Would you kill a begging/crying Alliance?

We asked 100 people the following question:

If the Alliance lowbie say you were about to gank spotted you and started /begging, /crying, or otherwise being pathetic, would you not kill them? If they could speak to you (through a shared language), what you would make them do to not kill them? Or does hatred run through your veins so strong, all negotiation is out of question?!

Here are some of the responses:

Warne said:

“Step 1: Is Ally a threat to me, others, or our NPCs? If yes, proceed to Step 3. If not, go to Step 2.
Step 2:Is Ally a honorable target? If yes, proceed to step 4. If not, proceed to Step 5.
Step 3: Kill. Kill. Kill.
Step 4: Do I feel like killing, or just playing with their heads? If killing, go back to Step 3. If just playing around, proceed to Step 5.
Step 5: Do I have the time to jerk around with this Ally? If so, proceed to mess with Ally until he/she runs off, or commits to an action that initiates Step 3 via Step 1. If not, proceed to Step 6.
Step 6: I’ve got better things to do. Mount up, go somewhere else.”

Vyodar says:

“Hrm. Depends.

If I am questing and they are questing I’ll leave them alone - or even help them out if they overdraw. Or like in STV last night me and a guildy were grinding those nagahs for that ‘kill 100000000 nagahs for 10 weeds’ quest in BB, and a dwarf warrior was up there. Normally our inclination is to kill first and ask questions later but, frankly, we were at 6/10 of those damn reeds. So we /wave and start to draw another one when three of them spawn around the dwarf. We jump in and save her, and then - bug. Nagahs start spawning up there near the water spring every 45 seconds or so. We ended up playing with that dwarf for a good hour or so.

Of course an hour later we decided to go ganking and killed every Ally we came across. And for some reason, generally, if I am in STV I’ll kill every Ally I see. Same with Hillsbrad. But not with places like Thousand Needles or Feralas.

Edit: Actually I know why I do it in STV. Because on Blackrock at last those whiney little #$*$*es bring their Mommy or Daddy’s 70 with them as a bodyguard instead of actually learning to PVP on their own.”

Borkin answered:

“In certain situations I might, but generally I’ll spare some flagged lowbie if I see one. (For me, a lowbie qualifies as any target whose level is green or gray, so even a 67 is a lowbie to me.) Situations involving lowbie death:

1. Lowbies gang-banging another lowbie, such as in the case of a Pally and Shaman attacking a Troll Hunter in the Blasted Lands a couple weeks ago. Those lowbies ate it a couple times until the Hunter got outta dodge.

2. Lowbie makes the mistake of attacking me on the rare occasion that I flag up.

3. Lowbie attacks a Horde town, such as the village outside the Valley of Trials (name escapes me at the moment).

4. Sort of a variation of #3… I once ordered the execution of a 63 Warlock who was summoning in Hunters and Rogues to attack XR. (I was leading the defense group, and when they were done, they all just kinda knelt… The Lock was responsible for the mayhem, so I made the message clear. The other lowbies, I just stood in front of them and did /flee.)

Other than those situations, I’ll leave a lowbie alone. I guess I can summarize it with this:
Lowbie is the aggressor -> Lowbie death.”

Lienna also added:

“for me it depends on a few things.

1) why am I on my rogue? is it because I want to play him? or is it because my war was getting camped by ?? punk ass ally in STV?
2) How pissed off am I? Usually I will always kill someone atleast once, if they were /cry/begging the first time I proly only do it once, especially if they had never done anything to me (or anyone else)
3) will they give me honor? hellz ya they dead
4) if I see them gang banging some other horde their ass gets camped until they logout (their lvl 70 bodygaurd too lol. last night was good times)

*edit* if Im just passing through a zone I almost never kill lowbie ally, only exceptions being a)do I see him ganking horde? c) will it give me easy honor? ie not going to waste my time trying to kill a T6 paladin if I have somewhere to go.”

What would you say?

World of Warcraft Real Money and The Virtual Economy

In the world of Azeroth, life can be cheap but saving up for that much desired epic mount can
take months of labor. Welcome to the World of Warcraft, currently the world’s largest
MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). In the World of Warcraft, the
auction house presents the avid window shopper with a cornucopia of wonders, from fabulous
swords to armor guaranteed to make you the hardest elf in your neck of the woods. To
purchase such wonders, the player needs gold, something that requires quite literally hours,
days or weeks of in-game labor. However visit Ebay or Eye on MOGs, a price comparison
engine for virtual commodities, and you have the opportunity to convert real life earnings into
virtual gold, platinum, ISK or Credits, depending on the virtual world that you alter ego(s)
inhabits.

