Gold Farming 900 Million a year Industry

[Nija]

What a pointless distinction.  The gold is not the problem.  The grind is.

You don't NEED an epic speed mount in WOW. There is no REQUIREMENT, unless it was early in the game and you wanted to jump to rooftops otherwise inaccessible and slaughter low level PCs. Not that I ever did that.

People WANT the epic mounts, though. They WANT the purple drops that are priced through the roof on the AH. Do they NEED them? No.

[Venkman]

The need is often the sense of improvement at all. The longer someone goes without having achieved something, sometimes the more willing they are to cheat to get it.

Therefore, in my opinion, it's not about the gold, the grind, nor the piece of equipment. It's about sating the need for growth or change.

[LC]

or something like a barter system.

BINGO

The exchange of commodities and services.

"Gold" is the most popular item in RMT because it's so easy to move. If you take away that ease, RMT will suddenly become much less profitable. Of course you would need to make sure that there are no insanely valuable items available. Also it would be a good idea to tweak the supply/demand of different commodities at random intervals.

Example:

> LuvlyGril2218 and his team of drones decide to farm wolf hides.
> He farms until he has a large amount of hides ready to sell on ebay.
> The supply of wolf hides suddenly increases.
> LuvlyGril2218 is stuck with thousands of wolf hides he can't sell. He even loses money because nobody buys his auctions.
> LuvlyGril2218 is forced to delete all of his wolf hides. It might be months before they are valuable again, and he needs room for new items.
> Repeat

[tkinnun0]

Therefore, in my opinion, it's not about the gold, the grind, nor the piece of equipment. It's about sating the need for growth or change.

How about selling a temporary advancement rate increase to the players? For example, pay 3 € extra to Blizzard and you get one level's worth of rest exp. You'd still have to grind, but only half the amount.

[damijin]

Oh lordy lordy...

First things first, the collective mind needs to be made up.

Is it the exchange of money for in game advancement that we stand against?

Or is it the industry which makes money by "playing" along side us? In other words:

Are we against farmers or are we against RMT?

If we're against RMT... well, that's great, I guess. Theres ways to stop RMT through design. Theres ways to make games which are RMT resistant. In fact, almost every game made before Diablo 2 was RMT resistant! Theres quite a library of those games out there for you to look into. And there are certainly ways to bring "MMO-like" elements to games which are RMT resistant. You can add persistance and advancement, just check out Battlefield 2142. But these games will not be MMOs. They will be persistant games of other genres.

If we are simply against farmers because they ruin the "integrity" of our golden virtual worlds, or better yet, because we feel they're "unfair"... well, then we have a losing battle on our hands. You cannot and will not defeat and industry of that magnitude. It existed before China was involved, and it will continue to exist even if China is taken out of the equation. Eastern Europe, South America, there are places in this world where people just like you and me enjoy escaping to another world. But those people live an economy so upfucked that the best way they can make money is by sucking it out of richer nations who share the common love of escapism.

Personally, I would rather have a game with people of all walks of life, including those who would not be able to play if it were not their job. People who do not have recreational time to enjoy games are still people, and they still want to play. The only clear option to me is to create games which anticipate, and design for RMT. They do not need to allow it in their EULA, but they must know that it will be there and they must minimize the effects that it will have on the people who do not engage in it. Systems where people can buy their way to the top, but you can reach it just as easily with a little time investment and wisely playing the economy. Systems where farmers are players too.

But there are people in this thread calling to remove currency from games? remove the grind? remove economies?

Why? Do we hate these people so much that we're willing to throw away the systems that define the genre?

That's all fine and dandy if you're trying to invent something new... some new genre. And I'd be the first to say "go for it", because it's obvious that this one is stale. But I honestly think a lot of people go overboard on this. This genre, like every genre before it, is EVOLVING. It is destined to slowly change over time. RMT is part of our evolution, and the only thing that will work is to go with it, and find a way to make it function inside of our already existing set of systems. If you fight against this natural progression, you're either going to lead into disaster or a new genre/sub-genre. So, make up your mind. Do you want to evolve with MMOs, or make something new?

