gold-farming
Latest
Time Is Money: Felwood's wildlife
Kebina Trudough here, offering you the best gold making secrets they don't want you to know about! I was like you once, poor and homely, before I discovered my patented system. Now you too can fill your pockets with the good stuff without ever breaking a sweat! Why spend all your time toiling when you could be vacationing in the Hot Springs? I'm not offering these tips for 100 gold, or 90 gold, or even 50 gold! No, not even 20 gold! My system is yours for FREE! Satisfaction guaranteed or I'll give you a full refund (handling charges may apply). After all, Time Is Money. Today, I'm going to talk to you about a way to make money skinning in Felwood, although similarly leveled zones work as well. This can be done with higher level characters or those who are at-level (50-60), although it moves more quickly if you have a character capable of chain pulling without having to stop to eat or drink or run back to your corpse all the time. If you don't have a skinner that is a high enough level, you really should get one. Leather sells consistently well, and is very easily gathered. In fact, you could get one today! Create a Death Knight, train skinning, and go on a rampage, starting with a low level starter zone and working your way up. Now that we've settled that, let's get down to the particulars.
Time Is Money: Selling in multiple stack sizes on the auction house
Time Is Money is where the WoW.com editors told Basil to put all his nonsense instead of clogging up their inboxes with thoughts and tips about gold making in World of Warcraft. Hi folks! Today we'll be talking about something that many experienced auctioneers have discovered on their own-- the stack size you list on the auction house has an effect on your profits and sales volumes. There are many types of things that you'll find yourself selling as you get more involved in making gold on the AH, and most of them are being bought by people who need more than one, but less than a stack. The buyers for whatever product you're marketing are motivated mostly by price, however also by convenience. If a buyer needs a stack of 3, say, Infinite Dusts, unless you provide them with the choice of buying a stack of three, they need to choose between 3 singles or a stack that would leave them with leftovers. If the prices are the same, they'll typically go for avoiding leftovers. Many will even pay more for singles to they can avoid leftovers. You also have to factor in that many of them use the default AH interface, complete with its horrible sorting, so they may just buy the singles to avoid having to page through to the stack size they want.
Masthead Studios discusses Earthrise economy
It's an immutable law: create an online game where virtual currency is used and it'll inevitably give rise to a black market for that currency, not to mention for the various items in the MMO. Earthrise will be no different, but developer Masthead Studios aims to be proactive about the problem of gold sellers, rather than reactive. They also feel that their game will be difficult to bot. "Most of Earthrise design has followed the paradigm of requiring player interaction and skill through every aspect of combat, crafting and logistic movement so we firmly believe the game will be, by design, very difficult to automate via known methods," Masthead explains in their latest Question of the Week. Another factor that Masthead Studios feels will curb black market activities in Earthrise, at least in respect to items, is that every use of gear slowly degrades the item in question. Of course, where there's a will there's a way. So when Earthrise enters open beta Masthead Studios will keep a close eye on the various ways players find to exploit the economy.
Time Is Money: Putting your emblems to work
Kebina Trudough here, offering you the best gold making secrets they don't want you to know about! I was like you once, poor and homely, before I discovered my patented system. Now you too can fill your pockets with the good stuff without ever breaking a sweat! Why spend all your time toiling when you could be vacationing in the Hot Springs? I'm not offering these tips for 100 gold, or 90 gold, or even 50 gold! No, not even 20 gold! My system is yours for FREE! Satisfaction guaranteed or I'll give you a full refund (handling charges may apply). After all, Time Is Money. If you're like me, you have a lot of excess emblems sitting around. Maybe you never got around to spending them before the next tier came out, or maybe the badge gear just never quite compared to your raid drops. Whatever the case, there is no sense letting them go to waste when you could put them to work and earn some gold! First, here is a quick breakdown of the current badge system, from most recent and difficult to acquire on down: Emblem of Frost: These can be acquired primarily by raiding Icecrown, completing the Raid Boss Per Week "weekly," or by completing one WotLK heroic dungeon per day using the Random tool. Emblem of Triumph: Most raids now drop these badges, as well as heroics. You will also be awarded these for doing any number of WotLK heroic dungeons past your first one per day using the Random tool. You will also get some by completing your first normal WotLK dungeon per day using the Random tool, as well as completing the Raid Boss Per Week "weekly." Also of note: If you get Heroic Oculus using the random tool, don't drop group! Not only has it been nerfed like crazy, but when you defeat the end boss, every player will receive a loot bag that will contain these badges and more, plus a chance at getting the super rare Reigns of the Blue Drake, which used to be available only by killing Malygos, who now drops his 25-man version (Azure) in both 10 and 25-man. Emblem of Conquest: Originally, these were acquired by running 10-man Coliseum, or 25-man Ulduar. Emblem of Valor: Originally these dropped from Ulduar 10-man and Naxxramas 25-man. Emblem of Heroism: These were among the first WotLK badges, and dropped from Naxxramas 10-man and heroic dungeons.
