Gold Selling: How big and profitable is it really?

Czzarre · November 2007

I hate it all. I'm opposed to the whole Idea of buying gold. Yet, everyone must be doing it right?...or are they? The fact that you cannot do a search on MMORPG without finding a page of Gold selling sites. Google adSense is chock full of them if you use the keyword MMORPG. Even MMORPG.com has banners for selling gold. Many MMORPG blogs are filled with the adverts as well.

Ive heard all the stories. Chinese or mexican MMORPG sweat farms, The gold selling overlord buying mansions with cash. Ive even met a few "Ni Hao" players during my time in WoW. However, I am out of the loop. I dont like or buy gold. So how many people really do? Is it that pervasive? Have you bought gold, and if so..why? WHich game do you feel requires the most gold buying? What did you use your bought gold for? How much do your purchase? Would you purchase gold again for every game?

I know that buying gold buying can be looked down upon. IM not trying to "Out" anyone. Nor am I judgemental about anyone who has..cause its a fact of life now-a-day. I just want to understand the motivations. However, feel free to start your posts with "I dont buy gold, but My friend who did says ... ... ..."

Thanks for your input

EDIT: Hey all, I know a lot of people feel strongly about Gold selling. However, I dont want this to be a "I hate gold selling/farming" thread (plenty out there already). I want to know the reasson people do and the experiences of those players who have bought, or have knowledge of the process. Many posts saying we Hate it doesnt bring us better understanding of this process. Thanks all!

Torrential

bluealien1 · November 2007

Originally posted by Czzarre

I hate it all. I'm opposed to the whole Idea of buying gold. Yet, everyone must be doing it right?...or are they? The fact that you cannot do a search on MMORPG without finding a page of Gold selling sites. Google adSense is chock full of them if you use the keyword MMORPG. Even MMORPG.com has banners for selling gold. Many MMORPG blogs are filled with the adverts as well.
Ive heard all the stories. Chinese or mexican MMORPG sweat farms, The gold selling overlord buying mansions with cash. Ive even met a few "Ni Hao" players during my time in WoW. However, I am out of the loop. I dont like or buy gold. So how many people really do? Is it that pervasive? Have you bought gold, and if so..why? WHich game do you feel requires the most gold buying? What did you use your bought gold for? How much do your purchase? Would you purchase gold again for every game?
I know that buying gold buying can be looked down upon. IM not trying to "Out" anyone. Nor am I judgemental about anyone who has..cause its a fact of life now-a-day. I just want to understand the motivations. However, feel free to start your posts with "I dont buy gold, but My friend who did says ... ... ..."
Thanks for your input
Torrential

I have never bought gold for any games. I will never buy gold for any games, the only thing I have done on gold farming websites is sign their customer support e-mails up for porn newsletters, and lots of them.

It seems like a competition to them. Whichever website spams the most ads gets the most customers is what they think. Look at LotRO, they plague the OOC channels spamming ads for their websites. Many people complain about these people, but their businesses thrive somehow, and the very people that you hear complain about them, are the people that support their business by buying gold, power leveling, pre leveled characters, etc. The general idea of everyone is that buying gold is bad and looked down upon by both players and developers of the games, therefore they will not admit that they buy it.

Where I stand on it. I look down upon the selling and buying of gold. MMORPG's, in my opinion, should have nothing to do with your success in real life. Can you buy USD in real life? No, you can't. You should not be able to buy your way to success, you should work for it, whether you're the most hardcore player out there, or you can only bring yourself to play 15 minutes a day.

Economy. This really creates large ripples in the economy, alot more gold is going into the system then what would be going there without the farmers and buyers, not much more to say about economy, it's fairly obvious.

The_Boo_Cat · November 2007

Knowing how the majority of people on this site claim to feel about gold farmers and buying gold isn't really conducive to an honest answer. I'm sure many people do use these services and as much as I also dislike them, or claim to;-) I can see why people would use them.

