having played MMORPG games myself for over 10 years, I have seen farming and extra-game revenue and the effects it has caused over time to a game. Bear in mind that the effect is gradual with just about every game, so the effects you see now are limited. It will get worse as time progresses if left unchecked. No game is immune to it, as few if any have an effetive means of preventing virtual farming for RL revenue. No matter what anyone think, my personal epxerience is that economy DOES suffer in various forms due to inflation and other issues.
The most promising of avenues I have heard of thus far involves actually ALLOWING online purchase of cash and items, but purely by the development company. Basically like Blizzard adding a site that allows you to buy gold and items directly from them. This would allow them control of economic changes more fluidly, while also generating additional income for themselves. Given the right price (lower than those of competitors) you could almost kill virtual sweatshops. I thought I read somewhere that SOE is planning to test this idea soon with EverQuest...
Here are some reading materials to look at regarding just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this topic.
from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mmorpg
Inflation
In many MMORPGs, the economy becomes unbalanced over time due to inflation and can reduce meaningful interaction between players of varying level (i.e., newbies versus more powerful players). This is primarily due to the gradual accumulation of wealth and power within the game. Some MMORPGs have addressed this with varying degrees of success. Asheron's Call, for example, uses a guild system where lower level characters swear allegiance to higher level players and generate additional experience points for them, the theory being that it is in the interest of higher level players to assist the lower players and thus increase the reward they receive. Ultima Online used to have items wear out gradually, so that there is a constant demand for crafting resources, but this need has lowered with additional items which supplement item durability over time. Many games will create items referred to as "money sinks" that might add to character customization, or give a small positive effect. Examples include houses, clothes, or collectibles.
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MSnbc Column about virtual worlds, farming, and RL law issues
Decent summary about digital sweatshops
Brief background and possible racial issues concerning farming
US Companies are in on the farming problem too...
I have an article in a copy of CGM (Monthly magazine) that has a good 4 or so page writeup on virtual sweatshops today. It even outlines some real existing sweatshops in asia and the revenue they reportedly make. I will try to find a digital version of it, or at the least convert the actual pages to pdf for you to view...
This thread was originally meant to dicuss changes in the next patch that will disable the Auto-Travel mod. Discussion of farming and botting was an afterthought and possibly a hijack of this thread. For that I apologize to the original author and hope he does't mind if we continue this discussion. If necessary however, it may be possible and prudent to move to another thread dedicated to this topic, and then allow this thread to continue unmolested on the topic of Auto-Travel...
Also be aware that this is DISCUSSION. No one is right or wrong here. It is completely impossible to prove or disprove any of our lines of discussion, which is why everything said here is opinion. Respect the opinion every poster here, and do not seek to "disprove" them. State your own opinions as such, and allow others to make their own opinions based on the thoughts you provide. THAT is the spirit of discussion...