RPG LAND

[NR]

http://rpgland.com/news/blizzard-do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do/
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If you buy stuff from Play Asia, help support RPG Land. Thank you.

[Solice Kirsk]

I'm trying to wrap my head around how buying fake money for a game is going to somehow "rape" a community. Do they mean they are raping the poor Chinese workers they pay $1 hour to do nothing but mine ore for 18 hours a day?
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"True to the bullet pith on the enclose, Rocksmith allows you to beat the drum for legitimate hither any electric guitar into the proprietary USB chain that comes with the encounter..." - NEERGENCE, 12/02/2011

[Sethimothy]

I was about to get all super pissed until I realize that "rape" was Solice's words, not Blizzards.

But yeah, buying gold (or whatever in-game currency) has always had a negative impact on the games. Whatever, World of Warcraft bitching about the Chinese (as opposed to the Koreans, whom are often also to blame) making their game easier is like my mother bitching that my normal legs make it easier to run in the Special Olympics.

Wait, fuck that analogy.

Yeah, power leveling services put people with cash to throw away at a game in an advantage over those unwilling or unable to do such a thing; it's essentially like paying a referee to look the other way while your team knees the other team in the face. This isn't exactly something new. It affects some games more than others, and people care about it in degrees ranging from "IT IS IMMORAL! JUST LIKE COPULATING WITH BABIES!" to "IF [insert developer here] DIDN'T WANT US TO USE THESE SERVICES THEY'D MAKE ACQUIRING [currency, items, levels] EASIER TO GET!"

And when the Orientals steal your game character? Well, to those who don't play these games, it might not seem like much. But remember when you were a kid, and you stole the ball from the retarded kids and they cried? It's kind of like that. Only the Orientals are stealing the ball, not you. Also, that ball cost about $15 a month to get as inflated as it is now, and there's other kids that'll pay hundreds of fucking dollars for that ball.

Ideally, everyone would play these games on the same playing field, but holy hell there's people with money to spare who want to spend it on being better on this online battle map and will do so. You'd have to be Wein Cruz to not see how this can hurt have a negative effect on these games. The real question is: to what extent is the effect negative, and do you as a player care? I've found the magnitude of the former increases the likelihood that the later is a "yes."

Then there's the "what control do the game designers have over making these services unwanted" question. Personally, I've never understood why the game designers should alter their game to make it EASIER for people to compete with RMT. I've always been a fan of the banhammer approach. Is there a way that developers can curb the desire for others to use RMT services? We know that, at least in the case of Everquest II, the creation of a specific world where people could (per the terms of use) buy and sell coin and characters legitimate was almost a complete failure, and did little to curb actual RMT from the game (and at one point actually spiked it as people went to jump off of The Bazaar back into other server worlds, only to discover they couldn't transfer their own characters.)

[Solice Kirsk]

Heres the problem with the whole system:

It is pixels of light and some numbers embedded into code that people have decided to put value on. If some one wants to do nothing but sit around farming all day so they can sell some guy who doesn't wanna sit around farming all day gold then so be it. If WoW wants to stop this then they can sell their gold to the players cheaper on Bliz.net or something. Otherwise, there will always be people willing to do something monotonous for cash.
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"True to the bullet pith on the enclose, Rocksmith allows you to beat the drum for legitimate hither any electric guitar into the proprietary USB chain that comes with the encounter..." - NEERGENCE, 12/02/2011

[LiQuid!]

Yep. Here's a few things:

1. There are entire MMO's that function and profit solely off of microtransactions.

2. WoW is already one of the most insultingly easy MMO's on the face of the earth. so for Blizzard to complain that RMT trivializes content, is absurd. They've already done that by making a casual-friendly MMO.

3. They are stupid not to introduce their own microtransactions to capitalize on these two facts. In addition to all the money they make on monthly fee's they could make a killing on this shit.
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[NR]

Also the rape thing was my words, not Solice's; that's why it wasn't in quotes or anything. That's the gist of their posting, though.
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If you buy stuff from Play Asia, help support RPG Land. Thank you.

[Omegarage]

Really? Most "rape things" usually are related to/started by Solice in some way.

[Knighthawk]

BRB gonna buy some WoW gold from a Chinese farmer.
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[Solice Kirsk]

If I had the cash I would buy a level 70 character with tons of awesome equipment and do nothing but sit right outside of the newbie area slaughtering people just starting out.
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"True to the bullet pith on the enclose, Rocksmith allows you to beat the drum for legitimate hither any electric guitar into the proprietary USB chain that comes with the encounter..." - NEERGENCE, 12/02/2011

[Omegarage]

[Super Megaman X]

[Solice Kirsk]

70's are better than 80's. Just look at David Bowie compared to Kajagoogoo.
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"True to the bullet pith on the enclose, Rocksmith allows you to beat the drum for legitimate hither any electric guitar into the proprietary USB chain that comes with the encounter..." - NEERGENCE, 12/02/2011

[Omegarage]