Guild Wars 2

Katai.6240:

Angel.8742:

Oh believe me…I took my 8746 Coffers and ran with them. And I was being VERY Looty

Christ, I’d be tempted to use an illegal macro to open up those coffers o_o;

I’d figure it’d be worth the risk because a good mouse is like 70 bucks and I ain’t wasting clicks on that.

Imagine all of the bloodstone dust.

SolviteSekai.9816:

Chris Cleary.8017:

There are really two sides to this, and when it comes down to it, you are both right – and you are both wrong. Both sides have the right to complete the task that they set out to do (completing or not completing).

Challenging another player’s play style is the issue here, and since this revolved around an event that was designed to be completed, it is being changed so that the original design of the event can be carried out.

When something in the game (such as this event) changes negatively as this has, we need to step in and remediate the toxicity. The byproduct of this change happens to be that a champion farm is being slowed, but since that was the originating factor for the toxicity, it’s unavoidable.

I encourage players to remember that not everyone has the same goals when they play, and sometimes they will clash.

While you are here, you should address the sweeping changes you have made moving the game toward a gold treadmill.

Why is everything being designed in such a way that it highly encourages buying gems and swapping them for gold?

Maybe if you answered that, less people would accuse you of kitten the Pay 2 Win stuff out to people.

There’s a necessary gold treadmill?

. . . when someone can get to crafting exotics of their own for under 20 Gold? When the game throws rares at you for just about every large boss? When I literally have enough Karma that I can do a temple and grab armor which is relatively suitable for my needs?

Sometimes I really wonder if I’m playing the same game as everyone else.

I was going to type something here about loot/farming/etc, but in reality this thread was just about griefers and that conversation doesn’t belong here.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

I was going to type something here about loot/farming/etc, but in reality this thread was just about griefers and that conversation doesn’t belong here.

yeah best to let this post end.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

I was going to type something here about loot/farming/etc, but in reality this thread was just about griefers and that conversation doesn’t belong here.

In what way? The thread was about the exploit being removed and then a bunch of people who benefited from it doing the ‘yeah well we’re the victims here, people harass us!’

as an addendum, its an interesting world where the people who get the most crap aren’t the roleplayers, they’re the train-farmers.

Windsagio.1340:

as an addendum, its an interesting world where the people who get the most crap aren’t the roleplayers, they’re the train-farmers.

That’s because you have people who feel it is their responsibility to enforce their interpretation of an obscure moral code on others, or at least that is what they would have you to believe. “I’m just looking out for the best interests of x” is a common theme, as if it is their job to enforce such things. Similar to the people who get in the passing lane and go slow simply because they think they are doing a service by slowing down the speeders when that is not their job and they are just as likely to cause an accident by impeding the flow of traffic.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Windsagio.1340:

as an addendum, its an interesting world where the people who get the most crap aren’t the roleplayers, they’re the train-farmers.

That’s because you have people who feel it is their responsibility to enforce their interpretation of an obscure moral code on others, or at least that is what they would have you to believe. “I’m just looking out for the best interests of x” is a common theme, as if it is their job to enforce such things. Similar to the people who get in the passing lane and go slow simply because they think they are doing a service by slowing down the speeders when that is not their job and they are just as likely to cause an accident by impeding the flow of traffic.

A good rule of thumb is that it’s tempting but not safe to assume it’s the other guy.

More likely it’s that train-farms are intrusive and sometimes disruptive to a zone.

At the least you get the Frostgorge case: Constant “Where’s the train?!” messages and yelling at people for trying to do kills out of order.

Worse, you get the CS case, where as other people say it pretty much kills other big events in the zone in addition to the chatter.

~~~

When it’s too disruptive, players get kittened and start acting up, which of course escalates the whole conflict (see trolling accusations above).

For each case, Anet has to make a decision about which way to go on it. It’s not adversely effecting in frostgorge so they left the train in. It was really bad for new players in QD, so they killed it. It’s both unintended behavior and messing up the zone with Blix, so they’re pushing it away.

Windsagio.1340:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Windsagio.1340:

as an addendum, its an interesting world where the people who get the most crap aren’t the roleplayers, they’re the train-farmers.

That’s because you have people who feel it is their responsibility to enforce their interpretation of an obscure moral code on others, or at least that is what they would have you to believe. “I’m just looking out for the best interests of x” is a common theme, as if it is their job to enforce such things. Similar to the people who get in the passing lane and go slow simply because they think they are doing a service by slowing down the speeders when that is not their job and they are just as likely to cause an accident by impeding the flow of traffic.

A good rule of thumb is that it’s tempting but not safe to assume it’s the other guy.

More likely it’s that train-farms are intrusive and sometimes disruptive to a zone.

At the least you get the Frostgorge case: Constant “Where’s the train?!” messages and yelling at people for trying to do kills out of order.

Worse, you get the CS case, where as other people say it pretty much kills other big events in the zone in addition to the chatter.

~~~

When it’s too disruptive, players get kittened and start acting up, which of course escalates the whole conflict (see trolling accusations above).

For each case, Anet has to make a decision about which way to go on it. It’s not adversely effecting in frostgorge so they left the train in. It was really bad for new players in QD, so they killed it. It’s both unintended behavior and messing up the zone with Blix, so they’re pushing it away.

Right, but it is Anet’s job to handle it not the individuals on either side of the farm/no farm argument. I agree that failing should never be more profitable than succeeding but it’s not my call to enforce that since it is a game design issue. In other words, when these things happen simply report or make a polite post about it and move on, no need for people to take it upon themselves to try and enforce their particular view.

Farmers don’t lower prices long term, they raise them because of inflation. Just look at the prices in the past year. I’m all for restricting spam farming. GJ on stopping this!

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

SolviteSekai.9816:

Chris Cleary.8017:

There are really two sides to this, and when it comes down to it, you are both right – and you are both wrong. Both sides have the right to complete the task that they set out to do (completing or not completing).

Challenging another player’s play style is the issue here, and since this revolved around an event that was designed to be completed, it is being changed so that the original design of the event can be carried out.

When something in the game (such as this event) changes negatively as this has, we need to step in and remediate the toxicity. The byproduct of this change happens to be that a champion farm is being slowed, but since that was the originating factor for the toxicity, it’s unavoidable.

I encourage players to remember that not everyone has the same goals when they play, and sometimes they will clash.

While you are here, you should address the sweeping changes you have made moving the game toward a gold treadmill.

