Andrew Busey: My Musings

The corporate site for my new company, Oxygen Games, is live.  Check it out and find out what we’re planning to do!  Our first game, Duels , is also going live today. Stay tuned for more information! (Oh who am I kidding, like there is anyone reading my blog that is going to actually stay tuned! So if you wander through the great interwebs, fall through the “tubes”, or whatever - check out the game!

You know a game is crazy when bots login every few minutes and spam everyone with messages like:

1000g for only $99.  We powerlevel 1-60, $200. 

Etc.  They have URLs, but no need to help them out by posting them here.  It’s annoying. 

I guess it’s a sign of success that so many people want to buy gold and power-leveling services.  But the spam is really starting to get overwhelming.  I’m curious to see how Blizzard handles this. 

I’m actually in the camp that says buying gold and in-game stuff is ok.  I know a lot of people disagree, but I’m sure we all agree that in game spam sucks. 

 

Well News.com has written a story:  Outsourcing your ‘Warcraft’ skills

I think the point is kind of missed in many places in this story, especially by the “long-time Warcraft player” quoted in the story.  People say this is lame and misses the point of the game, but I disagree.  MMORPG’s have an inherent problem:  they have to throttle forward progress.  There are always a group of people who can play almost 24/7 and get ahead.  So much of the stuff, including leveling up and especially making gold, are repeatative and often boring undertakings. 

I’ll admit I had fun leveling from 60->70 and that was generally fun.  Kudos to Blizzard for putting in enough quests and fun stuff to make it not feel like a hellacious mind-numbing grind.  But earning gold is.  Grinding for reputation is in many cases.  These things are just not fun, but they are throttles within the game.

If you have a job and a life, you cannot necessarily do these things at the frequency level necessary to be at the top of the game.  This is in no way a reflection of your skills and it in no way makes you lame.  If you like the game and you want to stay at the top I think it’s fine to outsource. 

It’s not like you’re having these services run instances for you - they typically are not capable of that.  But if during downtime you have them make gold for you (cheaper, but possible riskier than buying it), grind reputation, or level up an alt (alternate or second) character (so you can try something different), I say do it if you have the money.  Spending money on this is cheaper than a lot of other hobbies. 

I’ve done it.  I admit it.  I think it was worth it.  Anyway, there you have it. 

In World of Warcraft’s expansion The Burning Crusade you can buy flying mounts.  They are really cool and are also a requirement for many level 70 activities.  So if you play, you’ll eventually have to buy one.  There are two types:

• Normal:  60% faster than walking and they can fly.
• Epic:  280% faster and they fly really fast.

The epics are really cool.  I highly recommend them.  So here is what they cost:

Normal:

• Riding skill training to 225:  800g
• Basic flying mount:  100g
• Total price:  900g

Epic:

• Riding skill training to 225:  800g
• Riding skill training to 300:  5,000g  (requires that your riding already be 225)
• Basic epic flying mount:  200g
• Total cost:  6,000g (assuming you didn’t also buy the basic mount in the meantime for an additional 100g)

So for an epic flying mount (you’ll definitely want one) you’re in for 6,000g.  What is that in real money?  Well, I’m glad you asked.  So I looked it up today and found gold (on my server) going for $188/1000g - down substantially from a week ago when it was about $300/1000g.

At the new, lower gold price of $188 per 1000g the epic mount would cost $1,128. (Over a thousand dollars of real money!)

So your glorious new flying vehicle (which Blizzard declares that it own) is almost as expensive as a real vehicle.

Oh and if you want to know how much it costs in time, it is even worse.  My guess is that you can earn 1000g in 20-40 hours depending on how hard you try.  So figuring 30, it will take you 180 hours of gold farming (what fun) to get enough for your epic mount.  If you make over $30/hr in reality land that means the epic mount IS costing as much as a real vehicle at $5,000+.  Of course the fallacy of this argument is that you choose to spend your time here, so what is your leisure time worth?  I don’t know but this seems like it’s starting to get pretty expensive.

A quick warning.  On Kil’Jaeden (where I play) there is a new scan going on and I expect it is probably happening on other servers as well.

You get an ingame mail from the Argent Dawn saying something like:

Thank you for all your hard work killing demons for the Argent Dawn, please accept this gift as a small token of our appreciation.

