PC Gamer Goes to War With Gold Farmers

[JediSanf]

Straight from Greg's Febuary 06 "Letter From the Editor":

After months of behind-the-scenes talks with our sales department, I'm extremely proud to announce that starting with last month's issue, PC Gamer will no longer accept ads or ad dollars from Gold Farmers. Screw them.
Three Cheers to the PCG crew. The first round's on me.

[Verocity]

Oh Noes!!! 1 out of every 10 over worked, under paid Asian gold famers may be out of a job!

:D

Seriously, gald to see them taking this stance. It is just a game, right?

[Evil Avatar]

You mean they were taking ads from these criminals in the first place? How lame.

[Verocity]

You mean they were taking ads from these criminals in the first place? How lame.

Yes, but Greg Vederman was recently promoted(or demoted depending on how you look at it) to Editor in Chief so that may have something to do with the sudden change of heart.

[agentgray]

You mean they were taking ads from these criminals in the first place? How lame.
My thoughts exactly. We praise the fact they stop, but never smacked them over the head when they began.

[Kelegacy]

Yes, but Greg Vederman was recently promoted(or demoted depending on how you look at it) to Editor in Chief so that may have something to do with the sudden change of heart.

GREG? He's EiC now? Holy crap, PC Gamer's gone batshit since I last read a copy. I like Greg, but EiC? Strange choice, me thinks.

[A-Team]

You mean they were taking ads from these criminals in the first place? How lame.
It's bad enough when Google recognizes "World of Warcraft" or any other popular MMOG on an Adsense website and displays ads for sites selling gold with no way for the webmaster to stop them. To think that PC Gamer was actively selling ad space to gold farmers up until today just boggles my mind, and ticks me off at the same time.

[Draft]

You mean they were taking ads from these criminals in the first place? How lame.Yeah, they need more ads for hentai games

[Emabulator]

You mean they were taking ads from these criminals in the first place? How lame.Exactly. "PC Gamer Pimps Gold Farmers!" sounds like the more appropriate headline to me. ;)

[Murmillo]

I stopped getting PCG as soon as the Greg.V. was let loose as the Hardware guy.

I remember back in '96 when getting a 200 page issue was "small". Now anything more then 50 pages is "big".

[drakkarim]

don't all the mags pimp gold famers? that's no surprise, i mean they exist for selling ads and making profits, nothing else. they'd sell ads for condoms if they could somehow convince the companies that RL sex and games go together.

i'm quite frankly shocked that a magazine would say 'no' to them, maybe even a tad impressed.

[JediSanf]

Perhaps a little clarification is in order:


To pu it mildly, we here at PCG are furious that these types of ads ever made it into the magazine.... For my part, I sincerely apologize to all of our readers for not being able to make this happen sooner. Unfortunatly, "the seperation of church and state" that exists between PC Gamer's ad sales team and editorial team make negotiations like this one tricky.


Murmillo, Greg's still doing the hardware for now (there will be a slow transistion to the new guy I think) but I wholeheartedly agree that the mag needs to return to former size.

[Doctor Setebos]

You mean they were taking ads from these criminals in the first place? How lame.
This fact would probably infuriate me, had I actually wasted money on some kind of print magazine at some point in the past three years. Seriously, who gets magazines anymore?

[jacktion]

Pretend I am a blind 6 year old girl and explain what is bad about gold farmers advertising in PC Gamer? Aren't Gold Farmers just Chinese dudes grinding out gold in WOW and getting paid for it? What is wrong with that? They are free to do what they want aren't they? How does this hurt us? I am really asking and not trying to start nuttin.

[WastelandDan]

I stopped my PCG subscription a couple of years ago after it noticably began to go down hill. There were some reviews that honestly seemed paid for, something I'd never had reason to suspect in the past, and the number of pages per issue dropped significantly. I also noticed that there was a far greater proportion of ads to articles then in the past.

Interestingly, I can honestly say that I buy far fewer PC games now then I did when I subscribed to them. It used to be a great source of news but it just became too...blah. I can't speak for newer issues but I've never looked back.

[jeffbax]

Pretend I am a blind 6 year old girl and explain what is bad about gold farmers advertising in PC Gamer? Aren't Gold Farmers just Chinese dudes grinding out gold in WOW and getting paid for it? What is wrong with that? They are free to do what they want aren't they? How does this hurt us? I am really asking and not trying to start nuttin.
Its against the game terms of service, and ruins the game economy.

