"Ulysses Everett McGill: Say, any of you boys smithies? Or, if not smithies per se, were you otherwise trained in the metallurgic arts before straitened circumstances forced you into a life of aimless wanderin'?"
Dear Matty:
This story is as old as Azeroth itself, but I still need your advice. When it comes to leveling professions, no one can beat me because of my many characters. When it comes to making gold, however, I am shamefully bad. I've put my professions out there with trades of skills in exchange for gold or materials, but this last time a deal went quite sour. What do you recommend a player to do to make gold and use one's professions wisely? I have had many fair, honest exchanges with players where we both end up in a win/win. But Matty, when something goes wrong, it really goes wrong. What do you think? How do you make gold or handle professions?
Signed,
Professional Priest
Dear Professional:
There have been so many times I've witnessed in Trade, (which one would think by name alone, "Trade") that would be the place to advertise one's professions, and a reasonable exchange of goods, services, and wares would take place. And yet, players will deride one another, trolling and quibbling about the prices the professionals charge for their wares. We get annoyed when others undercut our items in the Auction House, as we should, and unless there is an unwritten price-fixing agreement, the economics of Azeroth are as complicated as any nation's budget balancing. Or not, as the case may be. Add rarity, farming time, and the maddening cool-downs and chancy procs to the mix, and we are left with a confusing pile of unseen labor costs and frustration. No wonder we try to keep things fair and honest: it's too much work to add deceit and larceny to the equation.
But the thing to never, ever forget is that many players treat in-gold game as, or even more, seriously than real-world money. Aside from the fact that this scares me, it affects the relationships and psychological well-being of players. Don't think this is a real thing? The millenials have been raised on a steady diet of 'blingblingbling' noises, sucking at the teat of the gaming slot-machine lever. Is there a correlation to stories like this? Man-oh-man, that would be quite the thesis, but I'm not up to the task now.
So, you want my two-cents? Here you go (this advice is on loan from Shakespeare, who probably recycled it from someone else):
Polonius:
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,For loan oft loses both itself and friend,And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 75–77Just make your goods. Sell them on the Auction House. Use your Smartphone's remote WoW app Auction House feature. And for gods' sake, if you ever enter a deal with another player again, take screenshots.
Caveat: if you have to take screenshots of a deal, it isn't worth it.
Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money
In 2010 in South Korea, a ruling by the nation's supreme court has stated that virtual currency is the equivalent of real-world money. Then in 2012 South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism recently announced a new law that will halt virtual item trading. The ban is meant to target the use of bots that allow the automatic collection of in-game items in massively multiplayer online titles. The ministry calculated that over 60 percent of the items exchanged were collected by those bots. Users who violate this law will face up to a 50 million won fine ($43,000) and five years in jail.
ReplyDeleteBut the law is still on the books that virtual currency is still real. So in a nut shell, yes, there are those who consider in game gold “real”.
We have virtual signatures now being accepted as “real”. And really, unless you have your real money in your hands, what is in the bank or the credit union is virtual.
Just food for thought from my bizarre world of nothingness.
-roo
It is terrifying, and it's not some "future" fear -- it is now. What concerns me regarding another aspect is those who may see their status raised by status of wealth in game, meanwhile not focusing, or incapable of, real world financial stability. Yikes all 'round.
DeleteYes, that is sad of those folks who are wizards at the AH, but not in real life.
DeleteBrad Hamilton: Why don't you get a job Spicoli?
Jeff Spicoli: What for?
Brad Hamilton: You need money.
Jeff Spicoli: All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I'm fine
PS - thank you for getting rid of that yellow green background. It was actually causing me problems (colours can bring on cluster headaches)
DeleteYou are very welcome: sometimes before I go to work I mess around with stuff, let it sit, and then go "what was I thinking?" and fix it. I'll keep that in mind. That color palette was pretty gross.
DeleteThanks! Thats the reason me blog is the colors it is. Not because I am some fancy smacy artist (I'm not - I am lucky if I can draw a line that can meet it's self and look like a circle), but because the colors need to be more pastel non-garish type colors.
DeleteHow do you like the wolf pack Moon fang calls at the end of her death. LOL, that was fun. But no mount for me, just somethign to put on me helmet. I hope it is not temp.