Curse

Snow Bunny · Aug 01, 2007, 11:47 PM // 23:47

Also. When you bought the game, and installed it, what rather big thing did you do legally?
You agreed to fulfill your contractual obligation to the End User Liscense Agreement (EULA). Bear in mind that while minor, it is a binding legal contract for as long as you play the game and thus, if you violate it, the privelege of playing their game on their server is subject to their rules.
If you've ever attended a private school/college, it's the exact same thing. Attending that school/playing the game is a privelege, one that you are paying for.

There of course isn't a legal argument against gold farming bots, but an economic one, and ANet sets the rules.

As a side note, I'd edit your information ASAP, for reasons already stated.

thig · Aug 01, 2007, 11:49 PM // 23:49

I can't see any reason why people want to buy gold for real money to get a virtual item. And as the others say if a-net sold ingame gold the prices would be insane.

Personally I don't really buy that many items from other people ingame, so if a-net where to sell ingame gold it would not hurt me. I would most likely profit from it since I would not use real money on virtual gold, but do sell items I've found ingame.
I get a kick of getting my own gear from the drops. Theres nothing like the rush, when something special drops for you, its a rush I don't think will happend if you bought the same item.

And I still don't understand why people would pay 100K for a skin that have the same stats as a skin worth 1K. But thats propperly just me.

FeroxC · Aug 02, 2007, 12:06 AM // 00:06

Snow_Bunny ive head the EULAs often dont actually carry much weight in court however gold farmers profiting off Anets product probably violates intellectual property rights for example i doubt ebay remove gold auctions unless they have a good insentive(they would of be profiting off them afterall)

DreamWind · Aug 02, 2007, 12:09 AM // 00:09

Well...the reason its bad is because Anet says so and doesn't like it. Thats the only real reason I can think of.

Personally, I know a LOT of people who bought gold in the past and I didn't mind it at all. The reason is because almost everybody I know thought the price of skill unlocks and properly equipping a PvE character for PvP were ridiculous. Those were some big barriers back in the old days of Guild Wars (and still are barriers to a lesser extent). Many people I know bought gold just to play PvP while having to grind as little as possible.

snikerz · Aug 02, 2007, 12:10 AM // 00:10

@ OP
when you wrote anet via support did you include your IGN and that you admit to buying gold?

thats rather silly on your behalf isnt it?

i'm sure someone with nothing better to do would try report you with "quotes" from your post etc.

so yeah you might wanna take off your IGN on your guru account.

Chthon · Aug 02, 2007, 12:13 AM // 00:13

1. It causes rampant, crippling inflation in the in-game economy. The fact that gold can be sold for real world cash, creates a HUGE incentive for bot farming and third-world gold farming. And that pumps a HUGE amount of gold that would have otherwise never existed into the economy. Money supply goes up; worth-purchasing item supply stays constant; the result is inflation.

2. As a result of this inflation, players who don't buy gold are forced out of the economy entirely. Even if they farm regularly, and they're good at it, they simply can't make enough gold on their own to buy anything at the inflated prices.

3. As GloryFox argues, being a third-world gold farmer is a pretty sucky job. These people are exploited pretty nastily by their employers. Gold sales subsidize this exploitation. Perhaps one might argue that being a third-world gold farmer is better than being a third-world pig farmer - that is it's actually one of the better jobs available to them - and perhaps that argument might have some merit. But still, it cannot be said that the hours these people work, the wages they receive, or the obscene profit margins their employers do not share with them are not simply unjust.

4. If a-net were to sell gold themselves, we would have the same inflation problem, and the same problem with people being driven out of the market, only on a bigger scale. I've seen what happened to other games that went this route -- they sucked. Very quickly you ended up with a very divided playerbase. We've already got a nasty PvP/PvE split. We don't need to add a E-Bayer/legit split that'll be just as deep.

5. It would be breaking the "GW will never be pay-to-play" promise. The inevitable inflationary result of selling gold is known to a-net. If they were to sell gold, they'd in essence be saying: "GW isn't pay-to-play, unless you want to participate in the economy, in which case is pay-to-play."

Diablo™ · Aug 02, 2007, 12:29 AM // 00:29

Removing economy... works only in theory.

martialis · Aug 02, 2007, 12:33 AM // 00:33

There are a ton of reasons that selling gold is bad, and other reasons why it's good.

It's unpopular. It's traditional for game companies to forbid it, and most of them do. The most devoted fans don't like it, and gold merchants don't make that much money.

Arena.net owns all the gold, so obviously you're not allowed to sell their gold.

Bots lag the servers, and will crash them or do worse things if they can.