[Heretic Machine]

Its against the game terms of service, and ruins the game economy.

No such thing as a game economy when gold is infinite. Until they make a game where the currency is controlled, the in game economy concept just won't work. Gold farmers do make the problem a bit worse because they produce a lot of this gold that floods the economy, but the problem isn't something that they created.

Also, wasn't Vederman one of the writers for Ultimate Gamer, many years ago?

[Twigz'N'Berries]

Yeah, they need more ads for hentai games
No, that would take away EA dollars.

Anyway, who cares about gold farmers? Some people do not want to waste hundreds of ours 'grinding' to get +3 to defense. I personally don't buy gold, but I can easily understand how some people have more of a life than to spend hours upon hours looking for some "epic" item.

The only way i care about an epic item is if it happens to be a rich, naked, beautiful, well endowed woman carrying a pepperoni and sausage pizza in one hand and an ice cold (in a galss with ice) root beer who wanted to mate with the first man she saw.

That my friend is an epic item with some real value.

[GrinR]

"There were some reviews that honestly seemed paid for"

This is one of those things like "the holocaust never happened" and "they faked the moon landing" that will just never die.

[NeuroMan42]

Meh... PCGamer used to be a great mag but 95% of it is Ads/News/Reviews/Previews that are about a month old once it hits the stands.

[boratika]

Anyway, who cares about gold farmers? Some people do not want to waste hundreds of ours 'grinding' to get +3 to defense. I personally don't buy gold, but I can easily understand how some people have more of a life than to spend hours upon hours looking for some "epic" item.

Wouldn't spending real money on fake money more so imply a lack of a life.

[Kefkataran]

My thoughts exactly. We praise the fact they stop, but never smacked them over the head when they began.

Umm, obviously someone smacked them over the head. They didn't just stop for the hell of it -- they got letter complaining. And this is at least a week or two old and probably unimportant considering most of the people here don't seem to read PCG. I say kudos to them, nevertheless.

[aversion2k]

Back in 1997 I could get a copy of pc gamer for $16 (new zealand) around 200 pages, not too many ads, and a ton of demos on the cd.

Now I'd have to pay $30, 50ish pages, over 50% of which are ad's and maybe 4 demos on the cd, most of which I could have downloaded months ago.

I still read my old ones now and then for the nostalgic value but I dont buy them anymore.
I think the internet kinda killed gaming mags

[SMES]

No such thing as a game economy when gold is infinite. Until they make a game where the currency is controlled, the in game economy concept just won't work.

Amen, I've been waiting for a game with some kind of active monetary management system, complete with in game Treasury department, Federal Reserve chairman, etc.

That would be pretty cool- have the production of currency regulated and tied to goods and services. Eventually there would be a capitalist class who control most of the wealth, so there would have to have some kind of need for players who don't have this money... maybe require poor players to work for minimum wage for the rich making/enchanting items?

Meanwhile, all the craftsmen in the Alliance will unionize and refuse to produce anything without wage increases, so the rich will have to outsource the production of Alliance goods to the Horde sweat shops.

[Captain Awesome]

It was dumb they allowed it in the first place. Golf clap for a weak attempt at a flat agenda.

[Sensei-X]

After months of behind-the-scenes talks with our sales department, I'm extremely proud to announce that starting with last month's issue, PC Gamer will no longer accept ads or ad dollars from Gold Farmers. Screw them.


Translation:
"After months of filling our pockets with gold farmer money, PC Gamer feels its mountain of ill-gotten cash is large enough, so we will no longer accept ads or ad dollars from Gold Farmers. By the way, do you like my new hat? It's made of money."

[Klade]

No such thing as a game economy when gold is infinite. Until they make a game where the currency is controlled, the in game economy concept just won't work. Gold farmers do make the problem a bit worse because they produce a lot of this gold that floods the economy, but the problem isn't something that they created.

In WoW there are lots of ways that gold is controlled. You have to buy a mount at 40 for what is by then a sizable amount of money. Then you buy epic mounts for what is a crazy amount of money at any level. Plus there are spells and abilities to buy every 2 levels. All of this makes for many opportunities to take gold out of the market. Combine this with items selling to vendors for incredibly little value and quest rewards usually being just enough to cover two levels worth of abilities when added all together. And plus my favorite, the AH where you buy items with gold which you outgrow in a few levels and sell to the vendor for almost nothing. This shifts the gold around from person to person which keeps the strain from building up too much. All of this together creates a pretty balanced economy.