The mail will claim to be from some Argent Dawn figure and will have an attached package - typically one of the various gift wrapped items (like the reward from those grudge-covered objects in Gnomeragon). 

The scam is that it is COD and it’s easy to fall for because it looks like you are getting a present and 100g/300g (whatever they send).  But really you are getting a present for 100g/300g COD gold.  So when you click you lose the gold.  Boom!

I got one of these for 300g and fortunately didn’t fall for it.  I’ve seen several people sending warnings about the scam in general chat.  So be careful, it would suck to have some random scam yank hundreds of gold from you.

/Alert

Article from News.com:  eBay bans auctions of virtual goods

Well this makes my weekly tracking report on account sales in World of Warcrat difficult to continue.  I was waiting to restart it once things stablizied, since the release of The Burning Crusade (the expansion) it has been unclear what the right metrics were.  There have been a few level 70 characters up on eBay, but not many.  So given this announcement I’ll delay the report.  I’ll start tracking gold again this week. 

This is unfortunate.  I, for one, think that being able to sell your account is a good thing.  It you put thousands of hours (like most level 70s) into this, you should be able to sell what you’ve accomplished.  It’s a shame a few purists think you should just have to throw all that away. 

Games are a big hobby for many people, most hobbies involve collection/building and generate some value (although are not often wildly profitable).  MMORPGs are no different - as you play you collect stuff for your characted and you build it up.  This has some value - no where near the time you put into it - and you should be able to extract that value if you leave.  It is unfortunate that some game companies do not take this broader view.

Please also read The Prince, The Pauper, and The Purist, if you are interested in this topic.

The Burning Crusade is out!  (Hence the delay, more on that in another post.)

Accounts for Sale:  287 (down 631!)

High Price: $1,300 (7/9 T3 Paladin with KT Loot) - down $200, although I no longer consider this a good indicator since people are posting stuff at delusional price points

Highest Price w/Bid:  $810 (14 bids, 8/9 T3 Warrior with Thunderfury - Based on the formating and e-mail contact I think this is a fraud though - see my previous post on this type of fraud).  There are a fer  bids in the $500-$700 range, but not many.

Accounts with Kel’Thuzad weapons:  1 (down 3) 

Accounts with Legendary items:  12 (sown 26)  (This number is somewhat inflated because it counts splinters of Atiesh and a lot of people have those - not too useful though unless you’re in a guild that can kill KT.) 

Gold: 

• 1000g on Tichondrius (Alliance): $228.78-$336.99 (trending up about $30)
• 1000g on Frostmane (Alliance): $228.78-$278.83 (range closed, but low price up $100)

Sources:  EZgaming, IGE, MOGs

COMMENTARY

Gold continues to remain roughly flat, with a lot of variance in prices between vendors.  Shop around.  I expect gold to fall dramatically in the next few weeks as gold is much easier to obtain in TBC.  However, since epic flying mount training costs 5000g I expect there will be a big jump in demand for large gold purchases.

Account sales are down dramatically.  If you are thinking of buying in for TBC, go for a good T1 character and forgo the T3 premium prices.  You will gear up fast in TBC and T3 will be obsolete at level 70 anyway.

Good luck in the Burning Crusade! 

 

Less than one week to The Burning Crusade.

Accounts for sale on eBay:  918 (up 325!)

- Under the old system:  439 (up 155)

High Price:  $1,500 ( 6/9 T3 Warrior with Gressil [Kel’Thuzad sword] also has two other Naxx weapons)

Highest Price w/ Bid:  $1,500 - same account as above, it actually has 7 bids

Accounts with Kel’Thuzad weapons:  4 (up 3) Accounts with Legendary items:  38 (Up 1)  (This number is somewhat inflated because it counts splinters of Atiesh and a lot of people have those - not too useful though unless you’re in a guild that can kill KT.) 

Gold: 

• 1000g on Tichondrius (Alliance): $200.28-$285.77 (trending down about $50)
• 1000g on Frostmane (Alliance): $129.27-$371.39 (about the same)

Sources:  EZgaming, IGE, MOGs

COMMENTARY

Gold seems roughly stable.  A ton of accounts are going on sale.   It looks like a lot of people are  getting out (or cashing out before TBC).  Probably a lot of the really hard core people are just trying to get some cash and will either play alts or start new characters with the new races (Blood Elf or Dranei). 

I’m also seeing a lot of things that look like scams as I browse the accounts for sale.  Be careful. 

