Summer Halfway Over

Summer is nearly gone... and all is well. Most of my students are kicking butt and doing great jobs. Mom and Larry came up to visit one weekend and we had a good time with them. :) We took them over to Oxford to go "antiquing" and had fun spending time with them. Elvis is coming to Albany next weekend with his wife and baby. We're REALLY looking forward to going down to see them! I miss Elvis somethin' awful.

That reminds me,... I'm no longer playing Bullox to the extent I used to. Once I got the warrior to 60 it seemed like all that was left was raiding and pvp. Well for raiding he kicked butt, but for pvp he absolutely sucked. Warriors to me anyway, are not fun in pvp. We charge in, AE fear, kill 1 person (maybe 2) then die. I watched Kotori in AV BG at level 54 and she kicks ass. She can DoT like mad, kick back, get mana, and do it over again and only die every now and then. On top of that she can heal people that are hurt. It seems like contributes FAR more to pvp than a Warrior ever could.

For that reason I made a new character. But then because I miss my friends so much (eg Elvis as mentioned above) I figured, "wait a minute! Why make new characters on this server when I can make one on Elvis' server and torture him daily?!?" So voila! My new character is a hunter on Icecrown. Sure sure, I still have Bullox the 60 tank, Andirak the 39 warlock, and others on Proudmoore, and sure I still have Itzded on skywall, but my favorite so far is Swiftangel the 30 Hunter Night Elf on Icecrown. I'll have to get a pic of her up here soon. Yes, I said "her." No, that does NOT mean I'm gay. Just ask my wife and she can verify I'm not. =Þ I just thought she looked cooler than a Night Elf male. You've gotta like the way your character looks or they're no fun to play.

This reminds me, speaking of playing,... a lot of articles of late, and a lot of the talk in-game lately is about Chinese Farmers. No, I am not talking about the Asian Carrott-Grower's Association. By "farming" I mean the continual gathering of in-game resources. It has become a large problem recently. There are a lot of people in China being paid to 'farm' items and cash in these games like WoW and EQ, etc., and then the items and cash are sold via Internet sites for cash - U.S.A. cash.

What's wrong with this? Game-makers believe this to be illegal because in their EULA (Electronic User's License Agreement) that each player has to acknowlege and agree to in order to play the games, it states that in-game property may not be sold for real world profit. EverQuest (EQ by Sony Online Entertainment) finally gave up on this and is allowing it. But several other games like World of Warcraft are up in arms against this idea, stating that it ruins game economy.

I think it partly ruins the game for honest (Notice my terminology there? Isn't that interesting?) players due to the fact that it makes it harder to gather those resources. For example,... my warrior is a miner. One very common way that chinese farmers make cash is to mine all the Thorium ore (and the gems that come out of thorium veins) in the world then sell it for cash. The gems in Thorium veins are very rare and EVERYbody wants them because they're used in a plethora of tradeskills and quests. The only way to get them is either by 1) mining thorium (OOPS! All the Thorium is gone due to Chinese farmers that comb areas all day long looking for the veins and snatching them as soon as they pop-up!) or 2) Buy them from the monopoly the farmers have on the market for unreasonable prices.

I say unreasonable because I think it is true. Let me give you an example. My warrior mines but he is also a Blacksmith, able to make swords. He has some smithing plans to make a very nice sword, one that he could use, but he can't make it because I don't think he'd EVER find enough gems to be able to make one for himself, much less make them for other people who want one. Why? The sword requires 8 of one gem that costs around 14 gold each and 15 of another gem that costs an average of 34 gold each. Other items are also needed, and to buy everything off the auction house would run around 850 gold. That's 850 dollars for a sword that shouldn't cost more than ZERO dollars IF I had a chance at mining the gems I needed. Farmers are ruining the game for me. I became a Master Swordsmith so I could make great weapons for people. Now I can't afford to make them. Therefore, I will never do Blacksmithing again, and therefore I feel that between this problem and the pvp inadequacy (remember my pvp discussion above?) render my Warrior useless. Bye Bye Level 60 Warrior. Thanks a lot Blizzard for not figuring out a way around those problems. =Þ

Yay for my Hunter !!! Alchemy and Herbalism here I come! Okay, now that that is off my chest, I need a rum & coke.

Anyway, wouldn't it be interesting to research this "Chinese Farmer" phenomenon? I find it pretty fascinating despite my ill will toward their success. I often go out of my way to ruin business for them in-game. I'll see some idiot spamming a sale in the auction channel. I figure either he/she is 12, is a complete moron, or is a farmer trying to make desparate cash since they have daily quotas to meet or they're fired. I will send them /tells (direct one-on-one messages) asking for them to mail me the item C.O.D. - C.O.D. items remain in your mailbox 30 days before returning to the sender if the receiving end doesn't pay for them. Then I just let the items sit there. Another way I do it is that once I find out a farmer's name, I write it down, then I go bid on the items they have for sale in the auction house. I know that they have separate accounts allowing them to outbid people and jack up their prices, so I only bid once or twice on their items, let them outbid me, then I leave. I hope they have to buy their own items and pay the costs to post the items again! HA!

This makes me wonder if other people do the same things. I wonder if other people hate them ruining our economy and tradeskills system as much as I do. I wonder if people hate those who violate the rules and thusly make the game less fun for others like I do. I wonder a lot..... then I end up at a conclusion sometimes ... sometimes.