Farming & PL'ing - Designed by Devs or Unintentional By-Product

Umm.. the fact that it is a violation of the EULA and will result in an account ban if the activity is identified isn't enough? Neither you nor I know anything about what tools the devs have in place to identify unusual influence transfers. In my line of work I have a pretty fair amount of experience with exception based reporting and datamining and I can think of several things that would throw flags allowing a closer look at a player's account and activity.

Yes.
You get astronomically better rewards in MA than DA these days.
I don't farm MA, I still farm DA.
Because it's fun.

By the dev's definitions over the years, you are not a casual gamer.

EDIT: Specifically the devs has said you don't NEED IOs or the set bonuses that come with them, nor the invention system or the market to enjoy the game casually. People have a warped definition of what is and isn't casual. The only one that matters is the devs.

A couple of things, first off you never saw me post anything about casual gamers not being able to get the best stuff, your putting words into other posters mouths is what's getting old. Second, to give credit where credit is due thanks for finally defining what a casual gamer is and what a hardcore gamer is.

I have had many discussions in the past where players have used the time spent playing as a way to define a casual or hardcore gamer. AN example I have always asked them is that if a player spends 40 hours a week logged in to CoH but only spends 5 hours actually running missions, farming and the rest chatting or doing events what are they?

Actually I fit there "Casual Gamer" mold perfectly. A couple of hours a night and a few nights a week. TF/SF take planning to join and I get possibly a handful a month if I am very lucky.

Casual gamer is not about the stuff you gather, it is about your play style. I can casually enjoy the invention system. During my limited playtime I can gather up the influence to put toward an IO.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

When they say you don't need IOs to play the game, that tells me something.

The devs don't seem to limited in their definition of casual by time.

EDIT: To clarify I have several toons with multiple purples. Look at my sig. I also don't have much time to play during the week or weekends. I sure as hell would NOT classify myself as casual. You don't want to know how many level 50s I've accumulated over the years. In fact I would say jus tabout every toon I have has some form of heavy set bonuses. It's not hard to make inf in this game. I don't think time has much to do with how casual one is or isn't.

I'm beginning to think that anyone who claims not being able to grasp the difference between a 'casual' and 'hardcore' player, is severely lacking in their basic vocabulary. Which isn't all that surprising nowadays.

Casual–adjective

• without definite or serious intention; careless or offhand;
• seeming or tending to be indifferent to what is happening; apathetic; unconcerned
• irregular; occasional

Hardcore–adjective

• unswervingly committed; uncompromising; dedicated

I guess it depends on your definition of farming but all farming as I've noticed is either mission or zone farming. doing a mission over and over or running around a particular zone with a team to take out lots of NPC mobs over and over.

Power Leveling isn't Farming and Farming doesn't have to be Power Leveling. I think you made that statement because you tend to see people Power Level on Farms mission maps alot.

Farming and Power leveling can be done together or apart. the most efficient is to do them together.

This is power leveling w/ out farming: (for example)... 6 lvl 50 characters, 1 lvl 47 character, and 1 sk'd lvl 1 character all go around doing radio or contact missions. the lvl 1 toon is being sk'd up to lvl 46 and is receiving good xp and is probably getting tp'd to each mission door by someone on the team so he doesn't have to get killed for not having a travel power going from mission to mission. The lvl 1 toon also will probably just door sit in the missions since he doesn't have much to offer to the team as far as powers and enhancements go.

That is power leveling w/out farming. its slow... but it use to exist. As a matter of fact it use to be done quite frequently on red side because red side didn't always have good farm maps like the blue side did (or at least that's why I guess it was done like that more on the red side).

Getting tired of seeing people pick on this statement by the OP. The take away here is that farming is much more prevalent now than in the past. The whole "buy it now" blame thing didn't exist prior to the market system

Yep. I get fillers (come issue 16 won't need to. ) and put my lvl 50 fire/psi dom on any map that can spawn large mobs. I go around and clear the map and reset. I'm solo.

