Curse

Adaria · May 06, 2005, 05:29 PM // 17:29

Ok, I know there is legally nothing wrong with doing this but...

Selling Guild Wars Gold and Items on ebay to make real money? Just this morning I saw 50k in GW Gold with a buy it now price of 80 dollars USD...

At this rate, is guild wars going to be turned into Diablo II all over again, with ad bots sitting in various districts screaming their ads about a website to buy cheap Guild Wars items?

I'm concerned about this, sure, selling off 50k in gold in-game can be done with trading items for it or something of the like, but isn't it a little overboard to do this on Ebay for real cash?

Better yet, something I saw earlier as well. "Guild Wars Guide -- Level 1-20 in a day!" or something else, "Guild Wars Power Leveling Company" Where you pay per day or a certain amount to have someone else play and get your character to level 20 for you.

Whether or not people buy these things or not I don't know, but it runs rampant, I just fear its going to ruin the game and start to turn it into a DII clone of massive proportion...

I've seen people selling items on Ebay, Dragon Swords, Gold GW items for real money as well, same as Diablo II has been and still is.

Random note, not related to the selling of VIRTUAL goods, apparently a few people are selling their soundtracks from the collectors editions seperately, found that to be interesting.

But anyway, back to the main point, I'm wondering if people actually go for these schemes, buy the gold, the guides, the level companies. Even if they don't, should these sorts of things be allowed to continue?

Garric · May 06, 2005, 06:04 PM // 18:04

Blame capitalism.

Ramus · May 06, 2005, 06:08 PM // 18:08

It started the day it came out, 1k gold was going for like 20 dollars. Each day the gold goes higher and the price lower. It happens on every online game, and you have to expect it on a game as big as guild wars. You have an option, dont buy it!

Inde · May 06, 2005, 06:29 PM // 18:29

Simply put - its a big business Adaria. And where there is cash, there will be companies sniffing it out.

Soul Monarch · May 06, 2005, 06:38 PM // 18:38

Not a big deal in Guild Wars like other games, as far as I see.

Gold and items are simply too easy to come by.

cleric · May 06, 2005, 06:42 PM // 18:42

as long as the bots dont come than i hope they shut them all down

Elurian · May 06, 2005, 06:50 PM // 18:50

Well thankfully Guild Wars relies more on skill in the PvP battles and relies a lot less on items than most games.

EnDinG · May 06, 2005, 06:51 PM // 18:51

One of the final says in this game is even after you get all of the best items, armor, skills and levels, it won't last.

Other people who are wise enough not to spend money this way will catch up to you.

Besides, competing in the PvP arenas are a group effort. I'm sure if one team of bought characters fought a team non-bought characters, both would be up for a good fight if both teams were organized.

Typhoon · May 06, 2005, 06:53 PM // 18:53

When you unlock an item in RP, you get unlimited use of that item in PvP. I can buy one superior rune of vigor ingame to unlock it, then go create a PvP character with 5 superior runes of vigor on his armor, for free.

The people that bother to buy this amount of stuff on eBay are just pissing their cash away. Let 'em.

beJames · May 06, 2005, 06:54 PM // 18:54

Items are easy to obtain in the game, gold seems to be quite easy to get also at the higher end contents (even mid content), and it won't affect too many people in my honest opinion.
Even if they're equipped with well above average gear (eBay obtained), without the knowledge of skill patterns, survivability, when to cast, etc. They're just another tomato can in Arena, also in PVE (maybe not? D: )

A lot of teenagers/adults from third world countries (even in NA, and other countries) play to get paid. They don't have a job (not willing to look for one, or can't get one for whatever reason) so they rather play games and get paid doing it. That's where the big/small companies hook these 'players' up with a fixed rate (I believe it's very low) for their time. However, if they don't play/get a certain amount of gold/levels/items/time they don't get paid squat.

These companies make quite a huge margin in profits, because of how they pay their ‘employees’ and from the people who don’t have the time to play hours on end to get items and such (because of jobs, life, relationships, etc). So they rather buy them, but there’s not really a reason to do so in a game such as Guild Wars though.
Oh well, it’s their money, not mine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inde

Simply put - its a big business Adaria. And where there is cash, there will be companies sniffing it out.

There will always be bots in ANY game you play, you just don't know it because of instanced gaming.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cleric

as long as the bots dont come than i hope they shut them all down

VividDream · May 06, 2005, 06:58 PM // 18:58

I'm going to be blatantly honest here. I just sold 35k gold on ebay and a fiery dragon sword and that's made up for the cost of my game and then some. Why I have no problem with this:

1) It's a fair trade. Both parties are happy with what they get. The game economy isn't inflated since the gold is just moving from one individual to the next. It would have inflated just as quickly if I hadn't sold it.

2) A newb with a dragon sword is still a newb. It's a nice booster... but it's not an impossible find. If you spend a decent amount of time playing, you'll find one (I had two drop for me the same mission). It doesn't really harm competitiveness all that much since there are comparable swords that aren't hard to find

3) It makes the game more fun for newbs. This isn't so much the case in Guild Wars as in say Diablo, but I personally think (and I bet many will agree with me) that the best missions are in the later levels. People who don't want to spend as much time pushing their way through quests just to get to those later levels don't have to. It just makes life easier for them.

