Item Farming is Big Big Business. Is it Good for the Game too?
by Alphaville Herald on 15/10/04 at 10:18 pm
We know about the dealers in rare pets and cannons on tso, and we know that some dealers make a pretty penny at it, but what of games with lots of players like Lineage (with over a million subscribers)? Well, a recent article in Newsweek International, puts the revenue generated by sales of game objects at between 83 and 415 million US dollars annually. That’s for one game!
Meanwhile, on Terra Nova, Ted Castronova seems to suggest that this is a good thing because otherwise [I'm paraphrasing now] these games become a dead end for everyone except people who are willing to do brainless skilling like talking to parrots all day long. That is, it makes everyone a loser except the losers who thrive at brain dead levelling. While lifetime losers revel in this turning of the tables on people with lives, it doesn’t make for a healthy game. Object traders help put the food chain back in order — e.g. the help put people like the stratics luffers back on the bottom of the food chain where they belong.
Storm
Oct 16th, 2004
that statistic almost seems below-average, when, if you have ever played L2 it is full .. wherever you go, with Korean or Chinese (mostly) “farmers” who earn a living for there familys exploiting us lazy americans. although, it makes sense, as opposed to getting paid near-nothing (1 thousand annual salary on average for Chinese Family) when you can make 20x that easily. (and yes, if anyone has ever tried to earn Adena on Lineage2 , it is incredibly boring and repetitive to earn it).
Claydog
Oct 16th, 2004
I play lineage 2 and storm is right. The game is full of farmers and bots and its getting old fast.
I report many farmers daily to GMs (cutomer service rep) and they say “You have to show us proof to have a investigation of these “farmers”"
Lineage 2 and NC soft are for farmers because its 60% of their business.
Now today , if you make any racial slurs to the farmers (who are ALL chinese or Korean) such as “Chink” you will be banned. Now they often come up to me and say “Cao ni ma” which means fuck your mom in chinese. But will they be banned??? HELL NO.
Farmers r every where in this game. Dont buy it-
Claydog
Hindemith Server
Storm
Oct 16th, 2004
They are able to do this, because they, unlike most Americans (me included) have the patience to grind out and sit there killing Orc’s for 20 hours straight. most americans just get lazy and cheap and buy the Adena.
Mick Lite
Oct 19th, 2004
Yeah it gets old but when you make 5-7k a week on it in usd, it can stay as old as it is