TabascoSauce · Aug 02, 2007, 12:36 AM // 00:36

The problem of in-game gold selling is irrelevant within the topic of social justice, since some people want to go there and stand on a soapbox.

Take this to heart.

When your boots are covered in mud from walking through some nameless village in South America, Africa, or Southeast Asia from dispensing humanitarian aid, military or civillian, and you see the looks on their faces from getting food - particularly children - then you can talk to me about social justice. Until you have seen the face of evil, then of course gold selling in guild wars looks contemptible - you have nothing to compare it to.

It it not even real material goods - the milk will still be in your fridge if everyone got 500 plat tonight.

This is not as simple a topic as many of you are trying to boil it down to be, and if nothing else then you should think about this in real terms.

How fair is it that, in terms of economic "fairness", our pocket change can buy hours of labor from someone else? Is that right? How can you solve it by posting on a web forum?

That is an empty topic - and there is no way to solve it without consequential social (or military) action. If you really want to convince anyone you are serious, get your lazy behind out to a soup kitchen and make a difference. At least then you are trying to fix a small ill.

The only one who has an egalitarian viewpoint, besides myself, is ZInger - get rid of the in-game economy. As long as gold can be traded between players, and hoarded or spent, there will be rich and poor, and those with real life money will find a way to trade it for in-game gold.

ANet has no choice as a gaming company but to ban it and find the offenders, but just like other social ills endemic in this world, it will not be stopped by overly simplistic measures such as - making it illegal.

Thanks!
TabascoSauce

korcan · Aug 02, 2007, 12:48 AM // 00:48

its just ridiculous to think inflation would skyrocket if anet offered in-game gold through their online store.

buying virtual currency from botters has been available since the game was released. sure its illegal to do so but im sure there are people like the op that still buy from botters even today.

would everyone start smoking pot if the government decided to legalize pot? has anyone been to amsterdam or know people from that country? its just not the case.

like ive stated in another thread, the only perk you get for being rich in guildwars is cosmetic. if people want to buy millions and millions of gw gold for thousands of real life dollars just to buy a mini kanaxai, mini panda, or some other rare item, let them.

the only negative aspect of having botters in-game is anets futile attempt to rid the game of them.

Loviatar · Aug 02, 2007, 12:48 AM // 00:48

[QUOTE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matthew The Wise

I am a very fond player of Guildwars, and have enjoyed playing it for a long time now. I have in the past purchased online gold to achieve some progress through the game when otherwise i have no time to do so myself.

and yes i have used online gold for 15k armor purchases. And im all thumbs for farming, and using in game methods to earn the money, but i find it is very hard to do, with very little time available.

snce you judge progres by vanity items instead of playing the game the only question i have for you is why you were such a cheap begger and got only 15 K and didnt progress a bit more with FOW armor instead.

cheap little Bandini arent you

Zinger314 · Aug 02, 2007, 12:53 AM // 00:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diablo™

Removing economy... works only in theory.

Not in Guild Wars, where everything is equal! (that is, all lv. 20 Weapons and Armor are max)

Angelica · Aug 02, 2007, 12:54 AM // 00:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by neooki

The reason why buying of in game gold illegal is the fact that its a form of cheating. Instead of going out and getting the gold yourself, you pay someone some money and they give you theirs. People would be exploiting the game for their own personal monetary gains. Exploiting the game is against the rules.

You asked why A-Net doest sell doesn't just sell in game gold for cash. Well the answer to that is quite simple. It would turn this game into a "Cash Shop" game, giving richer players an advantage over the poorer/"Don't want to waste money" people like myself. This would also introduce more gold into the economy, this raising inflation sky high. Now the people that could barely afford their goods, not can't afford them at all.

In general, not only does A-Net not allow this nor do the websites that people use (E-Bay) allows this anymore. Though you may find it though to get gold you just got to keep saving up, or learn to farm HM for tomes, or go out with some keys and do some chest runs. Getting stockpiles gold is hard, but not impossible.

I agree with what you said but on your last paragraph I would say this:

Players shouldn't have to farm or anything else to get gold it's frustrating enough going through the campaigns to get a drop of 4 or 8 pieces of gold to be shared by your group! This happen to me very often and not at the beginning but almost at the end of the game! Buying keys for chests is useless I always get purples crap! Plus not everybody likes to sell items, it isn't what the game is about!

I wish they would make the gold drops not shareable with heroes, after all we are paying for their equipments; runes, items etc. Etc.
And, lastly, they should increase the amount of gold drops, which at this moment are really pitiful.

In all my playing, (close to two years), I only got 2 green drops, some gold which were not even max! Very disappointing I must say.

I never bought gold, because to me, is like cheating and I think is stupid to "buy gold pixels" with real money!

