Have you ever bought in-game currency from the MMO secondary market?

[Samus Aran]

Since Blizzard has more or less taken a "hands-off" approach to dealing with gold buyers, and RMT in general, it really comes down to a moral issue, and is more or less policed by the community.

Honestly, I don't have a problem with you buying a chracter, I don't think it's the same as buying gold though. The bottom line is if you buy a geared out character with all kinds of epics, I doubt you'd be able to get into a good guild, as it's usually pretty well known when someone "ebays", and it's looked down upon by most guilds because they think you're a noob.

[Dumar]

Originally Posted by zdonovan

Since Blizzard has more or less taken a "hands-off" approach to dealing with gold buyers, and RMT in general, it really comes down to a moral issue, and is more or less policed by the community.

Honestly, I don't have a problem with you buying a chracter, I don't think it's the same as buying gold though. The bottom line is if you buy a geared out character with all kinds of epics, I doubt you'd be able to get into a good guild, as it's usually pretty well known when someone "ebays", and it's looked down upon by most guilds because they think you're a noob.

it used to be this way, but not anymore. buying anything.. gold, plat, items, houses in uo.. used to be frowned upon. but not anymore.

i'm pretty sure an epiced 60 could get into a great guild, and no one would really care. just like no one cares about buying gold for repairs.

[Samus Aran]

Originally Posted by Dumar

it used to be this way, but not anymore. buying anything.. gold, plat, items, houses in uo.. used to be frowned upon. but not anymore.

i'm pretty sure an epiced 60 could get into a great guild, and no one would really care. just like no one cares about buying gold for repairs.

I've seen plenty of people get laughed off of forums for being "ebay'd" characters.

But for the most part, I don't think people do care as long as the person know's what they are doing, I sure don't.

[Dumar]

Originally Posted by zdonovan

I've seen plenty of people get laughed off of forums for being "ebay'd" characters.

But for the most part, I don't think people do care as long as the person know's what they are doing, I sure don't.

i know, and most others don't either.

sign of the times.

[FooBar]

Yeah buying gold outside the game is so unfair.

I say make everything no-drop and only sellable to the vendor. Get rid of shared bank slots because I think every toon should have to farm it's own gold. Also make it so nothing can be traded. If you can't trade how can gold farmers trade the gold they farmed. Since you can no longer trade ... there'll be no more AH lag and as an added bonus no more lost mail!

You want an alt you say? Level him up like every other pleab, after all the "integrity of the game" is at stake. I don't know why you think it would take you less time to figure out how to play a new toon than someone who bought the character.

Remember petition today - no-trade, no-drop and no-shared-bank-slots.

[Venjenz]

Originally Posted by Dis

O you want to do a 45 minute baron run? That will be 40g please...

Need to rephrase and update your sig....

"Want me to run a Scholo PUG with you? Fuck you, pay me!"

[Magnum PI]

Yes I buy gold and I am not sorry I do. I am able to help my guild out and tip a gold here and there to people who help do little things to make my gaming experience a little nicer. It's a great feeling to be lvl 18 and have a 225 first aid and then be able to run by a higher lvl person and seeing them in distress I know I can pop an 800 point bandage on them to hopefully give some relief. The fact that the farmers do or don't affect the economy is irreleavant to me. The only way to stop it is to make a game where there is no money involved, tho I don't know how you can do that and make the game better.

[Dumar]

the only way to stop it is for people to stop purchasing money.

your gaming experience gets nicer for the few days you spend the gold, but then you go out to every camp and see it camped by Qqugh and Tyggh then your gaming experience isn't so nice anymore.

[Dis]

Originally Posted by Dumar

the only way to stop it is for people to stop purchasing money.

your gaming experience gets nicer for the few days you spend the gold, but then you go out to every camp and see it camped by Qqugh and Tyggh then your gaming experience isn't so nice anymore.

Translation: It will never happen

[frott]

Originally Posted by Dumar

the only way to stop it is for people to stop purchasing money.

your gaming experience gets nicer for the few days you spend the gold, but then you go out to every camp and see it camped by Qqugh and Tyggh then your gaming experience isn't so nice anymore.

There are a bunch of options: one of them would be to have Qqugh and Tyggh be farming bots that are essentially a part of the game. At level 60 you get a farmer that you can deploy to an area to pull resources out. Leave it undefended and others can come and attack it.

