The WoW foreign "farming" market is out of hand.

[MemoryInAGarden]

Have any of you noticed the increase in farming activity here over the last few months? I play on Skywall, a low pop PVE server. I have a 60 paladin and a 60 UD mage and both AHs are generally flooded with unrealistic amount of epics (though the Horde AH is less so). Oddly, the prices of epics have skyrocketed along with their availabilty. Stockade Pauldrons go for about 350g BO, Brightwoods for about 1k, and rarer epics such a Jeweled Amulet of Cainwyn and even some BoE purple set pieces have been sold on the AH/trade channel for 1.5k gold. Personally, I don't see how you can earn a legitimate 1.5k gold in a reasonable amount of time. Typical farming spots like Tyr's Hand have become completely overrun by foreign farmers that speak little to no English, who are typically Chinese or Indonesian. An even greater nuisance are all the 60 hunters zoning in and out of Maraudon repeatedly, either duplicating items/gold or farming Theradras. The Maraudon zoning has been causing unreasonable amounts of lag on the instance servers and has even crashed twice while my guild was in MC and once during the Vaelastrasz fight. Not only is my play affected by the monopolized prices for epics that I could actually use and the instance servers crashing during an MC run, but I get spammed by level 1 alts peddling a gold buying site.

What is your opinion on this? Has this type of activity increased on your server? Has anyone been able to draw a definite conclusion on what all the Maraudon activity is about, and why it only seems to be happening with level 60 hunters who speak no English?

 

[ryanrule]

it sucks balls. and blizzard doesnt seem to give a damn. i want a damn warden staff for my druid, a lvl 43 epic. 400+ gold. what the shit.


i could easily get enough money for it though. i have mining, and ore prices are thorugh the roof too.

 

[UltimaParadox]

Welcome to MMORPGs, every game gets like this eventually, BOT programs get developed the day they patched.

While it sucks, unfortuanetly there really isn't anything we can do.

 

[BlueFish]

I've decided that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I have recently placed my resume on several job boards in both the Chinese and Indonesian markets showing my skills as a top notch video game player. I am hoping my ability to speak english will be a wanted skill set which will get me top dollar on my time there. I figured a small wage plus room and board will work out well considering I go to work just so I can afford to pay rent, insurance and car payments for a car which I drive to and from work so I can have 2-3 hours free time a night to game. This way I would be cutting out the middle man and get a full 8 hours in a day.

What's the worse that can happen, I get caught NOT playing games at work?

 

[MemoryInAGarden]

Welcome to MMORPGs, every game gets like this eventually, BOT programs get developed the day they patched.

While it sucks, unfortuanetly there really isn't anything we can do.

WoW has some problems, but it is absolutely nothing like the complete fiasco that is FFXI. Farmer bots would repeatedly camp a mob that had a valuable drop. You CAN get loot in WoW yourself if you grind enough. While it isn't pretty in WoW, the little guy can make it if he puts forth the time and effort. The problems in FFXI are more sinister, as the common player has no shot of getting the nice loot.

 

[UltimaParadox]

WoW has some problems, but it is absolutely nothing like the complete fiasco that is FFXI. Farmer bots would repeatedly camp a mob that had a valuable drop. You CAN get loot in WoW yourself if you grind enough. While it isn't pretty in WoW, the little guy can make it if he puts forth the time and effort. The problems in FFXI are more sinister, as the common player has no shot of getting the nice loot.

It hasn't got there yet, but it will, as its domaniance as the game to make money in, grows.

Just play Lineage 2, which is the game to make the most money in, and its the one plagued with the most botters.

 

[MemoryInAGarden]

It hasn't got there yet, but it will, as its domaniance as the game to make money in, grows.

Just play Lineage 2, which is the game to make the most money in, and its the one plagued with the most botters.

