HANDS ON GUIDE

10 - Meet a Chinese gold seller

100G = $13. Great rates! Online 24/7.

It took around an hour of playing Pirates of the Burning Sea before the first ‘/tell’ arrived from captain Jsgjsg Hefgasfgv informing me that if I was ‘Annoy for the cost of better ship’ I should visit his ‘wedsite.’ It wasn’t the first game I’d encountered such offers and it probably won’t be the last. From the original Ultima Online to EVE they can always be found, earning in-game currency which, thanks to the cost of living in their home countries, can be sold for such a price as to sustain a relatively comfortable lifestyle in a largely poverty-stricken Communist dictatorship.

Buying currency from China for use in a game is something that divides gaming populations the world over (apart from in China itself, obviously). On the one hand many gamers will tell you it’s sad to spend your hard earned actual money on virtual currency, but then these gamers will then spend the next six hours grinding away on dispiriting tasks such as killing endlessly respawing weevils to take the few gold pieces they invariably and rather bizarrely always carry. Of course it’s unfair, of course it damages games, but if MMOs weren’t such time sinks in the first place would it be even necessary?

Latest Hands on guides

These are the most popular features articles over the past three months.

Mobile Broadband

Compare prices

Fastest, cheapest 3G mobile broadband dongles from 3, Vodafone, T-Mobile and Orange
from just £10/month