To say there is no economy is like saying that a lake is not a body of water since its not as big as the Atlantic Ocean.

When you pour thousands of gold onto a WoW server you create a climate where gold is devalued. The devaluation affects how much people think things cost an ultimatly will reach everyone on the server when they go to buy items. Its especially harmful to the new player on a server who has no resources to fall back on (like a high level alt).

To say that it doesn't really hurt the economy is silly as well. I can shift the entire price of a certain cloth by putting 10 stacks of that cloth on the market at 90% current prices. What do you think a few thousand gold can do?

[Kefkataran]

Translation:
"After months of filling our pockets with gold farmer money, PC Gamer feels its mountain of ill-gotten cash is large enough, so we will no longer accept ads or ad dollars from Gold Farmers. By the way, do you like my new hat? It's made of money."

There sure are a lot of you who are bitter without thinking.

Listen, like the guy said, he had to talk about this a lot with the people involved with advertisements and sales. I'm sure the actual content editors/writers don't have direct involvement in what gets advertised. Why would they? He got it taken care of. Quit the bitching.

[bobbler]

There sure are a lot of you who are bitter without thinking.

Isn't that what EA is all about? ;)

[doyama]

I'd like to put forward a crazy idea. An idea which would corrupt the entire fabric of WoW to its core.

WoW should make char transfers, item and gold selling legal.

Everquest already does this on a smaller scale. And I think it's something WoW should do as well.

Now before you go all batshit on me let's think about the typical seller and buyer of such a service. The Buyer is going to be someone who has disposable income and is willing to part with that to purchase virtual items. Yet buying such items invovles risk. I think such a person would be more than willing to pay a premium if such a transaction was sanctioned by teh game and thus provided them with a guarantee of delivery. These people are already wiling to pay for the convenice of gold, they will be also wililng to pay for the convenince of security. So I think if you had one legal market, and a black market one, most buyers would tend to migrate to the legal one.

What about sellers, well their main angle is PROFIT. They're out ot make money. Now in the legal setting Blizzard would take a cut similar to how maybe Ebay or Paypal does. Once you start cutting into profits then such a business isn't as attractive or can't be done except by the largest operations.

Finally you combine it with the already existing policy that farming constitutes griefing and a voliation of the TOS. Jsut because you can sell gold on their service doesn't mean you can decrease the enjoyment of other players by farming.

I'd think with this combination you could minimize the effect of gold farming on a server. Because you cant control any of the actual monetary policy within the game like you would in teh real work (currency devaluation, increasing interest rates, etc), I think teh only way to control it is to control the conduit or 'exchange rate' of virtual goods to real goods.

I think the only reason WoW didnt' implement it is because the cost of the infrastructure required to maintain such a marketplace would probably outweigh the fees they would collect. Also while tehre is definite inflation on the WoW servers, the inflation isn't to the point of hyper-inflation. so they most likely don't feel the need to fix their economic model. The ironic part is that the fact that WoW doesn't force you dump money into the economy at a rate to make your broke, is what makes it fun, aka you're not making a choice ofwhether to go broke or repair your armour (at low levels anyways). And yet its the main reason why the economic model is bound to implode at some point.

[Kefkataran]

WoW should make char transfers, item and gold selling legal.

Well, they're doing that as much as they can. They don't condone it, it's against the EULA, and they ban people whenever they find out aboutt his stuff.

[Kieron Gillen]

Hating to be the voice of reason, but... well, anyone who's worked on a magazine will realise what ads appear in the magazine can have little to do with the editorial staff. The Ads department will happily sell something and the first the actual writers and editors know is when it appears in the magazine.

(There's exceptions - Ads will check out things they consider risky, but since they're not usually knowledgable gamers they don't actually always know what's risky. And then there's the difference between their priorities (Hitting their targets for the month) and the magazine's more general one)

When something the editor doesn't like gets in the mag then starts a debate/war between the ads department and the editorial department, with the publisher deciding whether it's over-sensitivity on the Editor's part or crass-magazine-damaging commercialism on Ad sales.

So, logically enough, a magazine's stance on whether a certain sort of ads run will change depending who the EiC, Publisher and Ads people are and the political dynamic between them.

KG

[Lutheran]

I still get PCG along with most of the other game mags..and the most I ever pay for them is 2 or 3 dollars a year. Most of the time , they are free. If you check around the net enough , you can find deals for free on most of the mags at one time or another throughout the year. I would never again pay 20 or 30 bucks for a years subscription , its all old news by the time I get them.