Why is everything being designed in such a way that it highly encourages buying gems and swapping them for gold?

Maybe if you answered that, less people would accuse you of kitten the Pay 2 Win stuff out to people.

There’s a necessary gold treadmill?

. . . when someone can get to crafting exotics of their own for under 20 Gold? When the game throws rares at you for just about every large boss? When I literally have enough Karma that I can do a temple and grab armor which is relatively suitable for my needs?

Sometimes I really wonder if I’m playing the same game as everyone else.

There is for new players and alts especially now with the added cost to traits on top of the problems with nerfs to loot which prevent people from properly farming crafting materials or getting them from salvages. So yeah there kinda is and it’s getting bigger with each “change for the better”.

Dreamer.1952:

Bloodstealer.5978:

We even ran Blix meta a few times and only a single soul chirped in demanding we stay out the circle… awww blesss…

…not seen any commander ignoring events, defence or otherwise and farming the lootz

Still talking paradox. Not ignoring defence and running a few times Blix meta doesnt fit.
Good that you got your exploit back with your Toxic Trolling. Have fun with it and now take your right to say its farm and take your right the others are exploiting.

Edit

..Cursed Shore is running as intended once more..

And funny that you few Meta Exploit farmers are taking yourself the right to say how GW2 is to play like you alone designed this game.

Yeah reduce this game for the playstyle of the few noisy Toxic players.

My last post here

GG Anet.

Wow you really are kitten.. how is running the event Meta the way its design to exploiting it.. you really have a strange ideal when it comes to exploiting mechanics of a game.. its simple you run one event, you complete it.. next event is triggered.. following it along the event course and eventually you get to the end of the meta.. where in any of that is it exploiting.

Now lets play it your way.. run event, move onto next event, farm all champs but purposely fail the event in order to respawn the first event re-farm , repeat, reset, re-farm, repeat.. .. yeah that’s obviously how it was intended for the event meta to pan out… but hey at least you and ya guildies can apparently go farm your ever so secret other spots cos you so awesomesauce.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Right, but it is Anet’s job to handle it not the individuals on either side of the farm/no farm argument. I agree that failing should never be more profitable than succeeding but it’s not my call to enforce that since it is a game design issue. In other words, when these things happen simply report or make a polite post about it and move on, no need for people to take it upon themselves to try and enforce their particular view.

My point is that Anet has 2 ways of enforcing it. If the behavior isn’t too bad, punish the people harassing people for playing the way you don’t like.

If the behavior (as in this case) IS to harmful, you make the behavior impossible.

I honestly think they want to reduce farm trains as much as possible, but they’re keeping an intentionally light hand in doing it.

What was going to be an obvious outcome, the players known to me as griever’ish, are no longer in Cursed Shore. Every day this week, from afternoon to evening, they had one of their accounts sitting at Shelters Gates to prevent the Blix event. Now, they are elsewhere in game. So much for how they cared about doing Blix or any Cursed Shore event.

Altie.4571:

Farmers don’t lower prices long term, they raise them because of inflation. Just look at the prices in the past year. I’m all for restricting spam farming. GJ on stopping this!

And here you are wrong (or at least partially wrong). Inflation is caused by two things:
1. introducing more gold to economy than it’s drained from it. Or, to be more precise, increasing gold:goods ratio (when the amount of gold increases compared to the amount of buyable goods, the value of gold goes down).
2. increasing wealth disparity (even if the amount of gold in the whole community doesn’t change that much, inflation on a subgroup of goods can happen if the wealth of the group most likely to buy those goods goes up).

ad.1: Farmers mostly supply mats and items. Direct gold creation from those activities is not that high compared to other sources. Selling farmed goods on market even destroys gold, due to the 15% tax. So, farmers actually decrease gold:goods ratio, which acts against inflation.

ad.2: farmers are a bit guilty of increasing wealth disparity. On the other hand, they are far more likely to be selling commong goods than buying them. If they are helping inflation along, it’s only on the luxury items market (rare skins, precursors, legendaries).
Though, in the end most of their wealth will also end in the hands of the real money elite of this game – TP barons.

In general, if you want to search for real sources of inflation, look at activities that create gold directly, not at those that bring wealth mostly in the form of marketable goods.

Astralporing.1957:

Altie.4571:

Farmers don’t lower prices long term, they raise them because of inflation. Just look at the prices in the past year. I’m all for restricting spam farming. GJ on stopping this!

And here you are wrong (or at least partially wrong). Inflation is caused by two things:
1. introducing more gold to economy than it’s drained from it. Or, to be more precise, increasing gold:goods ratio (when the amount of gold increases compared to the amount of buyable goods, the value of gold goes down).
2. increasing wealth disparity (even if the amount of gold in the whole community doesn’t change that much, inflation on a subgroup of goods can happen if the wealth of the group most likely to buy those goods goes up).

ad.1: Farmers mostly supply mats and items. Direct gold creation from those activities is not that high compared to other sources. Selling farmed goods on market even destroys gold, due to the 15% tax. So, farmers actually decrease gold:goods ratio, which acts against inflation.

ad.2: farmers are a bit guilty of increasing wealth disparity. On the other hand, they are far more likely to be selling commong goods than buying them. If they are helping inflation along, it’s only on the luxury items market (rare skins, precursors, legendaries).
Though, in the end most of their wealth will also end in the hands of the real money elite of this game – TP barons.

In general, if you want to search for real sources of inflation, look at activities that create gold directly, not at those that bring wealth mostly in the form of marketable goods.

Agreed. However I feel I must point out that inflation really isn’t an issue. People point out luxury items (precursors, legendaries, rare skins) as a sign of inflation. But what is really happening is that these items, and others that are rising in price, are becoming more and more in demand, and farmers are not as abundant, so the supply is not increasing at the same rate of demand. (With the exception of the luxury items, as the supply is very limited, and increases slightly, yet the demand is much greater than 1 year ago.) If inflation were the case, then we would see an increase in ALL crafting mats, and other items, prices. But in the case of Elder Wood logs, the price has dropped almost 50c in the last month as supply is far greater then the demand, as more people are farming for Foxfire clusters.

The market moves very quickly and is able to balance itself out quickly as well. John Smith isn’t concerned about inflation, yet is constantly being on the lookout for signs that inflation is happening. But the more people use the TP, instead of farming the more inflation is being held in check as gold is being removed at a very rapid rate, almost as much as it’s being generated through dungeon runs.