[stray]

"Systems that define the genre", he says.

I'm not one of the ones advocating "no gold", but I don't see why "gold" is so integral to the "genre".

Hell, I don't even see this as a genre in the usual sense of the word. MMO's shouldn't be so clearly defined by "gameplay" as other game genres are. What defines them is the space. And any game can be grafted into that space.

Not everything has to be an RPG, let alone a Diku type of RPG, let alone one that relies on loot, economy, etc. LET ALONE a fucking grind.

[LC]

Are we against farmers or are we against RMT?

I never had a problem with RMT until the farmers showed up. They take up space that could be used by real players. It's more fun to grief/kill real players.

[damijin]

Everything doesn't have to be an RPG, you're right. But then we're getting into sub-genres. I know I used the term MMO in my other post. Yeah, that's a bit too broad. Because that encompasses Second Life, and that encompasses Planetside. But lets get serious, when we're talking about MMOs, we're talking about RPGs, and most of the time, we're talking about something that has some resemblance to diku.

Economies are one of the key features for these games. Without money changing hands, theres a huge piece of the game missing. And something key to money changing hands is... well... money, so yes, gold defines the genre.

You can get away from that, and I fully encourage it. But if you do, then we're not talking about the same genre, so any disagreements over RMT in todays genre, in WoW, and Everquest, and Lineage, and EVE, all moot.

To LC: why are they not "real players"? And, more importantly, if it were not possible to make them "real players", would you not want that? Would you be opposed to a game where farmers party, guild, and raid with everyone else, but they sell their money and you spend yours on the latest gear? What would be so terrible about that?

The key to making this happen is to break down the things that allow players to isolate themselves. Farmers will try to stick to themselves, that's the best way for them to make money in a lot of these games. Consequently, it also makes them seem inhuman to the outside observer. They appear like something else, a creature that cant speak your language and has none of the same goals or desires. But they do have similar goals and desires, and if you play with them instead of against them, we might see a game that encourages everyone to participate together, regardless of what they do with their gold after they earn it.

[stray]

You can get away from that, and I fully encourage it. But if you do, then we're not talking about the same genre, so any disagreements over RMT in todays genre, in WoW, and Everquest, and Lineage, and EVE, all moot.

Limiting it to just that genre of MMO's, then I would go far as to say that RMT and gold purchasing are almost vital to get any enjoyment out of them (you need either that, or just plain bad taste...Or maybe both). RMT is the natural conclusion of things. If you make "games" with as many bad features as those particular examples have, then you might as well include RMT as well.

[LC]

To LC: why are they not "real players"? And, more importantly, if it were not possible to make them "real players", would you not want that? Would you be opposed to a game where farmers party, guild, and raid with everyone else, but they sell their money and you spend yours on the latest gear? What would be so terrible about that?

The key to making this happen is to break down the things that allow players to isolate themselves. Farmers will try to stick to themselves, that's the best way for them to make money in a lot of these games. Consequently, it also makes them seem inhuman to the outside observer. They appear like something else, a creature that cant speak your language and has none of the same goals or desires. But they do have similar goals and desires, and if you play with them instead of against them, we might see a game that encourages everyone to participate together, regardless of what they do with their gold after they earn it.

Their goal is to put food on the table. My goal is to have fun. The only thing we have in common is the desire to make a mob's hp drop to zero. Farmers work in teams usually, or just monitor several bots. They don't have any need for other players usually. Even if you managed to group with a farmer they will not share loot with outsiders.

 How often do you see farmers participating in the community? How would you make them want to work with outsiders?

[damijin]

To LC: why are they not "real players"? And, more importantly, if it were not possible to make them "real players", would you not want that? Would you be opposed to a game where farmers party, guild, and raid with everyone else, but they sell their money and you spend yours on the latest gear? What would be so terrible about that?

The key to making this happen is to break down the things that allow players to isolate themselves. Farmers will try to stick to themselves, that's the best way for them to make money in a lot of these games. Consequently, it also makes them seem inhuman to the outside observer. They appear like something else, a creature that cant speak your language and has none of the same goals or desires. But they do have similar goals and desires, and if you play with them instead of against them, we might see a game that encourages everyone to participate together, regardless of what they do with their gold after they earn it.

