Kairos posted this on May 26th, 2011.
Categorized as gold trading.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://lotro-chronicles.blogspot.com/2011/05/chinese-slave-labour-used-by-gold.html
Almost two years ago, I made a post in this blog pointing out that gold trading was far from being a victimless crime, since gold farmers were almost always responsible for hacked accounts: part the virtual gold you buy online has been stolen from your fellow players. Now, according to the
Guardian, it turns out that there is something far, far nastier behind the gold farming rackets:
As a prisoner at the Jixi labour camp, Liu Dali would slog through tough days breaking rocks and digging trenches in the open cast coalmines of north-east China. By night, he would slay demons, battle goblins and cast spells. Liu says he was one of scores of prisoners forced to play online games to build up credits that prison guards would then trade for real money. The 54-year-old, a former prison guard who was jailed for three years in 2004 for "illegally petitioning" the central government about corruption in his hometown, reckons the operation was even more lucrative than the physical labour that prisoners were also forced to do. "Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour," Liu told the Guardian. "There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day. We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never turned off."
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Kairos posted this on May 26th, 2011.
Categorized as gold trading.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://lotro-chronicles.blogspot.com/2011/05/chinese-slave-labour-used-by-gold.html
Almost two years ago, I made a post in this blog pointing out that gold trading was far from being a victimless crime, since gold farmers were almost always responsible for hacked accounts: part the virtual gold you buy online has been stolen from your fellow players. Now, according to the
Guardian, it turns out that there is something far, far nastier behind the gold farming rackets:
As a prisoner at the Jixi labour camp, Liu Dali would slog through tough days breaking rocks and digging trenches in the open cast coalmines of north-east China. By night, he would slay demons, battle goblins and cast spells. Liu says he was one of scores of prisoners forced to play online games to build up credits that prison guards would then trade for real money. The 54-year-old, a former prison guard who was jailed for three years in 2004 for "illegally petitioning" the central government about corruption in his hometown, reckons the operation was even more lucrative than the physical labour that prisoners were also forced to do. "Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour," Liu told the Guardian. "There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day. We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never turned off."
Read the rest of this entry »
Kairos posted this on December 19th, 2010.
Categorized as Castranova, economic model, Exodus Recession, virtual worlds.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://lotro-chronicles.blogspot.com/2010/12/fleeing-to-virtual-worlds.html
I like to think that some of my readers are interested in what goes on behind, and beyond, games such as LOTRO, and I'd like to point those readers at a fascinating online essay by Edward Castranova
, who teaches telecommunications at Indiana University. Entitled "An Exodus Recession", it's posted
here, on Castranova's equally highly recommended blog, "Terra Nova: A Blog about Virtual Worlds". It's a relatively long text, so I'll just quote the opening paragraph:
"The economy continues to move slowly and economists seem as uncertain as ever about the causes and what to do. Months ago, I began to wonder – could this possibly be the first “exodus recession”? In my first book I sketched out the idea. Suppose economic activity moves from the real world into the virtual world. Human happiness is unaffected or even goes up, however, the goods that produce the happiness are now produced and consumed in a virtual environment rather than the real one. Measurements of economic activity, being all based in the real economy, would begin to show weakness. I argued that contemporary political and economic control systems do not tolerate much weakness, thus, there might well be some sort of crisis in the real world, for no good reason, simply because production and consumption was going “off the books” and into virtual environments. One term for this would be an "exodus recession" - an economic downturn caused by the movement of human attention and energy into virtual environments. Are we in an exodus recession right now?"
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Kairos posted this on December 19th, 2010.
Categorized as Castranova, economic model, Exodus Recession, virtual worlds.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://lotro-chronicles.blogspot.com/2010/12/fleeing-to-virtual-worlds.html
I like to think that some of my readers are interested in what goes on behind, and beyond, games such as LOTRO, and I'd like to point those readers at a fascinating online essay by Edward Castranova
, who teaches telecommunications at Indiana University. Entitled "An Exodus Recession", it's posted
here, on Castranova's equally highly recommended blog, "Terra Nova: A Blog about Virtual Worlds". It's a relatively long text, so I'll just quote the opening paragraph:
"The economy continues to move slowly and economists seem as uncertain as ever about the causes and what to do. Months ago, I began to wonder – could this possibly be the first “exodus recession”? In my first book I sketched out the idea. Suppose economic activity moves from the real world into the virtual world. Human happiness is unaffected or even goes up, however, the goods that produce the happiness are now produced and consumed in a virtual environment rather than the real one. Measurements of economic activity, being all based in the real economy, would begin to show weakness. I argued that contemporary political and economic control systems do not tolerate much weakness, thus, there might well be some sort of crisis in the real world, for no good reason, simply because production and consumption was going “off the books” and into virtual environments. One term for this would be an "exodus recession" - an economic downturn caused by the movement of human attention and energy into virtual environments. Are we in an exodus recession right now?"
Read the rest of this entry »
Kairos posted this on December 5th, 2010.
Categorized as design, economic model, radiance.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://lotro-chronicles.blogspot.com/2010/12/radiance-going-going.html
From the latest Turbine news release, this:
"Radiance & its removal in Q1 – We’ve received a lot of feedback on Radiance gating since its introduction and are pleased to announce that Radiance gear will no longer be a requirement for any of our instances or raids. In fact, with the release of our Q1 update next year, we will be removing Radiance from the game entirely. It will not be present in the new Instance Cluster or Epic Book and will be removed from all current instances. You should get your first look at a Radiance-free LOTRO on Bullroarer in early February of next year."
