Quote from: ancientgamerThere is an inflation rate in MMOs but the issue here is how resources are gathered.  The farmers are selling virtual resources originating from the game.  They are not, as far as I know, hacking into the servers and making their characters with max gold with a few strokes.

Well, I was responding to Callithena with my inflation comments. Farmers do not necessarily add to inflationary pressures compared to the built in pressure in the game design.  

While farmers are annoying in one game (Eve) they are not particularly damaging from what I can tell, while in another game (WoW) they actually break the game play for me as I can not get resources in game BUT from the farmers due to scarcity, and I can't generally afford them due to inflationary cost.

Spike, you're preaching to the choir here.  I was also replying to Callous's comments even though I may not have been clear on that front.  MMO's design do contribute to inflation by default because the interactions of the PCs create more money over time, thereby decreasing its value.  The gold farmers can contribute to it by commanding large quantities of items, affecting supply in different ways but, INHO, the issue for most people is the ethics of how resources are gathered.

Roger roger...

In Eve it is a popular, if seasonal, sport to hunt farmers (macroers are simply a worse iteration...) and blow them up/disrupt them.  Some alliance forums even post helpful chinese phrasebooks to make taunting/arguing with farmers ever easier.

The irony, from my perspective is that the only 'shard' server really exists for Eve (unlike WoW manifold servers) was set up for, and demanded by, the chinese for their own use... which means most anyone who only speaks to you in Chinese on the 'rest of the world' server is not there for the game...

I keep going back to Eve because the complexity of the player driven economy is noteworthy, and because many players seem to have economic or business driven goals in game, so there is some seriously deep study of the in game situation found on their servers.

Interestingly enough, the chines farmers have my sympathy here.

I also think it´s cruel to prevent them at their work.
It´s their work!

BTW, Why aren´t the chinese farmers founding an army? I mean they could pull off totally different shit if they banded together, no?

Then it would be you who´s hunted. They could have a nice little ocupation army, monopolizing the resources.

Now that´d be awesome.

The value of anything in an MMORPG is proportional to the time needed to acquire said item. People are willing to pay real money not to spend the time to acquire a particular item. Hence the trade in virtual items is really one where buyer is paying for the time that it took the seller to gather the item.

As long as there is time involved in acquiring items then there will be some dollar amount people are willing to pay not to spend the time getting the item for themselves. It gets worse when there is competition for items. Like the items in Ultima Online that only appear when the server is reset. The game effect of the item has an impact but time is the primary factor.

For example the $ price of influence in City of Heroes is pretty low. But high for Hami-Os. (Hamidon Enhancements) and now with the invention system in place there things that involve a considerable timesink now people will be willing to pay a $ price for them.

Lord of the Rings Online did a lot of things right but as far as acquiring items. There are multiple paths to get good stuff and eventually you will get them through the normal process of leveling. This doesn't mean items don't have a real world value. Compared to World of Warcraft they aren't as valuable.

However in the beginning the amount of coin you got was pretty low making LOTRO gold have a good real world price. This has been tweaked for the beteter but you are still tight on coin at times. Plus LOTRO crafting system is fairly time consuming thus people would be willing to pay $. Plus it seems that a lot of crafted items are comparable to what you get on drops unlike WoW which makes the system more valuable. Here game effects have an impact on the real prices.

Quote from: SettembriniInterestingly enough, the chines farmers have my sympathy here.

I also think it´s cruel to prevent them at their work.
It´s their work!

BTW, Why aren´t the chinese farmers founding an army? I mean they could pull off totally different shit if they banded together, no?

Then it would be you who´s hunted. They could have a nice little ocupation army, monopolizing the resources.

Now that´d be awesome.

Quoting from estar:

It would be ironic in the sense that such an army could actually contribute something to the game by having a common enemy for people to rally against.

The value of anything in an MMORPG is proportional to the time needed to acquire said item. People are willing to pay real money not to spend the time to acquire a particular item. Hence the trade in virtual items is really one where buyer is paying for the time that it took the seller to gather the item.

As long as there is time involved in acquiring items then there will be some dollar amount people are willing to pay not to spend the time getting the item for themselves. It gets worse when there is competition for items. Like the items in Ultima Online that only appear when the server is reset. The game effect of the item has an impact but time is the primary factor.

For example the $ price of influence in City of Heroes is pretty low. But high for Hami-Os. (Hamidon Enhancements) and now with the invention system in place there things that involve a considerable timesink now people will be willing to pay a $ price for them.

Lord of the Rings Online did a lot of things right but as far as acquiring items. There are multiple paths to get good stuff and eventually you will get them through the normal process of leveling. This doesn't mean items don't have a real world value. Compared to World of Warcraft they aren't as valuable.

However in the beginning the amount of coin you got was pretty low making LOTRO gold have a good real world price. This has been tweaked for the beteter but you are still tight on coin at times. Plus LOTRO crafting system is fairly time consuming thus people would be willing to pay $. Plus it seems that a lot of crafted items are comparable to what you get on drops unlike WoW which makes the system more valuable. Here game effects have an impact on the real prices.

End Quote...

Amen to that.  It suggests the items bring about a sense of accomplishment and worth.  Do you get rid of the grind or make everything based on skill instead of equipment?  Other suggestions...

ACtually, in some cases, the gold farmers will band together.  In games like Lineage for instance, with full PvP, they will literally take over a whole zone and kill any motherfucker who dares step on their turf.

Even in games like WoW with opt-in PvP, they'll still make it a point to harass interlopers, or have buddies on the opposing faction who'll show up and try to goad or trick the interloper into going PvP so they can attack them.

