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Full Version: Shadenfraude and MMO Farming in Recluse's Victory
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So I logged on with Cyberman 8 and nobody else from the group was on server. So I decided to head to Recluse's Victory. The high level PVP Zone. I was looking forward to giving this a go since I had gotten Focussed Accuracy as a power. I already had good perception, and figured this would make me far less of an easy Stalker Kill. I've actually been right so far. They -can- still kill me. But they really have to -work- for it now. I can see them coming with much greater reliability.
Not what I was going to talk about actually, but just to give you an idea of what drew me there. I wanted to see if any teams were going, see if we could take down some AVs, maybe get some badges. But a big part of it boils down to "FINALLY I have a fair chance against the blasted Stalkers! Let's see how this works!"
So I'm in there zooming around looking for anything interesting to do. I see a Brute taking down some Longbow. Hmm... Tough, but maybe if I pop elude at the right time I could make a go of this. I engaged him...
He runs.
Bwah?
Understand, now, that a Brute in the hands of a competent player just should not NEED to run. They, like Tankers, are the epitome of toe-to-toe combat. This is confusing and irritating behavior.
So I put him on "follow" and give chase. He will NOT fight me.
But he does keep going back to those Longbow guys and keeps trying to kill them. I stopped to watch him for a bit. Asked someone else what the deal was.
"Oh him? He's one of those Chinese farmers. He's farming infamy and salvage."
Oh really...? (slow burn begins)
I'm well acquainted with Farmers in WoW and the jacked up prices in the auction houses.
But more importantly, I'm all of a sudden INCENSED about this. Combination of tiredness. A sore throat, and simply the idea that what was once a game seemingly largely free from all of the "economy crap". Plus the idea that the only reason this guy is a Brute is not because it's the best way for this guy to PVP, but the best PROTECTION that a farmer could get in this zone. He could pound me into paste with the right combination of moves, but he runs because he is more interested in milking the system then fighting.
Oh it is SO on! I'm dogging this guy mercilessly.
I figure out quickly that going toe to toe isn't going to be the best option under normal circumstances. Everytime I engage he runs. And if he can't get rid of me (and he CAN'T, because Cyberman 8 is LITERALLY the fastest thing in that Zone!) he'll look for a group of high end NPCs to sit in so they'll do his dirty work for him. This just makes me madder.
I also figure out that he wants to snag the Arachnos Heavy Bots because it's the only real way he can effectively "bot farm" the system.
I can't consistently throw down with him because he'll move into NPCs or just keep running.
But I CAN make it devilishly hard for him to snag a heavy. Because it's like any other "glowie" click. If you get hit while doing it, it interrupts you and you have to start over.
And I can even keep him from effectively using one even if he does have it by dogging it instead of him. If I pop elude, I can bash on the thing and neither the Bot or him can hit me while I take it to pieces.
So I'm on him like glue. I even stop fighting him. Just standing there in his face, daring him to do something if he stops in any location. "C'mon big guy! Take a shot!" If he moves, I'm with him. If he goes for a heavy, I'm there to short circuit his plans.
He never said one word to anyone. I don't know if he even knew English or not. Nobody on hero or villain side saw him type anything.
This proceeds for a couple of hours. Yes. I said HOURS. He was very persistent. But I was not to be denied. I even got people on both Hero and Villain sides to help out. Villains would take Heavies so that he couldn't take them. Or report when he was AFKing in the base waiting for me to leave. He finally decided to leave in the middle of the zone while he was over by the tram by using the Base or Pocket D transporter and we denied him even that! He had to leave by scurrying at top speed to the villain base with me hot on his heels all the way until I had to pull up short before getting "droned". I watched him leave and checked that he was gone for real by checking the /whoall command. I didn't see him again in any case.
I think I may have put a rather noticeable dent in his quota for the evening. Two whole hours and he didn't get crap done. I spent another hour doing the same thing to a "pal" of his who who showed up doing the same thing. This one was actually kinda feisty and would fight me. But ultimately he wanted me gone so he could go back to farming and I wouldn't let him. He finally ran as well.
Thing is... I actually had a -fun- time doing this. I am not by nature a bully, but the thought of a couple of guys in some sweatshop in Asia somewhere swearing at their monitors...
Well. I have to admit it filled me with positively SAVAGE glee.
This worries me just a bit. I'm wondering if I was being an utterly COLOSSAL prick about this? Or am I on the side of the angels?
Mind you, this isn't something I would do on any consistent basis. I've usually got -much- better things I can do with my time. This is not something I really want to commit to.
But if I go back there and see them or someone like them again under similar circumstances? Oh yeah... "No farming for YOU tonight!"
-Logan
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"Wake up! Time for SCIENCE!"
-Adam Savage
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While I can't say I actually feel any antipathy for the poor sod stuck in the sweatshop, I am without a doubt all in favor of sticking one to his bosses' bottom line. After all, their pricejacking is making my life hard, so a simple pound of flesh is satisfying.
Therefore.
This? Funniest thing all week.
Feel proud, my friend, feel proud.

