"Gold Farmers Need To Be Embraced"

[Anton P. Nym]

"Gold Farmers Need To Be Embraced"

...tightly by tentacles of the largest cephelapod we can summon forth from the vasty deep. And then dragged down.

Sorry, gold farming (or microtransaction-driven play bonuses in general) would entirely kill my interest in a title. There will always be those willing to pay to win... and I don't want to be playing with them, I'd rather be playing with people who want to play the game.

-- Steve

 

[PhoenixFlame]

Nethack quote: "The DevTeam has arranged an automatic and savage punishment for pudding farming. It's called pudding farming."

If someone wants to sit around all day and farm gold, should it really be considered a bad thing? They're investing *that much* time in $COMPANY software subscriptions (or in the case of Guild Wars are getting auto-punished for it anyway as everything scales away). Personally I don't think we should embrace them, but banning/purging accounts because they're gold farming seems a bit over the top for me.

I don't have the patience for pudding farming in nethack, but I love it when I come across a bones file of someone who does!

The problem is not the actual practice, but the impact it has in the big picture of curious virtual economies. The "it's their time, let them do what they want with it" idea loses a bit of steam when said individuals are also making a profit, too.

The ability to purchase gold and inject imbalance into the in-game market has been plenty an issue. While virtual economies are certainly not as serious business as the actual economy the ability for a game to have a healthy market for goods and items is part of its appeal.

As for "gold farmers need a hug", simply because MMO companies can't stop them, well, it's only true in that they can't ever stop gold farming spam, or the actual persistence of gold farming in general. What they can do is adjust the economy to make gold farming services irrelevant or not worthwhile, with some success. I'm with a bunch of folks in the thread - saying they're gonna do it anyway is tantamount to saying you shouldn't have restrictions on conduct in an online game because "this is the Internet" and douchebags are going to be around no matter what. But somewhere, someone has to set some kind of bar or standard, and not allowing people to buy their way to success in an MMO (as opposed to having an equal chance of it) is part of setting that up.

Besides, my sympathy for gold farming companies dips quite a bit when you see that they have a business model that is lucrative. They aren't hurting.

 

[Yanarix]

"purchase gold and inject imbalance into the in-game market has been plenty an issue"

how so? I already explained why I think gold farming makes a market more healthy, do you have any counter to my points? any other issues to bring up on the subject?

 

[Murmur95]

I don't see why online games have a system that works like gold sellers to make the gold sellers out of business.

 

[axia777]

Death to all Gold Farmers, pure and simple. Screw them. Of course they would say "Embrace us". They have a lot of cash to make. Anyone would say the same thing. Crack dealers say the same thing. Screw Gold Farmers.

Anyone want to guess why Gold Farming REALLY SUCKS? Because it unbalances the game for the players. There are some players, like me, who cannot and would not spend more cash on a game than what we all ready have. Which is about $50 for a brand new PC MMO plus the monthly fee's. That is no small chuck of change.

Then there are the dicks who have all the money in the world and don't care. They can buy gold and items all the time. They don't have to spend time to work at getting gold and items. They unbalance the game and that ruins the fun factor for everyone. They like Gold Farmers and their ilk game go piss off.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I don't see why online games have a system that works like gold sellers to make the gold sellers out of business.

That's the system he's suggesting. A strong economic system would force gold farmers away from hoarding as the economy would crash out; similar to the credit crunch in RL.
Eve does similar.

 

[ward.]

I agree with the contents of the OPs article.
Stamping out gold farmers would cost a lot of mmporgs both user numbers and a steady income, So long as they find a way to stop it from crashing the game economy.

WAR is a good example of handling it, the game gives out so much gold that there's no reason to buy it.

 

[toliman]

"blizzard is far too ethical to resort to having to promote or sell things for in-game rewards. because gold-farmers would ruin the game for the players who do the right thing, etc"

Three words:

Spectral Tiger Mount
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33225#comments

sure, it's not 'in-game' currency, but the TCG rewards and the rewards from events like blizzcon and 'recruit-a-friend' are still very profitable for blizzard, just like that money made by farming gold 'legitmately' or 'not-so-legitimately' and then selling it.

it's a morality lesson that beguiles people who aren't exposed to the obnoxious fashion in which blizzard casually, but regularly advertises RM t-shirts, mice, card games, mousepads, events, vs. the way goldfarmers advertise their services.

MMO's selling IGE for profit, either come down 'our standards are so tough because we have at least two of them' or they don't have the means or the numbers to 'skim' politely off the top of customers, and rather, do so more aggressively or restrict users who are not paying to play the game.

eve online at least has the temerity to offer RW/IG exchange of money as a profitable resource, web games like travian and others offer donation/upkeep bonuses, etc. which are honestly tame compared to direct item-sales of balance-breaking weapons or bonuses that unbalance the game for those not paying their way ahead.

the problem is that the IGE is based upon several hundred people also trying to make money exploiting the resources of the game's economic system, for personal acquisition, or systematic gains, i.e. to buy more items to gain better gear to gain more items, etc.

given the number of people and players who already game the economic system already, introducing RM bonuses for levelling i.e. recruit-a-friend, introducing RM rewards, plus, in addition, they are already seeking to undermine the economic system in several ways to try to curb various inadequacies of the principles of any economic system, i.e. where does one spend money on consuming goods, if one has no need for goods beyond the means to trade money.

giant bags. exclusive jewellery. motorcycles. and mounts. RM/IGM consumerism.

i could be wrong, it might not be blizzard falling into a slippery slope of inducing people to buy goods, services, in-game-rewards, etc. but that's the point of small changes, you typically don't notice it until it's too late to change or interfere.