I’ll admit two things up front:

1. I don’t use Second Life.  (I would say play, but IMO Second Life is a social experience and not a game.)
2. I’ve really resisted writing about anything Second Life related.  (Although I did briefly mention it and Anshe Chung once.)

Now, on to the good stuff.  There have been a ton of recent articles about Second Life, largely started by a set of articles / press releases about an avatar named Anshe Chung (in real life she is Ailin Graef) becoming the first real world millionaire from Second Life.  Uhm, I’m not sure I said that right, but you get the point.  If not, well you can find it.

So this spat of Second Life press took a turn for the worse (well from Second Life’s perspective anyway) a week or so ago when Clay Shirky questioned their numbers.   That’s an interesting story and relevant to any high profile web company - numbers are important.  Anyway, I don’t want to talk about that either, I’m just catching you up in case you haven’t read the billion Second Life stories that are all over the place.

In Second Life users can own property.  This is different from other MMORPGs where the game company claims ownership of everything (which creates a ton of issues, but again that’s another story).   So Anshe Chung owns property in Second Life and, in a sense, has become something of a celebrity.  Possibly the first real celebrity avatar….

So, she has some press conference in a digital theater in Second Life.  I don’t know what it was about.  (But I’m going to guess she was talking about how rich she has become or how great she is based on all the stories I’ve seen.  Oh wait, disregard that.  I’m a respectable blogger and I’m not supposed to start rumors.)   During this event a group “sabotaged” the even with giant animated penises.  LOL.  She didn’t like this.   I say, hey if you want to be famous, well you can’t expect everyone to love you.

So this really isn’t that interesting.  Celebrities and politicians face protests, hecklers, etc. all the time.  Right?   Right.   How is this any different.

I got this from News.com:  The legal rights to your ‘Second Life’ avatar

So this is what makes it interesting (from the article):

Afterward, a video of the attack was posted on YouTube. When Anshe Chung Studios filed a complaint with the popular video service claiming that Graef’s copyrights had been infringed because images of her avatar were used without her permission, YouTube promptly removed the video.

A quote from the Guntram Graef (her husband), also from the article:

“I have to point out to you that you, most likely by accident, posted an image that contains artwork copyrighted by my wife Ailin Graef and by Anshe Chung Studios, Ltd. and without obtaining our permission to do so,”

Uhm, well, I disagree.  I’m no lawyer, but if Anshe Chung is famous, well she can be stalked and her unflattering pictures can be posted everywhere.  Or at least that is what my understanding the law through analogy logic says.  I’m sure Britney Spears doesn’t like having all those pictures of her with no panties on floating around either.  (Well maybe she does, but that’s beside the point.)  It’s news.  Just like the “sabotage” was news.   So hey fair use and all.

So I say boycott Anshe Chung for being Second Life’s biggest hypocrite.   Anshe:  You can’t have your cake and eat it too. 

• If you want Second Life to be like reality - which I assume you do since you are bragging about making millions of real dollars in it
• And you want to be famous - which I assume you do with all the heavy self-promotion, even if it is just to drive up virtual real estate prices to make you more money
• Then you have to accept being famous with all the goood and the bad that brings. 

So to Anshe Chung, perhaps the world’s most famous avatar, I say welcome to reality.

Oh, and I respect Linden Lab for saying this (from the News.com article):

“Copyright law is applicable to works created in Second Life. Copyright law includes fair use and it includes provisions regarding infringement,” Linden Lab wrote to CNET News.com in a statement Friday.

So I recommend that everyone that cares about these issue avoid transactions with Anshe Chung and her affiliates.  Let the boycott begin!

WARNING:  Buying World of Warcraft (WoW) accounts on eBay or via Paypal is very dangerous.  This is the first in a series of articles on how to identify these scams and how to protect yourself. 

I previously posted that eBay should have a flag option like craigslist.  This would help.  So, in the interest of explaining how messed up this stuff is, I will show the anatomy of a really bad eBay scam.  (Well really, it is more like a scammer.)   The proliferation of fraud related to virtual items is a significant problem.  It’s perpetuated by three things:

• eBay’s stance on virtual items.  Which, to the best of my understanding is:  they don’t get any protection because they aren’t real.  I find to be really silly given that eBay is one of the biggest web companies and virtual items are a big, high value market.
• Paypal shares eBay’s position on virtual items.  I guess this isn’t surprising since eBay owns them.
• The game companies (particularly Bllizzard) perpetuate fraud by not allowing secure character and gold transfers.  Look, I know some of these companies are purists, but the reality is that people are going to buy/sell these accounts.  They can let their customers (people that want to play their games enough to pay) get ripped off or they can facilitate these transfers and make money.  They are in denial about reality.

