 Un-Shadow-ee Players, Warning: Long |
  |
 May 1 2006, 11:03 AM
Post
#101
|
|||
|
Free Spirit  Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 3,948 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Bloomington, IN UCAS Member No.: 1,920  |
I thought it all stemmed from item farming and selling items and characters for actual real life cash. If your friend stole all your LARP gear or paintball equipment or gaming library, how would you feel? Edpecially if it was worth what the average person makes in a year? |
||
 |
 
|
||
|
May 1 2006, 11:41 AM
Post
#102
|
|||
|
Target Group: Members Posts: 7 Joined: 1-May 06 Member No.: 8,515 |
I think a good option to show the players how deadly and dangerous the world can be is to set up a run where the players are not alone, a situation where the players are supported by a few strong npc's. And then let those strong npc's die . Do not cheat or let an army of con guards appear out of the nowhere, just a "normal" firefight . Guards don't need to act stupid , for example they could concentrate theire fire on one runner at a time to kill one after the other , or use granades, retreat and call for reinforcement etc. . Either the players become more carefull or ...... |
||
|
|
|
||
|
May 1 2006, 02:55 PM
Post
#103
|
|||||
|
Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
I'd be really pissed, but that's something real. Sure, if gold farming is your job and someone steals from you, that's real. But I doubt the beatings and murders were all because some gold farmer got ganked by a random group of opposing players. They were probably mostly from some punk getting pissed at some other punk for pissing on their fun and deciding to take the redneck route. |
||||
|
|
|
||||
|
May 1 2006, 03:03 PM
Post
#104
|
|
|
Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
Nonwithstanding the fact that gold farming ruins the game for everybody who is not A: a gold farmer, or B: a gold farmer's customers, and all gold farmers need to be taken out back and beaten within an inch of their lives...
Bitter? Moi? Maybe. But really, you'd be pissed off if one of the other players was selling nuyen for IRL dollars to the other players. |
|
|
|
|
May 1 2006, 03:06 PM
Post
#105
|
|||
|
Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
Nah. I'd wonder why I didn't think of it first. :) |
||
|
|
|
||
|
May 1 2006, 03:12 PM
Post
#106
|
|
|
Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
Mercenary!
Seriously, gold farming ruins MMOs. On top of the monthly fee to play, if you want to compete with those who do bisuness with the gold farmers, you have to pay more to some asshat in china so the guy who's running the gold farming sweatshop gets a load of money, and the bastard who just cussed you out gets a pittance. |
|
|
|
|
May 1 2006, 08:19 PM
Post
#107
|
|
|
Beetle Eater Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 4,797 Joined: 3-June 02 From: Oblivion City Member No.: 2,826 |
Gold farming ruins MMOs because they resist it. The game makers could end it all by selling gold themselves since they will always be able to undercut the market. However, gold farmers and power levelers are actually a large chunk of the service, so no, they don't ruin it; they make it affordable / profitable to run the servers.
|
|
|
|
|
May 2 2006, 12:30 AM
Post
#108
|
|
|
Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
We're already paying to play the game twice at the least, sometimes many more times. We don't need to pay three times.
Let's see... Pay 40-60 dollars for the box, 80 if you get the collector's edition... Pay between 10 and fifteen USD a month to play. Heads up folks, that comes up to 120-180 USD a year. Not much for a year, but that's also a hefty library of Shadowrun books you could have purchased... Not to mention any expansion boxes, which cost 30 dollars to buy, on average. And on top of that, we should pay the game makers another 200 dollars to get the 200,000 gold we need to compete with that rich ass-tard who calls everybody a newb, even though the only reason he can win in fights is because his daddy gave him an unlimited creditcard which he has used to buy uber-gear? |
|
|
|
|
May 2 2006, 12:34 AM
Post
#109
|
|
|
Beetle Eater Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 4,797 Joined: 3-June 02 From: Oblivion City Member No.: 2,826 |
Why not? It's just like a CCG, then. With the added ability to actually grind your way there.