[harbo]

Hating to be the voice of reason, but... well, anyone who's worked on a magazine will realise what ads appear in the magazine can have little to do with the editorial staff. The Ads department will happily sell something and the first the actual writers and editors know is when it appears in the magazine.

At least where I am from, the editor in chief is legally responsible for everything including the advertisements published in such a publication - and I'm really really surprised if it isn't the case in the United States as well. No, the "ad department" just doesn't do anything without the permission of editorial staff. Oh, and who do you think the people doing layouts etc are? Mystical elves who aren't editorial staff or responsible to the editor in chief?

[Kieron Gillen]

The Ad design department, a cheerily different place to the editorial design people.

EDIT: I'm UK based. I'm talking about my experience.

EDIT: You're being particularly naive to think that even if everything has to be approved by the Ed, there aren't ways for Ads screw them over. Like - say - a DPS you know the Ed is going to have problems with which you don't show until the day of deadline, so leaving him a big hole in the flatplan. And that's without getting your publisher into it...

KG

[harbo]

If I was somebody's boss and they screwed me over, they'd be out of the building as fast as the contract allows. Obviously, if the guy who pays my salary respects them more than me, that's different, but until then, I call the shots. Seriously, why would anyone hire somebody as any type of manager, if that person wouldn't be the one actually in charge? Sounds like an idiotic hire in the first place, not least because the employer should realize that letting the subordinates boss the manager around just fucks up the business in the aforementioned way. Ok, maybe that just means that you've worked for idiots.

[Kieron Gillen]

Advertising Managers aren't subordinate to the Editor of the mag. They're different legs of the power structure.

KG

[phantomhitman]

Yeah, they need more ads for hentai games

zing!!
/runs away

[Vulture]

Print Magazines that are out of date when they hit the stands or my mailbox?

I now paypal $12 US/year to several websites (EA being one of them) and think of them as a online info magazines that are timely. Why $12, well that is the average I paid for print magazines(never pay cover price!).

[Nite_Moogle]

I'd think with this combination you could minimize the effect of gold farming on a server.
So you're proposing to make it possible to exchange their farmed goods for real world cash and you think it will cut down on farming? Can I have a hit of whatever you're smoking?

The flat fact of the matter is that farming is bad for the game, I don't care how you slice it.

Farmer Hongkong goes out and farms in Azshara for 8 hours. He gets a Krol Blade in his farming and manages to scrore 500 gold to boot from random loot. He turns in his 500 gold to his boss who sells to to Joe Casual. Joe Casual uses it to buy the Krol Blade up on the auction house from Farmer Hongkong. The gold farmers double their money on that same 500 gp.

Frank Casual buys 1000 gold. He uses his money to buy things that other players want just as much, primarily tradeskill components. He buys out all the arcanite on the auction house and resells it for 5 gp more per stack. Normally having this sort of cash would be something that would require weeks of farming on his own but Frank plays 6 hours a week and makes money hand over fist since Arcanite is always in demand.

John Casual likes to pvp at level 60, but he can't keep up with people that have epic mounts. He buys a thousand gold and is now faster than most people in the battlegrounds.

Steve Serious plays 30 hours a week and doesn't buy gold. He can't buy the Krol blades because the prices are set so high that only gold buyers can afford them. He can't collect Arcanite at reasonable prices since the same person keeps buying it out and reselling it, and it does sell, because other gold buyers want their Lionheart helms and Heartseekers. Steve does dungeon crawls for months and nickel and dimes his way to an epic mount because all of the profitable overworld camps are taken by farmers that resell their gold. Steve needs this epic mount to keep up with John Casual, who continually catches him in WSG when Steve tries to capture the flag, but he can't catch John when he has the flag.

Tell me how gold buying doesn't impact the economy again?

In closing, fuck gold farmers.

[Kefkataran]

well, anyone who's worked on a magazine will realise what ads appear in the magazine can have little to do with the editorial staff. The Ads department will happily sell something and the first the actual writers and editors know is when it appears in the magazine.

*nod* I had just said that above, and it only seems like common sense especially considering what he said up there. Thanks for backing me up!

[RMan]

Steve needs this epic mount to keep up with John Casual, who continually catches him in WSG when Steve tries to capture the flag, but he can't catch John when he has the flag.