I think the game mechanics prevent this to a degree. You can't camp a specific mob like you can in FFXI. You can grind in a favorable area like Tyr's Hand, but no mob has a high chance of dropping an epic. The bosses that do drop epics have mostly BoP loot. The BoE epic set pieces would likely sell for a ton, but finding 40 farmers with the gear and coordination to handle MC would be a sight to behold. The closest thing I can think of to the FFXI problem would be things like The Razza and Skarr the Unbreakable in Dire Maul, both of which have virtually guaranteed BoE blues in the 50+ level range. However, these are rare spawns and take a good 5 man group to beat.

 

[DrunknMastr]

Instances, and BoP gear in WoW is probaly one of the things that made me leave FFXI. Here is an example of how bad things were on FFXI. a low level item called and Emperor's Hairpin typically (on the server I was on anyhow) go for 1 - 1.7 million gil. Now, to anyone new to the game has no chance of ever getting it, and even for those people with multiple jobs at level 75, 1.7 mil is still a pretty penny. Typically Chinese farmers would have 4-6 botters at the mob spawn = you're never going to get claim, let alone drop. Another example about how sinister farmers are in FFXI is the Optical Hat. Every 70+ melee in FFXI needs (or just wants) and Optical Hat, and to get it, it requires a Hakutaku Eye Cluster (worth about 1.5 mil). Now, here is where the WoW system really got me interested, FFXI has no instances, so when you'd use your 1.5 mil cluster to spawn the mob that drops the hat, Chinese farmers would come out of nowhere, mpk you, and take YOUR hat (even though the hat is not saleable, they wanted it for farming).

FFXI finally got the idea, and made some of these items Rare/Ex (equiv. to BoP). Square-Enix also lacks the guts to do anything at all about player reported abuse. I once got a chinese farmer to admit to botting, reported it to a GM, and nothing was done.

Agree or not with what the Warden does for WoW, but one thing for certain is that it keeps botting out of the game. There will always be farmers, but at least Blizzard doesn't tolerate botters / cheaters, and I like that.

 

[Genocidal[v2]]

I'ved talked to a few GMs in WoW over the past couple of months about the rampant farming that goes on in Tyr's Hand, and they are well aware of the problem. I don't think they care too much about it anyways, losing the farmers means losing paying customers. If they did care something would have been done already, just tweak that area a little bit and everything would be fine.

 

[Draax]

I don’t see how farming affects the economy in WoW very much at all. It may have affected it, when the server was first opened, but it has little to no effect on the economy as it stands now.

The increase in prices, of lower level items, is because everyone is rolling alts, and twinking them out. Twinks are willing to pay a premium to equip there character, especially for booming levels like the 10-19 war song gultch. Its not farmers increasing the price of items, its people who play the AH and realize that many people have reached 60 already and are now rolling twinks.

The fact that all higher level items are BOP eliminates them from the market. You cannot sell or buy high end gear; you have to run instances to get the gear.

Tyrs hand is farmed for Pristine Black Diamonds. These diamonds have significantly lowered in price, on Stormscale they sell for 15-20g where before 1.8 they were 150-200+. Blizzard changed the drop rate, made them more common, so they are less desirable and as such, do not fetch a profit.

Its not like gold is hard to come by in WoW anyway. Just head to the new Sithilis and farm mobs and sell the vendor trash. I make upwards of 20g an hour doing this, and this is just game mechanics, not gold farmers. Another method is too get a purple profession drop and start selling that, hell you can make 200-300g per purple item you sell. It’s not hard to make money at all.

I think there is a sinister motive behind this "Chinese farmer" BS. IT stems from a culture which is incredibly xenophobic. Just take a look at the WoW forums, anytime anyone says they are from anywhere but the US, they are instantly ridiculed and flamed. What sort of proof do these people have that the economy is being affected by Chinese farmers? Hell when I don’t want to talk to some random guy, I just say "Me china. KEKEKE" and they stop bothering me. I would be willing to bet this whole gold farmer moment, is a complete exaggeration stemmed from an overly xenophobic culture.

This is an excuse used by those who dont want to work, or put the effort in, to get the money to fully equip there character.