The world of Real Money Trading has come a long way since its fledgling days when gamers
departing from a virtual world would use websites like Ebay to convert their in-game assets
into real world money. Today it is a multi-billion dollar industry, with industry insiders like
Steve Sayler of IGE estimating that as much as $2.7 billion will change hands within this
secondary market during the course of 2006. This lucrative industry is now catered for by
companies like MMORPG SHOP, Mogmine and MOGS, which have entire infrastructures set
up to ‘farm’ for in-game gold and valuable items. Not only can you purchase in-game
spending power with real world money from such sites, but many are service driven, for
example offering power leveling to fast-track your avatar to new heights of maturity, turn you
into a master craftsman in days rather than months, or boost your reputation within the world
you inhabit. Sites like Mogmine offer specialized services like fruit picking, specified item
farming, or will take your character through that instance that’s been weighing so heavily on
your mind.

What we are experiencing here is a whole new type of economy where the border between
the real and virtual world is blurring. There are currently hundreds of companies catering to
this phenomenon, with some virtual items being sold for hundreds or even thousands of
dollars. Virtual real estate is earning real world money, with people like 43-year-old Wonder
Bread deliveryman John Dugger purchasing a virtual castle for $750, setting him back more
than a week’s wages. According to Edward Castronova, an economics professor at Indiana
University who has performed extensive research into online economies, Norrath, the world in
which EverQuest takes place, would be the 77th richest nation on the planet if it existed in real
space, with players enjoying an annual income better than that of the citizens of Bulgaria or
India. A visit to GameUSD indicates the current state of virtual currencies against the US
dollar, demonstrating that some virtual world currencies are currently performing better than
real world currencies like the Iraqi Dinar.

Real Money Trading and gold farming are met with mixed feelings in the gaming world, with
some gamers criticizing the fact that real world wealth can affect in-game prestige and
capabilities. Critics of the secondary market believe that such activities within the virtual
economies intrude on the fantasy and provide the more economically empowered with an
unfair in-game advantage. However this ignores the real world fact that earning money and
advancing one’s character within a virtual world takes a good deal of time, and some gamers
have more money than time on their hands. The average age for gamers is 27, and
approximately half of all gamers are in full time employment. For a group of friends playing
together, it can thus be relatively easy for the cash rich to fall behind the time rich in terms of
gameplay, as they are obliged to spend the lion’s share of their time working their real world
jobs while friends are spending time leveling their characters. For such individuals, for whom
time translates into money, a few dollars is a small price to pay to ensure virtual survival the
next time they enter an instance with their high level friends.

Companies set up to farm virtual commodities are furthermore criticized as being little more
than sweatshops, an attitude encouraged by the fact that many of these companies reside in
low wage economies like China. However, pay and work conditions in such companies,
where workers are paid to spend their days playing enjoyable, stimulating games, cannot
compare to that of their compatriots who spend their days mindlessly producing the
components that go into our computers, or the trainers that we wear while playing. Essentially the objection is a moral one, with many Westerners objecting to low wage economies catering
to this type of leisure activity. Often workers are paid partly in kind, with food and
accommodation included in remuneration packages, with the pay received thus presenting
largely surplus. While pay may not equate to Western standards, this type of economic
activity reminds us that we are living in a continually globalising economic environment where
quality of life and spending power should be taken into account as much if not more so than
say a straight dollar for yen exchange rate. Companies like Mogmine provide their staff with
health benefits, holiday pay and share options, along with the chance for advancement within
the organization. Brian Lim, CEO of Mogmine, comments that ‘many mid- and high-level
management started out as gamers and now they have equal or more pay than respectable
managers in more conventional businesses.’ Within these lower wage economies, these thus
represent desirable jobs.

Other complaints centre around the negative effect of such farming activities on in-game
economies. At Mogmine, Brian Lim’s gamers play the game as it is meant to be played, but
hone good techniques for gold generation along the way, thus ensuring that the work remains
interesting to staff. Jonathan Driscoll comments that competition for resources has always
been a feature of gameplay, and points out that his World of Worcraft farmers do their work
within instances, and thus do not impact on others’ gaming experiences in the least.
Complaints that farmers are responsible for in-game inflation smack of sour grapes when
compared to common factors like players with high level characters acting as benefactors for
their low-level alts, and thus facilitating the unrealistic in-game spending power of such low
level characters. While some developers do not condone real money trade on their servers,
others like MindArk, with their game Project Entropia, have included the secondary market as
a part of their services.

Even Sony Online Entertainment, who until recently stood staunchly
against real money trade, have jumped on the band-wagon with the release of their Station
Exchange service, actively facilitating Real Money Trading in Everquest 2. Other games, like
the upcoming Roma Victor, embed the secondary market as part of their financial model
rather than relying on the common subscription model, with players purchasing Sesterces to
play and advance in the game.
Such trading of virtual goods for real world money is potentially just the tip of the iceberg for
the development of virtual economies where people come together within virtual worlds to
promote and trade real world products. Games like The Matrix Online already sell advertising
space to real world companies to promote their products to gamers who spend their leisure
time within the world.

We are thus embarking on an entirely new type of economic activity, where real and virtual
worlds are meeting within an economic sphere. As a fledgling economy, it is difficult to chart
where this phenomenon may take us, but the sheer weight of currency being spent and
earned within these economies and the development of services to monitor real to virtual
exchange rates and market prices indicates that they are here to stay.