If farming and pling are the same thing, someone needs to tell me what insane logic and magic they are using and show me how my lvl 50 or anyone else not on the mission (seeing as I'm SOLO) is gaining xp.



Hell I'll go one further, let's say I invite 7 other level 50s.

Okay, NOW tell me what magic we are using to gain xp?

Completely and utterly incorrect.

Before you continue, please tell me if you know what the next two words mean:

Dumpster Diving.

There have always been epidemic breakouts of farming in the game.
Always.

The fact that you're on the forums at all (with over 5,000 posts) is a sign that you are not a casual gamer.

Do you use Mids? Do you know what the best ways to gather up said influence are (the best ways FOR YOU, taking into account boredom, what your friends are doing, and other such intangibles, not necessarily the fastest, most efficient ways for the hardcore farmer, marketeer or average player)? Do you look over IO sets and choose the ones with the most beneficial bonuses for your build and playstyle? If you do any of those things, sorry, you're not casual.

Or they're confusing hardcore socializer with casual gamer, or casual catgurl with hardcore role player.


Casual gamer and Hardcore gamer both are in reference to one aspect of someone in the game - their syle of gameplay.

I read an article today that EVE Online just shut down 6200 accounts for such things.


Me too, although some might take umbrage at my post count and number of 50s.


Ok, maybe it did exist, but it wasn't so "in your face". Admit it, we didn't have RMT spam/emails before the market was introduced. Amirite?

--NT

Unemployed?

I could be wrong about this, but I think that the RMT tells, not emails, started before inventions came out. If I'm remembering correctly, it wasn't very much before inventions but it was before.

Also, there was a one hour show that was all about MMOs and power leveling and it was almost entirely focused on City of Heroes. It came out sometime after CoV but WAY before Inventions. It spent a lot of time talking about a character named Champagne Bubbly (I assume she won't mind my naming her here since she was featured on a television show!) and how the player was married with a small child and her Controller wasn't leveling as fast as her husband's character. She hired some company to PL her from the 20's into the higer levels. (The show incorrectly stated that the highest level in the game was 60.) It spent a lot more time talking about the guy who lived in San Diego and made his living PLing CoH characters and was doing so well he had to start outsourcing the work to... some Eastern European country.

The show airs on G4 and other channels sometimes. I wish I could remember what it was called. It was just on again last month.

The show was all over Champagne Bubbly. It showed her buying the PL, the PL guy logging her character in and playing, then the account holder logging Champagne Bubbly back in and getting all excited about all the levels she got. Apparently Champagne Bubbly and her husband never read the EULA.

Sorry who made you a dictionary?

Relevance request.

The fact they he/she/they can claim who is a casual and who isn't a casual player just cas of an opinion.

Forum is the game too? Who knew....

Not really.

What does knowledge of the game have to do with my playstyle. I have been here since beta, I sure hope I have a general idea of how the game is played.

Just like I looked over SO's to see what fits my playstyle. Or DO's. Or HO's when I finally got there.

Sorry but making up different definitions or twisting out of context dev quotes to fit your argument does not make it a reality. Casual is exactly what it sounds like. No hidden meaning, no secret qualifications. It means you play ...well...casually. Generally this falls into the 10 or so hours a week category but that is not even a solid definition. A person who logs on for 8 hours a day and chats with friends while running sporatic missions now and then is...wait for it....a casual player.


Ready for me to blow your mind. I am both a casual gamer and a farmer.


Boom!

Agreed 100%

And without a market and 'loot' system this game would be dead in the water. There is a large subset of MMO players that enjoy tweaking and developing their characters. At the time they were introduced, the market and invention system were necessary to the continued health and growth of this game. Without them, there would have been less new players, as well as less players staying around long-term. I know I would have grown
bored fairly quickly and moved on, and I'm very confident most of the players that I consider in-game friends would as well.