 

[animosity]

That totally ruins play for the casual gamer that doesn't have a level 60. There is no point in them going to the AH if prices are inflated retardedly high.

 

[Trepidati0n]

What do you consider retardedly high? Just because you can't buy a purple for a $1.99 at your local walmart makes it unfair? The casual player was never meant to be twinked out in purples. And honestly 99% of the BoE purples aren't that much better than what you can get by grinding the BG scene.

1. You can get a plethora of of Eagle/Owl/Bear/etc which if you pay attention will give you very nice stats. The only thing that is typically missing is the missing third stat. For the longest time I had better HP/Mana than most other priests who where tricked out in purples. The only thing they had on me was another 150 or so spirit. With crystal water and 5 man...that doesn't mean jack. And heck on a PvP server...wearing spirit gear is suicidal.

2. The "real purples" require a guild ir a rare highly organized PuG in order to do 20-40 man instances. Get over it. That is life.

And actually most of the nice weapon BoE purples on our server have come way down in price. It is only the equips...but I'm glad that somebody is dumb enough to buy the high end purple armor BoE's. A fool and their money is usually parted.

-tReP

 

[Scoobydo]

Train them with mobs. Thats what I did in EQ...

Of course, if WoW is lame like EQ2 was, you can't really train people? I dont know I never played WoW.

 

[Steel Chicken]

my credit card expired, and with it my WoW account. I have a new card, but no desire to go back. Another 4 hour MC run? So I can get 5g worth of repair bills and MAYBE a shot at an epic, over and over? Ill pass.

 

[obs]

Isn't gold still worth almost nothing in WoW at level 60 and beyond? Was last time I played.

 

[Lsv]

it's always gonna be like that, look at diablo2, there are tons of bots available that do a barrage of things, the only thing that would work best for WoW is a mad dash to message all the farmers, if blizzard did a mad rush and was able to message a shitload of farmers they could just baninate people's farming accounts.

 

[Frangible]

I've decided that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I have recently placed my resume on several job boards in both the Chinese and Indonesian markets showing my skills as a top notch video game player. I am hoping my ability to speak english will be a wanted skill set which will get me top dollar on my time there. I figured a small wage plus room and board will work out well considering I go to work just so I can afford to pay rent, insurance and car payments for a car which I drive to and from work so I can have 2-3 hours free time a night to game. This way I would be cutting out the middle man and get a full 8 hours in a day.

What's the worse that can happen, I get caught NOT playing games at work?

Well, I hope your rent, car insurance, gas etc works out to $2/day or whatever

 

[animosity]

What do you consider retardedly high? Just because you can't buy a purple for a $1.99 at your local walmart makes it unfair? The casual player was never meant to be twinked out in purples. And honestly 99% of the BoE purples aren't that much better than what you can get by grinding the BG scene.

I'm not talking about purple items. The prices on lower level items are skyrocketing just because alot of people have alts. Which leaves no point whatsoever for me to interact with the AH or other players selling items at bloated prices, at all. I never said it was unfair, life isn't fair, but WoW is far from life. Wait no, for some people it is, hah.

 

[ryanrule]

tyrs hand gets dealt with on my server. its pvp, so there are a few horde guilds who raid it and wipe the fuckers off the map, and corpse camp them.


also, blizzard recently reduced the drop rates and spawn rate in tyrs hand.

they also increased the spawn rate in sm, so 60's cant easily farm the bosses. suck to try to do it like you are supposed to though.

 

[Techx]

PCgamer even runs ads in their mag for power-leveling and gold selling, hey I dont mind them running ads but even that's bordering on unethical

 

[Defective]

I don’t see how farming affects the economy in WoW very much at all. It may have affected it, when the server was first opened, but it has little to no effect on the economy as it stands now.

The increase in prices, of lower level items, is because everyone is rolling alts, and twinking them out. Twinks are willing to pay a premium to equip there character, especially for booming levels like the 10-19 war song gultch. Its not farmers increasing the price of items, its people who play the AH and realize that many people have reached 60 already and are now rolling twinks.