DeWolfe.2174:

What was going to be an obvious outcome, the players known to me as griever’ish, are no longer in Cursed Shore. Every day this week, from afternoon to evening, they had one of their accounts sitting at Shelters Gates to prevent the Blix event. Now, they are elsewhere in game. So much for how they cared about doing Blix or any Cursed Shore event.

OMG!! What?? I was hoping they would take advantage of the fact that they have Cursed Shore all to themselves so they can FINALLY complete their beloved Blix instance. Awww, and they cried oh so much, I literally felt pity upon them that they could not finish their little instance because big, bad farmers were getting in their way!

What a shame!!

Tyyphoon.5301:

DeWolfe.2174:

What was going to be an obvious outcome, the players known to me as griever’ish, are no longer in Cursed Shore. Every day this week, from afternoon to evening, they had one of their accounts sitting at Shelters Gates to prevent the Blix event. Now, they are elsewhere in game. So much for how they cared about doing Blix or any Cursed Shore event.

OMG!! What?? I was hoping they would take advantage of the fact that they have Cursed Shore all to themselves so they can FINALLY complete their beloved Blix instance. Awww, and they cried oh so much, I literally felt pity upon them that they could not finish their little instance because big, bad farmers were getting in their way!

What a shame!!

And when devs talk about toxicity …

Windsagio.1340:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Right, but it is Anet’s job to handle it not the individuals on either side of the farm/no farm argument. I agree that failing should never be more profitable than succeeding but it’s not my call to enforce that since it is a game design issue. In other words, when these things happen simply report or make a polite post about it and move on, no need for people to take it upon themselves to try and enforce their particular view.

My point is that Anet has 2 ways of enforcing it. If the behavior isn’t too bad, punish the people harassing people for playing the way you don’t like.

If the behavior (as in this case) IS to harmful, you make the behavior impossible.

I honestly think they want to reduce farm trains as much as possible, but they’re keeping an intentionally light hand in doing it.

Not likely, the way the game is setup lends itself to farming otherwise you wouldn’t need to collect 500 of this or 250 of that. You have to repeat “content” over and over to get what you want. I am sure Anet wants people to complete the event chains as intended, but unless Anet drastically changes the way you go about getting things in the game the behavior of taking the easy way is going to be far too tempting for many people to resist. Either way, the farm trains should not be rude to others… but the anti-farmers often times are simply just doing it to be kittens since as evidenced it was never about completing events since they are no longer in this zone.

Stage 1: People find a way to exploit the game.

Stage 2: Other players complete the event the exploiters were exploiting.

Stage 3: Exploiters get REALLY ANGRY at the normal players, and start abusing and harassing them in mapchat and whispers.

Stage 4: ArenaNet intervenes by patching the event so it can no longer be exploited.

Stage 5 (current stage): Exploiters continue to whine instead of accepting that they got off lightly (no bans) and moving on.

People have to let this post die stop trying to spread hate. Farming is a part of ALL MMOs and just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean others have to play the game YOUR way. Farming trains can spread hate just like WvW trains when someone aggros a guard and other servers see the swords and come to attack the Zerg and even the commander leading the Zerg attack the people who aggro. Now having said that I agree failing an event and not letting others complete it should not happen and THAT is bad for the community. Frostgorge people get mad at others for killing champions out of order and throwing hate and I agree that should not be acceptable regardless if its the people trying to farm or the lone person who post “I am killing the Troll lol” to try and get a reaction of the people who are farming. People have to stop point the fingers and look at themselves.

And can you all please read the release notes! People are saying they are happy they nerfed or ANET hates farmers but if you READ you would see that blix has not changed the only thing that changed was the TIMER not the champion spawns or bag drop rates.

Zoso.8279:

People have to let this post die stop trying to spread hate. Farming is a part of ALL MMOs and just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean others have to play the game YOUR way. Farming trains can spread hate just like WvW trains when someone aggros a guard and other servers see the swords and come to attack the Zerg and even the commander leading the Zerg attack the people who aggro. Now having said that I agree failing an event and not letting others complete it should not happen and THAT is bad for the community. Frostgorge people get mad at others for killing champions out of order and throwing hate and I agree that should not be acceptable regardless if its the people trying to farm or the lone person who post “I am killing the Troll lol” to try and get a reaction of the people who are farming. People have to stop point the fingers and look at themselves.

And can you all please read the release notes! People are saying they are happy they nerfed or ANET hates farmers but if you READ you would see that blix has not changed the only thing that changed was the TIMER not the champion spawns or bag drop rates.

So you’re content with people that go out of their way to troll the trains/farm and then come running to devs about being harassed?

No I am an avid farmer I love to farm.

unicorngirl.1487:

Stage 1: People find a way to exploit the game.

Stage 2: Other players complete the event the exploiters were exploiting.

Stage 3: Exploiters get REALLY ANGRY at the normal players, and start abusing and harassing them in mapchat and whispers.

Stage 4: ArenaNet intervenes by patching the event so it can no longer be exploited.

Stage 5 (current stage): Exploiters continue to whine instead of accepting that they got off lightly (no bans) and moving on.

You forgot a few stages in there where trolls try to ruin “exploiters” day and a bunch of people act self-righteous, even after it’s been fixed.

There’s plenty of “toxicity” to go around on both sides, which is why it was fixed (as stated pretty clearly by a dev). I’m not sure why the topic is even still open at this point. I don’t think there’s anything more to be said here.

Seems no one really wants to consider the other side’s point-of-view.

There are no points of view to consider here.

One side was exploiting for profit.

The other side, intentionally or unintentionally, angered the other side by playing the game as it was intended by completing the event when they had the desire and means to do so. The motivations of the group that was playing properly are completely irrelevant. They haven’t broken the game’s mechanics nor done any explicit action that should, if the quest were working in a healthy way and the community wasn’t going out of their way to exploit an oversight in the game’s mechanics, cause any distress. There can be no “deserving” any of the harassment that they had probably gotten in return unless they, in turn, had dealt out verbal harassment of their own.

Completing an event as intended isn’t griefing. You can attach any stigma or personality you want to it, but it’s still just performing a natural function of the game that should not have clashed with the desires of another group to begin with.

And no, abusing fail states and reset timers isn’t a natural state of the game. Quests can fail, but they are intended to fail when there is an insufficiency in the numbers and/or skill of the players (or lack thereof) participating in the event.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

There are no points of view to consider here.

One side was exploiting for profit.