One of the reasons why I put this thread on was because I don't dabble in a lot of MMORPGs.  You can't have ideas of how they should work based on playing a couple of games.  It makes you wonder if the developers intended this or if some other disciplines should cooperate with computer science to make better games?

Quote from: J ArcaneACtually, in some cases, the gold farmers will band together.  In games like Lineage for instance, with full PvP, they will literally take over a whole zone and kill any motherfucker who dares step on their turf.

Even in games like WoW with opt-in PvP, they'll still make it a point to harass interlopers, or have buddies on the opposing faction who'll show up and try to goad or trick the interloper into going PvP so they can attack them.

That's a whole lot of awesome. I have zero intention to play an MMORPG, but the social dynamics behind them? Endlessly fascinating. Now I am starting to wonder how the US primaries manifest in online worlds.

Also, go Chinese gold farmers! :keke:

Quote from: MelanThat's a whole lot of awesome. I have zero intention to play an MMORPG, but the social dynamics behind them? Endlessly fascinating. Now I am starting to wonder how the US primaries manifest in online worlds.

Also, go Chinese gold farmers! :keke:

The problem is that it old real quick much faster than a non PVP setup. This is because of the power of human cooperation. Once a group get their shit together the only thing you can do is wait out until real life attrition reduces their group shrinks back down to manageable levels.

Putting together a larger groups isn't a solution because at some point the group who has control is the largest groups that can be realistically be assembled. Sure you could band together everyone else on the server but that will be extermely unlikely.

So now you are faced with waiting and who wants to do that in a game? So you drop it and move on something that is more fun.

There are similar problems with boffer LARPS like NERO as well.

A unrestricted PvP situation will nearly always degenerate to a Lord of the Flies situation on a MMORPGs or any other mass game. Even have smart people in charge in-game trying to keep the peace and making it fun doesn't work because in any groups event with people being people somebody will get pissed and reignite factional conflict. And because MMORPGS and boffer LARPS have such little consequences for player killing things goto hell.

I played and managed NERO and other LARPS for nearly 13 years along with playing Ultima Online, Everquest, World of Warcraft and LOTRO. I seen enough of this stuff to know that is cyclic, coming and going as groups form and break apart.

One thing is to look at Asheron's Call and the various accounts of how it groups form and break out. Asheron's Call has an allegiance system that has significant game effects.

Quote from: estarPutting together a larger groups isn't a solution because at some point the group who has control is the largest groups that can be realistically be assembled.

However often a smaller group works quite well whereever they are, since you can keep the quality up. Large groups tend to be diluted in skill and conviction, all other things being equal.  If a single larger group pisses off and and motivates enough of these smaller groups the pressure can really mount.

Further guerilla tactics and espionage is a very useful tool for the smaller groups since the larger groups tend to be easier to penetrate. However language barriers can obviously get in the way.

The real issue is that in an MMO ultimately the competition is based on time invested. You can't 'win' when you aren't on. There is an obvious benefit to someone that is in such a situation where being online is their livelihood.  EDIT: It also tends to keep their conviction levels up.

Eve uses something like 'real world' rules for PvP. That is, if you see someone you can take a shot at them. Some areas the law will get you, though there are ways around that, but most of the game... certainly the 'money' regions are lawless frontier... unrestricted PvP.

What gets interesting is the way corporations and alliances tend to function out in the fronteir space... if you aren't a dedicated PvP alliance, you have a shit reputation and everyone wants to kick you out of the space you deserve.  My alliance is one of the extremely rare (possibly only) alliances that seems to understand the value of a logistics base. Our PvP is mostly crap... we are enthusiastic and numerous, rather than small elite killers... but since we can, and do, throw more ships into the fray than all but the oldest and richest alliances can match, we hold our space quite effectively.

I suspect if we are successful long enough to see a culture shift in the Eve community, where trash talking industrial alliances in the forums and in space (in game) becomes less popular as the big 'space holding' alliances shift to more industrial/logistics oriented, and the PvP alliances either merge with the Industrial space holders or revert to 'spaceless nomads'... something that already happens on a lesser scale.

How this works with Gold Farmers, is that 'macroers' and 'farmers' make their money by spending time... They can't make a space holding group, despite the potential numbers and organising forces, because as long as they are fighting other players to hold space, they aren't really spending any time farming for 'gold'.  You can either mine or fight, you can either rat or pew pew, not both. Fighting, particularly pew pew (PvP) is not especially profitable.

Quote from: blakkieThe real issue is that in an MMO ultimately the competition is based on time invested. You can't 'win' when you aren't on. There is an obvious benefit to someone that is in such a situation where being online is their livelihood.  EDIT: It also tends to keep their conviction levels up.

You are right in that time logged on should be considered a factor in considering how "large" a group is rather than just raw numbers. Something like a character per hour statistic. With everything else equal,  a group with 10.2 character per hour would have twice the capabilities of a group with 5.1 characters per hour.

Quote from: J ArcaneACtually, in some cases, the gold farmers will band together.  In games like Lineage for instance, with full PvP, they will literally take over a whole zone and kill any motherfucker who dares step on their turf.

Even in games like WoW with opt-in PvP, they'll still make it a point to harass interlopers, or have buddies on the opposing faction who'll show up and try to goad or trick the interloper into going PvP so they can attack them.

this is utterly pathetic.

this whole thing is likewise utterly pathetic.

It´s not pathetic. It´s their job!

Go chinese farmers!