To say that players are against them is obviously untrue or they wouldn't be around. I think it's frowned upon and I have stated many times that I believe they ruin or help ruin a games aconomy. It's human nature to want to be better than others and some people don't mind how they get there, buying gold is just another sort of exploit...albeit a lazy one.

To say devs are against them may be true but the flipside to this is the people who pay the devs wages probably aren't and if they could get away with it they would. Look at UO...EA allow you to buy items for real world cash, as do Sony Exchange servers...is this any different to using a gold sellers website? I think not.

I personally think these behaviours ruin games and refuse to play on servers or games that support them...it's one of the reasons I left UO. However, while their is a market and until human greed and the jealousy it causes are facts of life, combined with one-up-manship, their will always be people who see binary and not game worlds. that is to say some gamers play to win, at any cost, not to feel immersed in another world.

dikky · November 2007

it's well over a billion dollars a year

Cabe2323 · November 2007

Gold buying is the fault of the game developers and the fans of the genre that support massive time sinks in games.

Until those go away you will always have gold farming/powerleveling/character selling sites. Until game developers can recognize that for some people the time it takes to reach a goal is more important to them then the satisfaction reaching that goal brings, we will always have this problem.

This isn't an issue of cheating or not cheating. It definitely isn't an issue of in game economy either. "Power Gamers" ruin the in game economy not gold buyers. There was a study done on World of Warcraft and most people that bought gold bought enough to purchase their epic mount. So that was gold that was purchased and immediately taken out of the economy. While "powergamers" will farm up tons of gold for themselves and then will spend it frivilously on twinking their alts. "Powergamers" and not gold buyers are the ones that will make a level 19 weapon on WoW sell for 30+ gold.

Gold buyers and character buyers are generally players with less time or with time that is more valuable doing other things then playing one aspect of the game. Farming for cash, leveling your character, or grinding repuation are not necessarily the "FUN" aspect of the game for most players. Most players are trying to get to a bigger goal. For some it might be the PVPing at max level, for others it might be raiding, some it might just being able to do 5 man dungeons with friends who all started before you. In any of these examples the person who pays for gold/leveling doesn't find the journey to that goal enjoyable. They aren't cheating you out of anything.

The biggest problem with gold selling / leveling is that it isn't provided by the company. MMORPGs should either be designed without these time sinks or the developer should provide people that want it the ability to by pass certain aspects of the game by paying a premium for it.

Scriar · November 2007

Whatever amount it is its enough to keep them in business we would of seen them die ages ago other wise.

Hundreds of people buy gold most likely thousands, its cheating at the end of the day people prefer to cheat than to play fairly it seems. Although they are the minority i dont think that the majority of gamers support this action.

Whats sad is their are gold sellers for games like POBS already and its not even bloody out, Lord of the rings online last 2 days in the uk version before it was infested with gold sellers. Theres also gold sellers for games like guild wars ( i typed planeside for some reason ;p)where gold means nothing because of how easy it is to make. I logged on my fist day found 2 black dye and never had to worry about cash again lol

Gold selling is bad i think but Character buying and leveling is worse it makes worlds dead and ruins the community. I was so sick of running into morons who didnt know how to play their class even to the basic extent of moving in wow and this was at end game. And the amount of bots i met pathetic especially when you have people discussing themselfs botting in the general chat and nothing is done about it...

We will never get rid of gold sellers levelers etc all developers can do is limit our exposure to them, making gold items etc useless doesnt seem to help, although it does help prevent the amount of bad effects it has on the in game economy.

On a side note i think if Darkfall performs a miracle and is released polished and worth playing, ( im trying not to laugh lol ) It might actually be fun to hunt these little bastards down just to loot them ;p

battery212 · November 2007

to almost completly kill this problem K2 was smart

they sell gold/dinar to you

but then again i bet sweatfarms probably cost less

and ive never bought gold for any game

Scorchien · November 2007

Absolutley Fs up in game economy thats why you see items goin for 2 pp or 30 gold.. dependin on yer game ,these prices are put on low lvl items also becuase Fin idiots are out there buyin gold and pp to buy this stuff so players hike up there prices ..funny thing is the same gold sellers are also sellin the items in game to get more gold to sell to losers that buy this..

