News accounts during the past year have described the rise of sweatshops in Asia, especially China, where low- paid workers play online games for 1. This is evidence that there really isn't anything special about virtual worlds,” Castronova says. Americans will spend money for online goods; wage rates are lower in Shanghai. It's the globalization of the labor market.”Isn't this unauthorized activity illegal? Aside from possible violation of local labor laws, the answer is no. No real- world laws cover online gaming, so the players and makers instead rely on their own terms of agreement, which users accept when they install games on their home computers.
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The agreements basically state that everyone will play by the rules- -and allow the delicate balances of make- believe worlds to survive. But none of it is legally binding anywhere in the world. Thurman was one of the first geeks to take breaking the rules of virtual worlds to a new level by engineering the automation of gold farming. Many others followed his lead. Although no one knows for sure how many gold farmers there are, Thurman guesses as many as a million worldwide. Their shadowy world has become big enough to have its own published manifesto: Gary Mc. Graw and Greg Hoglund's Exploiting Online Games (Addison- Wesley, 2.
Play Dirty by Sandra Brown - #1 New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown is back with a gripping story of obsession and its deadly consequences.After five.
Thurman has been part of it from the start. You might even say he helped establish it. A software specialist with a bachelor's degree in business information systems and a master's in computer science, both from the University of Phoenix, he spent three years applying himself to milking Ultima Online , then one of the most popular multiplayer games, for all he could.
At his peak, he had a fleet of 3. Subverting video games isn't new. Geeks have been figuring out how to exploit game technology to their advantage for decades, giving themselves extra ”lives” in Pac- Man or switching into invincible ”God mode” in Doom . When massively multiplayer games such as Ultima Online , from Electronic Arts of Redwood City, Calif., and Ever. Quest came onto the scene during the last decade, the emergence of virtual economies raised the stakes. You weren't just competing for ego anymore; you were gaming for dollars. Other factors helped attract hackers.
For example, economies of scale. Online games are not just for nerds. The action is mainstream. Hordes of engineers, accountants, lawyers, and other wannabe knights and knaves do battle in Ever. Quest (dubbed ”Ever.
Crack” for its addictiveness), World of Warcraft , and other games. Schoolchildren, college students, and Gen. Xers are playing such online games as Halo 3 on the Xbox 3. Madden NFL 2. 00. Playstation 3. Many graying gamers take to casual online games, such as bridge and chess.
It doesn't take much more than a computer and an IP address to access your passion. Thurman started playing Ultima Online as an undergraduate in 1. He couldn't help but wonder if, through a few hacks, there was a way to make his game- playing experience better.
After surfing around, he came upon software such as UOAssist and Easy. UO. When run in conjunction with a game, those programs gave players advanced macros, which are keyboard shortcuts to speed up mundane tasks such as healing yourself after battle. He realized he was on to something. Thurman left Phoenix in 1.
Dallas, and began working full time as a support engineer for a large software company, which he also prefers not to name. He continued thinking about hacking Ultima Online , and he became aware of the growing real- world market for virtual gold. The problem was that he couldn't amass it fast enough to make a decent buck.
But, he thought, if he could create an auto- playing robot, something that could basically play the game for him- -then maybe he could cash in. Drawing on his programming knowledge and with the help of DIY hacker sources online, such as Fravia. Thurman got to work. He started by shelling out $8. IDA Pro from Data. Rescue of Li. IDA Pro lets users see the structure of a program's logic. Point it at a program, and it creates a flowchart of how the software works.
Thurman directed the tool to the ”client” software he'd downloaded to his PC to let him to play Ultima Online . Not only did it let Thurman see the basic functions of the client software, it also let him see the specific memory addresses where the software stored key variables such as the player's location in the game world, an inventory of the player's possessions, and the status of the player's health. That information led Thurman to write a chunk of C++ code that he inserted into the client software to allow it to communicate with Microsoft.
Net, a development environment for Windows computers. In effect, the C++ code functioned as a kind of outlet to the servers running the game.
With that done, he needed, essentially, to write a plug to stick into the outlet. He wrote that plug in Visual Basic. Once complete and installed in his machine, it could exchange information with the Ultima Online client in his computer and, through that client software, the Ultima Online servers at the Redwood City headquarters of Electronic Arts. Paranoid Flux watch online with subtitles 1440 21:9 there.
