Blizzard suports gold farming?

The new trend in the forums is complaining over this web blog: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...1d-f8344370e421

 

In particular, the section describing a possible relatio ship with blizzard over loot drops.

 

Could just be someone trying to get a few views for their website, still its an interesting read.

Blizzard would be stupid to not try and get their cut of the business. They'd be even stupider to let people know they did.

IGE is a dominant player in the secondary market aka black market for gaming.

 

They have gotten past lawsuits thru technicalities i.e. selling time spent on farming gold / selling time spent on the account.

With a lawyer and going to court, it can be pricey to shutdown a big player so its not even worth it.

Vivendi is a public limited company... they dont care about the employees or consumers... what they care for is to keep shareholders happy. So they're profit-maximising whether it is consumer-exploitation or simple downsizing to make this possible.

 

Blizzard tried to shut them down... they failed. It is now too late... our economies are reliant on the blackmarket. Pull out the blackmarket... we lose out on supply and our economies will crash i.e. demand is high, no supply -> prices go up... everyone loses. The basic economic problem - unlimited wants, resources are scarce.

 

Sony releases their own secondary market division to compete with IGE and in hope to retake some control of the economy but hv failed at doing so.

 

Fact of the matter... Blizzard like many others... tolerates the secondary market as they're co-dependant on each other. Firms like Blizzard offer firms in the secondary market a medium to make money and in return they ensure the economy lives on... because its too late to do anything about it.

Its like piracy... it exists like crazy in malaysia... you cant get rid of it overnight because there's a demand for it and it would cause problems for the markets of those goods as well as the country would earn less.

 

So if anything... it has to be removed slowly but it'll probably never be solved because for every step forward, 3/4 of it goes back and somewhere along the line, shit hits the fan and you hv to start at square one.

 

Ok... moving onto the rigged-loot. I mentioned earlier that Vivendi is profit-maximising so employees get paid the minimum hence, opportunity to make a quick buck is tempting.

The black market is all about connections and corruption - a corrupt GM could easily rig loot if he wanted to and without getting caught if he's smart.

It happened all the time in a game i used to play called Mu Online... GMs ignored certain cheaters because they were farmers and even gave these farmers awesome loot because they were paid off.

 

Blizzard as a whole is mostlikely not involved... just people at the lower end. If Blizzard got involved then IGE would hv a string attached to Blizzard and it could potentially cause a lot of problems.

 

As for farmers... the majority of all farmers around the world are located in China and India. Here, sweatshops do exist.

However... Japan and South Korea, it would be an exaggerration... the standard of living is very high in those countries and no one could get by with that kind of wage.

The farmers there are definitely paid more as well as having more choice to what they wanna do like high-end content, pvp, etc.

 

The person who wrote that article would be your typical farmer in any Asian country, apart from China and India. How do i know? One of my old friends used to work for a firm like that and now owns one in Singapore.

And like she said.. they're rarer... mostly used to find exploits, cut deals and blend in with the normal crowd to reach the a larger proportion of the market.

These better-off farmers are the ones who are probably involved with loot rigs... more trust is involved in this matter.

 

Sweatshops are literally 24/7 lan parties with players taking 8-10 shifts on an account so basic 2 farmers to an account.

On PvE servers it tends to be one in charge of a horde character and the other in charge of an alliance character.

However on PvP servers its only one faction so there's often competition between these 2 farmers as one could slack off to play a bit and compensates by selling some of the stuff the other guy saved up for an emergency.

I read this in an articles where the author actually interviewed and befriended several farmers on his server where he got this kind of info.

 

Its all really messed up... but if it exists in the real world then why not in the virtual world?

It is unlikely Blizzard is involved with the Blackmarket... at the most they tolerate it.

 

If Blizzard had cut a deal... loot-rigging would hv been more apparent i.e. regular but low amounts of GBS on the market for example... sometimes we dont even see a GBS on the AH for days and other times there're 4 of them on.

A regular distribution would allow for a more stable economy... another reason why the whole rigging thing could take place in the lower end is that GMs and similiar cant rig loot regularly 'cause it increases the chance for suspicion. So they rig loot... get their money and lay low for awhile - rinse and repeat.

 

Also, its pretty easy to tap info thru the WoW client... if farmers use exploits and scripts made by hardcore gamers... imagine what else they could do... it is also plausible to assume that they have a way to calculate when and where a certain item will hv a high probability of dropping; taking into consideration that they have a fixed amount of farmers in an area... a record of drops of the past month as well as the interference of normal players who grind these areas.. they could find a way to increase their chances for an epic drop significantly.

 

The thing is... we'll never know for sure... all i'm sure about is that i highly doubt Blizzard would hv cut a deal... they dont need to and it would only tie them down.

all it would take is one blizzard programmer out for a cheap buck. The company, as a whole, may not be involved, but individuals out for a quick buck might try.

all it would take is one blizzard programmer out for a cheap buck. The company, as a whole, may not be involved, but individuals out for a quick buck might try.

 

Exactly.

heehee

MySpaceFTMFW!

AsianWomenFTMFW!

Blizzard already makes 50 bucks per copy of WoW sold; and another 4+ million american dollars a year from monthly fees; they dont need to risk bending or breaking laws to get an extra couple grand in, not to mention the bad publicity.

 

And any1 who needs to buy gold off the internet from deprived teenagers not only doesnt deserve to play WoW, but clearly does not have what it takes to keep up with the real players; like each and every member of FP.

And any1 who needs to buy gold off the internet from deprived teenagers not only doesnt deserve to play WoW, but clearly does not have what it takes to keep up with the real players; like each and every member of FP.

 

lol