Makes thing very difficult for the average player to join a game and see a semi-rare lvl 10 weapon goin for 30 gold and they have no where near that much and unless they buy gold or pp they will never see those items.. Gold buyers and sellers really digust me .. Would like to take a freakin bat to there heads..

Czzarre · November 2007

"it's well over a billion dollars a year"

Is that true Teioh? If so, what is the source of that calculation. I honestly dont know, but I assume a lot of the records and profit from gold selling is kept off the books. None the less, yes, we see so much spam both in and out of the game, it leads you to assume that either it is very lucrative, or they are very desperate (or both). However, there does seem to be a lack of metrics as to the success and impact of this fringe industry.

Neil , I appreciate your presence and participation in this discussion. Although I wager this would be against policy for MMORPG.com, I may as well ask. How succesful is your gold selling banner? How many clicks does it recieve...or how does it compare to your other banners which advertise specific MMORPGs (Gets more/less/about the same). I'm sure your not allowed to answer, but its that kind of information that would give us (and me in particular) a better understanding of this.

Thanks

Torrential

Kyleran · November 2007

Originally posted by Czzarre Torrential
"it's well over a billion dollars a year"
Is that true Teioh? If so, what is the source of that calculation. I honestly dont know, but I assume a lot of the records and profit from gold selling is kept off the books. None the less, yes, we see so much spam both in and out of the game, it leads you to assume that either it is very lucrative, or they are very desperate (or both). However, there does seem to be a lack of metrics as to the success and impact of this fringe industry.

Of course, all anyone can do is guesstimate the actual total, but in this article the NY Times tried,

" It is estimated that there are thousands of businesses like it all over China, neither owned nor operated by the game companies from which they make their money. Collectively they employ an estimated 100,000 workers, who produce the bulk of all the goods in what has become a $1.8 billion worldwide trade in virtual items."

You can read the full article here: www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/magazine/17lootfarmers-t.html

Phos · November 2007

I agree that gold farmers ruin games and create inflation. That being said, once the inflation exists, it's impossible for an honest player to buy anything because we're so poor compared to those who buy the gold!

Because of this, I've bought gold in WoW, UO, and SWG (In fact, I was so frustrated with SWG at one point, I used to use the "Biz Natch" exploit for credits because I was so poor and inflation was so insane).

Now I factor gold-buying into my monthly gaming budget, right up there with the $15 monthly fee.

Until developers actually do someting about it, I'll participate in it. I don't like it, but I play to have fun, not to be the nice guy who finished last every time.

Many MMOG gamers commonly use the term Ni Hao as a funny way to greet non-english speaking farmers. Ni Hao means hello in Chinese. This is a result of the huge population of Chinese farmers in-game actually influencing the lingo in the game.

Here are some links I had in an old document I wrote once about MMO "gold farmers". Some might be outdated:

Here's an article about a very wealthy chinese farming company you can read if you like. Its a morph of Chinese laundry sweat shops from the 19th Century, known as yi-shan-guan.:
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3141815

Heres an essay on cognition and socio-technology specifically as it applies to MMOGs and gold farmers:
http://website.education.wisc.edu/steinkuehler/papers/SteinkuehlerSoP2004.pdf

Heres another article with statistics about Indonesian farmers as well as Chinese farmers:
http://www.gameguidesonline.com/guides/articles/ggoarticleoctober05_01.asp

Heres a 27-page study done by a Chinese college student about the phenomenon of gold farming, its called The Deadalus Project:
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/pdf/4-1.pdf

Heres my favorite Chinese Farmer website:
http://goldfarmer.ytmnd.com/

Heres an article about Romanian gold sweatshops:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1436411,00.html

Chinese farmers cause two problems: they ruin the economy for regular gamers, and they harass regular gamers who enter their farm territory by training monsters on them, or killing them, etc. It is, after all, their livelihood. And it is, after all, just a game for us.