In other words, he got access to the brains running the game. Next, Thurman set up his bank of computers . He chose the cheapest off- the- shelf PCs available that had enough power to run Ultima Online , and he bought 3. Each was equipped with an Intel Pentium 4 or a Celeron processor, a gigabyte of RAM, and a 2. He connected the bank of PCs to three monitors and a network of six cable modems, four routers, and a Toshiba tablet PC that he used to manage the whole operation.
Then he got down to business. The plan was that each of the 3.
PCs would play the game individually, creating a character and then using that character to perform tasks that would earn gold. Thurman wrote software to randomly generate details about the characters- -names, classes (fisherman, say, or fighter), and skills (such as magic or cooking), saving him the trouble of creating each character manually. He cloaked his identity by purchasing anonymous gift cards to set up accounts rather than paying for them with a personal credit card (the gift cards are no longer being sold). Once his computers logged into a game, communication between them and the game server was fairly straightforward.
For every action happening in the game that involved one of Thurman's 3. The details included the skills of a character, the status of its health, and the size of its bank account.
Thurman eliminated the human element- -cut out the middleman, you might say- -by programming his computers to automatically respond to the incoming data from the game server. The application performed the functions that a normal player would have to do with many repetitive keystrokes ( Ultima Online players use keyboards, not joysticks).
One thing the program couldn't do was sniff out moneymaking opportunities, so Thurman did that himself. But once he identified an opportunity, he would quickly write code that told his characters what to do to capitalize. For example, in Ultima Online , gamers can make money by cooking and selling chickens to tavern keepers. Thurman programmed his characters to buy raw birds from the butcher and then prepare the food. Ordinarily, a gamer can cook only one bird at a time, but Thurman automated the process so that his 3. PCs could cook as many as 5.
Even Dirtier by John Wick —. Kickstarter. Fifteen years ago in the pages of Pyramid Magazine, I challenged the standard format of . Do anything and everything to entertain your players.
Pay any price. The advice was both the highest and lowest rated column in the magazine's history, creating division among its readership. But most importantly, it made everyone think about how they ran their games. I collected those articles in a book and it has simultaneously become one of the most famous and notorious GM advice books in gaming history. Now, fifteen years later, it's time for a sequel.
Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier continues the trend its predecessor began. PD2 presents even more nasty, underhanded and deceitful tricks to get your players emotionally involved in your characters and your world. John pulls no punches, using everything from new technologies and old conman tricks to give you all the tools you need to get your players to care. If you're unfamiliar with the Play Dirty philosophy, let me sum it up in one sentence: You should stop at nothing to make sure your players are having fun. I advocated cheating. Taking away character sheets.
Conspiring with players to act against other players. In short, taking the old advice of . The idea is simple: in my games, player characters cannot die unless their death is meaningful. It's just that simple. Conan doesn't get killed by a stray slingshot bolt from a kobold. That's the very definition of absurd. So, generally, I say characters can't die without their players' consent.
But if I invoke . So, when she showed up, I walked behind her with a . Everyone knew that if they messed with Jessica's character, there was a chance their own character would die without permission. Jessica told me she had no intention of killing anyone at the game, but the other players didn't know that. Adding the threat added a unique tension to the game. The threat was all she needed. If you want to see more examples of what Play Dirty looks like, check out the Play Dirty playlist on my.
Youtube channel. Here are a couple of examples. In the chapter The Kobold and the Beautiful, I took a standard dungeon adventure published by my friends at Super Genius Games and turned it on its head.
Instead of playing the adventurers, I had my players take the roles of the kobolds in the . It's a system that rewards their creativity and takes all the work off the GM's hands. Its a system that works with any game. Chapters! Introduction: The Magician.
The GM and the magician have the same goal: getting people to believe in things they know aren't real. Can we GMs learn from the skills and tricks magicians use? Of course we can! The Friendly Game. My friend Matt introduced the concept of the .
I've brought it into RPGs and it has since changed everything about how I GM. The Social Meat Grinder. A phrase coined by Jess Heinig (. Literally. Killing Characters.
Don't. But if you have to, do it with style and purpose. Happy Halloween. A revamp of an old essay I wrote for Flames Rising website about how to use haunted house techniques to scare the living lights out of your players. Sylvie Hates the Bye- Bye Box (including a Follow- Up with Chris Colbath) When my friend Chris asked my advice on how to write a story that would challenge his young daughter's .
