World of Warcraft Gold Farming : Why it is causing a problem.



Posted: Thursday, August 26, 2010

by Aaron LaPee
http://www.aaronsgadgets.com

We are going to talk about "gold farming" in a game called World of Warcraft and how it impacts the game play of the game itself.

World of Warcraft (WoW)is created and maintained by the Blizzard company. It is a MMORPG .Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a genre of computer role-playing games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world. It is just one of the hundreds of MMORPGs out there. The game is set in a fantasy world where you can pick one of two factions to play ; The Alliance or the Horde .These factions allow you to play as either monster or humaniod character facing the evils in the virtual game world. Generally a PC (Player Character) will go through quests and dungeons to: gain experienience, gain gear, and gain the general currency(usually Gold). Then through the virtual economic system, they spend that gold on materials for crafting items, skills, and better gear by either buying from NPCs (Non Player Characters) or through the in game auction house(AH) from other PC s.

The trend has become more and more popular today to gain gold and then sell it to other Pcs on the game or provide services such as Power Leveling and make real money off it(By the way it violates Blizzards Rules and Agreements to do that!). In fact it has become so rampant that more and more "gold farming companies"(Internet based Companies that specifically use WoW accounts to gain gold from harvesting certain items or killing certain creatures in the game)and Power Leveling Services have actually become public(at least in the internet eyes).Even with the violations of the game and company rules, they still persist today. Even worse they have employed phishers(people who criminally hack or gain access to account passwords or sensitive items) and crackers/hackers(people who criminally violate security to gain information or cause problems in a system) to gain account information and either sell virtually all the characters items and gold or take over the account to make certain items to sell for gold. Then they sell that gold for real money, after which they do it all over again.

Phishers often use emails that look and even may have links (usually to a shell that looks like it is official WoW or Blizzard team websites) that look official. When you log into this shell you actually give these phishers your account name and password. Then they usually wait until you are off your account and go to work violating Blizzards Rules and Aggreements by causing your character(Which is now on under their control) to either sell all your stuff, create items for gold sell or buy items off the Local in game AH to do the previous.

They usually go in 3 steps:
    Aquire information and check characters out(They will apply an authenticator code to the account to prevent the actual user for using it)

    Auction/sell all items of importance and delete non esistential characters(Usually they keep high level, geared, and maxed crafters.If it looks like you are not going to be on for a while they will account sit and make gold )
    Transfer characters to different realms and accounts(By the way this costs you money directly taken out of your paypal/credit/debit card account)


    After this is all said and done, they move on to the next account to hack/crack/phish and repeat the process. Just to make gold to resell to lazy PC s that do not want to work for it themselves.

    On the plus side Blizzard is very aware of these people and are very good about account investigations and recovery to the actual account owner (usually takes 3-7 days before you can get everything back and 1-2 hours before you have your account back up and running for play)

    In my opinion, Blizzard should have away to buy gold from Blizzard at relatively cheap amount of money, and this would hinder or even stop gold farming.Phishers/Crackers/Hackers would still be out there, but not as rampant. To make it actual Game Play of having an option to buy Gold directly from Blizzard would drastically decrease the number of them out there.

    Now there are ways to deter said phishers/hackers/crackers from even gaining your account information:
    1. Buy an authenticator from Blizzard
       
    2. If you recieve any email pertaining to your account, go to your web browser and physically type in world of warcraft address and log into the website(DO NOT use any email links)
       
    3. Change your password peridiocally (about once a month)
       
    4. Contact blizzard by phone, in game emails, or email if you have any account questions(Remember Blizzard will never ask you for your password; they already have it)
       


    Note: The farming of gold itself is not illegal but the selling of gold/items/services to PC s for real world money is. In fact you can farm gold on your character all day long, as long as you don't sell it for money, goods,or services in the real world.

    There are legal ways of making gold in WoW that doesn't require being a phisher or cracker/hacker. There are lots of guides out there to help you level and farm sites to gain gold, which is a far better alternative then having someone else do it and violating your agreement with Blizzard and perputating computer crimes in virtual world games.These guides usually come in a book format or e book format.

    Ok, here is the long and short of it. Don't buy from the spammers in WoW! Instead do your own work and make your own gold. Truthfully, the game gets fustrating at times but that is all part of the game, find yourself a website/guide and bully through it(or find a really good guild,they are always willing to help). If you get tired of one character, make a new one and explore your options.
Aaron has been gaming for 15 years. He Currently holds an Associates degree in Computer Programming and Analysis. He is avid Role Player and Computer Gamer. If you enjoyed his article, check out more reviews and products at http://www.aaronsgadgets.com
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