Poof. The need for farmers eradicated, only those who exploit for their cash thus being able to "farm faster" than any mere mortal would be around and we can all agree them's the bad guys.




Or stop making games that rely on tradable currency. You could easily duplicate all of the gameplay elements in wow without being able to trade cash or items to someone else - it would simply destroy the free market economy.

Hiring farmers to join your guild and feed your guild's habits sounds far more insidious than the other option, however, but would make for interesting gameplay when you have to defend the spire farmers to keep your twilight text influx up.



This isn't a quandary, tho: all of the farmers pay for accounts too. If you take the number of people who continue to play due to farmers making shitty aspects of the game bearable and add the number of farmers to that total I am sure that number is a staggering amount of revenue for the company.

Keeping it in check is a better idea than stopping it entirely when keeping your eye on the bottomline.

[Dumar]

yea, i completely agree. blizzard has much more interest in keeping it in check rather than stopping it outright.

all of my posts refer to gameplay and the 'integrity' of the game only. if you want to talk revenue and profits, then the best way is as you said. and blizzard is doing just that.

i just want a game where most everything stays within the gameworld. it doesn't have to be a hardcore game. that'll never happen though, especially now with the success of wow. the buying selling market will only get bigger.

whenever i see someone saying they buy gold for consumables, to make their gameplay experience better, yadda, it makes me a little sad inside. yea, repair mechanics need to be fixed, but each time you're giving the farmers money, it's hurting everyone of us just a tiny bit more, and imo it's a little irresponsible to completely disregard that, but i know many do, like doc said a few posts up. but i don't, and i will say so.

[Pest]

I bought enough gold to get an epic mount and to cover my repair costs for quite some time. For a while I was struggling to have enough time to be able to raid and keep up with costs and that's what drove me to buy. I weighed my options and decided to give it a try. I mean why not, Blizzard has done vitrually nothing to stop gold buyers so I figured I had nothing to lose (and I was right). If Blizzard went through and banned a couple thousand accounts for gold buying twice a year I might have thought twice.

In EQ I would have never done it and like the other old-timers on here I looked down on it. Not only did I not think it was needed, but I felt like I had something of value in my account that I wouldn't risk losing. I'm not talking about a monetary value, but time and effort that went into getting all my gear. As cheesy as it sounds it felt like something was accomplished back then and I wouldn't risk losing that just to save a little time farming money. I didn't have that feeling with WoW. Since I'm obviously starting to ramble, I'll just stop typing...

[Clowns]

In my opinion, if you have to buy gold for items or repairs it is really a sign that you don't have enough time to play the game like it should be played. A lot of us started playing EQ1 when we were in High School/College. I know I did and I had a shitload of free time to play and get most of the items i wanted. Things have changed however, I got a real job making real money, got married, etc etc. When I started really considering buying gold in WoW to 'keep up' I looked at it as a sign of 'you don't have the time to be uber anymore like you did as a pimple-faced student.

The question is then how do you deal with it? I would suppose that many of us make enough money now to simply augment our toon with a steady influx of gold under the table. But then you have to ask yourself 'how far am I willing to go to maintain this?' If you don't know the answer to that question...your in trouble.

[Dis]

Originally Posted by Clowns

In my opinion, if you have to buy gold for items or repairs it is really a sign that you don't have enough time to play the game like it should be played. A lot of us started playing EQ1 when we were in High School/College. I know I did and I had a shitload of free time to play and get most of the items i wanted. Things have changed however, I got a real job making real money, got married, etc etc. When I started really considering buying gold in WoW to 'keep up' I looked at it as a sign of 'you don't have the time to be uber anymore like you did as a pimple-faced student.

The question is then how do you deal with it? I would suppose that many of us make enough money now to simply augment our toon with a steady influx of gold under the table. But then you have to ask yourself 'how far am I willing to go to maintain this?' If you don't know the answer to that question...your in trouble.

Who decides how a game should be played? You? Me? Gold Farmers? Blizzard?

[Ahkwell]

Originally Posted by Dis

Who decides how a game should be played? You? Me? Gold Farmers? Blizzard?

You would expect Blizzard to be the arbiter of how to play in that they did create and host the game. They made no ability to buy gold with cash, therefore they don't expect you should be able to do so. In fact, they're on record against it. If you can't abide by your word when agreeing to the terms of service, why should anyone take your word about anything?