I'm not advocating anything here but some people just want the prize. The prize being level 50.
Whats super funny though, is that these people are going to walk around Atlas Park for a couple days saying "Look at me, I'm level 50" and then the glamor will wear off and they'll find out that it isn't much fun not being able to see the "Level Up" animation and then it will dawn on them
"This isn't any fun. I spent $500 for this??"
Ignorance dies from exposure to truth.
I am the hunter of ignorance.
I am the truth.
- The Seeker
I guess it is fairly obvious who sold the Newbie that account.
Not defending it either, but there are plenty of motives for wanting a fast trip to the top. Contrary to popular opinion, many ebayers aren't newbies- they're veteran players that seek an alternate high-level character to play without the burden of playing up that far. Its the level 50 tank that decides he'd like to try the level 50 game as a healer, but doesn't want the grind.
That mentality is more common in other games where the endgame is a much more different playstyle than here, though.
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If you could pay Cryptic a one-time fee of $500 for every single veteran reward, kheldian access and 50 million influence/infamy... would you do it?
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Did you say all veteran badges? Hmmm... toss in Celebrant (which I missed on my current main because I didn't get into badges until later) and you got yourself a deal.
...lousy retroactive badges killing my badge count...
www.SaveCOH.com: Calls to Action and Events Calendar
This is what 3700 heroes in a single zone looks like.
Thanks to @EnsonsDeath for the GVE code that made me VIP again!
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Not defending it either, but there are plenty of motives for wanting a fast trip to the top. Contrary to popular opinion, many ebayers aren't newbies- they're veteran players that seek an alternate high-level character to play without the burden of playing up that far. Its the level 50 tank that decides he'd like to try the level 50 game as a healer, but doesn't want the grind.
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That, IMO is actually worse than a newbie - because you can frequently educate a newbie. But a level 50 tank playing a level 50 healer is an absolute menance - because not only does he not know how to play a defender*, odds are he thinks (because he is a vet) he doesn't need to know how.
*Regardless of the AT, each one plays different - and it takes a while to learn the reflexes.
http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/
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Not defending it either, but there are plenty of motives for wanting a fast trip to the top. Contrary to popular opinion, many ebayers aren't newbies- they're veteran players that seek an alternate high-level character to play without the burden of playing up that far. Its the level 50 tank that decides he'd like to try the level 50 game as a healer, but doesn't want the grind.
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That, IMO is actually worse than a newbie - because you can frequently educate a newbie. But a level 50 tank playing a level 50 healer is an absolute menance - because not only does he not know how to play a defender*, odds are he thinks (because he is a vet) he doesn't need to know how.
*Regardless of the AT, each one plays different - and it takes a while to learn the reflexes.
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Agreed, but in many MMO's people will argue that the endgame "raid" type of play is so different from leveling play that there's no value to what you learned in the 50 levels of playing you used to get there. Someone already familiar with the raid strategies could potentially adapt to a new AT much better and faster than a naturally-leveled player that knows nothing of raid tactics.
Isn't it a violation of the EULA to sell your account? Something about them being "non-transferable" or something like that?
It sure is. And, if they found an account that had been vended like that, I'm sure they'd ban it.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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It sure is. And, if they found an account that had been vended like that, I'm sure they'd ban it.
[/ QUOTE ] Especially with folks like this 'consumer' talking about it in game chat. You'd think they could periodically do an auto-parse of the accumulated chat-logs searching for "eBay" strings appearing and assess them for admissions of being a bought account. Of course they'd need to cross-reference with NCSoft's account team to confirm changes in billing card names and other confirming data. If they took it seriously, anyone admitting in-game that their account was eBay'd could be nailed relatively quickly.
Why would anyone talk about this in local/broadcast... or even in /tells? It's pretty obviously against the EULA, so they were just asking to be kicked out! That seems a little strange.
The prices seem high too. Although I guess if you're a slow leveller/infrequent player, then just start adding up the monthly costs and you'll get to a few hundred....
I remember, about a year or so ago, seeing costs on a website for levelling up a character for you. They were absolutely ridiculous and I truly can't imagine who'd pay them. You could pay to get levelled up to 10! That doesn't even take long!
In the end I assumed it was a clever trick. You lure in people who want to play CoX, but don't already. They don't know that it isn't all about high level endgame raids so they buy a pre-made level 50.... then turn up, several hundred dollars poorer and asking on the forums about the endgame content...
spidermonster.
Today I found two odd things.
1. A 3 month vet trying to find out how to get his trenchcoat (Tailor). Then proceeded to ask where a tailor is located. This one isnt all that bad.
2. A 9 month vet asked how controllers target multiple people -_-.
lmao...no coh/cov account will get $500. Show me a link with one account that actually has the it sellng for $500+ with an actual bid. I don't think the actual gold-seller sites sell account for that much. A 39 month vet could probably hope for $200-$300 at best.
ANd that would make for a very interesting legal calse, especially if the person who sold the account did not inform the person who bought the account of this potential for it to get disabled.
yes the costs do seem high, but some things to consider:
-People playing EQ2 on the "exchange-enabled" servers could usually sell their characters when they left for the game for about double of their subscription costs up to that point.
