How a Gold Farm Works

[jionger]

Here is a very interesting article titled "How a Gold Farm Works" and it's gonna be very long. Here is a most informative post in the thread:

-----BEGIN QUOTE-----
I guess I should mention, as I failed to in my last post, that I have been in the process of dismantling my "business" since Christmas. You may wonder why I do not just fold it up completely and immediately, but that lies in needing to make sure that those I am responsible for, are taken care of. I expect to be completely done within the month.

This is going to be long, but I'd like to explain what my business essentially was, and my views on things in general and why what is currently going on is quite serious for EQ. Not just for the plat sellers like I was, or just those who rely on bazaar gears and trading to equip their character, but also those at the raiding level. While it certainly impacts raiders the least, it does eventually.

I started selling about 7 years ago. I started on my home server, amongst a few other sellers. At the time EQ was EQ, no expansions, fairly new, and you could sell 1,000 platinum for $500. I got into selling because of a GM at the time who I spoke to on occasion who was selling platinum and other items from places like mistmoore, guk, and solusek b. This was at a time a GM was an unpaid volunteer player, and the kinks hadn't been worked out as far as the EULA which forbid the buying and selling of intellectual property.
......

Link from: http://www.trade4game.com/html/news/23.htm
Another Link: http://www.trade4game.com/vanguard.htm

[Nias Wolf]

Never quite understood why a person would pay money for such things...

[501105]

Me neither not to mention it ruins part of the game.

[Amazing Larry]

Well I played World of Warcraft for a long time, for about two and a half years more or less and most of that time as an endgame raider. Four hour rag farm runs, AQ and BWL runs and then after the expansion Kara. I didn't quit because of any problems the game or it's economy had although I will admit the increasing rigidity of the endgame encounters and the incredible difficulty of making gold through any means but raw mat farming were really starting to wear on my nerves. The reason I quit however was simply because I could not find a strong endgame guild that I could get along with. The endgame PVE guilds only really fell into two categories, groups of people who insisted you devote forty+ hours to the game a week (while the absolute maximum I was willing to commit was about twenty) and groups of highly emotionally unstable players who were hovering around the endgame but were mostly just there to socialize and dick around. There was not much of a place for guys like me who simply wanted to play the game three to five hours a day three to four days a week but to actually be productive and more or less "hardcore" during that time.

World of Warcraft has a significantly different economic system, better than EQs in some ways but infinitely worse in others. Blizzard's primary solution to make the market accessible to newer players and to prevent rapid inflation is to make pretty much every endgame drop "bind on pickup" so that it is non-transferable and the only way to get it is to actually go on runs yourself. This does alot of good in my opinion but there are two failings that Warcraft's economy suffers, the first being that since all the best stuff is endgame bop drops the trade skills are pretty much never profitable, while the gathering skills make money but still nowhere close to as much as the monster farmers do. The other big problem is that the way Blizzard has set it up various transactions with NPCs suck alot of money out of the economy. In the old days an epic mount ran about 800G but if you were focusing on doing runs rather than farming it would take you several months to accumulate that money, and when you did finally get it the purchase sent several months of the majority of your income directly into an NPC black hole. The problem has in fact probably gotten worse since the expansion. So WoW has kind of the opposite problem than the article mention EQ having, rather than a constant influx of cash inflating the market like EQ WoW's economy is endlessly bleeding out causing inflation. Unlike the exploits in EQ however WoW's could be fixed quite easily if Blizzard would just drasticly increase the price of mounts and get rid of the stupid mat requirement quests and reduce the time one has to invest for rep grinding. In WoW Blizzard has created a gold farming problem by making gold farmers ridiculously necessary for anyone who would prefer to spend their time experiencing content as opposed to grinding.

I think the big problem with economies in all MMOs is simply that game designers are not economists, and that in the future when designing their economic systems they might want to take the decision making out of the hands of the development teams and give the reigns over to their companies respective accounting department because maybe one of those accountants will actually have some small understanding of how markets actually work.

[Amazing Larry]

*correction I meant to say drastically decrease the cost of mounts, not increase as that would make things worse.