The fact that all higher level items are BOP eliminates them from the market. You cannot sell or buy high end gear; you have to run instances to get the gear.

Tyrs hand is farmed for Pristine Black Diamonds. These diamonds have significantly lowered in price, on Stormscale they sell for 15-20g where before 1.8 they were 150-200+. Blizzard changed the drop rate, made them more common, so they are less desirable and as such, do not fetch a profit.

Its not like gold is hard to come by in WoW anyway. Just head to the new Sithilis and farm mobs and sell the vendor trash. I make upwards of 20g an hour doing this, and this is just game mechanics, not gold farmers. Another method is too get a purple profession drop and start selling that, hell you can make 200-300g per purple item you sell. It’s not hard to make money at all.

I think there is a sinister motive behind this "Chinese farmer" BS. IT stems from a culture which is incredibly xenophobic. Just take a look at the WoW forums, anytime anyone says they are from anywhere but the US, they are instantly ridiculed and flamed. What sort of proof do these people have that the economy is being affected by Chinese farmers? Hell when I don’t want to talk to some random guy, I just say "Me china. KEKEKE" and they stop bothering me. I would be willing to bet this whole gold farmer moment, is a complete exaggeration stemmed from an overly xenophobic culture.

This is an excuse used by those who dont want to work, or put the effort in, to get the money to fully equip there character.

The sheer ease of buying gold online should tell you that this is happening and it is a market. The more gold that is introduced into the economy, the higher the prices will go in the auction house. People will sell for the highest they can get for items. More money in the system, money becomes worth less. High inflation. People who buy the gold for cash outside of the game, cause people like me to have to spend more time farming for gold to compensate. I am not being paid for the extra time it costs me.

Luckily, WoW does have bind on pickup items. Otherwise, it would be completely obnoxious to outfit your character at high levels. At least, once you get to 60, everyone has to work to get the good stuff or the game economy would be in the same state as FFXI. This is WoW's saving grace and why I am still playing.

 

[Draax]

This gold is not just appearing out of thin air, it is being farmed from mobs, or by selling items. It is no different then a guild giving a low level character money, or sending your alt money and twinking him out.

The money has always been there, and MMORPGS have always run the format of, the greater the time you spend playing the greater the reward.

 

[Trepidati0n]

my credit card expired, and with it my WoW account. I have a new card, but no desire to go back. Another 4 hour MC run? So I can get 5g worth of repair bills and MAYBE a shot at an epic, over and over? Ill pass.

Ponder...every MMORPG is like that. Ultra high end items (Tier1+) should be rare and not trivial. And honestly if you aren't getting a purple on average of every other MC/Onyxia combo run then either a) your guild is not that good at distributing equip b) or maybe you aren't telling us the whole story or a combination of both.

Reason why I say every other run is because of our raid point system. All equip has a point value. Only when somebody calls the item does said person have points deducted and the rest of the people in the raid get the point value of that item divided by the people in the raid get that in turn. The result is a zero sum gain which means total point among all raiders in our guild = 0. In a typical week I gain about 100 raid points (that is 1 MC run and 1 Onyxia run). The average item is about 125 points. In short I gain about 3 purples a month...I like it. Sometimes it sad melting a halo of transcendence...but them is the break for having a point system which gives even the casual raider a chance at getting equip. The result is that you can always get equip..you just need more points than somebody else. And because of eqiup rates...it only takes about 250 points to be guranteed a call on a item. And even then...you still have at least 100 points left. Heck...some of our members are -300 points and still get equip.

So 10 hours for a nice shiny new piece of gear that few people have. Sounds like a decent rate to me. That is about 4x faster rate compared to gear in EQ.

So 5g in repair...umm...go kill a few mobs and you got that. 5G at level 60 should be something you sneeze out because you smelled a gnome coming. 50G at level 60 is something you should get in about 2 hours of farming (if you can't, then you are doing something wrong). 500G is something you get with a weekend farming stint (I can pull in 1kG in about 16 hours if I play during off peak hours w/ little stress). I drop about 25G a week in repairs/pots/mats/candles/flights.