- Phos

Asamof · November 2007

there's a part two and three

personally I think gold farming is a good thing. even though it's long hours of repetitive tasks (lol mmorpgs), it gives chinese and others more job oppurtunities despite how outlandish the actual job is. making some money is always better than none, especially when other jobs are hard to find. When you think about it, a lot of people would rather take this alternative to others (would you like to lift heavy objects all day in the burning sun/freezing cold, or would you rather stay indoors all day and play the latest pc games?)

while I believe that mmos do have the right to exclude and ban farmers as they see fit since they made and are providing the game, it isn't all that necessecary if the game is actually well made. I'm mean yeah sure, just about ALL mmos have farming and bots, but compare how many you've seen in WoW to other games like lineage 2 and it's night and day.

If the game doesn't really care about banning their farmers or bots because doing so would mean losing suscribers (lineage 2!!), and the players are apparently happy with buying virtual currency enough to keep the farmers around, then you have two happy parties and the unhappy legit players. If they didn't like buying currency, then they would quit and play or do something else. Buying currency isn't a neccesity, but a lot of people will consider that alternative if they have the pocket cash and don't want to farm for 3000 hours to get a level up. once again, nobody is forcing anybody to buy gold, it's how the game design influences it.

If a game is poorly designed, and if people can exploit that to make a small industry, then they sure as hell is gonna do it

the only thing that I really think about how this portrays americans in the farmers point of view. We're giving them their paychecks because we're too lazy to PLAY a game, games that people play for FUN. We're paying so much money to cheat games that we're supposed to play for FUN that we're able to give these guys money to live off of....wild

Phos · November 2007

Originally posted by Cabe2323
Gold buying is the fault of the game developers and the fans of the genre that support massive time sinks in games.
Until those go away you will always have gold farming/powerleveling/character selling sites. Until game developers can recognize that for some people the time it takes to reach a goal is more important to them then the satisfaction reaching that goal brings, we will always have this problem.
This isn't an issue of cheating or not cheating. It definitely isn't an issue of in game economy either. "Power Gamers" ruin the in game economy not gold buyers. There was a study done on World of Warcraft and most people that bought gold bought enough to purchase their epic mount. So that was gold that was purchased and immediately taken out of the economy. While "powergamers" will farm up tons of gold for themselves and then will spend it frivilously on twinking their alts. "Powergamers" and not gold buyers are the ones that will make a level 19 weapon on WoW sell for 30+ gold.
Gold buyers and character buyers are generally players with less time or with time that is more valuable doing other things then playing one aspect of the game. Farming for cash, leveling your character, or grinding repuation are not necessarily the "FUN" aspect of the game for most players. Most players are trying to get to a bigger goal. For some it might be the PVPing at max level, for others it might be raiding, some it might just being able to do 5 man dungeons with friends who all started before you. In any of these examples the person who pays for gold/leveling doesn't find the journey to that goal enjoyable. They aren't cheating you out of anything.
The biggest problem with gold selling / leveling is that it isn't provided by the company. MMORPGs should either be designed without these time sinks or the developer should provide people that want it the ability to by pass certain aspects of the game by paying a premium for it.

Agreed.

Also, any time someone pays someone else to do something in a game for them... that's an indication that the game is flawed. Either it's not FUN and they want someone else to do the WORK (remember, it's a game that's supposed to be fun) or the game is too competetive and there's a rat-race to get to the top for some reason. Either way, it's a problem.

