Michael Zenke, the blogger behind MMOG Nation and regular contributor to our sister site Massively, has posted an article covering the latest dust up over gold selling.The interesting part about this latest debate is that it has become a larger discussion about what is considered cheating. Most people would probably say that cheating is breaking the rules. Paying someone else to level your character or to give you gold for RL money is currently viewed as "unfair."
But if receiving money you didn't earn is in-game is cheating, does that extend to farming for gold with your main to give to your alt? What about having your higher level friends run you through a loweer level dungeon quicker? Isn't that powerleveling? What about twinking? Did your alt "earn" those items?
For many, I think the distinction is whether RL money is involved. It's acceptable to send gold to your alt because you main earned it, but it's not fair to buy gold because you are using your RL cash to get ahead in a game.
So if using RL resources to get ahead is cheating, what about people who are rich with time? After all, the principal mechanic for MMO progression is time spent playing the game. Aren't people with enormous amounts of free time using their RL resources to gain an unfair advantage of those who have limited play time?
Where is the line between cheating and working within the game rules to get the most out of your game time? And how much RL can developers expect to keep out of their games in the interest of "fairness"?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
12-28-2007 @ 5:18PM
dAnixx said...
Imo unfair is when money isnt involved, when u pay rl money, you'r cheating.
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12-29-2007 @ 1:49AM
Jeff said...
You all call it unfair- which is understandable. I have never done it and probably never will.... BUT
Microsoft and Nintendo blatantly advertise the sale of better in game items in almost all online games tied to their systems. You buy points for cash then use those points to redeem special items.. how is it any different, besides the fact that Blizzard has not formally introduced a system to handle these transactions in game.
12-28-2007 @ 5:18PM
Eternalpayn said...
The thing is that if you have more free time, you are still earning your items and gold. You are still playing, and earning stuff in-game the way it should be. If you are buying stuff with RL money, you are cheating. Why? You are altering the game's economy to your advantage. You are essentially inflating AH prices, because you don't think "this was 10 hours of gold farming I did to buy this," you think "this was only 4 dollars." Because of that, you are willing to pay incredible prices, and make it worse for those of us who don't buy gold. Also, the RL value of items that buying gold supports causes people to produce keyloggers in an effort to steal accounts and sell the gold.
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12-28-2007 @ 5:19PM
Zodwow said...
Every player will have different time restraints. Those with more free time should enjoy more benefits because they are putting the time into the game. We cannot fault others for working hard 'in the game'. However, if you purchase gold, items or characters and enjoy the fruits others have sown then I believe that is cheating and unfair to all those who are putting their time into their characters. Also, if a main is working for an alt its just desserts. Having someone run you through is questionable, but if you using your main to return the favor I think is justifiable.
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12-28-2007 @ 5:21PM
Warlock said...
If you go by that logic, didn't you earn the real life cash too? :P
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12-28-2007 @ 5:26PM
Duncan said...
But not in the game. thats the difference. it's cheating
12-28-2007 @ 7:05PM
TotalBiscuit said...
I earned cash through my job, is it therefore ok to purchase $10,000 of Monopoly money in the game?
12-28-2007 @ 5:27PM
jr said...
Honestly I agree with OP, but on the otherhand I fail to see how it hurts me when some clown wants to pay $100 for whatever in game thing he wants. I mean it's not like I got to farm even longer to get the drops I need, the best stuff is BoP. It may not be fair to allow people to use real money for in game stuff but whoever told you life was fair.
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12-28-2007 @ 5:28PM
Slayblaze said...
Unfairly benefitting from playing the game in a way other than the designers intended.
Thats how I define it. The key word is "benefitting", as there are plenty of totally fair and fun things that go beyond how the game was specifically designed, yet still have no tangible benefit (such as wall-jumping to some weird spot and dancing around). Wall-jumping to a spot in a Battleground where you can reach others for free HK's but they can't reach you would be an unfair benefit.
Another thing - and I believe myself to be in the minorty about this - is that I consider having a high-level friend run your low-level character through an instance or quest to be cheating. Yes cheating. The people who do this are cheating *themselves* by not experiencing the game in the way it was intended to be experienced. In addition, they are cheating the higher-level player because it is a colossal waste of that player's time - and time spent in WoW is *on the clock* - this is pay-to-play folks. We are *paying* blizzard each time we log in...it is not for free. You are supposed to e n j o y the game - even the parts before you get to level 70: THAT is the game! If you don't enjoy the game then go play something else.
I know most don't agree with me on this, but I simply can't stand players who give other players a "free ride" on their own time that they pay for.
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12-28-2007 @ 5:31PM
jr said...
I disagree, I help my buddy all the time because when he finnaly reaches 70 we can do stuff together. It is not a waste to help a friend, it is a waste of time to go to LFG channel and spam for a group for the low level content as there isn't anyone doing that stuff.
