on people that put in the time/effort.

Having special items and a mount is a privilige, you have to work for that money. If you don't have it, you do instances again, or you use your tradeskills to make it (especially gathering), sell green/blue items on AH instead of to the vendor, work at it. It takes time and effort, but if you really want something, it's worth it. It isn't fair if joe bloggs can't be bothered put in the effort, doesn't know how to play his class properly, but still has all the super items others can't afford (yet) because he wants to spend real-life money on virtual gold instead.

It's similar to sports. Is it fair to lose out to someone that's taking steroids? Unfair advantage.

I see the POV of the people that buy the gold, but personally I wouldn't do it because it just isn't the same as earning it. There's no pride or honour in getting something good, if you didn't have to do anything to achieve it.

IMHO of course
That's just the personal side, the effect on the economy is more of a concern in general though.

adnans

Zhaigong, I will miss you.

-adnans

Gizzard

Horse costs 90g so..

DeVore

I dont disagree with banning their accounts and I take the point about dumping gold into the economy willy-nilly. But to argue that its unfair... is it fair if someone's parents sends them to private school/college while someone else cant go because they have to get out and work? And thats real life, this is just a game!
Using money to buy advantage is what our economy is BUILT on, I just think its kinda funny when people revolt against it in a game and yet accept it in real life. I bet the people who cheer for account closures would take offence to being called communists lol.

Maybe this thread should be in Humanities

DeV.

Megatron

Devore i do understand what your saying alright, however in another mmorpg i play (Daoc) the price for uber drops has gotten silly, it is now next to impossible for the casual gamer to get the required cash to get certian drops.

The market being so inflated is Mytic has decided to change the drop rates as to try and help balance out the economy. but what they won't do is ban the said accounts from doing so. I know people who sell money on Ebay for daoc, and they also PL Chars and kit them out. they guy makes a bundle .

Ok thats fine for him, but for the casual gamer ( which i suppose i am not one of them) it is very hard to get in and compete .

All in all it's a good thing, i think it's more a case of Blizzard trying to prevent a serious problem from arrising and also to cover thier own asses ( didn't something happen like this that led to court , think it was either everquest or possible SWG)

Hobbes

The economy issue is only part of it. The main problem is when it starts to effect the game.

For example lets say Spawn A gives you an item to sell on eBay. Now EbayBoy comes along and farms that spot.

You have an issue where this person is holding an area where others who just want to play the game. It takes away from thier gameplay. I have heard of instances in SWG where bots have logged into areas, looted spots and then logged out, only to log in when the timer is up again. People fighting their way to the area only to find thier stuff looted.

Another incident (which has happened) is eBayBoy logs in to find people are in his spawn point. He proceeds to train mobs into the group or just be a general dick to get them killed and then proceeds to farm again. COH had a similar situation where "Hamios" (about one of the only rares in the game) was being stolen off other groups who should of gotten them.

The last incident is where the item in question cannot be gotten except by purchasing it with real cash. There are people who do not want to do this. In some cases it can have an adverse effect on the game if such items are required to progress (eg. PvP).

However the biggest problem is when money involved the level of dickheads increase as well as corruption. UO in this case (as did neocron) have GMs spawn items/gold to sell on ebay. They eventually got caught but similar incidents of player vs player has happened, not to mention the looting of characters though in game mechanics or hacking.

But in games where gold is generated by farming (ie, infinate supply) it does destroy the game making it impossible for normal players to compete. A good example was Asherons Call. A dupe bug allowed people to basically flood the market with so much gold that the currency became worthless. The whole currency system changed to a rares based system and gold was used for nothing except to stock up on regants/ammo. This meant for new-low level players they couldn't get anything.

koneko

Exactly, and it could end up at the point where you *have* to buy gold on Ebay, just to keep up and be able to buy the items you need (that are not at an inflated price).

Using money to buy advantage is what our economy is BUILT on, I just think its kinda funny when people revolt against it in a game and yet accept it in real life.