/Angelica

Psychic Watch · Aug 02, 2007, 01:00 AM // 01:00

There is no existing law that can stop gold farming.

Nothing can stop farmers from selling their time/labor (or even their electricity to run bots) any more than one can stop a contractor from doing the same thing.

The EULA is at best an admonition from Anet on the topic. EULAs are flimsy legal ground.

There will always be people willing to pay real money for whatever shortcut suits them in a game.

The existence of that monied group means that someone, somewhere can turn a buck on selling those shortcuts.

The only way to deal with the whole issue is to make the farmers' contribution meaningless to players who choose not to buy their way through the game.

To accomplish this, "skill over time played" needs to be adhered to (it currently isn't). At present, Anet is attempting to stop gold farming without removing the underlying motivation for it - the current "economy" is not rewarding enough for skill, but instead rewards whichever bot can run the longest.

If players would be able to get meaningful rewards from a short amount of skilled play, even millions of bots running rampant wouldn't matter.

Jetdoc · Aug 02, 2007, 01:01 AM // 01:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by korcan

would everyone start smoking pot if the government decided to legalize pot? has anyone been to amsterdam or know people from that country? its just not the case.

There's a difference between allowing something and actively promoting it. If the government of Amsterdam sold pot at the airport to visitors coming off the plane and in every government building, I bet the use of pot would skyrocket in the Netherlands.

trielementz · Aug 02, 2007, 01:19 AM // 01:19

Inflation in GW is pretty high nowadays... 100k +xx ectos for a minipet which is purely cosmetic? I don't think 1 toon can earn that much from playing through a campaign.

To those who've started debating abt gold farmers, the OP is asking about ANet selling gold itself, so all those talk about EULA, intellectual property etc is pretty off topic IMO. Replacing gold farmers by selling gold in the inhouse store will actually help your cause.

The argument that buying gold from ANet == cheating also doesn't hold much water for me. I work for the money, so how is it cheating if I want to change that money for something else? Some drive to work while I take hopeless public transport. I don't think those who drive are cheating when they arrive earlier and in a more cheerful mood than me. Say it creates a rift between the haves and the have nots, and i'll say that the rift already exists now within the game. It wouldn't need ANET to start selling gold to create it. As for inflation, this move merely changes the source of the gold, not necessarily the amount of gold that is created. Nevertheless, as a safeguard, it could possibly be countered by selling items/ armor instead of gold, and automatically customizing them so that they cannot be traded. Not too sure if it's simple to implement though.

The only major problem I can see with the OP's suggestion is that ANET will lose its perceived moral high ground (profiteering from in game items etc etc) as well as the support of players who disagree of the move. Not very good PR.

Diablo™ · Aug 02, 2007, 01:50 AM // 01:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zinger314

Not in Guild Wars, where everything is equal! (that is, all lv. 20 Weapons and Armor are max)

Nobody plays an online game to be just like everyone else... we play it to be better than everyone else.

In a competitive PvP arena that means kills and skills, but in PvE, it means completely something else... and the economy is the battlegrounds that which the REAL competition is about.

And behind it all, is greed, an often misunderstood driving nature behind all of us... without economy, without difference, we would loose desire to play really quick. Almost everyone can kill a monster, pass a mission, and save the princess, but not everyone has Obsidian armor and KOABD titles... and it's stuff like that, that keeps alot of the players driven.

But you're right about one thing, its not "impossible"... it's just not smart.

freakdaddy · Aug 02, 2007, 02:10 AM // 02:10

LOL this posts kills me!!!!!

Not the initial post, but the follow-up posts.
The initial post had a simple question and now people on their high horse are not simply answering his question, but flaming the guy.

Simply put Matthew ANET owns GW and the EULA says you can't. So don't.

Righteous rhetoric FTW!

Kakumei · Aug 02, 2007, 02:27 AM // 02:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by TabascoSauce

This is not a fair world.

Stop doing this. You can't apply real-world fairness to a videogame, because unlike the real world, there's a single omnipotent entity making all of the rules.

Real life isn't fair, but a game can be forced to be so. Analogies don't apply.

arcanemacabre · Aug 02, 2007, 02:32 AM // 02:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by lyra_song

Its their product. Its their service. Its their servers. Its their bandwidth. Why should a third party be allowed to profit from it?

They arent licensed. They arent given permission.

Try running to a business, and then have someone suddenly enter your property and start profiting from YOUR customers.

QFT

It's illegal because people are selling Arenanet's property for their own profit. Pretty simple. The gold sellers say that you're paying for their time, and not for the gold itself to try and get around that illegality, and it works. Because of that, Arenanet can't take anyone to court for doing it. They can, and are well within their right to ban them from their property (the game), which they do.