Keeping the gold farmers at bay: An interview with Fallen Earth's Colin Dwan
Gold farming and gold spamming is a very real problem in our current MMOs. While some games are spending a good chunk of their resources to battle the farmers and save their game's economy, other games are enjoying a relatively spam-free existence. One such game is Fallen Earth. So what's their secret? Have they designed an actual farm-proof game, or is it just that they're doing an amazing job of clean-up behind the scenes? We talked with Project Manager Colin Dwan for some insight into their proven methods. Follow along after the cut below for the complete interview.
Time Is Money: Dungeon finder
Kebina Trudough here, offering you the best gold making secrets they don't want you to know about! I was like you once, poor and homely, before I discovered my patented system. Now you too can fill your pockets with the good stuff without ever breaking a sweat! Why spend all your time toiling when you could be vacationing in the Hot Springs? I'm not offering these tips for 100 gold, or 90 gold, or even 50 gold! No, not even 20 gold! My system is yours for FREE! Satisfaction guaranteed or I'll give you a full refund (handling charges may apply). After all, Time Is Money. The new Dungeon Finder that was added in Patch 3.3 has been garnering a lot of attention lately - and for good reason! But did you know that you could use it to make money?
Why RMT won't go away
"Companies should just stop gold farmers." It's a consistent complaint in many games, with "gold" replaced by your game's currency of choice. As complaints go, it's right around "somebody should do something about all the problems" in terms of overall utility, but heck, no one likes the practice and it should just be eliminated, right? Well, as Scott Jennings has pointed out recently, it's not quite that easy. As Lum points out, there are several common misconceptions about the entire process. Among them are the idea that the game company doesn't step in because they're getting kickbacks, which is pointed out to fail the simple test of Occam's razor. When developers want to get more money from an existing game, there are usually better ways to run it, such as the Champions Online model or the Dungeons and Dragons Online approach. He also tackles the infamous statement that the farmers are paying customers and therefore the company has even less incentive to stop them. So if everyone hates RMT, why is it still around? The article briefly touches upon it, but We Fly Spitfires had a recent post that articulates more specifically: more people buy gold than would necessarily admit it. Since no one will admit to it, no one ever asks, and as a result there's a large culture of silence that publicly despises it and privately takes part. In short? As long as there's a customer base, the farming will continue. Food for thought all around.
Time is Money: Down with the cooldown
Kebina Trudough here, offering you the best gold making secrets they don't want you to know about! I was like you once, poor and homely, before I discovered my patented system. Now you too can fill your pockets with the good stuff without ever breaking a sweat! Why spend all your time toiling when you could be vacationing in the Hot Springs? I'm not offering these tips for 100 gold, or 90 gold, or even 50 gold! No, not even 20 gold! My system is yours for FREE! Satisfaction guaranteed or I'll give you a full refund (handling charges may apply). After all, Time is Money. Among the goodies that patch 3.3 will bring is a very welcome change. Transmute: Titanium will no longer be subject to a cooldown! This means that you can turn all of the saronite bars you can get your hands on into titanium bars; and saronite is so easy to obtain. Check out our previous guide to mining saronite. So how will this change how you will go about making your money? Pass through the break to find out.
