Web site fraud and World of Warcraft (long ass rant)

The BBQ Pit
101

[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
Here’s my view: once people are willing to pay real-world money for virtual points, it creates an incentive so huge that it’s hard to imagine any sort of rule preventing people from accepting that money. Especially people in China who are so poor that many of them work in conditions that most of us would unhesitatingly identify as slavery. Some other method needs to be employed, if any such method would work.

I personally would not pay to play a game that bored me. I get paid for doing things that bore me in real life.
[/QUOTE]

Hrm. Interresting thought, and one that pretty much makes sense to me (the first bit).

As for the second bit, it’s why I don’t understand the power-levelling services. I play WoW because I like the game; mainly, I like the fact that I’m probably -never- going to do everything possible in the game. There’s always more to see, more to do, more content… (Then again, I’m one of those crazy mofos that has actually swum the entire way around the eastern continent and knows what lies in the map areas that aren’t correct on the world map… It was a saturday night, I was bored!). I don’t see why someone would even -play- a game that’s so boring for them that they’re willing to: Pay a monthly fee to play said game, then pay someone else to play it for them because it’s ‘too boring’. Just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

102

So it really boils down to:

“A website for cheating cheated my friend!”

Welp, I’m chiming in with “people who cheat* are assholes.”

“I couldn’t get my 1337 gear fast!” “I couldn’t buy my epic mount fast!” “Other people have shinier toys than me!” Hey, sucks to be you. I’ve gotten one character to 60th, I’ve only ever been all the way through one instance, and most of what my 60th level character is wearing is green. That’s because I can’t play as often as a lot of other people, and I almost never have one hour of solid game play time - let alone three or four - to run through an instance or go raiding or play in BG.

Somehow, I’m still enjoying myself and feel like I’m getting my money’s worth out of the game AND monthly fee. “I’m not being HUGE FAST ENOUGH” is a shitty reason to cheat. Not that there’s a good one. “This game of Trivial Pursuit is taking too long because I don’t have time to read world almanacs and trivia books and all that junk. So I’m going to pay you $20 to put three more wedges in my playing piece.” “Monopoly takes way too long for 6 people to play. For $20, give me a $5k interest-free loan. That way the game will end faster.”

Now the IRS is talking about taxing IN-GAME TRANSACTIONS, because people are making so much money on them IN REAL LIFE. But I’m sure none of this has any effect whatsoever on anyone’s gameplay. Oh hell no. :rolleyes:

  • Unless you’re playing Solitaire, in which case you’re only messing with one person’s game.
103

[QUOTE=Guinastasia]
Oh for fuck’s sake, it’s a goddamned video game, and you’re ready to start a revolution? Get a fucking grip.

And even then, your logic could also be used to justify the very thing you’re ranting against-“I don’t like the rules, I think they’re unfair (to me), so I’M going to ignore them!”
[/QUOTE]

It’s fine to examine rules to see whether you agree with them or not. For example, I do not think much of the laws making pot illegal in the US. I still will obey those laws, mainly because I’m not all that interested in smoking pot, but also because I feel the penalties for breaking such laws can be batshit insane in their severity.

Other Dopers appear to share my opinion of the stupidity of the pot laws, but feel free to break them as well. What evil, evil people they must be.

OTOH, I understand and fully agree with the difference in penalties for, say, being drunk and disorderly and DUI. This makes sense to me. It’s the logic that appeals.

I’m thinking about the rule against gold farming in the same way. My basic stance is that I would never play a game that has elements so tedious that I would be willing to pay other players to play the game for me, so the issue for me personally is solved. But I understand that other people have different tastes in that regard, which is fine with me. Of course, my son plays World of Warcraft, and it would be good to have answers on a point like this if it ever came up. But he’s the kinda player who can do an awful lot of what you call grinding before he gets tired of it.

What I’m saying is, it’s OK to think about a law or rule and see if it is something that makes sense, period, which is what I’m doing with gold farming.

If you honestly think a rule is full of shit, why should you not break it? Now, I’m not talking just inconvenient for you, or annoying, but a rule so badly made or so flawed that you could go on a message board and do a fair job of making your case.

For the record, I don’t think the case has been made that the gold farming rule is full of shit. The posters who have listed the ways in which gold-farming hurts the in-game economy have made their points well.

I also think the rule is not likely to work for the reason I’ve already cited: the real economy is gonna trump the virtual economy every time in a world where people live on what to most Americans and Europeans is pocket change. That’s not justification for breaking the rule, just an explanation for why it won’t work no matter how mad some WoWers get.

(Frankly, if I were a detective on the trail of the guy who got ripped off as cited in the OP, I’d look for a bunch of vigilante WoWers rather than Asian gold farmers. The gold farmers would be a lot more interested in the cash than in ripping off customers.)

Capiche?

104

[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
It’s fine to examine rules to see whether you agree with them or not. For example, I do not think much of the laws making pot illegal in the US. I still will obey those laws, mainly because I’m not all that interested in smoking pot, but also because I feel the penalties for breaking such laws can be batshit insane in their severity.
[/quote]

I addressed this in Post #90. This isn’t a stupid rule issue. It’s a breach of contract issue.