- Phos

The_Boo_Cat · November 2007

Originally posted by Czzarre

Neil , I appreciate your presence and participation in this discussion. Although I wager this would be against policy for MMORPG.com, I may as well ask. How succesful is your gold selling banner? How many clicks does it recieve...or how does it compare to your other banners which advertise specific MMORPGs (Gets more/less/about the same). I'm sure your not allowed to answer, but its that kind of information that would give us (and me in particular) a better understanding of this.
Thanks
Torrential

No idea I'm afraid...I just write every now and again.

Phos · November 2007

Originally posted by KohenTrask
Knowing how the majority of people on this site claim to feel about gold farmers and buying gold isn't really conducive to an honest answer. I'm sure many people do use these services and as much as I also dislike them, or claim to;-) I can see why people would use them.
To say that players are against them is obviously untrue or they wouldn't be around. I think it's frowned upon and I have stated many times that I believe they ruin or help ruin a games aconomy. It's human nature to want to be better than others and some people don't mind how they get there, buying gold is just another sort of exploit...albeit a lazy one.
To say devs are against them may be true but the flipside to this is the people who pay the devs wages probably aren't and if they could get away with it they would. Look at UO...EA allow you to buy items for real world cash, as do Sony Exchange servers...is this any different to using a gold sellers website? I think not.
I personally think these behaviours ruin games and refuse to play on servers or games that support them...it's one of the reasons I left UO. However, while their is a market and until human greed and the jealousy it causes are facts of life, combined with one-up-manship, their will always be people who see binary and not game worlds. that is to say some gamers play to win, at any cost, not to feel immersed in another world.

When I first started playing WoW, me and my GF played it together. We agreed not to buy any gold for a while. We played and ran around the world and killed things for copper pieces. Then we saw the griffen and it cost like 9silver to fly it. Neither of us had enough money. So we ran around for the day doing quests and taking scrap armor from creatures we killed, not repairing our gear so we could save money. Then we had enough for the flight on the griff. It was so cool. We both looked at each other's screens and were sooo happy with ourselves. Then the Griff landed and we were broke. Some dude rode by on his epic horse that cost like 900 gold.

It would have taken us months to get enough gold to buy that horse. It seemed impossible. But we tried. We farmed and quested. We looked like idiots in the cheapest dorky armor around. We ran around, no potions, no good gear, no backpacks to put loot in, we didn't buy our new spells as we levelled up. We were too poor. We ran back and forth to a town whenever our 2 backpacks were full so we could sell stuff and run back to kill more and quest more. It took forever.

Then we ran into a guy who was farming an area for rare drops. He said "Ni Hao." Then he got pissed when we got a first hit on the creature he was trying to farm. He dragged a bunch of monsters to our area and then vanished. Me and my girlfriend died. This happened repeatedly.

Eventually we just gave in and bought the gold and got backpacks, bank spaces, horses, spells, and gear.

I'm sorry. But I don't think we were lazy. And it's wrong to blame the buyers. It's the system that's to blame.

- Phos

Arndur · November 2007

Low level rares sell for so much in wow becuase high level players will pay that for their alts. I have bought credits in swg and gold in wow. In wow i bought it solely for a mount at 40 and credits to respec becuase SOE thought they could take credits out with the price. Now i just want to point i did take a character 1-70 in wow completey on my own the first time it took awhile to get my mount. On my other toon i knew what a pain the lvl 40 areas were w/o a mount so i bought one.

Asamof · November 2007

Originally posted by Phos

Originally posted by KohenTrask

Knowing how the majority of people on this site claim to feel about gold farmers and buying gold isn't really conducive to an honest answer. I'm sure many people do use these services and as much as I also dislike them, or claim to;-) I can see why people would use them.

To say that players are against them is obviously untrue or they wouldn't be around. I think it's frowned upon and I have stated many times that I believe they ruin or help ruin a games aconomy. It's human nature to want to be better than others and some people don't mind how they get there, buying gold is just another sort of exploit...albeit a lazy one.

To say devs are against them may be true but the flipside to this is the people who pay the devs wages probably aren't and if they could get away with it they would. Look at UO...EA allow you to buy items for real world cash, as do Sony Exchange servers...is this any different to using a gold sellers website? I think not.