Well, I'd say the argument always boils down to the gamers willing to pour their life into the game are pissed because others are more willing to buy their time back with real money (both personalities perplex me a bit though). It seems to me that most players and developers are looking at the symptom and getting pissed about it, and aren’t considering the problem. Basically, the actual game mechanics of WoW (I’ll only comment on WOW because it’s the only game of it’s type I’ve played) are pretty darn slow and tedious, clearly the social aspect is what makes the game great. “Progressing” through the game’s quests and leveling your character is generally WAY inferior to SP games in terms of pacing and is just boring to many players, so they’re choosing to buy time rather than spend it harvesting these resources themselves. It’s basically designed to hand out content at the slowest possible rate in order to keep players playing as long as possible, and that is going to produce pacing too slow for many players (myself included). Honestly, if I cared to have a higher level character more than I cared to experience the game (not sure why I would unless there was a group of players I wanted to quickly catch up with) I’d buy gold too, it’s clearly the more efficient way to go.

In the end, I think Steve needs to get over it. There will always be players that have more time, more money, or are luckier than he is, so if his emotional state is dictated by his relative standing to another player’s stats in relation to how much time he thinks was spent getting them, then he’s going to be unhappy, period. Is the idea that he’d be happier if he was being beat by the player that originally obtained the item(s)? If there’s an item or items that can cause a real imbalance in PVP then that’s an item balancing problem, not a problem with how the guy got it.

[jacktion]

RMan makes a good point. The game designers need to make the game so that the actual playing is fun. Right now people just want the uber gear so they can kick ass on everyone else and taunt them. WOW is basically a capitalism simulation. It is not the playing that is fun, it is the payoff in form of gold and gear. Let me ask you this. Would you play WOW if you could not get anything? If there were no gear to collect or armor or gold? Would you play just to go on quests and kill big bosses? That is the difference between this and games like Battlefield 2. There is no gear in BF2 but it is the actual playing that is fun. It is the action that is fun. Maybe that is the crucial distinction between MMORPGs and FPSs. One is about the process and one is about the stuff you get. discuss.

[Kefkataran]

The game designers need to make the game so that the actual playing is fun. Right now people just want the uber gear so they can kick ass on everyone else and taunt them. WOW is basically a capitalism simulation. It is not the playing that is fun, it is the payoff in form of gold and gear. Let me ask you this. Would you play WOW if you could not get anything? If there were no gear to collect or armor or gold? Would you play just to go on quests and kill big bosses?

Just because the focus is on getting new and better gear does not mean the gameplay isn't fun. I actually enjoy the game. And I don't see how this even compares to Battlefield 2. Completely different situations and genres. The focus may be getting stuff in WoW, but there's still a process to that, and many people (myself included) enjoy that process.

[Nite_Moogle]

“Progressing” through the game’s quests and leveling your character is generally WAY inferior to SP games in terms of pacing and is just boring to many players, so they’re choosing to buy time rather than spend it harvesting these resources themselves.
Know what that's called in every other game genre? Cheating. Nobody has any respect for someone that has a 100% completion rate on Final Fantasy 7 when they used a hack on it to level to 99 instantly. People that use aimbots in CS or BF2 are "better" than other people through no merit of their own. When you get beat in PVP because somebody has an uber item they bought with real-world cash, they are no better. And that's what I really hate about gold farming.

[RMan]

Nobody has any respect for someone that has a 100% completion rate on Final Fantasy 7 when they used a hack on it to level to 99 instantly.
Hehe, neither method of getting a 100% completion method would impress me, but I see where you're comming from. Personally, that's not where I draw the line at cheating, though. Some people would call trading an item PERIOD to be cheating, and in the case you mentioned, wouldn't you say that's just as bad to be given an item by a friend as it is to buy it with real money? I mean, is it cheating because I use real money to get it, or because I didn't get it through the method you feel is fair? Then is it "fair" if I read websites to find out where to get the best items/drops, certainly that could be considered cheating.

In the end, no matter what the game mechanics allow some players will get pissed, because they're getting beat by another player. As long as Blizzard endorses trading I certainly wouldn't call it cheating, no matter what the out of game compensation or reason for the trade was.

[Groo]

So you're proposing to make it possible to exchange their farmed goods for real world cash and you think it will cut down on farming? Can I have a hit of whatever you're smoking?

The flat fact of the matter is that farming is bad for the game, I don't care how you slice it.