Aaah but you seee, that's what the money in the game is for! You use that to get an advantage. If you work harder, and have more money, you'll have an advantage. Think of it as a whole seperate world. Real-life money shouldn't affect that. Maybe that doesn't make sense outside my head though.

adnans

ok. lets dig into this one. i'm not playing the game yet so i'm only watching from sidelines since im very very interested how this plays on. you may think of this as legal cases in the past which pave the way for future law cases that are fought in the courts today. so any actions that Blizzard takes in one of the most popular mmog games in the world is going to affect future games.

I'm mainly talking about real human farmers who spend most of the day in game farming items and gold and not their counterparts bots. if blizzard has found a way of catching gold farmers, why hasnt it banned buyers as well. since the sellers are cheating according to the EULA, then of course the buyers are even worse and should be banned. how do you know if the gold or item transfer in the mail was legal or illegal?

i've come accross the "adena farmer" types before in Lineage2, well they were mostly bots who go around, killing mobs, picking up loot, rinse repeat... and that was the end of Lineage2 for me. they made the process of acquiring items and adena so boring that normal players were looking for places to buy adena so they dont have to spend time in-game to do it themselves. this was a games design problem. this happens in WoW as well, but not to the same effect. Blizzard are halfway there to making the process fun but it is their fault that they made an activity in the game so boring and necassary that people are paying real world money to get someone else to do it for them. Once they fix this, there would be no buyers, and no farmers.

Oh yeah, how many of you use Cosmos, and sometimes upload your stats to Thottbot?

cosmos / thottbot is owned by OGaming , which in turn is owned by IGE the leading company in the secondary market of virtual worlds.

-adnans

Drakar

The reason I would cheer notices such as this, is that Blizzard calls these activities illegeal. Personally, I wouldn't have a huge objection to games allowing sales of in game items on principle, however, since these sales are considered by most mmorpgs to be against their TOS (with some notable exceptions), it means that only people who are willing to risk their characters by playing illegally can take advantage. What this means is that honest people who play by the rules lose out. That makes baby Jebus cry.

Back a few weeks ago, there was 5 gold for 8 dollars on ebay for our server. Tempting...

[edited because I lie!]

Ivan

adnans, what exactly are you saying, about thottbot?

adnans

Ivan wrote:

adnans, what exactly are you saying, about thottbot?

what i said above. by using cosmos and thottbot, you're providing data to a company that may use this data for a profit in a way which may encourage 'farming' techniques that are in the discussion here.

seeing what kind of invaluable service thottbot and cosmos provide, i've nothing against them. just wanted to show the hidden cons of such services.

-adnans

koneko

Indeed, the rumour is IGE (farmers extraordinaire) own Thottbot and Cosmos. Haven't done any research into this, but apparantly that's the case.

It's not illegal, at all, it's against Blizzard's EULA that's all. That means they can ban farmers (which they have done) and can ban buyers (which they may have done, but have certainly said they can/will do). Blizzard are unlikely to sue anyone anytime soon, there's absolutely no guarantee they'd win because a EULA really doesn't mean that much at the end of the day, just covers them if they want to ban accounts.

Dustaz

adnans wrote:

Oh yeah, how many of you use Cosmos, and sometimes upload your stats to Thottbot?

cosmos / thottbot is owned by OGaming , which in turn is owned by IGE the leading company in the secondary market of virtual worlds.

Thottbot is owned by OGaming but cosmos is owned by neither. There is the option to upload your stats to thot if you want but that is entirely optional.

Leave cosmos alone !

adnans

he's alive!

Dustaz

adnans wrote:

he's alive!

Alive and working till 12 with a 7am start .

All work and no wow makes johnny a mmo addict

Hobbes

Mentioned on the other forum...

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1436411,00.html

muffen

Drakar wrote:

Back a few weeks ago, there was 5 gold for 8 dollars on ebay for our server. Tempting...

Dude, I'm level 29now, and I can get 5gold in two or three days... definately not worth 8dollars!

Drakar

Heh, of course now it's small. Back then it would have meant relatively alot more. And (elsewhere) by 'illegal' I meant against the game rules.