a touchy subject...

[Rasta]

Alright, so... I'm faced with a moral dilemma. I have a friend who I know is currently having a toon powerleveled to 60 (not a member here, so no worries)... and I am personally HIGHLY against powerleveling and gold buying. I realize it has unfortunately become a part of and affected the economy to make it what it currently is, but I don't care. I hate it, and now I'm faced with the situation: can I report him, and should I? I know that I'm personally against it, but am I being unreasonable to not want others to use those services, either? Opinions and testimonies/stories would be appreciated..

[Sinthe]

Tell him it's pointless, and if he doesn't know how to play his class, and he wont without leveling it, he's just as useless as a level 5 at level 60.

Then tell him he's a tool for wasting several hundred dollars on leveling a character.

[Cyrass]

Here is what I'd do. Tell him, to start out with, if he goes like this, he dosn't make any friends in game that he can group with at 60, he dosn't learn how to play the class well, and frankly, he misses out on a lot of fun stuff in the middle.

[Rasta]

yeah... well, i would tell him that, but he's got a 60 on another server, and several 30+ characters, so he isn't lacking in experience with the game... he just wants to roll a new class at 60, but he's too lazy to do it himself

[Pythre-Co]

Report the shit out of him. Honestly.

[Nadea]

yeah... well, i would tell him that, but he's got a 60 on another server, and several 30+ characters, so he isn't lacking in experience with the game... he just wants to roll a new class at 60, but he's too lazy to do it himself

he ever hear of the Public Test Realms?

Seriously, if you wanna just mess around with a level 60 character...don't powerlevel, thats lazy, illegal and should be reported! Let him know he should use the PTRs if he's looking for some new 60 action!

[Abric]

Friends don't let friends be punk ass bitches.

...

As for the reporting thing... if he isn't bot'ing it up, they won't be able to tell.

"Are you Jack M. Off?"

"k?"

"... yes, have fun playing World of Warcraft."

[Grolish]

The question I have is this. How does some paying someone else to level their character affect your gameplay?

I can see the issue with buying gold or items for real money. This affects our gameplay because professional farmers camp the areas with the best drops and the additional gold and/or items inflate the ecomomy. This adversely affects everyone on the server.

Personally, I think it's silly to pay for the game and pay the monthly fee then pay someone to play the game for me...but...I don't see how someone choosing to do this affects me.

Yes, I know it's against the TOS, but other than that, am I missing something?

[Malebrignon]

The question I have is this. How does some paying someone else to level their character affect your gameplay?



It puts one more undergeared, jackassed freakin' n00b in my BG.

Imagine getting a warrior on your WSG team at level 60 who is asking why Taunt doesn't seem to do anything.

Ewwww...

[Grolish]

yeah... well, i would tell him that, but he's got a 60 on another server, and several 30+ characters, so he isn't lacking in experience with the game... he just wants to roll a new class at 60, but he's too lazy to do it himself

I can see your point there Mal, although I've also seen plenty of boneheads that did level to 60 themselves.

My question was based more on Rasta's clarifiying post quoted above than the noob that has never played before.

[Castor]

What's wrong with paying someone to level you to 60? Many people loathe the grind to 60 and have these things called full time jobs. One characteristic of these "full time jobs" is that after spending many hours each week performing "services" for your employer, they reward you with a check which can be cashed at the local bank. Now, if you pull in a decent amount of money, and you want to pay someone to level you, I could care less.

In fact, you could make an extreemly strong arguement for paying for someone else to level you. Lets say it takes 300 hours to get to 60. Thats 12.5 days played, and would be a pretty efficient grind, but a nice even number and how long it took me to level Castor-gnome warlock on Twisting Nether by myself. Lets also say you make $10 per hour. If you didn't work, but played 40 hours per week grinding your toon up it would take you 7.5 weeks to level to 60. Most people don't have 40 hours a week to grind if they're also working full time. If they don't work and just play then that's $3,000 they could have earned over that same time and used to pay what? $200, $300 for a powerleveler? I've never looked into powerleveling costs so I couldn't tell you. I don't expect it'd be much more then that. I'm assuming powerlevelers work around the clock, thus they're able to get your toon to 60 withing a few weeks, or at least a month. If you make more then $10 an hour, powerleveling looks even more attractive (if you just want a 60).

I personally enjoy leveling up my toons to 60. Gives me a chance to build a reputation for myself and get to know other people. But that's just me. When BC comes out I will be rolling a BE pally on VCo. Outside of a couple slight differences, they are exactly the same as an alliance pally. And I already run a guild and know many people on the server. This will also be my 3rd pally i level to 60. What advantage do I get from leveling him myself when I've been playing the game since release and know pretty much everything there is to know about pally's, and the game?

I'm excited about 60-70, but not 1-60.

All that said, I won't be paying someone to level my toon for me. My roommate has said that (since he isn't working) he'll play my toon during the day while I'm at work so that I can get to 60 ASAP and start checking out the new content. Then when I get home from work I'll hop on for a few hours a night and keep the grind going.

I'm looking forward to a BE pally and questing in their starting area, but from about lvl 15-60 I'm not too excited.

[Fhenrir]

he ever hear of the Public Test Realms?

Public Test Realm characters are not real characters. Biggest problem, they disappear after a few weeks. They also come out already epic'd and you can't decide what they look like.

Not the same as having a permanent character, even if it does come in full greens.

[Ylisaxa]

ToS infringement aside, my problem with levelling servces is that they let another characterless, non RPing uninteractive soul into our world.

[Castor]

ToS infringement aside, my problem with levelling servces is that they let another characterless, non RPing uninteractive soul into our world.

This I do agree with. My wall of text wasn't meant to say that it's ok to powerlevel, just that I can see the logic and listen to the arguement. If they could track statistics of powerlevelers on an RP server I'm sure they could find that 99.99% of powerlevelers on RP servers are not intending to RP.

Powerlevleing on a new server makes absolutely no sense in my opinion, unless your goal is to get rank 14 ASAP (which is possible with cross server bg's) or you have 39 other people doing the same (24 after the expansion).

What are you gonna do at 60 all alone?

And now with transfers, you can move a toon, so why not level him yourself and learn the toon? If you've played the class before, you can transfer him, if you haven't you should play him from 1-60 and learn it's tricks and strats.

[Castor]

I should reply to the OP eventually.

This person who is cheating the system is a good real life friend of yours. If they stole something from a neighbor or killed someone, then of course, turn them in. But this person is paying someone to level themselves up in a video game. Sure it's against the EULA and something generally frowned upon. Granted you likely won't be implecated if you reported him and something happened to his account. But do you really want to screw your friend like that? Would you feel good about having your friends account terminated, forcing him to spend $50 on a new one, then likely another $100-$200 on a leveling service again?

Yes what he's doing is wrong. No you won't be able to convince him to change his mind. Is reporting him worth your friendship?

I doubt it.

[Rasta]

well, i was able to have a conversation with one of this guy's alts in game, and he was dumb enough to admit and discuss it with me in whispers, so i reported him and the GM I talked to said something to the effect of "when I find this person guilty of powerleveling, I assure you the appropriate action will be taken." teehee. not sure if it will actually happen, but I've done what I can.

and one thing to add, Castor, I see where you are coming from, and I do sympathize with that situation (and your guess as to the cost was accurate); however, this guy does NOT have a full time job, does NOT have a family to care for, and if he does have classes or a part time job somewhere, it certainly doesn't give him a shortage of time in which he could get to 60 himself. he was just too impatient to take a few months to get there, so he decided to shorten it to 2ish weeks.