I think this is a big improvement. The constant chat window spams made it difficult to find people to group with, communicate with members of your group once you were in, or hear sales offers you might be interested in. The group invites are annoying, but you can only be subjected to one at a time, and if you join a group, you can’t receive them at all. It’s still not ideal, but it’s a definite step in the right direction.
As for the argument that things weren’t as bad before Blizzard cracked down on eBay transactions, the gold farmers were still affecting other player’s enjoyment of the game negatively, even if the players weren’t aware of the source of the annoyance. The constant spam made the problem more visible, but the real problems with gold farmers (inflation, camping good spawns, etc.) remain, and needed to be addressed for the health of the game.
No, you’re deliberately misrepresenting my point. I only used the term “Western” because I’m unfamiliar with how “Eastern” developers have penetrated the Chinese market. For instance, I’m unsure how well FFXI is doing in China; however, I do know that WOW is doing better (ie, has more paying subscribers). Regardless, it remains valid because many MMORPGs are created by “Western” developers; therefore, it follows that if Blizzard is hurting their market share there by cracking down on Gold Farmers, then another “Western” developer who doesn’t should over take them.
You should heed your own advice. I addressed this point, but you keep repeating the same one. How does today’s market NOT reflect on the future potential of the market? If WOW is doing well today, then it follows they’ll likely do well tomorrow. You are the only one contending that they are not doing well in China.
First of all, it’s 1.3 billion. Second, four times the population does not equal four times the market… basic economic principles. A MUCH higher percentage of the population in the US has connectivity to the internet. A MUCH higher percentage of Americans have the disposable income necessary to play this kind of game. You’re claiming that the market share in China is just a sliver, so I’m asking you to provide a cite that shows that. What’s the total market for for MMORPGs in China? How many of those people who play MMORPGs play WOW? How does that percentage compare to other MMORPGs in Asia? How does that compare to WOW in the US?
Let’s go to Google:
One article from 2005 says that the “average” MMORPG has about a million users in Asia and that WOW had 1.5 within one month of launching and was expected to reach 10 million. Sounds like a considerable market share to me.
Another one from 2005 says that about 20 mllion Chinese play games and, at the time of publishing, 1.5 million were playing. That sounds like quite a bit of marketshare only a month or two after release.
One from 2006 raves about how well it’s doing in China.
That’s 3.5x the average MMORPG in China and over 17% of the total gaming market, and a large portion of the total market probably isn’t even interested in MMORPGs. Either way, a quick 5 minutes on Google shows your argument doesn’t hold water.
Ad Hominem attack…
It DOES have economic merit, because you’re saying that banning Gold Farming is bad. If Gold Farming were not kept low, the factors that made those people quit would grow by at least an order of magnitude to the point where undoubtedly many people would quit, including myself. My point is that Blizzard has more to gain, monetarily, from continuing their efforts to quash Gold Farming. Obviously they’re not worried about a couple people who are fed up with how it is now; they can’t be, because there’s not much more they can do. But if they openned the flood gates, there would be a massive negative economic impact. Explain how the factors I explained earlier at a whole different magnitude would NOT decrease overall interest dramatically and, thus, ultimately lead to loss in profit.
This is a MASSIVE over simplification of the problem. The problem isn’t Chinese players, it’s Gold Farmers. Isolating the problem to China doesn’t fix it. So, for the sake of argument, let’s even say they can isolate the largest part of the problem to the Chinese market. Almost half of their subscribers are in China. How are they going to fix the Gold Farming there?
Are you deliberately being obtuse? You quoted me without context to flavor what I said, that is dishonest… cheating, if you will.
What I was drawing a comparison to was how much worse Gold Farming would be if Blizzard did nothing. Right now, it is probably pretty darn close to about as low as they can get it without drastically affecting game play. If they open the flood gates, and allow Gold Farming they’ll have inflation spiralling out of control, resources completely tapped by Farmers, etc. The average player will have a very difficult time getting stuff he needs and will quit. Then, because a bunch of players quit, Gold Farming won’t be as profitable, so there will be less of them. Thus, it’s clearly in Blizzard’s interest to keep Gold Farming below AT LEAST that threshold of complete collapse.
