Professional Farmers

[Chesspiece_face]

You should see DAoC.
MYthic was rather clever - they get the mony themselves.

If you buy a spare "bot" account you can buff yourself and be over 2.5 times as good in combat. And you dont even have to group with the bot; it can stand sefely behind lines in a friendly fort.
[right][snapback]95986[/snapback][/right]

Both Ultima Online and Everquest 2 (not sure about EQ1 but i would assume so) offer in-house farming operations. Ultima online will automatically skill your characters up depending on how much money you send them and EQ2 allows you to buy online items goods directly from SOE for real cash.

So here's the rub. Where do you, as the player, draw the line. Is it unfair and "cheating" for people to buy in game items with real money even if it is part of the system? or only if it is designated as outside the system. And how do you specifically designate what is outside the system. With companies like SOE coopting the methods used by these farmers and Gold for Cash websites the line blurs and gives these 3rd party players much more credability. The reality is Farmers and IGE are going to stay around whether we like it or not. They make money. As much as we might talk the talk regarding a "higher" code in these games, where purchasing these goods with cash is the lowest form of play, there are obviously enough people out there buying these services to make them not only worthwhile for the 3rd parties but also the people making the games.

The reality is, no matter what blizzard says, their terms of service are not enforcible when it comes to farming etc. in any real way. They have created an international game and there are no laws which are applicable to either enforce or prosicute people that don't abide by the ToS in an international setting.

Video of Note:

State of Play III

in particular: "State of the Industry Breakfast"

Edit: these vids are really long. be warned.

The real question here isn't whether these services will become more a part of the games we play (they will) it's how the legal system will legistlate and define the terms. Ownership then becomes an issue. If these items in the games come to be defined by a generally accepted cash value then how do we define who maintains ownership of said item? does it belong to the company who owns the game? does it belong to the player that has invested 100s of hours in obtaining that item? And if it does belong to the player what happens when these games shut down their doors, as they inevitably will do (Asherons Call 2 announced recently that it will cancel their service). These questions underly this entire debate and they are not going unnoticed by any of the players in this. The way these items are answered in the next few years could have drastic consequences on not only the way we play games but also the types of games that even get made.