Besides, there are games that max level and items in PvP (Guild Wars, for example). |
|
|
|
|
May 2 2006, 12:38 AM
Post
#110
|
|
|
Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
Maxleveling is the worst and most horrific mechanic to restrict munchkinism that I can think of.
"Oh, I can't wear this helmet. What? Just put it on my head? Duuuuude! I can't just put it on my head! I'm only level twelve, and I has to be level fifteen to wear it! What? Won't it fit on my head? Sure it'll fit on my head! Put it on? I just told you, I can't doooo that, duuude!" And it rarely prevents abuses anyway, because then they'll just switch to selling accounts. |
|
|
|
|
May 2 2006, 12:49 AM
Post
#111
|
|
|
Beetle Eater Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 4,797 Joined: 3-June 02 From: Oblivion City Member No.: 2,826 |
Selling accounts /is/ fair. I'm not sure what you issue really is here. What does it matter if the person you're opposing has something because the earned it in game, or earned it out of game? Some mystical "that's not fair" tantrum?
|
|
|
|
|
May 2 2006, 01:38 AM
Post
#112
|
|||
|
Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
Or you could just ignore the guy. |
||
|
|
|
||
|
May 2 2006, 01:51 AM
Post
#113
|
|||
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,008 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
You mean, aside from being against the TOS? Characters and their virtual possessions are not your property. If they were, you'd be taxed on them. ~J |
||
|
|
|
||
|
May 2 2006, 01:54 AM
Post
#114
|
|
|
Beetle Eater Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 4,797 Joined: 3-June 02 From: Oblivion City Member No.: 2,826 |
The intellectual properties of the password and userID do belong to you, and you should be taxed when you sell them. You're taxed when you buy them, after all.
|
|
|
|
|
May 2 2006, 02:02 AM
Post
#115
|
|
|
Target Group: Members Posts: 72 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Oak Ridge, TN, CAS Member No.: 407 |
I love the explainations that people have to deny the obvious.
The truth is, I never got into MMORPG gaming because I don't see the point of a game I have to keep buying. Yet, some people deny this fact by saying "no, you're just buying the game once, then paying for server time! Yeah! That's it!" Since I can't play the game without being online, that kinda means that I have to keep paying for it, right? All the while, I could be using that cash to feed my paper/pencil/dice habi-er, hobby, which actually requires me to think. As opposed to an MMORPG, which is brain-rot in comparison... |
|
|
|
|
May 2 2006, 02:24 AM
Post
#116
|
|||||
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,008 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
No, they don't—not unless they're unique enough to be covered under copyright or if you've applied for and been granted a trademark (hopefully on the username rather than the password). Moreover, the accounts and data on the server are not your property, they are provided as a service.
You don't have to keep paying! You can stop paying and fully enjoy the entire capabilities of the client when disconnected from the server. ~J |
||||
|
|
|
||||
|
May 2 2006, 02:30 AM
Post
#117
|
|||||
|
Beetle Eater Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 4,797 Joined: 3-June 02 From: Oblivion City Member No.: 2,826 |
That doesn't require a very odd username, you know. And since many services use email address, the issue of ownership is even more bizarre. I don't really care what these backwards providers think; the whole thing could be dealt with like lease transfers, but their too stupid to see that we've finally succeeded in the ultimate dream of video gamers: you can make a living playing video games. To try and stifle it only drives it underground - just like drugs and prostitution! It's like they never learn! |
||||
|
|
|
||||
|
May 2 2006, 02:30 AM
Post
#118
|
|
|
Target Group: Members Posts: 72 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Oak Ridge, TN, CAS Member No.: 407 |
On the flip-side, there's always the prospect of a good ol' MUD. No flashy graphics, but (depending on the one you find) the playerbase will actually be more fun to hang around with (In Dragon Swords, we used to join up into 20+ player groups and go 'round slaughtering MOBiles.), and you never have to worry about people H4XX0|2ing the system/buying their way into higher equipment.