The other side, intentionally or unintentionally, angered the other side by playing the game as it was intended by completing the event when they had the desire and means to do so. The motivations of the group that was playing properly are completely irrelevant. They haven’t broken the game’s mechanics nor done any explicit action that should, if the quest were working in a healthy way and the community wasn’t going out of their way to exploit an oversight in the game’s mechanics, cause any distress. There can be no “deserving” any of the harassment that they had probably gotten in return unless they, in turn, had dealt out verbal harassment of their own.

Completing an event as intended isn’t griefing. You can attach any stigma or personality you want to it, but it’s still just performing a natural function of the game that should not have clashed with the desires of another group to begin with.

And no, abusing fail states and reset timers isn’t a natural state of the game. Quests can fail, but they are intended to fail when there is an insufficiency in the numbers and/or skill of the players (or lack thereof) participating in the event.

Except that as was often the case it was anything but unintentional.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

There are no points of view to consider here.

One side was exploiting for profit.

The other side, intentionally or unintentionally, angered the other side by playing the game as it was intended by completing the event when they had the desire and means to do so. The motivations of the group that was playing properly are completely irrelevant. They haven’t broken the game’s mechanics nor done any explicit action that should, if the quest were working in a healthy way and the community wasn’t going out of their way to exploit an oversight in the game’s mechanics, cause any distress. There can be no “deserving” any of the harassment that they had probably gotten in return unless they, in turn, had dealt out verbal harassment of their own.

Completing an event as intended isn’t griefing. You can attach any stigma or personality you want to it, but it’s still just performing a natural function of the game that should not have clashed with the desires of another group to begin with.

And no, abusing fail states and reset timers isn’t a natural state of the game. Quests can fail, but they are intended to fail when there is an insufficiency in the numbers and/or skill of the players (or lack thereof) participating in the event.

Except that as was often the case it was anything but unintentional.

Did I stutter? I already addressed this.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

There are no points of view to consider here.

One side was exploiting for profit.

The other side, intentionally or unintentionally, angered the other side by playing the game as it was intended by completing the event when they had the desire and means to do so. The motivations of the group that was playing properly are completely irrelevant. They haven’t broken the game’s mechanics nor done any explicit action that should, if the quest were working in a healthy way and the community wasn’t going out of their way to exploit an oversight in the game’s mechanics, cause any distress. There can be no “deserving” any of the harassment that they had probably gotten in return unless they, in turn, had dealt out verbal harassment of their own.

Completing an event as intended isn’t griefing. You can attach any stigma or personality you want to it, but it’s still just performing a natural function of the game that should not have clashed with the desires of another group to begin with.

And no, abusing fail states and reset timers isn’t a natural state of the game. Quests can fail, but they are intended to fail when there is an insufficiency in the numbers and/or skill of the players (or lack thereof) participating in the event.

Except that as was often the case it was anything but unintentional.

Did I stutter?

Apparently.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

There are no points of view to consider here.

One side was exploiting for profit.

The other side, intentionally or unintentionally, angered the other side by playing the game as it was intended by completing the event when they had the desire and means to do so. The motivations of the group that was playing properly are completely irrelevant. They haven’t broken the game’s mechanics nor done any explicit action that should, if the quest were working in a healthy way and the community wasn’t going out of their way to exploit an oversight in the game’s mechanics, cause any distress. There can be no “deserving” any of the harassment that they had probably gotten in return unless they, in turn, had dealt out verbal harassment of their own.

Completing an event as intended isn’t griefing. You can attach any stigma or personality you want to it, but it’s still just performing a natural function of the game that should not have clashed with the desires of another group to begin with.

And no, abusing fail states and reset timers isn’t a natural state of the game. Quests can fail, but they are intended to fail when there is an insufficiency in the numbers and/or skill of the players (or lack thereof) participating in the event.

So it sounds like you’re saying that as long as you’re not breaking the law, you can be the worst person possible to others and no one should dare call you out on it.

Two wrongs do not make a right. This is basic morals man. If people are “playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played” with the sole intention of angering other people, they are still doing something wrong because of the intention behind their actions…

In the eyes of the “law” they’re fine, but their actions are not coming from an innocent place. Saying it’s irrelevant is absurd. There’s a reason why morals go beyond legal law in real life…

Labjax.2465:

So it sounds like you’re saying that as long as you’re not breaking the law, you can be the worst person possible to others and no one should dare call you out on it.

Welcome to life. This is how it goes, honestly.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Labjax.2465:

So it sounds like you’re saying that as long as you’re not breaking the law, you can be the worst person possible to others and no one should dare call you out on it.

Welcome to life. This is how it goes, honestly.

Perhaps, but acting in that manner is in violation of the, “law,” of the land here.

Ashen.2907:

Perhaps, but acting in that manner is in violation of the, “law,” of the land here.

Entirely noted. I wish more people subscribed to “Wheaton’s Law” instead of Tycho’s GIFT. Unfortunately . . . -shrugs-

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Welcome to life. This is how it goes, honestly.

But people do get called out in life… or other people stop hanging out with them and ostracize them. Or they get the kitten kicked out of them silently.

My point being that saying the above stuff shouldn’t happen – that their behavior is somehow irrelevant just because they aren’t breaking the law – is absurd because it’s saying they should have special privilege to do what they want that no one actually gets in real life.

I’m not saying Anet has to do something about them (there are circumstances where it’s difficult to tell a troll from an innocent party and act accordingly), but there is no irrelevancy to them doing wrong. That’s the part that makes me scratch my head. :S

Labjax.2465:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Welcome to life. This is how it goes, honestly.

But people do get called out in life… or other people stop hanging out with them and ostracize them. Or they get the kitten kicked out of them silently.

Everything up to “kicking the crap out of them” is also legal, and might actually work unless they don’t care. Trolls exist in RL too, and the only thing keeping them in check is the threat of impending physical violence . . . unless they know the law won’t protect the person who threw the first punch.

Of course, the problem arises same as it does in the game – there is very little to really stop someone from being a pest if they stay entirely within the rule of law. In the game, really toxic people can have the final trump card played and have ANet just terminate their service. This is not something which can be done to some jerk who pays only in pennies for purchases over ten dollars and insists on counting it out one at a time . . .

Labjax.2465:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

There are no points of view to consider here.

One side was exploiting for profit.