- the total 'secondary market" of selling virtual goods outside the game (gold, loot, etc) exceeded $800 million last year.
I recently saw two of these in the same Synapse TF. One of them was a Claws/Dark Scrapper. He didn't say much of anything during any of the mishes. I checked his badge list to see what kind of player he was (casual, all the mission badges for content, badge-[censored], holiday-soldier, whatever). He's got the 12 month Vet badge and a sprinkling of others. So then I go look at his powers list. He isn't in Fitness Pool and alarm bells start to go off. I take a close look at his Primary and he had a grand total of 3 Claws powers, including the slow low-damage PBAoE and not including Focus.
No one else really paid attention early on (Scrapper, he can take care of himself, no?) but I kept a watch on him. During combat he used his Origin Power (Taser for Tech origin) in his regular "attack-chain". If I can call it that. The three Defenders on the team were each out-damaging this Scrapper. What's more in the very first mish he ends up in that ball of lightening the Clocks use for Sleep. Sleep! I start to watch the icons next to the team window.....and he's running no toggles at all. I mean none. Nothing. It's pretty obvious this is a bought account and this person has no idea what they are doing (if it was someone's kid on a parent's account they would have been given better build advice). I'm going to stay polite and at the start of next mish I ask "Why aren't you running your toggles?". Without saying a word he suddenly turns on everything, including Sprint. There's not much I can do without stopping and giving him a game tutorial and we're in a rush to finish the TF before people have to start leaving. Needless to say he left his toggles off throughout the next mission and ended up getting mezzed. In exasperation I told him to at least keep Obsidian Shield running. I'm guessing he wasn't even sure what that was because he briefly turned everything on again. It was a very unique approach to Dark Armor End-management.
The second one was a Warshade with the 36 month Vet badge. We came out of the first mission of the TF and he speaks up in chat "So is that all there is to the TF?" <chills down the spine> I had to send a tell to the team leader (friend of mine) and ask if I'd read that right. No, we reply, that was the first of many. Someone asks "You've been playing for three years and you've never done a TF?" "Oh I have, but it's been a while." Uh-hunh, right.
We had a really talented Ice Tank on the team who specialized in Herding, great for the Warshade and team-lead Peacebringer's AoEs. But the Warshade keeps insisting on going Lobster. Worse, he does something I've read about on these forums but never seen before: he suddenly says "AFK" in mid-fight and does this every mission. He parks himself and leaves everyone else to go fight. Then he miraculously comes back at the end of each mish. This was his regular behavior till the Leader threatened to boot him if he did it again.
We made it all the way to the appearance of Babbage dragging these two through every mish. We've got three Defenders (Kin, Dark, and Emp), an Ice Tank, a Peacebringer, my Scrapper, and the claw-less Scrapper and absent Warshade. With two -regens on him and Fortitude on the damage dealers we still can't dent him. The Warshade...goes into Dwarf and stays there. We tell him repeatedly to go Nova for the extra damage. That the Dwarf doesn't hit hard or fast enough, we need the Nova. He ignores us. Everyone else is off chasing Invasion badges so Skyway is unusually empty and we're having trouble getting extra help in Broadcast. The Tank finally gets her fill and says what everyone else already knows: "<character-name>, is that a bought account?" Silence from the Warshade. In annoyance I send "You don't suppose <.<?" Silence from the Warshade. Joining in the catharsis the Peacebringer says "Could it be >.>?" The Warshade says nothing...and finally goes Squid-form.
We eventually got enough people to claw down Babbage's HP. As soon as he was down the Warshade suddenly said he "Had to go" and quit the team. The other Scrapper spoke up and said he had to as well. We went into the final mission of the TF with the same effective complement we had done the rest of the missions with: 6.
The rest of the team was absolutely stellar. We completed the TF in 2.5 hrs. I'm curious how fast we could have gone without the dead weight.
I have a friend that sold his account on Ebay for $300, with only 1 lvl 50 on it. Then, he later took the account back b/c the guy wasn't using it and didn't change the password. But that was a long time ago, I think even before CoV was released.
[b]Member of Rainbow Alpha Force[/b]
Sunpyre - lvl 50 Fire/Fire Tank
Speed Devil - lvl 49 MA/SR Scrapper
Casket - lvl 50 necro/dark MM
Nightchill - lvl 33 dark/cold Corrupter
Well, in my defense, a buddy of mine is letting me mess with his account solely so I can finally try out Khelds in between getting ready to grind my main hero from 40-50, so I can see what I'm looking forward too. And this is a IRL buddy, so I'm guessing thats all right? He's the one paying for it, I'm just borrowing 2-3 char slots.
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Well, in my defense, a buddy of mine is letting me mess with his account solely so I can finally try out Khelds in between getting ready to grind my main hero from 40-50, so I can see what I'm looking forward too. And this is a IRL buddy, so I'm guessing thats all right? He's the one paying for it, I'm just borrowing 2-3 char slots.
