Curse

Phades · Aug 30, 2005, 08:26 PM // 20:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by ImagoX

SOE is doing it, and they will guarantee the sale. Once a light is shined on how things sell in MMOs then the full weight of the market can and will be brought to bear on it, and scame will dry up. The assumption that the economy of a MMO is not related to the real world's economy is complete and utter bull, and the sooner game developers stop deluding themselves to this fact the sooner we can all move on to a game that lets everyone play like they want to, and in which a person with a few extra bucks in their wallet can just buy an item that they'd otherwise be too busy or unmotivated to grind for.

Sorry, but there is no way ill end up playing any game that sanctions the direct benefit of who has the deepest pockets while playing a game. Quite frankly it stops being a game at that point. I know people coin phrases like playing the market and what not, but stock trading is hardly a game. Introducing elements that promote not playing the game detracts from the game. Trying to have a competitive environment where just spending more real life currency will swing the favor of who is on top doesnt work, it just leads to corruption.

The copouts that lead to buyouts within virtual environments are defeating the purpose entirely of playing the game. At this point is when i wonder if merely the act of spending money is fun to some people. Sure there are grind arguments in there, but that is a game balance issue, not a fundamental economics one that people are trying to turn it into.

Numa Pompilius · Aug 30, 2005, 09:52 PM // 21:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Acidstorm

Why is everyone talking about Chinese farmers?

Because that's where most, but not all, of the sweatshops are.
http://www.ferrago.com/story/6193
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3141815

Companies like IGE then buy the farmed gold/goods from the sweatshops, and resell on ebay (or through their own websites).

Oy Roy · Aug 31, 2005, 12:11 AM // 00:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schorny

When will people start to think?
Anet has all the data. They know when you enter which area with what skills and kill what enemies with what skills, taking what amount of damage, etc.

They don't need to scan a forum for that info.

The reason to blank this stuff is because you don't want to share your build/strategy (which is fine) but to hide from anet is, well, just stupid.

exactly, me stating on my profile that i am a monk/warrior does mean i farm some, but i just dont want to give away my build because it is much different that anyone elses. no ideas for you guys =P and sometimes i also use that so called "invinci monk" build, but thats not the point. stop trying to bash this topic and recall to my blank spots. as for the griffin wings, at the begining it blanked it out not to get any flaming from some ppl for farming, but hey i realized it doesnt really matter everyone does it.

as for the botting, im not ganna turn them in at the moment.

Oy Roy · Aug 31, 2005, 12:16 AM // 00:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by salja Wachi

you know what really strikes me in those screenies???

you have way too many W/MO'S in your group

might i sugest you broaden your horizons???

Those were all the bots/ppl who invited theirselves into the group. im preaty sure i wasnt the leader of the group and they were all surrounding me constantly opening trade spamming prices and stuff.

oh and earlier today there was one of the same guys who pmed me and said need items? and he whispered like 9 lines almost instantly like he had sentences binded to keys or something it was odd.

p.s sorry for double post not trying to bump this

edit: i just realized that i was leader.... odd it must have been just one person who i invited and he had a group already.

Amused Observer · Aug 31, 2005, 03:06 AM // 03:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aracos79

I think they might be "human bots"... people who are paid (usually peanuts) to sit at a computer and farm or sell stuff. I read an article about this sort of thing. It usually happens in Asia

Also Mexico.

Amused Observer · Aug 31, 2005, 03:19 AM // 03:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by 30PSI

Welcome to MMORPG's, these people are known as "Chinese Farmers", you'll see them in EVERY MMORPG out there be it Lineage 2, World of Warcraft, FFXI, GuildWars, City of Heroes, just to name a few. I read an article about this 2 years ago, it was on the news that some big company in china hired nearly 30,000 gamers to farm online game currency and sell it online making billion of dollars a year while only pay their workers/gamers $7-8 a day. Unfortunately, there's no solution to fix this problem unless the game companies take some serious actions, we're talking millions of dollar business here, quite a bit of cash flow per year, not some casual small timer botters.

A number of points. First, that $7 or $8 (American currency) may be enough to pay for daily expenses in their country. As long as the workers get paid a "living wage", I have no problem with it. Second, China is a growing market, and companies understandably want to get a piece of the action in that country. So if a subscription based game like WoW can rake in 30,000 monthly subscription fees (plus expansion for each account) in China, then it's hard for the publisher to say no to that stream of cashflow.

Amused Observer · Aug 31, 2005, 03:24 AM // 03:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by trelloskilos

You could be right, Sagius. I'm sure that US and Europe have their own groups of botters. and to point the finger solely at "chinese farmers" is wrong.

*adds Canadians into the quote*

Amused Observer · Aug 31, 2005, 03:29 AM // 03:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dralon

What??? Who do you engineer for, your uncle in his basement. I think you need to look at those numbers again.

If that's the going rate of pay for employees w/ master in engineering in China, that's what he gets. No sense in arguing over what he gets paid.

One American $ = appromixately 8 Chinese dollars (yuan) give or take some cents.

