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Meditator
11-05-2008, 01:31 AM
http://blog.kir.com/archives/images/cash%20082707.jpg

The gold farmers in the MMOs are infamous to most players as they spamming in general chat channels and on various game forums. Designers and gamers alike are blaming them for the obstruction of gameplay and inflation in the game’s economy system. I used to agree with this point of view and thought that as a real gamer, one should not pay real cash for the virtual items. But as my gaming experience grows, my opinion has changed.

Game developers hate gold farmers as they may destroy the economy system in game, and consequently lead to efflux of players. On the other hand, the game designers, as the creators of the virtual world, keep adding new mounts, items, equipment, skills, scrolls and other dazzling items to suck gold from players. These items are usually essential for gamers to enter high-level/dangerous regions. Players have to spend more time on grinding (P2P) or turn into cash shops (F2P) if players want to continue their adventure. For example, Blizzard is constantly adding mounts and items to WOW and players who are hooked are spending uncountable hours to gather rare ores, herbs and other high value material to trade for gold. In this way, Blizzard is earning tons of money, the “real” kind of money. For those free-to-play MMOs, the status of a cash shop is even more critical as it is the only way that the game developers can earn money from the games. Look at Conquer Online (http://co.91.com/)’s cash shop, it has everything necessary to transform a noob into a superman –all you need is a wad of cash. So most game companies police gold farmers with an iron fist to protect their own interests. In a word, fundamentally, the game companies and the gold famers are just rivals who are trying their best to hook game money.

http://images.91.com/conquer91e/ind/conew/cashshop.jpg

To gamers, rampant gold spamming is indeed annoying, as well as noobs with real-cash-bought super gear. However, maybe we shall observe the problem from a different aspect. As I stated previously, the MMO gamers are exploring a virtual world which is designed and controlled delicately by the game developers. To access the higher-level regions and new game content, gamers have to obtain decent items and experience, usually by grinding, to enhance their characters. But for those players who don’t have much time, like someone who has a real day job, they only have 2 choices: quit playing or find someone else to grind for them. If some extra bulk purchases can make the gameplay much smoother and help many couch potatoes to get a life, why should we still blame it.

I know many hardcore gamers are pissed off by the real-money-trade. But remember, in many aspects, the MMO community is just like the real world, where money can transform a zero to a hero in an instant. Don’t like trimming your lawn? Just pay someone to do it for you.

http://images.mmosite.com/photo/2008/09/25/conquers39_akXmQ2wvFPN.jpg

Hosuli
11-05-2008, 09:09 AM
Some people just got no life.

Taikyo
11-05-2008, 09:16 AM
=w=; Well, no online game is really FREE. You can be playing it free, working hard to get everything. Spending your time and effort just to get stronger and richer. But the sad part of it is, with free online games or online games with private servers, the best gear are the ones paid in real life cash.

So to make it fair, I play the ones where you have to pay monthly. (i.e- Dark Ages)

Goes to show you how much money people will lay down, just to make their virtually character look good. =/

Kojack
11-05-2008, 10:06 AM
When you buy currency, you are paying to not play a game you pay to play. And that's stupid.

[BlackDeath]
11-05-2008, 07:50 PM
Like he said, money gets you everything, I have used gold sellers enough times and actually am a regular at buying from them. I do have a day job also, which means spending money on things like gold or items doesn't really matter as they are nothing and I can earn it all back with ease. But I do not use bot clients or power leveling services, I only get gold to buy the best items/armors and weapons I can afford without going into stupid amounts of money. I got nothing against buying gold, just people who use botting clients, my personal opinion is buying currency is better than buying levels.

Manhattan_Project_2000
11-05-2008, 07:57 PM
When you buy currency, you are paying to not play a game you pay to play. And that's stupid.
You're paying to not grind in a camp for 8 hours in order to get enough pieces for your fetch quest or what have you. Makes sense to me, not that I'd buy gold myself.

Kojack
11-05-2008, 08:33 PM
You're paying to not grind in a camp for 8 hours in order to get enough pieces for your fetch quest or what have you. Makes sense to me, not that I'd buy gold myself.

What do you do after those 8 hours? Buy something that lets you grind some more? A lot of MMOs have grinding as a main part of the gameplay. I guess if I had money to burn I'd consider RMTing, but to me an MMO is just another game; I wouldn't pay $20+ to skip past a few hours of Fallout.

Manhattan_Project_2000
11-06-2008, 08:33 AM
What do you do after those 8 hours? Buy something that lets you grind some more? A lot of MMOs have grinding as a main part of the gameplay. I guess if I had money to burn I'd consider RMTing, but to me an MMO is just another game; I wouldn't pay $20+ to skip past a few hours of Fallout.

Well, many people concider Raiding to be the fun part of MMOs, not solo grinding or small groups. In MMOs, your worth to a raid is partially deturmined by the awesomeness of your loot. Ergo, if you don't like grinding it makes perfect sense to buy money to avoid it so you can double down on the parts of the game you actually like.

Cantelope
11-06-2008, 03:43 PM
lulz, check out the noob in BoEs lollerskates