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

[Makata]

Originally Posted by Sean

While you may have a fair argument with the mounts - raid costs are becoming highly unreasonable. You should not have to grind for HOURS just to be able to participate for a single night. The cost of repairs, potions, reagents, ect all add up to an immense amount. An immense and unreasonable amount. And this amount is going to increase vastly with Naxx. What did someone figure it would be? Twice the cost of what repairs are now? That's freaking insane.

Still .. repairs (and other gold based costs) are the only price you pay to fail (and a smaller price for success, offset a bit by gold from bosses). You don't pay with exp loss (which was something you couldn't just buy, but we managed in EQ), or whatever. To me, buying gold for your repairs is like saying "I want a picnic dammit" and then wanting to pay people to: buy the food, cook it, prepare it, wrap it up in the basket, set up the picnic, clean up after you, dispose of trash, and put stuff away. Why is it unreasonable to think you should be required to spend time in-game doing things besides raiding to allow you TO raid?

Let's face it: people in positions such as yourself are privledged when it comes to warcraft. Take my roommate for example. The guy wasn't that great, and had crap gear. By some miracle he got into the #1 alliance guild on my server (I guess they were low on summon bitches). When he got in, I think he had 1 epic (from AV no less) while I had like 4-5 from MC/pvp. Fast forward less than 2 months. He's now almost completely decked out in Tier 1 or better (usually much, MUCH better). I think he's got over half of his Nemesis set at least.

And it sickens me. He didn't work for it. It was fucking spoon fed to him. He was DEFAULTED the majority of his epics. I put in twice the time in pvp (I won't derail into pvp vs pve .. I pvp because I enjoy it) than he does in his elitest cock-monger guild and the dude has better overall equipment than my rogue and hunter combined.

So yes, raid repairs (and other gold costs) are heavy, but that doesn't make them bad. Explain why grinding a couple horus PER WEEK is an unreasonable task. Obviously you don't like it or enjoy it. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be forced.

[Lucifar]

I never played MMO's for the economy side of the game. Never made much money in EQ, I think after 5 years I had built up 200k pp - most of that bening in the last few months sellings OOW tradable armor drops while farming for spell runes. I never considered buying any money in EQ though becuase plat was not a requirement to raid. At most it could get you crap for alts, toys or the odd earing type upgrade now and then.

I finally had to buy WoW gold for the first time recently, and I resent the game a bit for doing that, but I still enjoy raiding a lot and I'd rather spend $30 to give me the gold to keep up repairs and potions for the next 6 months than just quit the game.

I might play 3 or 4 hours a week outside of raiding tops. I only have so much time to play, and without levels or AA to work on, raiding for me is the main fun in the game.
Ideally I would be able to spend those 3-4 hours doing the 60 instances with a group of friends. It would probably just cover repair costs for the week. However, they aren't necc on at the same time as me, ot they might prefer to spend their time in BG's. Others who are in the same situation as me seem to find solo gold farming tolerable - so there aren't the people out there looking for instance farming groups (of my guild/friends).
Solo stuff in WoW is totally boring to me and so when its an option between doing something ingame I dont like and achieving the same thing with secondary market for 1/10 of the time invested, the choice was simple.

[Lucifar]

Originally Posted by Makata

Still .. repairs (and other gold based costs) are the only price you pay to fail (and a smaller price for success, offset a bit by gold from bosses). You don't pay with exp loss (which was something you couldn't just buy, but we managed in EQ), or whatever. To me, buying gold for your repairs is like saying "I want a picnic dammit" and then wanting to pay people to: buy the food, cook it, prepare it, wrap it up in the basket, set up the picnic, clean up after you, dispose of trash, and put stuff away. Why is it unreasonable to think you should be required to spend time in-game doing things besides raiding to allow you TO raid?

Let's face it: people in positions such as yourself are privledged when it comes to warcraft. Take my roommate for example. The guy wasn't that great, and had crap gear. By some miracle he got into the #1 alliance guild on my server (I guess they were low on summon bitches). When he got in, I think he had 1 epic (from AV no less) while I had like 4-5 from MC/pvp. Fast forward less than 2 months. He's now almost completely decked out in Tier 1 or better (usually much, MUCH better). I think he's got over half of his Nemesis set at least.

And it sickens me. He didn't work for it. It was fucking spoon fed to him. He was DEFAULTED the majority of his epics. I put in twice the time in pvp (I won't derail into pvp vs pve .. I pvp because I enjoy it) than he does in his elitest cock-monger guild and the dude has better overall equipment than my rogue and hunter combined.