One month: Aion October community address
Aion has officially been out for one full month and NCsoft just released an October community address in response. The notice reads less like a giant pat on the back and more like a checklist of major issues they are working on, which is bound to churn up speculation about how well the title is doing. Oh, we're sure Aion is doing quite well even though we haven't heard the official numbers yet, but developers usually use these opportunities to shout about their accomplishments rather than their shortcomings.The top three issues mentioned in the letter are experience curves, client performance, and spammers/botters. Most players will agree that it can feel like a part-time job to level your character at times. Some players have had performance issues specifically related to "Cryssystem.dll." And finally, everyone has been forced to /ignore the odd spammer... or fifty. NCsoft is using this opportunity to yet again tell players they are aware of these issues and fixes are on the way. We're curious how this may relate to differences between eastern and western gaming cultures. Aion has been released for nearly a year in Asia and yet only the outcry from European and North American players against experience grinds and gold spamming specifically seems to be sparking a change.
Big improvements in Aion 1.5.1 patch
The folks over at AionSource were kind enough to translate the latest Aion patch notes being tested in Korea. There's no word yet on when western players will see these changes, but the notes are still worth reading because there are some big improvements. Three items stood out to us especially.Based on the table shown in the notes, quest experience is being increased; to the tune of almost 500% on average (if our calculations are correct). The craziest example is a level 44 quest going from 13,300 to 703,820 experience (53 times as much). Extracting aether now has a chance to debuff you with "Aether Venom." This debuff reduces your chance to successfully extract a gatherable down to 0. Players can remove this effect with a "Word of Purification" ability. Each character has this ability but to successfully use it, one must properly type in a captcha. This seems like an obvious attempt to prevent bots from gathering up all the game's resources.Finally, Spiritmaster pets can now fly. We're not quite sure how this issue ever made it into the game at launch (design oversight or complication?), but 1.5.1 aims to finally remedy it so Spiritmasters aren't totally gimped in aerial PvP. Be sure to check out the full notes here.[Update: These notes are for the Korean test server, so they're not final notes for the Western version.]
Time is Money: Fishing for angels
Kebina Trudough here, offering you the best gold making secrets they don't want you to know about! I was like you once, poor and homely, before I discovered my patented system. Now you too can fill your pockets with the good stuff without ever breaking a sweat! Why spend all your time toiling when you could be vacationing in the Hot Springs? I'm not offering these tips for 100 gold, or 90 gold, or even 50 gold! No, not even 20 gold! My system is yours for FREE! Satisfaction guaranteed or I'll give you a full refund (handling charges may apply).Angelfish, that is. Not only are they scrumptious, they're extremely profitable. How does 80 gold (give or take, depending on your realm) per stack of 20 sound to you?Time InvestedSet aside 10-30 minutes a day to farm up a stack or two. If no one else is farming Dragonfin Angelfish in the area at the same time, you should be able to knock it off pretty quickly.
Anti-Aliased: Hax0red
Today was a beautiful morning. It was a morning filled with sunshine, chirping birds, and a good night's rest. I was up writing late last night, so it was nice to sleep in a little before getting a start on the day. Yet, all cozy naps must come to an end, as I had to get up to man my computer, check my e-mail, and get a start on today's work.As I booted up Mozilla Thunderbird and looked over the e-mails that were floating in my inbox (yesterday's MAG comments, Star Wars Galaxies comments, and some new screenshots for D&D Online) I saw one that kinda stuck out. It was from Blizzard Entertainment Support, and it was a password change notification from Battle.net. At first I chuckled, thinking it was some type of spammer who was trying to get me to give up my password, but on looking through the letter, I noticed it was authentic Blizzard material.That's when my phone rang. It was one of my guildmate's numbers flashing on the screen. Those birds stopped chirping after that booming string of profanities escaped my mouth.
The fight against RMT in EVE Online
It's an unfortunate reality that most any massively multiplayer online game running has to cope with outside influences on an in-game economy because of real money trading (RMT). Game developers tackle the problem in different ways. For instance, Final Fantasy XI has an anti-RMT task force and Warhammer Online has a zero-tolerance name-and-shame approach to RMT. Other companies grab the bull by its horns and base their game around a virtual item trade they can regulate. The problem of RMT has affected EVE Online just as it has other MMO titles, if not moreso given how its player-driven economy and the Interstellar Kredit (ISK) currency is central to the game. Beyond the potential revenue lost to the black market when players pay real cash for their ships and modules or buy huge sums of ISK outright, there are also issues with players getting their accounts cleaned out by the shady companies (ostensibly) selling the ISK. When that cleverly-named player "ajakdsk" links you to his ISK selling site in a chat channel, following that link could infect your computer with a keylogger, resulting in a fire sale on whatever they find in your account. EVE Online's creators CCP Games have taken a two-prong approach to handling these issues.