This version of the essay includes a . Then, have your players take the roles of the monsters while you take the roles of their characters, hacking their way through the dungeon. See what happens. Kick in Your Heels. You don't want villains, you want antagonists. An essay on how professional wrestling bad guys (?
Have I got advice for you! Rewards! For those who help us bring Play Dirty 2 to life, we have some special rewards! At the $1. 0 Minion reward level, you receive PDFs for Play Dirty and PD2. At the $2. 0 Scoundrel reward level, you get the PDFs plus a hard copy of PD2. At the $4. 0 Villain reward level, you get the PDFs, plus hard copies of Play Dirty and PD2! At the $6. 0 Mastermind reward level, you get the PDFs plus Play Dirty and PD2.. They look just like your normal dice, so they're easy to smuggle in.
Comes with instructions on how to use them! At the $8. 0 Custom NPC reward level, you get all the benefits of the MASTERMIND level (PD, PD2, PD Dice), plus, after consulting with me, I make an NPC for your campaign.
The NPC has a full list of goals and motives, custom made for your players to utterly despise! At the $1. 00 Featured Article reward level, you get all the benefits of the MASTERMIND level (PD, PD2, PD Dice), plus, John writes a custom- made Play Dirty article just for you in Wicked Words Magazine! Of course, you get a digital copy of the magazine. At the $2. 50 Dirty Dungeon reward level, you get all the benefits of the MASTERMIND level (PD, PD2, PD Dice), plus, John designs a . This custom- made adventure will drive your players crazy! INCLUDES A MAP! Finally, we have the $5. WICKED ADVENTURE!
You get the PDFs plus Play Dirty and Play Dirty 2 books, Play Dirty Dice AAAAND.. John designs a complete adventure/campaign for your group. Included: NPCs, setting, secret agendas, plot map and relationship map. Custom- tailored to your specifications. We also have the special $3. Retailer reward level: you receive 3 copies of Play Dirty 2! Stretch Goals! 3,0.
The Glamour Girls. If we reach this stretch goal, I will include The Glamour Girls chapter to the book. This chapter details a year- long campaign I ran with four women all playing changelings in a modern fantasy setting. It includes session- by- session write- ups, behind- the- scenes notes and an after action report. Want to see Play Dirty philosophy in action? This is the chapter for you. Zardrax the Destroyer.
Fresh from the Bear Swarm Podcast comes the Most Epic Adventure of All Time: Zardrax the Destroyer of Worlds. In collaboration with the original creators of this campaign- shattering monstrosity (and my favorite episode of Bear Swarm), you'll get a detailed outline of the adventure as well as GM tricks and advice. First, we want to make it available in e. Pub. In order to do that, we need to redesign the book from scratch.
Also, if we redesign PD, I get the opportunity to write a new introduction for each chapter! Illustrations for Play Dirty! Want chapter headers for both the re- designed Play Dirty? If we hit this stretch goal, each chapter will have an illustration by Inga Indra.
She recently gave us the incredible cover for Wicked Words #6, which you can see below. Illustrations for Play Dirty 2! If we hit this stretch goal, Inga Indra! Marissa Kelley! If we hit this stretch goal, we start new digital book that includes other writers sharing their meanest, most underhanded, most cruel and dirty tricks. We begin with Marissa Kelly (author of the Epyllion RPG) and a story most dastardly. Mark Diaz Truman! When we hit this stretch goal, Mark Diaz Truman (The Play's the Thing, Our Last Best Hope) shares his own thoughts on Playing Dirty.
Jesse Heinig! When we hit this goal, the world- famous Jesse Heinig (Star Trek: Online and Dying Kingdoms among dozens of others) opines on the benefits of Playing Dirty. Random Dice Generator and NPC Trait Generator!
We're gonna make Play Dirty your invaluable GM resource. You'll want a copy of the book on the table at all times. Why? Because in the margins of each page, our beautiful and talented layout artist, Jessica Kauspedas, has suggested we have two things: dice and NPC traits. Flip to a random page and you get a random roll. We'll have a d. 4, d.
You pick a d- type, flip to a page and you've got a roll. Also, in each margin, we'll have an adjective: . When your players meet an NPC, just flip to three random pages and you've got three adjectives to describe that NPC.
Random dice rolls and an NPC generator RIGHT AT YOUR FINGERTIPS. What's more, WE'RE DOING IT FOR BOTH BOOKS!