But I guess after blizzard practically hands everybody level 60 on a silver platter...I guess it can be a simple leap in logic that tier2 gear should be gotten just as easily.

-tReP

 

[Defective]

This gold is not just appearing out of thin air, it is being farmed from mobs, or by selling items. It is no different then a guild giving a low level character money, or sending your alt money and twinking him out.

The money has always been there, and MMORPGS have always run the format of, the greater the time you spend playing the greater the reward.

If some characters exist only to introduce more gold in to the system, inflation is going to happen. Inflation happens, but gold farmers introduce an outside factor, out of game profit. Since they have a profit motive, inflation in the game is benificial to them. They win all the way around. The higher the sell price for items, the more in demand their product is, the more money people buy to compensate, the more the price of the items rise. They are parasites. They are not completely parasitic to Blizzard, because Blizz makes money on the accounts created for the farmers.

As you say, MMOs do operate on more time = more reward. However, "for profit" farmers increase the amount of time necessary to achieve certain rewards. It is an artificial increase.

Remember, just because there is inflation, doesn't mean the mobs drop any more money or that the stuff sells for more at the vendor. These are constants. The prices in the AH, though, are variable.

 

[Draax]

If some characters exist only to introduce more gold in to the system, inflation is going to happen. Inflation happens, but gold farmers introduce an outside factor, out of game profit. Since they have a profit motive, inflation in the game is benificial to them. They win all the way around. The higher the sell price for items, the more in demand their product is, the more money people buy to compensate, the more the price of the items rise. They are parasites. They are not completely parasitic to Blizzard, because Blizz makes money on the accounts created for the farmers.

As you say, MMOs do operate on more time = more reward. However, "for profit" farmers increase the amount of time necessary to achieve certain rewards. It is an artificial increase.

Remember, just because there is inflation, doesn't mean the mobs drop any more money or that the stuff sells for more at the vendor. These are constants. The prices in the AH, though, are variable.

What rewards are farmers doing this too? The vast majority of end game equipment is BOP.

An inflation is beneficial to anyone selling items on the AH, not just farmers.

 

[Trepidati0n]

The more gold that is introduced into the economy, the higher the prices will go in the auction house.

Not quite true. One thing that Blizzard has also done is find ways to bleed gold out of the economy. Games like EQ and FF had a problem where there was no logical way of gold bleeding. Things like reapirs/pots/mats are all consumable all bleed quite a bit. Imagine how much gold you would have if you never had to repair, pay for leveling up, etc.

Another thing you need to remember is that if something is "profitable", more players will farm and thus push down the price again. If something is so popular and so rare...blizzard will just increase the drop rate.

This is WoW's saving (another) grace and why I am still playing.

 

[Shivetya]

So 5g in repair...umm...go kill a few mobs and you got that. 5G at level 60 should be something you sneeze out because you smelled a gnome coming. 50G at level 60 is something you should get in about 2 hours of farming (if you can't, then you are doing something wrong). 500G is something you get with a weekend farming stint (I can pull in 1kG in about 16 hours if I play during off peak hours w/ little stress). I drop about 25G a week in repairs/pots/mats/candles/flights.

-tReP

OK, I have to ask. Just where are the good areas to farm 20G+ in an hour? Are you hitting a paticular instance? I can pull about 8 an hour but that is surface hunting.

 

[Trepidati0n]

What rewards are farmers doing this too? The vast majority of end game equipment is BOP.

An inflation is beneficial to anyone selling items on the AH, not just farmers.

QFT. Economics of WoW are dynamic and can easily change from week to week. 1 day I can sell an essence for 14G...sometimes only 7G. Farm what is profitable, sell what is profitable. Make gold. However....the laws of economics do elude some players.

And in general...over the past 10 months I have only seen prices go down on 99% of items.