I personally think these behaviours ruin games and refuse to play on servers or games that support them...it's one of the reasons I left UO. However, while their is a market and until human greed and the jealousy it causes are facts of life, combined with one-up-manship, their will always be people who see binary and not game worlds. that is to say some gamers play to win, at any cost, not to feel immersed in another world.

When I first started playing WoW, me and my GF played it together. We agreed not to buy any gold for a while. We played and ran around the world and killed things for copper pieces. Then we saw the griffen and it cost like 9silver to fly it. Neither of us had enough money. So we ran around for the day doing quests and taking scrap armor from creatures we killed, not repairing our gear so we could save money. Then we had enough for the flight on the griff. It was so cool. We both looked at each other's screens and were sooo happy with ourselves. Then the Griff landed and we were broke. Some dude rode by on his epic horse that cost like 900 gold.

It would have taken us months to get enough gold to buy that horse. It seemed impossible. But we tried. We farmed and quested. We looked like idiots in the cheapest dorky armor around. We ran around, no potions, no good gear, no backpacks to put loot in, we didn't buy our new spells as we levelled up. We were too poor. We ran back and forth to a town whenever our 2 backpacks were full so we could sell stuff and run back to kill more and quest more. It took forever.

Then we ran into a guy who was farming an area for rare drops. He said "Ni Hao." Then he got pissed when we got a first hit on the creature he was trying to farm. He dragged a bunch of monsters to our area and then vanished. Me and my girlfriend died. This happened repeatedly.

Eventually we just gave in and bought the gold and got backpacks, bank spaces, horses, spells, and gear.

I'm sorry. But I don't think we were lazy. And it's wrong to blame the buyers. It's the system that's to blame.

- Phos

that's funny, when my friend and I duoed in WoW we were able to get along perfectly fine with money, and were able to afford our epic mounts at level 60 too. Honestly I think you and your girlfriend were just not very good at the game

did you even do any of the quests?

Phos · November 2007

Originally posted by Asamof
Originally posted by Phos

Originally posted by KohenTrask
Knowing how the majority of people on this site claim to feel about gold farmers and buying gold isn't really conducive to an honest answer. I'm sure many people do use these services and as much as I also dislike them, or claim to;-) I can see why people would use them.
To say that players are against them is obviously untrue or they wouldn't be around. I think it's frowned upon and I have stated many times that I believe they ruin or help ruin a games aconomy. It's human nature to want to be better than others and some people don't mind how they get there, buying gold is just another sort of exploit...albeit a lazy one.
To say devs are against them may be true but the flipside to this is the people who pay the devs wages probably aren't and if they could get away with it they would. Look at UO...EA allow you to buy items for real world cash, as do Sony Exchange servers...is this any different to using a gold sellers website? I think not.
I personally think these behaviours ruin games and refuse to play on servers or games that support them...it's one of the reasons I left UO. However, while their is a market and until human greed and the jealousy it causes are facts of life, combined with one-up-manship, their will always be people who see binary and not game worlds. that is to say some gamers play to win, at any cost, not to feel immersed in another world.

When I first started playing WoW, me and my GF played it together. We agreed not to buy any gold for a while. We played and ran around the world and killed things for copper pieces. Then we saw the griffen and it cost like 9silver to fly it. Neither of us had enough money. So we ran around for the day doing quests and taking scrap armor from creatures we killed, not repairing our gear so we could save money. Then we had enough for the flight on the griff. It was so cool. We both looked at each other's screens and were sooo happy with ourselves. Then the Griff landed and we were broke. Some dude rode by on his epic horse that cost like 900 gold.
It would have taken us months to get enough gold to buy that horse. It seemed impossible. But we tried. We farmed and quested. We looked like idiots in the cheapest dorky armor around. We ran around, no potions, no good gear, no backpacks to put loot in, we didn't buy our new spells as we levelled up. We were too poor. We ran back and forth to a town whenever our 2 backpacks were full so we could sell stuff and run back to kill more and quest more. It took forever.
Then we ran into a guy who was farming an area for rare drops. He said "Ni Hao." Then he got pissed when we got a first hit on the creature he was trying to farm. He dragged a bunch of monsters to our area and then vanished. Me and my girlfriend died. This happened repeatedly.
Eventually we just gave in and bought the gold and got backpacks, bank spaces, horses, spells, and gear.
I'm sorry. But I don't think we were lazy. And it's wrong to blame the buyers. It's the system that's to blame.
- Phos