105

[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
It’s fine to examine rules to see whether you agree with them or not. For example, I do not think much of the laws making pot illegal in the US. I still will obey those laws, mainly because I’m not all that interested in smoking pot, but also because I feel the penalties for breaking such laws can be batshit insane in their severity.
[/quote]
Again, for the umpteenth time, there is a difference between being given rules in real life that you have no choice but to participate in, and agreeing to rules but breaking them anyway.

Let’s put it like this. It’s Blizzard’s game, it’s Blizzard’s rules. Let’s just say I decide to invite a bunch of people over but I don’t want people to smoke in my house. If you want to smoke - fine - just not in MY HOUSE. My house, my rules.

No amount of twisted logic or arguing about the manner of the rules matters. It is not ok to smoke when my back is turned. You agreed to follow the rule by attending when I clearly laid out the rule.

Shared game spaces work the same way. There are lots of games where you can cheat if you like. There are other MMORPGs where buying gold or leveling services are not disallowed. However, the OP’s friend chose one but decided to break the rules anyway.

Please explain to me how this is OK. This is not a government, this is Blizzard’s private game. As someone who has Libertarian leanings, I am baffled as to how anyone could believe that it is our right to make a binding agreement then break it because we don’t feel it’s justified. What is the point of contract law? “I know I agreed to pay $250,000 for the house, but I don’t feel it’s worth a shade over $100,000, and here are 15 reasons why; so, that’s all I’m going to pay, Your Honor!”

:rolleyes:

106

[QUOTE=hajario]
If I am born into a country with unjust laws, I can see the argument that the unjust laws should be disobeyed. Rosa Parks was born in the the Jim Crow South and acted appropriately.

Now if Rosa Parks had voluntarily emigrated to Saudi Arabia and then bitched that the laws were unjust with respect to women, I’d have very little sympathy for her. She would have chosen to move there and that’s how things are there.
[/QUOTE]

Eek! I would hope that you wouldn’t.

I personally have enormous sympathy for immigrants who try to change the laws and even the basic society of their adopted home, especially when Rosa Parks is involved in the movement, but that may just be me.

107

[QUOTE=saoirse]
Eek! I would hope that you wouldn’t.

I personally have enormous sympathy for immigrants who try to change the laws and even the basic society of their adopted home, especially when Rosa Parks is involved in the movement, but that may just be me.
[/QUOTE]

We’ve gone from WoW to Rosa Parks? Er… To quote Sports Night:

[QUOTE=Robert Guillaume]
“Danny, because I love you, I can say this to you: no rich white guy has ever gotten anywhere with me by comparing himself to Rosa Parks.”
[/QUOTE]

That is to say… I think there’s some level of difference here.

108

[QUOTE=ArrMatey!]

[/QUOTE]
Sorry for the hijack, but this bugs me. You’re either quoting Isaac Jaffe (the character Guillaume was playing) or Aaron Sorkin (the writer), but Robert Guillaume didn’t say that.

End hijack…

109

[QUOTE=ArrMatey!]
We’ve gone from WoW to Rosa Parks? Er… To quote Sports Night:

That is to say… I think there’s some level of difference here.
[/QUOTE]

Dude, were you just waiting for someone to say “Rosa Parks” so that you could quote your favorite line from a ten year old sitcom?

I may be white and rich but I sure as hell did not compare myself to Ms. Parks in any way. My whole point was that there was a huge level of difference.

110

[QUOTE=xtisme]
No…you don’t actually understand. This guy leveled 3 characters to 60 (and had several other alts)…all legit. He decided for the first time to TRY a service that would basically play his character for him in the PvP battle grounds for one day…and lost everything. Its definitely not a good thing he TRIED to do…but you guys are going batshit over board here. I know people who have paid folks to level their characters from level 1 to 60…THOSE folks are more in the category of scorn being heaped here.

Was my friend stupid? Certainly. Did he try and cheat? Yup. And most likely (because of some personal issues he’s having that won’t let him play much for the next month…about the time the expansion will be out) he probably would have used it more if it had worked out. He really wants his epic gear before the expansion and just doesn’t have the time to play as much as he had hoped. Well…now he can’t play at all because he’s totally fucked.

And you guys (and to a lesser degree myself) can feel all smug and superior to him now. WTG! :stuck_out_tongue:

-XT
[/QUOTE]

As a gamemaster myself (not for Blizzard though) I would say that both of your examples are examples of scum. We’ve banned players for those kind of things and I would do it again in a heartbeat. It really sucks that he played by the rules all that time and got screwed when he decided to cheat but the fact remains; HE TRIED TO CHEAT.

I could rant for a while about how much work goes into creating all that stuff for players and how its hard enough to try and keep things balanced out without all the cheating, but I’ll let it go for now.

111

[QUOTE=hajario]
Dude, were you just waiting for someone to say “Rosa Parks” so that you could quote your favorite line from a ten year old sitcom?.
[/QUOTE]

Er… No… Not to be argumentative… But what I did see was people bringing something up that I felt was pretty socially important (Parks) in a thread about something I found to be less socially relevant (buying gold or power in an online game) and decided to comment on it. I hadn’t meant to insense anyone with my comment. I just thought it was a good way to capsulize how I saw it, so I used the quote…
As for Zakalwe, I stand corrected. I should’ve either attributed the quote to the character or the writer, probably the former.