Their goal is to put food on the table. My goal is to have fun. The only thing we have in common is the desire to make a mob's hp drop to zero. Farmers work in teams usually, or just monitor several bots. They don't have any need for other players usually. Even if you managed to group with a farmer they will not share loot with outsiders.

 How often do you see farmers participating in the community? How would you make them want to work with outsiders?

I'm gonna talk about a game that's not so popular on this forum, but you'll have to trust what I say is true.

Lineage 2. A game where clans must work together, and nothing of great importance can be accomplished by a single character. Now, this game does not have it perfect, it's a deeply flawed game. But when it comes to farmers, it's a game where farmer and non-farmer are often deeply attached to each other, and not just in a provider/consumer sense.

Two years ago, when L2 was just coming out, "farmer" was a new word for most players. It was a dark elf at the bottom of a dungeon 24 hours a day making it impossible for you to advance your character because he was taking your room. It was a bad word.

But as time went on, and you could no longer solo decent exp, farmers and players found themselves together in dungeons, each wanting to progress just as much as the other. Before long, players and farmers were together in parties, having fun with broken English and learning what they can about who farmers were and why they do what they do. A lot of friends were made during this time.

Eventually, as guilds separated farmer from player, the distinction returned. Farmers were once again bad... but.. not always. Farmers were people too, and because of that, they had friends and they had enemies. It didn't take long before farmers who were angry at some guild for whatever reason started showing up to castle sieges, taking 2 hours out of their work week to fight those who had pissed them off. It wasn't just that. In times of dire need, it was not uncommon for a player guild to enlist the help of a farmer guild to retain or gain power. In exchange for helping the player guild in PvP, the farmers would be protected and allowed to hunt in higher level hunting areas that they would normally be PKed out of.

Eventually the widespread use of bots made farmers seem less like people again because... well.. they no longer were people. They were automated characters. But, on almost every server there are still farmer guilds who are a part of politics, and even non-farmer guilds who have several farmers in them. They're a part of the game, not just bots that hide in the deepest darkest corner of a dungeon. They are guild powers and they will fight,just like anyone else, to play the game the way they want to. It just so happens that the way they want to play the game is to make money in real life.

Take care of the severe automation problem in L2 (significantly worse than most other games), and create a game that requires interdependence for meaningful progression, and you're on your way to a game where farmers and everyone else are all players in the same world.

[Phred]

I really think there is no way to make a game that some people won't want to shortcut their way to achievement. I think the problem is people are used to instant gratification and not willing to wait. Other than a few people who like to work the auction house I don't know anyone who had an epic mount the minute they turned 60, but people have expressed the desire to have it even if it means buying gold to get it. It took me a couple of months to get my epic when my first character hit 60 and I didn't mind but the way some people seem to view it, it is a huge crippling thing they are willing to pay to shortcut. I can't see any way a game could be structured to work around this need for instant gratification other than handing out all the goodies available once a character hit's 60 and I don't really think the rest of us would find that very fun.

[stray]

I really think there is no way to make a game that some people won't want to shortcut their way to achievement. I think the problem is people are used to instant gratification and not willing to wait.

Wait for what though? I've never heard a good excuse for it (at least not from a player's point of view). People just want to advance in an mmo the same as they would in every other game made. In order for them to replicate that experience, they have no choice but to take shortcuts.

Nobody makes action/adventure titles or single player rpgs that require players to kill a boss a dozen times or more just to advance to the next stage (which is basically how WoW raids work). Nobody makes racing games that require players to repeat the same track over and over again just to have sufficient cash earnings (i.e. they don't have to farm the track).

[WindupAtheist]

If MMOs didn't have grind, they would have to be fun, and fun is so much harder to code.

[Slyfeind]

I really think there is no way to make a game that some people won't want to shortcut their way to achievement.

Not quite.