Amused Observer · Aug 31, 2005, 03:35 AM // 03:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

At this point is when i wonder if merely the act of spending money is fun to some people. Sure there are grind arguments in there, but that is a game balance issue, not a fundamental economics one that people are trying to turn it into.

Considering that I'm in NYC, I can tell you that there's a lot of rich people who spend money for fun (blow $1,000 or more on a bottle of aged wine at a pricey club) and think nothing of it. (of course, there's also a lot of poor people in the city too.)

Also, I should point out that even if a character is decked in the best equipment and with everything unlocked, it's not a guarantee that he will win in pvp or survive uw/fow. Why? player skill. That's where the game balance comes into play, imo.

Avantos · Aug 31, 2005, 03:58 AM // 03:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dralon

What??? Who do you engineer for, your uncle in his basement. I think you need to look at those numbers again.

You probably live in American or Europe (as do I). The minimum wages there are rather... misleading... as to what the rest of the world gets.

That's pretty good in China, and from what I know, very reasonable for some types of engineers.

My suggestion is you learn a bit more about the outside world before you start doubting others.

30PSI · Aug 31, 2005, 04:19 AM // 04:19

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3141815

Enough said.

Divinitys Creature · Aug 31, 2005, 04:45 AM // 04:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by 30PSI

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3141815

Enough said.

WRONG!

Check out this post, were we at TGH did some research and found these "sweatshops" pay 4 times the average wages in that region - "cushy job" sounds more appropriate. It refers to the 1up.com article you posted.

Here is the text:
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Astral Paladin

Fair enough, mabye i can find other articles on the same topic for comparison...i will take a look.

I'll edit my comment to remove any implications of bias in your previous post.

edit: lol, i've found several discussion on the topic linking to the same link i posted. Some on general mmorpg economics, but too vauge in information of workers and conditions, wages, etc. There really isn't much info out there regarding this issue, and by spending some time searching i've come to appreciate the neutrality of Divinities post. Ill see if i can find out minimum wage at least for the chinese province mentioned in the article...

http://www.ihlo.org/item4/item4d.htm gives some indication of minimum wages in china. While the fugian province is unfinished (assuming im reading it right) we can average it out to approx.$40.00 USD/month. 56cents/hour= $5.60/day= $168/month = almost 4x the pay of minimum wage. (!!) It would appear that mmorpg 'sweatshops' are one of the best jobs around!

Wow I am impressed by your research - very well done. Now if that author of the article did that we wouldn't have this debate LOL! But at least now we HAVE EVIDENCE that they are getting paid pretty sweet wages. Booyah. Astral, you're a better journalist than that guy
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derrtyboy69 · Aug 31, 2005, 04:48 AM // 04:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oy Roy

Every night or so theres these ppl who are at storage spamming that they are selling weapons gold unidentified blah blah blah for like 40k and all types of prices.

So i go up there and I buy like 4 or 5 weapons for like 100k, this is where it gets interesting...

So right after I close my trade and finish it another trade instantly with another person, so im like ok. And 7 gold unidentified weapons intantly appear. The person says 70k ok???, want?, for sell you need? and then i just closed it because I was short on cash. And then another trade instantly opens from another person. (note, that humans dont know exactly when a trade is going to end) and this happened reapetedly for like 5 ppl in a row. I kept canceling and every once in a while asking how much. The vocabulary of these people was so little that this is practically all they said.

vocab:
you need?
for sale you need???
yes/no?
70k ok???
100k for all
lol
and a few other things.

I DO have screenshots that I am thinking of turning them into A.net but Im not sure if these are bots for sure. They dont sound english, and their grammar is odd.

And ive done this once before which is really weird, i added the person onto my friends list and noticed he was spamming in trade again. So i bought those 4 weapons 2 were long swords gold unid req 8 and 9 and 2 warhammers the same way. But whats odd is, every weapon that i have bought from this person I did not GET ANYTHING good out of identifieing them. And this is about 10 different unid gold weapons of different types. And out of all of these i got like 2 +30hps which i did not successfully salvage and many others.

So im getting a feeling something is messed up here. ANY HELP or comments on this matter?

Anyone else have this happen to you also???
And finally, should i show ss of these ppl and turn them in to A.net?

dont think its bots, i met one of these people, and i only like her req 8 shortbow. she said "all for 100k you want" i said no, i only want the short bow req 8 for 20k, and she said ok and sold it. too bad it was 14% vs hexed foes

Numa Pompilius · Aug 31, 2005, 10:39 AM // 10:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divinitys Creature

WRONG!

Check out this post, were we at TGH did some research and found these "sweatshops" pay 4 times the average wages in that region - "cushy job" sounds more appropriate.

Whichever is true (personally I doubt chinese adena-farm owners pay their employees more than they absolutely have to - why should they? minding bots don't require skill or education, and the real money is being made by the resellers, like IGE, anyway), the point remains that most of these "Adena farms" are in China, because of the very low wages.

