VF.net - for sale!

It was bad enough when people were trying to get insane prices on Ebay for selling their Ultima Online and Everquest items and accounts... but now, selling virtual property has gone beyond the realm of MMORPGs!http://page4.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/d14063512
This guy just happens to be selling Sarah's 100 successive victories item (not sure what it is). Take a look at the price he wants for it...

 

But you can only use it, in Japan right??

 

I don't understand... you can buy this guy's VFnet card so that you can have a Sarah with the cool accesories? What's the big deal? If there are idiots out there willing to pay him money... all power to him. I'm sure he had to spend the money on the game to get proficient enough to win 100 games in a row in the first place... or at the very least pump in the credits on the other side himself to fight dummy opponents 100 times in a row... If he gets a bid that is higher than the average cost of 100 games in Japan, then the bidder is the moron here...

 

Ah! but the trick is... you can't get this item if you're kyuu level... or even some of the lower dans. You have to be high dan (7th or so?) before you can acquire it.
So this is a guy with hundreds of games under his belt to say the least.

Average cost of 100 games in japan: 150 bucks. OUCH!


One last note, a search for VF4 brough up several other vf.net cards for sale (mostly 100 win stuff).
ONE guy is selling you the ability to have an Emperor level card with any character you want. You send in your request for which character you want emperor level in, he sends you back the card some set period of time later (unless I'm reading wrong). For this he wants 20,000 yen (200 bucks).
Big thanks to Moby for making me a yahoo.jp email address so that I can browse their auctions. If anyone wants it to fool around with, just ask.

 

Believe me people pay insane amount of real money for virtual items. I was hook on to EQ for like 20 month. it's not something normal people would understand unless they are put into that competitive envoirment. Say someone in Japan, and everyone wanted this item on VF.net. To someone who has the money, why not just buy it so people can admire him for it. It's the same case in EQ when people pay $200 for a Yeksha. When I tell people I got such and such $ when I sold my account, they would go something like, you must found some crazy nut. That is a misperception. Ebaying was quite common in EQ, but you wouldn't say every person who ebay EQ items are crazy.
It all come down to selling time invested. You invest time in VF.net you get paid for, you invest time in EQ you get paid for. I did a simple calculation before, for every 1 hour I invested in EQ I made $1.50 at the end. Not bad huh?

 

How many hours did you put into EQ? /versus/images/icons/smile.gif just curious.

Ultima online accounts went for some sick prices, dag - even right now there's one up for almost 1000 bucks, and this is an old game. I've seen several thousand dollars for one account back when it was new.

 

I'm hooked on Dark Age of Camelot (tried EQ, never got hooked) and sometimes I get to thinking I just might go pay real money for some game money on ebay. Never done it, probably never will, but I can see why people do it. I'd never buy a character though, because even though I'm not a true roleplayer, I'm enough of one to know that the character I bought just isn't me.

 

I seriously think those guys must be arcade managers/workers or something. How else would they be able to create win streaks on unregistered cards so easily? AFAIK there's no way to hack VF.net (and if you actually did I'm sure AM2 would be coming after you).

 

180days of playing time. Joe Leonard had 200 days. Curse him for getting me into that damn game.

 

If you think about it, it's very hard to "cheat" in VF.net and artificially pump up your win streak, because at the dan level, your victory comes at the expense of somebody else's loss. Every time you get closer to getting promoted, someone is getting closer to getting demoted.

IMO, the closest thing to "cheating" going on is when someone already has a win streak and needs just one more to get up...if there's a friend who's willing to sacrifice a loss then it'd be easier to get over that hump. I.e. the gain from getting that 5th win in a row may be "worth" another person's solitary loss.

 

It's easy to cheat if you have keys to the machine.

 

How do you mean?

 

You open up the machine and crank in free credits (maybe it works if the game is on free play?) and have unlimited back and forth challenges until you have an emperor level character.. any character you want. That's how we're speculating this guy on the japanese auction site is offering to sell you a vf.net card with an emperor level character of your choice. You could also get the 100 win streak items.

 

Uhm, you can only advance by beating other players of your own rank at the dan level. With every victory that you get, the other person is closer to getting demoted, so it's impossible to just start two characters, "and have unlimited back and forth challenges until you have an emperor level character.."

Although, I suppose the 100-win streak is possible, but only if the streak can include at least sho-dans. (But if kyus aren't allowed, it'll be a very difficult and drawn out process).

 

So start 3-4 characters. Slow but doable.