112

[QUOTE=hajario]
The player and the company make a contract. The WOW people get money and in exchange the player gets to play but only by the rules. It’s a contract. How can one think that there is any moral ambiguity here?
[/QUOTE]

The moral ambiguity comes in when a player realizes that the companies that run these games do next to nothing as far as enforcing the rules against the Chinese bot farmers. The reality is that those rules don’t matter to the very people that made them in the first place. I don’t play these games anymore and never bought gold when I did (EQ, EQ2), but developing a sense of moral outrage about it is ludicrous.

Implicit in my understanding of MMOG rules is that the devs will enforce them for the good of the community. If they can’t be bothered, or more specifically, would rather sell accounts to bot farmers than run a clean game, then fuck them and their rules.

113

[QUOTE=ArrMatey!]
We’ve gone from WoW to Rosa Parks? Er… To quote Sports Night:
That is to say… I think there’s some level of difference here.
[/QUOTE]

Yah and you would probably be better off quoting the individual who brought her up, if you object to her appearance in this thread, genius.

114

[QUOTE=Grossbottom]
Implicit in my understanding of MMOG rules is that the devs will enforce them for the good of the community. If they can’t be bothered, or more specifically, would rather sell accounts to bot farmers than run a clean game, then fuck them and their rules.
[/QUOTE]

Finally, someone has made a good point for the other side. If, in fact, the WOW management is doing this, then they broke the contract first.

115

[QUOTE=ArrMatey!]
As for Zakalwe, I stand corrected. I should’ve either attributed the quote to the character or the writer, probably the former.
[/QUOTE]

Gracious reply, sir. Sorry for the nit, it’s just one of those things that gets under my skin a bit.

Interesting notion. I suppose this could be considered somewhat analagous to the legal precedent that failure to defend a trademark can result in loss of the trademark.

116

[QUOTE=Grossbottom]
The moral ambiguity comes in when a player realizes that the companies that run these games do next to nothing as far as enforcing the rules against the Chinese bot farmers. The reality is that those rules don’t matter to the very people that made them in the first place. I don’t play these games anymore and never bought gold when I did (EQ, EQ2), but developing a sense of moral outrage about it is ludicrous.

Implicit in my understanding of MMOG rules is that the devs will enforce them for the good of the community. If they can’t be bothered, or more specifically, would rather sell accounts to bot farmers than run a clean game, then fuck them and their rules.
[/QUOTE]

Thats certainly not true of Blizzard or World of Warcraft. Every few months you will see announcements when they do mass bannings of cheaters and farmers in the tens of thousands, numbers other companies would never even consider. People see a bot farmer, report him, and expect him to be gone almost instantly when in reality it takes weeks of watching and planning to catch alot of them in one swift stroke, and its a lot better for them to let a farmer keep going than to erroneusly ban a legit customer that just happens to like farmer and speaks little english.

117

[QUOTE=hajario]
Finally, someone has made a good point for the other side. If, in fact, the WOW management is doing this, then they broke the contract first.
[/QUOTE]

Not if, as in the OP’s friend’s case, the farmers are using “legitimate” player’s accounts to do their farming - then it’s players first.

118

[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
It’s fine to examine rules to see whether you agree with them or not. For example, I do not think much of the laws making pot illegal in the US. I still will obey those laws, mainly because I’m not all that interested in smoking pot, but also because I feel the penalties for breaking such laws can be batshit insane in their severity.

Other Dopers appear to share my opinion of the stupidity of the pot laws, but feel free to break them as well. What evil, evil people they must be.
[/quote]

And you still haven’t grasped the basic fact that we’re talking about a video game, and you keep trying to make comparisons with real life. If you don’t like the rules of a video game, the remedy is to not play the video game. For a variety of obvious reasons, this is not usually an option in real life, so a different standard is required for deciding how to approach those situations.

Yes, and the rest of us already did that before we even opened the thread. Thank you for your tediously detailed defence of something everyone else in this thread had already taken for granted.

Does breaking the rule hurt other people? Yes? Then don’t break the fucking rule. How hard is that to figure out?

In that case, why are you still posting here?

Actually, the rule works pretty well. Sure, they don’t get everyone who cheats, but they’ve banned hundreds of thousands of accounts. They are (contrary to Grossbottom’s assumptions) actively enforcing the rule, and compared to other MMOs I’ve played, doing a fine job of it. Banning isn’t much of a threat to the gold farmers, but it works well as a deterrent for the people who buy their services.

Yeah, I think we’ve managed to wrap our puny human brains around your incredibly complex and previously unexplored philosophy. :rolleyes:

119

[QUOTE=Miller]
In that case, why are you still posting here?
[/quote]

Because so many people appear to have misunderstood my posts?

Perhaps you’d care to subscribe to my newsletter?

120

[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
Because so many people appear to have misunderstood my posts?
[/QUOTE]

Not that you’re obligated, but would you mind addressing what I said in Post 90?