Time is Money: On patrol
Kebina Trudough here, offering you the best gold making secrets they don't want you to know about! I was like you once, poor and homely, before I discovered my patented system. Now you too can fill your pockets with the good stuff without ever breaking a sweat! Why spend all your time toiling when you could be vacationing in the Hot Springs? I'm not offering these tips for 100 gold, or 90 gold, or even 50 gold! No, not even 20 gold! My system is yours for FREE! Satisfaction guaranteed or I'll give you a full refund (handling charges may apply).How would you like to make 45g in less than 20 minutes per day? Act quickly, and they'll throw in 850 Argent Crusade reputation and a shot at your very own Deputy Pa'trolla Badge!Individual results may vary. If you are not level 80 yet, you won't make as much gold, but you will gain a whopping amount of experience! So how can you take advantage of this once-a-day offer? By going on a Troll Patrol of course! You need to finish in 20 minutes or less to get the full benefits, but lucky for you, I have all the tips to get you movin'.
Time is Money: Capitalizing on Patch 3.2
Kebina Trudough here, offering you the best gold making secrets they don't want you to know about! I was like you once, poor and homely, before I discovered my patented system. Now you too can fill your pockets with the good stuff without ever breaking a sweat! Why spend all your time toiling when you could be vacationing in the Hot Springs? I'm not offering these tips for 100 gold, or 90 gold, or even 50 gold! No, not even 20 gold! My system is yours for FREE! Satisfaction guaranteed or I'll give you a full refund (handling charges may apply).New patches always bring unique and often limited-time-only opportunities to cash in. To take advantage of them you have to be aware, come prepared, and be willing to invest in anything from materials to spending some quality time with the Auction House. So what can you get out of patch 3.2? Scanning through the latest PTR notes, here are some potential gold-making highlights. Remember, results may vary:GlyphsStrangulate, a Death Knight ranged ability that silences, will soon also apply a 3 second Interrupt effect on non-player controlled targets (read: not for PvP). While a few other abilities are also getting this buff, you might note that there is actually a Glyph of Strangulate, which skims 20 seconds off its cooldown. Considering how many fights depend on the tank and DPS to constantly be interrupting effects (General Vezax anyone?), this particular glyph might become more popular. Frustrated Paladins everywhere probably have dropped Glyph of Exorcism from their PvP specs, but with 3.2 making it usable on players again, they may be wanting it back.Glyph of Claw is being added to the game, and you can expect pretty much all ferals pre-level 50 (when they train Mangle) to pick it up. Although you won't be able to make this pre-patch, you could farm the materials.
China's gold farming ban not really a ban
The other day, we reported on China's recent ban on trading real currency for virtual goods, and it was hailed as the end of gold selling in the MMO world. Unfortunately, it may not actually play out that way. While this would put a stop to some gold selling, it won't stop all of it thanks to a convenient little loophole.That loophole is the fact that their law has no jurisdiction over foreign transactions. While it absolutely can put a stop to these transactions on Chinese soil using Chinese servers and Chinese currency, Chinese goldfarmers can still happily (well, probably not happily) scrounge up gold on American realms and sell it to American players. Most likely, this new law won't have an impact on the gold selling industry whatsoever. The people being impacted are those crafting their games on a model of microtransactions rather than a subscription model. Developers, not gold farmers, will be harmed by this. A game like Free Realms is no longer a feasible option in China.
The Daily Grind: Is there a difference between item malls and gold farmers?
With the recent news of China banning the exchange of virtual currency for real world currency, it brings up the future of gold farming in that country, and possibly the world. While China is certainly not the only country which employs MMO gold farmers, it's often labeled as the biggest offender. There is certainly a difference between trading real world money for virtual money and trading virtual money for real world money, but this new China legislation shows that the legalities of both practices are becoming real issues to lawmakers.So we're curious to know how you feel about the whole process of trading in either direction. It was once a stigma among gamers, but many companies are adopting this practice in a legal way, conducted by item stores and in-game currency exchange. Besides the fact that these item malls are supported by the game studios, do you see a difference? If so, what are they? Discuss!
