Rumor mill about Thotbot, Cosmos and IGE

[DeeBye]

Wait, 10 million?

I've always told the 2 to 3 companies that email me per week that if they want to give me a million dollars, I'll happily sell them the Lounge.  Maybe I should up my price!

I'm shooting too low!  :)

-Bolty
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Dear Bolty,

We are inquiring about the availability of your domain name. We are prepared to offer you a substantial figure for the rights to "http://www.lurkerlounge.com".

Please respond if you are interested in parting with your domain.

Sincerely,
Guy Who Wants To Buy LurkerLounge.com and Turn It Into a Porn Site


The only logical response to such an inquiry is:


Dear Guy Who Wants To Buy LurkerLounge.com and Turn It Into a Porn Site,

WUG?

Sincerely,
Bolty

Personally, I wouldn't trade it for less than 12 Ists.

[Rinnhart]

The more I dig into about these IGE bastards the more I want them dead.

PK IRL, if you will.

Another subsidiary of IGE sells cheating software, or at least sanctions the sale of it.

So, not only do they violate every EULA the MMO industry has ever issued, they SELL THE SOFTWARE TO DO MORE OF IT.

Thanks, dicks, as if you weren't boning the MMO community enough.

I'm honestly begining to wonder about that rumor of organized crime ties.

[Occhidiangela]

Wait, 10 million?

I've always told the 2 to 3 companies that email me per week that if they want to give me a million dollars, I'll happily sell them the Lounge.  Maybe I should up my price!

I'm shooting too low!  :)

-Bolty
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OK, score me a rube and an anachronism.

1. I don't use Thotbott, and haven't. I do not use anything that did not come with the game. (Old Habit With me.) What I learn, I learn through my own curiosity and via forum discussions. Interesting point you make, Bolty, that your model is archaic. Funny thing, quite a few fans contributed to the official site at Blizz for DII and LoD. And, it's still got errors.

2. I am curious as to the etymology of the term Chinese Farmers. Saw it on Penny Arcade last week, and in a few links to this conversation.

3. I gather that a "Chinese Farmer" is someone who finds an exploit in a MMOG and acquires lots of gold, which he then sells on ebay or at some other auction site for real dough, just as folks used to sell EQ accounts with high level chars for cash. (A guy I worked with in CT used to do that. I never played EQ, and he did not care for Starcraft, which I was enjoying at the time. We got along fine nonetheless.)

Why a Chinese Farmer?

Occhi

[kandrathe]

Why a Chinese  Farmer?
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MySuperSales and IGE are based out of Beijing sweatshops that "hire" people to play EQ, or WOW, maybe others to farm and then sell virtual gold or items via real world dollars.

I think the reason they tend to be from there is that in most other places in the regulated world of commerce, Vivendi could exercise a cease and desist order to shut them down.

[Occhidiangela]

MySuperSales and IGE are based out of Beijing sweatshops that "hire" people to play EQ, or WOW, maybe others to farm and then sell virtual gold or items via real world dollars.

I think the reason they tend to be from there is that in most other places in the regulated world of commerce, Vivendi could exercise a cease and desist order to shut them down.
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Roger.

Occhi

[Rinnhart]

MySuperSales and IGE are based out of Beijing sweatshops that "hire" people to play EQ, or WOW, maybe others to farm and then sell virtual gold or items via real world dollars.

I think the reason they tend to be from there is that in most other places in the regulated world of commerce, Vivendi could exercise a cease and desist order to shut them down.
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Their site says Hong Kong, and Yantis (mysupersales) is supposed to be still based out of Florida. But I've heard Beijing mentioned before in regards to IGE; can you site your source?

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?artic...insight_online/

There's an interesting mention of IGE in that article about 2/3 of the way down.

[kandrathe]

Their site says Hong Kong, and Yantis (mysupersales) is supposed to be still based out of Florida. But I've heard Beijing mentioned before in regards to IGE; can you site your source?
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WHOIS: MySuperSales.COM

IGE Corporate Officers (Includes: Chief Strategic Officer: Jonathan Yantis)

I would like to give you the street address in Beijing where LOLY or the "Liu Zhi Qin Mo" are holed up, but I've not found that as yet. Much of it is from incidental conversations I've read that people have reported while trying to engage in conversations with farmers online. As I understand their business model, the actual farming is subcontracted to the sweat shops coordinated through Hong Kong. Hong Kong provides the low cost labor of telemarketing and tech support, but probably not the farmers themselves. It might be very likely that the farmers are from all over the region, and not just China. But, China makes the most sense.

Stormrage Thread on Item Farming

Jonathan Yantis Offer for AgeOfVanguard.com

[Rinnhart]

Brock Pierce

- Chief Executive Officer

Brock Pierce, an entertainment industry veteran and lifelong online computer gamer, co-founded IGE in 2001 and now serves as the parent company's Chief Executive Officer. Brock started acting at the age of 4 and appeared in numerous films including Disney's The Mighty Ducks and Mighty Ducks 2, culminating in a starring role in the Disney film First Kid in 1995. After starting an independent production company while attending USC film school, Brock co-founded an a Los Angeles-based new media entertainment company that included as investors Microsoft, Intel and NBC. Brock has been an active EverQuest player since the game's inception and was once the leader of Vallon Zek`s Tier 1 Guild.

If I was him... I wouldn't want those movies or Vallon Zek associated with me.

Their CEO is a fricken Zekker. I should have expected that.

[dwa]

This is being blown out of proportion by these sites.  As it is allakhazam.com does have a reason to smear against thottbot; the alladhazam site has advertising on all its pages for the comercial site ebgames.com.  Thottbots site has to me never had any noticeable links to a comerical site on all its pages like this.  I would not be surprised if I checked on some of those other sites that are raising a ruckus if they too did not have some sort of strong link to one or more comercial sites that are helping to sponser them.

As to the point of the data collected being used to aid some professional items formers; you too can use the site to gain the same type of information for your own personal use even if you do not have any of the thottbot tools for collecting the data set up on your game.  It is basically like an open library of information for all on the net to persue and use as they see fit.  I do not see any real boost that it can give to a 'professional farmer' that could not also be obtained by any other player that wants to persue using it in the same way.
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If by "other sites", you mean Corpnews and Grimwell, nah. Pop's too much of a jerk (and I'm deliberately holding back on more colorful, and more accurate, language here), and Grimmy's too jaded to care one way or the other. Each reflect some facet of the legacy of Lum the Mad. If news about Allakhazam also linking (or other relations to) cash for item sites, I'm sure they'll be all over this too.

I turned off the thottbot collection option as soon as it was available; I always do everything to up performance of my compy, even when it isn't really necessary. Hopefully, they aren't making money (illegally?) off my effort

[Quark]

If I was him... I wouldn't want those movies or Vallon Zek associated with me.

Their CEO is a fricken Zekker. I should have expected that.
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Hey, don't insult The Mighty Ducks! Of course, he only played young Gordon in those movies, so he doesn't count. That's what, 10 minutes and two lines combined in the two movies?