Right now herbs are popular because a large percentage of the WoW community is raid capable and thus need more pots to help them venture into a more challenging time in their player life. It is really quite amazing how many major mana pots a group of priests will consume in MC for a while till they start getting prophecy gear. When I was in blues, I was going through 4-5 a week. Now that i'm half purples I don't use any...

Mining/skinning are less popular because a large majority of players no longer need crafted equip. But however, if you are on a new server...mining is a freaking gold mine. I made 5kG on the way to 60! Once I hit 60 and I saw the mining market drying up...I went herbalism. And it only takes about 10 hours to hit 300 herbalism

-tReP

 

[Defective]

What rewards are farmers doing this too? The vast majority of end game equipment is BOP.

An inflation is beneficial to anyone selling items on the AH, not just farmers.

Beneficial to sellers, but not to buyers that do not buy gold online. It takes them more time to farm the gold to pay the higher prices. It can be discouraging to some players. I agree that it is not as big of a problem as it is in other games because the high end items are BoP. If it was, I wouldnt be playing.


I do agree with Trep, Blizzard does do alot to bleed money out of the system and keep it from being a game killing problem. They have a much better system than the other games that have purchasable items.

 

[Trepidati0n]

OK, I have to ask. Just where are the good areas to farm 20G+ in an hour? Are you hitting a paticular instance? I can pull about 8 an hour but that is surface hunting.

Congrulations...you just hit the nail on the head. Surface hunting != good use of time. What class are you?

If you are a rogue you should be in instances farming level 40 elites bosses for blues and melting them and selling the shards. You just need a friend to reset the instance every 12 minutes (new rules).

Most classes have the ability to clear out scarlet monestary solo. Hunters/mages/locks can clear the SM graveyard easily which should yield 20G/hour.

You need to talk, ask, read forums (other than hear) to figure out places to farm "efficiently". Right now herbailsm is huge for me. It nets me quite a bit since dreamfoil is a hot hot item sice it is used in 3 different high end pots (major mana, mongoose, rejuvination). Again...if you aren't making 20G an hour...you are not doing something right.

 

[Joe Fristoe]

I think there is a sinister motive behind this "Chinese farmer" BS. IT stems from a culture which is incredibly xenophobic. Just take a look at the WoW forums, anytime anyone says they are from anywhere but the US, they are instantly ridiculed and flamed. What sort of proof do these people have that the economy is being affected by Chinese farmers? Hell when I don’t want to talk to some random guy, I just say "Me china. KEKEKE" and they stop bothering me. I would be willing to bet this whole gold farmer moment, is a complete exaggeration stemmed from an overly xenophobic culture.

This is an excuse used by those who dont want to work, or put the effort in, to get the money to fully equip there character.

My opinion of what you wrote changed when I got to here. It went down hill.

 

[Draax]

My opinion of what you wrote changed when I got to here. It went down hill.

You can believe what you want, facts are, on Canada day I lit of fireworks and said happy Canada Day (in game), and was greeted with numerous tells slandering me every way imaginable.

 

[Shivetya]

Congrulations...you just hit the nail on the head. Surface hunting != good use of time. What class are you?

Most classes have the ability to clear out scarlet monestary solo. Hunters/mages/locks can clear the SM graveyard easily which should yield 20G/hour.

QUOTE]

I have actually looked into farming SM. As a hunter I can clear most of it without real issue except the two at the end. Being BM oriented I just use that insta-win talent to finish up boss mobs.

I too am think of switching to herbalism on my hunter, all my other characters are herbalism oriented as well. It was obvious from day 1 that alchemy would be the end game winning tradeskill. My priest who is an alchemist does make money hand over fist.

 

[Defective]

You can believe what you want, facts are, on Canada day I lit of fireworks and said happy Canada Day (in game), and was greeted with numerous tells slandering me every way imaginable.

You found every idiot kid that happened to be in that channel at the time. Are you somehow saying that non-US kids don't slander other countries either? Idiot kids are not a US only tradition and they are certianly no strangers to almost any online game.