[LordLeckie]

Me neither not to mention it ruins part of the game.

same here whats the point of it i mean you've got to be a retard buy a good game account or gold as you no longer have anything to aim for, or the things you can still do are too easy.

[godot]

Never quite understood why a person would pay money for such things...

When MMO players want to buy the game's best armour/weapons they have a choice; spend a day doing repetitive in-game activities to earn enough gold, OR spend an extra hour working overtime and buy the necessary game gold on eBay. The game gold merchants allow players with real-life jobs to get more out of their gaming hours. In other words, they do much of the grinding so the player doesn't have to.

Is it wrong? Not in principle, however it's probably in violation of an EULA, especially if the publisher is not getting a piece of the revenue. http://www.websmileys.com/sm/happy/585.gif

[Bioshock_FTW!]

Sigh. This article is like nostalgia to me. I miss the oldschool EQ days, pre-Kunark. Such a great game for it's time...i think i might pick it up again. i'm totally twinked out thanks to guys like this. heh.

[Bioshock_FTW!]

Oh and FYI - EQ plat prices are down to $40 per 450-500k. Retardedly cheap. I paid $30 per 50k maybe a year ago.

[Raveness]

When MMO players want to buy the game's best armour/weapons they have a choice; spend a day doing repetitive in-game activities to earn enough gold, OR spend an extra hour working overtime and buy the necessary game gold on eBay. The game gold merchants allow players with real-life jobs to get more out of their gaming hours. In other words, they do much of the grinding so the player doesn't have to.

When you are playing a game, and consider it a "grind" to press for the achievements, I think you've lost perspective on how fun the game is suppose to be, and it becomes more of a chore. This is true whether your game hours are limited or not.

Whenever I find myself reaching that point, I look in the mirror and wonder at what point the game became so much like work and less fun. That's when I usually stop playing it...when the fun of it has dried out and it becomes routine.

[Bioshock_FTW!]

Whenever I find myself reaching that point, I look in the mirror and wonder at what point the game became so much like work and less fun. That's when I usually stop playing it...when the fun of it has dried out and it becomes routine.

Amen to that. That's the birth and death of every MMO i've ever tried getting into, in a nutshell(about 7 or 8 of them). They're all a grind, it's really just a matter of time before the novelty wears off.
BUT...as every hardcore MMO gamer will tell you, it doesn't get fun until you hit the level cap. What is the motha-flippin' point, man?! They say the journey is supposed to be more important than the destination. Whatever...

[Raveness]

BUT...as every hardcore MMO gamer will tell you, it doesn't get fun until you hit the level cap. What is the motha-flippin' point, man?! They say the journey is supposed to be more important than the destination. Whatever...

As long as its fun, I don't see the problem, no matter how much they are psychologically BS'ing themselves into believing it still is. Different personality traits I guess

[Amazing Larry]

When you are playing a game, and consider it a "grind" to press for the achievements, I think you've lost perspective on how fun the game is suppose to be, and it becomes more of a chore. This is true whether your game hours are limited or not.

Whenever I find myself reaching that point, I look in the mirror and wonder at what point the game became so much like work and less fun. That's when I usually stop playing it...when the fun of it has dried out and it becomes routine.

Well I think the problem that leads into that is simply that companies who make MMOs are always very keen to put a bunch of "time committed" grinds into the games. They want everything to take forever so that people keep playing, personally I think it has largely the opposite effect. I was always tempted to buy farmer gold in WoW because I would rather run dungeons and battlegrounds than sit out in some godamned field killing mobs for mat drops.

[Raveness]

I was always tempted to buy farmer gold in WoW because I would rather run dungeons and battlegrounds than sit out in some godamned field killing mobs for mat drops.

That sounds like an excuse to play a game thats incompatible with your perceptions. I certainly don't believe in sinking several hours into a game that has major portions I'd dismiss as uninteresting or a "grind", or to pay more money to avoid such parts. Such games smack of flawed game balancing, unless, like you've said, they are intentionally preying on those who get addicted to that time-committed style of play.

[Bioshock_FTW!]