Seriously, there are people who play Bejewelled on a daily basis. Now correct me if I'm wrong (seriously correct me, because I'm honestly curious here), but nobody would ever buy a high score at Bejewelled. There's no point to it. The only reason to play Bejewelled is because of the gameplay.

There are people who play WoW on a daily basis. What's the difference? There's more different kinds of games in WoW, and more ways to play those games. So the more complex the games, and the more kinds of games, then the greater tendency for players to RMT it.

But not quite! UO and ATITD have loads more games and gameplay than WoW. The answer to that is obvious; supply and demand. Not as many people are playing UO and ATITD, as are playing WoW. Not enough supply, not enough demand, for UO gold or flax or brix.

Streamline the gameplay in WoW, and you get a game like Bejewelled; all gameplay is immediately accessible to all players. Does that solve the problem? Do we lose players? Do we gain different kinds of players? Like we've established, people play both WoW and Bejewelled on a daily basis. I doubt we would have all the Bejewelled fans suddenly playing MMOs, but...then again, it's never been done before, so we can't say for sure.

[tkinnun0]

Seriously, there are people who play Bejewelled on a daily basis. Now correct me if I'm wrong (seriously correct me, because I'm honestly curious here), but nobody would ever buy a high score at Bejewelled. There's no point to it. The only reason to play Bejewelled is because of the gameplay.

That and to unlock the secret game modes, one of which requires grinding the timeless mode forever and ever.

[Murgos]

What a pointless distinction.  The gold is not the problem.  The grind is.

You don't NEED an epic speed mount in WOW. There is no REQUIREMENT, unless it was early in the game and you wanted to jump to rooftops otherwise inaccessible and slaughter low level PCs. Not that I ever did that.

People WANT the epic mounts, though. They WANT the purple drops that are priced through the roof on the AH. Do they NEED them? No.

People also don't NEED to play the game.  It's a fallacious arguement to say that it's perfectly acceptible to have a cockblocking grind because it's optional to the core gameplay.  In basic terms having an optional part that is not fun simply because it's optional sounds pretty stupid.

I'm not going to tell you what you enjoy but as far as I'm concerned any game that employs this style of gameplay is just one more game that doesn't get my money.  A reward for skill and organization is one thing, rewards for # of hours spent in tedium is something else all together.

[Venkman]

Yes, but Bejeweled (and Zuma, and Magic Match and so on) are different every time you play it. It is a grind after a fashion, just like Tetris was, but it's compelling to a different player because it's never exactly the same thing twice. This is the very essence of easy to learn/hard to master. People are motivated by the challenge and reward of doing better than before.

Meanwhile, Gehenass and his two cronies (WoW raid boss) is always going to do exactly the same thing, unless Blizzard recodes them. They're designed to die so you are permitted to proceed to the next challenge, but people aren't motivated by the challenge. They're motivated by the reward, which makes it easier for them to do better next time.

Different players, different experiences, subtlely different motivations. Both are big money businesses, though there's a crapload more people in casual online games than MMOs in the West.

Streamline the gameplay in WoW, and you get a game like Bejewelled; all gameplay is immediately accessible to all players. Does that solve the problem? Do we lose players? Do we gain different kinds of players? Like we've established, people play both WoW and Bejewelled on a daily basis. I doubt we would have all the Bejewelled fans suddenly playing MMOs, but...then again, it's never been done before, so we can't say for sure.

You lose your ecosystem and player pyramid. In casual games, the ecosystem is upselling, banner ads, and more recently community competitiveness. In MMOs, it's about the social ladder, the ingame economy, that player pyramid that reveals the sociology of balanced servers being pretty diverse. Doling out rewards in that sort of game is tricky business. Too many and you lose the top of the pyramid. Too few, the bottom. And without both, you get a game that could descend below the critical mass of paying accounts you need to keep the game going.

Casual games don't have it any easier. They still have to find right publisher/aggregator and have the sort of pull to get a higher percentage of the usual 1% in total sales. And that requires they make a game people WANT to play for more than 30min/1hr and turn into a purchase at all.

[damijin]

If MMOs didn't have grind, they would have to be fun, and fun is so much harder to code.

eh... you kind of cant?