 

[Draax]

You found every idiot kid that happened to be in that channel at the time. Are you somehow saying that non-US kids don't slander other countries either? Idiot kids are not a US only tradition and they are certianly no strangers to almost any online game.

So, why are we to believe that gold farming is a real problem, and not just an imagined problem brought to the masses by "idiot kids". Hell the vast majority of people playing the game still cant seem to realize that the "warden" anti-cheat program does not report back every process on your computer, instead uses hashes, and identifies possible hackers / cheaters, which are then observed before being banned.

I would say that the number of people who have no idea what the hell they are talking about, greatly outnumbers the amount of gold farmers in WoW. The ignorant are also the real problem, that plagues WoW.

 

[Joe Fristoe]

You can believe what you want, facts are, on Canada day I lit of fireworks and said happy Canada Day (in game), and was greeted with numerous tells slandering me every way imaginable.

So you're stereotyping hundreds of thousands of people by a couple responses on one server?

 

[Defective]

So, why are we to believe that gold farming is a real problem, and not just an imagined problem brought to the masses by "idiot kids". Hell the vast majority of people playing the game still cant seem to realize that the "warden" anti-cheat program does not report back every process on your computer, instead uses hashes, and identifies possible hackers / cheaters, which are then observed before being banned.

I would say that the number of people who have no idea what the hell they are talking about, greatly outnumbers the amount of gold farmers in WoW. The ignorant are also the real problem, that plagues WoW.

I have a problem with your rationale. You are connecting 2 unrelated arguements with an extremely shakey correlation. If you want to talk about the philosophical problems with online society, I suppose that is a good topic for Soapbox, but "ignorant people" does not disprove anything.

 

[Draax]

I have a problem with your rationale. You are connecting 2 unrelated arguements with an extremely shakey correlation. If you want to talk about the philosophical problems with online society, I suppose that is a good topic for Soapbox, but "ignorant people" does not disprove anything.

I find the correlation between gold farming and China to be shaky at best; I also find the reasoning behind it affecting the economy to be asinine at best.

Its the same logic, or lack there of, applied in the opposite direction, the fact that it looks moronic in the opposite direction, should show you just how much water, the chicken little, china gold farmers are ruining the economy, holds.

Unrelated arguments:

Selling gold online
People farming Tyrs hand
China

All connected with inflation in the economy?

 

[Defective]

I find the correlation between gold farming and China to be shaky at best; I also find the reasoning behind it affecting the economy to be asinine at best.

Its the same logic, or lack there of, applied in the opposite direction, the fact that it looks moronic in the opposite direction, should show you just how much water, the chicken little, china gold farmers are ruining the economy, holds.

Unrelated arguments:

Selling gold online
People farming Tyrs hand
China

All connected with inflation in the economy?

Let me make one thing clear, I do not believe the problem is as bad as the person that started the thread. However, I don't see how difficult it is to understand how inflation works. Granted, it isn't as bad in WoW, but it still can a factor in the prices of items in the AH. Since the motives of a farming company are to 1. sell gold and 2. increase the demand for gold. It is in their interest to increase the rate of inflation, thereby increasing the demand for thier product.

Trep, made some comments that do say why this is not as big of an issue in WoW as it is with other games. There wont be the runaway inflation that there is in some games, but it doesnt mean it doesnt happen. WoW is the most popular MMO right now. That creates a significant market for those people looking to cut corners in any way they can. They may not be you or I, but the existance and sheer number of gold farming groups should tell you that this is not just a myth.

The only way to prove either side of this this would be through experimentation. Unfortunately, that is a difficult experiment to conduct. A company would have to take a good sized population of gamers, put them on one server, ensure that there was no oportunity for profit outside the game, and then monitor the game economy.

 

[Draax]

The only way to prove either side of this this would be through experimentation. Unfortunately, that is a difficult experiment to conduct. A company would have to take a good sized population of gamers, put them on one server, ensure that there was no oportunity for profit outside the game, and then monitor the game economy.

But since we cant, lets just blame prices on the Chinese ....