The other side, intentionally or unintentionally, angered the other side by playing the game as it was intended by completing the event when they had the desire and means to do so. The motivations of the group that was playing properly are completely irrelevant. They haven’t broken the game’s mechanics nor done any explicit action that should, if the quest were working in a healthy way and the community wasn’t going out of their way to exploit an oversight in the game’s mechanics, cause any distress. There can be no “deserving” any of the harassment that they had probably gotten in return unless they, in turn, had dealt out verbal harassment of their own.

Completing an event as intended isn’t griefing. You can attach any stigma or personality you want to it, but it’s still just performing a natural function of the game that should not have clashed with the desires of another group to begin with.

And no, abusing fail states and reset timers isn’t a natural state of the game. Quests can fail, but they are intended to fail when there is an insufficiency in the numbers and/or skill of the players (or lack thereof) participating in the event.

So it sounds like you’re saying that as long as you’re not breaking the law, you can be the worst person possible to others and no one should dare call you out on it.

Two wrongs do not make a right. This is basic morals man. If people are “playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played” with the sole intention of angering other people, they are still doing something wrong because of the intention behind their actions…

In the eyes of the “law” they’re fine, but their actions are not coming from an innocent place. Saying it’s irrelevant is absurd. There’s a reason why morals go beyond legal law in real life…

Basic morals? Basic morals aren’t even applicable here. Particularly because your comparison is invalid. You are comparing “abusing morality without breaking the law” to “burdening another group by following existing law.” That’s a fairly freaking important distinction. What is that distinction? That the mere existence of a conflict that is created because of the law being followed implies that something is either wrong with the law or with the offended party. Because “the law” in this case is “playing this game properly by making every attempt to succeed if it is within your means to do so and it is your desire to participate in the event,” we can conclude that it is not at fault. The fault, then, lies with the offended party. The “offending party” hasn’t done anything wrong from a moral or legal standpoint. They’ve completed the mission and created a result that was good with an unfortunate bad result that should not have needed to come about.

Now, why do I say that there is a good result from the “griefers” actions?

This is all too often an issue of conflicting interests. It is in the best interest of many of the so-called griefers and the general community to shut down the Blix farm? Why? Because it destroys activity in Cursed Shore by heavily reducing the traffic to the temple events.

But this kind of disease is hardly limited to CS. Players clustered in farming content are players who are not out in the world populating other content. Already-low map participation decreases, community interaction dwindles, certain items become more plentiful and others become more scarce, and the entire game suffers for it. All so that a few players can get the carrot that they’ve been chasing a bit faster.

At no point in this have I even mentioned toxicity. Even without it, the structure of this event and the abuse that sprang from it was a burden on the game as a whole and it needed to be treated. Granted, it’s a symptom and not the underlying cause, but it is still a step in the right direction.

But, oh, the farmers are mad that other players have rightfully reported the issue and had the event nerfed.

(And I say this as someone who hasn’t been to Cursed Shore in months, much less participated in Blix to farm or to grief it.)

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Basic morals? Basic morals aren’t even applicable here. Particularly because your comparison is invalid. You are comparing “abusing morality without breaking the law” to “burdening another group by following existing law.” That’s a fairly freaking important distinction. What is that distinction? That the mere existence of a conflict that is created because of the law being followed implies that something is either wrong with the law or with the offended party. Because “the law” in this case is “playing this game properly by making every attempt to succeed if it is within your means to do so and it is your desire to participate in the event,” we can conclude that it is not at fault. The fault, then, lies with the offended party. The “offending party” hasn’t done anything wrong from a moral or legal standpoint. They’ve completed the mission and created a result that was good with an unfortunate bad result that should not have needed to come about.

Now, why do I say that there is a good result from the “griefers” actions?

I don’t think you understand what I’m talking about. There are people whose sole intention was to make life worse for others. I’m not talking about people who want to complete the event because they feel it’s better for the game, or because they feel it’s right, or because they just want to complete things rather than fail them.

I’m talking about people who have no positive goal in this matter – whose only goal was to use it as an opportunity to upset others.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Because it destroys activity in Cursed Shore by heavily reducing the traffic to the temple events.

Players clustered in farming content are players who are not out in the world populating other content. Already-low map participation decreases, community interaction dwindles, certain items become more plentiful and others become more scarce, and the entire game suffers for it. All so that a few players can get the carrot that they’ve been chasing a bit faster.

(And I say this as someone who hasn’t been to Cursed Shore in months, much less participated in Blix to farm or to grief it.)

Not having been there in months would explain your lack of understanding of how it works, I guess. “Destroying activity at the temple events” just means lack of activity at the temple events… the only “damaging” thing there is the glut of materials that came from the frequency of loot that people were getting from the blix event. There are still plenty of people in CS in this scenario – they are just doing Blix instead of chasing the event/champ/temple train.

Players clustering in certain maps is a good thing. The reality is that there aren’t enough players to consistently populate all of the maps in the game in a big way. So getting them in one general area means the people in that area will have a better experience with group content. And if it’s a consistently active map, they will know where to go to have that good experience.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

At no point in this have I even mentioned toxicity. Even without it, the structure of this event and the abuse that sprang from it was a burden on the game as a whole and it needed to be treated. Granted, it’s a symptom and not the underlying cause, but it is still a step in the right direction.

And who was arguing that it wasn’t toxic? I don’t know. Certainly not me.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

But, oh, the farmers are mad that other players have rightfully reported the issue and had the event nerfed.

Do you feel vindicated now?

Honestly, in my case, I’m not even mad that it was nerfed. I fully expected it to be nerfed within a week from the moment I first witnessed it. I would have been surprised if it hadn’t.

It just doesn’t sit right with me seeing people try to justify poor behavior (on either side). And it looks like people are trying to justify trolls, so that’s what I’m arguing against.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Everything up to “kicking the crap out of them” is also legal, and might actually work unless they don’t care. Trolls exist in RL too, and the only thing keeping them in check is the threat of impending physical violence . . . unless they know the law won’t protect the person who threw the first punch.

Of course, the problem arises same as it does in the game – there is very little to really stop someone from being a pest if they stay entirely within the rule of law. In the game, really toxic people can have the final trump card played and have ANet just terminate their service. This is not something which can be done to some jerk who pays only in pennies for purchases over ten dollars and insists on counting it out one at a time . . .

True, there is only so much you can do about it. I guess my point was more that the general population is not going to go around trying to justify these peoples’ behavior just because they can get away with it.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Labjax.2465:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

There are no points of view to consider here.

One side was exploiting for profit.