You can make an MMO where there are a lot of different things to do, but if only one of them provides advancement in the way that other players value, than people are going to grind that one thing, even if theres a ton of other things you can do.

It comes down to personal choice, and in the end, people choose to grind for status among other players. You can't design that out of the game, you cant design out peoples DESIRE to grind. Anything that you do for days and weeks on end will become a grind. And, big shocker, theres a huge market for people who want to grind (and complain about it at the same time.)

[Endie]

No matter how you slice it, 50% of people are below average at anything.

I'm a pedant.  So naturally, I hate that people say that.  It's not true.

reductio ad absurdum:

set: (1,1,1,1,10)

average: 2.8

So 80% of the input values are below the average.

This matters in MMOs because there are catasses to skew every average.  If a company is watching its metrics, and says "the average number of hours people are prepared to spend to complete quests seems to be 17.5" and design quests accordingly, then they will find they are skewing towards Dougie-No-Mates (who will still find it very easy) and above the value for the lower 80% who make up the bulk of their customers.

[Lum]

I'm a pedant.  So naturally, I hate that people say that.  It's not true.

You are correct. It's been a truism (that I've somewhat backed up with data) that, all else being equal, there will always be about 10-20% of your PvP playerbase that will dominate the remaining 80%. Thus your game design has to account for keeping the game still fun for that 80% that is consistently steamrollered by the upper 20% varsity.

Most games try to address that by making time spent part of the equation, since even the most unskilled player can eventually invest time. Thus, grinding.

[Engels]

I personally like how CoV/H handled this part of the equation. Firstly, your starting base powers are your some of the most powerful powers you can get, and secondly, you can obtain a lot of very good common-pool buffs that give you an enormous edge over others. The good thing about these secondary buffs is that one can't tell who's got them.

My girlfriend, a die-hard CoV/H player, isn't uber at all, but she's been a wise player. She mostly plays a CoV defender type (corrupter? I forget) and she's invested a lot of her levels in the secondary background running buffs and resistances. She's not into PVP at all, but sometimes the game forces you into PVP zones. Whenever some l33t dude tries to come do the typical one-shot kill on her, he's faced with a toon that takes damage like a tank. She never fights back, just heals herself to full HP and shrugs.

One dude just kept on trying to off her, hoping she'd run out of power to heal herself, but of course, she's got power regen buffs too. He eventually gave up.

[Merusk]

Tan:

Endie's post has me puzzling this.
I thought when calculating for an average you threw-out the high and low values and then calculated.  It's been years since I really needed to know anything beyond geometry and simple math, so I've forgotten.

[HaemishM]

or something like a barter system.

BINGO

The exchange of commodities and services.

"Gold" is the most popular item in RMT because it's so easy to move. If you take away that ease, RMT will suddenly become much less profitable. Of course you would need to make sure that there are no insanely valuable items available. Also it would be a good idea to tweak the supply/demand of different commodities at random intervals.

That worked so well for Asheron's Call 2.

Also, MMOG's are NOT A GENRE. They are a medium. It's the idea that MMOG's are a genre (i.e. they are a roleplaying game online) that keeps holding it back. It's a fucking medium, in which there SHOULD BE many genres. There isn't because everyone is too busy lumping MMOG's into a genre. It's an important semantic distinction.

[Nija]

That worked so well for Asheron's Call 2.

That was one of the 2-3 cool things that slipped through the cracks and made it into AC2. No uber raid gear. Any shithead monster that you could kill solo had the same chance of dropping a badass weapon as... a gigantic dragon that got stuck on a rock 2 pixels high and you could kill solo.

The only problem with the barter system is that you have to have actual players to trade with. AC2 had so many problems nobody played more than 2 months.

[DataGod]

"Think about it this way; would you pay someone to drive your brand new Ferrari?"

That depends on what she looked like......

paying to play your game for you?

On pebble beach you pay your caddy to select the right club for you based upon his expertise on the course and experiance. The caddy in essence has spent the time it takes to master the course and gets paid 80k a year + tips to tell you how to play your game.

