[X] My Assistant

[Kanada Ten]

Actually, I'd let you sue if someone else wrote a poem called "The" with the subject of "The" spaced how you spaced it. Of course, you could only sue for the value of the poem, which is 0.

[Kagetenshi]

There, you have discovered how one-word poems become copyrighted—it isn't the word.

A word is not copyrightable. A work that consists of one word with one particular layout may be.

~J

[hyzmarca]

[ShadowDragon8685]

Two ways to "solve" gold-farming.
Here's my favorite: Make every common item on the game server ridiculously cheap, to the point that any n00b can own one within an hour's work, and make every "super duper deluxe special item" a piece of junk with a very marginal boost in power over the super-cheap version, and ten times more expensive. This way those things become the "sunday best" gear that a n00b will wear out to strut, and you can tell that if someone is walkign around decked out in nothing but the super-duper 1337 "deluxe" version is either an ancient player, or a schmucktard who paid IRL cash.

This will never happen, because the next "super-duper deluxe!" that keeps coming ouit is what keeps the non-roleplayers coming back for more.

The other option is to flat-out undercut the gold farmers officially. This again does not solve the problem of your IRL cash being leveraged to get you an in-game benefit. This would be tatamount to paying Valve USD$100 for a "legal" wall-hack that Valve Anti-Cheat ignored.

[Calvin Hobbes]

One game that I saw handle farming very well is the Matrix Online game. There, agents show up and kick your ass if you're doing the same mission for very long, and anyone can perform modifications to items/item creation, devaluing the value of equipment, although I suppose inflation's always going to be an issue.

[Voran]

I suppose they could do something like Morrowind/Elder scrolls 3/4. You can wear anything you want, any time you want, but if your skill level isn't high enough you don't get the full benefits from the gear.

[James McMurray]

Coincidentally enough I just noticed that one of the advertisements circulated through at the top of the page is $1.50 for 1,000 platinum pieces in D&D Online. I guess we know the Dumpshock Official Stand on gold farming. :)

[Kagetenshi]

Google official stance, actually.

~J

[ShadowDragon8685]

Google's official stance is "They pay us the ca$h-monie$, so until someone tells us it's illeagal, we put their ads up"

[James McMurray]

For a second tehre I thought you were telling me to google for the phrase "official stance."

[Platinum]

Just click on the adds at the top of the page ... and cost those gold farming slimbags some coin.

[Taran]

Actually, Google will remove specific ads from a given site if asked.

[Wounded Ronin]

[hyzmarca]

I have mixed feelings about google's human rights policies. On one hand, Google China is censored to PRC standards. On the other hand, Google has fought requests for information by the United States government and the main Google site is available Chinese uncensored.

Personally, I like that they sold adspace to disreputable internet pharmacies who give perscriptions to anyone with the coin to pay. I like that they sell ads to goldfarmers. I like that they are generally unscrupulous because I like the basic concept of lacking and and all ethical and moral standards while being legally savy enough to cover your ass.

That is why I watch Boston legal after all, to see lawyers who shoot people and get away with it, to see lawyers who cut off preists' fingers and get away with to, to see lawers who say "you should commit a crime but I can't advise you to do that because I'm a lawyer" and get away with it because they cover their own asses.

Now, part of me sees Google China as a way for Google to cover their own asses in China while subverting censorship by still providing the real service to anyone savy enough to get around government filters in the first place.

From this point of view, Google isn't immoral enough. They need to hire Shadowrunners to kil some people for them if they haven't already.


Of course, it is possible that I'm misreading Google's stance on China and they really do buy into the censorship BS.