Outsourcing Your Skills

[Rich Tate]

It seems as though the list of powerleveling companies, a business you pay to level your MMO character for you, is growing exponentially lately.

According to an estimate from a company called Power-levels.com, it would take someone starting from scratch 768 hours to reach the highest level you can hit in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.

 

[Dark Prodigy]

Doesn't these kinds of services negate the purpose of even playing the game? I don't even play MMO's and this almost seems like indirect cheating.

 

[SpeedRunner]

If you hire someone to level up a character for you in World of Warcraft, its time to stop and take a serious look at where you are in life.

 

[Rich Tate]

Doesn't these kinds of services negate the purpose of even playing the game? I don't even play MMO's and this almost seems like indirect cheating.

Not only are you exactly right, it is usually against the ULA. If you play any MMO take a look around for Account Sharing. It can get you banned.

 

[pigwalk]

If you hire someone to level up a character for you in World of Warcraft, its time to stop and take a serious look at where you are in life.

If you pay someone to powerlevel you in WoW, you have TIME to live a life! I know alot of people that only enjoy the endgame content (I never got past the first 5 levels personally) and I'd imagine paying for a leveled character beats grinding away for a few month doing crap yo don't like.

 

[Kierydon]

So let's see, the first person to hit 70 in BC took 28 hours, so they're saying it takes 740 hours to get from 1-60, except, I've seen people do it in 70, I think I was under 100 hours. Not quite sure where they get 768 hours, not only is it wrong, but it's wrong by close to 8 times.

 

[Rich Tate]

My first toon took me about 368 from 1-60 with no real help or leveling guides, just Thottbot usage.

 

[rhouck]

So let's see, the first person to hit 70 in BC took 28 hours, so they're saying it takes 740 hours to get from 1-60, except, I've seen people do it in 70, I think I was under 100 hours. Not quite sure where they get 768 hours, not only is it wrong, but it's wrong by close to 8 times.

That was a carefully orchestrated leveling process requiring an entire guild assisting the leveling of one person; 61-70 alone (or even in small groups) takes much more than 28 hours to do, even for experienced speed levelers. I agree their estimate is way too high (especially for someone who knows how to play the game already), but not by the factor you are suggesting.

These services exist primarily to cater to endgame raiders; when deciding to switch classes (or perhaps even to reroll from a PVE to PVP server). There is a big difference in gameplay between endgame raiding and leveling; some people (for better or for worse) would rather pay a few dollars than grind through repetitive leveling content (something they have probably done several times before) and get to where they want to be.

Is it technically cheating? Yes.
Does it violate the EULA? Yes.
Does it cause problems when inexperienced players use these services and have no idea how to play at higher levels? Yes.
Can I understand why some people would rather sacrifice a few hours pay rather than spend a couple hundred hours leveling another character so that they can raid with their friends? Yes.

For better or for worse, unless Blizzard (and other MMOs) figure out a better to track account sharing rather than generic IP checks, the services are here to stay.

Personally I'd be more worried about gold farming than power leveling; power leveled characters stand out and outside of hurting the occasional 5 man pug, have little effect on the game. Gold buying, however, artificially inflates the game economy and can make it more difficult for "legitimate" players to compete.

 

[Nemesis999]

B. You may permanently transfer all of your rights and obligations under the License Agreement to another by physically transferring the original media (e.g., the CD-ROM or DVD you purchased), all original packaging, and all Manuals or other documentation distributed with the Game; provided, however, that you permanently delete all copies and installations of the Game in your possession or control, and that the recipient agrees to the terms of this License Agreement. The transferor (i.e., you), and not Blizzard, agrees to be solely responsible for any taxes, fees, charges, duties, withholdings, assessments, and the like, together with any interest, penalties, and additions imposed in connection with such transfer.

One could argue that power leveling falls under this category if they were to do it with a new account.


Either way..
A) 768 hours is a joke. Even if that were real time and not time played, that's still 32 days. It's possible to hit 60 in 5 days played. 70 in another 20-30 hours. Double that to compensate for how bad the Chinese farmers are and you still have 500 hours missing.

B) For those that haven't played this game, the game really starts at level 70. If you've already leveled to 70 before then it's sorta accepted that leveling 1-70 is simply there as a time sink. The content gets repetitive and boring. That's not to say I would ever powerlevel, I just see why people do. When it comes down to it, for some people it's part of the price of the game. Skipping all the tedium to get to the part that's actually fun.

 

[Fooshnik]

I do not understand the words many of you are using. But, okay.

 

[EODetroit]

That's 32 days /played. No one takes that long... and I mean no one. 20 days (480 hours) is probably the longest anyony legitimately takes. Remember, even if it takes someone 4 months of RL time, they probably only played a few hours a week, had lots of Rest, and when your character is "rested" (from you not playing), you get double XP. So the super-casual players actually take less in-game time to get to 70 than everyone else.