Umm… did you read what I said at all, or just see numbers and look for an opportunity to scream “CITE!?” I made it quite clear that 20% was probably a generously high estimate. If I’m wrong, it doesn’t make what I said any less valid because ANY value less than 100% utilization for an average player (which is intuitively true) means that the cost for each Gold Farmer account is necessarily higher. And, even though it’s not necessary, here’s a cite that says its 21.0 hours per week which works out to 12.5% (IOW, my numbers WERE very generous).
My point was that the cost for Blizzard is necessarily higher for a Gold Farmer’s account versus an average user’s account. Therefore, the argument that “well, they keep buying new accounts, so Blizzard must like that” runs on the assumption that the profit per account is constant, which it is not, or that they buy enough of them from constantly being banned, that it surpasses the cost. Since it it YOUR argument, YOU have to provide the cite.
Neither of your main arguments holds an ounce of water. They are clearly doing well in China, and Gold Farmers have costs in terms of side effect on the enjoyment of the game for average player AND server load.
If you want to save face, and not look like you’ve been on a complete fool’s errand, at least provide a cite that they AREN’T doing well and that they AREN’T projected to continue to do well; I couldn’t find one.
This is definitely completely fabricated on your part. Blizzard is NOT turning a blind eye. They regularly send out messages when they do mass Gold Farmer bans. Besides the fact that two wrongs don’t make a right, if they “cheated” too, we could just as easily STOP playing.
Oh, and to add to the point about the cost on the servers. Besides, the accounts that the Gold Farmers use to generate the money constantly being online, I imagine the accounts that are used to actually give the money to the purchaser are trial memberships. IOW, the accounts that are getting banned selling money haven’t even paid a cent to Blizzard, while the ones that actually generate the money can remain safely on the same membership fee as everyone else.
It would be trivial to figure out, before banning the trial accounts, who gave them 1000 Gold to hand over to another player, and ban those accounts too.
True, but I don’t think it’s that simple. I have to think they use some sort of laundering system to filter their money away from their high-level accounts and into new, and preferably, trial accounts. If they had to build a new level 70 character every time they got banned, it would quickly lose it’s profittability.
I’m sure they use some combination of the Auction House, Personal Trades, Mail, and hacked accounts to “spread the wealth”, so to speak.
According to every dictionary definition I could find, yes. I don’t know why those rules are in place, and I don’t need to. It’s absurd to suggest that I must be an expert on the rationale behind every rule in every sport in order to defend the dictionary definition of the intransitive verb “to cheat.”
That’s a definition that is peculiar to you, as I’ve demonstrated above. You’re welcome to define cheating that way; you may also define “to cheat” as “to cook an egg dish without salt.” It is more helpful, however, if you use the same definitions of words as other folks use.
What strikes me is how you’ve missed the posts in which I and other folks have suggested banning the accounts of buyers, and in which other folks have pointed out examples in which Blizzard banned the accounts of buyers.
A quick note: posts 7, 10, 11, 22, and 23 all deal with Blizzard’s approach against buyers. After 23 I got bored searching for the word “buy,” but I know that’s been an issue throughout the thread.
What are you trying to prove with this “It’s not cheating” refrain, LinusK? Even if it’s not cheating, it’s still against the rules. That’s all there is to it. Blizzard doesn’t want people doing this, so if they do it, Blizzard punishes them. Whether they’re cheating or not according to your narrow definition really doesn’t matter at all.
WoW player here. I usually use ‘farm’ to mean trying to gain gold or items, and ‘grind’ to mean gaining experience to level up. Gold farming, on the other hand, seems to refer specifically to those who farm to sell for real world cash, also known as CGFs.