12-29-2007 @ 1:25PM
Matt said...
i agree with JR...most of the people dont even bother with lower end content anymore so whats the point in waiting 2-3 hours for a group to run RFD..or RFC or something... i run my friend through instances because hes way behiend...at the same time im explaining to him the mechanics of his class i often will let him do what he needs to do and then once he understands we can move on and kill the rest of the baddies...=-P, also people are sometimes CHARGING for runs through instances...so pretty much they are gettin paid for their time?? either way i drop gold off for my buddy let him decide what to buy and so on...the game is still fun =-D
1-07-2008 @ 9:54AM
Calminaion said...
Hmmm, so I have 3 level 70 characters ... how am I cheating myself out of content I have seen 3 times when I ask a buddy to run me through Sunken Temple.
And how is it cheating him out of time when he responds "yes, sure ... I love running through low level content ... it feels awesome blowing through things in 20 mins that took 3 hours back in the day"
I never take a new player through content though, I wouldn't call it cheating, but I call it laziness.
12-28-2007 @ 5:29PM
Duncan said...
Other forms of cheating. IMO are. any type of Boting, 2 boxing, losing on purpose in arena, paying someone to level your toon
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12-28-2007 @ 5:34PM
Donjo said...
How do you consider 2,3, 4, 5 or 40-boxing to be cheating? If you pay for every account and are in control of all characters I don't see how that fits the same bill as paying someone to level you.
12-28-2007 @ 5:31PM
mensrea said...
"You are essentially inflating AH prices, because you don't think 'this was 10 hours of gold farming I did to buy this,' you think 'this was only 4 dollars.' Because of that, you are willing to pay incredible prices, and make it worse for those of us who don't buy gold."
That's just silly. The inflation argument died when Blizz made it possible for a level 70 to rack up ~100 gold in an hour or two of doing dailies. That had a much greater impact on prices than a few players buying gold.
I think it comes down to folks with more time than money getting pissed that other people with more money than time can have gold, too. It's pure jealousy.
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12-28-2007 @ 7:06PM
Eternalpayn said...
But you see, this made it easier for gold farmers, too. Also, gold prices went down because of this. Non-gold-buyers can get their money fast now, but gold buyers get it even faster and cheaper now.
12-28-2007 @ 8:27PM
Liel said...
Gold prices are a lot higher than what they used to be a few years ago. I remember getting 100 gold for 5 bucks. Making 100 gold pre expansion took hours sorry but 5 bucks is what I get for drinking a cup of coffee at work while on break not worth my time.
NOW with the expansion Blizzard addressed gold making with dailies and upping the amount you get from quests so buying gold is not worth it unless your truly devoid of time to play to quest.
12-28-2007 @ 5:38PM
Duncan said...
@10 your only doing what ever your doing ONCE. 2, 3, 4 toons benifit from it. its cheating. Dont care how many accounts you pay for
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12-28-2007 @ 5:50PM
PeeWee said...
Your argument fails.
If I do an instance with 4 other characters and we all finish the quests, what is then the difference from me controlling one or more of the characters compared to other people controlling their characters on their accounts? None whatsoever. And there are no arguments against that. It all comes down to two simple things.
1) I pay for the accounts
2) I am in control of the characters
Now, if I were to have a BOT control the other accounts for me, that would be cheating. But now I am in control of their actions, and I am therefore not violating the EULA nor the TOS. Thus, I'm not cheating.
The fact that YOU think it's cheating matters little. In fact, it matters not at all.
12-28-2007 @ 5:57PM
Donjo said...
By that definition, I guess the following things would also be cheating:
- Picking up herbalism and mining and using a macro to switch between the tracking one and another while flying the same route. (You are flying ONE path to get money with TWO gathering professions)
- Leveling enchanting on one character and mailing greens from other characters to that one to DE. (You level ONE profession to get materials from many)
- Waiting until you have all the quests for a dungeon before doing it so you can finish all the quests at once instead of doing them one at a time as you acquire them.
Beside that fact, just because you are playing 4 characters or something doesn't mean you only have to do things once. With the exception of doing kill quests, killing mobs for XP, and PvPing, multiboxers have to do just as much work as the rest of us. While I am questing in Nagrand picking up my 15 pieces of poop for the cherry quest, the guy playing 4 characters is picking up 60. When I am grinding mats for one epic crafting pattern, the guy playing 3 characters is grinding triple the materials. While I am killing all the mobs I need at exactly the pace that they respawn, the guy playing 2 characters is AFK waiting for respawns.
Aside from any minor benefit you get in leveling speed, multiboxers are faced with the disadvantage of extra complex controls and slower PvP reaction times. Very few multiboxers are even competitive on the PvP field because of the extra difficulty that it adds. In fact, Aelli from smolderthorn is pretty much the only one that I have seen achieve any sort of PvP rank that is notable (Xzin did get 5 Warlord mages but that was when it was just a time grind).