Now, as for power-leveling... its cheating. Not "technically" cheating, its straight up, "I think you should be blacklisted from MMOs forever" type cheating.

If not, then why didn't I slide the DM a 20 before every pen and paper gaming session when I was a kid? I could have been level 20 with a +5 sword of... whatever, while everyone else was level 1... it would be lots of fun for me....

I'm one of those people that reports every powerleveler and botter I see, I also report every seller that whispers my character advertising gold-selling and power-leveling. Blizzard needs to know that we don't want a game full of cheaters, like what happened to EQ. I think they try, just not hard enough, yet.

The game has rules, if you can't play within the rules, GtFO of the game.

 

[rhouck]

That's 32 days /played. No one takes that long... and I mean no one. 20 days (480 hours) is probably the longest anyony legitimately takes. Remember, even if it takes someone 4 months of RL time, they probably only played a few hours a week, had lots of Rest, and when your character is "rested" (from you not playing), you get double XP. So the super-casual players actually take less in-game time to get to 70 than everyone else.

I've actually seen people with 30+ days played who are still not 60. The reason? They spend a lot of time in game without being "productive" (i.e. killing things for experience). They are still enjoying the game at their own pace, wandering around, trying to figure things out.

Now, as for power-leveling... its cheating. Not "technically" cheating, its straight up, "I think you should be blacklisted from MMOs forever" type cheating.

If not, then why didn't I slide the DM a 20 before every pen and paper gaming session when I was a kid? I could have been level 20 with a +5 sword of... whatever, while everyone else was level 1... it would be lots of fun for me....

I'm one of those people that reports every powerleveler and botter I see, I also report every seller that whispers my character advertising gold-selling and power-leveling. Blizzard needs to know that we don't want a game full of cheaters, like what happened to EQ. I think they try, just not hard enough, yet.

The game has rules, if you can't play within the rules, GtFO of the game.

That's a terrible example. A better analogy regarding old PnP games would be you wanting to join up with friends who have already been playing for a month or two and so are level 9 already. You could either roll a new character at level 1 and be completely useless (getting almost no experience and contributing nothing)... or the DM could be nice and help you roll a character that was level 8 or 9 already so that you could play along productively. I remember that happening when I used to play PnP and I never felt like the new people were "cheating"; they were my friends and I was happy to play with them, I didn't care that they got to skip up to where we were. The game was about having fun and making it easy for new people to join the campaign.

The impact of skipping levels is even less of an issue in MMOs where level means virtually nothing and gear means everything; getting to 60 (or now 70) means very little in the grand scheme of the game. It's what you do once you're at the level cap that determines the relative strength of your character.

Now if you want to talk about account buying where people purchase characters who are 60 AND have excellent gear... well then that is abusing the system to gain an advantage over others. Being 60 means virtually nothing, being 60 with epic gear means a lot. Blizzard was smart in designing the game so that it is virtually impossible to get power leveled or buy gold and end up with an amazing character; being 60 with boe epics is laughable compared to those with raid gear; the only way to really cheat this grind is to buy a character off ebay/playerauctions (though I am rather happy people do since it netted me ~$2500 when I quit the game )

Cheating implies you gain some advantage which power leveling does not give; it saves a miniscule amount of time compared to what you will have to spend raiding to get a nicely geared character. In the grand scheme of the things that plague MMOs and actually give certain players unfair advantages over others, it's not even worth mentioning.

(And as an fyi, all my characters were legitimately leveled; I just don't/didn't care if other people paid for services to skip up to 60 where the game really starts. I'd rather they did that so I could play with people I enjoyed playing with than have them quit because they were discouraged at the prospect of doing the boring level grind again. You sound like one of those "casuals" who thought hitting the level cap actually meant something...)

 

[Nemesis999]

If not, then why didn't I slide the DM a 20 before every pen and paper gaming session when I was a kid? I could have been level 20 with a +5 sword of... whatever, while everyone else was level 1... it would be lots of fun for me....

I'm one of those people that reports every powerleveler and botter I see, I also report every seller that whispers my character advertising gold-selling and power-leveling. Blizzard needs to know that we don't want a game full of cheaters, like what happened to EQ. I think they try, just not hard enough, yet.

I agree with Rhouck, your comparison is horrible.
1) Despite your opinion, powerleveling can take place within the EULA/TOS.
2) If your friends were level 9 in DND and you could get there by simply sitting there rolling the dice for 100+ hours... or you could write down a 9 so you can play the game, what would you do? I guarantee 99.99999% of the people that cry about powerlevelers would write down the 9 so they can just play the damn game. There is no difference then with powerlevelers in WoW. 1-60 is your punishment for starting a new character. The game starts at 60 (70 now).

 

[EODetroit]

My comparison was right on the mark. The difference in Pen and Paper is that everyone there agrees to the rules of the game and you're allowed to make up the rules as you go along. Now if I were to secretly slide the DM a $20 to make it so my character ended up with all the nicest stuff, made every saving throw, would never be killed, etc, while everyone else had no such benefit, I think everyone would be upset when they found out.

