[Off Topic] Gold Sellers story

So Bob wishes to go down in eternity, one of of the largest gaming websites, as being quoted about gold selling and its implications by saying:

"Bitch!"

Ok, I'll do that then ... *starts typing and sending off to editor*

Whahaha!
That would be kind off funny!
Do it!

Except for having my account stolen from me once, and both emptied of gold and used to create one of that annoying gold seller alts, I have little experience with gold sellers in wow.

I can admit that I once bought gold in another mmo though. I used to play Lineage2 before I started with wow. L2 has a cruel system of punishments when you die, and a very imbalanced economy. I died once, and dropped my sword. When I came back to the place where I fell, someone else had already picked it up. A new sword would cost 2mil adena(thier currency) a mob appropriate for my level dropped about 200 adena... And I couldn't kill them anyway, since I had no sword. As I saw it, I had either the option of buying a lvl 1 sword or similar and spend months and months farming to perhaps be able to buy a sword closer to my level, or buy the gold I needed to be able to keep playing.

I wouldn't do it in wow though. I have a better understanding on how the gold sellers mess up server economy now, and WoW has a much kinder and more forgiving game system, so you won't find yourself locked in a situation as the one mentioned above.

I'm very much against gold-selling and power-levelling services in WoW. Quite apart from any potential unbalancing effects on the in-game economy, to me it's cheating for any player to buy gold or get someone else to level up their character.

I also get irritated at the gold-sellers advertising their services by yelling in Orgrimmar or whispering people and advertising their services if they get a reply. Either way it's another reduction in the immersiveness of the game experience.

But I don't really blame the gold farmers or power levellers. I blame the people who set up these businesses and probably make most of the money.

A couple of years ago my Chinese flatmate got chatting (in Chinese) to some other Chinese players on our realm. One of them turned out to be a 20-something guy in China who farmed for gold. We both chatted to him for many weeks. He had an eye illness and found it very difficult to get a real job. Gold farming was a way that he could contribute money to his family. His account was frequently banned by Blizzard and he had to keep buying new accounts and levelling up a new character to keep farming.

I met him in-game many times. My Mandarin is very bad but we always managed to communicate. Even though he had quotas to reach every day he often took time to help us in a dungeon and never asked anything in return. And he is by far the most skillful player, with several different character classes, that I have ever met. Even though he has now been forced to change character many times, we are still in contact with him by instant messaging and using Skype.

I'm not approving of gold farming. I wish it didn't happen. And I have no idea if that friend in China is typical of gold farmers. But real life situations for some people will make it a way for them to earn real life money that they may desperately need.

I read quite a lot about gold farming at the time, including Nick Yee's research on the subject (http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/) and I reserve my annoyance for the people that set up the gold-selling services and those that use them.

Zanick wrote:

I'm very much against gold-selling and power-levelling services in WoW. Quite apart from any potential unbalancing effects on the in-game economy, to me it's cheating for any player to buy gold or get someone else to level up their character.

I also get irritated at the gold-sellers advertising their services by yelling in Orgrimmar or whispering people and advertising their services if they get a reply. Either way it's another reduction in the immersiveness of the game experience.

But I don't really blame the gold farmers or power levellers. I blame the people who set up these businesses and probably make most of the money.

A couple of years ago my Chinese flatmate got chatting (in Chinese) to some other Chinese players on our realm. One of them turned out to be a 20-something guy in China who farmed for gold. We both chatted to him for many weeks. He had an eye illness and found it very difficult to get a real job. Gold farming was a way that he could contribute money to his family. His account was frequently banned by Blizzard and he had to keep buying new accounts and levelling up a new character to keep farming.

I met him in-game many times. My Mandarin is very bad but we always managed to communicate. Even though he had quotas to reach every day he often took time to help us in a dungeon and never asked anything in return. And he is by far the most skillful player, with several different character classes, that I have ever met. Even though he has now been forced to change character many times, we are still in contact with him by instant messaging and using Skype.

I'm not approving of gold farming. I wish it didn't happen. And I have no idea if that friend in China is typical of gold farmers. But real life situations for some people will make it a way for them to earn real life money that they may desperately need.

I read quite a lot about gold farming at the time, including Nick Yee's research on the subject (http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/) and I reserve my annoyance for the people that set up the gold-selling services and those that use them.

This is extremely interesting: I don't suppose that guy speaks English, or you've a way to make contact with him? I'm wondering if, or how, I could perhaps get a few questions to him from someone who speaks Mandarin and English (for translation). It would be great to include that in the article. Something along the lines of 'how did you get involved in this', 'why', 'what do you have to do', 'do you enjoy it/is it worth the hassle', 'can you live from the money you are paid (do you get an hourly wage? targets? incentives?)', 'how well does your employer treat you', 'do you plan to do this forever, or not' etc.

What do you think? It'd make the article very "real" I think. PM me on this forum or email at nick@nickryan.net for further chat if you can.

Ta!