Farmer Hongkong goes out and farms in Azshara for 8 hours. He gets a Krol Blade in his farming and manages to scrore 500 gold to boot from random loot. He turns in his 500 gold to his boss who sells to to Joe Casual. Joe Casual uses it to buy the Krol Blade up on the auction house from Farmer Hongkong. The gold farmers double their money on that same 500 gp.

Frank Casual buys 1000 gold. He uses his money to buy things that other players want just as much, primarily tradeskill components. He buys out all the arcanite on the auction house and resells it for 5 gp more per stack. Normally having this sort of cash would be something that would require weeks of farming on his own but Frank plays 6 hours a week and makes money hand over fist since Arcanite is always in demand.

John Casual likes to pvp at level 60, but he can't keep up with people that have epic mounts. He buys a thousand gold and is now faster than most people in the battlegrounds.

Steve Serious plays 30 hours a week and doesn't buy gold. He can't buy the Krol blades because the prices are set so high that only gold buyers can afford them. He can't collect Arcanite at reasonable prices since the same person keeps buying it out and reselling it, and it does sell, because other gold buyers want their Lionheart helms and Heartseekers. Steve does dungeon crawls for months and nickel and dimes his way to an epic mount because all of the profitable overworld camps are taken by farmers that resell their gold. Steve needs this epic mount to keep up with John Casual, who continually catches him in WSG when Steve tries to capture the flag, but he can't catch John when he has the flag.

Tell me how gold buying doesn't impact the economy again?

In closing, fuck gold farmers.

In closing: fuck MMOs, get a real life.

[RMan]

And I don't see how this even compares to Battlefield 2.
What he's saying is that BF2's mechanics are fun, and people will play them even without getting item drops. I seriously doubt that players in WoW would play for very long if they weren't getting gear/skills/levels/gold from stuff they kill. WoW's mechanics are good for the type of game that it is, but they don't/can't compare to games who's primary focus is compelling game mechanics rather than social mechanics.

[Nite_Moogle]

In closing: fuck MMOs, get a real life.
I play WoW with a group of my college friends, the closest of whom lives 2 and a half hours away. My social network is unorthodox to say the least but I have more contact with my close friends than the majority of people do. I've become such good friends with people that I met through WoW that we flew one of them in from Delaware for a LAN party last October. He's originally from Malaysia. Tell me how I could have done something like that by going to the hick-ass country bars around here?

In closing: take your closed-minded opinions and shove them up your ass.

[vallor]

When you get beat in PVP because somebody has an uber item they bought with real-world cash, they are no better. And that's what I really hate about gold farming.

Well consider most of anything most people would qualify as "uber" would be bind on pickup and if not would certainly be level limited so it wouldn't be out of the realm of possiblity that the person could have legimately earned the item.

If you analyze the trends in WoW until the very highest end (and outside of enchantments, which is an anomoly I expect will be fixed soon) a player can generally "buy" 3 to 7 level of advantage. By that I mean the delta between most available green to blue to purple items that can be aquired in an equilvent level range isn't tragically large.

This changes at 60 when the "best" can delta from average by 15 - 20 "levels" in gear (BWL items are considered "level" 65-81 items from UBRS, etc are considered lvl 51-61). But those can't be bought anyway. PvP gear is on a different scale, but once again the amount of gold someone has only helps so much in earning the PvP gear.

In fact I'd be more worried about powerleveling through instances which COULD gain a character a 10 level advantage (some instance quests are given to characters long before they could be completed, Gnomeregan, for exampe).

A horde guy that completes all the Blackfathom quests as soon as they become available can have two (free) awesome weapons for the level 19 BG, better then just about anything that can be bought. Add enchants and we're talking a greater advantage than anything gold by itself could have gotten them.

Gold in WoW doesn't mean all that much, especially once you hit 45 - 50+. Generally the only value gold has then is for tradeskills or to buy the epic mount.

Obviously there are reasons to buy gold (tradeskill items, small gear advantages in PvP, large enchantment advantage in PvP), my point is that in WoW with a few exceptions (like the enchantments which I hope will soon be level limited) someone who spends an extraordinary amount of gold isn't able to get a super huge competitive edge on a "regular" player.

