Has one one here heard about this .. or better yet, is involved in something like this?? Virtual worlds where you can kill monsters, slay dragons, rob people, go to an online nightclub or be a property developer.

I’ve just listened to a podcast from back in August about money being made in virtual worlds. I can’t find the links to the podcast anymore (a friend had the podcast saved on his computer) but the transcript can be read here.

There are even sweat-shops being set up in the real world to mine virtual gold, which is then sold.

Apparently, people will spend money on ANYTHING!

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Yup! This is very common in World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, Final Fantasy XI, and many, many online games.

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"4th Law of Modern Thermodynamics: Where Mihoshi is, Chaos Reigns." ~W. Hakubi
"Gun control is hitting your target; Recycling is reloading your brass." ~ Lex of Dirty Work.

Yes, it's quite common. Back when Diabalo was popular weapons and equipment went for $100's to $1000's of dollars. The Sim Online had such a problem with it that they rewrote whole chucks of the game in an effort to try and clamp doing on people using scripts to rake in the money and then sell it on E-bay. I have heard of people who essentially spend their life online in these games using scripts and other systems to make money, get items, etc, and then sell them to make their living.

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Yeah, they're real alright. I've been in one MMORPG that was built around a real world/virtual world economy, and two others with a black market in virtual currency.

In the gaming world's, we call'em CGFs. Chinese Gold Farmers. The vast majority we've encountered are, in fact, Chinese (Koreans come in a healthy #2). There are even guides out with the appropriate phonetic Chinese insults to debase said sweat shoppers while they're toiling away for pennies a day.

Some of us make a game out of causing them major headaches, and a few times, we'll get the attention of one of their management staff who'll bribe the harassing player with quite a bit of game currency or loot to leave them alone. Afterall, what they're up to is against every known end user license agreement in the gaming industry, so they can't stop us with official help.

Its a nice little shadow war going on under the radar.

I just started playing travian and it's heaps of fun, I want to play more MMOG but I don't know where to start...

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If this writing is blue you're going too fast!

There was a case in Shanghai about a year ago, maybe 18 months, where a player of an MMO loaned a real life friend a very good in game sword. The friend then sold the sword in-game. The result was a real life murder over a virtual sword (although it was a mega-uber one from what I understand). That's not the freaky bit. The freaky bit is that South Korea has a branch of the police that deals ONLY with virtual crime ( I can't find the original article but this one is close). Real cops investigating crimes that go on in video games.

When I played Asheron's Call, I knew a guy in real life that would make up to $400 a day powerleveling other people. That's a gamer term for taking a low level character, or toon, and placing them in an area where they could ever survive on their own, and fighting on a team to get the far more experience than they could ever get fighting at their own level.

There was a another guy that had an in game program that would look for Villas, run to them and buy them in game, then sell them on E bay for about $250 real money. There were 11 servers and he was selling about 2 per month per server.

My City of Heroes account could probably be sold for a pretty good amount as I have one of each of the 5 hero types at level 33 or higher. For most, that's the hump they need to get over to finally be complete. One guy in our Supergroup had over 1.5 billion influence (cash in CoH). Anything over 10 million is a lot. He could have sold it off for big money.

Ebay's rules about this state that the selling of a virtual item is prohibited, but in regards to selling in game items and cash, the seller is actually being compensated for the time it took to get the stuff. At least that was the line around 2003-03.

Some of the spam we get here is from places offering to sell virtual cash in games.

ETA: Mickal, if you'd like to give City if Heroes/Villains a try, I can PM some links with a ton of info. I wrote a guide for new players that kept growing until it hit about 250 pages. It's a superhero based game, and there is no real crafting like in a lot of games. It's pretty much all about moving from one mission to the next. I think there are a few others on here that play it as well. I'm not sure what it takes to get in game in from Australia, but I've played with several people from there so I know it's possible.

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Cool

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If this writing is blue you're going too fast!

Hum,
two words - Second Life...

If you haven't tried it yet, then be prepared for a shock to see how far commercial web surfing has gone.

BTW, Where is the BAUT presence there?

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`Irony` actually does mean `metal like`...

I just picked up a premium account in SL for grins & giggles.

Janu Heying

Virtual Property Queen

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I just got bit by the WoW bug myself... very impressed. I have a currently level 12 Dwarf hunter. Also took up mining and engineering.

There's just something about an irate drunken Dwarf named Whelm that totes around a musket, manufactures dynamite, and refers to everyone as "Laddie".

Its an awesome game, until you hit 60. Then you realize that Hell has far more levels than you ever imagined.

I stopped playing after maxing out my Alterac Valley faction simply because the politics of 40 man raiding made me nauseous. Especially certain protocols that tried to dictate to me how to play my character and what items looted in raids I was elligible for. I kinda like breaking the mold, and the automaton nature of the mass raid really bored me to death.

I love PvP myself. Strategy is a hobby of mine, and PvP requires a lot of it. I usually do pretty good.

Some of their motivators for World PvP leave a bit to be desired. The idea of collecting worm dust in the Silithus lead to protest cries of "THE SPICE MUST FLOW" on the forums.

Warsong Gulch is an awesome battleground if you can get with a solid team that uses voicechat. Alterac Valley's more of a free for all that represents, to me, the most awesome battleground I've ever played in.

I've been playing two days, so most of what you are saying is gibberish to me

Right now I'm slowly levelling up and doing every single quest I can find. Helps me to learn all the areas quicker. That and I'm trying to keep my mining / engineering skills higher than my level, that way I have good gear and a halfway decent income.

I also notice that people are selling small amounts of materials at insane prices... like 20 bronze bars for a whole gold! Does that actually sell at that price?

I tried WoW to see what my older kids were into.

I was a little green shrek like girl/creature, that danced on a hitching post to get attention.

I fell of the post into a horse trough, and completely fitted inside the trough. I think I was dancing inside the trought (it was a while ago). We laughed so hard.

Second Life sounds interesting. How could I make virtual rugs? Is there some kind of design component?

Hum,
there is a built in object construction set, but you can pick up a ready made freebie from a junk yard, or pay (real/virtual money) someone to make you one.

(The option of stealing or begging is not recommended.)

But if you make one yourself, can sell copies of it, and generate money...

(btw, it off line today for an inhouse upgrade)

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`Irony` actually does mean `metal like`...

In terms of setting up virtual houses, and despite my long love/hate relationship with Sony Online Entertainment, they do have the best mechanisms for setting up player housing.

Star Wars Galaxies sits on top of that particular heap, in my opinion.

Everquest (EQ) had a HUGE economy steming from trading virtual property. Playing games like that is a huge investment of time if you want to do "end game" stuff (like fight dragons and creatures that take literally 30 minutes for a raid sized party to kill). Anyway, i never participated in macro farming. Although i've read articles where 16 year kids were buying brand new honda accords and souping them up with money earned from farming.