Which is why people were talking about chinese bots, and chinese botters. I'm sure especially India will soon latch on to this, but at the moment the bots & their human minders are almost exclusively chinese.

Mithie · Aug 31, 2005, 01:09 PM // 13:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dralon

What??? Who do you engineer for, your uncle in his basement. I think you need to look at those numbers again.

The company I work for is Siemens (ironically a German corporation staffed by Japanese investors, and no, I don't know exactly how that works either). We deal with electronics and lower threading silicon product fabrication. My salary is considered above average in my department, which manages mold design and assembly streamlining. I get paid 3 dollars more a day than these "poor, helpless Chinese slave farmers who work in sweatshops, boo hoo". Man, if I could find one of these "sweatshops", you can bet your butt I'd change my career in a heartbeat.

Numa Pompilius · Aug 31, 2005, 01:36 PM // 13:36

Mithie: If you actually, really, for real, have a full-time (the Chinese work 10 hours or more per day) job which pays $9 (6 euros) per day, then you definitely, absolutely, right this instant, need to get another job. Flip burgers at McDonalds for 5x your present wage, just as an example. And inform your union that Siemens is paying you way *way* under the German minimum wage.

Mithie · Aug 31, 2005, 01:52 PM // 13:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius

Mithie: If you actually, really, for real, have a full-time (the Chinese work 10 hours or more per day) job which pays $9 (6 euros) per day, then you definitely, absolutely, right this instant, need to get another job. Flip burgers at McDonalds for 5x your present wage, just as an example. And inform your union that Siemens is paying you way *way* under the German minimum wage.

The corporation here is located in Xian, which is the equivalent of Alabamba in terms of redneck country way out in the hell of nowhere. Getting a new job is going to be a tough transition and at the moment I don't see a need to change jobs since I can live off this current salary just fine. Salary varies a whole lot from city to city in China, but so does the consumer prices. For the equivalent of 10 cents USD, I can take my family out to a nice restaurant here. In Shanghai, that wouldn't even get you a soda.

As for the German min. wage, I don't think it extends here.

Numa Pompilius · Aug 31, 2005, 01:56 PM // 13:56

Sorry, I read you as that you were working for Siemens *in Germany*. My mistake.

ImagoX · Aug 31, 2005, 09:01 PM // 21:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Sorry, but there is no way ill end up playing any game that sanctions the direct benefit of who has the deepest pockets while playing a game. Quite frankly it stops being a game at that point. I know people coin phrases like playing the market and what not, but stock trading is hardly a game. Introducing elements that promote not playing the game detracts from the game. Trying to have a competitive environment where just spending more real life currency will swing the favor of who is on top doesnt work, it just leads to corruption.

Actually, it's ME that's sorry, because, quite frankly, *I* am sick of people with "deep pockets" time-wise. The fact of the matter is that for every person that can "afford" to "spend" 2-7 (or more) hours per day playing a MMO, farming items, levelling, etc. there's literally dozens of pelple like me who are "poor" time-wise and who get frustrated when you're forced to endure some level of grind to get good gear, travel to good quest areas or obtain other "advanced" gameplay materials. In this context and within the artificial space of a game universe, money and time are both finite resources and both have real "worth" in the game space. The difference is that some people (and it sounds like you're one of them, Phades) are "wealthy" in one respect and you're jealous and scared as crap of anyone that can compete on a different axis.

Here's the bottom line at least as how *I* see it, given my experience with marketing and sales...

SOE has thrown down the gauntlet and created a system where they can make a small profit on every transaction that they know are being made on eBay anyway (read that again: ...on every transaction that they know is being made on eBay anyway) by creating an official auction house. Right now MMO developers and publishers have to actually SPEND money to catch people selling in-game items, money that could otherwise go to paying developers and artists to make updates faster, BTW. What SOE will offer is convenience (do the transaction right in-game without having to go to an outside site) and security (they will guarantee the transaction will go through and will give you a recourse if you get scammed).

If devs like ArenaNet don't step up and folow suit, then they are 100% aware, I guarantee it, that people like me (with the occasional $5-$10 extra bucks in my wallet and the occasional desire to save myself a few dozen hours of play to farm gold or items- I have a job and a family- sue me for being "poor" time-wise) will go to a developer's game that will make this easy and guaranteed.

Might as not whine about it- just accept it because by this time next year I predict that EVERY MMO will offer in-game auction spaces and in 3 years we'll be having forum posts that read like "Remember the horrible old days when you had to go to eBay to buy something as simple as an in-game item or gold, and everywhere you went there were people endlessly spamming, spamming, SPAMMING about what they were trying to sell you? Isn't is so much nicer now, where people can choose whether to "spend" either time OR money to get the same thing, everyone can go to an auction space (or not) to buy things (or not) and developers can pay attention to more important things like getting updates out faster?"

Ultimate_Gaara · Aug 31, 2005, 11:14 PM // 23:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oy Roy

Wow, what a diverse party you have

so what your saying is all the W/Mo in your party are bots? im a little confused