[MUD-Dev] SOC: Will company sanctioned cheating hurttheMMOcommunity?

[P J]

This is a very interesting topic given recent events.

Personally - *I* have no problem if a company wants to do this
themselves.  I have a HUGE problem with others doing it on many
fronts.

For starters - if a company states this is against the rules (yes,
they do make the rules) but do not ENFORCE the rules - that's bad.

I do have a concern that allowing this on some servers really isn't
going to make a real dent in the trade via IGE, etc on other
servers. Not unless it dents their pocketbook enough to make it no
longer profitable.

What it will do for the folks on servers where it's not allowed is
give a nod to legitimacy, which is also bad.

There are several player concerns usually expressed when this topic
comes up - some are quite legitimate, some are more fiction, but are
the perception none the less.

Economy - does this wreck an economy?  Hmmmm, it impacts it, but
most of these do a pretty good job wrecking themselves anyway -
unless you have something to spend gold on, it becomes pretty
worthless eventually.

It's not fair - this is a perception some hold that what is
accomplished within the world should be on equal footing, and why
bringing real world resources into the picture isn't fair. There is
a difference between within the rules - and fair from a player's
perspective. Same difference in our world between legal and justice
- just because someone passed a law doesn't necessarily make
something right, you just don't get locked up for doing it. Right
and wrong can't be legislated like that in the guts of a player.

The problem I have with 'gold farmers' is they have become so
incredibly prolific (because I'm presuming it's becoming ever more
profitable) that they are actually monopolizing content to the
extent that people that are there to play - vs. work - are being
denied access to that content.

Personally - I'd like to know why IGE has been allowed to become so
rampant. Not the only company doing this by any means - but very
recently has tried to legitimize themselves by taking out full page
color ads in many of the gaming magazines and using specific company
names in that advertising. Isn't that illegal?

Why are gaming companies that want to stamp out this practice still
advertising in the same magazines? Even short of court action - I'd
think pulling all other advertising from them would indeed get the
publishers attention.

As long as it was a player here, a player there - it really wasn't
that big a deal. Now it's armies of workers - 24/7 - squatting
squarely in the middle of content and depriving other users of that
content.
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