Now in WoW and other MMOs everyone also agrees to the rules of the game, and unlike D&D they can't be changed just for you. If you break the rules, you're a cheater and I hope you get banned for it.

About powerleveling, you're right, I can think of an allowable way... you could get someone to group with you, and plow through as many mobs as give you XP as possible, I suppose. As long as you're the one logged in to your account that would be fine. Once you let someone else log in your account, you're breaking the rules.

About me, since someone speculated...

I played EQ since 1999, I've been in 6-day a week raid guilds during the era of 72-man Time raids, before that I was in a family guild. I left EQ when WoW was released and was in the top horde raid guild on a day-1 server, was in the top alliance PvP guild on the same (PvE) server, only leaving when the login queues got too insane, now am playing on a rp-pvp server in a mid-size guild. I've been around the block in MMOs, played every aspect of the games from family to casual raid to hardcore raid to RP to PvP.

 

[rhouck]

My comparison was right on the mark. The difference in Pen and Paper is that everyone there agrees to the rules of the game and you're allowed to make up the rules as you go along. Now if I were to secretly slide the DM a $20 to make it so my character ended up with all the nicest stuff, made every saving throw, would never be killed, etc, while everyone else had no such benefit, I think everyone would be upset when they found out.

....which is affecting the actual mechanics of the game which is the equivalent in WoW of cascading dungeons, using a speed hack, hiding the WSG flag in inaccessible areas, etc. These things subvert the established game mechanics to gain an advantage over other players.

Power leveling != speed hack because getting to 60 the easy way doesn't hurt other players; using a speed hack does. Power leveling involves leveling legitimately except someone else is doing it for you.

Once again, WoW != PnP because level means almost nothing in the former. If you roll onto any new server, you'll see certain players getting power leveled. They'll hit 60 first and then.... nothing. They've gained no advantage over anyone else by getting their first. They haven't hurt me or anyone else by leveling faster or by not leveling their character themselves.

The opposite case would be honor grinding under the old honor system; THEN having someone else play your character hurts other players (since it forces them to play more to keep up, which can be nearly impossible). This is because there was a limit to how many people could hold the highest ranks; this is not the case with standard leveling. The only thing that could come close to hurting you is if the power levelers were stealing your mobs and slowing down your leveling.... but even that is a stretch.

So yes it is cheating in that it breaks the EULA and saves the player 4-5 days of playtime. But it is hardly an issue since it has no negative effects on other players and the time saved is meaningless when endgame characters typically have 50-200+ days /played. The truth is it allows certain people to enjoy the game they want to play it (i.e. endgame raiding, not leveling) and allows them to do so without hurting the experience of their fellow gamers. It's just really not a meaningful issue.

 

[Nemesis999]

My comparison was right on the mark. The difference in Pen and Paper is that everyone there agrees to the rules of the game and you're allowed to make up the rules as you go along. Now if I were to secretly slide the DM a $20 to make it so my character ended up with all the nicest stuff, made every saving throw, would never be killed, etc, while everyone else had no such benefit, I think everyone would be upset when they found out.

Now in WoW and other MMOs everyone also agrees to the rules of the game, and unlike D&D they can't be changed just for you. If you break the rules, you're a cheater and I hope you get banned for it.

About powerleveling, you're right, I can think of an allowable way... you could get someone to group with you, and plow through as many mobs as give you XP as possible, I suppose. As long as you're the one logged in to your account that would be fine. Once you let someone else log in your account, you're breaking the rules.

About me, since someone speculated...

I played EQ since 1999, I've been in 6-day a week raid guilds during the era of 72-man Time raids, before that I was in a family guild. I left EQ when WoW was released and was in the top horde raid guild on a day-1 server, was in the top alliance PvP guild on the same (PvE) server, only leaving when the login queues got too insane, now am playing on a rp-pvp server in a mid-size guild. I've been around the block in MMOs, played every aspect of the games from family to casual raid to hardcore raid to RP to PvP.

Perhaps you should read the whole thread. You can be power leveled within the rules easily. You are allowed to transfer accounts, along with the original box, by Blizzard's own rules.

You claim to have been in a "top horde raid guild", yet you seem to have no concept of how the game works. Furthermore, your analogy is, again, obviously wrong.

Everyone who has ever raided in WoW knows that level 60 literally means nothing. Reaching level 60 is the requirement to play the game. A more correct analogy would be slipping the DM a $20 bill to let you in on a game you weren't invited to.

There is NO advantage to being power leveled other then the fact that those of us that have something to do in real life get to play the game without having to grind our way through 70 levels of tedium. Hell, I stopped playing the game because I was bored with my class and didn't want to level a new character. Perhaps had I logged onto one of my guildmate's accounts I could have instantly dominated the entire server with but a breath, as you seem to imply suddenly becomes possible when playing a character I didn't level.