4) I have a lot of faith in the GW support. If they notice bot-like activity, I expect them to just nuke the farming zone and/or restrict the bot's cd-key. If there are spammers that scream, BUY THIS AT THIS WEBSITE, I expect their cd-keys to be muted. I highly doubt this game will turn into diablo 2, these guys seem much more dedicated than blizzard employees.

Dreamsmith · May 06, 2005, 07:27 PM // 19:27

How with this affect you? How will someone who buys things like this have an advantage over someone who doesn't? Is it a big advantage? How long can that advantage be maintained?

If it was hard to get to level 20, having a bunch of people creating and selling level 20 characters would be a problem. But it's not.

If a thousand hours of gameplay netted you advantages so great that someone with only a hundred hours of gameplay couldn't possibly kill you, having people play a thousand hours to gather the items and sell to people who haven't would be a problem. But it's not.

What effect does this have? Well, I suppose it gets more people to level 20 more quickly and with good gear. Is this a problem? No. They won't be any harder to kill that people who did it the hard way. They'll probably be easier.

I understand perfectly why stuff like that can ruin games like Diablo II with its uberpowerful items, or things like an MMORPG where someone who plays 5000 hours can't be touched by someone who only played 500. I just fail to see why this would have any effect at all on THIS game, which has neither of these problems.

So, what's the problem? How would this ruin GW? Heck, how does it even hurt it in the slightest?

This is a complete non-issue, as far as I can tell.

If you want to buy your way to the top, go ahead. I'll see you in the Arena when I get there, and we'll have fun...

Inde · May 06, 2005, 08:22 PM // 20:22

Well, for cause and effect:

Cause: There is a demand for gold/items to be bought by real cash

Effect:
1. Business. As such, people begin to farm items and gold in a professional manner. This means 24/7
2. Overcrowding. As more people come to simply farm items and gold, the servers do get overloaded. Barring the cost increase for ArenaNet, this results in slower performance for you
3. Inflation. As more items and gold enter the game (at an unnatural rate compared to what would happen without farmers), the in-game economy becomes inflated. This means that while a Dragon Sword could have been had for 100 gold, now it takes 200
4. Can't beat them, join 'em. Instead of actively trying to get items with gold obtained in-game, people simply opt to buy - no time to obtain enough gold
5. Cycle repeats, ad nauseum

kirab · May 06, 2005, 08:34 PM // 20:34

I think AreanaNet is all about eliminating those annoying aspects of MMOs, so I have faith in them that they will get rid of this problem too.

Deagol · May 06, 2005, 08:46 PM // 20:46

All the points above apply to mmorpg's with large build in time sinks, and are irrelevant to Guild Wars in general, and VividDreams example in specific.

If a game, any game, is damaged by ebaying it is a sympton on one thing, and one thing only: That the game is boring. Ebaying will will then allow an exchange where one person with money pay another person with time (or better yet, bots) to relieve himself from some of the boredom.

The game design is then entirely to blame, and ebay do the world a favor by making two people happy.

Pevil Lihatuh · May 06, 2005, 08:48 PM // 20:48

there's a link on the forum already to a 'totally legal bot'... total load of crap. its been out a week, why the hell can't people play the game they bought?

Ramus · May 07, 2005, 07:11 PM // 19:11

Ill be the first to admit I spent 15 dollars on 10k gold, why? I work a 50 hour a week job. And when I do play, I do all my xping in the arena because I am still in the beginning process of building my guild. I get sick of waiting hours to do a mission with other people, so its either solo or friends or the arena. And when that happens its a tad hard to get gold! The 10k helped me out, got me some good armor, and now I can afford kits for materials. I dont think im hurting anyone too bad or killing the economy.

Nighthawk · May 08, 2005, 01:07 PM // 13:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ramus

Ill be the first to admit I spent 15 dollars on 10k gold, why? I work a 50 hour a week job. And when I do play, I do all my xping in the arena because I am still in the beginning process of building my guild. I get sick of waiting hours to do a mission with other people, so its either solo or friends or the arena. And when that happens its a tad hard to get gold! The 10k helped me out, got me some good armor, and now I can afford kits for materials. I dont think im hurting anyone too bad or killing the economy.

Why play the game at all just give me $100 usd I will give you a sreen shot of 20th lvl character all decked out in uber equiment.
You buy the game to play it not buy your way to the top.
This is what drives the farmer sobody allways wants to take the short cut does not want to do the work

Zexion · May 08, 2005, 01:20 PM // 13:20

Well, AFAIK, Anet has written in their EULA, that it's illegal to do such things.
So if Anet wants to bust them, they will do.
And Pevil, is that WNxPevil?

_Zexion

Brink Morone · May 08, 2005, 01:48 PM // 13:48

This happens with every MMORPG whether one likes it or not.. We need to get used to it.