People pay people to play games for them all the time, or provide them with advice and expertise and yes, even items to allow for better game play.

How is this wrong in a VW?

Admittedly I'm against RMT unless its sanctioned by the game company, at least then there are mechanisims in place to provide for fairness, Im against gold farming because its works on the backs of people who are economically disadvantaged in the first place, its fundamentally exploitative.

Fact is for every real world expample someone can cite about how bad it is from a populist perspective I'll cite another from a libertarian/free market perspective.

So that gets us no where.

Whats required is to acknowledge it exists and figure out mechanisims to ensure its fair, ligitimized and doesnt exploit people. Anything else is playing a game of hide the ball, where no ball actually exists.

[Xanthippe]

Admittedly I'm against RMT unless its sanctioned by the game company, at least then there are mechanisims in place to provide for fairness, Im against gold farming because its works on the backs of people who are economically disadvantaged in the first place, its fundamentally exploitative.

I'm against RMT also, but that is the worst reason I've ever heard to oppose it.  From that perspective, all labor is fundamentally exploitative.  Or at least all unskilled labor.

[DataGod]

"I'm against RMT also, but that is the worst reason I've ever heard to oppose it.  From that perspective, all labor is fundamentally exploitative.  Or at least all unskilled labor."

Hows is that a bad reason to oppose RMT? From a sociopolitical perspective chinese sweat shops are exploitative (dosent matter if theyre making Nikes or farming GP in WOW) and often at the business end of a rifle barrel or at least under duress.

If you think Im equating unskilled labor in a western country (with its accompanying liberalized democracies and free markets)  with unskilled labor in the peoples republic of China your mistaken.

[Xanthippe]

Wait a minute, you're saying that gold farmers are forced at gunpoint to play WOW?

[Chenghiz]

People aren't forced to work in China any more than they are forced to work here.

[Xanthippe]

That's what I thought.

Although $250/month or $100/month or $75/month or whatever might sound horribly exploitative by U.S. standards, it is not horribly low pay (from what I understand) by Chinese standards.  If these guys weren't being exploited, as you call it, by RMT companies, then what are their alternatives?  From what I've read, those would be working the family farm, waiting tables or maybe not having a job at all.

I've yet to read a quote from a Chinese farmer that said, "my job totally sucks, I'm chained to this desk and forced to play WoW for low pay."

As I said, there are reasons to oppose RMT, but imagining that Chinese farmers are working at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory is not one of them.

[Venkman]

Thus your game design has to account for keeping the game still fun for that 80% that is consistently steamrollered by the upper 20% varsity.

I always go by the Player Pyramid. It's more inclusive of the breadth of playstyles than the 80/20 rule.

Also, MMOG's are NOT A GENRE.

While true, when you talk to generic business people about MMOs, they're thinking of Maplestory or WoW, not Eve or ATITD. Currently, "MMOG" means "MMORPG".

Semantically, "MMORPG" does include everything, because by nature we're all playing a role, be it a robot, super hero, elf, or some wierd mandelbrot abstract in Spore. Where the medium can be subcategorized is on theme and playstyle; however, even that gets ugly.

What's the difference between an RPG and an FPS? One's a stats-based narrative motivator and the other is a control scheme sometimes with narration. Those aren't genres. The idea that an RPG can have an FPS control scheme is both "innovative" and stupid for being considered as such. And yet we've got two decades of business breaking things down along those lines. Blame technology or planogramming, but there it is. The resultant preference for one or the other is because of the arbitrary split, not one that was formed by it.

If we really wanted to sub-categorize games, it wouldn't be on how they are played, but on what their motivations are. RTS games, Sim games, those are different.

People aren't forced to work in China any more than they are forced to work here.

People aren't forced to eat or breathe either 

[DataGod]

Deleted & Edited for clarity

I like Fruit Loops

[stray]

Here's hoping the next wave of F13 registrants gets off on a better start.


I liked the Engels/Morat/Lantyssa period myself. SWG inspired though it was.

[lamaros]

Holy Ideologue Batman.

Politics forum is that-a-way.