OK, so now you know why these scams exist.  Let me show you one.

On eBay right now, I can do a search on “curulet2007″ (you have to do an advanced search with the box checked for Search title and description) and get these results:

• WoW World of Warcraft 8/9 Tier 3 Warrior + Thunderfury
• 10 x Nintendo Wii Consoles - Special Lot .BRAND NEW.
• WOW World of Warcraft 7/9 Tier 3 Priest - Full Atiesh
• World of Warcraft WoW 60 Rogue 8/9 tier3 Kingsfall r14
• World of Warcraft WoW 60 Hunter 8/9 Tier 3 - 70 Epics -

Now, you’ll see that there for world of warcraft accounts there.  Each has 7/9 or 8/9 tier 3 (which is very hard to get) and one of the best possible weapons for it’s class.   It would be impossible for one person to have created all these characters.  These accounts should be going for $1000-$1500 (if they were real).  Except in this case they are all the same guy using several  different eBay accounts.  You can look at each one, he uses the following ids (in the same order as the auctions above):

• scutumboy (1)
• lisar915 (34)
• lisar915 (34)
• powerjunkie68 (52)
• powerjunkie68 (52)

Only scutumboy and powerjunkie68 have any feedback that still links to an auction.  Scutumboy actually looks vaguely real since it has (1) feedback and that feedback is selling a $500 remote controlled car set.  Powerjunkie68 bought a “fake doctor’s excuse” $9.99.

This is another important way to detect fraud.  (The first being a seller listing several items that he can’t possibly have.)  I look at feedback and click the links.  If the person has just bought a bunch of < $10 items that look useless they are probably just racheting up their feedback for the big score.  It looks like this guy probably rotates accounts at a frequency that makes it difficult to spot what he has been doing.

Virtual goods are also difficult in feedback, because in some cases the seller can “steal them back”.  In the case of World of Warcraft accounts this is thanks to Blizzard’s policy since they do not recoginize account changes the original owner can just call up, request a new password, and boom the account is their’s again.  At that point you have limited recourse.  You can’t even go give the seller negative feedback if you already gave them positive feedback.  So they can just sell it again!

BTW, the same thing pretty much happens if they give you nothing - you don’t have a lot of recourse.  Although you can leave them negative feedback in this case, since they never gave you anything.

In some cases you can do a chargeback on your credit card which forces Paypal to refund your money.  This doesn’t work if your Paypal drafts from your bank.

Anyway, back to the fraud.  In every listing he says contact curulet2007@yahoo.com before bidding.  This is usually a bad sign.  If they don’t want to be contacted through the eBay channels, that is usually a big red flag.

There is one more thing that sets off the fraud alert in the case described above.  The 10x Wiis listing.  I went and looked at that as I was looking at all his listings (when spening money on virtual goods it is important to do as much research on the seller as possible).  So when selling Wiis and PS3s it is common (it used to be required, but I’m ont sure if it still is) to show a photo with your receipts and a written note with your eBay ID - to prove they were yours.  Well, the 10x Wiis here are listed under the “lisar915″ eBay ID and the picture has the ID “alexmichalas” in it.  Woops!  Run away.   BTW, a quick search for ebay member “alexmichalas” reveals he has been selling Wiis (in Europe) and has the exact picture in all his listings… with, shock, no mention of “curulet2007″.

So, here we have one scammer spotted and identified.  Of course, I can’t tell eBay about it or flag it.  So what should I do?

1. Write this blog post.
2. Stop people from getting scammed.

So I attempted to contact kotura (331) who has a current bid of $1,425 on the 8/9 T3 Warrior (first listing).  It’s the only one with meaningful bids.  BUT, get this, I can’t contact this person because I have had a transaction with them - I might be trying to rip them off.  Oh, the irony!

So I tried to keep this buyer from getting ripped off.  It almost makes me want to start a “verified” eBay listing or something.  Or eBayFraudAlert.com.  But really, eBay should be doing this.