The other side, intentionally or unintentionally, angered the other side by playing the game as it was intended by completing the event when they had the desire and means to do so. The motivations of the group that was playing properly are completely irrelevant. They haven’t broken the game’s mechanics nor done any explicit action that should, if the quest were working in a healthy way and the community wasn’t going out of their way to exploit an oversight in the game’s mechanics, cause any distress. There can be no “deserving” any of the harassment that they had probably gotten in return unless they, in turn, had dealt out verbal harassment of their own.

Completing an event as intended isn’t griefing. You can attach any stigma or personality you want to it, but it’s still just performing a natural function of the game that should not have clashed with the desires of another group to begin with.

And no, abusing fail states and reset timers isn’t a natural state of the game. Quests can fail, but they are intended to fail when there is an insufficiency in the numbers and/or skill of the players (or lack thereof) participating in the event.

So it sounds like you’re saying that as long as you’re not breaking the law, you can be the worst person possible to others and no one should dare call you out on it.

Two wrongs do not make a right. This is basic morals man. If people are “playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played” with the sole intention of angering other people, they are still doing something wrong because of the intention behind their actions…

In the eyes of the “law” they’re fine, but their actions are not coming from an innocent place. Saying it’s irrelevant is absurd. There’s a reason why morals go beyond legal law in real life…

Basic morals? Basic morals aren’t even applicable here. Particularly because your comparison is invalid. You are comparing “abusing morality without breaking the law” to “burdening another group by following existing law.” That’s a fairly freaking important distinction. What is that distinction? That the mere existence of a conflict that is created because of the law being followed implies that something is either wrong with the law or with the offended party. Because “the law” in this case is “playing this game properly by making every attempt to succeed if it is within your means to do so and it is your desire to participate in the event,” we can conclude that it is not at fault. The fault, then, lies with the offended party. The “offending party” hasn’t done anything wrong from a moral or legal standpoint. They’ve completed the mission and created a result that was good with an unfortunate bad result that should not have needed to come about.

Now, why do I say that there is a good result from the “griefers” actions?

This is all too often an issue of conflicting interests. It is in the best interest of many of the so-called griefers and the general community to shut down the Blix farm? Why? Because it destroys activity in Cursed Shore by heavily reducing the traffic to the temple events.

But this kind of disease is hardly limited to CS. Players clustered in farming content are players who are not out in the world populating other content. Already-low map participation decreases, community interaction dwindles, certain items become more plentiful and others become more scarce, and the entire game suffers for it. All so that a few players can get the carrot that they’ve been chasing a bit faster.

At no point in this have I even mentioned toxicity. Even without it, the structure of this event and the abuse that sprang from it was a burden on the game as a whole and it needed to be treated. Granted, it’s a symptom and not the underlying cause, but it is still a step in the right direction.

But, oh, the farmers are mad that other players have rightfully reported the issue and had the event nerfed.

(And I say this as someone who hasn’t been to Cursed Shore in months, much less participated in Blix to farm or to grief it.)

Players should play the game the way they want. If you want to farm you have that “right” if you’d rather farm and not run temple events its your choice to force people to do this is just as bad as people abusing an exploit of letting an event fail just to reset. ANET fixed the problem the problem was not the farming but exploiting the reset timer. If some items become more abundant then other thats called an open market. Some items will lose value because of farming but others will gain value just the same.

Labjax.2465:

True, there is only so much you can do about it. I guess my point was more that the general population is not going to go around trying to justify these peoples’ behavior just because they can get away with it.

Exactly, and that is why there are people defending both the people doing the event fail loop and those who closed the loop as doing the right thing.

. . . wait . . .

rgraze.5169:

I think a lot of people here hit the nail on the head. The problem being is that it is more profitable to fail than succeed. This should not be the case.

BINGO!

This guy gets the situation in 1 post

People would farm events by succeeding IF the reward was better than it is to fail the event

time/effort vs reward is always going to be the playstyle of most people in an MMO who want to get what they perceive of as the best of items/goods/loot

yes this doesn’t interest others, but farmers will always look to the min/max scenario and a-net only ever seems to hurriedly fix anything that involves farming (yet you see other bugs still present after 2 years :/ )

Zoso.8279:

Players should play the game the way they want.

Yes, yes they should. Thank you for pointing that incredibly obvious sentiment out.

Do you know what “the way they want” normally constitutes? Rarely does it have anything to do with fun or content. The average player is rewards-driven, and it isn’t necessarily an unreasonable philosophy to have on the game. Obtaining a desired carrot, after all, makes any content you do actually want to play afterward more fun in having it.

But the nature of this reality also destroys the argument that “play how you want to play” factors in to nerfing farming. Farmers do not care about playing the way they desire in the short term. In fact, they aren’t playing the way they want to play but rather the way that will get them what they want.

That’s an important distinction, and it’s one that should not be ignored when considering the effects of rewards distribution and farming nerfs.

The only way to make play how you want and play for what you want line up into a single cohesive style is to distribute rewards in such a way that they are comparable enough to not make heavy differences in income between any two activities. That’s an almost impossible task, but it’s one that must always be strove for if “play your way” is to become a reality rather than a fiction. Otherwise “play your way” will always lose out to “play the way the pays.”

OnyX.9027:

rgraze.5169:

I think a lot of people here hit the nail on the head. The problem being is that it is more profitable to fail than succeed. This should not be the case.

BINGO!

This guy gets the situation in 1 post

People would farm events by succeeding IF the reward was better than it is to fail the event

time/effort vs reward is always going to be the playstyle of most people in an MMO who want to get what they perceive of as the best of items/goods/loot

yes this doesn’t interest others, but farmers will always look to the min/max scenario and a-net only ever seems to hurriedly fix anything that involves farming (yet you see other bugs still present after 2 years :/ )

But it is already. What failing does is let you rerun it after an abbreviated cool down letting you earn all the loot you got by running it, failure or not. Don’t you get that. You are comparing the rewards of a single run with success to multiple runs on failure.

no, what you don’t seem to get is that fact that the ability to re-run after failure is a bad game mechanic, if they made a quicker reset time for succeeding and a far longer reset time for failing guess what would happen…

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Zoso.8279:

Players should play the game the way they want.

Yes, yes they should. Thank you for pointing that incredibly obvious sentiment out.

Do you know what “the way they want” normally constitutes? Rarely does it have anything to do with fun or content. The average player is rewards-driven, and it isn’t necessarily an unreasonable philosophy to have on the game. Obtaining a desired carrot, after all, makes any content you do actually want to play afterward more fun in having it.