You have to love corporate double-talk. A solid year's firestorm of complaint, grumbling, reasoned argument against, violent objection and outright abuse, reduced to a nicely bland
"we’ve received a lot of feedback". I'll say you have... Corporations are like governments; they would rather die the death of a thousand cuts than ever,
ever have to admit, in so many words, that they were wrong. Given sufficient outrage in the population, they may eventually take action (
"we will be removing Radiance from the game entirely"), but god forbid they should admit to error.
Read the rest of this entry »
Kairos posted this on December 5th, 2010.
Categorized as design, economic model, radiance.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://lotro-chronicles.blogspot.com/2010/12/radiance-going-going.html
From the latest Turbine news release, this:
"Radiance & its removal in Q1 – We’ve received a lot of feedback on Radiance gating since its introduction and are pleased to announce that Radiance gear will no longer be a requirement for any of our instances or raids. In fact, with the release of our Q1 update next year, we will be removing Radiance from the game entirely. It will not be present in the new Instance Cluster or Epic Book and will be removed from all current instances. You should get your first look at a Radiance-free LOTRO on Bullroarer in early February of next year."
You have to love corporate double-talk. A solid year's firestorm of complaint, grumbling, reasoned argument against, violent objection and outright abuse, reduced to a nicely bland
"we’ve received a lot of feedback". I'll say you have... Corporations are like governments; they would rather die the death of a thousand cuts than ever,
ever have to admit, in so many words, that they were wrong. Given sufficient outrage in the population, they may eventually take action (
"we will be removing Radiance from the game entirely"), but god forbid they should admit to error.
Read the rest of this entry »
Kairos posted this on November 29th, 2010.
Categorized as Enedwaith, mysteries, raiding.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://lotro-chronicles.blogspot.com/2010/11/mysteries-of-enedwaith-1.html
At the southernmost tip of Enedwaith, on the border between Lich Bluffs and the Mournshaws, lies an inaccessible castle. You can find your way to the enormous front gates, but no further. Inside the gate skeletons patrol. The architecture seems dwarven; four huge statues of oversized dwarven ancestor figures dominate the front courtyard. The structure is vast, even allowing for the fact that only the northern exposure can be seen. At the western edge of the outer wall is a small tented encampment, currently empty, and just beyond that a small gap in the rock face through which it is just possible to slip. This leads to a small, circumscribed area by the eastern wall with no other exit. Could the castle be the site of LOTRO's next major raid, apparently due early in the new year?
Read the rest of this entry »
Kairos posted this on November 29th, 2010.
Categorized as Enedwaith, mysteries, raiding.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://lotro-chronicles.blogspot.com/2010/11/mysteries-of-enedwaith-1.html
At the southernmost tip of Enedwaith, on the border between Lich Bluffs and the Mournshaws, lies an inaccessible castle. You can find your way to the enormous front gates, but no further. Inside the gate skeletons patrol. The architecture seems dwarven; four huge statues of oversized dwarven ancestor figures dominate the front courtyard. The structure is vast, even allowing for the fact that only the northern exposure can be seen. At the western edge of the outer wall is a small tented encampment, currently empty, and just beyond that a small gap in the rock face through which it is just possible to slip. This leads to a small, circumscribed area by the eastern wall with no other exit. Could the castle be the site of LOTRO's next major raid, apparently due early in the new year?
Read the rest of this entry »
Kairos posted this on November 28th, 2010.
Categorized as hacked accounts, Satine.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://lotro-chronicles.blogspot.com/2010/11/hacked-accounts.html
If you are a European LOTRO player, and you haven't already done so, head straight for the Codemasters forum and sign this
petition. Started two days ago by UK player CarolineP, it is a politely worded request to CM to give serious consideration to restoring hacked accounts, as other MMOs, includingBlizzard, already do. In her own words,
"We recognise that this involves time & cost to yourselves. We would accept a reasonable charge being levied, as this would have the dual benefit of stopping frivolous claims too. We also accept that it would be reasonable to limit the frequency in which this allowed. Perhaps only once per membership year, or similar? But we most urgently ask you to change your policy, especially as the game becomes much bigger and F2P potentially opens up opportunities to scammers and other unpleasant type".
Apart from putting forward an eminently sensible proposal, one which perhaps is now more urgent than ever, this forum thread is probably unique in that it hasn't generated a single objection, rant, cynical comment or even debate: there is absolute player unanimity on this critical subject, which is of course as it should be.
Read the rest of this entry »
Kairos posted this on November 28th, 2010.
Categorized as hacked accounts, Satine.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://lotro-chronicles.blogspot.com/2010/11/hacked-accounts.html
If you are a European LOTRO player, and you haven't already done so, head straight for the Codemasters forum and sign this
petition. Started two days ago by UK player CarolineP, it is a politely worded request to CM to give serious consideration to restoring hacked accounts, as other MMOs, includingBlizzard, already do. In her own words,
"We recognise that this involves time & cost to yourselves. We would accept a reasonable charge being levied, as this would have the dual benefit of stopping frivolous claims too. We also accept that it would be reasonable to limit the frequency in which this allowed. Perhaps only once per membership year, or similar? But we most urgently ask you to change your policy, especially as the game becomes much bigger and F2P potentially opens up opportunities to scammers and other unpleasant type".
Apart from putting forward an eminently sensible proposal, one which perhaps is now more urgent than ever, this forum thread is probably unique in that it hasn't generated a single objection, rant, cynical comment or even debate: there is absolute player unanimity on this critical subject, which is of course as it should be.
Read the rest of this entry »