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Not all right, sadly. Sharing accounts is against the EULA. You should get your own account or risk bad things happening to his.
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Well, in my defense, a buddy of mine is letting me mess with his account solely so I can finally try out Khelds in between getting ready to grind my main hero from 40-50, so I can see what I'm looking forward too. And this is a IRL buddy, so I'm guessing thats all right? He's the one paying for it, I'm just borrowing 2-3 char slots.
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Not all right, sadly. Sharing accounts is against the EULA. You should get your own account or risk bad things happening to his.
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If he has a level 40 character already then he does have his own account. And I know it's against the EULA for good reasons, but if it's someone you know and trust then I don't have a problem with it. My roommate played a character on my account before he decided to buy his own account, and he's still a subscriber 2+ years later. (And I still have his character with one of those bizaare goofy names he likes to come up with sitting on a server I don't play on).
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lmao...no coh/cov account will get $500. Show me a link with one account that actually has the it sellng for $500+ with an actual bid. I don't think the actual gold-seller sites sell account for that much. A 39 month vet could probably hope for $200-$300 at best.
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Just out of curiosity I checked what was selling on Ebay at the moment... one account has 11 bids and is up to $350, for whatever that's worth. 
my lil RWZ Challenge vid
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It sure is. And, if they found an account that had been vended like that, I'm sure they'd ban it.
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Wish you had been on global with me the other night! Some dip was screaming that is was not illgeal to sell and buy accounts, and that he knew people who did it all the time..etc..He wanted to buy one just to get access to khelds. Its like wow...talk about being too lazy to PLAY the game and actually EARN things.
"Certain it is and sure: love burns, ale burns, fire burns, politics burns, but cold were life without them." - Romulan proverb
My Characters
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It sure is. And, if they found an account that had been vended like that, I'm sure they'd ban it.
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Wish you had been on global with me the other night! Some dip was screaming that is was not illgeal to sell and buy accounts, and that he knew people who did it all the time..etc..He wanted to buy one just to get access to khelds. Its like wow...talk about being too lazy to PLAY the game and actually EARN things.
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'specially since, if you like the game, you'll get a Kheld eventually.
Yeah, or you can play, get someone to 50 and not even want a kheld. I got a PB to about level 4 and I don't even recall what server it was on.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
I managed to get a WS to all of 5, and got a PB to 35. Havent retryed a WS since I got it some 16 months ago, and the PB has been sitting for about 15 months itself.
"Certain it is and sure: love burns, ale burns, fire burns, politics burns, but cold were life without them." - Romulan proverb
My Characters
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Someone asks "You've been playing for three years and you've never done a TF?"
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Me... I've been on 3 failed respect trials not because I wanted the respect just because I got invited, 1 successful cavern of trancendance and about 3 missions into a positron before it broke up. Thats in 3 years 3 months.
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
List of Invention Guides
Last year, 7 other people (not really friends, just random coalition members) and I teamed up for a task force day. After several hours of talking and joking and teaming, we decided to make matching 'Task Force Costumes' for the remainder of the weekend as we had decided to stretch out the event. Mostly because I didn't need the slot, I didn't change the costume until recently, to get my vanguard armor so yesterday, when I saw someone else wearing it, I recognized it instantly. The name of the character didn't ring any bells but I couldn't name a single person I went on the TF weekend with, but that costume was a dead give away. I sent her a tell....
Me: I can't believe you still have the TF costume. I had mine up until I10 to get the vanguard armor.
Her: ???
Me: I was on the task force team with you that made up those costumes.
Her: Ok.
Her: How do I get to Peregrine Island?
When we did the TF Day, we were all level 50, so that means she's been 50 for over a year, not to mention, I highly doubt you could get to 50 at all without stepping foot into Peregrine on a regular basis.
Me: You're joking right?
Her: I can't find it on the train.
Me: It's through Talos....
Her: Thanks.
Her: I've been away from the game for awhile.
Ah, I thought. She probably hasn't played in a year or so, that explains it. A few hours later however, I came across her in Peregrine standing at the ferry talking in local with a guy about how she bought the account on ebay. They were having this discussion, it seemed, because he was thinking of selling his account and was curious how much he could get for it.
I'm never sure what to think of accounts that have been bought. It seems a messy way to go about getting into a game, starting off at the top. I mean, the entire game is about the journey, not the destination, so why would you want to start at the place where all the fun ends? I only enjoy playing my 50's because I remember the work it took to get them there and continue to want to improve them and catch up on content I missed and get the badges... I don't think I'd enjoy just hopping onto the game at level 50 at all.
I hopped on ebay out of curiosity to see what accounts are going for and was pretty shocked to see them in the neighborhood of $500 - $800. You spent hundreds of dollars to jump to the end of a game which has no end content?
Okay, I can see a few benefits, namely, veteran rewards, kheldians and influence/infamy. But is that really worth $500? If you could pay Cryptic a one-time fee of $500 for every single veteran reward, kheldian access and 50 million influence/infamy... would you do it? I know I certainly wouldn't.