[Nite_Moogle]

Good post.
Obviously there are reasons to buy gold (tradeskill items, small gear advantages in PvP, large enchantment advantage in PvP), my point is that in WoW with a few exceptions (like the enchantments which I hope will soon be level limited) someone who spends an extraordinary amount of gold isn't able to get a super huge competitive edge on a "regular" player.
The epic mount is probably the biggest offender of this, imo. Even in MC-quality gear at level 60 you can be outdone by characters in notably worse gear that have epic mounts. But if you take a look at items like the Brain Hacker (a 56 dps 2her) that can get in the 50s bracket battlegrounds, I don't think you can argue that it's a big advantage over even the extremely powerful Dreadforge Retaliator, which is notoriously difficult to get. The real quantifiable problem lies in the trickle-down effect of what gold buying does to prices of items in demand (see the Arcanite example, I know of instances where this has happened).

[vallor]

Farmer Hongkong goes out and farms in Azshara for 8 hours. He gets a Krol Blade in his farming and manages to scrore 500 gold to boot from random loot. He turns in his 500 gold to his boss who sells to to Joe Casual. Joe Casual uses it to buy the Krol Blade up on the auction house from Farmer Hongkong. The gold farmers double their money on that same 500 gp.

...snippy snip...

Steve Serious plays 30 hours a week and doesn't buy gold. He can't buy the Krol blades because the prices are set so high that only gold buyers can afford them. He can't collect Arcanite at reasonable prices since the same person keeps buying it out and reselling it, and it does sell, because other gold buyers want their Lionheart helms and Heartseekers. Steve does dungeon crawls for months and nickel and dimes his way to an epic mount because all of the profitable overworld camps are taken by farmers that resell their gold. Steve needs this epic mount to keep up with John Casual, who continually catches him in WSG when Steve tries to capture the flag, but he can't catch John when he has the flag.


You describe a completely unrealistic scenario.

1) I'd like to know what Mr. Hongkong is killing that is making him ~75g an hour. I've rarely seen one outdoor mob drop over 1g in cash. Unless you are including runecloth etc which makes things a little different. In which case that money equlivent of loot is available on all mob types of that level and isn't limited to farmers (animal parts sell pretty well even compared to grey weapons and stuff that drop off humanoid mobs).

If the giants in Azshara are camped then the giants in Feralas (on the beach ~same level) are probably available (in fact I've never seen them camped for longer than it takes to do questing).

2) 30 hours a week and he can't make any money? Steve should try killing beasties when he is logged in instead of making laps around Org.

3) If he can't buy the Krol blade there are a number of alternatives, and even if not the Krol blade isn't THAT incredible amazing vs. some blue items that can be gotten (granted 5 or so levels higher than when the Krol blade is useful).

There is even if he can't catch the flag dude in WSG he will still eventually earn the honor to start accumulating PvP gear. If he wants money he has exactly the same money making potential as Mr. HongKong. He might not be as efficient but he can probably do at least 50% of Mr. Hongkong.

4) I've played to 60 on 4 servers now, 3 of those 4 were first gen servers and I've never once run out of overland places to go kill stuff and farm. Some are easier to farm than others (like undead spots with my pally) but generally its a wash.

There are also instances. Any class can farm Deadmines (even horde) which can bring in 10g - 20g in 30 minutes for a DPS class) starting at level 30 for some and 40 for others (read: priest). Some people like Scarlet monastary (20g - 40g an hour for an enchanter + good possible blues) from 40 - 60.

All in all the picture you are painting is misleading, exagerating, and indicates one of the laziest 30 hour a week players I've ever heard discribed.

Dungeon crawling for months for the epic horse?

On this guys WORST week he should be able to make 300 - 600g just by farming one of the lowest level instances in the game.

In all those months he is winning green items to sell on the AH.

In all those months he could have taken Mining and leveled that so that then he could sell Arc crystals to the gold buyer you described, or kept them for his own use.

Gold Farmers, while in voliation of the TOS and EULA, are not the bane of MMO existance you would like to demonize them as, especially in a game like WoW where ultimately money means very little past the epic horse and enchantments.

Gold farmers only have so much influence on the economy. Most of that influence is in the mind of the players. If a player doesn't like how much XYZ harvested tradeskill item sells for they have the ability to take up that gathering ability/tradeskill and exploit the market themselves or simply fund their own needs.

At 30 hours a week Steve certainly has the time to level some tradeskills and, while time consuming swapping in and out gathering skills is easily done and even inexpensive.

A better example might a 10 hour a week player. But proportionally speaking there isn't much difference except they have to focus all their weekly time to accomplishing one thing.

EDIT: Changed a few lines and some spelling.

[Kefkataran]

In closing: fuck MMOs, get a real life.

Trollllllllllllllll.