that's funny, when my friend and I duoed in WoW we were able to get along perfectly fine with money, and were able to afford our epic mounts at level 60 too. Honestly I think you and your girlfriend were just not very good at the game
did you even do any of the quests?

Thanks for that directness. Although some people might actually consider it rudeness.

We ran around a lot and explored the world. You know, we had fun. I was, after all, playing with my girlfriend. I didn't just stick to the quest lines all the time. I'll tell you, some people actually play for fun, and don't want a quest-monkey directing them everywhere.

- Phos

08030 · November 2007

It is not the gold seller's/farmer's that kill games. It is the pro-gamer that kills games, the pro is the one who over enchants weapons and items to sell for millions, the pro is the one who sells the 30 gold lvl 19 sword in wow. The pro is the one you see running the bot party to hit max lvl and sell the characters off when his main is finnished. I am not saying that the farmers/gold sellers do not fallow suite, they would be stupid not to. I do however dissagree strongly with who is responsable for economy wrecking MMO's

I have in the past bought gold myself, if your just starting out in lineage2 having top grade items can speed up your leveling not to mention that it is nearly a requirement since you are not very likely to find a steady leveling group below level 60 and will spend most of your time before then solo grinding.

In other games such as wow, I have not and would not bother with buying gold or anything of the likes since it is way to easy to make money in wow, and leveling is even easier.

as for the argument that pricces would not be so high without the gold sellers/farmers that is totally false. Those who are farming / selling gold and items for cash keep prices relatively low from what I have witnessed. If any of you have ever played in a MMO that has seen mass player bans you can verify what I am saying. Prices have increased once farmer support leaves a mmo, for the simple reason that those accounts are usually the only ones supplying the materials to craft with, recipes, and various weapons and armors in mass quantity. Once a MMO loses it's farmer support you can bet that these things will become scarce and you will pay 10x the current price. As i believe us real players are even greadier the item farmers.

GreenChaos · November 2007

Originally posted by Phos

...
Eventually we just gave in and bought the gold and got backpacks, bank spaces, horses, spells, and gear.
I'm sorry. But I don't think we were lazy. And it's wrong to blame the buyers. It's the system that's to blame.
- Phos

I never had a problem getting money in WoW and I never "farmed". You 2 did something very wrong - sorry.

I think people who buy gold are completely insane. Part of the game is getting gold. If you pay for gold you are paying to skip part of the game, because you don't like to play it. So you are paying to play a game you don't like, then you are paying more because you don't like it. Totally crazy.

If you ever think you want to buy gold, you don't like the game and should stop playing.

08030 · November 2007

Originally posted by GreenChaos

Originally posted by Phos

...
Eventually we just gave in and bought the gold and got backpacks, bank spaces, horses, spells, and gear.
I'm sorry. But I don't think we were lazy. And it's wrong to blame the buyers. It's the system that's to blame.
- Phos

I never had a problem getting money in WoW and I never "farmed". You 2 did something very wrong - sorry.

I think people who buy gold are completely insane. Part of the game is getting gold. If you pay for gold you are paying to skip part of the game, because you don't like to play it. So you are paying to play a game you don't like, then you are paying more because you don't like it. Totally crazy.

If you ever think you want to buy gold, you don't like the game and should stop playing.

It depends I think on both the game and the person's reason for playing it, if they are playing to solely Role play then earning it legit is the way to go i think.