China bans gold farming
Gold farmers! They're everywhere, right? We get spammed by them, we run into them farming Dire Maul, we put them on ignore. Lazy people with too much disposable income buy gold from them in a show of crass consumerism. Blizzard has done their best to stamp out gold-farming services, but litigation is difficult due to the fact that most of the major gold-farming companies are based in China or other parts of Asia. They've instead opted to try to control and stop gold farmers from being able to complete transactions via other methods. This time, though, it looks like Blizzard may have an unlikely ally in, of all things, the Chinese government. They announced today that the trading of virtual goods for real money is now illegal in China. This ruling reaches farther than just gold farming, though. It also bans the sale of prepaid time cards for MMOs or other online games, as well as numerous technicalities we're sure to hear about in the weeks to come. To give you an idea of how much an economic impact this will have on China, gold farming alone generates nearly one billion dollars a year worldwide, with China's specific numbers growing at a reported rate of 20% per year. It's estimated that 80 to 85 percent of gold farmers reside in China, so this ruling is massive and, to be frank, pretty troubling.From a gamer's perspective, yes, it'll be nice to worry about this kind of service a little less, but from a human perspective this places hundreds of thousands of Chinese people in one of two kinds of serious trouble: the first is financial hardship from the "honest" gold-farming companies that will close down after this ban, and the second is legal issues from the companies who don't close down because they can't afford not to do what they've been doing.It's not my intention to defend gold farming as an industry, because I used to have to deal with its more nefarious effects every day -- compromised accounts stripped of gold and gear, keyloggers, disruptive spam, all of that. But life isn't easy for many Chinese people working jobs like this. Many gold farming centers are much cleaner and safer, in relative terms, than other places in China where one on the bottom rung of the financial ladder might seek work, so while I appreciate the change as only a white first-world male can, I worry about what will happen to the underprivileged working-class Chinese people behind the spam ads and dead gnomes when this law starts getting enforced. NOTE: Comments are now disabled for this post.
New legislation in China outlaws gold farming
Gold farmers. We know you hate them... We know. And we've mentioned the associated gold spam as being the bane of many MMO players' existence a number of times in the past. But is the situation ever going to change? Perhaps, given the new legislation coming out of China this week. Of course while all gold farmers certainly aren't based in China, a substantial percentage of gold farming operations are in fact run from the country. Such operations may now find themselves under greater scrutiny by the Chinese authorities; the government has now established its first official rule on the use of virtual currency in China. Essentially, it states that virtual currency cannot leave the sphere of influence of its issuer. (Exact wording: "The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services.") If the law is actually obeyed and enforced, it would curb all manner of black market activities in China connected with the virtual.
Time is Money: Farming for Nerubian Chitins
Kebina Trudough here, offering you the best gold making secrets they don't want you to know about! I was like you once, poor and homely, before I discovered my patented system. Now you too can fill your pockets with the good stuff without ever breaking a sweat! Why spend all your time toiling when you could be vacationing in the Hot Springs? I'm not offering these tips for 100 gold, or 90 gold, or even 50 gold! No, not even 20 gold! My system is yours for FREE! Satisfaction guaranteed or I'll give you a full refund (handling charges may apply).Nerubian Chitins are gathered by Skinners and used by Leatherworkers, and although they show up on a number of mobs, there are only a handful of areas that are actually worth farming. They sell for around 5g a piece, and Leatherworkers consume them in bunches from one up to 40! In fact, for several levels, the chitins provide some of the best and cheapest leveling options. On the low end, they are used for leg armor enhancement kits, and on the high end, epic gear.Azjol-NerubIf you can get a group to run Azjol-Nerub with you a few times, with you as the only Skinner, you'll make quite the profit. The skinnable mobs there have an average drop rate of about 25%.In Icecrown, before you start questing...Upon entering Icecrown, your first stop will likely be the Argent Vanguard, a mid-size outpost with several quests available to you. Before you begin these quests, or at least, before you hand in A Cold Front Approaches, start farming the mobs around the camp. Once you hand in that quest, you phase out permanently, and all of those spiders will be gone.