But the nature of this reality also destroys the argument that “play how you want to play” factors in to nerfing farming. Farmers do not care about playing the way they desire in the short term. In fact, they aren’t playing the way they want to play but rather the way that will get them what they want.

That’s an important distinction, and it’s one that should not be ignored when considering the effects of rewards distribution and farming nerfs.

The only way to make play how you want and play for what you want line up into a single cohesive style is to distribute rewards in such a way that they are comparable enough to not make heavy differences in income between any two activities. That’s an almost impossible task, but it’s one that must always be strove for if “play your way” is to become a reality rather than a fiction. Otherwise “play your way” will always lose out to “play the way the pays.”

If your going to quote me please quote the whole thing. Don’t use political tricks to make yourself sound intelligent. Its very simple exploiting a timer and farming are two different thing. One is an exploit and one is a play style…. Another obvious sentiment…

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Zoso.8279:

Players should play the game the way they want. If you want to farm you have that “right” if you’d rather farm and not run temple events its your choice to force people to do this is just as bad as people abusing an exploit of letting an event fail just to reset. ANET fixed the problem the problem was not the farming but exploiting the reset timer. If some items become more abundant then other thats called an open market. Some items will lose value because of farming but others will gain value just the same.

Yes, yes they should. Thank you for pointing that incredibly obvious sentiment out.

Do you know what “the way they want” normally constitutes? Rarely does it have anything to do with fun or content. The average player is rewards-driven, and it isn’t necessarily an unreasonable philosophy to have on the game. Obtaining a desired carrot, after all, makes any content you do actually want to play afterward more fun in having it.

But the nature of this reality also destroys the argument that “play how you want to play” factors in to nerfing farming. Farmers do not care about playing the way they desire in the short term. In fact, they aren’t playing the way they want to play but rather the way that will get them what they want.

That’s an important distinction, and it’s one that should not be ignored when considering the effects of rewards distribution and farming nerfs.

The only way to make play how you want and play for what you want line up into a single cohesive style is to distribute rewards in such a way that they are comparable enough to not make heavy differences in income between any two activities. That’s an almost impossible task, but it’s one that must always be strove for if “play your way” is to become a reality rather than a fiction. Otherwise “play your way” will always lose out to “play the way the pays.”

Ah, there we go! Now this sounds like two intelligent people have a conversation. Problem is, now it sounds like you two are arguing almost the exact same point.

Zoso.8279:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Zoso.8279:

Players should play the game the way they want.

Yes, yes they should. Thank you for pointing that incredibly obvious sentiment out.

Do you know what “the way they want” normally constitutes? Rarely does it have anything to do with fun or content. The average player is rewards-driven, and it isn’t necessarily an unreasonable philosophy to have on the game. Obtaining a desired carrot, after all, makes any content you do actually want to play afterward more fun in having it.

But the nature of this reality also destroys the argument that “play how you want to play” factors in to nerfing farming. Farmers do not care about playing the way they desire in the short term. In fact, they aren’t playing the way they want to play but rather the way that will get them what they want.

That’s an important distinction, and it’s one that should not be ignored when considering the effects of rewards distribution and farming nerfs.

The only way to make play how you want and play for what you want line up into a single cohesive style is to distribute rewards in such a way that they are comparable enough to not make heavy differences in income between any two activities. That’s an almost impossible task, but it’s one that must always be strove for if “play your way” is to become a reality rather than a fiction. Otherwise “play your way” will always lose out to “play the way the pays.”

If your going to quote me please quote the whole thing. Don’t use political tricks to make yourself sound intelligent. Its very simple exploiting a timer and farming are two different thing. One is an exploit and one is a play style…. Another obvious sentiment…

I didn’t “use a political trick.” I cut to the core of your sentiment, because, after reading the whole thing, it’s essentially an extension on that one sentence. The only force that “forces” players into a particular playstyle is an economic one. Let’s just say that Blix was the only farm spot in the game. Ludicrous, I know, but let’s use this impossible hypothetical as a backdrop for discussion. Now let’s say that it is nerfed (which it was), and no longer stood out as offering a disproportionate amount of income to everything else.

Those who legitimately enjoy Pen/Shelt would stay there. They haven’t been forced from it. They aren’t being forced to stay either. They are actually appealing to their play style as opposed to their pocket books.

Those who do not enjoy the content but did enjoy the profits – most of the farming community – would then leave and spread out to content that they prefer playing, at least until a new high-profit farm spot is discovered.

It isn’t an issue of play-your-way, forcing players to play content that they do not wish to, or any of that tripe. In fact, farming has always been a byproduct of poor rewards distribution, which may very well be an unavoidable issue in any game that has an economic system. Economic gain and a desire to “win” tends to supercede preferred playstyles in gaming, just as it does in real life. That isn’t an opinion; it’s readily observable.

Yes, exploiting a timer and farming are two different things. Thank you for once again sharing your bountiful wealth of knowledge. That kind of sage-like wisdom is all too rare on these forums. It would seem, however, that you’ve overlooked a simple fact. A timer has been exploited to farm. At this point, these two different things have intersected and effectively become one. The former is the methodology for achieving the latter, and the result was a farming spot that could no longer be justified as legitimate, for it was one created via exploit.

And I don’t need to use political tricks to make myself sound intelligent. I am intelligent. No, I’m not normally going to flaunt that for its own sake, but when someone needlessly and pointlessly calls it into question, as you have done, I’m going to tear that person a new orifice with whatever methods I desire.

Chris Cleary.8017:

There are really two sides to this, and when it comes down to it, you are both right – and you are both wrong. Both sides have the right to complete the task that they set out to do (completing or not completing).

Challenging another player’s play style is the issue here, and since this revolved around an event that was designed to be completed, it is being changed so that the original design of the event can be carried out.

When something in the game (such as this event) changes negatively as this has, we need to step in and remediate the toxicity. The byproduct of this change happens to be that a champion farm is being slowed, but since that was the originating factor for the toxicity, it’s unavoidable.

I encourage players to remember that not everyone has the same goals when they play, and sometimes they will clash.

Thanks for fixing this. Now can you please do something about pvers karma training in eotm? It’s getting a little out of hand… especially since multiserver guilds are being set up with the purpose of streamlining the farming with all three sides actively collaborating.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Zoso.8279:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Zoso.8279:

Players should play the game the way they want.

Yes, yes they should. Thank you for pointing that incredibly obvious sentiment out.