So yes, raid repairs (and other gold costs) are heavy, but that doesn't make them bad. Explain why grinding a couple horus PER WEEK is an unreasonable task. Obviously you don't like it or enjoy it. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be forced.

Are you a sadist?

Why would I play a game (much less pay to play a game) where I have to keep doing stuff I dont enjoy?
I know some people take that attitude to raiding. They don't enjoy the 15th BWL clear, at all, they would watch TV and AFK autofollow if they could rather than actually take part in the raid, but they are there beucase they want the DKP or equivilent. If I didn't want to spend the 4 hours that night raiding, I would not log in. I would find something I wanted to do more like watch a movie.
In the post above I talked about gonig on Instance runs to get some repair cash. Obviously the location and the exact activity is based on my need for gold in order to raid in the week, but I'm doing it because I find an hour with some friends doing a nice simple activity a nice way to spend an afternoon.
If you start playing the game thinking that your 'earning' something rather than just enjoying your time then and there, then you are setting yourself up to be one of those guys that rage quits MMO"s after 3 years declaring that it was the biggest waste of your life ever.
WoW IS a game. Its a leasure activity. Your in trouble the second you start to put real world values such as putting in a doing things you dont enjoy in order to 'invest' in your character. You're not your avatar :-)

[Tuco]

Originally Posted by Makata

To me, buying gold for your repairs is like saying "I want a picnic dammit" and then wanting to pay people to: buy the food, cook it, prepare it, wrap it up in the basket, set up the picnic, clean up after you, dispose of trash, and put stuff away.

I'd like to preface this by saying that I was tricked into reading your post, Makata. I read it before I could see that you posted it, and discovered the reason why your post had so many logical fallacies.

But anyway, with regard to what I quoted, that comparison would ring true if it took me 3 hours to work on the picnic, but I could instead pay $3 for some chinese fellow to do it instantly. And yes, I'd do that. (Hired help is actually much more expensive than that, and they wouldn't do things faster than I could really).

[Sean]

But it's not a couple hours per week, it's getting to the point where it's a couple hours per night. And it's not JUST repair costs - raids require vast amounts of potions, reagents, and other consumables.

[Scaffa]

Bought plat in EQ on Rathe I think it was, bought two Ton Po's sticks of Understanding and then moved the characters to Tallon.

Kept one staff and covered the entire process with selling the other.

In WoW i've bought gold, mainly because it was so cheap and seemingly non-seedy. Like in EQ you had to meet up with some level 1 alt and trade with them, in WoW you just press the paypal button and 30 minutes later voila. Like lately my friends all moved server, again, and I couldn't be arsed going through the hassle with starting up again.

Bought some gold, bought everyone RC bags. Bought more gold later, used that to buy and sell in the AH, doubled that gold in two weeks.

[Northerner]

Ive neither bought nor sold, but I feel like a damn idiot for it. If I stay with WoW long enough to drain out my pillow (meh, 2kish) I sure as hell will buy a replacement instead of farming it myself.

I still kick my own ass for not ebaying any of my EQ / DAoC / AO / ADC1-2 / Eve / whatever etc crap. Once apon a time I cared... but when I stopped caring I sure shoulda cashed in.

EDIT: I still will admit that one of the funnier things I've ever seen was having our "lead priest" fucking banned for a fishing bot. He was a dick so it amused me but the leadership was in a shitstorm of "omg!! nnnnoooo!!! not him!!". He sucked as a healer anyhow but the old guard was all kinds of dismayed. Ccc.

[Makata]

Originally Posted by Sean

But it's not a couple hours per week, it's getting to the point where it's a couple hours per night. And it's not JUST repair costs - raids require vast amounts of potions, reagents, and other consumables.

Again .. still not seeing the "ah ha!" where you show why that's bad. I spend hours and hours and hours doing all sorts of random farming.

I think the main issue here is people don't feel like they should have to work for their rewards. "I put in my time, I farmed some Black Lotus for the guild. Give me my fucking epics dammit." No. Blizzard put repairs in for a reason. They put Flask of Titans in for a reason. Distilled Wisdom. Oils. Etc, etc, etc. With the exception of the first, these are not luxuries to make your raiding time easier. They are necessities that:
a) Make raid use of trade skills (Alchemy and Herbalism at the very least, others play much smaller but noticable roles)
b) Make raid use of the currency.
c) Make raid use of lower level instances.
d) Make raid use of out of the way zones (I hear WS is the shit for farming lotus)

Blizzard's goal was to not have raiders live in a vaccuum of isolation but that seems to be exactly what people want. They want to be able to log in at let's say 5:45. Be in AQ40 by 6:00. Finish for the night by 10:00 (or whenever). Log off by 10:15. Repeat ad nauseum. No, that's not the idea. There's 2 full fucking continents of shit with lots of content. Use it.