 

[Sigenrecht]

I know that the acquisition of currency in MMO's is what makes me loathe them with such a passion, because they take up nine-tenths of the time I should be devoting to fun with grinding and work. The sooner developers can find a place for gold farmers in their heart, the sooner I can get back onto the MMOG scene and not hate myself for it. Though, I would have to admit I'd regret seeing Mythic's truly entertaining way of dealing with gold farmers in WAR fly by.

 

[Elurindel]

I agree with the contents of the OPs article.
Stamping out gold farmers would cost a lot of mmporgs both user numbers and a steady income, So long as they find a way to stop it from crashing the game economy.

WAR is a good example of handling it, the game gives out so much gold that there's no reason to buy it.

Better yet, it even rewards those who hand the scum in.

 

[Kyoufuu]

Apparently noone here plays RuneScape. In RS, gold farmers (henceforth referred to as Real World Traders) had been ruining the economy for YEARS. It was almost impossible to make decent money out of skilling, as depletable resources (yew and magic trees, runite rocks etc) were always being farmed by up to 10 generic-appearance bots at a time, and with non-depleatable resources (fishing spots for sharks, rune essence mine) there was simply a massive supply of those resources. Also, because of millions of bots casting High-level Alchemy on BILLIONS of yew longbows, and the money brought into the economy by this, the inflation in RS was quite massive.

Recently, JaGex (makers of RS) have completely KILLED RWTing. I haven't seen a bot in about a year, and the only way to buy gold is to pay someone AND give them your account details (!!!) and HOPE against hope that they: one) use it to make gold for you. 2) give it back 3) don't sell your years of hard work you have put into your character. If they don't, you can't recover your account details (oh yes, let's just ask the company who ban people who buy as well as sell gold to get our account back, that we lost by breaking their own rules!)

Tl;dr is Gold farmers are bad for both economies and people who want to make money in the game legitimately, and exercise in futility my big hairy ass.

 

[Lord Krunk]

The guy is clueless to what hes talking about. Many players in online games consider the idea of buying gold cheating to begin with. If you make an MMO that supports the idea of the guy with the biggest wallet out of game wins then good luck getting subscribers who can't spend more then 15 bucks a month on your game.


Clueless.

There is a game promoting gold farming, it's called Gaia Online.

And we all know what a turd-fest that game is.

 

[KeyMaster45]

Forgive me for dragging up a dead thread, but I just had to give my opinion on this subject

first off gold farmers dont ruin the economy.

You're right, little Taipong in china isn't controlling the market of items, he's out killing X mob for 15 hours straight or hacking someone's account and stealing their money. The players who pick one item and decide to become the #1 seller of X item ruin the market by flooding it with X item to the extent where it become worth next to nothing, or charge insane amounts of X currency for the item.

where your average gamer is a obsessive compulsive packrat who will create a veritable legion of alts to hoard away every last bit of gear that "might" be useful someday

That's me all the way, except after awhile I will simply vendor any extra items I have because trying to sell them on the game's market is pointless, especially when you get charged X amount of currency just to stick it up on an AH and lose money when no one buys it. I make more money per day vendoring items people could use than I would if I tried to sell them in the game's market.

gold farmers actually have an incentive to get those massive piles of loot out of their inventory and converted into gold. that need to sell NOW drives the market, keeps items in stock and prices down via competition.

This is something that pisses me off to no end, the gold farmers that do sell stuff in the normal market drive down prices on items, sorry but that hurts the market. To use an example, I was playing one particular MMO recently and had the great fortune to aquire a large amount of a somewhat pricey item. When I went to put said item on the market it had been selling for about 40-50 gold per. I did not flood the market with my item, that would just be stupid and asking for someone to undercut you. I started with about 5 or so of the item to test the waters. Withiin less than an hour, some A-hole had come in with 60 of the bastards and put them up for 10, 10 f'ing gold. The price of that item has never gone higher than 15 gold since then. I don't farm, I don't have the time to farm; so when I have an opportunity to make sh*t tons of cash from item that's rather hard to get hold of only to have some douche undercut me by the depth of the grand canyon I'm very tempted to buy gold, but don't because I enjoy the sense of accomplishment from saving for long periods of time for an item.

your regular player will stop running whatever instance once he is all epiced out, lured back into it only to do favors for their friends, while the gold farmer works tirelessly day in and day out to keep the market brimming with anything that can be sold.

I'll give you this one, I most definatley won't visit a dungeon once I've milked it for all its worth.

bots and scams are wrong, but selling gold in itself is not.

I could sit here and argue the "gaming ethics" of that statement all day, but all I will say is that its the equivalent to using cheat codes.


To sum it up, I don't like gold sellers; they disrupt normal gameplay, and make navigating a game's economy very difficult for your average joe just trying to make a few bucks for his new sword.

 

[ryukage_sama]

Games are about having fun. If spending extra money on a game makes it more fun for the person spending the money, so be it.

Does spending money of specialized WoW keyboards give people an unfair advantage? Or does using a 'high-performance' mouse that costs >$70 count as cheating when competing in FPS or RTS games online?

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Urgh... The stupid... Just... Fuck...