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"Reseeestunce ees fiutil. Yoo weeel bee Useemooletud. Borg Borg Borg."
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

Kokuten

this is a black hat action, but it's the "friendly lovable" black hat, like ALF or Al Bundy, so it's cool.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
Maybe if we can reliably identify these guys -- and it certainly sounds like the behavior is a giveaway -- we can try to make it economically unfeasable. I've gotten a few spams in game, both as /t's and emails, and it incenses me, too. I want to make things as hard on the guys trying to profit off this as I can.
Maybe we can make hunting the farmers a regular joint Legendary/Infamous social event... -- Bob
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One of the primary differences between the Left and the Right is their attitude toward the Future. The Radical wants the Future to have gotten here yesterday. The Reactionary wants the Future quietly shot and the corpse buried where no one can find it.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Seeing as this is probably the only reliable methodology we have to push back against those who would game the system (make it non-profitable) I whole heartily support this idea.
If someone spots a farmer I will happily switch to Frenetic/Clank to help lay on the hurt.
-Terry
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who has discovered that mexican water is superior to his intestinal tract.-Terry
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"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupery
"Luge strategy? Lie flat and try not to die." - Carmen Boyle (Olympic Luge Gold Medal winner - 1996)
Mary Sue's theme music
-Terry
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"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
While I don't have much in the way of high-level characters, I would still be glad enough to help in any way I can.--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!

--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

khagler

I don't like PvP myself, so if one of my characters needed to venture into a PvP zone for some reason I would react pretty much the same way. Although I would give up and go do door missions as soon as I realized that someone was harassing me specifically, and not stick around like the Brute in this story.
But then, I also don't share the obsessive hatred of Chinese people that so many online RPG players demonstrate...
I don't think it's specifically CHINESE people that are being hated... it's the "farming" in itself. I'm sure there are folks trying to do it here in the States if they can get away with it.
That is, they're hating on someone who isn't there to "play" but to work by pretending to be playing.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll
That's precisely it. There's no racial animosity there. I even recoil a bit with the blanket condemnation of China as the sole source of this activity. They have a big chunk of it, to be sure, but there are major farming operations in Indonesia and Mexico as well.
That's what I found on a cursory check of news articles through Google on the topic.
It's also why I was ever so slightly worried about my actions. It's not the actual schlubs who're actually playing the character that I have real animosity for, just their employers.
The whole "lets turn a game into a cash cow" thing is what gets up my backside. Anything I can do to hamper that activity is a good thing, I'm pretty sure now. Just don't hate on the actual guy doing it. He's in a hell of a fix. What I'm HOPING is that an exchange like the following took place -
"Boss! They're doing it again! I can't make any headway here!"
"*Sigh*... alright. Get out of there and move over to the WoW machines for the rest of your shift."
-Logan
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"Wake up! Time for SCIENCE!"
-Adam Savage
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khagler

Quote:
That is, they're hating on someone who isn't there to "play" but to work by pretending to be playing.
Sure, I've heard that kind of reasoning before. But to me, some guy who gets paid to spend all of his time playing a game is not somehow morally inferior to some 13 year old kid who spends all his time playing the game because he doesn't have a job or a life.
Disclaimer: Years ago I worked in QA for a game company, and did get paid to play the company's games all day. While I still don't consider myself to have been inferior to someone who did it for fun, you can be certain that I never want to see Diablo again for as long as I live. ;-)
I had a really long response to this written, and then accdentally hit the back button and it all went away.
Maybe later I'll reconstruct it, but now I'm feeling too irritable about the whole thing. (Dammit, didn't I once have a web browser that would *keep* the stuff in form fields when you did that?)
Anyway, the summary is that in my experience, when people sell game currency for real money, it tends to make the game worse for everyone else playing the game, and can have significant long-term destructive impact.
Which to me *does* make the person getting paid to play morally inferior, because they're the one making other people's lives worse.
-Morgan."Mikuru-chan molested me! I'm... so happy!"
-Haruhi, "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
---(Not really)
My gripe is not that they're making a profit, it's that they're making a profit off of OUR efforts to play and enjoy the game, and the negative effect that has on play for everyone else.--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!

--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
I'd just like to point out, these guys are not playing it the way that a paid playtester plays it. These guys are working in a sweatshop environment, running scripts to automate characters, sometimes with multiple client instances at the same time.
They do serious damage to a game's virtual economy.
The less work they get done, the better it is for the community.- Grumpy Uncle Gearhead
- Grumpy Uncle Gearhead
Yeah, that was pretty much what I was going into excessive detail about in the post I lost. '.'
(There's all *sorts* of unpleasant things that have happened in FFXI as a result of this sort of thing...)
-Morgan, wonders if it's worth reconstructing that rant. '.'"Mikuru-chan molested me! I'm... so happy!"
-Haruhi, "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
---(Not really)