Paying to team? A common thing?

Sometimes I'll join AE teams if nothing else is going on, or it sounds like they're doing something interesting. So I joined one tonight, when the leader broadcast "looking for more".
He said something about inf, and I thought he was one of those who pays people to help test missions. I've seen that before. Since you don't get xp or other rewards in test mode, some people will give out inf in exchange for others helping them test missions.
This turned out not to be the case. Nooo. As soon as I entered the mission, he opened a trade window and demanded 10 million inf, quite rudely.
I quit right then. I remember people used to pay others to act as bridges during the old sidekicking/exemping days, but I thought that had pretty well dried up.
And Isis knows I've done lots of AE missions, both farm and non farm, and nobody has ever demanded inf from me, nor have I asked anyone else for inf to join any team I ran.

So how common is this business of paying millions of inf for the privelege of joining a team?
I dunno if it was a farm or not- the leader didn't say, and I didn't stay long enough to find out. It didn't look like the maps usually used for farming.
Is charging inf for teaming very common, and is it generally considered a positive thing?

I had to laugh when somebody else publicly called out that team leader, suggesting he was a hypocrite- apparently he's been on lots of other people's farm/pl/plain AE mission runs, and he's never paid a cent of inf to them, but asks millions from others.

Maybe the thread would be more aptly titled "Paying to farm? A common thing?"

Because as far as I know nobody charges people to team with them unless they think they're "teh uber farmerz" and that you should pay for the privilege of having them rack up massive XP/inf/tickets for you.

Yup it's only the real arrogant SOBs that demand payment.

Most of the time I've seen it, the leader can already complete the map solo on +4/x8 in their sleep and they reason they bring other people along is merely for the company of other people, farming is efficent but it isn't exactly exciting if you're going for a long haul session.

I don't think I've ever seen a farmer demand payment, ever, as I said above they're inviting people for the chat OR they just liked getting people to level 22 (I have had one farmer who asked that once someone reached 22 that they would leave the team so another spot could open up for another lowbie that wished to join, which I thought was fair enough).

Spend some time in Atlas Park on Freedom. They advertise their rates in broadcast.

I've only seen it a couple of times myself (on Virtue), and not recently. No team is that much of a privelege to be on as far as I'm concerned.

It's pretty common in Freedom AP, as mentioned above.

I don't do it myself - I don't farm people for influence, nor pay for getting farmed ; but I understand the reasoning from doing so. The powerleveler provides a service, the powerleveled pays for that service. Don't see anything wrong with that.

What makes me chuckle is people who advertise free farms (as well as people who ask for dual farms). Seeing how strong characters are nowadays and how the reward system works, making a free farm means either you're very bad at playing, very bad at building or so desperate for human interaction that you'd lure people in your team with fast XP.

... Ok, that's probably not a fair generalisation. Sort of what like Dr Mechano said, there's probably people out there who genuinely enjoy farm maps rather than normal content and genuinely enjoy getting people some levels quick, I know even I can to an extent. Still, with some (*cough* many *cough*) farmers you can quickly tell they're just desperate for attention.

The leader was a twit. One star him, note why, and laugh at him. I *have* seen this in the past - a little more frequently back before AE and the like. It was ridiculous then, it's ridiculous now.

See my Guides and Tutorials

i've seen that many times in the AP broadcast on Freedom and a couple times at the same location on Virtue. i generally just laugh and pay them no further attention.

i suppose Nihili's characterization of those who do it for free might apply to Freedom or just the people he knows *shrug*, but all the (admittedly not a large amount of) times i joined AE farming teams for a little while they did not charge me anything and weren't anything like those Nihili has met. Then again i've never joined an AE farm on Freedom.

Another reason why blue-side is largely a bunch of idiots. Good game.

I don't really see it too often, but a little while ago I did see someone in the RWZ demanding 200 million inf to have him on a LGTF back when it was the weekly strike target.

Yeah, I was on freedom, go figure. If we ever get free transfers again, I'm moving that character over to Virtue, she would be right at home.

I've played on a lot of farm teams, when I was stuck at a certain level and having a hard time finding teams, I wanted to quickly get a few levels on a lowbie, or was just bored and wanted xp. And this is the first time somebody's ever tried to charge me for it.
I actually find it pretty funny- it's not like the guy has his own private uber-leet farm map that ONLY he can access, and charge the rest of us for. Nooo. Anyone can play that same mission with their difficulty cranked up high enough, and the help of a decent team. So why pay for something when odds are, somebody else will offer it for free?

And LMFAO at that guy wanting people to pay him 200 million inf JUST for the privelege of having him on a LGTF. Really? Somebody needs to get over himself.

Charging for farm runs used to be much more common than it is now. My wife and I used to run the liberate TV farm all the time with my brute and her corruptor and we would charge people to join. It was different back then though.

Doorsitting lowbies could get a LOT more xp, since we would get bridges for them.
This was under the old difficulty system, so if you wanted to run the map solo set for x8, you had to find padders to start the mission.
Unlike when running AE, having extra people on a normal farm actually does cut into the profits the farmer is making, since most of the money in farming is in purples, and more people on the team dilutes the chance of getting one.

I think it's incredibly ignorant that some people out there will actually charge others for the farm run or whatever they happen to be doing. On the other hand, I also think that the people who actually agree to paying the team leader deserve to have their influence take away if they were ignorant enough to pay for whatever they happen to be running.

This is because you are on the wrong server.