As recently reported, Kharmen EU Talnivarr has reportedly paid 20,000 gold for the Amani War Bear. Kharmen reportedly raised the cash for the enormous land epic ride on her which raised questions about how much gold grinding would trigger a gold farming alert.

The 20,000 price tag seems pretty outrageous considering I'm still puttering along, like many others, on my regular Windriders on all of my 70s. If the Artisan Riding Skill were important to me, I'd make more of an effort to save the 5,000 gold for the mount, but I find it to be low on my priority list. There is no indication that the cost of epic flight will be reduced in the future.

World of Warcraft's European site has posted a new page of their FAQ aiming to describe the effects and consequences of third party gold selling, also known as RMT (Real Money Trade or Real Money Transactions). There doesn't seem to be a similar page added to the American site yet, but we've seen enough to know very well that they disapprove as well.

The page mostly focuses on the more underhanded tactics the companies use to get money, such as keyloggers and trojans, or simply stealing the accounts of people who paid for powerleveling, and using them as farming bots, or spamming in high traffic areas on level 1 characters with hard to spell names. It's a good start, and certainly reminds people of the harm that these gold farmers do, and how it can hit close to home.

As a veteran MMORPGer who's watched Johnathan Yantis and Brock Pierce practically invent the industry and most of the dirty tricks it pulls, I'm glad to see Blizzard continue to make a stand against these types of leeches and hope they continue to do so. I'd love to see them explain more fully how the constant amount of kill stealing and spawn and AH camping they do hurts the game. A campaign of information might be just what we need to stop the gold farmers once and for all. Legal measures and community shame (and thus shrinking of their customer base) for a one-two punch? Here's hoping!

Thanks for the heads up, Richard!

Last week I wrote about my harrowing experience of finding a gold farmer in one of my instant messaging windows. Apparently somebody "in one of those countries" (I'm slapped on the wrist every time I single-out China) must have swallowed a creativity pill. Just when I thought there was nothing new on the horizon, Aleeyah from Livejournal posted an article -- complete with screenshot -- of an odd in-game e-mail that was received from someone we can fairly safely assume is in the professional gold farming business.

The written English in the in-game message is nearly bad enough to send one of my editors into a seizure. It's almost bad enough you can't understand it at all. The bare essentials that I can (barely) glean from the message is that the farmers are now offering gold to guilds in exchange for advertising.

Why would they do this? As I said in my last article on this subject, I think they're losing on the home front. I think their current marketing techniques are not bringing the level of revenue that they want. I think more and more people are discovering just how easy it is to right-click a spammer when they're checking their mail, silence the spam, and have the feel-good feeling of knowing they've done something right for their community. I know I do it all the time. I won't go as far as to call Blizzard's anti-spam tactics a flourishing success, but as the old saying goes "If you can't beat 'em, wear 'em down," and I think that's exactly what is starting to happen.

So if real-money transactions are frowned upon by Blizzard and prosecuted by Blizzard, why wouldn't they just try and move their advertising medium to neutral ground? Sure, there are lots of guilds that will have nothing to do with selling their corporate souls to the devil in this manner. You can rest assured however that there are also lots that would jump at an opportunity like this that could pay for all their bank tabs for nothing more than a measly advertisement on their guild web site. It does bring up the interesting question however, of whether a guild that supported a gold farming business financially could potentially face retribution from Blizzard. While I can't see a guild getting banned en masse for this, it would sure be a wakeup call if such a guild logged in to find their tag gone along with all their guild bank slots and contents.

Does this mean that the spamming around the Ironforge and Orgrimmar mailboxes is going to let up? Not likely, or at least not very much. It just means "these people" have found yet another way to devastate our server economies for their own profit.

It's a rare event when I wake up, walk to the computer, yawn, and think to myself what I could possibly write about only to have an article walk up to me, sit in my lap, and cuddle. Today it happened.

We've all seen what I call the evolution of spam in-game. First it was just straight tell spam. Blizzard fixed that. Then it was group spam. Now it seems gold farmers have taken to just sitting in the capital cities and screaming their lungs off until they get reported and/or zapped by a GM.

I think the reporting mechanism is starting to get to them though. Every time they lose an account (when it's reported) they have to make a new one. In the scope of the money they're making it's really not a big deal, but it's tedious repetition and I saw the first signs this morning that they've shifted their focus and are moving to more aggressive tactics.

I fired up Adium (my Mac instant messenger) and was immediately greeted by a request for contact authorization. I'll stop here for a moment so you can gasp, because what happened after this is exactly what you think. I looked at the address that was requesting authentication and it didn't really ring a bell. I looked at the display picture and saw a cropped screenshot of two blood elves staring back at me. I reasoned that it had to be someone from my guild, even though I wasn't sure who. I accepted the request and the contact appeared on my contact list. As it turns out, they were online.

Player Cursethyfoe of Cenarius can't get enough cash together on his pre-60 toon. He suggests turning some simple low level kill and collect quests into Daily Quests. He even points out some already existing quests that would be ideal in certain level ranges.

But CM Bornakk shoots down his suggestion, saying that Blizzard hasn't seen any cash flow issues with lower level and mid-level players.

I have to agree with Bornakk. Low levels shouldn't be farming the same content continuously. There is more than enough content for them to explore and make cash doing it. High level Daily Quests are fine when you are already level 70 and are willing to grind the same old quest.

What do you think?

Although this comic is NSFW, it's definitely worth a read. Of course, I like games like Tetris; perhaps that plays a role in my love for WoW. If you've been feeling any extra pressure to grind since the new items and patterns from patch 2.3 arrived, then this comic is for you. Consider it a very quick dose of chuckle therapy.

While you are having a laugh, you might as well peruse the full website. ActionTrip is a gaming website with tons of cheats, videos, and other goodies. Although you likely won't be able to load it at work anyway, I caution you that the rest of the website is also not the best thing to load at the office.

On a related note, if you are seeking some grind guidance, you should head over to Gun Lovin' Dwarf Chick and check out this spiffy guide to farming. It covers issues such as how to get in the right head space, and how to keep yourself from going a little batty and giving up. It also has suggestions on what to farm, where to farm it, and which add-ons will make your experience easier and more pleasurable.

If you are looking to maximize profit and not for your own phat lootz, then I highly recommend learning how to work the auction house. From anticipating what will sell, and at what prices, to adjusting your farming excursions accordingly, Lisa Poisso's guide to working the auction house is a great place to start.

If you have a habit of not looting vendor trash (grey items), or you have yet to be inspired by its gold-making possibilities, then try out our guide to vendor trash and the auction house. Actually, it also contains some great tips for working your greens, whites, blues and purples too. What do you do while you farm? Are you a gold-making whiz, or do you avoid it as much as possible?