Do you know what “the way they want” normally constitutes? Rarely does it have anything to do with fun or content. The average player is rewards-driven, and it isn’t necessarily an unreasonable philosophy to have on the game. Obtaining a desired carrot, after all, makes any content you do actually want to play afterward more fun in having it.

But the nature of this reality also destroys the argument that “play how you want to play” factors in to nerfing farming. Farmers do not care about playing the way they desire in the short term. In fact, they aren’t playing the way they want to play but rather the way that will get them what they want.

That’s an important distinction, and it’s one that should not be ignored when considering the effects of rewards distribution and farming nerfs.

The only way to make play how you want and play for what you want line up into a single cohesive style is to distribute rewards in such a way that they are comparable enough to not make heavy differences in income between any two activities. That’s an almost impossible task, but it’s one that must always be strove for if “play your way” is to become a reality rather than a fiction. Otherwise “play your way” will always lose out to “play the way the pays.”

If your going to quote me please quote the whole thing. Don’t use political tricks to make yourself sound intelligent. Its very simple exploiting a timer and farming are two different thing. One is an exploit and one is a play style…. Another obvious sentiment…

I didn’t “use a political trick.” I cut to the core of your sentiment, because, after reading the whole thing, it’s essentially an extension on that one sentence. The only force that “forces” players into a particular playstyle is an economic one. Let’s just say that Blix was the only farm spot in the game. Ludicrous, I know, but let’s use this impossible hypothetical as a backdrop for discussion. Now let’s say that it is nerfed (which it was), and no longer stood out as offering a disproportionate amount of income to everything else.

Those who legitimately enjoy Pen/Shelt would stay there. They haven’t been forced from it. They aren’t being forced to stay either. They are actually appealing to their play style as opposed to their pocket books.

Those who do not enjoy the content but did enjoy the profits – most of the farming community – would then leave and spread out to content that they prefer playing, at least until a new high-profit farm spot is discovered.

It isn’t an issue of play-your-way, forcing players to play content that they do not wish to, or any of that tripe. In fact, farming has always been a byproduct of poor rewards distribution, which may very well be an unavoidable issue in any game that has an economic system. Economic gain and a desire to “win” tends to supercede preferred playstyles in gaming, just as it does in real life. That isn’t an opinion; it’s readily observable.

Yes, exploiting a timer and farming are two different things. Thank you for once again sharing your bountiful wealth of knowledge. That kind of sage-like wisdom is all too rare on these forums. It would seem, however, that you’ve overlooked a simple fact. A timer has been exploited to farm. At this point, these two different things have intersected and effectively become one. The former is the methodology for achieving the latter, and the result was a farming spot that could no longer be justified as legitimate, for it was one created via exploit.

And I don’t need to use political tricks to make myself sound intelligent. I am intelligent. No, I’m not normally going to flaunt that for its own sake, but when someone needlessly and pointlessly calls it into question, as you have done, I’m going to tear that person a new orifice with whatever methods I desire.

I’m sorry but your ego is too large come back down to earth your last post you wrote about forcing people to not run temple events because of the farming and now you contradicting yourself just because you try to sound intelligent doesn’t mean you are. People to this day don’t farm because they don’t like to do it not everyone thinks about their wallet. Come back down to earth kid. The point of my last post was for people to understand farming is not the problem but the exploiting of the timer. If a dungeon had an exploit should we take out all dungeons? Again drop the ego. A fool thinks he knows it all. “I know that I know nothing” I’m sure you’ve heard that quote before one of the greatest minds that ever existed.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

But this kind of disease is hardly limited to CS. Players clustered in farming content are players who are not out in the world populating other content. Already-low map participation decreases, community interaction dwindles, certain items become more plentiful and others become more scarce, and the entire game suffers for it. All so that a few players can get the carrot that they’ve been chasing a bit faster.

Zoso.8279:

I’m sorry but your ego is too large come back down to earth your last post you wrote about forcing people to not run temple events because of the farming and now you contradicting yourself just because you try to sound intelligent doesn’t mean you are. People to this day don’t farm because they don’t like to do it not everyone thinks about their wallet. Come back down to earth kid. The point of my last post was for people to understand farming is not the problem but the exploiting of the timer. If a dungeon had an exploit should we take out all dungeons? Again drop the ego. A fool thinks he knows it all. “I know that I know nothing” I’m sure you’ve heard that quote before one of the greatest minds that ever existed.

Your garble is becoming increasingly painful to read. It’s that rare, delightful combination of bad organization with a lack of substantial points and a generous seasoning of unwarranted and undeserved insults.

Now, if you had actually read the thread, you would have found multiple posts from different sources on how the Blix train pulled activity from the temples and other major events in Cursed Shore. Yes, it made the zone more active from a population stand point, but it made the zone less active when it comes to meaningful activity. Aside from breaking the chat with discussion focused on Blix and the occasional verbal harassment that occurred when someone happened to “troll” the Blix farmers, this also deterred other activity in the zone through several other means:

1) Pulling potential temple runners who would have run temples (likely as part of their world boss rotation), but did not do so because the potential for profit at Blix far exceeded the potential for profit at the temples.

2) Possibly filling server slots with players who were of no value to the temple effort. This may have only been an issue on larger servers, though megaservers probably contributed to this issue greatly.

3) Discouraging players from visiting the zone through the deterrence of its toxic and cluttered zone chat. This is what I’d call the Queensdale effect.

4+) Any other factors.

Now, what is the root cause of all of these? Farming. The exploit may have been one of the underlying causes of this particular farm. It has, thankfully, been patched out, reducing the appeal of this particular farm. But, at the end of the day, it isn’t an exploit that drives players to a particular location. Players don’t flock to a location and harm the community of the game and the sub-community of the zone in order to exploit something; they flock there to farm something for profit, regardless of whether the means of doing so are exploitative or not.

So, yes, farming is a problem, and not just when it is an exploit. It isn’t the disease. It’s a symptom of the actual underlying disease, which is an extreme and perhaps impossible to fix inequality in rewards distribution. Removing the exploit was a quick band-aid solution to a much greater problem that has been killing the game steadily since its release.

Do I really feel like insulting you? No. I’ve got bigger issues than the arrogance you’ve shown in antagonizing me. Normally, I’m an amiable, if opinionated person, but I’ve also got long-standing depression and anxiety problems. You’ve given me a chance to vent some of that, and so I thank you. But you’re a hypocrite, at the end of the day.