Blizzard decides it hates its customers

[Terralthra]

The people running farm networks don't level up characters themselves to farm with. That would be a massive waste of time for them, compared to just using your already-leveled and -geared character.

That requires quality hackers. Lower-tech farming networks do indeed level characters themselves using either forced labor or badly paid workers from Third World countries. Nothing is a waste of time if you can profit from it.

Marvelous. Care to quote the portion of that article which says they level characters themselves? Quests can be completed at level cap in WoW and yield more gold in lieu of experience.

[Irbis]

Marvelous. Care to quote the portion of that article which says they level characters themselves? Quests can be completed at level cap in WoW and yield more gold in lieu of experience.

Common sense?

First, or even mid level characters won't get sufficient amount of gold to sale, nor these tasty maximum level items people pay 200-400$ for. Are you really postulating characters being grinded entire days straight don't level to maximum nor are moved to more profitable areas with time? Level 50 finds more gold in one drop than level 20 in dozens, from my experience.

And there actually is portion saying they are leveled, the one about workers having been assigned collection quotes. If these are so hard to meet they keep failing them even under threat of beatings, we're talking about very high end level games, where you can't level character easily anymore.

[Terralthra]

Marvelous. Care to quote the portion of that article which says they level characters themselves? Quests can be completed at level cap in WoW and yield more gold in lieu of experience.

Common sense?

First, or even mid level characters won't get sufficient amount of gold to sale, nor these tasty maximum level items people pay 200-400$ for. Are you really postulating characters being grinded entire days straight don't level to maximum nor are moved to more profitable areas with time? Level 50 finds more gold in one drop than level 20 in dozens, from my experience.

And there actually is portion saying they are leveled, the one about workers having been assigned collection quotes. If these are so hard to meet they keep failing them even under threat of beatings, we're talking about very high end level games, where you can't level character easily anymore.

You're not getting my point.

The prisoners, who naturally never saw any of the money, also had quotas to meet. According to Dali, "If I couldn't complete my work quota, they would punish me physically. They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things."

There's nothing there about leveling at all. It says "work", which could easily be X gold or X ore/herb, etc.

Since you apparently still aren't getting my point, I'll quote myself saying something, then I'll quote you saying something which supports my point, then I'll explain why.

The people running farm networks don't level up characters themselves to farm with. That would be a massive waste of time for them, compared to just using your already-leveled and -geared character.

First, or even mid level characters won't get sufficient amount of gold to sale, nor these tasty maximum level items people pay 200-400$ for. Are you really postulating characters being grinded entire days straight don't level to maximum nor are moved to more profitable areas with time? Level 50 finds more gold in one drop than level 20 in dozens, from my experience.

Do you not see how "first or mid-level characters won't get sufficient amount of gold to sale" directly supports my original point, that it's much more profitable to pay for hacked account information on high-level characters, log in as them, and grind high-level things than it is to level up new characters? Even if your labor is free, using 90%+ of your labor time on leveling a character up to the point where it is worthwhile to do what you are doing is not cost-effective when compared to starting out at maxlevel (or nearly so) via account theft.

[madd0ct0r]

the badly paid workers are earning $80-$120 a month.

That's nearly double what my wife at her civil servant position earns.
that's more then a new doctor earns.

It's a hell of a lot more then farmers earn.

EDIT - actually the article was in british quids. so those numbers need to go up by about 60%. Fuck. That's more then my wife's boss earns.

[Terralthra]

the badly paid workers are earning $80-$120 a month.

That's nearly double what my wife at her civil servant position earns.
that's more then a new doctor earns.

It's a hell of a lot more then farmers earn.

EDIT - actually the article was in british quids. so those numbers need to go up by about 60%. Fuck. That's more then my wife's boss earns.

Does your wife work 29-30 days per month, 10 hours per day?

Also, this article says a junior doctor working in a city would earn, on average, USD 450/month at the outset of their career, or around GDP 290. Again, with probably more days off, better working conditions, and maybe(?) shorter hours.

[madd0ct0r]

Vietnam is actually poorer then China.

The article dosen't specify either way - but most doctors here have to work full days at the hospital, and then generally run private clinics n the evenings out of their front rooms. (one private clinic i went to did x-rays, in the guys front room)
They also get kickbacks from patients and medical suppliers. I suppose the gold farmers don't get those sort of bonuses.

as for the 10hr days, 1 day off in a month... when I was working in construction those were the hours for me, although that noted as extreme by friends