Reality Bites MMORPG
March 20, 2005 (4 Responses)
I’m not a fan of MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games). I am however a fan of online gaming, but there is a clean line here to be observed, that being reality vs online. Unfortunately for role players, this line has been blurred a lot (to say the least), but the most recent development in this area really bites. A recent article in the PCGAMER magazine (April 2005 issue) points to a disturbing trend in MMO games where in-game players are being duped into divulging sensitive information by professional in-game currency traders who factory farm games.
Most online gamers play for different reasons, usually it’s the draw of competing and defeating real thinking individuals rather than just another AI driven game against your computer. For some it’s the team work that draws them in. Let’s face it, when a team works together, it really can turn just another game or map or level, into something special. However there are others who seem to be drawn to the RPG world, and online this means the MMORPG world of elves, dwarves, warriors, maidens in distress, quests etc.
The concept, from a marketing perspective is elementary and runs something like this – get people to purchase a game which can only be played online, where they then (as in-game characters) have to earn skills and experience points in order to advance in the game and get even more skills and experience to enable even more quests etc etc (you can see the pattern); the catch is that having purchased the game in the first place, these poor sods now need to pay a monthly fee to enable them to ‘exist’ within the online reality created by the game. This is how the money is made. It’s a straight forward trade off; More money = more time in game = more opportunities to promote and elevate your in-game character and rub everyone elses faces in it!
The problem is that thus far some kids have been sucked into these MMORPG worlds, where they retreat online away from reality and get lost in an expensive, addictive online habbit. Think heroin without the needles but with some of the side effects (sleep deprevation, uncommunicative, bouts of depression etc.). In extreme cases people play through the night on these games and then miss school, work etc. in the real world due to exhaustion – all for the possibility of in-game rewards, which (because it’s a game) are in fact completely virtual.
A trend then evolved where some enterprising souls would learn where all the goodies existed in the game, or develope characters powers and skills to a certain level only to then (and this is where reality starts to bite!) sell them on ebay.com for real money to other potential gamers who didn’t have the time or skills to develop their own characters in the MMORPG world. This trend continued over a few years until now the next evolution has taken place, now the farmers have moved in to take over these MMORPG worlds and make REAL MONEY out of it in the process.
A recent article in the PCGAMER magazine (April 2005 issue) points to a disturbing trend in MMO games where in-game players are being duped into divulging sensitive information by professional in-game currency traders who factory farm games. These ‘farmers’ create in-game characters not for pleasure, but for profit. Any in-game object they come into contact with can be sold for real world money. This includes in-game gold; players of almost any MMO game can visit currency traders websites and order up 100 in-game gold for $40 hard cash, saving themselves the effort of playing the game to achieve the same result.
Such activities are forbidden by the usual End User Licence Agreements (EULAs) from the various developers, however no developer has yet challenged these ‘farmers’. The situation has grown to epidemic proportions now and the rumours are that the industry will have to deal with it or risk a downward slide in profits from online subscriptions.
So – reality bites MMORPG players as they scurry into their online existances only to have some savvy profiteers force them back out into the real world to purchase imaginary items for hard cash, in order to advance their online existance. It’s a crazy world we live in at the best of times, but I really do not understand the lure of these MMO games. I know some fairly smart and intelligent people who play these games, and spend endless hours working toward some in-game goals, but I really don’t see the attraction.
Give me a good team based shooter any day – at least I can drop in to and out of such games at any stage 
Hm. Yep. I used to enjoy them. Played a few of the a-typical and all ‘very-similar’ to ‘practically-identical’ style MMORPGs. But, in the end, you’re really just doing the same thing over and over and over again. What drew me into them was, believe it or not, the team play element of it. I’ve always enjoyed co-op type games and playing an MMORPG is kind of like playing a Co-Op game (except, not as story rich). Having said that, I’ve never stuck around more than maybe two months at the most. It gets dull very quickly the entire game can essentially be explained like this:
Get a quest, kill X amount of Y for said quest, level after Z amount of quests/kills. Start over.
Doing that over and over and over again is to me akin to working in a call-centre on the phones having to say the same line over and over and over again and eventually I’m going to end up throwing my mouse in the corner and calling it a day. Which I’ve done several times (thank god for resiliant mice).
Planetside however drew me in for the same reason any online TEAMBASED shooter would. It seemed to be the holy-grail of TRIBES fans and it was fun for a while. But every game gets boring at some stage and so did this.
I have to agree though, I’m completely content playing games online for free (original shop purchase not including) and I also have to agree that MMORPGs are taking a very bizarre turn for the worse.
Examples: Everquest 2 now has an option whereby you can order Pizza to your house from within the game. I’m sure they’ll soon come up with a way to deliver it to your sweat-encrusted chair and maybe even feed it to you so you don’t waste any time with anything other than playing EQ2.
This guy in a america bought World of Warcraft when it was released. He now wakes up 2 hours earlier than before just to play WoW before he has to go to work. His lunchbreak he spends at home playing the game and when he gets back to work, he spends the rest of the time reading forums and websites about WoW. Then he gets back home and plays it again until the early hours of the morning. Now as if this wasn’t bad enough; a lot of the World of Warcraft servers are so overloaded that they haev queues for people to join! You could be sitting in a queue for up to an hour (or maybe even more) to play a game you’re paying a monthly fee to play…and people take it!!
I much preferred MUDs and MOOs [text-based MMORPGs] because they are generally free, and sometimes very good. Dune was my favourite one–based [loosely] on the world created by Frank Herbert and extended by his son–because of the clan-based narrative, and the team-based combat systems in place.
But, alas, it did get boring after a while. You have to spend so much time doing tedius, annoying “work” for only virtual gain. So I eventually stopped going. Then again, I don’t exactly have time to play any computer games any more, and when I do they’re single-player simulations more than anything else.
As for your graphic MMORPGs, well, I don’t think I could ever justify to myself the cost of buying the game and then paying monthly fees just to be able to play it. By the way, people would tend to play the game more based on a monthly subscription than a once-off fee because they want to get as much “value for money” as possible. How some people convince themselves to use real money to buy virtual possessions though, is beyond me.
I guess natural selection will breed this sort of people out of society eventually … you can’t make babies [and no woman would touch you] if you spend all of your time pretending to be Fehrin the Elven Priestess.
[...] abbreviated SMS and text speak with l00t/hax0r speak (3 Points) Online geeks love to play MMORPG games and adopt names for their virtual characters like Elrond the brave or B [...]
Last year a friend told me of a case a little beyond “farming” and more like home invasion! I think it was about the Star Wars MMORPG. Players would have their virtual homes attacked and broken into, their virtual possesions stolen and then sold. Nasty stuff.
Never got into any MMORPGs and im very glad I didnt. far too addictive and time confusing; a friend of mine as become a zombie since getting into WOW. I’ll stick with Cs and the like for now thanks.