[/hijack]
Getting back away from the cheating debate, gold farmers have very real direct and indirect effects on those who are playing in good faith. Blizzard has taken steps to make things harder for them (and Thank Og the spam tells are gone) but I doubt they can to to stop it completely. Any sort of hard-line approach is going to catch legitimate players too, and it’s better PR to catch a lot of farmers than to catch all of them at the expense of legitimate players. After a certain point, they best they can do is try to deter people from taking part in these activities.
Gold farmers are against the spirit of the game. There’s a rule against trading or sharing accounts, but I don’t think most people would bat an eye at, say, a guild bank account shared between officers, or someone quitting giving their account to someone else so the guild can still make use of the character’s crafting patterns. Those activities are against the rules, but they don’t affect others negatively and are more analogous to the various UI mods that players commonly use–not needed but they can make things easier. But someone who bought an account, while breaking the same rule, would get a lot more ire, because of the negative effect that the person is likely to have on other players–not to mention that a well-geared character probably had a lot of help from a guild to get that way, and the guild is now deprived of that person’s skill, and also the gear they helped him earn in good faith.
I do have some sympathy for the farmers themselves–I feel they are being exploited. My real anger is to their employers and those who buy gold and accounts. They twist the meaning of WoW into something to be used rather than enjoyed.
I know LHoD already answered this, but it really is getting frustrating. He and I have BOTH provided cites from dictionaries of a definition for “cheating”. Under those definitions all of these activities are cheating. If you’re going to use a different definition than what is in the dictionary, you need to define it.
You seem to be going by a definition that it is only cheating if it gives you an advantage. If so, then you need to show a cite for that definition. And even if you can find one, you have to explain how, to use your example, a runner paying to get a head start in a race is any different than a player paying to get extra gold.
Really, even by that narrowed definition, we’ve explained how it breaks the game, how it bestows an advantage on the player, how it disadvantages honest players, and how it’s against the rules. So even under that definition, your argument doesn’t hold water. How do you
I, for one, never said they shouldn’t ban buyers’ accounts. However, the focus is on Gold Farmers because of the OP. IMO, anyone who violates the rules willfully is cheating, anyone who cheats needs to face the consequences which, for Gold Farming and Buying, is getting banned.
Careful, Blaster Master. As you said yourself, this bickering over the definition of cheating is a straight-up red herring. The gold farmers/sellers/buyers are still plain and simple guilty of breaking the rules, and the distinction between whether or not they were cheating is not important, despite LinusK’s focus on it. The rulebreakers are no less guilty if it somehow turns out you’re wrong and he’s right on this particular topic.
You’re absolutely right. Whether or not they’re “cheating” they are absolutely violating the EULA. Thus, to answer the OP:
Since the answer to the first question follows the second, I’ll answer them in reverse. It is not ethical to purchase gold, items, power leveling, honor points, etc. The Gold Farming industry is in direct violation of the EULA, they’re cheating or at least enabling cheating, they’re breaking the game, and they’re playing against the spirit of how the game is intended to be played.
This industry is similar to websites that write research papers for students. At first, it seems like it only affects the one student that is cheating, but it doesn’t. It forces professors to more heavily research the legitimacy of papers which wastes time they could be spending on research, assisting students, or with their families. It ultimately denigrates the perceived quality of the degree of those who DID earn theirs legiitmately when people who did not, but hold the same degree, demonstrate their utter lack of knowledge that they SHOULD have. It damages the institutions credibility when these sorts of students make it out and have their stamp of approval. And I’m sure many other reprocussions I can’t think of right now. And many of these are similar to those discussed previously with regard to Gold Farming and Gold Buying.
These places should not be supported or treated like any other place of work, because they’re operating in an unethical business practice. It’s one thing if a particular business in a legitimate field is unethical; they should be shut down and the others allowed to continue. However, when the entire field is unethical then isn’t it inherent that each business is also unethical and not deserving of operating?