I myself play for games only for PvP and I could careless about role play in a mmo, I have pnp for that if I want it. So if it comes down to spending another 10 bucks to buy enough gold to get top grade items it is ok to me since I will be able to level faster and get into the PvP faster not to mention that I will be able to actually compete unlike alot of players who have the levels but not the equipment. Not to mention that in the time it took to earn the gold legit I could have allready reached my set goals and have been enjoying PvP on a regular basis. There is only 1 mob that I truly want to hunt in any MMO and that mob is another player,

As I have said though it mostly comes down to the game, In wow I found that earning money and leveling was easy even with low grade equipment I had zero trouble reaching max level and the gold cap by doing it all legitly. I cannot say the same for other MMO's that I have tried, though in all fairness I tried most of them late after the player base had allready leveled up.

Asamof · November 2007

Phos - That's fine that you enjoy the game that way, some people have fun by trying to complete all of the quest content, and others just like seeing the world, and most do a little of both. I like doing both myself, in fact doing all the quests will pretty much have you explore most parts of the game world. To get to my main point, saying that there's something wrong with the game because you felt you HAD to buy gold is totally wrong. that's the players fault for choosing to grind instead of doing minitasks that pretty much IS grinding but with the benefits of more exp, money, exploration of the game world, equipment, and helpful items.

Greenchaos - I agree, but it seems some people just LOVE throwing money away. enough to support an entire industry.

AzurePrower · November 2007

I have never bought gold/in game currency. Never will.

But I have sold in game currency before though how ever. Why? So I could quit the 2d MMO I was stuck in system specs-wise, use the $400 towards buying a new computer and play some thing better.

But any one who wants to buy in game currency from a player, gold selling site or other wise is completely ridiculous...

Czzarre · November 2007

Hey all, thanks for the responses and keep those Gold buying storeies coming.

Looks like a lot of people buy the gold for one purpose "Keeping up with the jones' ". Which does add light in one respect. Gold farming is an issue of the old games, where inflation has already taken hold. Although Im sure that there are gold farmers selling gold on any MMORPG as soon as its being released, I wonder if the demand is very low. Since everyone is still on the same playing level for the first few months.

Also, since gold farming is so lucritive, reading those reports (thanks for the links guys), why isnt there more gold being sold on ebay? Why isnt 'Joe coffee-mug' who already maxed level and got his epic ride selling his extra 1000 WoW gold for $30 on ebay? Ebay is full of "how to make 800,000 gold in a day guidebooks, and a LOT of characters...but very little people selling gold itself. Seems like a easy way to make extra money from your leftovers...and yet noone is. Wouldnt that be cool, America undercutting China

Torrential

Phos · November 2007

Actually, towards the end of our time in UO, my GF and I sold lots of houses and gold. We went through tradespot.com and ebay (it was okay to ebay gold for uo back then).

When I got fed up with the SWG glitches just before leaving for Iraq, I exploited as much as possible and sold the profits to whoever would buy them. I have a funny screenshot of a GM catching me and just giving me a warning.

I never sold gold on WoW though.

- Phos

Emmeric · November 2007

I've bought plats in Daoc.

playing a few hours a night 3-4 days a week , u cant keep up with anyone for gear thats so dependent to PVP with.

100 Plat for 40 bucks and that doesnt even buy much cept 2 or 3 high end pcs of gear..

100 plat be bout 2 months worth of farming junk over and over and salvage/hinge sell for the money and what ever u can sell on your CM in housing.

With all the new x-pacs and Min/Max templete specs to compete 1 would need 1 year of farming to get the gear or buy 1 Mithril which will certainitly send up a red flag!

2 hours RL work much easier than 2 months being bored with farming

with that being said i Quit playing all together now after almost 6 years playing.

Casual player = Fodder in PVP rewards Game

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Gold Selling: How big and profitable is it really?

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Gold Selling: How big and profitable is it really?

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV