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Post by Ricah on Mar 12, 2010 10:25:52 GMT -5
I have just read Tobold's post about the new player Suzina and her buying gold to fund her level 40 dual spec. I've also read Suzina's post where she explains what happened, and the resulting comments argueing for and against the practice of buying gold, and its effect on the wow economy, your friendships, and if it means your morals have gone down the loo. This made me curious to see how we blog-writers and blog-readers feel about this issue, so i thought up this poll. Now to avoid any long discussions and possibly ending up /ignoring eachother like in Suzina's case (which i don't think would happen, since we're all reasonable people, right?) I would like everyone to not mention if they have bought gold or not if they choose to elaborate their vote, simply keep it to an objective discussion (like Tobold does very well in his post).
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Post by Ricah on Mar 12, 2010 10:34:04 GMT -5
Now, my own personal view:
I believe that whether a person buys gold or not is their own personal choice. I would not, like in the case of Suzina, ever put a friend/guild member on ignore for that person making that choice. I understand not everyone has the time or the knowledge to gather huge amounts of gold.
Is it cheating? Yes, it is. Is it a bannable offense? Yes, it is, it's against the ToS. Does that mean that the person buying gold is evil in disguise and should be /ignored for life to never be spoken to again? No, it's not like to committed murder.
From what i've read from Tobolds posts and from others, is that there is no clear link, or statistics on whether the "gold farmers" are also the ones hacking the accounts. If a person chooses to buy gold, i would not hold that person accountable for the hacking of another's account.
I would like to elaborate further on my post, but my work day is finished and I'm going home, weee!
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Post by wabashaw on Mar 12, 2010 10:46:28 GMT -5
In short. NOOOOOO! Not so short. I would never give money to anyone who possibly get their gold from hacking others accounts. Of all the guilds I've been in buying gold has been a reason for an instant kick, and I really don't mind.
This case with Suzina is a bit different though. Being a new player it's hard to see how buying gold affects others and her friend should have realized that.
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Post by boris on Mar 12, 2010 11:23:54 GMT -5
I would never buy gold at this point, even generally I didn't see a need for it for myself. I didn't have anything against it in the past, but having been hacked, and gotten spammer characters created on my account, it's out of the question at this point. disclaimer: Buying gold through the proper channels in a game that supports it, I still see as perfectly viable of course. Not to steal protflashes's thunder, but her post on the subject is fresh in my memory, and I agree with it: aggromanagement.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/an-open-letter-to-people-who-buy-gold-levels-and-honour/
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Post by rivs on Mar 12, 2010 11:37:46 GMT -5
I have no problem with people buying gold. I even got hacked a while back. It's just pixels either way. Some people take this game a little too serious, and i worry about them.
I don't use the game as my morale compass, I use it to relax, have some fun, oh yeah and to work out my anger issues and kill things.
Does someone buying gold make them a bad person, nope. Lazy...yes, impatient, yes, but not bad.
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Post by pewter on Mar 12, 2010 11:42:20 GMT -5
I have problems with people buying gold because it is what makes hacking lucrative. And I don't like getting hacked. It may just be pixels, but money is just paper, and I get upset when my bag is stolen. By buying gold you are encouraging others to ruin the gaming experience for other players.
No one I know has ever told me or revealed that they have purchased gold. If they had done, I would probably think that they are some what short sighted. Would I ignore them? Depends on the friendship, it really does. I would be extremely vocally unhappy if a guild officer had purchased gold, and would likely leave the guild.
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len
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Post by len on Mar 12, 2010 11:52:01 GMT -5
I don't know anyone who has bought gold, and to be honest if I did I would think considerably less of them. I know how horrible it is to have your account hacked and everything you have worked for stripped - not only myself but I've had hacked accounts compromising my guild bank. The players who are willing to buy gold so they don't have to put the work in, is what causes this to happen.
While its true that everything in the game is 'just pixels', a lot of players put considerable emotional and physical effort into their characters, their guilds, their raiding, building relationships and social networks on the game. It goes a long way beyond the physical pixels you can see on screen.
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jen
Critter
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Post by jen on Mar 12, 2010 12:14:53 GMT -5
I wouldn't really care if someone bought gold, but frankly it sounds quite silly to me. Pay 10 real dollars for 1000 virtual gold? Why would I want to do that? I never had trouble making gold and I reached level 70 back in TBC with about 3-4k without even trying that hard. I only got 10g from my boyfriend to start and I made the rest myself.
Then again, I wouldn't buy pets or whatever else from the Blizzard store either, I find it a waste of money (but I admit I loved getting Lil' KT as a present). If someone else likes spending their money on pixels it's fine though - if it makes you happier than going out for a beer, then it's all good.
So is buying gold bad? Yes, probably, for the economy and indirectly supporting hackers. Should a player be ignored and bashed for that? No. Apparently explanations never occured to her WoW-friend... even though imo telling her why it's wrong might have stopped her from doing it again.
Edit: Oh, and you don't need dual spec at 40. Seriously. We used to live without it. It's convenient, but there's no way you can argue that you *need* it enough to spend those 10 real dollars.
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Post by crankyhealer on Mar 12, 2010 12:22:40 GMT -5
Gold buying leads to hacking. Hacking means that while it's "just pixels", someone is being deprived of entertainment they're paying for while the stuff is restored. Doing something that indirectly causes others aggravation is something to be avoided if possible.
The benefit gained by the gold buyer is not outweighed by the aggravation to the hacking victim.
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Post by Jaedia on Mar 12, 2010 14:21:38 GMT -5
I did, back in vanilla.. when I wanted to twink a rogue.. and had only been playing for about a month so I was a little noob and my bf at the time always did it so I thought it was a normal okay thing to do >.>
These days, I have to add, I'm thoroughly against the practise of gold buying. The more people do it, the more the gold sellers stick around. The more they stick around well.. the more hacking happens. I've had people in my old guild flaunt how rich they are because of all the gold they buy and it just makes me think, "Aren't there better things you can spend your hard earned cash on?" The fact that he was basically rubbing in how much money he had spare to waste was pretty annoying (nobody in the guild liked this guy.. he was a twat)
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Post by balthazario on Mar 12, 2010 15:00:44 GMT -5
I haven't and won't buy gold. Earning it just isn't that hard, expecially now that I've played a while. (even on new toons on new servers, it only takes a few hours to far and suchto make a nice stash)
I know someone that bought gold once,not long after they first started. (a while before I played) Neither of us thought much about it, because we didn't realize how it was "made". (I guess I had assumed it was people farming mats & stuff)
It's only been recently that I learned HOW that gold was likely made (hacking) and now I have a slightly more negative view of it.
Would I break a friendship over it? No, but I would politely explain why I think it's a bad idea.
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Post by vars on Mar 12, 2010 17:43:00 GMT -5
I don't really care if people buy gold, but if they get hacked because of it, I also won't care.
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Post by hadawako on Mar 12, 2010 20:08:15 GMT -5
I'm not a fan of gold buying, but I am surprised by the level of vitriol it arouses. Whilst Cranky is right to point out that the gold sometimes comes from hacking, it's not like anybody is dying here - at worst someone loses access to their account for a few days, while Blizzard sorts it out. In other words, it's about the same penalty as Ensidia suffered for their alleged exploits in ICC. It's unpleasant, but not the end of the world.
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K/K
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Post by K/K on Mar 13, 2010 1:11:05 GMT -5
I'm not against the practice of buying gold per se. But there is a distinct difference in practice between Blizzard offering gold purchase, and buying from a third-party. Since Blizzard does not allow for aboveboard gold purchasing, anyone buying gold is very often going to be purchasing something obtained by scamming or hacking other players. I want to play no part in encouraging those kinds of actions.
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gazimoff
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@gamergaz on Twitter
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Post by gazimoff on Mar 13, 2010 7:31:30 GMT -5
I do not support buying gold as it supports hacking accounts.
I'll see if I can run some numbers, but I have a feeling that it is becoming more lucrative to distribute keyloggers and hack accounts than it is to employ people to farm items to sell for gold. Obviously I need some figures to back this up, so I'll see what I can dig up on the subject. One telling thing was the development of the authenticator man-in-the-middle attack - if farming was more profitable the goldsellers would not have invested in developing this capability.
There's the moral aspect. By promoting the use of hacked accounts, you are encouraging the taking of gold from other players and giving it to you. Yes, they'll get what they lost back from Blizzard, but it also taints the experience of the game for them. I know several people who have turned their back on the game after being hacked, people who were as passionate about it as I am today.
There's also the legal aspect. By buying gold, you're supporting the practice of planting keyloggers on machines to harvest information. There's a whole host of laws in a multitude of countries against this sort of thing, such as the Computer Misuse Act here in the UK. By being complicit in the act of gold buying and having knowledge of where it may have come from, you may be exposing yourself legally.
So there you have it: *It's against the ToS you agree to when playing the game *It's morally unethical - it harms other players *It's in a legal grey area - you're being complicit in the breaking of laws in knowing where it might have come from.
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