What he's saying is that BF2's mechanics are fun, and people will play them even without getting item drops. I seriously doubt that players in WoW would play for very long if they weren't getting gear/skills/levels/gold from stuff they kill. WoW's mechanics are good for the type of game that it is, but they don't/can't compare to games who's primary focus is compelling game mechanics rather than social mechanics.

Yeah, but I don't see how this is a bad thing. Items drops are PART of WoW's game mechanics. They're PART of why people play and PART of what makes it fun. Just because people find it fun in part because of getting better gear doesn't make it any less fun than a game like BF2. It's still a silly point if anything, and I there's about five million WoW players who will tell you it CAN compare with a game like BF2.

[Nite_Moogle]

30 hours of playing time does not equate to 30 hours of farming. For me that usually consists of trying to find a group, travel time, and doing instances and pvping (far less PVP nowdays).

Mister Hongkong can make quite a bit of good cash farming the dozens of stacks of Runecloth off the Blood Elves in Azshara. It may not be 500 gp in 8 hours, but I haven't exactly camped that spot for 8 hours before. I do know that spot is phat cash. The water elementals in northern Felwood can also give you a very good per-hour cash payback from essences of water. Every single time I went to both spots on the PVP server I played on they were camped.

In the last six months of playing the game the only time I've made more than 5 or 10 gold a night doing instances was when we sold a Hide of the Wild pattern for an even split up the middle. I've never had more than 200 gold on any character. At a rate of 10 GP a night, that's 80 days of play. Even at 10 gp an hour (reasonable) you're looking at 3 weeks for enough cash. I don't think that it's completely unreasonable to say that it can take people months to get an epic mount.

Leveling up tradeskills takes multiple characters, time, and gold. You can make low level goods quickly but you still have to reach level 40 to create anything worth a damn. Taking up something like Blacksmithing to "supply your own needs" is ludicrious when you are after something like an Arcanite Reaper or even a Lionheart helm. Even if you mine all the Thorium you get your hands on you're going to be lucky to get more than one Arcane Crystals a night, and assuming you have enough trasmutes available, you're still looking at the better part of a month of mining to get one weapon.

I had guildmates leveling up alongside me buy gold and buy their mounts and their epic mounts. One of them bought out the auction house for tradeskilling from 1-300 on tailoring. You don't earn that kind of cash without a major time investment. I had to borrow money to get my regular mount-- which most people do. A friend of mine put a Krol Blade up on auction for lower than the rest of them and got several tells in Korean. I have witnessed the AH be completely bought out of a suddenly in-demand item with everything put back up with a huge markup. There is a story of someone who bought out an ENTIRE auction house (everything) and put a markup on it. Don't think that farmers don't have a very large impact on the game.

[RMan]

It's still a silly point if anything, and I there's about five million WoW players who will tell you it CAN compare with a game like BF2.
Again, that's because of the social aspect, and the discussion was about the mechanics MINUS the drops, we know the drops are there. I didn't say the overall experience was inferrior to BF2, just that the mechanics of the game are (The mechanics refer to what the game does, not what all the other people in the game do for you). In 10-15 years it'll be much more obvious, since MMOGs will be more refined, but if you honestly believe that the mechanics in WoW are as compelling as a top tier shooter, then no amount of logic will sway you.

[Vulture]

Wow some people talk about the use of money to make you game skillz better as cheating. I guess I bettter give away my 2nd gig of RAM, my joystick, my nostromo gamepad for BF2 then. Oh I and I should definitely only play on high ping servers while I am at it. Don't want to abuse my real life cirucumstances to cheat in the game.

/Sarcasm Off

TO be truthful I even pay $20 a month for my groups BF2 servers. Why I am a LPB!

[Nite_Moogle]

I bet you wouldn't hesitate to buy a gun that had an extra 3 rounds in every clip either would you Vulture?

[Kefkataran]

I didn't say the overall experience was inferrior to BF2, just that the mechanics of the game are (The mechanics refer to what the game does, not what all the other people in the game do for you). In 10-15 years it'll be much more obvious, since MMOGs will be more refined, but if you honestly believe that the mechanics in WoW are as compelling as a top tier shooter, then no amount of logic will sway you.

That's because it's not a question of logic. It's a question of opinion.

[Vulture]

I bet you wouldn't hesitate to buy a gun that had an extra 3 rounds in every clip either would you Vulture?

Well my guns have magazines not clips. And yes I do have 75rnd drums and 100rnd rotary mags.

There is no such thing as an equal fight!