Plus, they're all utterly FREE (except for ValhallaMUD. Talk about defeating the purpose...) |
|
|
|
|
May 2 2006, 02:43 AM
Post
#119
|
|
|
Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
Money only matters if it can be used to buy things that mater. The best way to avoid powergaming through gold farming is to properly balance items so that the most expensive items are no more powerful than their cheapest counterparts.
|
|
|
|
|
May 2 2006, 03:07 AM
Post
#120
|
|||||||
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,008 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
From United States Copyright Office: Copyright Basics, "What is not protected by copyright?" "Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans[…]" It would require a very odd username to fall outside of that category. ~J |
||||||
|
|
|
||||||
|
May 2 2006, 03:15 AM
Post
#121
|
|||||
|
Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 6,640 Joined: 6-June 04 Member No.: 6,383 |
Exactly, exactly. The online environment is artificial because it lets people act up in ways that they'd be too afraid/pathetic to do so in real life. When you're playing a FPS at 2 AM and all of a sudden two people start bitching each other out over the chat channel for 15 minutes accusing each other of cheating, I have to believe they're either 12 year olds or have the mental maturity of 12 year olds. Now in real life, at a bar or something, those people would get their much-deserved STFU and savage beatdown cum humiliation. But online they feel more comfortable mouthing off, so it has a sick cosmic humor when even though they *feel* more comfortable mouthing off sometimes they aren't necessarily any safer. |
||||
|
|
|
||||
|
May 2 2006, 03:23 AM
Post
#122
|
|||
|
Beetle Eater Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 4,797 Joined: 3-June 02 From: Oblivion City Member No.: 2,826 |
So they belong to no one? I'm not sure that prevents you from selling it. I mean, can you make people pay you to tell them a secret? I'm thinking so... Sure, it may violate TOS, but again, that's provider enforced, not legal... I would call BS on the US government since poems are sometimes one word, but it just doesn't matter. |
||
|
|
|
||
|
May 2 2006, 03:45 AM
Post
#123
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,008 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Given that the US Government decides what is copyrightable within the US (input from the Berne convention aside), it does indeed not matter if you call BS on the government.
As for TOS, it is indeed not a legal matter. Fraud, on the other hand, is—if you sell someone your username and password, you're in the clear (and the account will be cancelled as soon as it is determined that the original licensee is no longer the individual using it, as is their legal prerogative). On the other hand, if you claim to sell them your character and their virtual possessions—something you do not own—you have fraudulently misrepresented your legal rights over the items in question and their transferability. ~J |
|
|
|
|
May 2 2006, 03:50 AM
Post
#124
|
|
|
Beetle Eater Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 4,797 Joined: 3-June 02 From: Oblivion City Member No.: 2,826 |
Well, the courts actually make the ruling on the holder of the intellectual property, but again, it doesn't matter here. I'd love to see them arrest some chinese kid on the charge of for selling his "character". "What? No, I was selling my character; you know, my ethics."
Like I said, backwards services. |
|
|
|
|
May 2 2006, 03:55 AM
Post
#125
|
|
|
Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
----------
"The" : A poem The ---------- Great, now I've copyrighted "The". Everytime someone uses "The" in a sentence they have to pay me $50 US. That's why you can't copyright words and phrases. TOS is a contract and violating a contract is a tort (assuming that the contract is legal on its face). Of course, as contracts go TOS is slightly less enforceable than a same-sex marriage certificate written in invisible ink on wet toiler paper. But they could try. |
|
|
|
|
|
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 1st February 2025 - 06:22 AM |
Topps, Inc has sole ownership of the names, logo, artwork, marks, photographs, sounds, audio, video and/or any proprietary material used in connection with the game Shadowrun. Topps, Inc has granted permission to the Dumpshock Forums to use such names, logos, artwork, marks and/or any proprietary materials for promotional and informational purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not affiliated with the Dumpshock Forums in any official capacity whatsoever.