There's also the perspective of those hardcore MMO gamers who have played those parts before. The ones who have 5 level 70's who don't want to waste all their time grinding mobs or crafting items because they've already done it 5 times.
I have a good friend who is one of those easily-addicted types when it comes to MMO's and he bots in WoW and his reasoning for it is that he's already done it all before. It's nothing new and it's nothing he'll miss.
Just another perspective....

[godot]

Amen to that. That's the birth and death of every MMO i've ever tried getting into, in a nutshell(about 7 or 8 of them). They're all a grind, it's really just a matter of time before the novelty wears off.
BUT...as every hardcore MMO gamer will tell you, it doesn't get fun until you hit the level cap. What is the motha-flippin' point, man?! They say the journey is supposed to be more important than the destination. Whatever...

Have you tried Guild Wars? They're the only MMO I've ever played. Charging no subscription fees, the developers have no financial interest in taking up long hours of the player's time. Therefore, there's no inherent grind. Players are expected to reach the level cap within 20 - 30 hrs of play and that's when each chapter's journey truly begins.

Top level armour, weapons and upgrades are readily available at costs affordable to anyone having been rewarded for following the normal mission path. So again, no practical reason to grind. However with that said, some armour and weapons are more prestigious and/or better looking than the standard varieties, even though they have the same stats. Players who covet such items may need to accumulate game wealth beyond what can be earned from quest rewards. And those who don't enjoy grinding for that extra cash (many do) there are gold sellers who let them get on with doing what they enjoy more without compromising on fashion.

Btw, I've never been tempted to buy game gold. And the moment I finished doing essentially all that I could enjoy in Guild Wars (nearly everthing) I moved on. My pan-European guild was about evenly mixed male/female, singles, couples with and without kids, and ages averaged around upper twenties. I miss them and occasionally, I'll still drop by the guildhall and our TS channel to socialize a bit and torment the n00bs. I'll definitely get more involved again next month when the Eye of the North expansion is released.

[Bioshock_FTW!]

I've been more seriously contemplating Guild Wars recently. I think I'm gonna have to check it out. No monthly subscription is also nice and all I hear are good things. What server are you on?

[godot]

What server are you on?

I'm still on the European server, but players from anywhere can always meet up on International servers. Next time I'm in touch, I'll ask if any guildmates have an extra 10hr/14day trial code that I might be able to send you. If not, there will definitely some when the expansion comes out.

[Bioshock_FTW!]

I'm still on the European server, but players from anywhere can always meet up on International servers. Next time I'm in touch, I'll ask if any guildmates have an extra 10hr/14day trial code that I might be able to send you. If not, there will definitely some when the expansion comes out.

A friend of mine at work is actually letting me try it out under his account. Looking forward to it.

[That_dude]

Same guy posted the same thread, over HERE.

[That_dude]

Same guy posted the same thread, over HERE.

Darn edit button! What I meant to say, is why? What is this, some kind of WoW journalist?

[godot]

A friend of mine at work is actually letting me try it out under his account. Looking forward to it.

Good for you.

GW has its share of intense fanatics, but it's more home to casual gamers with real lives and jobs than most other MMOs. You don't need to show up every few months to maintain your account/characters as in WoW. Ten years from now it will still be there.

Here are a few other things I like about it:

- All playable character classes are human. No elves, orcs, dwarves, etc.
- Graphically stunning for 3 years old tech.
- Artistry. Daniel Dociu keeps winning awards for his GW concepts.
- I've heard it offers best PvP gameplay of any MMO. Took me 2 years just to play through all the PvE content.
- Studio is continually working on game balance tweaks, new content and special events for all existing chapters. All at no extra cost!!
- Auto update system never requires patching. New content is streamed in the background.
- Very stable. Never crashes.
- Huge maps load in seconds.
- VERY low bandwidth burden. Usually around 500 Bytes/s. Easily played over modem.
- Designated drops. All loot is randomly assigned to specific team members.
- Players select either European or North American server environments, but can share the game with anyone in the world by hopping into the International servers. (You're allowed to switch home continents up to 4 or 5 times.)