Mass Media on Gold Farming

The International Herald Tribune, of all places, has an in-depth look at gold farming in China. From the article: "The people working in this clandestine locale are called 'gold farmers,' for every day, in 12-hour shifts, they are killing monsters and harvesting 'gold coins' and other virtual goods they can then sell to other online gamers. From Seoul to San Francisco, gamers who lack the hours or patience to work their way up to the higher levels of gamedom are hiring young Chinese to play the early rounds for them."

The best job they can get

[tansey]

My friend is an addicted WoW player and was friends with a gold farmer from a poor area of China. From what he has told me, the $20-$30 or so they make a day by gold farming is more than they could get working at a real job.

Re:An Analogy...

[Wilson_6500]

Though I can't prove it, I'd be willing to bet that someone who purchases their way to the front of the line in your analogy will also have missed the safety lecture. Not knowing to buckle his harness, the rider will fly out of the car and injure or at least seriously inconvenience other riders.

It's hard for me to believe that someone who leaps over the early stages will be as competent a party member as someone who has ground their way to the top. What is there then for the level-99 newbie to do? With whom will this noob form a party, having not made any online acquaintances on the way up? How will he ever learn when he's constantly kicked out of groups for getting people killed? Even if he's an FFXI veteran, will that do him any good in WoW? As much as I hate to say it, the player is depriving themselves of the chance to develop the "skills" needed for an MMO, and won't have had that long, long, long period of time in which to find other players with similar interests.

I can understand wanting to subvert the underhanded treadmill design scheme, that stretching of level-gains and money by which designers milk every last play hour from MMO gamers. This really highlights a massive problem with the massively multiplayer game scheme: people are willing to pay real money to start at a different point in the game. Either grind away and hope the game starts getting fun after level 60 or so, or jump stright into the mess and start searching for something interesting left to do.

(I have lots of problems with MMOs that I shouldn't go into right now, but will anyhow. I think that any item that becomes recognized by the community as "uber" should suddenly randomize its appearance each time it spawns, so gamers can't just go hunting and hunting (or shopping and shopping) for the "Super Yellow Sword of the Graveyard Fist" so they can get their damage potential up by that extra .002 dps. This'd at least make player equipment have a little more variety, and mabye this effect could trickle down so that every level 11 Fighter isn't wearing Scale Mail. Frankly, I think a game should encourage a player to make do with what they have or can get their hands upon without Herculean effort--like the old D&D spirit of using role-playing and cleverness (_player_ characteristics) to overcome deficiencies in a _character's_ skills and attributes. MMOs that I've seen boil down to getting numbers up high in order to play the game the "right" way. Unless I have an understanding group of friends, I'll have to spend fifteen hours getting a marginally (or perhaps even significantly) better sword/spell so that a group of gamer-gunners can kill stuff ever-so-slightly faster. What if I _LIKE_ how my character looks in the "Rusty Leather Armor of the Ninja Puppy School," even though all the other Iron Chefs are using "Superb Hot Pants of the Damned" and I'm obviously a fool and a n00b for not following the herd?)