I'll come right out and say it: If you've only got 4 hours to spend online, 3 days a week, you shouldn't get to spend all 12 hours "having fun." Yes you pay to play but that doesn't mean you should get whatever you want at no other cost than your subscription fee. If you're playing 12 hours a week, spend 2-3 "working" so you can enjoy raiding the other 9-10.

In short: the fact you have many real life commitments is not a sufficient excuse to say you should be allowed to skip all the work involved in enjoying the content you do.

[Cad]

Whatever Makata, I haven't bought gold because I mostly raid with a hunter and have several alts doing transmutes, but saying there's deliberate un-fun stuff you have to do in order to have fun in the game is fucking dumb.

If there's something identified as un-fun, that everyone agrees is un-fun, remove it from the game. I think nearly everyone is at the point where we'd rather play less than have inane shit to do just to enjoy the parts of the game we like.

[Elerion]

We're not "allowed" to skip that content. Gold/cash trade is illegal. The point is that we ignore those laws to increase our enjoyment.

[Everlast]

Makata, it kinda seems like you are telling us rather than get a vesictomy we should just punch ourselfs in the nuts.


And when I buy gold, I feel like I am going to feed an Asian family for a year....that is their job and their familys depend on it

[Kaxmax]

Originally Posted by AngryGerbil

I think this is highly indicitive of an average school-aged gamer. Not that I'm knocking you, just noting the glaring difference.

In school, money is at a premium but time is easy come easy go. After school, this gets reversed (generally).

All the people telling me "gold is easy to come by" are probably %100 correct.....relatively speaking. But I simply cannot "afford" to spend the time it takes to do it. Nor, by the way, do I want to.

You cannot afford to spend the money.
I cannot afford to spend the time.

In fact, I'll go so far as to say that if I truly had to spend this time to farm gold in order to continue playing WoW, I'd probably have quit by now.

This basically sums up my feelings. To be perfectly frank, I get little enough time to enjoy gaming as is, and I want to spend that time doing fun things (raiding, in my case). When 1k gold costs less than an hour of work, it's a no brainer.

I would imagine a lot of the people vehemently against it are students without a real income yet (note: this isn't a knock against those people). When you start balancing family & job with free time, your free time becomes exponentially more valuable.

[orcmauler]

Yes in EQ and EVE.

Not yet in WoW.

I say yet, because I am the usual puller for my guild in MC/AQ and the like. So an average night I tend to bite it 3-5 times (sometimes less, sometimes more) depending on feign fails, stupid pulls, etc. Add into that the cost of bullets, heal pots, bandages, etc. etc. I tend to LOSE 8-10 gold per raid, and I am not even fully decked in purps yet. Like others have said, my time is much better spent doing my job, school work, etc. than grinding gold, camping the AH, whatever.

Quite honestly it is silly that I pass on class purples because I know I won't be able to afford the repair bills if I have them.

[Makata]

Originally Posted by Kaxmax

This basically sums up my feelings. To be perfectly frank, I get little enough time to enjoy gaming as is, and I want to spend that time doing fun things (raiding, in my case).

No shit sherlock. What you want and what's fair are 2 different things.

If this was a single player game then by all means, do whatever you want to have fun. But this isn't. Whether or not you wish to admit it, e-peen is important. It is why you want epics .. to be better than Joe Schmo. And I'll be the first to admit that in some ways I am jealous that my roommate now has better gear than me for a fraction of the time invested. I put in shit loads of hours and I want him to have to do the same.

I would imagine a lot of the people vehemently against it are students without a real income yet (note: this isn't a knock against those people). When you start balancing family & job with free time, your free time becomes exponentially more valuable.

That still is not a good enough reason dude. I heard this the first time. The fact you have less time to play doesn't mean it's okay that the play time you choose to cut is the boring part. If you only get to play 1/3 as much as I, I hardly think it's unreasonable you only get to raid for 1/3 the time too.

You can call it jealousy, stupidity, arrogance, "college student syndrome" or whatever and be at least somewhat accurate but I really don't give a shit that you have a 55 hour a week job, a wife, 3 kids, and a soccer team to coach. In this game, we're all as good as the time we can spend online so fuck you for thinking you get to skip out on the stuff you don't want to do because you can drop an hour's salary on it.

I'm out. Peace.

[AngryGerbil]

Originally Posted by Makata

I spend hours and hours and hours doing all sorts of random farming.

Here's your cookie. I took a bite, it tasted like shit.